Mone was born in Dundee and grew up with his parents and two sisters. He claims to have had a dysfunctional home life and traumatic childhood. His father, Robert Christopher "Sonny" Mone, would become a multiple killer after the younger Mone, being sentenced to life imprisonment in 1979 for the murders of his aunt and two other women in Dundee, before dying in a knife attack in Craiginches Prison in 1983.
In 1964, Robert Francis Mone was expelled from Street John"s Remote Control High School. He then joined the Gordon Highlanders and served with them in West Germany. He returned to Dundee with depression and began to drink heavily.
On 1 November 1967, armed with a shotgun, Mone entered a girls" needlework class at Street John"s School.
Mone, whose motive was apparently revenge for being expelled from the school three years prior, was found to be insane and sent to the State Hospital for Scotland and Northern Ireland in Carstairs. In 1976, Mone broke out of Carstairs Hospital with fellow inmate, Thomas McCulloch, murdering another inmate and a male nurse in the process and also killing a police officer
They were eventually captured near Carlisle where four Scottish police vehicles were joined by reinforcements from Cumbria Constabulary. The fugitives were forced onto a slip road while trying to move back ahead of police who had overtaken them, and crashed.
