The 'quiet' killer: How loner Thomas Mair became one of the country's most notorious criminals
By ITV Calendar News Presenter Christine Talbot
To residents who lived yards away from murderer Tommy Mair, he was the perfect neighbour – quiet and unassuming, he loved gardening and was devoted to his mother.
But behind the brown wooden door of his semi-detached home in a neat residential street in Birstall, Mair had murder on his mind. Fuelled by his far right fanaticism, Mair researched how to use a shot gun and compiled a dossier of his MP, Jo Cox.
His neighbour of 30 years, Kath Cooke, said Mair was a creature of habit.
"He walked past my house every morning to do his mother's shopping, always with a carrier bag in each hand," she said.
But on June 16, as he casually walked towards the scene of the cold-blooded execution, Mrs Cooke noticed something was different: "I said to my daughter, there's Tommy and he's got a rucksack with him."
Little did she know that secreted in the bag were the weapons Mair would use to carry out the attack.
His actions, which stunned the world, still impact on the close-knit neighbourhood of Lowood Lane.
"If you'd have said to me, a murderer lives on our street, Tommy would have been the last person I'd pick," says Stephen McIntyre, a neighbour for 40 years.
"He was such a normal kid. We can't get our head around what happened."
Mrs Cooke agrees: "Tommy was so helpful. If anyone needed their gardens doing, he'd always help. He did mine just a few days before he did what he did."
Mair's twisted obsession with far right, white supremacist thinking emerged during the trial. But he hid his extreme political views from everyone.
Less than 24 hours before he killed Mrs Cox, the secretive loner walked into the Birstall Wellbeing Centre, owned and run by Rebecca Taylor, one of the last people to talk with Mair.
Speaking to ITV Calendar, Ms Taylor revealed how he inquired what services the centre offered to help him with his health issues
"He was very polite and told me he walked past my centre every day but at about 6.30pm, he came in," she said.
"I was busy getting ready for a group meeting so we chatted for a few minutes. He said he was on medication but was looking for other ways to deal with his stress and anxiety."
Ms Taylor asked him if he wanted to join the group meeting starting at 7pm but he declined. They arranged for him to call back to see her at lunchtime the next day.
Eighteen hours later, Mair made his daily walk into Birstall that Thursday morning. But he didn't stop at the wellbeing centre as arranged. For Jo Cox that was a fateful decision.