Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018 and iTunes Top 50. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The Kensington Park (not Palace as some books say) Hotel, at 139 Ladbroke Grove, also known as The KPH, where Timothy Evans would spout fanciful lies... which ultimately led to his death
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FIFTY
Episode Fifty-One: On Wednesday 30th November 1949 at Merthyr Vale Police station in South Wales, 24 year old Timothy John Evans confessed to disposing of his wife's body, down a drain, outside of 10 Rillington Place, after a failed abortion attempt. But as a known liar who had spent many hours at the Kensington Park Hotel, getting drunk and telling fanciful stories, was this even true? This is part four of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations (and I don't want to be billed £300 for copyright infringement again), to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast
The KPH (Kensington Park Hotel) as it looks today
As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script.
You can DOWNLOAD episode #51 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the play button on the media player below. Full Transcript - Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast #51 - The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place - Part Four (Timothy John Evans)
INTRO: Lies. We all hear lies, tell lies and deny that we lie, and yet there’s very little difference between a truth and a lie, as just like the truth, a lie is just a very subtle shift in one person’s perspective, used to protect ourselves or others from the truth. So really, one person’s truth is just another person’s lie.
But then again, there’s no such thing as the truth, it can never exist; as every single sentence, word or syllable we utter is riddled with a carefully calculated degree of emphasis, bias and belief, all of which is unconsciously rearranged and reedited to suit our own needs, goals and opinions. Fibs, untruths and little white lies are part of our daily vocabulary. It’s the difference between a person who is dull, poetic, creative or a visionary, with a very fine line between what is fantasy and reality. Lies are harmless, fibs are fun and everything we say is spun, but the second that lying becomes second nature, and the fantasist begins to believe their own lies as the truth, those lies can become deadly. By 1949, two bodies lay undiscovered in shallow graves in the back garden of 10 Rillington Place. On 8th November 1949, following a series of failed abortion attempts and in a fit of depression, 20 year old pregnant mother-of-one Beryl Evans committed suicide by gassing herself. Fearing the suspicion would fall upon her abusive husband; a heavy drinker, a terrible liar and known fantasist whose fiery bust-ups with his wife had been reported to the Police, Timothy Evans destroyed any evidence, packed-up, moved-out and fled, knowing that he would be blamed for her death. Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you. My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part four of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place. SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing outside of The Kensington Park Hotel at 139 Ladbroke Grove, directly opposite (what was) David Griffin’s Refreshment Room, and one street east of The Thorley’s family home at 112 Cambridge Gardens, Tim’s mum’s house at 11 St Mark’s Road and the final flat of Beryl & Tim Evans on the second floor of 10 Rillington Place. Built in 1866 as a purpose built public house, the KPH is an eye-wateringly beautiful four-storey British boozer with a rich wood-panelled façade, a twin saloon door and an oil-burning lantern on the outside, with the inside thick with traditional period details, like brass fittings, ornate pillars, moulded cornices, bottle balustrades, a central bar-island, and fitted-out with a luncheon room, a billiard hall, a theatre and (as created in 1929) a “discrete ablution facility” for the ladies. And as one of London’s oldest live music venues - where Welsh crooner Tom Jones played his first city gig, punk band The Clash hung out, notorious fascist Oswald Mosley staged his ill-fated 1958 election bid and where (it is rumoured) a small softly spoken serial-killer once served behind the bar - the KPH is a great pub where generations of legends have sat, supped pints and spouted bullshit about sport. Sadly, it’s now boarded-up, as the £3.2 million property is about to be turned into yet another bloody gastro-pub - where bearded dickheads in dungarees swig pints the size of thimbles, smarmy gits in red trousers quaff vegan fry-ups served on a coal-miner’s shovel and tosspots in tiny hats pose for selfies in-front of their poncy din-dins, tweeting about how “amazeballs” it is, even though it’s just a piece of toast, drenched in oil, slopped with hummus and smeared in avo-f**king-cado – instead of a good honest local pub frequented by the salt-of-the-earth heroes. (Burp! “Better out than in”). And yet, it was here, in the autumn of 1949, that – over a few pints – 24 year old Timothy Evans would regale his chums with a stream of rather fanciful stories, but having forgotten how to tell the truth, his impulse to lie would cost him his life. (Interstitial) On Wednesday 30th November 1949 at 3:10pm, in the sleepy Welsh village of Merthyr Vale, a tired and dishevelled Timothy Evans entered the local police station stating “I want to give myself up. I have disposed of my wife”. Taken-aback, Detective Constable Gwynfryn Evans asked “do you realise what you are saying, sir?” to which Evans replied “Yes, I know what I am saying. I cannot sleep and I want to get it off my chest”. And over the next two hours, he gave the following statement. (Tim’s voice): “October-time, my wife Beryl told me she was three months gone. I said “another won’t make any difference”. She told me she was going to get rid of it. I told her not to be silly that she’d make herself ill. Then she brought a syringe and some tablets. That didn’t work, I told her I was glad. On the Monday morning, she told me if she couldn’t get rid of the baby, she’d kill herself and our baby Geraldine. I told her she was talking silly. Then I went to work, loaded up my van and went on my way. That morning, I pulled up at a café between Ipswich and Colchester. I can’t say exactly where. I ordered a tea and there was a man sitting opposite me. He said “you’re looking worried?” So I told him about it. He said “don’t worry, I can give you something to fix that” and he handed me a little bottle wrapped in brown paper. He said “tell your wife to take it first thing then to lay down for a few hours, and that should do the job”. He never asked any money for it. I paid my bill and went on my way. When I got home, my wife found the bottle but I told her not to take that stuff. The next evening, after work, I went home and noticed there was no lights on. I lit the gas and it started to go out so I went into the bedroom to get a penny and I noticed the baby in the cot. I then saw my wife lying in the bed. I shook her, but I could see she wasn’t breathing. Between about one and two in the morning I got my wife downstairs. I opened my front door at 10 Rillington Place, and pushed her body head first into the drain. After that, I got my baby looked after. I quit my job. I sold my furniture. I told my mother that my wife and baby had gone for a holiday. Then I caught the train to Merthyr Vale and I’ve been here since. That’s the lot”. In this statement, he would admit to aiding his wife’s death, procuring an abortion and the unlawful burial of her body. Two months later, Timothy John Evans would be charged with murder. It was a confession which would end his life… but the trouble had begun almost two decades earlier. The life of Timothy John Evans started badly even before he was born. Abandoned by his father Daniel Evans whilst Thomasina was still pregnant, Tim was a small, pale and sickly little boy raised in a village full of burly men who hauled coal at the Merthyr Vale Colliery, who would always feel like an outcast. Born on 20th November 1924 at 50 Mount Pleasant; a tiny two-story coal-miner’s cottage in a rural Welsh village on the banks of the River Taff, Tim’s early life was a struggle, and with Thomasina being a single-mother, times were hard. But being a strong sturdy women living in a tight-knit community with many families – like the Lynch’s, the Probert’s and the Evans’ - related by marriage or birth; she remarried, rebuilt her family and (just like at 11 St Mark’s Road) she gave her babies strength, love and stability. And yet, she would always struggle with Tim - an unruly boy who life had cursed. Always being shorter, smaller and weaker, Tim was mercilessly bullied by the other boys, and having struggled to speak properly before the age of five, even his teachers saw him as a “backwards” child. At school, Tim wasn’t a good scholar; as being slow-witted, hot-tempered and easily-duped by older boys, he often got into trouble. And having an abnormal IQ of just 65 and the mental age of an 11 year old, being barely literate, Tim would struggle to read and write, choosing instead to dive into comic capers like The Beano and The Dandy, wild adventures like Boys Own, or fantasy sci-fi like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. But by the age of nine, Tim’s limited education would be cut short. Whilst bathing in the River Taff, Tim impaled his big toe on a hidden shard of broken glass; a harmless boyhood injury which is easily repaired, but having bound his bloody foot in a dirty hanky, by the time Tim hobbled his way from Mount Pleasant to the doctor in the neighbouring village of Merthyr Vale, the small cut had gone septic, and would leave him with a lifetime of sickness, absence, pain and a permanent limp. Later contracting tuberculosis, Tim spent a whole year isolated at the Moorland Clinic for Children in Hampshire, hundreds of miles away from his family. And being a small lonely boy, with a low IQ, a bad lung, a disabled foot and a deep feeling of inferiority, being blessed with a vivid imagination, Tim began to twist the truth of his humdrum life into a fantasy world where he was rich, smart and successful, but lacking the intelligence to sustain such a bold story, even Tim’s mum branded him a “terrible liar”. By the outbreak of World War Two, eager for excitement, Tim tried to enlist in the Armed Forces, but was rejected from National Service on medical grounds. Aged 15, Tim worked as a van-boy at Merthyr Vale Colliery, and by 17, he was a driver for the Air Ministry, having settled with his family at 11 St Mark’s Road. But being regarded as unreliable, highly strung and a fiery liar with a string of bad debts, his work history was patchy, as he drifted from jobs as a coal-haulier, car cleaner and a factory worker. Being easily-duped, in April 1946, Tim received two criminal convictions; one for driving an unlicensed car, and one for receiving stolen goods (most notably a suitcase and a rug), both resulted in fines. And although his exasperated mother supported her unruly son with a bed, money, meals and endless love, often being unemployed and always being broke, with no hobbies nor interests to engage him; every evening, over a few pints, as he propped-up the bar at The Kensington Park Hotel, Tim would wax lyrical and regale the locals with tall-tales and fanciful fibs of how he lived the life of a gigolo, how his absent dad was an Italian Count and how his fictional brother owned a fleet of limousines. So with her patience wearing-thin, it must seemed like a blessing for Thomasina, when (in 1947) her boy met and married a lovely girl called Beryl Thorley who later gave birth to a beautiful baby called Geraldine. This should have been the makings of him as a grown-up and a man. But with deceit coming as second nature; having falsely claimed his daughter was gravely ill to acquire a loan, pretended he hadn’t been sacked for whole three weeks to save on marital spats and having kept-up the pretence to his wife and lodger that he was starting a new career as a manager at de Havilland Air Lines, a job which didn’t even exist, Tim was a born liar who was incapable of the truth. By the Monday 7th November 1949; with arguments being a daily event, debts stacking up and Beryl feeling pale, weak and depressed after several failed abortions, what the Evans’ needed was honesty. But Tim wasn’t the only liar and fantasist living at 10 Rillington Place. (Interstitial). (Christie’s whisper) “The next day Beryl told my wife she was going to get a separation. My wife and I agreed that - if she needed us to - we would adopt the baby. It were then, at a later date that Beryl told me she were going to make an end of it. In short, she were going to commit suicide”. After Beryl’s death and Tim’s arrest, Reg Christie (the ex-Special Constable, decorated war-hero and respected family man) made that statement to the Police… except none of it was true. On Monday 31st October 1949, eight days before Beryl’s death, Raymond Phillips & Frederick Jones of Larter & Sons were contracted to repair a leaky bay-window and the roof of the communal washhouse. It was a simple job undertaken during the week days which shouldn’t have disturbed the tenants, but with Ethel stuck at home, Beryl feeling blue, Geraldine all restless and Reg off sick with fibrositus and bouts of diarrhea, the constant banging and hammering had left 10 Rillington Place in total disarray. As the baby wailed the whole house down with a constant cacophony of tired tears, Beryl didn’t hear his soft plimsolls as they slowly crept up the creaking stairs and lurked on the landing, then again, she never did. But as Reg’s egg-like head peeped around the open door – having an almost comical face with over-prescribed spectacles, slipping false teeth and a softly cooing voice which soothed Geraldine - clutching two steamy mugs of tea, Reg cooed “I wondered if you fancied a cuppa, dear?” He did this most days, and with Beryl being alone, she appreciated his company, his chats and his friendship. Reg could see Beryl wasn’t her usual self. She was always such a pretty young girl, but with her flawless brow wrinkled by a deep frown, her smooth skin all sickly and pale, her luscious red lips all cracked, her baby blue eyes red-raw from crying and her supple figure hidden by a shapeless mass of crumpled clothes, what the innocent twenty-year old needed – Reg thought - was a father’s love and protection. Over the eight months she’d live there, Beryl & Reg had developed a good relationship. He was a very patient man, who cared and listened; and having pacified her hot-tempered husband after several of the couple’s regular rows, covered the cost of their furniture fees to keep the bailiffs at bay, snapped a much-loved family portrait of mother and baby which hung on her wall, and being medically trained, Beryl knew that Reg was experienced, trusted and (best of all) knowledgeable. And as she opened up to him about her inner most secrets; about the arguments, the lies, the debts, her struggles with motherhood, her unexpected second pregnancy and her several failed abortions - all of which had left her sickly, thin and exhausted - with the baby’s termination being a tricky topic and Beryl & Tim often at each other’s throats, Reg agreed to speak to Tim on Beryl’s behalf. And for the first time in weeks, Beryl smiled. (Christie’s whisper) “…it were my wide knowledge of medicine which made it possible for me to talk convincingly about sickness and disease, and she readily believed I could cure her”. (End) That night, having finished his shift at Lancaster Food Products, as promised, Reg had a man-to-man chat with Tim in the privacy of his front-room. And being a boy whose dad had abandoned him before he was born, Tim appreciated this fatherly advice. This was, after all, John Reginald Halliday Christie; a happily married man (Christie’s whisper) “twenty nine years to be precise” who for nine of those years had deserted his wife, a former Special Constable “commended twice” having helped arrest a man who had stolen a bicycle, and a decorated war-hero who was “awarded the British War & Victory Medal” which every serving soldier received regardless of their conduct, but then again, Tim didn’t know any of that. So as Reg sat there, flanked by two framed medical certificates (and knowing that the barely-literate Tim wouldn’t know they were only for First Aid), as he thumbed a thick medical book (and knowing that the easily-duped Tim wouldn’t know it was only a St John’s Ambulance manual) and regaling him with tales of how his training as a doctor was “cruelly cut short by The Great War” (all of which was a lie, but then, where-as Tim lacked the intelligence to maintain a story, Reg did not), and claiming to have a wide knowledge of abortions (which – with two bodies rotting in the back garden – meant it was technically true), Reg coerced Tim into letting him perform a termination on his pretty petite wife. All the while, laying the blame squarely on the young couple stating “if only you or your wife had come to me in the first place, I could have done it without any risk” and extending the cautious caveat that, given the procedure “one out of every seven women die”. Being physically tired, emotionally torn and with his brain thoroughly bamboozled, Tim said he would have to sleep on it. But being a young couple, unable to afford a new baby, they had only one option, and Christie knew that. On the morning of Tuesday 8th November 1949, after a restless night, Beryl and Tim washed, dressed, fed Geraldine, and as Tim sat at the kitchen table, having a smoke, he exhaled deeply and said “tell Mr Christie everything is okay”. And although a great weight dropped from Beryl’s shoulders, in those six simple words, Tim had sealed the fate of their unborn baby and condemned them both to death. And as he kissed his wife goodbye, little did he know that this was the last time he would see her alive. After the chaos of the last eight days, with the bay-window finally fixed and the roof of the washhouse replaced, with only one plasterer remaining, normality had been restored to Rillington Place. As Ethel dozed by the toasty fire, Reg rummaged through a small brown suitcase. It didn’t contain much, just a few odd knickknacks; like a necklace, a hair-brush, a stocking, a handbag and a dog-eared photo of a young pretty girl holding a baby, and as he softly stroked her image - after eight months of patience and persistence - he imagined what it would be like to finally touch Beryl. It was 10:30am, and with Ethel asleep, Reg returned the suitcase under the sofa, having retrieved four little items; a length of rope, a bottle of Friar’s Balsam, two rubber hoses and a square glass jar. For the last time, Beryl placed her baby in the cot for a mid-morning nap, tucked the soft sheet up to her chin and kissed her rosy cheeks. As always, Beryl didn’t hear his soft Plimsolls creep up the creaky stairs, or feel his hot breath on her neck as he lurked on the second-floor landing, so initially she was startled. But seeing his reassuring smile and hearing the soft voice of a trusted friend, who whispered “I thought you might like a cup of tea”, seeing Reg, made Beryl’s beautiful smile return. And as they entered her flat, so they wouldn’t be disturbed, he locked the door. Beryl stood there, all hopeful and nervous, dressed in a blue woollen jacket with black stitching, a blue and white spotted cotton blouse and a black shirt, as she trembled, her heart thumping fast and hard. From her bedroom, Reg pulled a thick quilt, laid it on the kitchen floor in front of the unlit fire, and with the bedside manner of a doctor, he said “let’s get you comfortable, shall we?” As his patient, she was in his hands, and so - trusting him implicitly - at his command, she slipped off her stockings, slid off her knickers and lay on the quilt, her legs parted, her genitals exposed. Beside her, Reg popped the square glass jar, it sloshed with a white liquid which smelled like the minty balm that she would rub on her baby’s chest whenever she was ill. This was all very strange and new to Beryl, but as he attached the long rubber hose to a copper pipe at the side of the fire, she trusted him, as Reg reassured her “nothing to worry about dear, it’s just a whiff of gas, like going to the dentist”. And as he placed the shorter hose next to her nose, at his command, Beryl breathed deeply… …and just like Muriel Eady, as her lungs filled with lethal levels of carbon monoxide, she would willingly render herself unconscious, and soon, Beryl Evans would be his; to grope, to kiss, to fondle, to fuck. (Knocking on door) Startled by the knocking, Reg froze. (Knocking on door) With Tim out at work, the lone plasterer by the washhouse and Ethel in the front room, it could only be one other person - her friend Joan Vincent. (Knocking) “Beryl?” But – hoping she would leave - Reg remained still and silent. (Knocking) “Beryl??” Hearing her friend’s voice, Beryl began to stir and weakly uttered a faint mumble. In panic, Reg smothered her lips with his rough hands, muffling her words. “Beryl? Are you there?” As her legs kicked, her arms flailed and she frantically gasped for air, before she could muster enough strength to scream, Reg punched her hard in the face, knocking her out cold. “Beryl? If you don’t want to open the door, that’s fine”. And as Joan Vincent descended the creaky stairs, with both ends of his strangling rope clutched in his hands, Reg pulled tight, and the last drop of life left Beryl’s body forever. With no privacy to do his dirty deed and no time to have his wicked way with her, as Joan chatted to Ethel just two floors below, Reg dragged Beryl’s body into the unlit bedroom, and although her mouth and nose was bloodied, slowly forming a plan, he masked the long dark bruise around her neck with the top of the quilt, and left her, in bed, just a few feet from Geraldine. (Baby crying / End) On Wednesday 30th November 1949 at 3:10pm, a tired and dishevelled Timothy Evans walked into Merthyr Vale Police Station and confessed to disposing of his wife’s body, by stating “between about one and two in the morning I got my wife downstairs. I opened my front door at 10 Rillington Place, and pushed her body head first into the drain. After that, I got my baby looked after. I quit my job. I sold my furniture. Then I caught the train to Merthyr Vale and I’ve been here since. That’s the lot”. But as a regular drinker, an abusive husband and a known fantasist, who even his own mother referred to as a “terrible liar”, his heartfelt confession didn’t ring true. And having lied to Thomasina that his wife and child were on holiday to Brighton, lied to Uncle Con & Auntie Vi that he was on a business trip to Wales; lied to a furniture dealer, a pawnbroker and a rag-trader about why he was selling all of his and his wife’s possessions, having lied to The Christie’s about why they had so unexpectedly moved out of Rillington Place and – having discovered Beryl’s body; not down the drain, but hidden in the communal washhouse, bundled in a green table cloth and tied with a length of clothesline – with the autopsy confirming that no interference had taken place which was consistent with an abortion, the Police knew that Timothy Evans had lied about his wife’s death. As it was clear, that 20 year old Beryl Evans had died by strangulation… and so had Geraldine. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed parts one to four, part five of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for some wibbly good dribble after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Point Blank and The Ladykillers Podcast. (PLAY PROMO) A thank you this week to Trevor Williams, who very kindly made a much-needed donation to keep the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast afloat, via the Murder Mile website. Thank you Trevor, you’re a super star. And a special thank you to everyone who recently left us a review on iTunes or your podcast app’, and anyone who has spread the good word about Murder Mile on social media, and in person, it really is very much appreciated. So I thank you. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well.
Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.
Music: Additional music was used (in the case of Cult With No Name) with their kind permission and all other artists under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive. A full track listing follows:
Sounds: With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution).
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018 and iTunes Top 50. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
This is St Mark's Road today; no 11 (where Tim's mum lived) was situated just to the left, and just before the tube line to the left is Bartle Road where Rillington Place was
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FIFTY
Episode Fifty: On 8th November 1949, 20 year old Beryl Susanna Evans, a married mother-of-one who lived in the second floor flat at 10 Rillington Place, died following a suspected suicide attempt after a series of failed abortions, and yet, her husband Timothy Evans would be arrested for her murder. But was this a suicide, a murder, or was she the third victim of the infamous British serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. This is part three of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations (and I don't want to be billed £300 for copyright infringement again), to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast
St Mark's Road today
As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script.
You can DOWNLOAD episode #50 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the play button on the media player below. Full Transcript - Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast #50 - The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place - Part Three (Beryl Susanna Evans)
INTRO: One of the most powerful words in the world is home. It’s the place we all feel safe, secure, happy and comfortable, and no matter where we end up, it’s where we all return to. Home can be anywhere; a country, a county, a town, a street, a house, a room, a bed, or simply a state of mind, where we’re surrounded by the things we like and the people we love, often called a family.
A family can be anyone; parents, siblings, offspring, friends, colleagues or neighbours, a network, a group or a single person, as family is not about blood-ties or lineage, it’s about trust. And for all of us, no matter who we are or what our life becomes, we all seek a family and a home. By 1949, the Second World War was over; and although, it is said, that the allies won, in truth, we had all lost; with millions dead, countries in ruins, homes destroyed and families shattered. The Blitz was now a distant memory, the blackout was off and with thousands of the city’s civilians missing, although many were still mourned, some were forgotten. Two of those missing were an Austrian refugee called Ruth Fuerst and an East London orphan called Muriel Eady. And having been strangled and raped by an unassuming little man called John Reginald Halliday Christie, their bodies lay undisturbed in two shallow graves in a small back garden in Ladbroke Grove. Their deaths weren’t deemed suspicious, murder was never mentioned, and with no witnesses, no sightings and with no-one suspecting him, his killing spree had stopped. Reg Christie hadn’t killed in five years. It was almost as if those old strange urges had gone. But all that changed in the spring of 1949, when the second floor flat became vacant, and (in need of a good home and a loving family) his next victim walked into 10 Rillington Place. Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you. My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part three of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place. SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing on St Mark’s Road in Ladbroke Grove; a street vital to our story, but after decades of haphazard redevelopment, only a few fragments of these key locations still exist. One street east is what remains of David Griffin’s Refreshment Room and the Kensington Park Hotel, but on this street alone, 11 St Mark’s Road was demolished, 133 St Mark’s Road was rebuilt and the side-street formerly known as Rillington Place has been completely eviscerated. It’s a classic example of post-war inner-city design, where a cash-strapped council with homes to build, but no plan, money or map, dumps a jumbled mishmash of architectural monstrosities onto a grid and says “yeah, that’s do”. So with no grassland, ponds or parks, having nowhere to play, from every bedroom echoes the incessant bleep of games consoles as rows of portly pasty prepubescents enter a fantasy world where they imagine what it’s like to stand-up, to move and even to talk. Wow! Except, once a day, as each parent pushes their unsightly waddling sprog into the street to burn-off a delightful tea of Pot Noodle, chicken dippers and blue-fizzy drink. And as the fat pasty spawn wobbles into reality, winces at the sight of natural light and wheezes because they’re upright - having been told to “get away from your bloody computer” – they stare at their bike (wondering where they plug it in), their football (searching for how they turn it on) and their legs (querying who ordered them and how they can get a refund?) Only to huff, grunt, fart and start playing on their phones; heads down, eyes open, world gone. But - to be honest - that could be a description of literally anywhere. And although some sites are still here, like the tube-line and the A40 flyover, with 10 Rillington Place now a memorial garden, and the skyline overshadowed by the blackened shell of the Grenfell Tower where seventy-two people lost their lives, this whole street is tinged with sadness and tragedy. And yet, it was here, in the spring of 1949, that nineteen year old Beryl Thorley believed she had found herself a good home, a loving family… and a kindly neighbour. (Interstitial) Beryl Susanna Thorley was born on 19th Sept 1929 in Lewisham Hospital (South London), to William, a petrol pump attendant for the London General Omnibus Company and Elizabeth, a housekeeper. Raised during The Great Depression - as the stock markets crashed, currencies devalued and the world descended into economic chaos – being a middle-aged working-class couple living a hand-to-mouth existence in a tiny rented flat, this probably wasn’t the best time to start a family. And yet, even though the Thorley’s had three children in very quick succession, they lived an unremarkable life; with no highs nor lows, no joys nor tragedies, just the ordinary struggles of a very average family. Barely keeping their heads above water, from year-to-year the Thorley’s plodded on, moving from job-to-job, flat-to-flat and bill-to-bill, with nowhere to really call home. And lacking any real warmth, love or affection, only the tired routine of meals, baths and bed-time, they didn’t feel like a family. As the eldest of three, although Beryl was a pretty petite girl with bright twinkling eyes, soft fair hair, a button-nose and an angelic smile; being eager to regain her rightful place as the ‘baby of the family’ - having been usurped by her baby brother Basil and swiftly shoved-aside by her little sister Patricia – Beryl’s beauty belied a stroppy temper, an awkward stubbornness and a child-like immaturity. Having uprooted several times in as many years, from Lewisham to Clapham to Hammersmith; as war was declared, the Thorley’s moved into the top floor flat at 112 Cambridge Gardens in Ladbroke Grove, just off St Mark’s Road, and situated on the other side of the tube-line, opposite Rillington Place. So, except for their daily disputes, sibling rivalry and the dull thud as Nazi bombs pockmarked the city, life was pretty uneventful. That is, until the late winter of 1947, when Beryl’s mother passed away. It was a tragedy which split the fractured family even further, and with her siblings packing-up and her father moving to Brighton (where he would remain like a distant relative for the rest of her life), with no home, no family and being in the grip of grief, Beryl’s life could have collapsed… …but a few months prior, 17 year old Beryl Thorley had met and fallen in love with 22 year old Timothy Evans; a small handsome Welshman with a thick mop of dark hair, a childish sense of fun, a very vivid imagination, a steady job as a lorry-driver and a deep desire to become a good dad. And in a whirlwind romance - having met on a blind date in January, become engaged by March and having tied the knot in September - shortly afterwards the newly married Beryl Evans moved in with her husband Tim into his mother’s three-storey townhouse at nearby 11 St Mark’s Road. Surrounded by a loving family - with (Thomasina) his mother treating her like a daughter, (Penry) his step-father protecting her like she was his own, being blessed with two sisters-in-law (Eleanor and Mary) and a close extended family including Uncle Cornelius & Auntie Violet in the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Vale – within the year, Beryl had a family, a husband, a home and was blissfully happy. (Wind) It had been a cold cruel winter, and with the snowdrops shrivelled and the daffodils struggling, Reg’s much-loved rose bush was little more than a tangle of dead vines and jagged thorns. His back garden didn’t provide much privacy or space being just twelve feet long by ten feet wide with a five foot brick wall on both sides and surrounded by two long lines of terraced houses, but as a little dot of bright colour on a drab grey landscape, this was his sanctuary. With Judy doing some digging of her own, as Reg dug his spade into the hard soil, he winced. The 51 year old’s back was riddled by fibrisitis and with his stomach plagued by daily bouts of diarrhea, he’d given up driving for Ultra Electrics and was now a desk-bound clerk at the Post Office Savings Bank. As he exhaled painfully, Reg pulled from the soil a milky white stick, all smooth like it had been stripped of bark, but it was oddly broken and brittle. As Ethel exited the washhouse, she mumbled “tea’s up Reg”, but he barely heard her, instead he just nodded, staring at the stick perplexed. Something was missing from Reg’s life; he loved his garden, he liked his dog, his job was tolerable and his marriage was… fine, but nothing excited him anymore, it was as if something inside him had died. (Echo - “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman”). As Reg stroked the bone-white stick in his hand, a flash of recollection widened his eyes. (Echo – “she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like”). Being eager to please her master, as Judy burrowed deeper into the soil, she too unearthed something pale, brittle and broken. (Echo – “so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”). But times had changed, the war was over and Reg had killed in almost five years. (End wind) The newly-wed Mrs Beryl Evans lived at Tim’s mother’s house at 11 St Mark’s Road for one and a half years, squeezed into the second-floor back-bedroom. With it being a busy family home with a mum, a dad, two sisters, Beryl and Tim, with two tenants on the top floor, although they lived comfortably, for a lusty young lad with a blushing new bride, it lacked privacy - but for now, it was enough. Beryl & Tim were very much kindred spirits; being small, pretty and fun, they bonded quickly. But just like Beryl, Tim’s sweetness belied a stroppy temper, a stubbornness and a child-like immaturity. And with both love-birds being tetchy and fiery - with their fights formed of feet stamped, things thrown and a few choice words, they both “gave as good as they got” - the only real friction caused as Tim’s mum would always take Beryl’s side in any dispute, branding her own son “a terrible liar”. So by all-accounts, Beryl & Tim Evans were just a very normal couple of young kids, who were recently married, testing the waters and finding their feet, in a family which was about to expand. On 14th October 1948, in the Queen Charlotte Hospital, Beryl gave birth to a beautiful baby girl - a tiny tot with sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks and a hot-temper, and just like her parents she was a little handful. But to Beryl & Tim she was perfect, and with their family complete, they named her Geraldine. Being showering with gifts, love and support from an extended family, Geraldine had everything, and with two proud and doting parents to cuddle her, life was good. But as the baby grew, the small beck bedroom seemed to shrink, so needing more space, Beryl & Tim began looking for a flat of their own. (Wind) With the sky bruised, clouds looming and the distant rumble of thunder, Reg stood in his back garden, clutching the milky-white skull of Muriel Eady. Reg was in a real quandary; for safety’s sake he knew should either bury it, smash it or burn it, and although half a length of her thigh bone neatly propped up his broken fence, that could easily be mistaken for a stick, where-as a skull’s a skull? Reg knew he had to make the right choice, and besides, he didn’t need those… urges. And as a tube train thundered-by, seated by the window, Joan Vincent spotted an advert in a second-floor window, it simply read “flat to let”. Fortuitously, it was cheap, local and would perfectly suit her old school friend and their new baby. The flat was at 10 Rillington Place. (Interstitial) On 24th March 1949, with their bags packed, spirits high and a new furniture set paid for by Thomasina; Beryl, Tim and Geraldine moved into their first flat on the second floor of 10 Rillington Place. It wasn’t a great flat; as the stairs were a nightmare to navigate with the pram, it was heated and lit by gas only, and having just a bedroom and a kitchen, the only bathroom was a communal washhouse and lavatory outback. But with a rent of just twelve shillings a week, being located one minute from Thomasina, and with the other tenants being an elderly widower on the first floor called Mr Kitchener and a lovely couple on the ground-floor called Mr & Mrs Christie - (Christie’s whisper) “I prefer it if you call me Reg” - keen for their own space, Beryl snapped it up and her family home was complete. Beryl & Tim liked the Christie’s. They were very old-fashioned. Raised with Victorian standards, they were polite, moral and kind, and keeping the house orderly with strict rules and curfews, even though they dispensed advice to newly-weds, as a couple, they rarely spoke and never kissed or hugged. As a portly lady in her early fifties, Ethel Christie was a neat quiet homebody who lived in her husband’s shadow, and although she was clearly loving, warm and deeply maternal, with no children of her own, Ethel’s eyes only lit-up was when Beryl let he hold the baby. And with Reg having a fatherly quality, who was kind, caring and patient; having been an ex-Special Constable, an injured war-hero and with a wide knowledge of medicine, she knew that Reg was experienced, trusted and knowledgeable. For Beryl, having the Christie’s nearby was like being blessed with a second set of parents. For the first few months, as a new mum and dad, life was a struggle; but with Thomasina just one street away, the Christie’s only two floors down and although Tim was burdened by a low IQ, a bad lung, a disabled foot and being almost totally illiterate, with money coming in, for a while, they coped. But being kindred spirits, what brought Beryl & Tim together, also drove them apart; as having stroppy tempers, an awkward stubbornness and a child-like immaturity, with Tim being a “terrible liar” and Beryl still acting like “the baby of the house” (even though she now had a baby of her own), neither of them were grown-ups, instead they were just children trapped in an adult’s world. On 11th July 1949, Tim started work as a delivery driver for Continental Wine House in Edgware Road, on the modest wage of £7 per week, but having falsely claimed that Geraldine was gravely ill, he asked for £3 in advance, £7 to cover a doctor’s bill and a further loan of £10, all in just two weeks, and with his employer regarding his work as “unsatisfactory”, by the 25th Tim was sacked, and didn’t tell Beryl. Being secretly unemployed for several weeks, Tim kept up the pretence, and as the bills piled up, never once did he miss a boozy session with the boys at the Kensington Park Hotel (known as KPH), and yet, he always lost his temper if Beryl had a night-out with the girls and left him at home with the baby. Feeling shut-in, lonely and desperate, as Beryl struggled with the demands of motherhood; the dirty dishes piled up, the meals went uncooked and the flat became squalid. And although she wasn’t a bad mum, being so depressed, although Thomasina would always baby-sit on Saturdays, it wasn’t just to give Beryl a break, but as an excuse to give Geraldine a much-needed bath and to wash her clothes. And still, as well as the young couple were being supported by friends and family, with their lies, debts and jealousy mounting, Beryl & Tim’s arguments became more frequent, fiery and violent. The worst having occurred at the end of August 1949, just three months before Beryl’s death. With money tight, Beryl feeling low and Tim due to start a well-paying managerial job at de Havilland’s Air Lines in Hatfield, twenty miles north of London; on Friday 19th August, they took in a lodger - 17 year old Lucy Endicott - who provided a little extra income and kept Beryl company whilst Tim was away. So, with his best suit cleaned, a fresh shirt ironed, his shoes polished and his suitcase packed, being ready to leave on the early morning train, Tim slept by the kitchen fire whilst Beryl and Lucy slept in the bedroom with Geraldine in the cot. But the next night, Tim returned. As always, Thomasina was right and Beryl’s instincts were spot-on, Tim was a “terrible liar”. And having telephoned de Havilland’s, they quickly confirmed that there was no job, no wage and no record of a Timothy Evans. Being heartbroken, furious and unable to look him in the eye, Beryl’s anger festered. One week later, on the evening of Sunday 28th August, having been out to the cinema, as Beryl & Lucy hopped off the bus by David Griffin’s Refreshment Room, stood outside of the KPH public house, being a few pounds poorer and a few pints heavier, they saw Tim waiting. Their bitter screams echoed all the way down Lancaster Road, St Mark’s Road and right into Rillington Place; with every house-light turning on as Tim snapped “I’ll give you a good hiding for going to the pictures and leaving the baby”, each curtain twitching as Beryl barked “I told you I was going out” and every wireless silenced as Tim spat “that doesn’t make any difference, your place is at home, just you wait till I get you inside”, as he slammed the front door shut of 10 Rillington Place, and once again, the neighbouring streets were treated to yet another furious fight between The Evans’. In the proceeding trial, the following incident was reported to the police as witnessed by Mrs Hyde on Lancaster Road, Mrs Swan at 9 Rillington Place, and The Christie’s on the ground-floor. Gone were their petty childish squabbles and their tit-for-tat tantrums, as with The Evans’ relationship irrevocably split, their silly spats had descended into physical assaults. And as Tim slapped Beryl’s face hollering “I’ll bloody do you in, I will”, Beryl grabbed a bread-knife. To protect himself, seeing how Beryl was precariously perched, Tim screamed “I’ll push you through the bloody window”, only for Lucy to trip-up hot-tempered Tim, as he threatened her, squealing “I’ll smash her up and run her over in my van”. Of course, whether the five-foot five-inch fiery liar actually would or could is debatable. Thankfully, before anyone was badly hurt, the fight was broken-up by Thomasina; Lucy was asked to leave, Tim cooled off, Beryl calmed down, and a full statement was made to the Police. (Christie’s whisper) “The next day Beryl told my wife she was going to get a separation. My wife and I agreed that - if she needed us to - we would adopt the baby. It were then, at a later date that Beryl told me she were going to make an end of it. In short, she were going to commit suicide”. With their relationship straining at the seams; being riddled with debts, jealousy and lies; and devoid of love, trust or patience; the more Tim slugged back the drink, the further Beryl fell into depression. And yet, life was about to throw the struggling couple yet another curve-ball… Beryl was pregnant. But Beryl didn’t want another baby; not now and not with Tim. Confiding in her friend (Joan Vincent) that she wanted to miscarry; with abortions being illegal, dangerous and expensive, as old-fashioned methods like punching herself in the stomach, necking neat gin and overdosing on laxatives, all failed, Beryl risked her own life even further by swallowing poisons like quinine and ergot, syringing herself with glycerine and iodine, and trying to hook the tiny foetus out using a bent coat-hanger. And with each attempt having failed, as the unwanted baby slowly grew inside her, Beryl Evans became more sickly, pale and withdrawn, as life reached a new low. And then, on Monday 7th November 1949… (Christie’s whisper) “I went upstairs and found Mrs Evans in the kitchen, lying on a quilt in front of the fireplace. She had made an attempt to gas herself, from a gas-pipe on the side of the fireplace, and a piece of rubber tubing near her head. I shut it off and when I opened the window she started coming around. I do not know what she said, but a little while after she complained of a headache and I made her a cup of tea. My wife was downstairs but I did not call tell her. Mrs Evans asked me not to”. (End) The next day, on Tuesday 8th November 1949… (Christie’s whisper) “I went upstairs again, I think it was about lunch time. She still intended to do away with herself and begged of me to help her. She said she would do anything if I agreed. I think she was referring to letting me be intimate with her. She brought the quilt from the bedroom and put it down in front of the fireplace. I got on my knees but found I was not physically capable of having intercourse with her owing to my fibrisitus and my dicky tummy. I turned on the gas tap and as near as I can make out, I held it close to her face. When she became unconscious I turned the tap off. I was going to try and have intercourse with her but it was impossible, I couldn’t bend over”. (End) Later that evening…. (Christie’s whisper) “Tim came home about six o’clock. It was dark. I spoke to him in the passage and told him that his wife had committed suicide, and that she had gassed herself. We went into his kitchen and he touched his wife’s hand, then picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. After Evans lay his wife on the bed, he fetched the quilt from the kitchen and put it over her. I told Evans that no doubt he would be suspected of having done it because of the rows and fights he had with his wife. He seemed to think the same. He said he would bring his van down and leave her somewhere”. (End) Plagued with guilt; having quit his job, sold his furniture, gone into hiding and repeatedly lied to his family about his wife’s whereabouts, on 30th November 1949 Tim confessed to disposing of Beryl, and with her body being found three days later, on 13th January 1950, faced with overwhelming evidence against him, Timothy John Evans was found guilty… of murder. Beryl was a pretty, petite but painfully immature young girl from a fractured upbringing who dreamed of nothing but a good home and a loving family. And having got everything she ever wanted, aged just 20 years old, Beryl Susanna Evans was buried in a simple coffin at Gunnersbury Cemetery. Except, inside her coffin, Beryl wasn’t alone. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed parts one, two and three, part four of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for some dribbly bum-plop after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Murder Under the Midnight Sun and The Hidden Podcast. (PLAY PROMO) A huge thank you goes out to my new and current Patreon supporters whose kind donations have kept Murder Mile afloat, as last week, my laptop actually went kasplewey (that’s a technical term, probably caused by all the cake crumbs inside) so thanks to them, I was able to fund some emergency repairs. So Murder Mile’s new IT repair team are Dawn Smith, Heather, Kristy McGlew and Jacqueline Wright. You are (as British TV quiz-host Jim Bowen used to say “super smashing great”). Also a special thank you to Jonny & Sara, and Kristin, who came on a Murder Mile Walk recently and spoiled me with lots of cakey goodies, so if I sound fatter, blame them. Another thank you to everyone who’s purchased Murder Mile mugs from my website (I thank you) but the biggest thank you goes out to everyone who listens to the show. Thank you for listening, it really means a lot to me. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well.
Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.
Music: Additional music was used (in the case of Cult With No Name) with their kind permission and all other artists under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive. A full track listing follows:
Sounds: With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution)
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile wal
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018 and iTunes Top 50. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
Western Avenue in Perivale; Ultra Electrics where Reg Christie met Muriel Eady was on the right hand side where the Greenford Travelodge now sits
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FORTY-EIGHT
Episode Forty-Eight: On Saturday 7th October 1944, 32 year old East London orphan Muriel Eady vanished from Ladbroke Grove in West London, one year after 21 year old Ruth Fuerst, but with this being war-time, it was believed that she was just one of thousands of unidentified bodies and body-parts littered across the city’s bomb-craters, but she was the second confirmed victim of the infamous British serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. This is part two of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations (and I don't want to be billed £300 for copyright infringement again), to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.
Western Avenue where Ultra Electrics once stood (on the right)
As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script.
You can DOWNLOAD episode #49 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the play button on the media player below. Full Transcript - Episode #49 - The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place Part Two (Muriel Amelia Eady) - TRANSCRIPT
Trust - a firmly-held belief that a person is reliable, truthful and honest. It can’t be faked, traded or bought, it can only be earned. And unlike any greeting, gossip or pleasantry, trust takes time, patience and tests, before we let anyone into our confidence and open up to our inner-most secrets.
Trust is reserved solely for friends, family and (in rare exceptions) strangers; like firemen, policemen, doctors, nurses, soldiers and security. But without a bloodline, a bond or a uniform, trust requires a kind face, a caring voice and a calm demeanour. In 1942, The Blackout Ripper struck, killing four women having gained their trust; he was tall, charming and handsome, with a crisp RAF uniform, bright blue eyes and an easy smile. Where-as Reg Christie was not; he was short, scrawny, balding and bespectacled, a strange man in a crumpled old suit; with an odd little whisper, false teeth that slipped and (no longer being a Special Constable) no uniform. But what he lacked physically, he made up with mentally, meaning that (for a whole decade) his killing spree would go undetected, all because he was kind, caring and – worst of all – patient. In August 1943, Reg Christie murdered 21 year old Ruth Furest in a fit of spontaneous lust. One year on, with his urge unsated and his carnal desire swelling, having learned from his mistakes, this murder would be planned to perfection. And with a fresh victim in his sights, he needed to gain her trust. Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you. My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part two of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place. SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing by the A40 on Western Avenue in Perivale; a heavily industrialised part of West London, far from the seediness of Soho, but in an area absolutely vital to our story. As a chaotic dual-carriageway connecting the capital city to the Welsh coastal town of Fishguard, you may think you don’t know the A40, but with a small stretch of it also called Oxford Street, the A40 passes-by the Denmark Place fire, Freddie Mills suicide, Jacque Tratsart’s homicide, Mary Pickwoad’s abortion, Abd al-Naif’s assassination, several locations of The Blackout Ripper, and as it exits Edgware Road to become the Paddington fly-over, the A40 overlooks what remains of 10 Rillington Place. Situated 9.3 miles west of Soho, as one of London’s busiest roads, Western Avenue is noisy, dirty and chaotic; as with the deafening thunder of trains, the choking fumes of trucks and ear-splitting scream as jumbo-jets roar out of Heathrow, amidst a thick smog of swirling dust, nasally it’s a very confusing place, as enveloped by factories whose chimneys burp out the sweet scent of biscuits, curry and beer (mmm) often it’s interspersed by a caustic cloud of chemicals, burnt rubber and sewage (not mmm). Although I’m standing directly opposite the infamous Hoover Building; a stunning grade-two art-deco factory built in stark white-concrete with shimmering green glass, the exact location of the place I’m looking for is unknown, and what was left, has been entirely demolished. Now occupied by the Greenford Premier Inn - a budget hotel where tired salesmen forgo the arduous two-hour commute (to the wife and kids) and instead, sink a few suds, scoff a steak, pay for a porn film by mistake and mysteriously book a double-room for themselves and their “daughter” who visits her “daddy” for just “58 minutes” (I’m guessing) – but originally, sat on this site was Ultra Electrics Ltd; a radio manufacturer whose war-work was so secretive, that to confuse any Nazi saboteurs, they incorrectly listed their address as being in both Acton and Park Royal, almost three miles east. And yet, in the summer of 1944, it was here, that a shy, bright but lonely lady called Muriel Eady was lured into the confidence of a delivery driver who had secrets of his own. (Interstitial). Muriel Amelia Eady was born on 14th October 1912 in Canning Town, East London; a dark, squalid and impoverished district on the north-side bank of the River Thames; with a skyline chockful of belching chimneys, the sooty air thick with an acrid soupy smog, the murky brown water fizzing with effluent, and surrounded by the endless cacophony of docks, cranes and iron-works. And being one year into the stark austerity of the First World War; with food rationed, fuel in short supply and the ominous low-drone as German Zeppelins crept silently amongst the clouds, stealthfully dumping bouncing balls of burning magnesium which shattered, sparked and set the city aflame, in what would become the original (and long-forgotten) London Blitz - this was no place to raise a child. But to Muriel this was home. Muriel was born at 20 Baron Road; in one of thousands of identical Victorian terraced houses built to serve the dock workers in the 1850’s, and later demolished in the slum clearance. Although tiny, it was home to their mother Fanny Louisa Eady, five year old Reginald, three year old Ernest and Muriel. To Muriel and her siblings, Fanny was everything; a doting single-mother who struggled alone on a single income with three small children. And although she was still married to William Eady - a sailor in the Merchant Navy who rarely (if reluctantly) returned home and was a father in name only - in the 1911 census, it rightfully lists Fanny as “head of the house”. And although one of her babies was always sick, as raised amongst the sooty choking gloom of Canning Town, Muriel suffered with asthma, adenoids and catarrh which would plague her for life (SNIFF), being blessed with such a wonderful mother; Reginald, Ernest and Muriel thrived and survived. And then, in February 1918, as one of deadliest pandemics swept across the globe killing close to one hundred million people, having been struck down with deadly influenza, a virus for which there was no treatment or cure, Fanny Louisa Eady died in Poplar Hospital. Muriel was just six years old. Being distraught, what she wanted was a hug, what she needed was her mum, but what she got was William Eady; an unsmiling uncaring stranger, who – being gruff, rough and grumpy – only cared for the sea, and seeing these kids as nothing but a burden, he abandoned them. Three grieving children; all alone, scared and cruelly orphaned were placed into care at the Hutton Poplars Residential Home for Destitute Children in Brentwood, where they would remain for most of their childhood. And as a shy girl, struggling for an ounce of love in a stern Victorian orphanage full of seven hundred screaming kids and crying babies, with no mother to guide her and fearing any father-figure, in the six years she remained at Hutton Hall - feeling rejected, abandoned and alone - Muriel became secretive and retreated into isolation, trusting no-one but herself. (Christie’s whisper) “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman, but she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like, so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”. (End) As a young girl, Muriel cut quite a sad figure as her flat-feet scraped along the care-home’s stone floor; her shoulders slumped, her back hunched and the dark brown curls of her hair hiding her heartbroken eyes. And as the days dragged on, for fear of being abandoned again, this became her shield. Muriel was a ragged little mess dressed in oversized clothes, whose chest wheezed, whose nose sniffed (SNIFF) and who rarely made a sound except to emit a timid nasal squeak. After close to six years in care (being made to feel less like an abandoned child and more like a burden on the state) aged eleven, her father’s sister-in-law, Ethel Souhami, asked to look after Mariel. This should have been her chance to bloom, to blossom, to put the past of her fractured family behind her and start her life afresh, by playing with some new-found pals and living in a sweet semi-detached house on a peaceful tree-lined street at 48 Creswick Road in Acton, West London. But although she liked to be called “Aunt Ethel”, she had no plans to become Muriel’s new mum. As a fastidiously neat, supremely strict and mealy-mouthed French widow, being partially disabled, Ethel struggled to run a lodging house, which was home to five regular residents from the local Police station, all of whom needed meals cooked, beds made and uniforms ironed. Ethel needed a shy silent servant, who would do as she was told; with her head down, mouth closed and would sleep in a box-room under the stairs; working every hour of every day, for no money, no rest and no thanks. Her servant was Muriel and this became her life for the next fifteen years. By 1939, Muriel was twenty-seven years old; she was unmarried, uneducated and friendless, with no money, no social life, no love-life and (being unwilling to trust the local doctor) her catarrh began to plague her with headaches, Muriel had very little experience in life… and yet, it was almost over. That April, whether as a blessing or a curse, Aunt Ethel died. And with no next of kin; the house was sold, the lodgers moved out and Muriel was left penniless, homeless and (once again) abandoned. But finally being free, for the first time in a very long while, Muriel started to live. A few months later, she was working as a laundry assistant at Pembroke College in the historic city of Cambridge, and although war had been declared and Europe was in chaos, for once, Muriel had money, freedom and hope, and living in a shared lodging, she began to come out of her shell. By 1940, with the Blitz still a few months away, Muriel had moved back to London and was lodging at 12 Roskell Road in Putney; a nice little terraced house in a neat little street, owned by Martha Elizabeth Hooper, her mother’s sister. But unlike dreaded old Aunt Ethel, Auntie Martha was a sweet lady with a warm smile, a big heart and all-embracing hugs, who – best of all - reminded Muriel of her mum. By 1943, being bored of a life in domestic service, with millions of men being posted overseas to fight for King and Country, new roles had opened up for women, so being eager to ‘do her bit’, Muriel began a career as an assembler at the Integral Auxiliary Equipment Company on Power Road in Chiswick, where she learned how to build hydraulic pumps for aircraft and met her new best friend – Pat. By 1944, relishing her independence, Muriel’s confidence began to blossom, as guided by Pat, the two pals (described as being like “two peas in a pod”) became regulars at the Half Moon Public House on Lower Richmond Road, the amusement hall by Putney Bridge and a dance-hall called the Black & White Milk Bar on Putney High Street, and as her social-life bloomed, Muriel had begun to date. Eager to expand her horizons, Pat put her pal forward for a plum job. And being a “skilled assembler” who was regarded as “essential labour” making vital components for the war-effort, on 20th April 1944 Muriel Eady began work at a recently built factory on Western Road, it was called Ultra Electrics. It was a good job, at a nice firm, for a steady wage and a bright future. And with her confidence at an all-time high, Muriel had begun to make a few new friends… one of whom, was a softly spoken former Special Constable who (in the months ahead) would meticulously plan her death. (Interstitial) (Christie’s whisper) “I were medically-trained, you know, in the Army, so my knowledge of medicine made it possible for me to talk convincingly about sickness. She believed I could cure her”. With Ultra Electrics producing over a thousand radio sets a day for civilian and military service, as well as radio equipment for one of Britain’s best war-time multi-strike aircraft - the de Havilland Mosquito - work was busy but rewarding. In staggered shifts of fifteen minutes, a multitude of machinists, assemblers, checkers, packers and office staff descended on the factory’s canteen, mingling by the tea-urn, scrimmaging for Chelsea buns and jostling for space on the benches. Muriel was one face in a sea of fifteen hundred; all identically dressed in oily overalls, black boots and hair-nets, and yet it was here, over a nice warm cuppa, that she got chatting to a lorry driver from the despatch department called John Reginald Halliday Christie. (Christie’s whisper) “I prefer it if you call me Reg”. The cruelty of her lost childhood had taught Muriel never to trust anyone, so experience should have warned her to steer clear of Christie, but as a blossoming wallflower with a bright future ahead, as they chatted, she began to enjoy his company. To Muriel, Reg was a happily married man (Christie) “twenty four years to be precise”, a former Special Constable (“commended twice”) and a decorated war-hero (“awarded the British War & Victory Medal”). With a badly crumpled suit, thick-lensed spectacles and false teeth which slipped when he smiled, he didn’t look sinister, he looked silly. So why she liked him? We may never know. But being just slightly older than Muriel and named Reginald, perhaps this harmless man reminded the lost child within her of happier times with her own big brother? And with that, he began to gain her trust. (Christie’s whisper) “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman, but she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like, so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”. (End) Christie would later claim that the murder of Ruth Fuerst was unplanned, a spontaneous act of lust on a desperate and (possibly) pregnant woman, he had lured to his home with a gift of ten shillings. Where-as Muriel was independent, self-sufficient and guarded; with a good job, a solid wage, a stable home, a busy social life, a best-friend called Pat and (it is believed) a boyfriend called Ernest. Five years prior, Muriel’s life was a mess, but now, she didn’t need anything from anyone. Christie hadn’t killed in a year and with the Police suspecting that Ruth was simply one of thousands of unidentified bodies or body-parts which littered the city’s bomb-craters having been blasted to bits by any number of aerial bombardments, the evidence of his evil crime lay undisturbed in a shallow grave in his back-garden. But seeing Muriel, knowing Muriel and liking Muriel, as those same dark urges swelled, he knew that he wanted her, and that she would be next, but without a way in, he would need to be patient. Over the next few months, he played the part of a trusted friend, inviting Muriel and her boyfriend to his home, to meet his wife, to chat over tea and cake, and even make up a foursome to the flicks. It made a nice change for Reg & Ethel to have company, as although they were a nice enough couple, they were rarely close, choosing to shower any affection on their dog Judy, rather than each other. And as pleasant as the charade was, it solved one big problem, only to open up another; Muriel liked Reg, she trusted him and she was comfortable in his home… but now, he needed to get her alone. In September 1944, tragedy struck, when a high-explosive bomb fell on a packed air-raid shelter killing everyone inside, one of whom was Pat. To Christie, the cruel death of Muriel’s best pal should have been a blessing as being so bereft, most people would seek out the sympathetic ear of a trusted friend? But as familiar feelings of abandonment rose once again, being inconsolable, even by her boyfriend, Muriel retreated into solitude and Christie was at a loss… (SNIFF) …but then again, tears can have terrible side-effects on a person plagued with catarrh. (Christie’s whisper) “…it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first. It were my wide knowledge of medicine which made it possible for me to talk convincingly about sickness and disease, and she readily believed I could cure her”. (End) And as promised, a few days later, for the first time in decades, Muriel Eady wouldn’t feel pain… any more. On Saturday 7th October 1944, after a tiring shift at Ultra Electrics, made all the more gruelling as her throbbing head and painful sinuses had plagued her with weeks of fitful sleeps; Muriel dressed in a navy blue blouse, black shoes, a black artificial silk dress with a pink collar and a camel-coloured cloche coat. At four pm, she left her Auntie Martha’s home at 12 Roskell Road in Putney, saying “I shan’t be late”. She didn’t say where she was going or who she was meeting, she was never seen alive again. At a little after five pm, having exited Ladbroke Grove tube station, guided by a small torch along the pitch-black street, Muriel took her usual route to Reg’s; the clomp of her tired feet accompanied by her chorus of coughs, wheezes and sneezes, as she passed David Griffin’s Refreshment Room, headed east along Lancaster Road, up St Mark’s Road and went left into the dark dead-end of Rillington Place. The street was pitch-black, as with each resident sticking to the strict war-time rules of the blackout; every light was off, every curtain was closed and every door was shut, and with any sound muffled by the distant thud of bombs and tube trains which thundered by, the street was empty and eerily silent. Knocking at number ten, as the black door crept open a crack, Muriel was greeted by the slobbering drool, whimper and occasional widdle of Reg’s brown mongrel – Judy; but sadly, although Reg was here, being up in Halifax to stay with her brother, tonight they wouldn’t have the company of Ethel. So, lighting the gas-light and taking her coat, with a fresh pot of tea brewing on the hob, Reg led Muriel along the thin drab hallway, passed the front-room (with its loose creaky floorboards), the bedroom (with its once strangely stained sheets), and into the cosy little kitchen, barely yards from the little back garden, where Ruth’s decomposing corpse lay undiscovered, and – soon – so would Muriel’s. Over a cuppa, the two friends chatted, with Reg perched on a small round stool in front of the alcove, as Muriel reclined in the wooden deck-chair; a grey blanket covering the five lengths of rope with a spare draped over the back, his plan to repair it. And although Reg had been off-sick with fibrositis affecting his back and his bronchitis having flared-up, his priority was to solve Muriel’s catarrh. It was well-known that Reg had a wide knowledge of medicine; as a Special Constable “commended twice” he had trained in First Aid and was awarded two certificates which proudly hung on his wall; as a student doctor, he had read a-good many medical books before his training “was cruelly cut-short by The Great War”; and as a war-hero, “whilst serving in the Nottingham & Derbyshire Signal Corp” he was disabled in a mustard gas attack which left him with a voice little more than a whisper, Muriel knew Reg was experienced, trusted and (best of all) knowledgeable. So as Muriel coughed, wheezed and sneezed, looking a sorry-sight who sighed with lack of sleep, Reg sympathised. As a frequent sufferer of catarrh himself, he knew that the menthol mist expectorant she’d been prescribed was “next to useless”, he knew could cure her, and Muriel knew it too. With a reassuring smile, Reg gently placed into her hands a square glass jar, six inches deep and wide, which his wife had used a few times prior to pickle fruit. Inside (instead of the potted plums) sloshed a white liquid which smelled strongly of the reassuring whiff of Friar’s Menthol Balsam. And with two crude holes drilled into the metal lid; into the right hole ran a two-metre length of rubber hose, starting in the depths of the white bubbling liquid and disappearing off towards the curtain by the slightly open kitchen window, where-as into the left hole was the short stubby end of a rubber hose, through which Muriel would inhale. Yes, it looked a little bit silly and home-made, but Reg reassured her, it would do the trick. And so, as Muriel leaned over the square glass jar, having placed a large scarf over her head to fully ensure she absorbed its medicinal goodness, Muriel breathed deeply, inhaling the minty bubbling vapours. Within a minute, with her sinuses clearing and her pain disappearing, Muriel felt different. But the long rubber hose wasn’t there as a steady supply of fresh air from the open window, used to purify this “special compound”. Instead, Reg had connected the hose to the gas-pipe. And with the strong eggy smell of coal gas disguised by the overpowering eucalyptus of the Friar’s Balsam, as Muriel breathed deeper, her lungs slowly filled full of carbon monoxide, an invisible deadly gas commonly known as the ‘silent killer’. Christie wasn’t a heavy man, muscular or strong, so even the act of overpowering a small weak girl like Ruth Fuerst had been a struggle. And yet, with no force or assault, just a little bit of trust and a lot of patience, he had willingly rendered Muriel unconscious. And as she lay there, slumped in his deck-chair, silent, still and passive, Reg strangled her with a length of rope. (Christie’s whisper) “Once again, I experienced that quiet peaceful thrill. I had no regrets”. (End) Only this time, his sordid deed wouldn’t be disturbed by an urgent telegram, as Ethel would be away for weeks; he wouldn’t be interrupted by Mr Kitchener, the elderly deaf tenant in the flat above; and he wouldn’t receive a call from any worried friends or concerned relatives, as (of those she hadn’t lost contact with) no-one knew she was here… but Reg. And as he dragged Muriel’s lifeless corpse along the communal hallway and into the bedroom, over the next few hours, he would savour every moment of his long-awaited prize; as he fondled her slowly cooling breasts, caressed the curves of her stiffening body and kissed her protruding purple tongue which jutted from her ruptured bloated face, as having wanted her for months, now her body was his. And unlike in his joyless, sexless marriage to a frumpy baggy hag, for once, Reg had no problem getting or maintaining an erection, as his lustful urges descended into necrophilia. (bed springs) The next night, her body was buried in the back garden of 10 Rillington Place, alongside Ruth Fuerst, with any identification destroyed and all possessions sold. And although a missing persons’ report was issued, hospital admissions were checked and her details were tallied with any lists of unidentified body-parts found during the aerial bombardments, Muriel became one of thousands of missing people who disappeared during war-time. And having been cruelly abandoned by fate and a father (in name only), through strive and struggle, Muriel had finally begun to live the good life that she truly deserved, but having dropped her guard to a trusted friend – simply so he could cure her catarrh – the life of Muriel Amelia Eady was ended. (Christie’s whisper) “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman, but she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like, so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”. (End) OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed parts one and two, part three of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for some mindless waffle after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Nordic True-Crime and Hoosier Homicide. (PLAY PROMO) And don’t forget, if you’re looking for a special Christmas or birthday gift, check out the Murder Mile merchandise shop, as we have exclusive Murder Mile mugs, badges, thank you cards and bespoke gifts, but also a threadless store full of t-shirts, bags, wallets, literally everything. You could also treat a loved one, to a subscription to Murder Mile’s patreon account, and receive each episode days before everyone else. Links are in the show-notes. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well.
Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archive.
Music: Additional music was used (in the case of Cult With No Name) with their kind permission and all other artists under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive. A full track listing follows:
Sounds: With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution)
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018 and iTunes Top 50. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The Flowered Corner at 110a Ladbroke Grove (as it looks today) where David Griffin's Refreshment Room once stood and where Reg Christie met Ruth Fuerst
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FORTY-EIGHT
Episode Forty-Eight: On Tuesday 24th August 1943, 21 year old Austrian refugee Ruth Fuerst vanished from Ladbroke Grove in West London. Having been missing for almost a decade, it was believed that she was just one of thousands of unidentified bodies and body-parts littered across the city’s bomb-craters, but – in truth – Ruth Fuerst was the first confirmed victim of the infamous British serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. This is part one of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations (and I don't want to be billed £300 for copyright infringement again), to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast
The Flowered Corner formerly David Griffin's Refreshment Room
As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script.
You can DOWNLOAD episode #48 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the play button on the media player below. Full Transcript - Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast #48 - The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place - Part One (Ruth Christina Margarete Fuerst)
Memories are subjective. We all see the same sights, we all hear the same sounds and we all smell the same smells, but (burdened by a limited capacity) our minds only remember the smallest of fragments, all of which are distorted by time, bias, emotion and trauma.
The simplest of details may imperceptibly change; colours, shapes, sizes, names, dates, times and even locations, to the point where two people, sitting side-by-side, in the same room, at the same time, may see the same event in a radically different way as their brains edit that brief moment to suit their own perspective. Unconsciously we all do it, and yet, we all believe that our memories are real. In 1943, just two miles west and less than one year after horror of The Blackout Ripper, a second serial sexual sadist stalked the bomb-damaged streets of London. Strangely, they both wore uniforms, they both struck during the blackout and they both appeared as kind, pleasant and caring. But unlike The Blackout Ripper – whose insatiable lust for sex and death left four women dead and two lucky to be alive – this serial-killer was older, wiser and calmer. Seen as an upstanding pillar of society, a happily married man and a decorated war-hero who lived locally at 10 Rillington Place, although he was known as Mr Christie, to those he liked he preferred they call him Reg. And yet, in a reign of terror which would last (not a few days but) a whole decade; eight women would disappear, one man would be executed and no-one would suspect him. You may think you know this story, as many variations of it have been told, but with much of the evidence destroyed, there is no definitive account of what happened. Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you. My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part one of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place. SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing at 110a Ladbroke Grove, W10, at the farthest fringes of London’s West End; three miles west of Soho, one mile north of Hyde Park and within spitting distance of Portabello Road, Notting Hill and that infamous blue front-door adorned by Hugh Grant but owned by the film’s writer, who subsequently (following the film’s success) sold the house for oodles of cash - clever man. Now called The Flowered Corner, 110a Ladbroke Grove is a four-storey brown-brick Victorian terraced house nestled on the north-east corner of the crossroads of Lancaster Road and Ladbroke Grove; with the Kensington Park Hotel and North Kensington Library opposite, just as it was during war-time. With three flats above, the ground-floor is a floristry-shop; a single bright spot on a dirty dusty street, where the sweet smell of nectar is strangled by the greasy stench of chicken shops, the soothing colours of tulips are smothered by the choking fumes of trucks, buses and tube-trains, and the harmonious tranquillity of fresh pansies was once (as witness by myself) sullied - without no hint of irony – by a rather displeased youth cussing from a beaten-up banger; with his music blaring, no lights on and no windscreen, who was smoking a spliff, wearing a “f**k da Police” t-shirt and bemoaning two straight-faced coppers by complaining “why you police always hassling me?” Back in the 1940s, 110a Ladbroke Grove was known as David Griffin's Refreshment Room; a simple café serving standard British staples like tea, coffee, toast and fry-ups for a reasonable price in a poverty-stricken area. Inside (away from the bombs, the death and the debris) it was safe, welcoming and warm. And yet, it was here, on 21st August 1943, that a 21 year old girl called Ruth Fuerst, who had already escaped her certain death… would meet her new murderer. (Interstitial) Ruth Margarete Christina Fuerst was born on 2nd August 1922, the second of three children to Ludwig, an Austrian landscape painter and Friederike, a Jewish housewife, with an older brother Gottfried and younger brother Gabriel. Raised in the middle-class affluence of Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city, Ruth’s upbringing was peaceful, happy and joyous; and being a well-educated girl from a very liberal and unpolitical family, she embraced her life, her rights and her freedom. Eager to become a nurse, although a little bit shy; Ruth was always studious, intelligent and patient. Having inherited her father’s slim awkward frame, being a few inches taller than most girls, she always stood out. And as a fastidiously neat girl, with pale (but easily flushed) skin, brown (but eternally sad) eyes and a neat bob of dark straight hair - a colouring passed down from her mother’s Hungarian ancestry - although Ruth looked typically Jewish, she wasn’t. Plagued with minor complaints from birth; like a hereditary blood disorder (which often left her weak), buckled knees (which kept her excluded from sports) and terrible teeth (which left her in chronic pain), as a beloved girl from a well-to-do family, able to afford doctors, medicine and – fortuitously – a metal crown fitted to her upper-right molar, life could have been a lot worse. In need of fresh air, good light and striking landscapes to paint, her father (Ludwig) moved the family to a spacious villa on the edge of a forest, at Waldandacht funfzehn, in the picturesque Austrian spa-town of Bad Voslau, famed for its lush vineyards and rolling hills, twenty-three miles south-west of his hometown of Vienna. Being surrounded by her family, Ruth was happy, safe and loved. And although this affluent and bustling market town was home to just over nine-thousand people, by the late 1930’s, many homes would become vacant, many people would vanish and - for the first time in its history – the population of Bad Voslau would rapidly shrink. On 15th September 1935, with the National Socialist German Worker’s Party having risen to power and its leader - Adolf Hitler – appointed as the country’s Chancellor, fuelled by rabid anti-Semitism, bigotry and a decree to “protect German blood and honour”, the Reichstag established the Nuremberg Laws. Its purpose; to create an Aryan state and to eradicate anyone who wasn’t a pure-blood, whether black, gay, Romany, disabled, or Jewish. The Nazis classified a Jew as anyone who practiced Judaism, identified as Jewish, had married a Jew, was dating a Jew, and – regardless of whether they were (and always had been) a practicing Roman Catholic, as many German Jews had been since in 19th century – if any person had a traceable Jewish ancestry, they were subject to the Nuremberg Laws and regarded as a ‘mischlinge’ (or half-blood). Born Friederike Altmann, with her mother being a Hungarian Jew, although Ruth was a devout Roman Catholic who was never without her silver crucifix, being classified as a ‘mischlinge’, aged fourteen, Ruth was forced to leave Volkschule Bad Voslau on 4th July 1936, ending her dreams and her education. For the next two years, under Nazi rule, with all five members of the Fuerst family being ‘mischlinges’, they were all denied any rights, freedoms and being treated as an ‘untermensch’ (German for sub-human), Ruth and her family were forced to undertake menial and demeaning jobs. One of which included scrubbing the road surfaces with acid, which left Ruth’s palms badly scarred forever. On 12th March 1938, as the Nazis annexed Austria, ‘Anschluss’ was enacted, therefore – by law - all Jewish owned properties were seized, all personal belongings were sold, and having been forcibly separated, the fate of the Fuerst family was unknown. Some hid, others fled and where-as the rest were rounded-up and transported to uncertain fates. For the first time ever, Ruth was alone, homeless and scared, she was just sixteen years old. From 1st October 1938, for eight months, Ruth hid in a basement room at nummer zwei Nestroyplatz in Nazi-controlled Vienna, never knowing if her family were alive or dead. With fate smiling upon her, aided by a Swedish Christian mission, Ruth was issued with a passport and on 8th June 1939, just three months before start of World War Two, and being hungry and exhausted, Ruth fled to England. And yet, having escaped the horrors of the Nazi regime; a life of poverty, persecution and her certain execution, it was here, in the safety of West London, that Ruth Fuerst would end up dead (Interstitial). (Christie’s whisper) “She were Austrian I believe, a nice girl, plain but sad-looking. I’d met her in the summer of 43, in a café in Ladbroke Grove. Got herself in a dreadful mess she had, awful, so I gave her a few shillings – you know - to help her along. That’s all. It seemed like the right thing to do”. (End) On 1st September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany; a brutal six-year conflict which left homes decimated, families displaced, countless casualties maimed, crippled and traumatised, and - by the end of it all - at least eleven million people would be dead. One of whom was Ruth. Having just turned seventeen, Ruth was still a child; an impressionable young girl from a foreign land, who was scared and lost in a big strange city, with a limited grasp of English, a patchy education, weak legs, bad blood and sore teeth, with no skills, no friends and no family. And although she was thankful to be safe - missing her mother’s hug and her father’s love – she was alive… but also so alone. The last four years of her life were solitary and chaotic, and as much as she strived, she struggled. Initially, she lived with her guarantor Miss Edith Bessie Willis, in a delightful white terraced cottage at 92 Oakwood Road in the very Jewish north-west London neighbourhood of Golder’s Green. But with Edith being a prim and proper lady, and Ruth being a distraught teenager with scars on her hands, an emptiness in her heart and unimaginable horrors still plaguing her mind, they never got on. Still seeking to fulfil her dreams, being “intelligent and alert”, Ruth enrolled as a student nurse at St Gabriel’s Home in the seaside town of Westgate-on-Sea, and upon graduation, with a bright career in her sights, Ruth found work at the Santa Claus Children’s Home in Highgate… and life had hope. And then, as an Austrian exile who had legally entered England, even though she was just a young girl, being unsure whether she was a Nazi sympathiser, Ruth’s newly adopted country had her transferred to the Hutchinson Internment Camp in Douglas; a cold, barren and inescapable prison on the remote Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea; surrounded by bare walls, locked doors and barbed-wire. Sixth months later, having been deemed “not a threat” by the British Government, Ruth regained her freedom. But with her job gone, her reputation ruined and her life in tatters; with German bombers obliterating every city, Ruth was evacuated from London and (once again) uprooted to the windswept wilds of Elswick in Lancashire, where she knew no-one. And still, her life would only get worse. Half a year of enforced captivity had taken its toll; and where-as once this sweet, polite and joyous girl had been replaced by a fiery moody mess with tatty clothes, sullen eyes and unwashed skin; looking like a ragged orphan - which she knew she most likely was - Ruth had become trapped in a mental fog. With a doctor diagnosing her as “severely depressed”, although the capital wasn’t safe, for the sake of her mental wellbeing, Ruth moved back to familiarity of London. London was a city in ruins. After eight months of sustained aerial bombardment, as a wave-after-wave of bombers rained down death from the sky, the deep ominous drone of their engines untraceable amidst the thick clouds of black smoke. And although The Blitz was over, having failed to pummel the proud populous into submission, with the Luftwaffe being unrelenting, the bombings continued. An estimated forty-three thousand civilians would die during the air-raids, as with a daily risk of being killed by an incendiary bomb, a doodlebug or a V1 rocket, to many Londoners, death was a part of life. Houses would vanish overnight, sometimes terraces and even whole streets. And with its occupants being obliterated by blast-waves or incinerated by fire, the only evidence that a family ever existed, was when the Special Constables (a merge of my voice and Christie’s) “pulled bodies from the debris; sometimes alive, sometimes dead, sometimes whole, injured or disfigured, and yet sometimes all that was left was a foot, a hand or a head. Nasty business it was”. (Christie’s whisper) “But in war-time, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to simply vanish”. (End) Being eager to rebuild a small semblance of life and feeling like she was slowly becoming a Londoner, with the war being really just a bit of an inconvenience to her routine – as soot stained her skin, dust clogged her lungs and as she’d munch some bread, only to hear a crunch as she’d bit into grit – having endured rationing, blackouts and the limitations of her refugee status, Ruth ploughed on, hoping to truly make something of herself and (God rest them) her parents proud. In December 1941; whilst living in a small but pleasant lodging at 141 Elgin Crescent in Maida Vale, studying for her return to nursing and working as waitress at the exclusive May Fair Hotel in Stratton Street, W1, just shy of Piccadilly Circus; although she was a shy girl who struggled to make friends, Ruth met and fell in love with a Greek Cypriot waiter called Anastasio Isiedoran. A few months later; being rosier about the cheeks, fuller round the hips and with a noticeable bump, Ruth discovered that she was about to become a mum. And with the little miracle of a baby girl blossoming in her belly, having prayed nightly to the Lord and him (finally) hearing her cries, he blessed her with one more miracle; Friederike and Ludwig Fuerst - her mother and father - weren’t dead. Having fled the horrors of the Nazi regime and boarded a boat; her parents were alive, well and living in the safety of East 57th Street in New York City, where – they hoped – Ruth would join them. But being heavily pregnant, desperately broke and very recently single, in her state, Ruth knew that she couldn’t… (Christie’s whisper)…”and – as fate would have it - she wouldn’t”. As a young girl with weak legs, bad blood, poor teeth and frequent bouts of depression, life was hard. As an unskilled and partially-educated female in the nineteen-forties, life was harder. As a war-time refugee of Austrian-Jewish heritage living in London, life was even harder. But also being an unmarried expectant mother of no fixed abode; with no job, money or immediate family, life was impossible. So, on 9th October 1942, in the West End Lane ‘Home for Unmarried Mothers’ in Hampstead; being alone, scared and desperate, Ruth gave birth to a baby girl, who she named Christina… moments later, her baby was taken away. She never saw her again. From the end of 1942 to the middle 1943, having moved from job-to-job, lodging-to-lodging, leaving a trail of unpaid bills, as slowly she sunk back into depression, Ruth’s life returned to chaos. On 25th May 1943, Friederike received the last letter Ruth would ever write. Albeit brief (with all of the war-sensitive details deleted by national censor), in it, she stated she was working the night-shift in a local munitions factory, and reassured her mother that she was fine, well and she sent her love. On 29th June 1943, Ruth quit her job as a machinist at John Bolding & Sons of 56-58 Davies Street, W1, a munitions factory at the back of Bond Street station. And although she was always tired, tardy and sickly, barely working twenty hours of her forty hour week, her co-workers believed she was pregnant. On Saturday 21st August 1943, at a little after lunchtime, Ruth was seen by her landlady - Julie Teresa Walker – leaving her flat at 41 Oxford Gardens as she walked one road south towards Ladbroke Grove tube station wearing a distinctive fake leopard-skin coat. That was the last confirmed sighting of Ruth Fuerst. Believing she’d absconded without paying her rent, her landlady reported her missing ten days later. As one of many of missing refugees, her details appeared in the Police Gazette two weeks after that, but nobody searched for her. And as one of thousands of innocent civilians killed during the aerial bombardment, the mystery surrounding her death wouldn’t be investigated until a decade later. (Christie’s whisper) “She were Austrian I believe, a nice girl, plain but sad-looking… but in war-time, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to simply vanish”. (End) After this moment, only one person witnessed her alive; a Special Constable working out of the Harrow Road police station who’d been commended twice by the Police Commissioner and as a local man – who was moral, teetotal and charitable - was widely regarded as an upstanding pillar of society, a happily married man and a decorated war-hero. The Special Constable’s name was John Reginald Halliday Christie, known as Mr Christie, but (Christie’s whisper) “I prefer it if you call me Reg”. It was Saturday lunchtime. As per usual, although small and snug, David Griffin’s Refreshment Room at 110a Ladbroke Grove was busy, as throngs of famished regulars glugged tea, nibbled toast and tucked into hearty British fry-ups, which – like the walls – oozed with a thick slather of pig fat. In the corner, Ruth and Reg sat side-by-side, as they had done several times before. Ruth found it difficult to make friends, but with Reg being so approachable, kind and caring, even though he and his wife (Ethel) had no children of their own, the word which best described him was fatherly. As a slightly built man, twice her age but the same weight and height as Ruth, Reg seemed a harmless sort. And being almost totally bald (except for a thin crown of brown hair above his ears), wearing thick-lensed horn-rimmed spectacles (which magnified his soft brown eyes), a set of false teeth (which being too big sometimes slipped as he spoke) and talking in a barely audible whisper – having been injured in a mustard gas attack whilst bravely serving his country during The Great War – although he looked a little odd, she could see that Reg was a sweet and caring man who wouldn’t harm a fly. Ruth and Reg sat together, him having bought her a tea and toast, as he listened to her woes. His hand tenderly touching hers, but it wasn’t hard and coarse, but a little bit limp and damp. (Christie’s whisper) “Got herself in a dreadful mess she had, awful” (End). Being ten days away from failing to pay her rent, once again, Ruth risked eviction. Being unemployed, she couldn’t afford a check-up on her weak legs, her bad blood, her chronic teeth or the new baby which was (possibly) on the way. And as a deeply moral man who “never used prostitutes myself”, during war-time he’d often turn a blind-eye to good women who’d fallen on hard-times and struggled to make ends meet. (Christie’s whisper) “…so I gave her a few shillings – you know - to help her along. That’s all. It seemed like the right thing to do”. (End) Or so he said. And yet, the Police could find no-one in David Griffin’s Refreshment Room who remembers seeing either Reg or Ruth that day. Having visited his home twice before and kept this Special Constable company on his beat, on Tuesday 24th August 1943, Ruth entered Rillington Place; a grey featureless dead-end lined with ten three-storey Victorian terraced houses on both sides, with no trees, plants or front gardens, and – like it was cutting the street dead in its tracks - a ten-foot high brick wall behind which tube trains thundered by. Keen to collect those ten shillings, Ruth knocked on the black wooden door of 10 Rillington Place. First to greet her was Judy, Reg’s over-excitable brown mongrel who widdled a little when stroked, but once again, there was no sign of his wife Ethel, who was up north visiting her family in Halifax. The hallway was thin, drab and dark; to the left was a set of stairs which led up to other tenant’s flats, and to the right was the ground-floor flat which belonged to the Christie’s; with a front-room, a bedroom and a kitchen, with a neat little garden and a communal wash-house and lavatory outback. So with tea brewing on the hob, Reg ushered Ruth along the thin hallway into the kitchen. Oddly, none of the residents in Rillington Place remember seeing either Reg or Ruth that day. Having no central heating, limited electricity and illuminated by Victorian gas-lights which bathed the pokey kitchen in a flickering yellowy glow, as Reg perched awkwardly in front of the alcove on a small round stool, Ruth leaned back in his one good seat. By “good”, it was really just a wooden deck-chair draped in a grey blanket and held together by (what should have been) six lengths of rope, but as she sat there, supping a nice cuppa and getting toasty in front of the wood-burning range. Ruth was cosy. For a while they chatted, as the older man imparted his wisdom, knowledge and fatherly advice to the inexperienced girl, keen to help her out of her difficult situation; with her rent due, bad teeth and (possibly) another baby in her belly. But it was as she stared into his soft brown eyes; longing for love and missing a man’s touch, that – being overcome with lust – Ruth started to undress. (Christie’s whisper) “She were madly in love with me” (End). Christie was a happily married man, for twenty-three years, he didn’t do this sort of thing and was quite shy to boot, but as she slowly undid the buttons on her fake leopard-skin coat, revealing a young slim body with a full heaving bust, being a woman with strong sexual urges, Ruth led Reg into his bedroom. (Christie’s whisper) “She were completely naked, lying on my bed, wanting me to have intercourse with her” (End). And as much as Reg reminded her he was married (Christie’s whisper) “she wanted us three to team up, to go away somewhere together. I wouldn’t do that” (End). But not wishing to offend her, (Christie’s whisper) “I got on the bed and had sex with her”. Of the many statements he gave, all are inconsistent; sometimes he’d be pedantic about the smallest and most insignificant of details (“no it definitely wasn’t that”) and yet, he’d be impossibly vague about whole events (“I can’t be certain, it were a while ago, you know?”). But when asked where, when, how and why he murdered Ruth Fuerst, he would simply state (“I don’t recall”). Except to say: (Christie’s whisper) “it were while I was having intercourse with her, I strangled her with a piece of rope”. As the full weight of Reg’s naked spindly body bared-down upon her, his putty-white legs pressed tightly around her skinny thighs, trapping her legs; as Ruth’s arms flailed wildly - being gripped in panic, fear and unable to breath, let alone scream - the more her trembling hands grasped at the taut rope which slowly crushed her throat, the tighter he pulled it. As her soft youthful skin turned a mottled shade of puce as the blood vessels in her face swelled and ruptured. As the tightening ligature forced her tongue to jut-out of her mouth like it was trying to escape from her silently screaming face. As being in uncontrollable terror, her shaking body expelled its last splash of urine and faeces. And as the capillaries in the whites of her eyes began to burst so they appeared almost black, the last thing that Ruth saw - wasn’t the sweet smile of her baby daughter, the peaceful fields of her hometown of Bad Voslau, or Ludwig & Friederike Fuerst, her beloved parents – but the terrifying grimace of Reg Christie; the father-figure she liked, trusted and (he thought) loved, as in his hands he gripped both ends of the straining rope, until her life drained away. There she lay, dead. (Christie’s whisper) “She looked more beautiful in death than in life… I remember I gazed down at the still form of my first victim and experienced a strange peaceful thrill”. But his thrill was to be short-lived. (Loud knock at door) Receiving a telegram that his wife would be home that evening, Reg dragged the naked corpse from the bedroom, along the communal hallway and into his front room, and under a large rug, where (with a few floorboards loose after a plumber had repaired a leaky pipe) he hid Ruth’s body. Ethel arrived home that night and – with fresh sheets on the bed, her brother (Henry) fast asleep just a few feet away, Reg having burned the clothes in a dustbin and buried the body by the back-garden – she was none-the-wiser; of the sex, the death, the body, or her husband, the murderer. There were four other tenants at 10 Rillington Place that day, but none of them heard a sound. And although, John Reginald Halliday Christie made several vague statements; when asked in court “Mr Christie, was this the first person you had killed”? He would reply (Christie) “I think so, I don’t recall”. 21 year old Ruth Margarete Christina Fuerst was just a girl with weak legs, bad blood and painful teeth, who (somehow) had escaped persecution, anti-Semitism and her extermination in a concentration camp at the hand of the Nazis. She had endured hardship, poverty, hunger, bombings, imprisonment, abandonment and the loss of her family, her home, her baby and – finally - her life. But being listed only as missing, not dead and certainly not murdered, Ruth Fuerst would become just one of thousands of innocent civilians believed to have been killed in the war-time bombing raids. (Christie’s whisper) “She were Austrian I believe, a nice girl, plain but sad-looking… but in war-time, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to simply vanish”. (End) OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed part one, part two of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for more goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Unresolved and Dark Histories. (PLAY PROMO) A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, who are literally saving my life by financially keeping Murder Mile afloat with their generous donations, which I definitely don’t spend on cake. This week’s heroes are Alex Stone and Harriet Oliver. May your world be full of Belgian buns, battenbergs and fondant fancies. For me? That’s as good as heaven. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with a special voice cameo by Police Constable Arsenal Guinness and with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well.
Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.
Music: Additional music was used (in the case of Cult With No Name) with their kind permission and all other artists under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive. A full track listing follows:
Sounds: With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution).
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.
Crime-scene photo of the "test-shot" in Freddie's car door
As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script.
You can DOWNLOAD episode #47 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the play button on the media player below. Full Transcript - Episode #47 - Who Killed Freddie Mills? Part Two - TRANSCRIPT
Thank you for downloading episode forty-seven of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. This is the second and final part of Who Killed Freddie Mills, so – if you haven’t - listen to episode forty-six first. But before we begin, please take a moment to listen to this important message.
(Christmas music): Ho-ho-ho, it’s not quite almost sort-of Christmas-ish, ho-ho-ho; a festive time of wildly confusing Pagan and Christian rituals, but mostly it’s about gorging on food, family arguments, watching a Bond film and spending lots of money. Ho-ho-ho. So if your house is like this… Son: “Daddy, for Christmas, I want a Murder Mile mug”, Dad: “Oh really. And have you tidied your bedroom? No? Well, go and f**king tidy it then!”, boy cries. Wife: “Honey, for Christmas, what I really want is…” (dad whispering “please say a divorce, please say a divorce”) “…a Murder Mile card with badges and stickers”, Dad: “Ah shit”. Granny: “Son, what I want was … (dad whispering “please say it, please say it”)… a lovely one-way trip to Switzerland…”, Dad: “Yes! Hallelujah”, “…but first I want a voice cameo in a Murder Mile episode”, Dad: “you got it granny”. …why not treat your loved ones to a Murder Mile eBook (me “it’s a good distraction as you bash them over the head”), gift vouchers to a Murder Mile Walk (me “if they’re really obnoxious, I’ll bump them off for you”), a Murder Mile ring-tone (me “if you’ve forgotten where you’ve buried the body, just call”) and a whole episode dedicated to them (me “think of it as an early obituary”). And by “loved ones”, I really mean “yourself”. Sod the family, they’re all an ungrateful bunch of bastards. Ho-ho-ho. Legal disclaimer) Murder Mile in no way endorses the brutal death of family members, unless that murder is committed in or near Soho; that it’s grisly, shocking and amusing, and you give me exclusive rights to all of the photos, interviews and murder weapons so I can make an episode out of it. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within London’s West End. Today’s episode is part two about the mysterious death of Freddie Mills; was it a suicide, or a murder, involving debts, threats, depression, a bungled investigation, a secret sexuality, or was he a sadistic serial killer with a guilty conscience? Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatisation of the real events, it may also features loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 47: Who killed Freddie Mills? Part Two In the early hours of Sunday 25th July 1965, in the darkest corner of Goslett Yard, an eerily silent dead-end just off Charing Cross Road, Freddie Mills (the champion boxer, wholesome celebrity and beloved family man) was found dead. There were no gunshots heard, no fingerprints found, no threats on his life, no witnesses, no suspects, and exactly how, when and why he was shot is unknown. The crime-scene was simple: Freddie had sat alone, in the left rear seat of his own silver Citreon DS19, for one and a half hours, to sleep-off a raging headache and the alcohol he had consumed. Its engine was off, its lights were out, the rear windows were open and the car was in complete darkness. And having suffered from insomnia, depression and being crippled by escalating debts, using a .22 calibre rifle, Freddie shot himself in the head. The gun was found in his car, the bullets matched the gun and with the Coroner ruling his death as a “suicide”, eight days later the case was closed. But several elements of the case just didn’t make sense… According to those who knew and loved him, not only was Freddie a fighter, a winner and champion, who rolled with the punches and always got-up when he was knocked down, but as a loving father and doting husband who was so full of life, fun and joy, who loved his family above everything else, if he did kill himself in a fit of depression, why was there no suicide note? These are the elements that are in question: if he had been drinking, where was the bottle? If this was Freddie’s car, why was he sat in the left rear seat? If this was the gun which killed Freddie, where did it come from, who owned it, why was it found neatly propped against the seat in-front, and why was he shot using a fairground rifle? If he had shot himself, why was he still sitting upright with both hands flat on his lap, and why had he been shot in his right eye? And – more bafflingly – why did the Police delay investigating the crime-scene for several hours, and why was the body of Freddie Mills (and the rifle itself) removed before the Police had even arrived? After his death, several theories started circulating suggesting that Freddie had a dark-side. Five deep secrets that (for many years) he had kept hidden from his friends, family and his legion of fans, which linked him to debts, gangsters, police corruption, a secret life as a bisexual and a sadistic past as the depraved slayer of eight women in West London, known as The Hammersmith Stripper. What makes each theory stick is the fact that they are all plausible, so let’s look at them a little closer: Theory One: Freddie Mills was murdered by Chinese gangsters who were trying to take over his club. It’s true; Freddie was the co-owner of a Soho nightclub with his Chinese business partner – Andy Ho; two years prior the Freddie Mills Nitespot had been a Chinese restaurant, which was situated just one street away from Chinatown, an area ruled by the Triads, who (during that era) were rapidly expanding their criminal empire through extortion, blackmail and murder. But with no threats on Freddie’s life, no known association with the Triads and no evidence that the actor, chef and the club’s co-owner Andy Ho (who was Freddie’s friend and business partner for more than two decades) was himself a Triad? If this was a murder used to force an unwilling businessman to part with his club; why didn’t they kill Andy Ho, why didn’t they kill Chrissie (who was also a co-owner) and why would they make - this incredibly powerful message - look like a suicide? Theory Two: Freddie Mills committed suicide over the death of his gay lover. It’s true; Freddie was distraught at the death of his close friend Michael Holliday, a popular singer with chart hits in the 1950’s and 60’s. And being a fragile man with drug issues, a history of mental illness and a secret sexuality, on the 29th October 1963 - having headlined at the Freddie Mills Nitespot (a cabaret situated in Soho - the homosexual capital of the West End) - Michael Holliday tragically overdosed, just two years before the mysterious death of Freddie. But were Freddie and Michael gay lovers? No. Freddie was a big-hearted happily-married man, who loved and cared for everyone, who feared for his friend’s mental health and had tried and failed to prevent Michael’s suicide. And although the press tried to paint Freddie as a secret homosexual who – they claimed – had been arrested in a public lavatory and charged with indecency (a charge for which there is no evidence); Ronnie Kray, the openly bisexual East End gangster who knew Freddie and dated Michael Holliday, stated before he died “Freddie was a real man's man, he wasn't that way inclined”. Theory Three: Freddie Mills was either murdered by, or his suicide was staged by the Kray twins. It’s true; Freddie Mills knew the infamous East End gangsters Ronnie & Reggie Kray; who had a history of violence, regularly frequented his club, both had access to guns, were in London at the time of his death, and in the following years, both Ronnie & Reggie Kray were convicted of murder. So did the Kray twins murder Freddie Mills? No. Of course they didn’t. Not only was every club in 1960’s Soho frequented by gangsters, and not only was Freddie not a threat to them, but as ex-boxers themselves, Ronnie & Reggie Kray were in awe of Freddie and considered it an honour to drink and chat with the former light-heavyweight champion of the world; a man they called their “friend”. Two years after Freddie’s death, when his wife Chrissie asked Detective Chief Superintendent Leonard 'Nipper' Read - the man who made it his mission to bring down the Kray twins – to re-examine the case, even he had to reluctantly state that there was no evidence that the Krays were ever involved. And besides, the idea that Freddie’s death was either a murder or a staged suicide, simply doesn’t make any sense. As why would Freddie pay someone to stage his suicide or murder? And even if they did, why would they shoot him in the eye, using a fairground rifle, and not leave a suicide note? And yet, if you still truly believe that Freddie was murdered, by being shot, in the eye, with a fairground rifle? Ask yourself this; why would a hired assassin choose to commit a murder using fake bullets? Yes, fake bullets, which weren’t made of lead, they were made of clinker; a stony residue made from burnt coal which is designed to fragment when it hits a wooden target, just like it would, at a fun-fair. Theory Four: the Police (deliberately) bungled the investigation into the death of Freddie Mills. It’s true; the Police delayed a full examination of Goslett Yard for several hours and the body of Freddie Mills (and the rifle itself) was removed from the crime scene before the Police had even arrived… but the investigation wasn’t bungled. When (the ambulance drivers) Leslie Rowe & Thomas Spalding arrived at 1:39am, the alley was so dark they had to use torches, as did the Police, who preserved the scene by sealing off the street and didn’t conduct a thorough examination of Goslett Yard or the car until after sunrise at 4:31am. And why was Freddie’s body removed from the scene? Simple, because he wasn’t dead. Having been shot sometime prior to 11:45pm, although Freddie was motionless, unresponsive and bleeding, having detected very faint signs of life, Rowe & Spalding (the ambulance drivers) transferred Freddie to Middlesex Hospital and they took charge of the rifle so the doctor could determine what type of gun and bullet his patient had been shot with - all of which was standard practice for a suicide. And Theory Five: Freddie Mills was an infamous serial-killer known as The Hammersmith Stripper. It’s true; between 1959 and 1965, in West London, eight young prostitutes were strangled by a serial sexual sadist who dumped their naked bodies in or around the River Thames, and according to Chief Superintendent John Du Rose (who headed-up the investigation) his prime suspect was a “respectable married man and an ex-boxer, in his forties, who had committed suicide in mid-1965”. Even Michael Litchfield, reporter for tabloid newspaper The Sun confirmed that Mills had met with John Du Rose, a fellow freemason at the West End’s masonic lodge, and Freddie had confessed to the murders in return for a reduced sentence - a devastating confession which Du Rose secretly recorded. So was Freddie Mills (the world champion boxer, the beloved film star and devout family man) secretly the brutal slayer of eight prostitutes in the 1960’s, who was known as the Hammersmith Stripper? No. Of course he wasn’t. This theory, like all of those we’ve just discussed, is complete and utter dog-shit. And here’s why: Freddie was not a sexual sadist with a hatred for women; he was never cruel, mean or spiteful; he was a good man with a big heart, who (above everything else) loved his family. Freddie had no criminal record; not one charge for assault, indecency, soliciting, harassment, peeping, prowling or public lewdness, all of which you would expect from a serial sexual sadist. Of the seven thousand men who were interviewed by the Police in connection with the Hammersmith Stripper, whose cars were seen curb-crawling in the area, a silver Citreon DS19 with the licence plate DLR610 does not appear in the Police database, and Freddie Mills was never questioned. Freddie doesn’t match the Identikit image of the Police’s primary suspect, who was a short, slim, elfin-faced youth with a long straight nose, beady little eyes and sticky-out ears. And even if you exclude the fact that Chief Superintendent John Du Rose confirmed that Freddie Mills was never a suspect, at any point, in any part of the investigation into the Hammersmith Stripper? This taped confession which Michael Litchfield claims exists… has never been seen, has never been heard, and even in John Du Rose’s own autobiography, it is never once mentioned or referenced. So how did this theory begin? It began with a simple misunderstanding; Chief Superintendent John Du Rose stated that his prime suspect in the investigation was a “respectable married man and an ex-boxer, in his forties, who had committed suicide in mid-1965”. A description which perfectly fits Freddie Mills and his very public death which – across Britain - was front-page news. Only Du Rose wasn’t talking about Freddie at all, he was talking about Mungo Ireland; a mid-forties, ex-boxer and happily married man who worked as a security guard on the Heron Trading Estate in Acton (an area synonymous with prostitution and where the body of the Hammersmith Stripper’s last victim was found) and having become the Police’s prime suspect in the murders, Mungo Ireland left a note which read "I can't stick it any longer… to save you and the police looking for me I'll be in the garage", where his dead body was found having gassed himself. So if Freddie Mills wasn’t murdered by the Triads, if his death wasn’t staged by the Kray twins, if the police investigation wasn’t part of a masonic cover-up, and if he wasn’t a sadistic serial killer with a guilty conscience? Was he really just a former boxing idol, a fading film star and a failing businessman, who was wracked with debts and - in a booze-fuelled fit of depression - took his own life? What really happened that night? To understand Freddie’s death, we have to go back to 1948, when he was at the peak of his success. On 26th July 1948, Fearless Freddie fought the American boxer Gus Lesnevich in-front of a 46000 strong crowd in West London’s White City stadium. And although Freddie wasn’t a skilled fighter; with a dogged mix of pressure, persistence and an uncanny ability to take a pounding, as Lesnevich launched a brutal attack in the 12th and 13th rounds, Freddie went the distance and won on points, to become the world light-heavyweight champion, a national hero and one of Britain’s greatest boxing idols. Freddie was at the top of his game, with nowhere to go, but down. Two months later, Freddie was set to defend his title against Lesnevich, but the fight was cancelled, as having been diagnosed with a misaligned vertebrae at the base of the skull, Freddie was crippled with migraines and dizziness – symptoms which would plague him for the rest of his life. In November 1948, Freddie beat Johnny Ralph in Johannesburg for the Empire heavyweight title, breaking a metacarpal in his right hand. In June 1949, Freddie fought Bruce Woodcock to retain the British, Empire and European title, but was floored four times and knocked out in the 14th round. And in January 1950, having lost three teeth and with his gums imbedded in his upper jaw, Fearless Freddie lost his world light-heavyweight title to Joey Maxim who knocked him out in the 10th round. Once month later, Freddie Mills retired from boxing. Making full use of his celebrity status; being blessed with a cheeky smile, twinkling eyes and a childish sense of fun, Fearless Freddie made the move into television and quickly became a family favourite. But as the fifties made way for the sixties, and his crippling migraines started affecting his memory, his speech and had developed into facial tics, acting work for Freddie Mills had begun to dry up. Freddie was no dummy, he knew his career as a boxer and an actor was short-lived, so being eager to provide a stable future for his beloved family, Freddie had invested his winnings in several properties and businesses in and around London. In 1946, four years before his retirement from boxing, Freddie and his friend Andy Ho opened the Freddie Mills’ Chinese Restaurant at 143 Charing Cross Road, where – having wisely used his celebrity status to pull in the punters - it remained as a profitable and popular business for almost twenty years. And although, in the 1940’s, Chinese restaurants were a rarity, by the 1960’s they were commonplace. So being eager to regain his success, in May 1963, Freddie invested £12000 (which is a quarter of a million pounds today) and converted the premises into a cabaret and nightclub called the Freddie Mills Nitespot, which was instantly a success… for four months… and then it closed. Faced with tough competition, spiralling overheads and with Freddie’s celebrity status almost non-existent (except amongst 1940’s boxing aficionados like the Kray twins), as the nightclub sunk deeper into debt, Freddie was forced to sell-off his other properties simply to stay afloat, and although, in September 1963, the Freddie Mills Nitespot was up for sale, no-one would buy it. Being a born fighter with an uncanny ability to take a pounding, Freddie re-opened the Nitepot in August 1964… but again, the club struggled and Freddie was taken to court for non-payment of bills. And then; being crippled by migraines, dizziness and bedridden with pneumonia, on Friday 23rd July 1965, just two days before his death, at Marylebone Magistrates Court, Freddie (and Andy Ho) were found guilty of keeping an illegal fruit machine and fined £68 each. With his finances laid bare before the court, it was only then that Chrissie (his wife) learned how dire their situation was – that Freddie Mills (the world champion boxer, actor, businessman, devoted father and loyal husband) was broke. With his cheeky smile and that infamous twinkle in his eye now gone, as he secretly struggled to cope with depression, having been trained (as a boxer) never to show any weakness, Freddie fought on. And although, never once in Freddie’s life had he ever given up, here he had reached rock-bottom. On Tuesday 20th July 1965, Freddie drove to the home of 58 year old Mary Gladys Ronaldson, an old friend from his fledgling days as a semi-professional pugilist at Sam McEwan’s Boxing Booth, who was currently working at the nearby Battersea funfair. Under the pretence that he had been hired to open a charity fete in Esher that week and that he wanted to dress as a cowboy, he asked Mary for a gun. The gun she offered him was an FN self-loading .22 calibre Belgian repeater rifle, the type used to shoot targets at the fun-fair. Mary had no issues loaning him the gun; she knew Freddie, she trusted him and with the unloaded rifle having been removed from the shooting gallery as it was old, faulty and “prone to misfire”, she knew it would be perfect as a prop and harmless as a lethal weapon. With no other option – unable to confide in his friends, too ashamed to tell his family and knowing that most gangsters are gossips - Freddie accepted her offer and returned on Thursday 22nd July 1965 to collect the rifle. That day, he seemed anxious, stressed and after he had left, although the faulty rifle was unloaded, of the five bullets that her son had left on the mantelpiece… three were missing. Exactly what happened that night, only Freddie knows, but the most logical theory is this. On the evening of Saturday 24th July 1965, the night that Freddie was shot; being gripped with depression, a migraine, pneumonia and chronic insomnia, having kissed his beloved wife and daughters goodbye, Freddie hopped into his silver Citreon DS19 and drove to Goslett Yard. Freddie was a champion, a fighter, a winner; who had achieved greatness and (to many) was an idol, who once had it all, but now it was gone; his fame, his health and his wealth. Being trained to hide his weakness, Freddie sat alone, in the darkness of his car, a loaded rifle in his hands, barely a few feet from an off-licence, a pub, and the half-empty nightclub which (every second it stayed open) it bled him dry, as with just £387 to his name, within the week, he would be bankrupt. And to the family who he truly adored, with his life insured, Freddie knew he was better off dead. Freddie was a man torn, as – having returned the gun once before, written no suicide note, and yet he had made plans to compare the cabaret and to meet Chrissie and Don - for almost an hour he sat alone; mulling over his life, with alcohol in his blood, a throbbing pain in his brain and tears in his eyes. Having test-fired the rifle – and seeing the dense ‘clinker’ almost penetrate the steel base of the passenger’s side door - as the faulty rifle worked fine, and seeing no other way out, closing his eyes tight, Fearless Freddie put the muzzle of the rifle to his forehead. No-one would see anything, as the car was hidden in a dark dead-end. No-one would hear anything, as a fairground rifle wouldn’t make a bang, but a muffled pop. (POP) And with the crime-scene being a chaotic mess of distressed relatives and friends, all concerned for Freddie who wasn’t dead, but dying, it’s clear to see how, where and why the confusion began. So who moved Freddie and sat him upright with his hands on his lap? Well, before the ambulance men had arrived, four people clearly stated that they had moved Freddie; Robert Deacon the doorman shook him (“Mr Mills, it’s time”), Henry Grant the head-waiter shook and slapped him (“Freddie, wake up”), Chrissie had hugged and cradled him (“Freddie? Freddie?”), his blood staining her blouse, as did his step-son Don. And for at least an hour and a half after he was shot, Freddie wasn’t dead. So who moved the rifle and where were the fingerprints? Well, according to the Police, as guns are oily, usable fingerprints are only recovered in less than 5% of all cases. And again, in their own witness statements, three people admitted to moving the gun; Leslie Rowe & Thomas Spalding (the ambulance men) and Freddie’s step-son Don who stated “I’m certain I put it back in roughly the same place”. So why was Freddie shot in the eye? Well, it’s entirely possible that the faulty gun didn’t go off? That he only opened his eyes to wonder why he wasn’t dead, that he only moved the gun from his forehead to see what was wrong, and with the rifle being “prone to misfire”, a light thud may have dislodged the firing pin, accidentally shooting a lethal blast of clinker into his eye and into his brain? Although, what really happened that night, only Freddie truly knows. Freddie Mills was a good man; he wasn’t a gangster, a secret homosexual or a serial sexual sadist, he was a devoted family man with a cheeky smile, twinkling eyes and a big heart, who struggled alone, with injury, debts and depression, and – for the final time – lost a brave fight. And although, a series of shallow self-serving cowards have fabricated a series of scandalous tales and rumours simply to make themselves a name, some cash, or to boost their ratings, Fearless Freddie did not deserve to be treated this way. So let us remember him properly; here’s to Freddie Mills, the world light-heavyweight champion boxer, film star, businessman, loving husband, doting father and legend. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Don’t forget to tune in next week for the start of Murder Mile’s huge eight-part series into the untold story of one of Britain’s most terrifying serial killers. Who is it? Find out next week. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for more extra goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Obscura and Asian Madness. (PLAY PROMO) A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, some of whom will get to find out who my new multi-part series is about days before everyone else. Ooh. So thank you to M.J. Maccardini and Hannah Mirza. And to Thomas Wiedemann who donated to save Murder Mile from poverty. Thank you folks, you are truly amazing. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well.
Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archive.
Music: Additional music was used (in the case of Cult With No Name) with their kind permission and all other artists under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive. A full track listing follows:
Sounds: With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution).
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018 and iTunes Top 50. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
Crime scene photo: Freddie's car parked in Goslett Yard
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FORTY-SIX
Episode Forty-Six: On Sunday 25th July 1965, in Goslett Yard in Soho; world champion light-heavyweight boxer, film star and club-owner Freddie Mills was found dead, shot in the head. But was it a suicide, or murder? This is part one of a two-part episode.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations (and I don't want to be billed £300 for copyright infringement again), to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster & tour guide of Murder Mile Walks, hailed as one of the best "quirky curious & unusual things to do in London". 
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