Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
CLICK HERE to download the Murder Mile podcast via iTunes and to receive the latest episodes, click "subscribe". You can listen to it by clicking PLAY on the embedded media player below.
THE LOCATIONS
For your enjoyment, I've posted photos of the locations discussed in this episode. They're all in chronological order. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile). 
The starting point on the corner of Soho Square and Frith Street is on the far left.
If you would like to follow the journey, simply use this handy Googlemaps Streetview link above. This is the start position and you can follow the directions (above) while you listen to the podcast.
Credits: Murder Mile was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. The music featured in this episode include:
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tor 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 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk
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BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The parking space at Gurnell Leisure centre where Penny Bell's Jaguar was parked and where she was murdered
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR:
Today’s episode is about Penny Bell; a successful businesswoman brutally-stabbed to death in a public place. And although her last moments alive left an exhaustive trail of witnesses and clues, thirty-years on, her murder remains unsolved.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
This is the location of the car park at the Gurnell Leisure Centre in Greenford where Penny Bell was murdered in her own car. It is marked with a teal cross near the words 'Greenford'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
This is the location of the car park at Gurnell Leisure Centre where Penny Bell was murdered. This is just a link to YouTube, so don't worry, it won't eat up your data.
Here is also the reconstruction of the attack and the moments leading up to it.
Top left to bottom right: two photos of the parking space at Gurnell Leisure Centre as it looks today, the third photo is of the entrance where the witness said they saw Penny mouthe the words "help me", top right is a wider photo of the car park. Along the bottom is Gurnell Leisure Centre main entrance, the corner of Shelley Road and Greenford Road where Penny's Jaguar clipped the curb (as witnessed by several drivers) as well as Greenford Roundabout and the A40.
SOURCES:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about Penny Bell; a successful businesswoman brutally-stabbed to death in a public place. And although her last moments alive left an exhaustive trail of witnesses and clues, thirty-years on, her murder remains unsolved. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature 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 134: Penny Bell and the Thirty-Year Silence. Today I’m standing at Gurnell Grove in Greenford, W13; two miles north-east of the kidnap of the Chohan family, one and a half miles north of Alice Gross’ grave, one mile west of where Muriel Eady met Reg Christie, and two miles west of the child-rapist Bernie Cooper - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated north of Hanwell sits Gurnell Grove. Where-as once this comprised of a few small farmsteads full of fields for as far as the eye can see, as the city boomed; high-rises shot up, greenery was replaced with grey, one of the last parks became a golf course (where ten tossers in garish checks hog a space fit for a few thousand families) and all that was left is an ugly eyesore ensnared by the snarling A40. To offset this inequality, beside the Ruislip Road sits Gurnell Leisure Centre. Opened in 1981 - but using a 1970’s design of concrete steps, tubular iron railings and large glass panels - The Gurnell is a council-run leisure centre providing a swimming pool, a gym and a sports track for the local community. With many schools nearby, for four decades, The Gurnell was the probable epicentre of all outbreaks of verrucas, cold sores, athlete’s foot or ruptured ear-drums in Ealing (as kids let loose for six whole minutes are incapable of speaking in a pitch or a volume which doesn’t make your ears bleed). Currently the Gurnell Leisure Centre is closed, awaiting a much-needed redevelopment, but thirty years ago, it looked identical. It was a popular and busy hub of activity for the locals, surrounded by school and homes, with handy bus-links on the road outside and a large concrete car park out front. That day, Penny Bell’s powder-blue Jaguar XJS pulled into the car-park; it was broad daylight, the car park was busy and it was the perfect place to get fit... but an unlikely spot for a very public murder. And yet, it was here, on Thursday 6th June 1991 at 10:30am, that a trail of clues led to the last moments of Penny Bell’s life. But after the culprit fled, what followed was thirty-years of silence. (Interstitial) There was very little in Penny’s past which would suggest she was about to be murdered... Ruth Penelope Bell, known as Penny was born on 28th February 1948 in Burnham-on-Sea, a sweet little seaside town in Somerset. Little is reported about her upbringing, but being adopted, life was difficult. Sent to boarding school from the ages of eight to sixteen, she was lonely, scared and sought stability. But whereas, a troubled past may lead some people to a trouble future, for Penny, this missing piece of her life spurred her forward in a deep desire to achieve, to be liked and to be respected. Leaving home aged sixteen, the mid-1960’s were a difficult era for a young woman to succeed (even if she had the skills, drive and passion, as Penny had) but what aided her most was the warmth of her personality. Those who knew Penny described her with the same words; charismatic, effervescent, bright, smart, funny and loving, a strong highly-organised woman who had time and love for everyone. Bursting with energy and compassion, Penny worked for the Samaritans in the charity’s concert division, giving hope to those who feel hopeless, and inspiration to those who felt their future was defined by their past. In 1970, aged 22 - being possibly a little too young and a little too eager to find love - she married Jon Hayes in the Hampshire town of Gosport. Sadly, it was not to be and they divorced a few years later. In 1980, her son Matthew was born, and being keen to give her boy the best start in life, although she was a full-time mum, she was also an entrepreneur. In 1981, with ambition in her head and a toddler in her arms, she and her business partner (Michael Flynn) built a very successful catering employment agency called Coverstaff Ltd, initially based out of Acton in West London, which is still there today. And as her business boomed, her love-life blossomed. In April 1981, she married Alastair Bell, and not long afterwards their daughter Lauren was born. Blessed with a strong relationship which began as a solid friendship, as far as we know, the couple kept no secrets; he knew that she was adopted and divorced, and she knew that he was a bisexual who had lived with a man for the last eleven-years. This openness made their pasts so accepted that Alastair’s former partner was a guest at their wedding. During the early years of their marriage, the couple lived in a semi-detached house at Whitmore Road in West Harrow, with Alastair working as an estate agent at A S Franklins in South Harrow. But as Penny’s business grew, it made sense for Alistair to become a stay-at-home dad aided by a nanny. Penny was the main breadwinner, which was unusual in the 1980’s, but for the Bell family, it worked. In 1990, they moved into a £100,000 house in Baker's Wood, an exclusive little hamlet near the village of Denham in Buckinghamshire, described as ‘The Home of the Stars’. And being a loop of large five-bedroomed homes inside a secure gated community - with private drives, swimming pools and expansive gardens which overlooked the countryside - it was a safe-haven for the semi-wealthy. By 1991, 43-year-old Penny had left her troubled past behind having forged ahead with a bright future; she had been happily married for ten years, she had two lovely children aged nine and eleven, and her business was a big success. She was happy, loved and respected... ...and yet, someone would hate her so much, they would risk everything to murder her. In the days leading up to her death, Penny’s life was busy and stressful. Her business had expanded to a new office in Kilburn, and over the last seven months their home in Bakers Wood was undergoing extensive renovations, with as many as six contract firms and twenty builders on site at any time. As a successful businesswoman in the early 1990’s, Penny always had on her person two items; the latest model of Nokia flip-phone, small enough to pop in a pocket but only capable of making calls, and her Filofax, in which she meticulously detailed her every movement, thought, action or contact. But by June 1991, gaps appeared in her diary, several actions were out-of-character and described as “the most stressed I have ever seen her”, Penny brushed off her family’s concerns as tiredness. On Monday 3rd June, three days before her murder, Penny withdrew £8500 (£16,000 today) from the couple’s joint bank account. This was not usual, as she often withdrew large sums, and most purchases in the 90’s were paid by cash or cheque. But what was it for? On Tuesday 4th, two days before, both Vicky Bird (the nanny) and Lauren (her daughter) saw the £8500. It was still in Penny’s purse. On the surface, everything seemed normal; there were no nuisance calls, no suspicious packages and no sinister visitors. Penny was stressed, but as a successful-businesswomen, this was far from strange. On her last night alive, her husband, her children, the nanny and even the builders would state that she looked “lost”, “zoned-out” and “distant”, something was wrong but she wouldn’t say what. Whatever the problem was, Penny Bell remained silent... ...and yet, her silence would last for the next thirty years. Thursday 6th June 1991 was a typical morning, as the Bell family went about their usual rituals before another ordinary day, the weather was sunny and bright. As always, Penny was immaculately dressed with perfect make-up, matching earrings, a stylish dress and her short blonde-hair elegantly coiffured. Her mood was described as "bright and chirpy”. Not once did she appear “rushed or anxious”. And being a caring professional, Penny always had time and energy for everyone... even on that morning. At 8am, the builders arrived as arranged, and they remained on-site. At 8:30am, as per usual, still working part-time, Alastair left for work and (as it was on-route) he would drop Matthew off at school. The same thing happened every day, except that day, Penny didn’t wave him goodbye, but with so many builders requiring her time, he put this little lapse down to distraction. At 8:50am, an electrician asked for Penny’s opinion on the lights, she was polite but made it clear she had a meeting in an hour. At 09:10am, with a set of wooden blocks and a roll of floral wallpaper, Penny showed the builders the colour-scheme for her new kitchen. As before, she was decisive, but calm. Whoever her meeting was with, and why, she kept it secret and she didn’t write it in her diary. At 9:40am, Penny left her home in her powder-blue Jaguar XJS Series II; a stylish £34,000 two-door hard-top with cream leather seats, a walnut dash, smooth elegant lines and a powerful V12 engine. Compared to many other cars, it was a real head-turner, the kind you couldn’t help but notice. On the downside - being more of a statement than a family runabout - the boot was tiny, the backseat was useless, the headroom was low, the rear window was barely a slit, and a large console between the passenger and driver’s seats made it a little cramped, unless you were sitting down and facing forward. Taking her regular route, the A40 would have got to her office just after 10am... ...but instead of driving 17 miles east to Kilburn, she drove 3.5 miles south-west to an isolated wooded layby on the Fulmer Common Road, at the edge of Black Park. One witness out walking her dog spotted Penny’s very recognisable car park-up next to a maroon Vauxhall Cavalier and pick-up a man. He was described as late forties, five foot eight inches tall, with brown hair, a dark suit and a white shirt. He silently got in and the two drove away, leaving his car behind. Two hours later, his car was gone. Criminal profilers would later state that Penny Bell knew her murderer; but who was this man, what did they discuss, why wasn’t it in her diary, and why did they agree to meet in such a clandestine way? At 9:55am, the Jaguar drove east along the A40 (Western Avenue) in the rough direction of Kilburn. In an era before traffic cameras, there was no footage to verify this, but Penny’s car was easily spotted by several drivers; with a blonde woman driving, a man beside her and nothing drew their suspicions. At 10:25am, the Jaguar exited the A40 at the Greenford Roundabout and turned right onto Greenford Road; a busy city street, packed full of shops, flats, cafes and people... but now, something was wrong. Drivers state that Penny’s Jaguar had slowed to a painful crawl, doing half the legal limit on this 30mph road. With its hazard lights blinking and its windscreen wipers swiping ten-to-the dozen, as it weaved erratically, a tailback of exasperated drivers honked as it clipped the kerb’s corner on Shelley Road. Thinking she was just a bad driver in a fancy car, no-one called the police and no-one stopped to come to her aid during this chaotic seven-minute drive from the Greenford Roundabout to Gurnell Grove. One witness reported “she looked like she was trying to park, but the passenger kept correcting her steering”. Given by different witnesses, each description of this man was unnervingly similar; late 40’s, five foot eight, brown curly hair, dark suit, white shirt and a heavy gold-link bracelet on his right wrist. At 10:30am, having struggled to overtake the Jaguar as it weaved down the Ruislip Road East, drawing a lot of attention and leaving a long queue of frustrated drivers behind, one witness stated that as the Jaguar turned left into the Gurnell Leisure Centre, “the woman looked at me and mouthed ‘help me’”. This witness didn’t come forward until six months later, after the appeals and the reconstruction. But if their statement was true? Again, they saw a lone woman in distress... but they didn’t call the Police, they didn’t stop to help, and - except for her killer - they were the last person to see Penny alive. Moments later, surrounded by roughly forty cars, the Jaguar pulled into the quarter-full car park of the Gurnell Leisure Centre. Being parked nearest to the swimming pool, the driver’s side and front was hidden by a five-foot high hedge, the passenger’s side and rear was visible but obscured by the car’s small angled windows, and any noise was muffled by insulation, traffic and children. It was busy, it was sunny, it was daylight and it was public. This was a terrible place for a murder... ...and yet, within minutes, Penny Bell would be brutally slaughtered by someone who truly hated her. A police investigation later stated there were as many as forty witnesses in or near the car-park at the time of the murder, but very few came forward, and those who did didn’t see or hear the attack. At 10:30am, a woman pushing a pram said “I noticed the wipers on and the hazard lights flashing, I thought it was very odd as it wasn’t raining, but I didn’t look in the car to see. I just kept walking”. At 10:45am, a second witness saw a smartly-dressed man, identical to Penny’s passenger strolling across the car-park at a casual pace. He wore dark trousers and a white shirt, but no jacket. If this was Penny’s killer, Police said he would have been heavily bloodstained. The witness also remarked that “his face seemed disfigured in some way”. Perhaps by a mole, a birthmark, or maybe it was blood? At roughly the same time, a third witness saw a car (possibly a dark Sierra) driving aggressively down Ruislip Road East away from the Gurnell, he turned onto Cuckoo Avenue and vanished. One week on, Police had identified all but two of the cars spotted near the scene at the time of the attack; a badly-parked black Peugeot 205, and a large silver estate which was nearest to Penny’s blue Jaguar. At 11am, two further witnesses saw a woman slumped over the steering wheel of her car and assumed that she was sleeping. At 12:15pm, passing by, they realised she hadn’t moved and called the Police. Penny Bell had been dead for ninety minutes... ...and by that point, her killer was long-gone. Detective Superintendent Brian Edwards headed-up the investigation; the car-park was swiftly sealed-off, witnesses were questioned and forensics teams meticulously swept the crime-scene. The motive wasn’t robbery, as Penny’s Jaguar XJS hadn’t been stolen, her rings hadn’t been removed, the boot and glovebox hadn’t been searched; her purse, phone and Filofax remained in her handbag behind the passenger’s seat, and the £8500 was missing but hadn’t been seen for the last two days. The motive wasn’t sexual, as Penny hadn’t been violated and all of her clothes remained untouched. This also wasn’t a random attack by a stranger, as Penny clearly had a level of trust with her attacker. He was someone she knew; maybe a business partner, a relative, a friend, or maybe a secret lover? Covering every possible angle, the Police examined Penny’s diary, phone records and credit-card bills in an to attempt to uncover a secret life; maybe a business rival, a love affair, a debt or a criminal past? But they found nothing. If she was being blackmailed? No-one knows what for, who by, or why. The last possible sighting of her passenger was at 10:45am, he was not witnessed in any other vehicle, but by 12pm, his Vauxhall Cavalier at Black Park had vanished. That’s an eleven-mile journey which is more than possible to cover in that timeframe by car or taxi, but it’s impossible by public transport. Comprised by multiple witnesses, a photofit of his face was released to the press, five possible names were mentioned, and one man was arrested and questioned, but he was released without charge. If Penny’s murder was pre-meditated, her killer’s planning was clumsy at best, almost as if it was one of several options he had considered. As why would he wear a crisp white-shirt if he was going to brutally stab her to death? Why didn’t he murder her somewhere remote like Black Park, rather than a public place like the Gurnell? Why did he cover the centre console and her lap with the unravelled roll of floral wallpaper, instead of bringing something to hide her body and his crime? And why did he leave his fingerprints on the steering-wheel, the window, the seat belt and the door handles? The motive was clear, this wasn’t a robbery, this was rage. Penny’s murder was bloody, violent and frenzied. It was crime-of-passion committed by a desperate man she intimately knew, who loved her to obsession, but hated her with a vengeance. As Lauren, her daughter would later state "I think it was someone who wanted her, but couldn't have her." Of the facts, this is what we know... The attack had occurred at roughly 10:30am, a few minutes after her Jaguar was seen weaving along Greenford Road and Ruislip Road East, and just moments after her car had parked up. The engine was off, the windows were closed, it was partially isolated, and the hazard lights were on. Their argument was a mystery, as not a single witness had heard a shout, a scream, a cry, or a honk of the horn. With Penny in the driver’s seat, to her left, her killer pulled from his pocket possibly a workman’s style lock-knife with at least a three-to-four-inch blade, and repeatedly plunged the cold-steel into the left hand-side Penny’s chest, neck and face, in a frenzied and callous attack, on a defenceless woman. Unarmed and unable to flee, Penny fought like hell, desperate to defend herself from his savage blows, as the blade tore into her raised hands and arms, which snapped every one of her long fingernails in a terrifying fight to stay alive. But still the knife stabbed harder, deeper and quicker, as along the length of the left-hand side of her body, almost every organ, muscle, vein and artery had been severed. And yet, the killer’s fury at Penny was far from finished. Being right-handed man in the left-handed seat of a cramped car with the central console blocking his blows - as Penny’s exhausted and bleeding body slumped over the steering-wheel – he wound down her window, exited the car, walked around the back, and – drenched in blood and clutching a dripping knife, in a public space, and in broad daylight - through the driver’s-side window, he repeatedly stabbed the silent and lifeless woman in the back and side, until his energy and his anger were spent. Inside, her blood spattered across every surface, from the cream leather seats to the dark walnut dash, and pooled in the footwell below her. But from the outside, it looked like any other parked car. In total, Penny Bell was stabbed more than fifty times... ...that’s one wound for every flash of her hazard lights. (leave a space for fifty clicks/flashes, depending on sound used, possibly a minute in total; click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. (End) Penny’s death didn’t just end her life, it destroyed her entire family. Lauren would later state "from the moment my mother died... everything died”. That night, Alastair had to identify his wife’s body at West London Mortuary, and was so horrified, he vomited. The next day, he broke the news to his children that their mother had been murdered. And being left a broken man, years later, he confessed to Lauren “I can’t do love anymore” and asked her to leave the family. Her funeral was held on Friday 27th September 1991, at St Mary’s Church in Denham. Beside her grave, among a procession of grieving mourners were the remnants of the Bell family; with Alastair an empty husk, and cradled in their father’s arms, dressed in their school uniforms, were Lauren and Matthew. Unable to cope, Alastair sunk into a deep depression, he paid for a double-grave so that when he dies, he can be buried with his wife, and - as far as Lauren knows – Penny’s clothes still hang in his wardrobe. And to add insult to injury, on Lauren’s 10th birthday, burglars broke into their home in Bakers Wood and stole Penny’s jewellery, leaving her children with few keepsakes or reminders of their mother. Across the investigation, 4000 people were questioned and 8000 interviews were conducted in a case which cost £1.5 million. There were numerous appeals, a high-profile reconstruction on Crimewatch, and two rewards from the Police, as well as Alastair and Penny’s business partner. But with insufficient evidence to identify the culprit, the investigation stalled, and thirty years on, it remains a cold case. The murderer is still out there, right now, among us; he has never been caught, he has never confessed and someone, somewhere, knows something. If you were there that day, maybe you saw something, which you didn’t think was important, but that little detail could bring peace to a family in turmoil... ... and end the thirty-year silence of Penny Bell. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the last full episode of Murder Mile in this part of the season, as over the next three weeks, while I’m finishing my research, I have prepared something fun to keep you entertained. As always, if you enjoyed that episode, stay tuned after the break for some cake, a cuppa, some waffle, lots of extra details about this case and you’ll get to discover who the police arrested, and who the family believe is the prime suspect. But before that, here’s a little reminder about CrimeCon 2021. Oooh. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; George Wilkins and Chantelle Gautier, I thank you, and even Eva thanks you, which is a miracle as she’s usually too drunk to talk at this time of the morning. If you’d love to receive lots of exclusive goodies (such as badges, stickers, mugs, photos, videos and even extra podcasts, and support a small independent podcast which brings a little joy to your life, every week, without fail), you can sign-up to Patreon today for as little as $3. Plus I’d like to say a thank you to Lynn Domsalla for your very kind donation via the Supporter link, I thank you, and Eva also says (drunk sound) which sounds like “kebab” or “vodka shots” but probably means thank you. And, as always, a big thank you to everyone who shares their love of Murder Mile on social media. Your continued audio appreciation of the podcast is very much appreciated. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
CLICK HERE to download the Murder Mile podcast via iTunes and to receive the latest episodes, click "subscribe". You can listen to it by clicking PLAY on the embedded media player below.
THE LOCATIONS
For your enjoyment, I've posted photos of the locations discussed in this episode. They're all in chronological order. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile). 
This list goes from top left to bottom right:
If you would like to follow the journey, simply use this handy Googlemaps Streetview link above. This is the start position and you can follow the directions (above) while you listen to the podcast.
Credits: Murder Mile was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. The music featured in this episode include:
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tor 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 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
CLICK HERE to download the Murder Mile podcast via iTunes and to receive the latest episodes, click "subscribe". You can listen to it by clicking PLAY on the embedded media player below.
THE LOCATIONS
For your enjoyment, I've posted photos of the locations discussed in this episode. They're all in chronological order. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile). 
If you would like to follow the journey, simply use this handy Googlemaps Streetview link above. This is the start position and you can follow the directions (above) while you listen to the podcast.
Credits: Murder Mile was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.
The music featured in this episode include:
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tor 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 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The entrance on Duke Street to the London Marriot Hotel (formerly known as the Europa Hotel) where the terrorist attack on the flight-crew of El-Al 016 took place
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE:
Today’s episode is about one of the most disturbing acts of terrorism to be perpetrated in London’s West End. So shocking and violent, it was unlike anything we had seen before. And yet, outside of the victim’s loved ones, this tragedy is entirely forgotten.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
This is the location of the London Marriot Hotel on Duke Street in Mayfair, formerly known as The Europa Hotel, where the attack on the flight crew of El-Al 016 took place. It is marked with a dark blue cross near the words 'Bond Street'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
This is the location of the London Marriot Hotel on Duke Street in Mayfair, formerly known as The Europa Hotel, where the attack on the flight crew of El-Al 016 took place, with a few extra videos below. This is just a link to YouTube, so don't worry, it won't eat up your data.
SOURCES: The bulk of the information was taken from news sources of that era, as well as the following information where possible.
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11691153 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11495107 https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/1057996 https://movie-discovery.com/movie/my-terrorist/166 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/20/newsid_2546000/2546593.stm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x9MknNxlwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdGrPeGZBIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxbdyjp9VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJDXB3RFViw https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/7962/ MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about one of the most disturbing acts of terrorism to be perpetrated in London’s West End. So shocking and violent, it was unlike anything we had seen before. But outside of the victim’s loved ones, this tragedy is practically forgotten. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature 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 133: The Termination of El-Al Flight 016. Today I’m standing on Duke Street in Mayfair, W1; three streets east of the Hyde Park bombing, one street east of the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, one street south of Elsie Goldsmith’s electrical abortion, and one street north of the slaughtered family of Joseph King – coming soon to Murder Mile. Interconnecting with the bustling shopping splurge of Oxford Street and running parallel with the over-priced hotels of Park Lane, Duke Street is one of those posh little places which is unremittingly vague. Unlike Bond Street – a haven for pouty pointless puppets so socially vapid they wear their personality – Duke Street has nothing but an okay café, a generic pizzeria, a nondescript newsagent, a dull coffee-chain, a few pubs and a five-star hotel. It’s almost as if it doesn’t want to be remembered for anything. Look up any wall in Mayfair and you’ll see a series of plaques commemorating all manner of historical nonsense. Reading like the city’s footnotes, their connection is often a little bit tenuous. As with stately pomp, they proudly declare ‘here a famous composer lived... for a bit’, ‘a science boffin did some stuff upstairs... just not their best stuff’, ‘here an author sneezed’, ‘an actor breathed’ and ‘a businessman did a thing good for the poor... so please ignore their sex-crimes, fraud and history as a slave trader’. On the corner of Grosvenor Square and Duke Street sits the London Marriott Hotel, a colossal seven-storey five-star hotel, formerly known as the Europa. With fine-dining, soft sheets and its staff trained to cater to our every whim, for many it’s the perfect place to unwind after a long flight to London. Outside on the brick lined drive is often sat a flank of silver Mercedes shuttling guests from the airport to the hotel. To make their stay more pleasurable, the second a guest sets foot in the grand entrance, they’re greeted by the concierge, given keys by reception and their bags are whisked away by porters. For the crew of El-Al Flight 016, the Europa was a regular stop-over between Heathrow and New York. It was familiar and welcoming, and being tired, they looked forward to a lovely meal and a good night’s sleep... but before they could even reach the door, nine lives would be changed forever. The termination of El-Al Flight 016 was one of the bloodiest acts of terrorism in London’s dark history, but there are no memorials to the fallen, no plaques to the survivors and no statues to the dead. As it was here, on Sunday 20th August 1978 at 1:34pm, that this peaceful hotel entrance was turned into a bloodbath. But just as quickly as this atrocity had ended... it was forgotten forever. (Interstitial) Of the twenty-one strong crew of El-Al 016, not one of them was the true target of the terrorists... but when there’s a war of words between governments and groups, it’s always the innocent who are hurt. On the 28th September 1948, the inaugural flight of El-Al Airlines, Israel’s flagship carrier began in very inauspicious circumstances. With Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, due to attend a conference in Switzerland but blockaded by a travel embargo imposed on the country’s military aircraft, an Israeli C-54 transport carrier was repainted with a fake logo and a made-up name, and flown non-stop from Tel Aviv to Geneva and back again the next day, where it was repainted and returned to military duties. Two weeks later, El-Al Israel Airlines was formed, with the bulk of its acquisition funded by the Israeli government - just like Air Canada, Air France, Qantas and British Airways who were all once state-owned. Since the mid-1950s, El-Al has expanded to serve more than fifty domestic, commercial and cargo destinations across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, Australia and the Far East. Originating from a country of 74% Jews and 21% Arabs, El Al only offers kosher in-flight meals and its planes do not fly on the Shabbat and Jewish holidays, therefore this inequality is often representative of Israel’s ongoing conflict, being a region blighted by war, bloodshed and persecution. As a symbol of the Israeli government, since the late-60’s, El-Al Airlines has had many acts of terrorism perpetrated upon it by the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), an anti-Zionist terror group who do not recognise the State of Israel, oppose any negotiations with the government and draw attention to the plight of their occupied lands through hijackings, bombings and assassinations.
Because of these acts of terror, El-Al is regarded as one of the world’s most secure airlines; being one of the first to introduce compulsory bag-searches, metal detectors and x-ray scanners. El-Al are also the only commercial airliners equipped with the ‘Flight-Guard’ anti-missile-defence system to protect its planes against surface-to-air missiles. And to ensure the safety of its flight crews abroad, El-Al even provides a flank of armed escorts on their transfer-buses to-and-from the airports and the hotels. For the crew of El-Al 016, Sunday 20th August 1978 would mark the end of a very ordinary day. For the pilot, the co-pilot, the engineer, the stewards and the stewardesses, the political upheaval and conflict of their homeland was far from their minds, as all that mattered - at that very moment - was a hot meal, a warm bath, a cool drink and a good night’s sleep, before their flight home back to Israel. Every crew-member was an innocent... ...and yet, they were targeted because they worked for El-Al. (Airliner sounds / Bing / Intercom) “Ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. Welcome on board El-Al Flight 016, a Boeing 747 out of Newark. The weather is good and with a flight time of six-and-a-half hours, we will arrive into London Heathrow at 11:35am. Onboard are our attendants - Michel Unger, Yehudit Arnon, Yulie Cohen and Irit Gidron – and on behalf of myself and the rest of the crew, I would like to wish you all a good flight and thank you for flying El-Al Airlines”. (take-off) With most of the flight-crew in their twenties, many were new but all were proud to be part of Israel’s premier airline. It was a pride reflected in their uniforms, with each stewardess looking resplendent in an orange striped blouse, cream-coloured heels, a bright orange skirt and a silk scarf which matched the airline’s livery. For many of the crew onboard El-Al 016, this marked the start of a bright future... ...but for some, this flight would be their last. (jet flies away) By the 1970’s, the unrest in Israel had intensified, but many foreign governments still saw this ‘little war’ as “there problem, not ours”. Having aligned with the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation), the PFLP and rival terror groups sought to bring their campaign of terror to foreign soil, as wave-after-wave of bomb-blasts brought fear and bloodshed to city-after-city, until the foreign powers sat up and took notice. One of which was the British Government, with a key target for terrorism being London.
The attacks were deliberately random. Sometimes they gave warnings to minimise the casualties but maximise the fear. Other-times, they didn’t. Some targets were high-profile, others were unknown. By the mid-to-late 1970’s, the PFLP had begun firing rocket-propelled grenades at El-Al airliners, they had escalated their arsenal of atrocities, the innocent casualties were seen as forgettable loss in their fight to free the Holy Land, and the hijacking and the bombing of airliners had become commonplace. (Airliner / Bing / Intercom) “Ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. The time is 11:35am and we have arrived on schedule at London Heathrow. Once again, on behalf of myself and the flight crew of El-Al 016, we would like the thank you for flying with El-Al Airlines”. (engine shuts down) For the passengers, it was an uneventful flight; they ate, slept and the worst they would experience was a lost bag or a bit of jetlag, being six-hours behind their body-clock. The Boeing 747 was cleaned, refuelled and a new crew boarded this return flight to Newark, as El-AL Flight 016 terminated. For its exhausted crew of twenty-one men and women, this would be a regular stopover, in a familiar city, at a hotel their company had a long-standing contract with. With their next flight scheduled for early the next morning, the turn-around would be tight, but there would still be a little time for fun. At 12:40pm, on Sunday 20th August 1978, they boarded a transfer bus at Terminal Three. (bus departs) Security at UK airports by the late 1970’s was lax; x-ray scanners weren’t mandatory, passengers weren’t routinely checked with a magnetometer (a low-level detector capable of sensing only large metal objects), and it wasn’t until 1986 that passengers were first questioned on their bag’s contents. In the first week of August 1978, 22-year-old Fahad Mihyi flew into Heathrow from Tel Aviv. With big bushy hair, a tight brown beard, an intense stare and a demeanour described as “ice cool”, although little is known about his history, his passport was clean and his entry into the country was approved. Waved through security, Fahad collected his suitcase from the carousel, which contained a set of non-descript casual clothes including green corduroy trousers, a multicoloured sweat shirt, a pair of green trainers and a black canvas sack, as well as the tools of this trade; two submachine guns – believed to be ‘The Carlo’, an inferior replica of the Israeli-made Uzi 9mm, compact enough to hide inside a jacket and capable of firing 400 rounds-a-minute – and a nest of M26 grenades fitted with a 4.4 second fuse, with a kill radius of 5 to 15 metres and shrapnel able to inflict serious damage up-to 230 metres away. Packing a deadly arsenal - capable of causing a maximum quota of casualties in the quickest possible time - Fahad and his accomplice caught the recently-extended Piccadilly Line tube into town and in an unknown flat, somewhere in London, over the next two weeks, they laid low and awaited their orders. His accomplice was never identified; he was late 20’s, 5ft 6ins, with protruding front teeth, a Mexican style moustache and a sallow complexion. And although some witnesses claimed there were two more assailants, we know it was these two who unleashed one of the bloodiest acts of terrorism in London’s dark history, because one of them was sent to a prison and the other was sent to a morgue. (Bus sounds / intercom) “Ladies and gentleman, welcome on board this Gold Eagle Coach to Mayfair. My name is Ron Stagg, I will be driving you in a K-reg Bedford VAL, but only because your Boeing 747 is too wide for Duke Street and the Europa hotel aren’t best pleased having a jet parked on the drive. The weather is currently fine, but being Britain, it’ll probably be piddling down by the time we get anywhere nice. Thank you for flying with Gold Eagle Coaches... not that you had much choice”. (laughs) Across the next fifty-minutes, the half-full 55-seater bus drove along the A4 from Heathrow to Victoria. As a relatively new coach, the full-aspect windows were large and clear, the metalwork gleamed brightly in the sunlight and down the length of it sides were stylish red flashes and wood panelling. Inside, although tired, the flight-crew of El-Al 016 were upbeat, with their chat concerning their plans for the evening; what type of food to eat, where to go for a drink, and whether they could catch Annie or Evita at the theatre, or Saturday Night Fever or Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the cinema. And although, over the last decade, atrocities against Israeli targets had surged on London’s streets, onboard were an El-Al security escort to provide protection - even if ‘legally’ they couldn’t be armed. At 1:32pm precisely, the coach pulled onto Park Lane on the eastern edge of Hyde Park. Turning left onto Upper Brook Street, the engine growled as it gently cruised passed the US Embassy, its indicator clicked as the wheels steered left, and rounding the corner, the coach crawled onto Duke Street. Being too big to fit on the drive of the Europa - which was already busy as a black cab idled awaiting a fare and an excitable wedding party milled around reception - the bus parked-up parallel to the hotel; with the front passenger door facing George Yard and the rear luggage bay facing Grosvenor Square. Inside, the crew collected their hand luggage, and although they were off-duty, as representatives of their airline, they straightened their caps, adjusted their ties and brushed away any creases to exit the coach with a sense of elegance and pride. The pilot, co-pilot and engineer in neat blue suits, crisp white shirts and blue peaked caps, and – like bright orange rays of sunlight – four flight attendants of El-Al 016 - Michel Unger, Yehudit Arnon, Yulie Cohen and Irit Gidron. Watched by the wedding guests, the cab-driver and the drinkers of a summer’s pint at the Barley Mow pub, just twenty feet away, the crew were something to behold, as there’s always something impressive about a person in uniform. As the crew disembarked, the engine was cut and the driver opened the rear boot where the aircrew’s luggage was stored. Like a well-oiled machine, the concierge greeted his guests, reception prepared their room keys and a ready line of porters pushing baggage carts stood ready to do their duty. For the flight crew of El-Al 016, this was the end of another day... ...but for one of the crew, it would be the end of her life. The time was 1:34pm. As Yulie Cohen stood-by, she spotted two men approach the front and rear of the coach. To her right, on the corner of Grosvenor Square was an Arab with a Mexican moustache and protruding teeth. To her left, on George Yard, a second with fuzzy dark hair who glared at the flight-crew with hateful rage. Sensing the danger, Yulie stuttered to her supervisor “I think he’s going to start shooting at us”... ...but by then, it was too late. Just as Irit Gidron pulled her bag from the boot, the assassins unleashed hell. Like fast hard cracks of thunder, gun-fire echoed off the walls, as fierce flashes of fire erupted from their submachine guns, as the two men sprayed the coach and its human cargo with bullets. With 32 rounds in each magazine, having emptied the first clip in five second flat, they loaded a second, then a third, and then a fourth. In panic, terrified wedding guests dived inside the hotel lobby, pub guests ducked for cover and the air-crew scattered, as a hot black rain sprayed far and wide, smashing glass and ricocheting off walls. Richard Oldridge, a chauffeur later stated "suddenly a man ran alongside the coach. Somebody inside closed the doors and the man started firing. All hell broke loose. It was terrifying”. Shouting in Arabic, their words were lost, but three letters were audible – PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organisation). Bullets riddled every door, wall or window; guests, air-crew and passers-by alike. It didn’t matter who as this was a number game. The target was Israel, but the more they could kill, the greater their glory. Thinking fast, Yulie ran for cover behind a parked car as she dragged Yehudit to safety. A volley of fiery bullets had ripped through the stewardess’ pale legs – snapping her bones like toothpicks - and as she drifted in and out of consciousness, a river of blood pooled, as her orange skirt spread with red. Yulie called out to her colleagues; some had got to safety, some had not, and one was entirely still. Julian Harris who lived across the street later stated “there were bodies and blood everywhere”... ...and although the casualty list was climbing, the assassins were far from finished. With their submachine guns spent, from the black canvas sacks strung across their chests, they pulled a nest of M26 fragmentation grenades. With a kill radius of up-to 15 metres and its shrapnel able to maim as far as 230 metres away, accuracy wasn’t essential, as this was a maximum casualty weapon. Harry Kaye, a porter said “I saw one bomb land under the taxi and explode”. Having hid inside his cab when the shooting began, although bullets had peppered its black panels, the grenade blast blew the taxi-driver clear out of his seat, as the bloodied man slumped onto the drive in a crumpled heap. Witnesses stated “the grenades seemed to fall everywhere”. A second hit the glass door of the Europa, spraying the staff with shards of flying glass and the wedding guests were hit with hard steel splinters. Jim Murray, pub manager, later said of Fahad “he stood pulling grenades from a haversack and lobbing them at the bus. He was just taking them out and throwing it. God, he was ice-cool. He was so calm”. As a third grenade exploded, shrapnel struck Yulie in the arm. Johann Duplesis, a guest stated “one of the hostesses had been blasted. I tried to help her as she lay there, but already she looked dead”. And although Yulie was hurt, Yehudit was bleeding to death, as a bullet had struck her in the head. Where-as the last grenade remains a mystery; maybe Fahad caught his cohort in its crossfire, maybe it went off mistake, maybe he was shot by the supposedly unarmed El-Al escort, or perhaps having mistimed its 4.4 second fuse, the maniac with the Mexican moustache failed to throw it fast enough and felt the full force of the blast in the face. Either way, as Fahad fled, his unknown assailant lay dead. Three police officers wrestled Fahad to the ground and he was swiftly arrested. In total, the assassin’s bullets and bombs had wounded nine and killed one in an attack which lasted less than two minutes. Of the four flight-crew of El-Al 016 who were hit; Michel Unger’s injuries were listed as “not serious”, Yulie Cohen escaped with a shrapnel scar, and 23-year-old Yehudit Arnon - who was weeks away from getting married - was listed as critical, had a bullet removed from her brain and amazingly she survived. But one of the crew had not. Having left the coach to collect her bag, 29-year-old Irit Gidron was hit by the first wave of bullets. Turning to face the gun-fire coming from Grosvenor Square, it’s likely that she died before she even knew what was happening, as an eye-witness would later recall “she was lying at the rear of the coach, all still and silent, with the back of her head entirely blown out”. (End) As always, the British Government expressed its “deepest sympathy”, the Israeli Prime Minister called it a “a barbarous crime”, the PFLP took full credit, and the next day Israeli fighter-jets bombed a Palestinian camp south of Beirut; killing 3 and injuring 14, in a pointless tit-for-tat of violent retaliation. Fahad Mihyi was tried at the Old Bailey on 28th February 1979 under heavy police guard, as on that same day, the assassins of Abda Al-Razzak Said-Al Naif, the ex-Iraqi Prime Minister, were on trial too. Defended by Henry Pownall QC, even against overwhelming evidence, he pleaded not guilty. On the 8th June 1979, he was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and explosive and weapons charges, and was given four life sentences. He is currently 65-years-old and is an inmate at Dartmoor Prison. Two days after the attack, the body of Irit Gidron was flown back to Israel. As a mark of respect, she was buried near to the eleven Israeli athletes who were killed in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. And although a memorial service in held in Haifa every year, Yulie still finds it too painful to attend. The crew of El-Al Flight 016 were just good people, doing their jobs and living their lives, who were used as pawns in a political tug-of-war. Caught-up in one of the bloodiest acts of terrorism in London’s history, forty years on, there are still no memorials to the dead and the events are mostly forgotten. But why? Perhaps it could be blamed on politics, on the deluge of devastation that the 1970’s brought, on our desensitisation to the violence we consume in the media, or maybe it’s as simple as this? A plaque might have been put in place had the victims of the attack been British? But as this tragedy is all but forgotten, for now, this episode will have to stand as their memorial to the crew of El-Al 016. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed that, and you enjoy cake-chat, tea-twaddle and extra details about this case. But I warn you now, it is waffly bullshit, so if that’s not your thing, switch off now. But before that, here’s a true-crime podcast which might be the equivalent of a handy megaphone for a mouthy coot. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; Kaley Groom, Sharon Bennett, Lydia Pappas and Rachel Tester, I thank you all, you are now part of a very exclusive club, and unlike half of the member’s clubs in Soho, it’s not full of arseholes. With a thanks you to two very kind anonymous donations which came in via the Supporter link, I thank you. And, as always, a big thank you to you. Yes, you. Your continued audio appreciation of the podcast is very much appreciated. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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163 King's Road in Chelsea, barely a five minute walk from the Monckton's home where (it is believed) Damian Hanson watched Homerya Monckton and followed her back to her home
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO:
Today’s episode is the conclusion of a two-part series about the murder of Chelsea stockbroker John Monckton by convicted criminals Elliot White and Damian Hanson. But what drove these two men to rob, to kill, and who else is to blame for John's murder... along with the Devil's Child?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The former location of Via Venise, the designer shoe-shop where (it is alleged) that Damian Hanson spotted Homeyra Monckton and followed her home to 30 Upper Cheyne Row is marked with a light brown cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
Here's a little video of the former location of Via Venise at 163 King's Road in Chelsea. This is just a link to YouTube, so don't worry, it won't eat up your data. I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
SOURCES:
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/probation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/03/hansonandwhitereview-rps.pdf https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/stabbed-wife-told-children-of-father-s-murder-7205556.html https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/landgs-john-monckton-murdered/a262169 http://www.blackkalendar.nl/c/2746/Damien%20Hanson https://www.thesteepletimes.com/movers-shakers/moving-on/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6180424.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4676898.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4757414.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5013372.stm https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/01/ukcrime.rosiecowan1 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum--dad-got-stabbed-i-saw-566299 Irish Independent, 16th December 2005 Irish Independent, Thursday 24th November 2005 Sunday Independent (Dublin) - Sunday 19 December 2004 Irish Independent -9th December 2004, Irish Independent - Sunday 18 December 2004 Irish Independent - Friday 16 December 2005 Irish Independent, 19th December 2005, Irish Independent - Wednesday 23 November 2005 https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/murdered-mans-widow-relives-nightmare-25958200.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/dec/16/ukcrime.hughmuir http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4533876.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4533182.stm https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-369403/Financiers-widow-They-destroyed-lives.html https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/the-devils-child-569587 https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/dominic-lawson-the-woman-who-should-be-resigning-this-week-is-the-head-of-the-parole-board-6107861.html Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette - Friday 22 August 1997 Aberdeen Press and Journal - Monday 11 August 1997 Daily Mirror - Monday 11 August 1997 Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette - Friday 22 August 1997 https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/996032.eastenders-alibi-for-monckton-killer-lands-sister-in-jail/ https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/288218765.pdf https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/656007.alleged-murderer-treatment-mayday/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-accused-of-financier-s-death-reveals-drug-habit-517807.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/widow-of-murdered-businessman-tells-court-of-sheer-panic-as-armed-robbers-burst-into-home-516554.html https://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/an-independent-review-of-a-serious-further-offence-case-damien-hanson-and-elliot-white/r/a11G000000182y5IAA https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/robber-shot-by-police-may-sue-scotland-yard-7183795.html HMP Inspectorate of Probation, An Independent Review of a Serious Further Offence case, Damien Hanson & Elliot White, February 2006 https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/663261.monckton-murder-the-evidence-by-police/ MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. (Radio sounds) Today’s episode is the final part about the murder of John Monckton; a devoted father and loving husband brutally stabbed to death during an attack on his own home (fades/other music). Monday 29th November 2004 at 7:29pm. An R-reg Ford Mondeo idled on Glebe Place, a quiet unlit side-street alongside the Monckton’s family home. 23-year-old Elliot White was sat in the driver’s seat. This was his car but not his plan. Wearing a black woolly hat, a florescent jacket and a postal sack, he giggled at the stupidity of his disguise - “ah man, I look like Postman Pat” – but that was the point. It’s inherently racist, but a black youth knocking on doors in a posh white part of Chelsea will always arouse suspicion, unless he looks like a tradesman. And as all burglars know, the difference between a locked door and an open one can be something as a subtle as an ID, a uniform, or a parcel. So, being blessed with a baby-face and a cheeky grin, Elliot could unlock any latch with a few words and a smile... ...but Damian could not. Nicknamed the Devil’s Child, Damian White was a scrawny scowl-faced youth, dressed from head to foot in black as his envious eyes glared through the jagged slits of a balaclava. This robbery at 30 Upper Cheyne Row would be simple; get in, grab, get out and no-one gets hurt. At least, that was the plan. (Radio back in) ...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. (Engine off/radio off) Episode 132: The Trader and the Devil’s Child – Part Two. (Doorbell) Elliot was typical of the type of burglar known as a Chancer; a non-violent opportunist driven by need. Born on 15th March 1981, Elliot didn’t have the best start in life. But then, it wasn’t the worst. Raised by a good mother in the basement flat of a three-storey terrace at 22a Richmond Way in Shepherd's Bush, he was smart, a little unruly but with a burning desire to succeed. Aged 16, he achieved 10 GCSEs and went on to study art at college. Age 18, described as ‘immature and easily led’, and unsure what he wanted to do next, he drifted into recreational drug-use, became a dealer to fund his habit and in one stupid mistake, he ruined his life. In 17th October 2001, aged 20, convicted of intent to supply heroin and cocaine, he was sentenced to 18 months; with 13 spent at HMP Dover prison and 5 months on a HDC (a Home Detention Curfew), where he was electronically tagged and required to stay at his mum’s home between 7pm and 7am. On 15th July 2003, convicted of two further counts of intent to supply Class A drugs, the justice system aimed to change his criminal behaviour through work, education and counselling, so he was placed on a twelve-month CRO (Community Rehabilitation Order). Again, he was tagged, again he was curfewed, and again he would be monitored... with any breach resulting in his immediate return to prison. ...but just like his HDC, the CRO would lead to a catalogue of systemic failures. His CRO started on 15th July, with a rule that he must meet “every week for the first twelve weeks with his Youth Offending Team Officer”, but the London Probation Team failed to contact him till 7th August. On the 11th, he missed his first appointment, ignored their warning letters and by 16th December, four months later, he hadn’t been returned to prison and the breach was blamed on administrative errors. In February 2004, he was convicted of two counts of intent to supply, and should have been sent back to HMP Dover, but he wasn’t. As his HDC and CRO had failed, they put him on a DTTO (Drug Treatment and Testing Order). Again, he was tagged and curfewed, but this time he was required to attend a drug treatment centre five-days-a-week... with any breach resulting in his immediate return to prison. ...but again, it didn’t. On 29th September 2004, he missed his first DTTO assessment, he failed to attend a further five and his swab-tests were positive for cocaine, morphine and cannabis. On 5th November, three weeks before John Monckton’s murder, he was on bail awaiting sentence for drugs offences. His case workers would describe him as “calm, polite and neatly groomed”, he was a little boy “who wanted to be seen as successful”, and who had no history of robbery, burglary or assault. So, what drove Elliot White to play his part in the brutal murder of John Monckton? Simple, they were two different types of burglars; Elliot was a Chancer and Damian was a Confronter. Born on the 17th December 1980, Damian Hanson had very few positive influences in his life. Described in court as a boy “with low self-esteem or self-confidence”, he was anxious to seek the approval of others but burdened by few skills and “an aura of evil”, he used violence to get what he wanted. Being gruff, angry and (being 5 foot 4 inches high) as short as Elliot, the two boys met at primary school and became pals. But Elliot’s mother never liked Damian, hence she nicknamed him the Devil’s Child. Aged 10, he was expelled from school. By 16, he had six criminal convictions; including theft and the indecent assault of a girl when he was only 12-years-old, for this he was put on a Supervision Order. At 14, he was convicted of ABH and assault, but being so young, instead of prison he was ordered to pay compensation and was sent to an attendance centre. That same year, he burgled Fulham home, but wasn’t imprisoned. Instead, he was given a conditional discharge, meaning he wouldn’t be charged and the offence would be removed from his record if he didn’t re-offend over the next twelve months. Ten months later, alongside his accomplice (Aston Tew) he was convicted of stabbing 17-year-old Kevin Jones whilst robbing him of just £20. Damian was sentenced to 18 months in a Young Offender’s Institute, where a psychological assessment concluded “Hanson’s offences were not committed when he had lost control, rather he employed violence as a strategy to get what he wanted”. And finally, three months before his 17th birthday, he was charged with attempted murder, following a bungled robbery on Erconwald Street in East Acton, which left a 16-year-old boy alive but seriously wounded. On 1st April 1998, Damian was sentenced to 12-years for attempted murder, with the judge insisting “he must not be released until he has served at least two thirds of his sentence”. In his first year, he faced eight disciplinary hearings for assaults on prisoners and staff, and was moved six times. As with Elliot, the system was designed not just to protect the public by incarcerating the prisoners, but by educating and rehabilitating the offenders to change their ways and hopefully lead a good life. But again, an overworked system led to gross incompetence and a catalogue of administrative errors. In May 2003, barely half-way through his sentence, a Parole Board rejected his application when he failed to show any remorse or guilt, stating “it's not me that’s done anything on any of my offences". On 19th July 2004, his parole was re-assessed. Only this time, he wasn’t interviewed in person, his probation officer hadn’t met him in over a year, and - even though the Offender Group Reconviction Scale had stated that Damian had a 91% probability of violent re-offending, with 75% regarded as high risk and requiring his release must be monitored by multi-agency support (including social services, the probation service and the police) - the board didn't believe he had a "predilection for violence". On 27th August 2004, Damian Hanson was released on bail... but the mistakes didn’t end there. Although convicted of attempted murder, Damian was placed on the lowest supervision level, he was held to a light curfew of 11pm to 6am and he was banned from entering the borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (although – unless he was arrested – the agencies had no way to disprove this). Having repeatedly breached his parole, this should have resulted in his immediate recall to prison... but it didn’t. Elliot White and Damian Hanson, a petty drug-dealer and a remorseless thief were tagged, curfewed and (supposedly) monitored by a series of overworked agencies whose aim was to rehabilitate them and to protect us. And yet, under their very noses, both men returned to a life of crime... ...and ultimately a murder. Released from HMP Highpoint, Damian’s new life as a free man was spent in Room 2 of the Hestia Bail Hostel in Streatham, South London - an assisted living space which helped him cook a meal, clean his clothes, pay his rent and learn the value of an honest day’s work. Unlike prison, he could leave as he pleased (curfew permitting), but as part of his bail conditions, his room was routinely searched by staff for drugs, weapons and pornography... with any breach resulting in his immediate recall to prison. During these three months, he acquired two balaclavas, a six-inch-knife and a gun, as well as compiling a scrapbook of potential targets; including their routines, registration plates, habits, haunts and home addresses. He researched locks, alarms and the value of diamonds. And courtesy of the Sunday Times Rich List and the Mail on Sunday’s Rich Report, he had profiles of some of Britain’s wealthiest men. On an unspecified date in November 2004, Damian prowled the supposedly fashionable streets of King’s Road in Chelsea on the hunt for easy prey. In the past - being a coward who was small and slight - he had always attacked boys or those weaker than himself, and this time would be no different. From the sophistication of Via Venise, a designer shoe-shop at 163 King’s Road, (it is alleged that) he spotted a wealthy banker’s wife, who was rich, petite and defenceless. To his untrained eye, she was elegantly dressed, sparkling with expensive gems and dripping in so much gold, he would become rich. Following her back to 30 Upper Cheyne Row, he could have robbed her right there and then, as there were no cars, no people, no cameras and few windows overlooking the quiet little street. But he didn’t. It’s inherently racist, but a black youth walking down a posh white part of Chelsea will always arouse suspicion, especially if he had “an aura of evil” like Damian. He knew if he could somehow get inside her four-storey townhouse, quickly and quietly, without raising any alarms, he could rob her in private. But this left him with a big problem, Damian Hanson was hardly the sort of person a stranger would willingly open a door to. What he needed was a plan, a uniform, a parcel and a baby-faced accomplice. Monday 29th November 2004 at 7:29pm. An R-reg Ford Mondeo idled on Glebe Place, a quiet unlit side-street beside the Monckton’s family home. 23-year-old Elliot White was sat in the driving seat, “ah man, I look like Postman Pat” – and beside him, all dressed in black was sat the Devil’s Child. The plan was simple; get in, grab, get out and no-one gets hurt. Owing a drug-dealer £2000, burglary wasn’t Elliot’s thing, but as all he had to do was get a woman to open a door, it was a no-brainer. At least, that’s what he thought. As although the two men shared the same plan, Elliot and Damian were two very different types of burglars; an opportunist Chancer and a violent Confronter. (Engine /radio off) Silently, the two men sidled up to the doorway of the home of Homeyra Monckton. In the basement kitchen a meal was cooking, in the first-floor lounge the TV was on, and somewhere on the two floors above, a lone defenceless female had finished bathing her nine-year-old daughter. At 7:30pm, the doorbell rang and an intercom crackled into life, “Hello, who is it?” a woman enquired. Putting on his calmest and friendliest voice, Elliot said “postman, I’ve got a parcel here for a Mr John V Monckton”. She didn’t query it, and why should she? As we all know burglars don’t ring doorbells. Elliot patiently stood on top of the steep stone steps, unable to hear anything from within; except the owner descend the stairs, an inner door open and the spy-hole darken briefly as a cautious eye peered through its fish-eye lens into the dark unlit street beyond. Given the steepness of the steps, all she would see was smiling postman, as hidden behind his back, a maniac was crouched, ready to attack. With a thick security chain on, the white door opened. Only this was not Homeyra Monckton. As through the slightest of cracks, Elliot craned his neck-up to see a man easily a foot taller than himself. “Hello?” the man enquired. He wasn’t expecting a parcel, just as they weren’t expecting a man. For a second, as the two traded glances, Elliot grinned “parcel for Mr Monckton”, as the man’s eyes went from the postman, to his uniform and to the parcel, unable to see the Devil’s Child bathed in black. In court, Elliot would claim that he didn’t know Damian was armed with a gun and a knife, so having said “You’ll need to sign for it”, the man nodded. And as we all would, he undid the chain, unclicked the lock and (as his last line of defence) John Monckton opened the door... ...and let the evil in. (Fade between “No, no, no”, “John! I’ve been stabbed”, two pairs of feet running, "ah man, you're the business", a house alarm, door slams, a car pulls away and it all fades out to long silence). Unlike the probation and parole service who had systematically failed to protect the public - thanks in large part to the incompetence of the two assailants - the police investigation was swift and thorough. Headed-up by Detective Superintendent Mark Jackson, as part of protocol, the scene was sealed-off, eye-witnesses were canvassed and a fingertip search was conducted of the surrounding streets. Descriptions of the assailants were typically vague; two skinny black youths in their late teens to early twenties, 5 foot 3 to 6 inches tall, with their faces hidden by black balaclavas, one was dressed like a postman, the other wore only black, and neither man was known to the family or neighbours. In terms of evidence, the walls and floor of the hallway and stairs were soaked with the blood of both John and Homeyra Monckton, but among this spattered mess of red, a third blood group was found. As so violent was the attack, the crazed knifeman had stabbed his accomplice in the left hand and arm, leaving a bloody trail from the doorway, down the stone steps, and vanishing half-way up Glebe Place. Sadly, the murder weapon was missing, but on the hallway floor, the bungling assailants had dropped a crumpled cardboard box complete with a sample of their handwriting and a set of fingerprints. And although they thought they had cunningly disguised their features; one witness had seen everything. Interviewed by specially-trained officers, although this nine-year-old girl was still deeply traumatised by the horror she had seen, as she sat cradling her toy rabbit, she described the attack in detail. How she peeped through the banister rails, and from the top-floor, watched helplessly as a masked maniac stabbed her screaming mummy, left her daddy dying in bloody heap and fled from her home laughing. There was no doubt, that by keeping quiet and still, she saved her own life and that of her mother too. But also, she was able to recall a key-detail which no-one else knew. The knifeman wasn’t dressed entirely in black... as on the back of his jacket was a very unique motif, which she drew for the Police. (Engine sounds) Vanishing amidst the evening traffic, Elliot’s black Ford Mondeo weaved its way seven miles south-east and roared-up to a patch of wasteland off Lunham Road in Upper Norwood. Opposite a line of occupied homes, they stuffed the postal sack full of their blood-stained clothes, soaked it in petrol and set it alight, as witnessed by at least twelve people. At 8:55pm, London Fire Brigade were alerted to a small suspicious fire, they extinguished it, and - as was protocol - they informed the police. Forensics bagged-up the remnants. Still recognisable were pieces of balaclava, postal sack, a florescent coat, a trainer sole and a black jacket made by Akademiks A9, which was spattered with both John & Homeyra Monckton’s blood, and on the back was a very unique motif which matched Isobel’s drawing. The petrol-can was traced to a BP Garage in Wandsworth five nights earlier, where CCTV showed Elliot White’s black Ford Mondeo (registration plate R987 GTM) enter the forecourt, the two men get out, and a facial mapping expert concluded that the man who paid for the petrol was Damian Hanson. From the crime itself to their actual arrest, it would take the Police roughly two weeks... ...sadly, not every organisation was as thorough and diligent with their duties. Being tagged, curfewed and (supposedly) monitored, strict bail conditions were repeatedly breached, as they entered Hammersmith & Fulham, carried offensive weapons, communicated with offenders, and committed a series of criminal acts including burglary, theft, ABH, attempted murder and murder. But so uncaring were these little thugs - having destroyed a family - that just shy of 10pm, they caught a taxi to Shepherd’s Bush and stopped off at the Best West Caribbean Take-Away to fill their bellies. Again, it took a few good citizens doing the decent thing to bring a murderer to justice, as when the staff saw blood running down Elliot’s arm, they contacted the police and handed over the footage. At 11:09pm, breaking his curfew, Damian entered his hostel, but this breach was not reported. The next morning, Elliot went to the Mayday Hospital near Croydon to have his knife wounds stitched. To cover this breach of his DTTO, he had his GP write the following note: “This is to confirm that the above man was stabbed in his left hand and arm on Monday 29th November 2004 at about 6pm. Unfortunately, due to this he has been unable to attend the substance misuse programme this week”. This letter should have rung alarms bells for the probation team, but it didn’t. Fingerprints, DNA and blood stains found at the scene and burn-site led the Police to Elliot White. He was arrested on 14th December 2004 at his mother’s home at 22a Richmond Way in Shepherd’s Bush. Interviewed by CID, he initially denied everything, then confessed to just the robbery, denied knowing about the weapons, stated he and the Monckton’s were “stabbed by another knifeman” (a mystery villain who no-one can recall) and he finally pled guilty to robbery, but blamed Damian for the attack. Checking his GPS and phone records, Police linked Elliot to Damian on those exact date and places, and on 16th December, Damian White was arrested at his bail hostel... and finally recalled to prison. The trial was held at The Old Bailey before Mr Justice Calvert-Smith. In court, the two childhood friends blamed each other and repeatedly told a “litany of lies” which were easily picked apart. Damian even coerced his half-sister, Laura Campbell, into giving him an alibi for the night of the murder, and he claimed that his dossier of wealthy targets was actually “a project to inspire children to stay in school”. The evidence was overwhelming, it included; bloodstains, DNA, fingerprints, a petrol can, the parcel, CCTV footage, the dossier, a business card from Via Venise, and the burned fragments of a postman’s outfit as worn by Elliot and Damian’s black jacket with a very unique ‘Akademiks A9’ emblem. But most compelling of all, were the witness statements by Isobel and Homeyra Monckton. On video, the jury watched, as a deeply traumatised nine-year-old girl sat clutching her toy rabbit and wept “my daddy had been hurt in the heart”. And still partially paralysed and aided by a cane, Homerya bravely told the jury in person how they were attacked by a “pure evil...” who “destroyed our lives”. Their criminal history was used in evidence, as well as the Offender Group Reconviction Scale which warned that Damian had a 91% chance of reoffending and his psychological assessment which stated “he employed violence as a strategy to get what he wanted”. Even Damian’s own defence council had to admit “I cannot explain why a robber should force his way into a house and immediately attack his victims with a knife. There are no mitigating factors here which are worthy of consideration”. (End) On Friday 3rd February 2006, Elliot White was found guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but with only three years left to serve, it is likely that he is already out of parole, having been tagged and curfewed... with any breach (supposedly) resulting in his immediate return to prison. Damian Hanson was found guilty of robbery, attempted murder and murder. Mr Justice Calvert-Smith recommended that he serve a minimum of 36 years before parole is considered, by which time he will be 61-years-old. That is one of the longest minimum terms ever handed down in British legal history. An inquiry was ordered by the Home Secretary Charles Clarke into the actions of the probation service and the parole board. They admitted there had "been mistakes at all levels...”, that “...the system went wrong" and it was implementing a "root-and-branch overhaul" of the way it manages offenders. Four probation officers were temporarily suspended while a review was carried out, but their lack of supervision of Damian Hanson and Elliot White was not directly blamed for the murder. John Monckton was a devoted father and a loyal husband who – as everyone would - provided a safe and loving home for his family. And although every security system has it faults, what he didn’t expect was to be failed by the agencies whose job it was to monitor prisoners and to protect the public. Had they done their job properly, he would never have opened his door to The Devil’s Child. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the final part of The Trader and the Devil’s Child. If you enjoyed that, stay tuned for some additional details and lots of pointless twaddle after the break. Or don’t, that is entirely your choice. But before that, here’s a true-crime podcast which may very well be the last tequila shot in Eva’s bevvy of last night cocktails, just before her kebab. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; Hannah Swinson and Katie Olliver, I thank you all, I hope you’re enjoying all the goodies you won’t find anywhere else in the whole world. And a thank you to Sara Wiggins for your very kind donation, it’s much appreciated. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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30 Upper Cheyne Row where the Monckton family lived up until 2004, and Glebe Place to the left where Damian Hanson ahd Elliot White escaped
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE:
Today’s episode is a two-part series about the brutal murder of John Monckton; a devoted father and loyal husband who provided a safe and loving home for his family. But what began as a simple burglary, left a family destroyed, having been confronted by the Devil’s Child.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of John Monckton's former home at 30 Upper Cheyne Row is marked with a lime green cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
SOURCES: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/probation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/03/hansonandwhitereview-rps.pdf https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/stabbed-wife-told-children-of-father-s-murder-7205556.html https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/landgs-john-monckton-murdered/a262169 http://www.blackkalendar.nl/c/2746/Damien%20Hanson https://www.thesteepletimes.com/movers-shakers/moving-on/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6180424.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4676898.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4757414.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5013372.stm https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/01/ukcrime.rosiecowan1 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum--dad-got-stabbed-i-saw-566299 Irish Independent, 16th December 2005 Irish Independent, Thursday 24th November 2005 Sunday Independent (Dublin) - Sunday 19 December 2004 Irish Independent -9th December 2004, Irish Independent - Sunday 18 December 2004 Irish Independent - Friday 16 December 2005 Irish Independent, 19th December 2005, Irish Independent - Wednesday 23 November 2005 https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/murdered-mans-widow-relives-nightmare-25958200.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/dec/16/ukcrime.hughmuir http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4533876.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4533182.stm https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-369403/Financiers-widow-They-destroyed-lives.html https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/the-devils-child-569587 https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/dominic-lawson-the-woman-who-should-be-resigning-this-week-is-the-head-of-the-parole-board-6107861.html Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette - Friday 22 August 1997 Aberdeen Press and Journal - Monday 11 August 1997 Daily Mirror - Monday 11 August 1997 Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette - Friday 22 August 1997 https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/996032.eastenders-alibi-for-monckton-killer-lands-sister-in-jail/ https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/288218765.pdf https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/656007.alleged-murderer-treatment-mayday/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-accused-of-financier-s-death-reveals-drug-habit-517807.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/widow-of-murdered-businessman-tells-court-of-sheer-panic-as-armed-robbers-burst-into-home-516554.html https://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/an-independent-review-of-a-serious-further-offence-case-damien-hanson-and-elliot-white/r/a11G000000182y5IAA https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/robber-shot-by-police-may-sue-scotland-yard-7183795.html HMP Inspectorate of Probation, An Independent Review of a Serious Further Offence case, Damien Hanson & Elliot White, February 2006 https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/663261.monckton-murder-the-evidence-by-police/ MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is a two-part series about the brutal murder of John Monckton; a devoted father and loyal husband who provided a safe and loving home for his family. But what began as a simple burglary, left a family destroyed, having been confronted by the Devil’s Child. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature 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 131: The Trader and the Devil’s Child – Part One. Today I’m standing on Upper Cheyne Row in Chelsea, SW3; three roads south of John George Haigh’s acid-soaked basement, one road south-west of the abortionist of Helen Mary Wickwoad, a short hop from Battersea Park where Freddie Mills loaned a rifle to end his life, and a few feet from the viscous attack which left sexton Robin McCarthy brain-damaged forever - coming soon to Murder Mile. This is in an exclusive part of Chelsea between the River Thames and the supposedly fashionable King’s Road. In the sixties it was hip, but now it’s a flop, as any hint of originality has been diluted by an influx of self-obsessed tosspots with money but no style; so, expect to see fur-coats and facelifts, pompous turds in red trousers waffling on about portfolios and over-coiffured rats carried in designer handbags. In stark contrast, one road south is Upper Cheyne Row; a very posh but oddly silent residential street full of family cars, a few trees and four-storey terraces costing £3-6 million a-piece. Unlike the flashier parts of this city - where lavish drives and ornate gates adorn the tacky tasteless mansions of half-wits who wear their wealth - these homes are simple and understated, with nothing ostentatious outside, as anything of value is on the inside, hidden behind solid windows, locked doors and discrete alarms. Admittedly, someone like me – a bearded Brummy in mucky boots and Primark shorts, who didn’t go to Eton and doesn’t winter in St Maritz with Jolyon - sticks-out like a sore thumb, hence my movements here were closely monitored by hidden cameras and a security patrol. But not everyone is a resident, and it’s fascinating to see who we allow in or near our homes, and who we don’t? As the difference between an open door and a locked one can be something as subtle as an ID, a uniform, or a parcel. At 30 Upper Cheyne Row, on the corner of Cheyne Row and Glebe Place sits a five-bedroomed, four-storey brown-brick townhouse. Back in 2004, this was the home of John Monckton, his wife and their two daughters, and - as any family should – inside, they felt protected from any danger. And yet, it was here, on Monday 29th November 2004, that all of their security became fruitless, when an innocent mistake (the kind we all make) would destroy a family forever. (Interstitial) Above everything else, all John ever wanted was for his family to be happy and safe. On the 13th October 1955, John Victor Monckton was born into a long prestigious line of aristocrats; his cousin being Viscountess Monckton of Brenchley and his great-uncle was legal counsel to Edward VIII who drafted the King’s abdication statement having chosen to marry Wallace Simpson. As the eldest son of Emily and John Monckton, a respected lawyer from a legal lineage who held the office of Bencher at Lincoln's Inn, John followed in his father’s footsteps. Blessed with all the benefits of a privileged upbringing, he was educated at Downside (a fee-paying boarding school in Somerset) and he graduated from Oxford University with a first-class degree in classics and modern languages. But what set John apart from many of the ‘so-called elite’ wasn’t his wealth but his humanity. Goodness was in his blood and kindness was in his bones. Physically he was striking man, exceptionally tall but so slender he looked as if a stiff breeze might blow him over. Being bespectacled with parted brown hair and thick arched eyebrows, he resembled the whip-smart man-of-maths - which he was. But what exuded most was his warmth, as among a big brain and deep pockets was a huge heart. Everyone described John the same way; he was gentle, thoughtful, loving and loyal. A man with a dry wit and a great intellect, who genuinely cared for his fellow humans, whether he knew them or not. In 1979, having graduated, instead of going into law, he was drawn into high-finance. Across the 1980s - as yuppies in red braces reigned, waving phones as big as house bricks and quaffing cocaine by the kilo – as a Catholic, John was the opposite; a moral man who was old-fashioned but effective. Having headed-up the fixed income teams at Foreign & Colonial and Barclays de Zoete Wedd, in 1996, he joined Legal & General and later became its Managing Director of Bonds, where his award-winning team managed £34bn of assets and John was regarded as one of Britain’s most influential investors. Being raised to be successful yet humble, neither fame nor money would ever change John; he dressed practically, he spoke in a quiet whisper, he never discussed his private life, and although he was not averse to the odd luxury purchase (which was always tasteful and discrete), you could easily pass him in the street unaware that The Sunday Times had listed him as one of Britain’s wealthiest men. In his spare-time, John had two passions; the church and his charity work. Praised as a "man of deep Christian convictions", he was a devout parishioner at the Catholic Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and trustee of the Orders of St John Care Trust (a non-profit charity providing care-for the elderly). But as busy as he was, his work always came second to the most important thing in his life - his family. In the late 1980s, having met through work, John fell in love with Homeyra Taslimi; an Iranian lady who exuded both style and sophistication, and whose name in Persian fittingly translates as a “woman with beautiful eyes”. Being born in Tehran, educated in Washington and having spent much of her life in France - with both being keen to settle down - on 16th July 1988, John & Homerya were married. In 1992, their daughter Sabrina was born, followed three years later by Isobel. John’s life was idyllic, he had a perfect family, and - keen to keep his loved ones safe - in 1994, they moved into the affluent seclusion of 30 Upper Cheyne Row, far from any traffic or strangers, where they lived without worry. Hailed as an "extraordinarily devoted family”, it was the little things in life that John loved most, as although rich, above it all he was a father and a husband; who always made time for meals, bathing his kids, reading bedtime stories and wrapping his arms around his little girls with kisses and cuddles. John Monckton would do anything to protect his family... ...even if it meant giving his life. (Interstitial) The most powerful word in the English language is home. A home isn’t just building, it’s a sanctuary, it’s the one place where every person has the right to feel safe, shielded from any dangers outside and cocooned in a bubble within. But what every homeowner fears the most is burglary. Insurance can cover the cost of many items lost, but it can never repair that uneasy feeling that once a home had been invaded, space violated and possessions touched, that our loved one’s lives are in jeopardy. In 2005, a UK Home Office study questioned 82 burglars about their methods and motives. The average burglar is male, aged 27, although many are under the age of 17. Younger burglars tend to steal through boredom or peer-pressure, but the majority do so to feed a drink or drug habit. They steal from their own neighbourhoods, they rarely travel and they work in spurts, committing as many as twenty burglaries-a-week when their funds are low and their addiction is high. Many criminals see burglary as relatively low-risk, as less than 20% of all burglaries lead to an offender being prosecuted. As for choosing a home to break into; half of all burglars return to a home they’ve broken into before, leaving a few weeks gap to allow the insurance to pay-out and the items they’ve stolen to be replaced. A home’s contents are easy for a burglar to value, as owners often leave their curtains open and dump the boxes of any expensive electrical items outside for the binmen to collect. Per burglary, the average value of goods stolen per house is £500-700, excluding any damage to the home, which is much higher. Most burglaries occur on a weekday, between 3 and 4pm, when the owners are at work, at the shops or on a school-run; with an unoccupied house made obvious by the car gone and the curtains closed. The biggest help to any burglar is a broken light, a high hedge and a dirty window, as these shield their criminal activities. Locks can be broken, windows can be smashed and alarms aren’t a deterrent, as (although loud) mostly we all ignore them, and they do indicate that the home has items of high value. In fact, the biggest fear a burglar has isn’t being caught, but confronted. Key to their success is to enter and leave a home, unseen and unheard, so they will often avoid any bright lights, gravel paths, squeaky gates, barking dogs and (best of all) any home which looks occupied, with its lights and TV on. Burglars fit into three distinct types, a Chancer (who sees an easy opportunity and steals items to be sold quickly), a Creeper (who is skilled in housebreaking, has the patience to seek out high value items, but – like a Chancer – avoids being seen at all costs), and a Confronter (a truly dangerous criminal with no fear of being caught and who will do anything to defend themselves and to get what they want). In 1994, when the Monckton’s moved into 30 Upper Cheyne Row, they undertook a lot of renovations, including their home’s security. It was already a safe area, as being a rabbit’s warren of dead-ends and one-way streets, strangers rarely drive through and no-one can park-up without a resident’s permit. It was a very peaceful place, but there wasn’t a single house of this street which hadn't been burgled. To provide protection without instilling fear into his family, the security was strong but discrete. As a Victorian townhouse, it naturally had good defences; the windows were above head-height, the walls were hard to scale and weren’t accessible without a ladder. It had only two doors; one at the back which was well-lit and alarmed, and one at the front; with a door sat atop of an awkwardly steep set of stone steps, fitted with locks, dead-bolts, a chain and a spy-hole, as well as a burglar alarm, a panic alarm and an intercom in several rooms so they could answer the door without opening it. John had invested in the very latest security to defend his home and his family... ...but even the best protection is embedded with a fatal flaw – people. John Monckton was a private man who did his job, loved his family and never courted the limelight. Among a niche circle of bankers, priests and charities, he was a ‘celebrity’ of sorts, but even to those living on his own street, he was neither a name nor a face. And yet, he came to one man’s attention. The tabloids are obsessed with wealth and fame, so much so that a celeb can’t walk the streets without being papped by a sleazy snapper, as a dead-eyed excuse for a journalist pesters the poor soul with questions, only to dig up some dirt and spin it into something scandalous, like it’s actually newsworthy. Sadly, being wealthy, sometimes fame found him. In 2003 and 2004, he appeared in the Sunday Times Rich List and the Mail on Sunday’s Rich Report, with a photo of his face and a profile on his life featured alongside famous actors, pop stars, sports legends, royalty, millionaires and billionaires. For some, it’s an ego-trip, for John it was a security risk, but for a very desperate criminal - with a history of violence and an obsession with wealthy, who was sat amidst the squalor of his bail hostel in Streatham, barely a few months out of prison - this was the perfect way to compile a dossier on his potential targets. Only, John was not his chosen victim. Like all cowards, this particular robber would pick-on easy targets; someone older, weaker or smaller than himself, as he prowled the streets of Chelsea, not in search of a banker, but of a banker’s wife; who dressed in designer outfits, with a handbag full of cash and cards and dripped in precious gems. All he would have to do is find her, follow her home and wait until she was alone. In court, he denied that he kept surveillance on Via Venise, a designer shoe-store at 163 King's Road that Homeyra Monckton frequented. That he followed this lone lady on a seven-minute walk back to her home at 30 Upper Cheyne Row. Or that he watched her routines; shopping and shuttling her nine-year-old daughter between school, friends and an often-empty house. But there was no denying one simple fact: being a rich petite woman, Homeyra Monckton was an easy-target for the Devil’s Child. Monday 29th November 2004 began like any ordinary day for John Monckton. An early start, few breaks and long hours in the cutthroat world of high finance, where a dog-eat-dog deal can be the difference between wealth or death, as a slew of savage rivals are wrestled and slain. It’s an aggressive arena where only the bravest, quickest and strongest will survive, but the only splash of red which is spilled is the flush of shame and the stain of debt. As a Bonds trader for L&G Investment Group in the City’s financial district, John’s true strength was never his knuckles, it was his numbers. For John, business was good, but his home was where he wanted to be. So, at 6pm, he left. At 7pm, the suited and bespectacled man strolled onto Upper Cheyne Row; a dark but soothingly silent street, lined with familiar cars, a few trees, and no strangers or dangers. Just the shadow of his church, the soft glow of an old streetlamp and (on the corner of Glebe Place) his home for the last decade. Through the curtains, he saw the familiar joy of his night ahead; in the basement kitchen a meal was cooking, in the first-floor lounge the TV was on, and somewhere on the two floors above, maybe in the bedrooms, the playroom or the bathrooms were his wife and daughter. As always, his long-legs easily managed the steep Victorian steps up-to white front door, and only able to enter with keys, as the toughened door closed behind him with a reliable thud, its solid locks gave a reassuring click. With 12-year-old Sabrina at boarding school, it was just the three of them, so although he missed her dearly, his home still radiated with the little things he loved; the smell of a homecooked dinner, the warmth of a fire and the gentle splash as Homeyra gave Isobel her bath before bedtime. Isobel’s face beamed with delight, “Daddy”, as like Roald Dahl’s BFG, her very own ‘big friendly giant’ had returned and planted a big kiss on their cheeks - finally he was happy to be home. And as Isobel bathed and Homerya finished cooking, John changed out of his suit, ready for a relaxing evening. Behind their windows, doors, alarms and locks, the Monckton family were safe and secure... ...or so they thought. At 7:30pm, the doorbell rang. They weren’t expecting a caller, especially not this late, so from the safety of the bedroom two floors above, Homeyra spoke to the guest via the intercom. (Buzz) “Hello, who is it?” and a calm voice replied “postman, I’ve got a parcel here for a Mr John V Monckton”. Which was odd but not unusual, as although most people know that burglaries often occur between 3 and 4pm, for couriers the work never stops, and although his arrival was unexpected, a locked door will always be opened to total stranger who carries something as subtle as an ID, a uniform, or a parcel. Homeyra called down “John, there’s a parcel for you”. As anyone would, he replied “okay, I’ll deal with it”, but as he walked to the door, he was rightfully cautious, and his security was there for a reason. Through the spy-hole, John peeped. It’s fish-eye lens showed the obvious features of a delivery driver; as being dressed in a black woolly hat, an orange and blue florescent jacket and a postal sack over his shoulders, this young black youth with a baby-face and a big smile held in his hand a brown parcel. He said he was a postman, and it looked like he was. Besides, most people know that burglars don’t ring doorbells. But still, John was vigilant, so as he unlocked the door, he kept the security chain on. “Hello?”, John inquired, as the postman smiled “parcel for Mr Monckton”. John wasn’t expecting one, but the name and address was right. And besides, most people know that the majority of burglars avoid entering an occupied home. So, as the stranger coolly said “you’ll need to sign for it” – as we all would - John undid the chain, unclicked the lock and (as his last line of defence) he opened the door. ...but the postman was not alone. The second the door opened, John tried to slam it shut, screaming “no, no, no”, as hidden behind the postman’s legs, a dark shadow was crouched; dressed in black, a dark set of envious eyes peered through the jagged slits of a black balaclava, with a gun in his left hand and a six-inch blade in his right. Hearing the terror in her husband’s voice, as he battled to force the front door shut to protect his wife and child, Homeyra joined John’s struggle as pure evil invaded their home. And although the tall man and tiny lady pushed with all their might, they were no match for a fake postman and the Devil’s Child. Overwhelmed, as the door flew open, the postman grabbed John, and although not a fighter, being a foot taller with longer-arms, he did his best to keep his attacker at bay. But John was not the target. With John distracted, like a coward, the Devil’s Child went after the object of this robbery - his wife. Homeyra turned, as in her bedroom, lay a panic alarm (one button which when pressed would activate the home’s alarm and call the police), but as she ran up the stairs, without saying a word, this seed of Satan stabbed the blade twice in her back and side. Struggling, she made it to the first floor, but feeling a dampness in her back and no movement in her legs, she slumped onto the stairs, as John fought on. In a voice as calm as Death himself, the Devil’s Child (whose real name was Damian) demanded “give me your rings and your watch”, which she did. And although they were rich and she dressed well, the pieces he took from her only looked expensive, so having also taken her purse, it totalled barely £4000. Beginning to black-out as blood poured from her back, Homeyra screamed “John! I’ve been stabbed”, as he wrestled Elliot, the baby-faced postman. Looking up the stairs, he didn’t see the epitome of pure evil coming towards him, all he saw was his beloved wife ghostly white and drenched in red, and one floor above - alerted by her mother’s screams and peering through the bannister - was Isobel. With two violent and dangerous men in his home, who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, although he wasn’t a fighter, John would do anything to protect them... even if it meant his life. With his face beaten, as Elliot gripped him from behind in an immovable bear-hug, John’s fight to force both men out of his home and away from his family was failing. And yet it was then - without warning – that the Devil’s Child lashed out in a volley of frenzied stabs against an unarmed outnumbered man. John’s hands were slashed and bloodied as he valiantly fought off his attacker; as the stained six-inch blade sunk into his shoulder, his right arm and his pelvis. So ferocious was this assault, that having mistakenly stabbed Elliot, with the full length of the blade he buried the knife deep in John’s chest, as one wound ripped through his right lung, and the last, fatally skewered though this good man’s heart. John slumped to the floor in the doorway of his lounge, and as the robbers fled up Glebe Place, Elliot whooped "ah man, you're the business" and Damian giddily fingered his haul of a few hundred pounds and some inexpensive costume jewellery, as the two cowards left John & Homeyra to die. (End) ...which they would have done, had it not been for Isobel, who was only nine-years-old. Doing as her mother said, Isobel locked the door, called the police and set off the panic alarm, alerting the street. Sat amongst the blood-spattered room, with Homeyra feeling weak, pale and partially paralysed, there was no denying that the quick-thinking of this little girl had saved her mother’s life. But with John lying motionless, his eyes closed and his moans barely a whisper, even the paramedics couldn’t save him. Isobel later said “I knew my daddy was hurt in the heart” - a heart which had made him good, honest and loved - but having no pulse and gone into cardiac arrest, although 49-year-old John Monckton arrived at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital at 8.10pm, twenty minutes later, he was pronounced dead. The next day, after hours of emergency surgery to save her life and having lost seven of her ten pints of blood, although still in a critical condition, from her bedside at St Thomas’ Hospital, Homeyra had the heart-breaking task of telling Isobel (and her 12-year-old sister, Sabrina) that their father was dead. With the hardest question for any mother to answer being “Why did my daddy die?” John Monckton was a good man, a loving father and a doting husband who had done – as we all would - everything to protect his family; with a nice house and solid security. But criminals are cunning, and knowing how we think and seeing our weaknesses, he was duped by the simple mistake we all make. And although there’s no mystery why the Monckton’s were burgled? A few big questions remain. Who were the burglars? What drove them to steal? Why was Elliot actually there? And – most importantly of all - who else was to blame for this murder of John Monckton, except for the Devil’s Child? OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Part Two and the final part of The Trader and the Devil’s Child continues next week. If you enjoyed that, stay tuned for some extra titbits and some aimless waffle, after the break. Unless you don’t want to. But before that, here’s a true-crime podcast which may very well be the equivalent of a KitKat but with the wafer missing, and all that’s left is the chocolatey bit. Mmm. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; Kylie Clark, Stephen Beeston, Karen Price and Mads S Olsen, I thank you all, I hope you’re enjoying your new and exclusive Murder Mile goodies, as well as getting first dibs on the new exclusive Murder Mugs, featuring Reg Christie and Police Constable Arsenal Guinness. And a thank you to Kaley, Nadine and Peter Holloway, who sent a very kind donations via the Murder Mile eShop and the Supporter link, which Eva has already spent on a little butler’s bowtie for me to wear when I’m serving her three o’clock cocktail. Plus a thank you to everyone who continues to listen to and enjoy Murder Mile. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY:
Today’s episode is about the investigation into the death of Joseph Wootton. Was it an accident, or was it a murder? As although his peculiar death was resolved in a court of law and the culprit caught, the question which stumped the Police wasn’t how did he die, but why?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The former location of the Sardinia Buildings and the back of Wild Court, where the body of Joseph Wootton was found, is marked with a lime green cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
SOURCES: The Old Bailey archive, trial of Michael Joseph Holland MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about the investigation into the death of Joseph Wootton. Was it an accident, or was it a murder? As although his peculiar death was resolved in a court of law and the culprit caught, the question which stumped the Police wasn’t how did he die, but why? Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature 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 130: The Falling Man. Today I’m standing in Wild Court, WC2; two roads north of the brutal baker Alexander Moir, one road south of the First Date Killer’s home, one road west of where Mary Ann Moriarty dispatched her boozy beau, and a short walk south from the strange case of Annie Poke – coming soon to Murder Mile. Squirreled away from the hectic bustle of Covent Garden market, and squeezed amidst the forgotten grey gloom of Wild Street, Kemble Street and Kingsway sits Wild Court; a thin dark alley snuck between the backs of the Freemason’s Hall and CityLit, like a cruel after-thought by the town-planners. Being barely ten feet wide and with only a crack of sky peeping through the concrete monsters above, Wild Court is so depressing that the rats can’t be arsed, the fleas have resigned, any wee-wee stains have widdled-away and even Covid is claiming sick-pay. It truly is the epitome of a dead-end. Demolished to make way for the Kingsway Tramline – the 20th century’s very own CrossRail, seen back then as a wasteful folly which lacked value, purpose and only lined the pockets of CEO’s, any MPs on-the-take and a line which was later mothballed (coughs) – it looked identical in the 1890’s. With an entrance on Little Wild Street, Wild Court was the back of the Sardinia Buildings; a gigantic lodging house, five-storeys high, half-a-block wide and crammed-full of 150 little rooms for the city’s poorest. As a dark and squalid hell-hole for only for the most desperate; fights were frequent, screams were common and (drinking to dull the pain of their pitiful lives) violent assaults were a fact-of-life. But when a half-naked man was found slumped in the alley below - with cracked ribs, a broken back, deep cuts and rough dirty scuffs to his knees, hands and feet – it was clear to the Police that he had slipped, struggled and plummeted to his death. And yet, the real question was why did he have to die? As it was here, on the night of Friday 3rd March 1899, that Joseph Wootton fell to his death. But was this an accident, a murder, a mistake, or was an odd little friendship taken too far? (Interstitial) The mystery of the falling man began with very little mystery... “Friday 3rd March 1899, at roughly 12:30am, residents of the Sardinia Building at 19 to 21 Little Wild Street, a lodging house off Covent Garden, reported the sounds of shouting in the vicinity of Wild Court. The investigation was headed up by myself, Police Inspector William Crossman of Bow Street Station”. “Constable Francis Sale (PC142) and Constable Frederick Whittle (PC208), both of E Division were first on the scene. They met Mr Andrew Hutton, deputy manager of the lodging house and were brought to the rear of the building, a small back-alley known as Wild Court; it was unlit, dirty and unoccupied”. Initially, it looked like a false-lead, as too dark to see anything but the shifting shadows without a night-light, Wild Court was desolate, there was no man to be seen nor incident to be sensed. All the PCs could hear was a cascade of opening windows and the rhubarb of idle chatter echoing above, as a long line of eager fingers pointed down into the filthy hole below. Surrounded by iron railings - too thick to bend and too tall to climb - the PC spied a flash of white slumped on a dark jagged bed of broken bricks and rubbish. Accessed only by a key, there was no way to enter this recess, except from above. “PC Sale stated “on or about 12:45am, I saw a man lying where the occupants dump their waste. There was a great deal of blood pouring from his mouth, back and legs. He was alive, but only just, and he could not speak”. In fact, in the last moments he lived, he would barely utter a single word or syllable. Mugging was ruled-out, as if he had been attacked in the alley, why would anyone waste time lugging a fifteen-stone man over ten feet of railings to hide him on top of a bin? Burglary was discounted as only an idiot would scale a few flights of brick wall to enter a building, when the stairs were nearby. It may have been an accident, but no-one knew where he had fallen from. Suicide looked unlikely. And being a stranger, he had no reason to be there. But most baffling of all was his clothing... or lack of. “All he had on about his person was his shirt, nothing else, a white shirt ripped from his left armpit to the waist, and a few feet away was a pair of black trousers, dirty and bloodied, it was the right size to be his”. Although PC Sale would later state “I cannot say if they were there when I first saw the man”.” His lack of any underwear was not seen as suspicious, as this was an era before underpants were commonplace among the masses. But still, what was he doing there given that he was basically naked? “At a little before 1am, Dr Percy Levick, Police Surgeon escorted the unidentified man to King’s College Hospital. I arrived at 3am, and although insensible, 52-year-old Joseph Wootton of 13 Little George Street in Marylebone was able to impart his details to me, but very little else. He died at 7:45am”. The autopsy would prove what the Police had suspected. With his breath reeking of drink, his liver full and scratches on his knuckles, a drunken fight had occurred before the fall. With rough cuts scraping upwards on his chest, and long slashes from the underside of his biceps to his very tips of his fingers, - in staggered sections - he had fought to retain his grip of a window-sill, but inch-by-inch, he had lost. Struggling to clamber back inside the building, his bare feet had several layers of skin grated away by the wall’s rough bricks, the red-raw flesh of his heels had been peeled back and folded upwards, two toe-nails had been ripped-out by the root and the skin of his right big toe was entirely degloved. Based on his injuries, he had fallen forty-to-fifty feet, roughly four stories. And although, a sovereign-sized wound had resulted in a skull fracture and unconsciousness, this was not the cause of his death. Having landed in a seated position, and hit the hard bricks with a dead-stop, the jagged bed of rubble had pierced his buttocks and thighs, as the bulk of his body slammed-down upon it. So, in a swift fast smack; six ribs had snapped, one of which had skewered his right lung, but even that hadn’t killed him. With all of the fall’s energy focussed on a single spot, slamming down hard, it shattered his 12th dorsal vertebra, crushed his spine, ruptured his spinal cord and exploded sharp fragments of bone out of his broken back, leaving him paralysed from the chest down and haemorrhaging internally. Even if they could have saved him – which they couldn’t - the second his body had hit the bricks, his life was over. But before the autopsy taken place, the investigation had proven to be relatively straight forward: “Upon arrival, officers questioned the neighbours. Mrs Elizabeth Bowman of Room 85, on the fourth floor, overlooking Wild Court, stated “at 11pm, we heard two men quarrelling, I heard one call the other a bastard”. Other witnesses corroborated this, and Mrs Ruth Serle of 3 Sardinia Place, said “from my kitchen, I heard the two men yelling, it was coming from Room 84, the nearest window to mine”.” Within minutes, the investigation had identified a time and a place for the moments leading up to the death of Joseph Wootton, all of which pointed to a logical conclusion – two drunken men had a fight. “Just shy of 12:30am, Miss Caroline Frood of Room 79, across the corridor from Room 84, heard what she described as “shouting from inside the room, I opened my door and I heard a man cry out ‘I am bested’, I then heard a sort of pained cry of despair”. Other neighbours confirm this. Shortly after, Annie & Thomas Rich of Room 32, three floors below, heard “shouting, then a great thud, I got my lamp, looked down, and saw a man lying in the basement, he was vomiting and covered in blood”.” With everyone pointing to Room 84 as the fight’s point of origin - a room four stories high with a window that overlooked Wild Court and the basement below - even though the falling man had no known reason to be there, behind that locked door lay either a key-witness or a potential perpetrator. But who was the occupant, what happened that night, and why did he want this man dead? Given the era, there was nothing particularly remarkable about Joseph Wootton. Joe was born in 1847 in the parish of St Giles, in or near Covent Garden. Described as a general dealer, he sold whatever sold to feed his family. He had five children with his first wife - Joseph, Helen, Maria, Henry and William – but being widowed, he remarried Emily, a woman half his age, and together they had a one-month-old son called Charles and at the time of his death, she was expecting their seventh. With money tight, all nine shared a small bed in a single room at 13 Little George Street in Marylebone, and on top of her hectic life as a full-time mum, Emily supplemented their meagre income as a cleaner. As a 52-year-old man, who was short and squat but powerfully-built, Joe’s age was against him, as he could no longer cart the goods as quick as the younger fellas. The couple had no savings, no home of their own, and what little money they had left, he squandered on drink. Wasn’t the best husband or father, but he wasn’t the worst, and he had a few minor convictions for being drunk and disorderly. In court, his widow Emily would state these three facts; “my husband is addicted to drink”, “I am aware of Michael Joseph Holland, they have been friends for fifteen years” and “I know of no reason why he should be sleeping at the Sardinia Buildings”, as his home was only a short walk away. But he was? As for Michael Joseph Holland? The two seemed like kindred spirits. Born in 1867, 32-year-old Michael was a Covent Garden porter with a wife called Ann, a 3-year-old called Thomas and a 1-year-old also called Ann. Likewise, he went where the work was, his family lived in a crowded lodging in Lambeth, he had a few convictions for drinking and fighting, and he squandered their savings. But for whatever reason - whether work or a marital split - he had rented a lodging at Room 84 of the Sardinia Buildings. The two men were old pals, similar in so many ways; who had no debts, rivalry or jealousy together. Thursday 2nd March 1899 began as an ordinary day. “The deceased’s wife, Emily Wootton stated “he left home about midday and did not return”, which was not uncommon, he finished his work in the fruit market about 7pm, therefore these timings are based on the sightings by potmen and publicans”. “Alfred Ashwell of The Grapes pub at 42 Sardinia Street, served both the prisoner (Michael Holland) and the deceased (Joseph Wootton) between 7 and 9pm. Being a hot-headed pair, they often drank to excess and engaged in fisticuffs, but such incidents were always resolved with neither man holding a grudge. At 9pm, a news-lad called Laurie Donovan saw both at The Hart on Drury Lane, stating “both were on good terms”. 10:30pm, both returned to The Grapes, had two glasses of ale and a penny worth of tobacco. They left at 10:45pm. Both were very drunk, but again, they left together as “good pals”. Just shy of 11pm, they entered the Sardinia Buildings on Little Wild Street, where (for the two weeks prior) Michael had rented a room. That was the last sighting of Joseph Wootton. 90 minutes later, his half-naked body would be found on a jagged pile of bricks with his limbs ripped and his back broken. “Witnesses corroborate that an argument began after 11pm. Mrs Bowman in Room 85, “I didn’t think much of it, it was very slight, one called the other a bastard”. Mrs Serle in the window opposite heard loud voices at 12pm but couldn’t make out the word. Miss Frood across the corridor heard a cry “I am bested” from inside Room 84, and Mr & Mrs Rich in 32 heard a thud and saw a body in the basement”. Illuminating the thin alley with his lantern, PC Whittle searched the length of Wild Court, but he found nothing; no weapons, no money and no clothes, just a smashed semi-clad man in a ripped white shirt. “My officers searched from top to bottom. I went to the roof to check if he had jumped, but the door was firmly locked, as was the basement. Immediately above the spot where the deceased was found, the prisoner's window was lighted, and corroborated by witnesses, that brought myself to Room 84”. First to approach the sturdy wooden door of Room 84 were PC’s Frederick Whittle and Francis Sale. They knocked, but got no reply. They knocked again, but again nothing. So, knocking hard, a gruff voice barked “who is it?”, Whittle replied “Police! Open up!”, at which the prisoner replied “F**k you!”. It was only when the officer threatened to force the door, that it was opened. Which begs the question, with his old pal Joseph smashed and dying four stories below, why was Michael so reluctant to help? Before the PCs stood Michael Holland; five foot seven inches tall, 32-years-old and well-built. Like Joseph, he was naked except for a white shirt, and his knuckles were scuffed with old blood and new. From the door, the PCs engaged the prisoner in the following conversation: PC “A man’s been found in the alley, without any clothes”, Holland: “I know nothing about him”, PC: “Have you seen a strange man, or any clothes lying about?”, Holland: “No! This is my trousers, if you wanna see ‘em?”, at which he jabbed his finger at a jacket, waistcoat, trousers, socks and boots piled on a chair, all black, all dirty. The prisoner was then asked “Who lives here with you?”, he replied “no-one, there’s no bastard living here, only me”. The room was small, the bed was unmade, the light was on and the window was open. With no evidence to directly link Joseph Wootton to Michael Holland or the argument in Room 84, the PCs continued a search of the building and reported their findings to inspector William Crossman. “The officers and myself accompanied Mr Hutton, the deputy of the lodging house, and examined by lantern light the water-closets and sinks. There is one on each floor and half-landing, but we found nothing in any of them”. But while the officers were occupied, Michael was engaged in skulduggery. At about the same time, James Hewitt, a portmanteau-maker who lived in Room 19, saw Michael stagger unsteadily down the stairs between the third and fourth floors. “I said "What are you doing here in only your shirt? If they’re your trousers you’ve got under your arm, why don't you put them on? You’ll have the women out on you, and then there will be a fine-to-do". But the prisoner gave no reply and staggered away, with the dirty-looking bundle looking much larger than a pair of trousers. Moments later, 14-year-old William, son of Elizabeth Bowman saw Michael return to his room, minus a large bundle. The officers were informed and a second search of the water-closets were conducted. This time, behind a third-floor sink, they found a set of threadbare socks and some scuffed black boots. On a half-landing, behind a toilet door (which earlier had opened with ease but now seemed to be stuck) they spied a waistcoat and a black jacket. And four stories below, slumped in a crumpled heap beside the bloodied and barely-breathing body of the fallen man lay a pair of black trousers. Although PC Sale would later state “I cannot say if they were there when I first saw the man”.” Only they weren’t. Which begs more questions, why hide the clothes and why deny that Joseph was there? No-one had seen either man in the room, so an alibi of an accident or self-defence could never be disproved. At 4:30am, Inspector Crossman knocked on the door to Room 84. Being sleepy but still a little worse for wear, Michael let the Police Inspector in. “I stated to the prisoner that a man named Joseph Wootton had been found on the brick rubbish below this window, and when asked to explain why, again he repeated that he knew nothing about the man or the incident”, which I knew to be untrue”. The evidence that a fight of some description had taken place was relatively clear. Across the rough hairy knuckles of Michael’s right-hand lay a series of welts and cuts from a fist-fight he claimed had occurred two weeks earlier. And although repeatedly he would lie, his body wouldn’t, so with his skin still swelling and the bruises still new, this particular fight was barely a few hours old. Likewise, a scratch on his forehead had struggled to heal, as every time his brow furrowed, the skin crinkled and ripped the slim red gash wider, sending a tiny drop of blood oozing from this fresh cut. And with stains spattering his shirt sleeve and the bed marked in a red pool which the Inspector stated was sticky, “when I made the prisoner aware that the blood on the sheet was damp”, he gave no reply”. Again, he denied a fight had been fought, that another man had slept in his bed, he shrugged off any knowledge of a second man, and he refuted any claim that the clothes were Joseph’s. Even though of the two low-crowned hats discovered in his room; one fitted his head perfectly, but the other did not. The cramped room was simple; it had a small bed, two wooden chairs, a window and a door. On inspection, the door was undamaged, but by the window, it was clear that a struggle had taken place. Beside the bed, a picture-frame lay face-down on the floor, its glass smashed. His bushel-baskets for hauling fruit to the market were tipped over. The curtain’s draw-string had snapped, as a weight had yanked the right curtain off its rail, leaving the left one trapped outside of the recently closed window. When asked why, he gave no answer. So, why did he hide the clothes, but didn’t clean up the room? Inspector Crossman examined the window: “I raised the sash; in the dust were fresh finger-marks on the woodwork, which scraped outwards and down along the stone. A stain ran along the centre of the sill, as if a heavy weight of flesh had been dragged over it. And on the outside wall, three feet below the sill were bloodied scratches in the brickwork, as if a bare-footed man had struggled to hold on”. A measurement proved that (as the pathologist had stated) Joseph would have fallen 40 to 50 feet to sustain the injuries he did. Directly below Michael’s window was the basement where he had landed, and from sill to bricks, the distance was exactly 41 feet. “I drew the prisoner’s attention towards the basement and the bloodied foot marks, but he gave no reply. In fact, he became quite sullen”. Which begs another question, what was the argument about and why didn’t Michael try to save his friend? At 6am, Joseph’s wife, Emily Wootton was brought to the Sardinia Buildings, where she identified the jacket, waistcoat, trousers, socks, boots and even the hat Michael said was his, as that of her husband. Michael Holland was taken to Bow Street Police Station, where he stated “I don’t know anything about it at all; I was drunk at the time” and charged with assault and causing injury to Joseph Wootton, but having died of his injuries at 7:45am, Michael was subsequently charged with his murder (End). An inquest into the murder of Joseph Wootton took place on the 13th March 1899 at St Clement Danes Vestry Hall, and after a committal hearing at Bow Street, he was tried at The Old Bailey on 10th April. The prosecution argued that Michael had pushed Joseph out of the window and left him dangling, but being too exhausted to hold his grip, he fell. But the defence denied this, arguing that the evidence was purely circumstantial and – more importantly – that there was no motive for the murder. Michael pleaded ‘not guilty’ but refused to provide any witnesses or evidence to prove this, which put Mr Justice Grantham in a quandary: he stated “the evidence is entirely circumstantial, but the prisoner has not assisted the jury by giving any reason for the disturbance. Instead, he has told lie after lie from the moment the police arrived, right across the investigation and until he was arrested”. But even when he was asked if he had anything further to say, Michael simply barked “no!” in a loud gruff voice. The jury retired for just thirty minutes, and having returned with a unanimous verdict of guilty, Michael Joseph Holland was sentenced to death. One hour before his execution, his sentence was reduced to life, which he served in Parkhurst Prison. But even up to that very moment, as death dangled, he remained totally silent as to what had happened between the two men, that night, in Room 84. But why? Why lie about a fight? Why hide his clothes? Why deny that his friend was there? And why, after fifteen years side-by-side, did he choose to watch Joseph die, rather than save his life? It’s a deadly secret that both men took to their graves, so the mystery of the falling men will never be solved. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed that, stay tuned for tea slurping and utter waffle after the break. It’s not essential, so if you don’t like pointless rambling, switch off now. But before that, here’s a true-crime podcast which may very well be the icing on an iced bun. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; Aaron French and Rae Kennedy, I thank you both, I hope you’re enjoying your new and exclusive Murder Mile goodies. And a thank you to Aimee Graham, Anne Marie Cummings, Kim Calve and Leah Hawkins who sent a very kind donations via the Murder Mile eShop, which will be spent (not on Eva’s rather lethal cocktail collection) but on cake for me, so I thank you. Plus a thank you to everyone who shared this podcast with their friends. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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The former home of Teddy Sieff, and scene of Carlos the Jackal's first (badly bungled) assassination
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE:
Today’s episode is about Carlos the Jackal; the infamous terrorist, hijacker, kidnapper, bomber and assassin, whose name was (supposedly) the stuff of legend. But were any of his atrocities so skilful that they deserved such a feared reputation, or was he really just a cack-handed twat?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of the Teddy's Sieff's former home at 48 Queen's Grove (and where Carlos the Jackal committed his first failed assassination is marked with a light purple cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
SOURCES: To name but a few...
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/05/archives/basque-woman-is-linked-in-london-to-paris-mystery.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/carlos-held-after-20year-manhunt-scotland-yard-may-question-killer-who-is-said-to-have-been-behind-series-of-terrorist-attacks-in-london-1376671.html https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world-s-least-wanted-defendant-1.127090 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/26/guardianobituaries https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/house-where-carlos-the-jackal-first-struck-faces-the-bulldozer-6630867.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39421429 https://www.standard.co.uk/news/house-where-carlos-the-jackal-first-struck-faces-the-bulldozer-6630867.html https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/jan/22/lois-sieff-obituary https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/lois-sieff-wife-of-british-zionist-federation-vice-president-jospeh-sieff-dies-aged-94-1.451800 https://www.stjohnswoodmemories.org.uk/content/memories/crime_drama/carlos_the_jackal https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/carlos-the-jackal-faces-new-trial-over-terrorist-attacks-in-france-6258237.html https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Fl88AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=Teddy+Sieff+Carlos+the+Jackal&source=bl&ots=Mg9Zr14II6&sig=ACfU3U0EfPwhg3e_4bq4ej3yvCAoiYy3IA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjN6_vRpbXnAhVYRxUIHa5GA54Q6AEwCHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Teddy%20Sieff&f=false https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4308544/Carlos-Jackal-blows-kisses-dock-tirade.html MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about Carlos the Jackal; the infamous terrorist, hijacker, kidnapper, bomber and assassin, whose name was (supposedly) the stuff of legend. But were any of his atrocities so skilful that they deserved such a feared reputation, or was he really just a cack-handed twat? Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature 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 129: Carlos the Jackal (or Jackass?) Today I’m standing on Queen’s Grove, in St John’s Wood, NW1; three streets north of the elementary murder of William Raven, two streets west of the home of the fallen police hero Jack Avery, four streets north-east of the severed torso of Hannah Brown, and a few bus-stops north from (possibly) one of the first unsolved murders by the Blackout Ripper – coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated north of Regent’s Park, Queen’s Grove is posh, very posh. With the average house priced at £3.2 million and with some selling upwards of eight. Many have nine bedrooms, five bathrooms and two kitchens - all for just two people, with not a smile between them – as well as a sitting-room, a drawing-room, a sketching room, an etching room and a doodling room, with a pantry (possibly where they keep their pants), a scullery (to store the skulls of dead servants), a winery (where they whinge about posh things), and they don’t own a telly over fifty inches, as that’s ‘unseemly’ and ‘vulgar’. As a very quiet and private street - far from anything as uncouth as a corner-shop or a vape emporium - with walled and gated homes on either side, this is not the sort of area you might see youths playing footie, unsavoury types imbibing a reefer or spot a set of Ugg boots (perish the thought). No, anyone seen chatting over the back-fence is more likely to be the hired help gossiping while the master’s out. Scandal does happen here; whether affairs with the nanny, an occasional dead butler, or a billion quid syphoned-off to Bermuda, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of place where a terrorist cuts his teeth. On the corner of St John’s Wood Road sits 48 Queen’s Grove; a two storey, thirty-roomed house, made of brown bricks, white Doric columns and secured by tall trees, thick walls and a wrought iron gate. Since the 1950’s, this was the family home of Joseph Edward Sieff. As a beloved businessman and a heartfelt humanitarian, Teddy was a good man who dedicated his life to helping others, and asked for nothing in return. Not money, not a name, nor anything as crass as celebrity or fame. And yet, having been placed on a terrorist’s kill-list, his life was spared by the incompetence of his would-be killer. As it was here, Sunday 30th December 1973, in a bid to build his reputation, that Carlos the Jackal would attempt his first murder... only to royally balls-it-up, just as he always would. (Interstitial). It’s easy to create a legend, if you gloss over the failures and mistakes of the truly inept... ‘Carlos the Jackal’ was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez on 12th October 1949 in Michelena, an affluent rural town on the western border of Venezuela, to a loving mother but an overbearing father. Professing to be a Communist, all three sons were named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - founder of the Soviet Union. But in truth, as a wealthy lawyer living a privileged life, he was little more than a ‘champagne socialist’. Raised in a Marxist ideology while whole-heartedly quaffing the fragrant fruits of their Capitalist spoils, Ilich adopted these principles – being keen for his father’s attention - and therefore this duality stuck. Aged 10, when this little boy should have been climbing trees, Ilich joined the Venezuelan Communist Party. Aged 15, he organised anti-government demonstrations for the Venezuelan Communist Youth League. Aged 17, he attended the anti-imperial Tricontinental Conference in Havana, and was (allegedly) trained in guerrilla combat tactics at Camp Matanzas. And although the Cold War world crept closer to Armageddon and possible annihilation, a greater conflict was fought closer to home. In 1966, his parents divorced. Jose, his father wanted Ilich to stay in Venezuelan and remain a Marxist, but Elba, as a good mother, wanted a better life for her boys and moved to West London. Ilich had only ever read about the decadent excesses of Capitalist West, but now he was living it and loving it. His new life was affluent but stable. He lived with his mother and brothers in a flat on the prosperous Kensington High Street. As a bad Marxist, he was educated privately at Stafford House College and later at the London School of Economics, where his teachers described him as cocky, brash and rude. Being obsessed with spy thrillers, Ilich would sit transfixed at the cinema watching Dr No, From Russian With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball, all the while dreaming of being James Bond; dressed in a sharp suit, driving a fast car, swigging Boulenger, blowing shit up and making whoopie with a lovely lady. So, looking like a tall fat Austin Powers, Ilich drank, partied and royally shagged his way across London. As the crow flies, he was only five thousand miles from homeland, but after just two years of western excesses, this arrogant little playboy was a million miles from his father’s ideal as a Marxist-Leninist. In 1969, Jose sought to rectify this by enrolling Ilich at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, a radical hotbed of foreign Communists, named after the assassinated Congolese leader. But loving too much his life as a low-rent lothario who dined like a decadent dandy, one year later, Ilich was expelled. Feeling a failure, in July 1970, Ilich joined the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), an anti-Zionist terror group who drew attention to the plight of their occupied lands through high-profile hijackings, bombings and assassinations. Trained in terrorism, it was here that Ilich was given the first part of his infamous nickname. Not in tribute to a fallen hero, as many of his fellow fighters found him lazy and aloof, but surrounded by Arabs, they called him Carlos to mock his South-American roots. In 1971, following the Black September uprising and the bombing of the Palestinian camps, co-leader of the PFLP, Wadi Haddad ordered Carlos back to London to set-up a European base, which he did... ...sort of. Seen as a cocktail party swinger, Carlos returned to his playboy life; boozing, schmoozing and bedding left-leaning ladies, who hid his stash of cash, false passports and illegal weapons. Along with his love of Bond films, in 1971, he read Frederick Forsythe’s ‘The Day of the Jackal’, a thriller about an infamous assassin - which many readers mistakenly believe is about him, but it isn’t, and he rarely denies it. By 1972, owing to his link to the PFLP, an MI5 surveillance unit watched his movements, but this West End wonder-lush didn’t exactly exude the angry rhetoric of a radical terrorist; he drank, shagged and looked a little edgy on a visit to St George’s hospital, where an optician prescribed a pair of dark glasses to curb his sensitivity to bright lights – a distinctive look which would later become his trademark. For his first solo mission, he delivered machine guns to the fanatical Japanese Red Army, and although he claimed he took part in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, he didn’t. Carlos was nothing, a driver and a bag man with a mixed-up ideology, who the PFLP had no hope for, and MI5 had misplaced. Carlos wanted to be infamous, a celebrity and a legend... ...but that’s impossible to achieve when you’ve done diddly-squat. Where-as Teddy had a well-earned reputation through excellence, hard-graft and generosity. Born on the 28th November 1905, Joseph Edward Sieff, known as Teddy was one of two sons to Effraim & Sarah, a highly respected couple from affluent Jewish families. In contrast to Israel, his much-bolder brother, Teddy was a sweet, softly-spoken and sensitive man who many described as a ‘quiet shadow’. Educated at the prestigious Manchester Grammar School, alongside his brother, he befriended Simon Marks, son of the co-founder of Marks & Spencer’s and the three went into business together. In 1933, with Israel as joint managing-director, Teddy played a key role as the store’s merchandise developer. But he never let his wealth, class or seniority dictate how he spoke to those below him, as in keeping with its founder’s motto - “if the canteen is good enough for the staff, it’s good enough for the bosses” - for that, even as he was promoted company chairman, the staff would always love and respect him. In 1929, Teddy married Maisie, the love-of-his-life and together they raised two daughters. Everything was perfect, but after more than twenty years of wedded bliss, Maisie died, leaving Teddy a widower. And although distraught, as a doting father, Teddy strived to keep some semblance of normality during such a turbulent time in his children’s lives, as well as finding love and filling a lonely hole in his heart. In 1952, he met Lois Ross; that same year they married, they had a son, and two years later, his family moved into the affluence of a well-protected home at 48 Queen’s Grove, and there they remained. By 1972, aged 67, with a mop of white hair, his voice like a polite whisper and his sweet face softened further by a set of owl-like glasses, this ‘quiet shadow’ had earned his retirement. Still mourning the death of his brother, Teddy handed the company to Israel’s son, but remained as company president. And although, with their children all grown-up and married-off, Teddy & Lois often rattled round their 30-roomed house, his twilight years gave him more time to devote to his true passion – charity. Teddy always had a big heart and deep pockets, not because he felt he had to, but because he cared. Typical of Teddy, following surgery in 1966, he donated £50,000 to aid the renovation of the hospital’s wing, he personally thanked every nurse and matron, and as an extra thank you to these NHS heroes (who weren’t paid particularly well) he gave them two week’s salary each out of his own pocket. But this was not an uncommon act of generosity for Teddy, who always thought of others before himself. Top of his philanthropic agenda was the plight of children, so using his influence, he helped to build primary schools, develop educational programmes and support humanitarian causes, especially in the volatility of the Middle East, as - when wars erupt - it’s always the young who are affected most. As a Jew, who strived to fight anti-Semitism his whole life, this ‘quiet shadow’ gave a powerful voice to the poor and helpless, as honorary vice-president of the Zionists Federation and chairman of the Joint Palestine Appeal, who in a single evening, helped raise $2.5 million for humanitarian causes. Outside of charity, he liked gardening, music and was patron of the arts. In 1971, he was named ‘Man of the Week’, and he would (rightfully) earn a reputation as a man who was successful and beloved. And although the seventies were a turbulent time for many, Teddy had no enemies... ...or so he thought. 1973 was a year of violence. With the eruption of the Arab/Israeli war, world trade slowed to a crawl by an oil embargo and – miles from the hotly-contested promised land of Israel – cities were crippled in fear as terrorist groups like the PFLP launched hijackings, bombings and assassinations. For many in the West, this overseas skirmish was more of a “their problem, not ours”, and although the tragic scenes on the news were sad, for the viewers, it was ‘out of sight, out of mind”. The PFLP knew this, so to force our dithering leaders into action, they brought terrorism to the British streets. Turning all the peaceful streets into the potential sight of a bloodbath, as armed police patrolled; every bin was searched, every bag was checked, every package was scrutinised, and even good neighbours were seen with suspicion, as the bomb factories of the politically deranged emerged next door. In October 1973, Sir John Cohen, the founder of Tesco’s empire Had warned Teddy that he was one of thirty prominent Jewish businessmen who were on a ‘death list’ by the PFLP. Scotland Yard were notified, tensions were high, and every possible target was on the lookout for suspicious packages, as that month, three booby-trapped fire-bombs had exploded outside several Marks & Spencer’s stores. Terrorism was the hot topic on everybody’s lips, and with the newspapers baying for a James Bond-style assassin who was suave, daring and brave, Carlos was eager to be seen as a ‘celebrity terrorist’... ...the problem was, he was inept. The evening of Sunday 30th December 1973 was the epitome of foreboding, as a bitter icy wind howled and whipped dead leaves down the desolate streets of St John’s Wood. Darkness bathed every brick in black and bare trees loomed large like Satan’s own shadow, as Death walked into Queen’s Grove. Just shy of 7pm, a lone man stood below the unlit street light outside of 48, his frame and his features disguised, as - with Britain in the grip of a miner’s strike - many lights were off, both inside and out. But standing six-foot-two inches tall and sturdily built, this stranger was hardly inconspicuous; as with black leather gloves that creaked with each crinkle and military boots that clomped like Frankenstein’s monster, the round little baby-face of 24-year-old Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was masked by the fur-lined hood of his green Army parka, his scarf (as red as a Communist’s flag) and the thick black rims of his trademark glasses. So, lucky for him, being a typical British winter, he didn’t look too foolish or sinister. In his pocket, he held a gun; a Russian-made Tokarev 7.62mm pistol fitted with a clip of eight rounds. As an assassin’s tool, it was fine. As a plus, it was pocket-sized, the recoil was short and the explosion was quiet, but on the downside, the aim was terrible, it lacked power and it was prone to jamming. I mean, hidden in a bag at his girlfriend’s flat was an-arsenal of arms to choose from, including a British-made Browning HP MK1, a reliable high-power semi-automatic pistol, with two-to-three times the bullet capacity. But being a ‘playboy Marxist’ with daddy issues, he opted for the Soviet Special. And, I guess it would be a little cruel to gloss over the fact that – in his hideaway – was stashed several grenades, a few pounds of explosives and a cache of spare bullets, he even had access (as we all do) to ropes, knives and a hammer. So, he could have had a back-up weapon, should anything go wrong? But he didn’t. It’s unknown whether this was confidence, cockiness or incompetence, as the murder of Teddy Sieff was meant to be the hit which he would make his name as a celebrity terrorist. And yet, he hadn’t got a getaway car and he didn’t have a plan; he was just going to walk-up, knock and shoot. What could possibly go wrong? At 7pm precisely, Carlos pulled open the black wrought-iron gate of 48 Queen’s Grove, walked the short unlit path to the Georgian mansion, and to the right of the black front door, he rang the doorbell. With a loaded pistol clutched in his fist, it would be an easy hit, as - unlike many other prominent Jews on the PFLP’s ‘death-list’ - his target had declined a Police guard, he was clearly in, and being a big-hearted philanthropist and a man-of-the-people, strangers were always welcome at his door. That was Carlos’ first mistake; Teddy Sieff was rich, and rich people never answer their own doors. Peeping round the black front door, Carlos was confronted by Manuel Perloira, the Sieff’s Portuguese butler. Thinking quick, before the hired help could slam it shut, he poked the pocket-sized pistol in the servant’s face, and in a heavily-accented voice growled “take me to Sieff”, which the Butler did. By 7:01pm, Carlos was in, but with his mission already messed-up, he had no plan of how to get out. Standing in the opulent reception of his target, for a brief second Carlos took at the artworks upon the walls (a Gainsborough, a Tiepolo and a Warhol), only he wasn’t here for a robbery, he was here to kill. So, jabbing the gun’s muzzle in the butler’s back, silently he frog-marched Manuel up the staircase, having ordered him to call to his master; “Sir? Mr Sieff? Could you come to the landing a second?” That was Carlos’ second mistake in as many minutes; as being so disliked by his fellow fighters, being forced to act as a lone assassin, he didn’t have a spare pair of hands when he needed it most. At 7:02pm, Teddy didn’t reply, instead his wife Lois did. But being in the midst of changing for dinner, she didn’t exit the bedroom where Teddy was, but her dressing-room directly opposite. So, seeing her butler being held hostage, she locked the door, telephoned the Police and the officers dispatched. At 7:03pm, perched behind his petrified prisoner, Carlos slunk into the master bedroom, but Teddy was nowhere to be seen and – hearing the distant wail of sirens - time was running out. “Call him!”, Carlos urged, forcing the butler to lure his target out into the open - “Sir? Mr Sieff? Are you there?” And he was, so as the door to the ensuite bathroom opened, the two men came face-to-face. It was no match; an armed assassin trained by the Iraqi military, and a half-dressed male in his late sixties, with thick spectacles, a bad back and a recurring heart problem. In short, Teddy was as good as dead. From less than a metre apart, the trigger was pulled, the muzzle exploded, the gun jerked back and in a short hot flash of fire, a round of burning lead hit Teddy squarely in the head. Instantly slumping down to the floor, Teddy lay unconscious and helpless, as blood poured and pooled from his pale face. As the sirens drew ever nearer, Carlos aimed the pistol at Teddy’s brain, one last shot to finish his target off, and having cemented his place in infamy, the celebrity of Carlos the Jackal would be born. But as it often did, the gun jammed... and with no back-up, no spare bullets and no time to unclog the chamber, by 7:04pm, Carlos had fled through the back door, just as the squad car arrived. It wasn’t perfect, but he was in and out in less than four minutes, his identity was hidden and his target is dead... ... or so he thought. Teddy was rushed to the Middlesex Hospital, and although he had been shot in his upper lip, the bullet was deflected by his teeth, missing his jugular vein, and lodging in his jaw. An operation successfully removed the bullet, he jokingly said he was saved by his “Milk Marketing Board teeth”, and a few days later, Teddy was released with nothing but a few small marks on his lip, which looked like a cold sore. Teddy lived a long and happy life, he died of natural causes in 1982, nine years after he was shot. The PFLP took full credit for this ineffectual shooting, and the career of Carlos the bungling terrorist had begun – with no-one knowing who would get hurt when this cack-handed twat was running amok. On 24th January 1974, he threw a bomb into Hapoalim Bank in the heart of London’s banking district; it bounced off the ceiling, smashed a bulb, no-one was killed, but it did make a small hole in the floor. On 3rd August 1974, he exploded three car-bombs in Paris, against two right wing newspapers and the offices of the Jewish Social Fund. The cars were wrecked, no-one was hurt, and their work resumed. On 15th September 1974, two grenades were thrown into a café in Paris, two people were killed, thirty were injured, and although he claimed it as his, Carlos has since denied he had anything to do with it. On the 13th January 1975, he fired two rocket-propelled grenades at an El Al airliner taking off at Orly Airport... only to miss it completely, and destroy a parked DC-9, an empty storage building and - as he tried to flee - he shattered the windscreen of his getaway car, owing to the recoil of the rocket. As an assassin, he has had some “successes”, but many of them have been through luck rather than skill. So, how did such an incompetent klutz become one of the world’s most infamous terrorists? (End) Simple, he was the right man in the right place at the right time; terrorism was hot, spy thrillers were all the rage, and the press wanted a suave dangerous playboy, who - unlike James Bond - was real. On 1st July 1975, a bag belonging to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was found hidden in the top-floor flat of his friend, Angela Otaola. Inside, Police discovered several passports under six aliases, a consignment of C4 explosives, three guns (including the pistol used to shoot Teddy) and the ‘death-list’ of prominent Jews. For the press, this was front-page stuff, but the one detail they drooled over the most was that - inside his terrorist toolkit - he carried a copy of Frederick Forsyth’s thriller ‘The Day of the Jackal’. Three days later, the Police proclaimed Ilich as “one of the most cold-blooded and dangerous terrorist leaders in Europe...” - which is true, if you choose to ignore all of his mistakes, failures and blunders – citing him as highly regarded “because of his ruthless professionalism, like the hired killer in the novel ‘Day of the Jackal’”. After that, the press nicknamed him Carlos the Jackal and the rest is history. On 15th August 1994, Carlos was captured in Sudan and extradited to Paris. Aged 71, he’s serving a life sentence in Clairvaux prison for the murder of an informant and two counter-intelligence agents, plus an additional life term for killing eleven and injuring more than 150 people, although it is believed he may have murdered as many as eighty. As of today, this ‘celebrity terrorist’ remains as cocky, arrogant and unrepentant for his crimes as ever, and he has never charged for the shooting of Teddy Sieff. So, ask yourself this, is he really Carlos the Jackal, or Carlos the Jackass? OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you enjoyed that, there’s at least half an hour of tea drinking and utter waffle after the break. If you like it, stay. If you don’t, go. It’s not for everyone, hence it’s not an extra part of the podcast. But before that, here’s a true-crime podcast which may be the first mouthful of a pint of pink Angel delight. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; Jay jones, Lord Ponsonby Farquhar and Freddo, I thank you all, I hope you got your new goodies, and I hope those lucky Patreon supporters are enjoying the exclusive ‘Blackout Ripper’ mugs and new blood-red key-rings I’ve made, which are only available via Patreon. For as little as $3 a month, you get lots of goodies. Plus, a thank you to an anonymous donation via the Supporter link, I thank you. And a thank you to everyone who keeps listening to the show and sharing it with their pals, it’s very much appreciated. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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The home of Vincenzo Iale, where he invited Jason Marshall and where he would be tortured and murdered
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT:
Today’s episode is the final part about the murder of Peter Fasoli, a lonely man who let a stranger into his life, only to be tortured, suffocated and left to die inside his burning bungalow. His killer had fled, believing he had covered his tracks, but he had left behind an eye-witness.
SOURCES:
https://www.towleroad.com/2017/09/peter-fasoli/ https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/national/18000310.new-inquest-ordered-death-murder-victim-found-died-accidentally/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-41399617 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40779337 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40813798 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40880239 https://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/15096437.man-28-charged-with-2013-murder-of-northolt-man/ https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/man-charged-police-2013-northolt-12611437 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jason-marshall-peter-fasoli-39-years-minimum-cling-film-computer-arson-camera-a7967661.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/26/fantasist-jason-marshall-jailed-murdering-man-peter-fasoli-sex-session https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/crime/revealed-fantasist-murderer-absconded-from-john-howard-centre-years-before-3565108 https://attitude.co.uk/article/a-man-whose-death-was-initially-ruled-an-accident-was-victim-of-serial-killer/22367/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7734349/Peter-Fasoli-killed-fake-MI5-agent-Northolt-west-London-new-inquest-rules.html https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/11/29/peter-fasoli-jason-marshall-gay-serial-killer-london-murder-torture-mi5-inquest/ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/east-ham-fantasist-jason-marshall-guilty-of-sex-murder-to-classic-fm-39dbhj6n9 http://www.ealingtoday.co.uk/default.asp?section=info&page=eanortholtmarshall002.htm https://chiswickherald.co.uk/ealing-man-jailed-for-years-for-murder-p7243-95.htm https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/03/man-accused-of-murder-during-sex-session-killed-second-victim-in-italy-court-hears https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/former-male-escort-found-guilty-of-murder-and-arson-in-dating-app-killing-112831/ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/09/jason-marshall-fantasist-found-guilty-murdering-man-peter-fasoli-sex-session https://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/news/crime/east-ham-man-guilty-of-murdering-computer-repairman-in-seven-3133350 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jason-marshall-serial-killer-old-bailey-murder-trial-peter-fasoli-badoo-classic-fm-clingfilm-suffocated-northolt-london-rome-italy-vincenzo-iale-umberto-gismondi-a7878401.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/olympics-cleaner-claims-he-has-no-memory-of-allegedly-smothering-his-handcuffed-victim-with-clingfilm-a3603566.html https://www.ilcorrieredellacitta.com/news/cronaca/omicidio-a-torvaianica-alta-condannato-a-16-anni-jason-peter-marshall.html&prev=search&pto=aue https://www.ilmessaggero.it/roma/cronaca/jason_peter_marshall_adesc_ograve_uomo_chat_condannato_roma-1245838.html&prev=search&pto=aue http://mysocalledgaylife.co.uk/2017/08/another-gay-murder-more-police-failings/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4775550/Fantasist-28-guilty-murdering-gay-man.html MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is the final part about the murder of Peter Fasoli, a lonely man who let a stranger into his life, only to be tortured, suffocated and left to die inside his burning bungalow. His killer had fled, believing he had covered his tracks, but he had left behind an eye-witness. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. (lighter) My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. (fire/flames) Episode 128: The Badoo Killer – Part Two. (hints of The Snowman) Peter lay slumped, hidden in a dark recess between his side of the bed and the back of his brown sofa; helpless, motionless and unable to scream, move or even breathe. With his wrists and ankles hog-tied by adhesive tape, his oxygen-starved face deformed by thick layers of tightly-wrapped clingfilm, and his last gasps of breath suffocated by a plastic carrier-bag, Peter was dying a slow and painful death. Described as a “good man who would help anyone with anything”, Peter didn’t have an ounce of hatred in his heart or a cruel thought in his head, as all ever wanted was to be loved. And yet, given that his date had arrived with a bottle of flammable liquid stashed in a rucksack, it’s clear that Peter’s death was decided before the torture, the foreplay, the chat, and even before he had opened his door. Peter was alive but unconscious as the accelerant splashed upon his bare flesh - and although dotted with red raw holes where searing cigarette tips had singed his skin - ignited by his killer as he callously walked away, the hot propellant engulfed his body as his skin, hair and bindings burned and smoked. The fire was started at 12:41am precisely, an alarm activated within seconds, and at 12:43am, seeing smoke pouring from the little bungalow, several neighbours called 999. “Emergency, which service do you require?”, “Fire. There’s flames pouring out of 2 Rubens Road”, “Is anyone inside?”, “I don’t know, possibly Peter?”. Alerted at 12:44am, three crews from Northolt Fire Station at Pett’s Hills sped the two-mile route in less than five minutes, and arrived at 12:49am, eight minutes after the fire began. Three appliances and two ambulances blocked the L-shaped kink of Rubens Road. Unable to gain entry to the white door by the little stone path, fire fighters used the jaws-of-life to pry open a double-glazed window. With the fire focussed around the bed, found alive but unresponsive, Peter’s blackened body was dragged from the burning building, but on arrival at Hillingdon hospital, he was pronounced dead. Peter was 58-years-old; he never married, he had no children and he left behind a sister and a nephew. ...but for his grieving family, they would be denied the peace or justice that they rightfully deserved. The investigation into Peter’s death should have been simple. A naked man, bound with adhesive tape and suffocated with clingfilm and a plastic bag was found inside a burning building. The windows were closed, the door was locked and the room was ransacked. So, surely a murder looked most likely? Suicide or auto-asphyxia was ruled-out, as It would have been impossible for Peter to tie his own hands and ankles behind his back, and suffocate himself. Burglary was deemed unlikely as - although drawers were emptied, shelves were up ended and almost every wire was pulled out of the back of his bank of computers - there were no signs of a break-in and nothing appeared to have been stolen. As for arson, the fire brigade concluded that “there were none of the classic signs of a deliberate fire”. There was no ignition source, as the killer had taken the lighter. No evidence of accelerant, as all of the fuel had burned-off. And owing to an excess of electrical equipment, a faulty appliance seemed more logical. As for third-party involvement? Only one bowl of cereal sat in the sink, there were no fingerprints and no-one saw a single person enter or exit the bungalow. The neighbours heard no screams, only music. Of the three security cameras watching Peter’s door, all were either broken or its recorder had been damaged in the fire, and there were no other CCTV cameras nearby. And even if it could talk, the only living entity known to have been in that room, that night was Peter’s budgie... and it was dead. An autopsy found no signs of restraint, as owing to the heat of the blaze, the adhesive tape, the plastic bag and the clingfilm had vapourised. So, with a little blackening in his lungs and a history of heart problems, the cause of death was attributed to smoke asphyxiation, suggesting he died in his sleep. An inquest was held at West London Coroner's Court on 16th August 2013. With foul-play ruled out and the fire investigators stating that the blaze had been started by “a faulty light bulb above his bed” - a bulb which hadn’t been switched on that night - a verdict was returned of “accidental death”. With the coroner concluding that the case was not suspicious, a murder investigation was not required and so the Police had no reason to check any of the following; Peter’s bank account, his phone calls, his internet history, his social media, his recent purchases, his contacts, his itinerary or his computer. The case was closed, Peter was buried, and no-one saw this as a miscarriage of justice. Over the following year, Peter’s bungalow was boarded up with metal sheets. His personal possessions were placed in storage by a family friend. And given its grisly history, nobody wanted to move in to 2 Rubens Road. So, in 2015, the building was demolished and a new-build now stands in its place, taking with it the last physical memory of Peter Fasoli and his murder was erased forever. Jason Marshall had fled, believing he had got away with murder... ...only one witness still remained, and they had seen and heard everything. Having missed the last tube home, still dressed like an MI5 agent, Jason caught a series of night buses from Northolt back to his hostel at Forest Gate and slept soundly, his mission to kill was accomplished. Waking, Jason checked but there was nothing in the news. It’s a sad indictment that ‘kinky gay killer tortures loner in burning bungalow’ is the sort of salacious headline that the trashy tabloids would die for, and yet, they wouldn’t waste a single drop of ink to report ‘lonely man dies in house-fire’. To cover his tracks, the next morning at 9:33am precisely, Jason sent Peter a message over Badoo. In short, it read “Sorry I didn’t turn up last night. Felt sick. Meet soon? Gabriel”. A few hours later, he sent a second “You there?”, followed by several more, “Don’t ignore me”, “I said I was sorry”, “oh, don’t be mean”, but receiving no reply, he wrote “fine, be like that” and their communication ceased. Jason didn’t need an alibi... but he invented one, just in case. On Tuesday 8th January, barely 30 hours after the murder, Jason purchased a return flight to the Italian capital city of Rome, using Peter’s bank card. As the card hadn’t been reported as stolen, the purchase was small and no-one was monitoring his bank account, it’s use wasn’t flagged-up as suspicious. On Friday 11th, at 6:50am, an EasyJet flight departed Gatwick Airport carrying the crazed killer. Two hours later, his flight landed at Fiumicino airport. With no sirens, armed police or roadblocks, just a cursory grunt and a glare by an immigration official, Jason was welcomed into Italy. Being half-Italian, with Latin looks and fluent in the language, he blended in among the city’s revellers of the arty district of Prati, where he lived off his victim’s money and partied like a man without a care in the world. For at least a week, his pathetic little life was good... ...but once the money was gone, the fun stopped. Like many millions, the anonymity of hiding behind a pen-name, a cherry-picked profile and a chosen photo lets them hide their inadequacies, casually chat and (like Peter) log-out when they get bored. But for one man, Badoo wasn’t just a dating website, it was a hunting ground full of sad lonely men. Jason didn’t need to prowl the streets to find the perfect victim, as with so many men vying for love, all he had to do was click. Unwittingly, they had packed their profiles full of details to make his hunt a lot simpler; their age, size, height and weight (selecting an older smaller male who wouldn’t put up a fight), their status (a quiet singleton who lived alone), their lifestyle (a man with a disposable income) and – more importantly – their sexual preferences (choosing a submissive male into S&M, bondage and role-play, who was eager to fulfil a younger man’s sadistic fantasy of interrogating a suspect. On Saturday 26th January, twenty days after Peter’s murder, 67-year-old Vincenzo Iale, a retired tour guide and divorced father-of-one welcomed a stranger into his home, who went by the alias of Gabriel. Situated on a quiet side-street in the sleepy seaside town of Torvaianica Alta, Vincenzo’s home at Mar dei Coralli uno consisted of a two-storey box-like building with white walls and brown ceramic tiles, but as a security conscious man, its sturdy gate could only be accessed by a buzzer or a key-pad. At 7pm, their date began as any interaction between two strangers would. “hi, I’m Gabriel... erm, well, Jason really, hello”, (“Ciao, sono Gabriel ... ehm, beh, Jason davvero, ciao”), “hello, I’m Vincenzo, nice to meet you... in person”, (“ciao, sono Vincenzo, piacere di conoscerti ... di persona”), “ha-ha, yes, in person... finally”, (“sì, di persona... finalmente”), possibly followed by “please come in”, (“prego entra”), “shall I take my shoes off”, (“devo togliermi le scarpe”), a “no, that’s fine” (“no, va bene”), and a few casual pleasantries about his journey, the sea, the weather and Vinzenzo’s home. With the romantic mood set by soft lighting and classical music, the two men chatted. Standing briefly, Jason removed his jacket to reveal a ill-conceived uniform of an MI5 Agent (this time, on assignment at the British Embassy); blue jeans, a woolly hat, a smutty t-shirt, a Nokia mobile, a homemade ID, and a utility belt full of childish crap; kitchen gloves, plastic handcuffs and a toy gun. Only this time, along with his hunting knife, he carried a truncheon and a can of pepper spray, all of which were real. With the sexy chit-chat having stalled, ‘Jason Marshall, MI5 Agent’ informed “Vincenzo Iale of Mar dei Coralli” he was “under arrest for being a spy” (“sei in arresto per essere una spia”). Smiling, Vincenzo willingly stripped, he was gagged and hog-tied with adhesive tape, and the two men engaged in sex. ...only this fantasy role-play was about to get very real, very quick. “I want your PIN number” ("Voglio il tuo numero PIN") Jason screamed, as the red-hot tip of a cigarette seared his victim’s flesh. “I want your PIN”, he wailed, raining down blows upon his body with an inch-thick truncheon. “Your PIN”, he spat, blinding his bound and muffled hostage with pepper-spray; until he relented, gasping for air. With that, Jason went shopping and returned a whole 400 Euros richer. To fabricate a burglary, he upended shelves and ransacked cupboards, but bafflingly he didn’t make it look like a break-in. And he stole nothing of any value; just a cash card, the electronic key to the gate, the laptop’s hard-drive (as if to erase any trace of their history) and Vincenzo’s second-hand Fiat. But now, with the role-play having ended and the date having soured, their brief friendship was over. ‘The Badoo Killer’ had no use for his only witness. Having decided that suffocation by clingfilm was too slow, and an inferno drew too much attention, Jason went old-school. Yanking an electric flex from a bedside light and wrapping it tightly around Vincenzo’s neck, Jason stretched the cord wide, his knee buried in the arched back of his hog-tied hostage, until his face turned blue and his body went limp. Lying there, alive but unconscious, Jason plunged his eight-inch hunting knife into Vincenzo’s chest, and slamming it down four times, the cold steel penetrated his ribs, lungs, back and the carpet below. And like the Angel Gabriel himself, standing over the body, he administered the last rites - “In nominee patris et filii et spiritus sancti. Ego sum resurrection et vita” – and with no fire, no smoke and no alarm to quicken his step, as a calm as when he entered, Jason left Torvaianica Alta, never to return. It wasn’t until one week later, that Vincenzo was discovered... ...but by then, Jason was flat-broke, desperate and was seeking a third victim. His name was Umberto Gismondi; a little lonely Italian man of modest means who lived alone and was a submissive into S&M, bondage and role-play. Having flirted online, they agreed to meet in person. Only this time, the Police were watching. Having found Vincenzo’s mobile beside to his body, the chat on Badoo had led to an unknown male known only as Gabriel. Tracking the withdrawals from a stolen cash card and a stolen second-hand Fiat, Jason was being tailed by a Police surveillance team. On Thursday 21st February, at 7pm, they saw as Umberto Gismondi let a stranger into his home. “Hi, I’m Gabriel... well, Jason really”, (“Ciao, sono Gabriel ... beh, Jason davvero”), “hello, I’m Umberto, nice to meet you... in person”, (“ciao, sono Vincenzo, piacere di conoscerti ... di persona”), “Prego”. The mood was awkward and stilted, but lifted by soft lighting, warm smiles and romantic music. From the dark of a blacked-out van, two surveillance officers watched the windows of the little flat in Casal Morena, a suburb in the south east of Rome, as inside, two strangers sat and made small talk. Only the night, for the watchers, was dull. Incredibly dull. Being either a little too shy to engage in sex so soon or the kind of man who liked to be loved, Umberto kept Jason at a distance; together they ate a delightful dinner, sat on the sofa watching television and occasionally kissed, but there was no sex. The surveillance had proved fruitless. So, when their agonisingly-dull shift was finally over, instead of waiting for fresh men to replace them, the officers just left, leaving Umberto alone with Jason. Inside, Jason had grown impatient. With Umberto happy to just sit and chat, rather than he hog-tied and shagged senseless, Jason’s mission was stymied by a dithering man and his fraught nerves were ready to snap. All it took was a single sound, a mocking laugh from Umberto’s lips, as he found Jason’s tale that he was an MI5 agent idiotic, and (rightfully) panned his pathetic uniform and his plastic gun. (Laughing) Furious; Umberto was beaten, kicked, pepper-sprayed, battered with a truncheon and suffocated with cushions. “I want your PIN number” ("Voglio il tuo numero PIN"). The torture lasted for hours, as Jason dragged him from room-to-room, beating him senseless, but the Police were gone. Bloodied and barely conscious, having given up his PIN, Jason was 400 Euros richer and stole an iPad. But before he could return to dispose of his only witness, having released his gag, Umberto screamed. Neighbours came, Police were alerted, the attacker’s name was given-up, and having tracked the GPS on his mobile to a bus heading south in the suburbs of Rome, at 3:30am Jason Marshall was arrested. The evidence was overwhelming; a stolen car, a key-card and bank cards in the names of Vincenzo Iale and Umberto Gismondi, as well as a knife, a truncheon, pepper-spray, adhesive tape, a fake uniform, bloodstains, DNA and – having survived the attack – Umberto proved to be a very credible witness. But two large problems emerged... Firstly, Jason claimed he had no memory of the last three months; from November 2012 - when he blacked-out in an unnamed Scottish forest - to a few days ago - when he awoke in an Italian psychiatric hospital; drugged and handcuffed to a bed, with an armed police guard at his side. Dates which – coincidentally or not – Include him maiming Umberto Gismondi, and murdering Vincenzo Iale. And secondly, sticking with his implausible story that he was an MI5 Agent on a mission to arrest spies, and that he was the Angel Gabriel on a divine prophesy, with his medical history showing a history of depression, anxiety, a diagnosis of Asperger’s and having been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, he was deemed fit to stand trial, but his heinous crimes were viewed under diminished responsibility. On 9th July 2014, at the Frosinone Court of Assizes, 25-year-old Jason Peter Marshall of Greenwich was found guilty of the murder of Vincenzo Iale and the attempted murder of Umberto Gismondi. After appeal, he was sentenced to sixteen years in prison, with at least three to be spent in psychiatric care. And with The Badoo Killer jailed, the case was closed and his name and his crimes were forgotten... ...almost, as there was still one eye-witness, yet to speak, who had seen and heard everything. On Saturday 8th November 2014, being close to two years since the fire, and fifteen months after a coroner’s inquest had ruled the death of Peter Fasoli as ‘an accident’ owing to a ‘faulty lightbulb’ - a logical outcome which neither the fire brigade, the police or his relatives had any reason not to believe – his nephew (Christopher Murgatroyd) removed Peter’s personal possessions from storage. Some were charred, many were damaged and others were beyond repair, but as part of the grieving process to mourn his beloved uncle, Christopher knew that Peter had been compiling a family tree. Keen to recover the project, he switched on his uncle’s laptop, which had survived the inferno. As a neat man, typically the files on his hard-drive were well-organised, so it didn’t pose a problem to find his research, his reference sources and a treasure trove of family photos. But one file stood out... ...it was a large file, a very large file, so large it took up most of the hard-drive. Clicking the video file open, Christopher was confronted by a familiar sight. As filmed using the laptop’s webcam by the bank of computers, this fixed shot showed the inside of the little bungalow; his uncle sat in his recliner chair, eating a bowl of cereal, and behind him lay his blue bed and his brown sofa. Initially it seemed an odd thing to film, a seven-hour recording of him sitting alone eating his dinner? Only this dull little video was far from unremarkable, as although it had no name, its date was unique. Peter had pressed record just before 7pm, on Sunday 6th January 2013 - the evening that he died. At 7pm precisely, having briefly exited the shot, the audio picked up the chat of two socially-awkward man - “Hi, I’m Gabriel... erm, well, Jason really, hello”, “hello, I’m Peter, nice to meet you... in person”, “ha-ha, yes, in person... finally”, “please, come in” – as into the bungalow walked a stranger. Rightfully concerned, Christopher spooled through the video and witnessed everything; from the role-play, to the torture, the robbery and the suffocation. With his uncle out-of-frame - his bound-body and his shrink-wrapped head slumped in an oxygen-starved heap behind the sofa – having said a prayer in Latin, the stranger ransacked the room and yanked-out cables from the bank of computers. And although the video abruptly cut-out... the audio kept recording, saving the file to the hard-drive and capturing the last moments of his Peter’s life; the splash of flammable liquid, the click of a lighter, the licking of flames and the piercing shrill of a fire alarm. Quite why Peter chose to record this is unknown, but with this silent witness finally speaking, a murderer would be brought to justice. (End) On 10th November 2014, the video was handed to the West Yorkshire Police, and received by the Met Police, a murder inquiry established and the ‘accidental death’ of Peter Fasoli was re-investigated. With the coroner’s inquest re-opened, the Police had powers to search everything; the hard-drive, the phone calls, the bank cards and the Badoo messages, all of which led to 25-year-old Jason Marshall – a nobody they had never heard of – as well as the fake alibi, the cash withdrawals, the flight to Italy, and his recent conviction for a murder and an attempted murder, two attacks identical to Peter’s. On 15th February 2017, stalled owing to a lot of red-tape and a lengthy stint in an Italian psychiatric unit, a European arrest warrant was issued, and Jason was arrested on transfer to Heathrow airport. Tried at the Old Bailey, Jason pleaded not guilty, but his defence of amnesia due to hard drinking was dismissed, as in not one single piece of footage did he look unsteady, confused or drunk. And although his mental-illness was deemed a factor, the judge made it clear that Jason was to blame for his actions. Judge Hilliard QC said: “you were motivated by a desire to cause Mr Fasoli pain. You tortured him for so long because you enjoyed it so much. You felt no remorse for what you have done, only pleasure”. The jury took just 75 minutes to reach a unanimous verdict, and being found guilty of both charges, Jason Marshall was sentenced to a minimum term of 39 years for the murder of Peter Fasoli. A fresh inquest also overruled the original verdict of ‘accidental death’ by the coroner’s court, but no blame was attached to the Police or Fire Brigade, who admitted that “minor oversights had been made”. As of today, The Badoo Killer resides at HMP Frankland, where he will remain until 2056. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the final part of The Badoo Killer. And as always, after the break we have the non-compulsory part of the show for those who like info, idiotic coots and iced buns. So, if that sounds awful, switch off now. But before that, here’s a promo for a true-crime podcast which may be the lovely soft and sweet layer of frangipane which nestles in the middle of a lovely scrumptious Bakewell tart. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are; Kerry Roberts, Jessica Cooke, The Lady Juliet Maybank and Anthony Priddey, I thank you all for supporting the show, it’s much appreciated. Plus, a thank you to everyone who has recently left lovely reviews and kind words for Murder Mile on your favourite podcast app’, it’s very much appreciated and – even better - it acts like a stiff mid-digit to all those nasty people who have no lives, hate everything and their jollies by pissing on people chips. 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. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER 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", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk. |
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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