Eight time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY: On Friday the 3rd of August 1951, 49-year-old housewife, Mabel Tattershaw went out on a date with 19-year-old Herbert Mills. She was smitten with him, but as a chronic gambler who was obsessed with making an easy fortune, smashing the authorities and beating the odds, she had no idea that she would be the part of his plan to place the biggest gamble of his life.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4935yvy6vo Southern Daily Echo Thu, Nov 22, 1951 Coventry Evening Telegraph Sat, Aug 25, 1951 Daily Mirror Thu, Sep 20, 1951 Hull Daily Mail Thu, Sep 20, 1951 Lincolnshire Echo Wed, Sep 19, 1951 The Daily Telegraph Thu, Sep 20, 1951 Worcester News Sat, Dec 08, 1951 Dorset Echo Tue, Dec 11, 1951 Daily Echo Wed, Sep 19, 1951 Evening News and Star (Late Final ed.) Tue, Dec 11, 1951 Sunderland Echo Thu, Sep 20, 1951 Leicester Mercury Thu, Nov 22, 1951 The Bolton News Tue, Dec 11, 1951 Evening Chronicle Wed, Nov 21, 1951 Bristol Evening World Thu, Sep 20, 1951 The Guardian Thu, Sep 20, 1951 The Birmingham Post Fri, Nov 23, 1951 Leicester Evening Mail Tue, Nov 20, 1951 The Argus Thu, Nov 22, 1951 The Guardian Journal Wed, Oct 13, 1965 The Guardian Journal Wed, Apr 04, 1973 Nottingham Evening News Sat, Sep 01, 1962 The Guardian Journal Wed, Apr 11, 1973 Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Friday, 10 August 1951 Belfast News-Letter Thursday, 23 August 1951 Daily Herald Wednesday, 21 November 1951 Daily Express Thursday, 23 August 1951 Bradford Observer Friday, 10 August 1951 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer Saturday, 1 September 1951 Bradford Observer Thursday, 23 August 1951 Daily Express - Tuesday, 14 August 1951 Daily Herald - Saturday, 11 August 1951 Leicester Evening Mail - Saturday, 1 September 1951 Bradford Observer - Saturday, 11 August 1951 Western Daily Press - Monday, 3 December 1951 Daily Herald - Monday, 20 August 1951 Aberdeen Evening Express - Saturday, 11 August 1951 Coventry Evening Telegraph - Saturday, 25 August 1951 Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Monday, 13 August 1951 Coventry Evening Telegraph - Wednesday, 19 September 1951 Leicester Evening Mail - Tuesday, 14 August 1951 Aberdeen Evening Express - Tuesday, 20 November 1951 Gloucester Citizen - Friday, 10 August 1951 Leicester Daily Mercury - Friday, 10 August 1951 Bristol Evening Post - Friday, 10 August 1951 Torbay Express and South Devon Echo - Friday, 10 August 1951 Grimsby Daily Telegraph - Friday, 10 August 1951 Staffordshire Sentinel - Friday, 10 August 1951 Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph - Friday, 10 August 1951 Huddersfield Daily Examiner - Friday, 10 August 1951 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Nottingham, where a killer made a bet by confessing to a killing in the hope of winning big, but lost. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 370: The Biggest Gamble. The year was 1951, the war was over, but rationing was still in-force. Mabel Tattershaw wasn’t a gambler, she didn’t have the luxury of a disposable income, as being a 49-year-old housewife who was single-handedly raising her two daughters (Nora aged 14 and Lilian aged 16) while her husband was serving time in prison, the toughness of her life was etched across her tired face and body, being a woman of hard work and hardship whose life was a daily grind and struggle. In the only photograph published of Mabel, she looks like the epitome of weary, as if the ravages of her life have drained and rung her dry; her short dark hair (often) tied in a headscarf like all she ever did was clean, her nails worn down from a lifetime of scrubbing, her limbs skinny from bad war-time nutrition, and with more wrinkles than she had teeth, Mabel looked a lot older than her years belied. Described as quiet, kind and sociable, by day (as she no longer worked as a cleaner at Nottingham City Hospital) she earned a modest wage renting out rooms to lodgers - which may seem odd as it was said her daughters had been taken into care having been seduced by a former tenant – but she had to earn to live to eat, and with very little love, her only enjoyment was a pint at the pub or a trip to the cinema. F Donal Barry for the Prosecution said “there could be little or no reason for destroying so inoffensive a person”, but someone did, and they would do it for the most cruel and arrogant of motives… a bet. Thursday the 2nd of August 1951 was Mabel’s night to go to the cinema; she ate a frugal dinner, at 6pm she left her home on Longmead Drive in Woodthorpe two miles north of the city centre, and headed two streets north-east to The Roxy at 2 Ribblesdale Road, at the junction of Mansfield Road. Accompanied by her friend and lodger, Lily Wilson, it’s uncertain what they watched, but out that week across the UK were Walt Disney’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘No Highway (in the Sky)’ an aviation thriller starring James Stewart, and the Ealing Comedy, ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’ starring Alec Guinness. Sat together, her friend Lily Wilson later told Police, “I saw that Mabel was talking to the person next to her. He was a man, I can’t described him, I didn’t take much notice of him”, and that was how they met - by chance. When interviewed, the man confirmed this, “I went to the Roxy, someone sat down next to me. She commenced to speak to me. I do not remember what she was saying. I think it was an attempt to converse with me. She wished me to meet her… I did not wish to, but eventually agreed”. Whether he initiated it or not will forever remain unknown, but downtrodden housewife, Mabel Tattershaw was getting attention from a young and handsome man, and she liked it. But that night, he brutally murdered her… …as the killer make the biggest gamble of his life. Her date was Herbert Leonard Mills, a slim, well-groomed and nattily-dressed former dispatch clerk who, at just 19-year-old, was 30 years her junior, but many mistook him as older owing to his style and old-fashioned demeanour. Describing himself as “sensitive and poetic”, Herbert Mills was a loner, a dreamer who loved reading and writing prose and was never without a book of poems by Shelley. Like Mabel, his life had its own hardships; his mother died when was a child, he lived unhappily with his father and stepmother, born with rickets – a deformity of the legs caused by severe malnutritian which meant he spent his childhood wearing leg irons and being bullied – he still walked with a limp, and struggling to hold down a dead-end job, he was now unemployed and living with his grandparents. His only joy was gambling, he bet on horses and bragged that he made more than he lost - at one time claiming he had won £1500 (roughly £60,000 today) – and with nothing else in his life; no career, no girlfriend and no prospects, just a desire to win and (like most gamblers) a lot of misplaced confidence, far from looking like a coldblooded killer, those who met Herbert Mills saw him as nothing but a lonely exhibitionist obsessed with making an easy fortune, defying the authorities, and beating the odds. That year, Mills would place the ultimate bet… and it began on a date with Mabel. The next night, as agreed, Mills & Mabel met. Keen to make a good impression on this man she clearly liked, her lodgers said Mabel was a bag of nerves as she did her make-up and hair to make herself look younger, and dressed in a blue flowered dress, an old overcoat, grey stockings, crepe soled shoes and a coloured necklace of plastic beads, she left home at 5pm, never to be seen alive by her loved ones. At the inquest, Mills wouldn’t deny meeting Mabel that night, but being the epitome of arrogance, he claimed “I expected her to be younger and (prettier)” having only seen each other in a dark cinema, but when two school friends saw him stepping out with a shabbily dressed woman, old enough to be his mother or even his grandmother, he admitted “I felt ashamed”. So did this make her disposable? Mabel was reported missing by the morning, but across the next six days, with no-one believing that she was dead just absent, as she wasn’t depressed or suicidal, and with no witnesses to any foul play, the police regarded her as a missing person and the press reports spoke only of her disappearance. As misinformation spread, possible sightings of Mabel gave her family a false hope; as police checked lodging houses in the Mansfield Road area to see if she had stayed over, and it was reported on Sunday 5th of August at 5pm – 45 hours after her death - Mabel was somehow seen two miles south at Forrest Recreation Ground with a man with a limp, but this one was “50 years old, medium build, moustached, a scar under his right eye, fresh complexion, in a black suit, black Trilby hat, blue tie and brown shoes”. The man wasn’t Herbert Mills, just as the woman accompanying the limping moustachioed man was not Mabel Tattershaw, but with the Police not even considering this as a crime - where-as other killers would jump for joy that they had got away with the perfect murder - it proved problematic for Mills… …as having hidden Mabel’s body a little too well - to win his bet - he needed it to be found. Given the timings, it’s unproven but likely that Mabel & Mills went to The Roxy that night as planned. Afterwards, needing to lure this lonely lady who was charmed by the affections of this younger man, with dusk at 9:23pm, it was around this point that she willingly went with him to ‘the jungle’, a series of abandoned clay pits, disused brickyards and derelict orchards just to the side of nearby Woodthorpe Park. It may not seem like the most romantic of spots to take her, but this was a lover’s lane where it was known that couples went to kiss, cuddle and have sex, but MIlls had something else on his mind. Under the quiet seclusion of twinkling stars and an almost new moon, with no-one about, Mills recalled “we walked up a path and branched off to the right”. Finding a comfortable spot on the grass “she took off her coat and lay down”. Seeing her coloured beaded necklace, “I asked her if I could have it. I was interested In plastic, or rather I thought it might interfere with my little crime and intentions. She broke the beads from her neck to give to me and I tied them. She was a very simple woman”. The night was cold, she shivered, Mills recalled ”I covered her with her own coat, then my own coat”, which seemed like a kindly gesture, but it had a much darker motive. “She had her eyes closed” as if she was awaiting his tender kiss… but instead, he violently punched her in the face, again and again, smashing her nose, her teeth and her eye sockets, so her face was a swollen and unrecognisable mess of reds, blacks and purples, as blood burst through her pale skin, so no hint of white could be seen. But Mills wasn’t finished with his murderous ‘masterpiece’. “I put on a pair of gloves”, and as she was still conscious, “I knelt my knees on her shoulders. She was trying to claw at me, but… the coats were placed so that she would not clutch or gather any threads within her fingernails. I was very pleased. I think I did it rather well”. And placing his gloved hands around her neck, arrogantly he would crow to the press and the police “the strangling itself was quite easily accomplished. I examined the contents of her pockets which I replaced. I slid her down the bank, then covered the coat over her, and left”. Hidden down an eight-foot gully thick with dense nettles and thorns, he had too effectively disposed of her body, and although – in order for his plan to work - he needed to deny, then confess to killing her – he made it clear “I had not interfered with her in any way”, as if the very thought disgusted him. He walked back to his grandparents house and began to plan how he could profit from her death… …but with Mabel only missing and the body not yet found, with the Police looking elsewhere and the press (as he said) writing ‘silly stories’ about a moustachioed man with a limp, he took his next big risk. In court, Mabel was described by the Prosecution as “a woman of small significance… you may take the view that his mind was such that this reason appeared to him a significant motive”; a woman who he had no connection to and no-one would suspect, but later stating with a sense of self-importance, “I made a study of murders… I found the perfect victim for the perfect murder. No motive. No clues”. And for a lonely fantasist like Mills who loved attention, the press would give him what he wanted. Thursday 9th of August at 11:30am, six days after her murder, from a phone-box, Mills called Norman Rae, chief reporter at the News of the World. He gave his name ‘Herbert Mills’, his job ‘poet’, said “I’ve found a body of a missing woman” asking “what price will you pay for information about her murder?” Telling the interested reporter who regularly got calls from cranks as well as confessions from culprits, Mills said “it looked like the perfect murder, there were no clues”. Mills offered to sell the exclusive for £200 to £300, and as Rae recalled “his scheme was that he would keep quiet about this until I had arrived in Nottingham with a photographer… so we could get some pictures of him at the crime scene”. Smelling something rotten but also eager for the scoop, Rae recalled “I told him that the police should know at once. He refused to give information to the police and said he would try another newspaper. Mills indicated that whatever I said he had said, he would deny”, but having come to an agreement that if the News of the World were satisfied, they “would see him alright”, Rae called Nottingham CID, the phone-box was traced, and a few minutes later, Mills was met by Detective Sergeant Burrows. He didn’t run and wasn’t arrested, as being merely a man who may have ‘found’ a body, showing them the plastic necklace Mabel had worn, Mills directed the detective (and later the press) to ‘the jungle’. Part One of his plan was complete; ‘find’ the body. Part Two would be to make everyone suspect him of her murder. And with it all mapped out to the finest details, by Part Three, at his trial, Herbert Mills would be acquitted of the killing of Mabel Tattershaw, and then made famously wealthy by the press. It was the biggest gamble of his life… …and he felt it was a dead-cert that it would succeed. That afternoon, Mills led detectives to the old orchard in ‘the jungle’, where he said on Wednesday the 8th of August about midday “I went to read poetry and pick raspberries”, and down an 8-foot gully, just as he had described it, there it was, the bloody body of Mabel Tattershaw, covered in her coat. First he said he found the plastic necklace, then her pale white face, and stated “I was quite shocked. I recognised the woman”, but decided not to go to the Police, coldly stating “after thinking it over again, I thought it possible to sell the story to the News of the World… I felt he should profit from it”. Found with her face pressed into the earth and her body concealed, officers had to hack through the thick bushes to see her face - a swollen mottled mix of reds and blacks - and with “severe head bruises Police think may have been caused by a blunt instrument”, this was a comment Mills would ridicule. With it suspected she was killed not far from where she was found owing to the limited drag marks, sniffer dogs and officers with metal detectors scoured the area, and although a rusty shovel blade and a 3 foot of chain was found, Professor Tryhorn of the East Midlands Forensic Lab discounted them all. The crime scene was processed, but it wouldn’t reveal its secrets for a few weeks. That night in a cafe, Mills met Norman Rae the celebrated crime reporter, and Mills’ opening words were “did you bring the money?”. He had. £75 (£3000 today), which was worth it as Rae knew he was onto a winner. The next day, as the autopsy took place, on the front page of the News of the World was an exclusive featuring a photo of Mills beside the bushes pointing down the gully to where he said he had ‘found’ Mabel Tattershaw’s body - a murder he was now connected to, but not yet as her killer. Keen to keep him for themselves as Mills promised them “another piece of sensational information which was worth a lot of money”, with the odds in their favour, the newspaper took him back to their offices in London, gave him £5 pocket money, took him to see the Festival of Britain, the sights of Soho and King’s Rhapsody on Shaftesbury Avenue under the watchful protection of a reporter, and assuring them he wouldn’t speak to any other paper, he dropped two bombshells: he didn’t find the body on Wednesday 8th but a few days earlier, and confirming “without doubt, Mrs Tattershaw was strangled” - an odd statement to make as he claimed he hadn’t been within 8 feet of this well-hidden body. By Saturday the 11th of August, with the investigation headed-up by Detective Superintendent Percy Ellington of Nottingham CID, being bereft of the exclusive, the local papers incorrectly reported that Mabel was last seen alive two days after her murder being accompanied by a moustachioed man with a limp. And with Police struggling to hunt this man down, as well as two men she met at a darts match, so lopsided was the hunt for Mabel’s killer that they wondered if it was connected to the recent killing of 22 year old Florence Jean Weatherall at Hucknall, who was also found murdered on a lover’s lane, and who (with nothing better to do) the local press blamed on a fictional killer known as The Traveller. The culprit was clearly Mills, but with the Police and the Press looking the wrong way, as Mills was just a 19-year-old, slightly shy, wannabe poet who had no criminal record or known motive to kill her, he wasn’t even considered as a viable suspect, so this chronic gambler decided to take his next big risk… …to draw the suspicion for her murder onto himself. On the morning of Sunday the 12th of August 1951, outside of Leenside Police Station on Nottingham’s Canal Street, wearing his best suit and with his hair neatly coiffured, Herbert Mills arrived by taxi to give evidence at the inquest. Before him, a wall of reporters from the national papers jostled for his attention, calling his name as if his celebrity status was already a given, as the paps took his picture. Playing it coy, but blabbing too much like an eager killer desperate to spill the beans, Mills told them about how he had ‘found’ the body; “I went to the orchard to read poetry and pick raspberries, I wiped my mouth with a hanky as if the Police found it, they would think the stains were blood. It began to rain, I went to find shelter, I saw a necklace on the ground, and bending down to pick it up, I saw something white in a gully. It was a woman’s face. She was dead”. Asked why he had held onto to it, Mills replied “it had my fingerprints on it”, as if that was justification for his arrest. When asked “why didn’t you go to the police straight away?”, he grinned and said “there’s money to be made in murder”. Playing with them like they were his toy, he told the press the Police were wrong that she had only been battered to death, he called the detectives ‘fools’, and lapping up the attention, he stated “I’ have put himself in an awkward situation with the Police, as I could be charged with murder”, but being so reluctant to talk to them in any detail, if they wanted to know more, it would cost them. To John Perry of the Press Association he said “I know things no-one else does” but wouldn’t say what. To Alfred Connelly of the Daily Graphic, Mills said “I don’t mind being charged with murder, as when I’m acquitted, there will be a high price to pay”. And to Harry Longmuir of the Daily Mail, Mills he said “the Police won’t catch the killer this week, next, or the next… they have no clue apart from a cheap little necklace”. The reporters regarded him as cocksure but rational, shy but clearly an exhibitionist. And although hardly subtle, suspicion was now falling on Mills as the culprit… …but his guilt needed to be proven before he could play the penultimate part of his trifecta. On Monday the 13th of August, Professor J M Webster, the Home Office Pathologist gave evidence at the inquest. Before the coroner, A G Rothers, he confirmed that she had been beaten about the head by fists (as reported), but she had died by manual strangulation, which Mills had stated five days prior. The Pathologist was asked “do you consider your examination would have been easier if you had been able to conduct a post-mortem on Wednesday?”, the day Mills claimed he found the body but didn’t report it, the Professor replied “very definitely”, with the Coroner warning Mills that because of his actions for the sake of financial gain, “there is a probability that other proceedings might arise”. Three times the Coroner asked “are you sure it was on Wednesday 8th August, when you found her?” Three times Mills answered “yes”, having already alluded that it was the Friday before. Again, warned about his testimony of how he found the body, the coroner asked “were you there long after you had seen the body”, Mills replied “about five minutes. I did not touch the body, nor put anything on it… I could not touch it without going down”, when of course he’d admit he had, to place her coat over her. But if the body was hidden, how did he know she had been strangled? At the inquest, the limping moustachioed man was removed from the line of inquiry, and suspicion clearly crept towards Mills as a possible culprit… but also as a deluded, attention-seeking fantasist. Mills should have been arrested, but he was right, the Detectives had no hard evidence against him; he admitted he had been with her earlier that night (as confirmed by the lodger, Lily Wilson) and said he’d found the necklace at the crime scene on the night he found the body. But nobody saw him there with Mabel, and as for her being strangled, he could have simply guessed it, as it’s not exactly unique. Mills had to play a very careful game now. If he pushed the press too hard for money, they would see him as nothing but a liar and his prospective cash-cows would dry up, which was not good, as the £75 the News of the World had given him, he’d blown most of it on a single bet. If he gave away too many facts, he may be convicted of murder making his dramatic and financially rewarding acquittal a bust. But if he went too far in his retelling of his lies, if he was found insane and may end up at Broadmoor. So, on Friday the 24th of August, having told Norman Rae that he had something ‘sensational’ to reveal - knowing that if Rae kept Mills talking long enough that he would eventually incriminate himself - even this seasoned crime reporter was shocked to find that Mills was already two steps ahead of him. Sat in the lobby of The Black Boy Hotel on Nottingham’s Long Row, at first the conversation was casual; a talk about money, racing, murderers, prison conditions, Broadmoor and acquittal. Initially, Rae felt as if Mills was merely wasting his time and had nothing sensational to say, until he hit him with this… “I want to tell the truth”. And over the next hour, he wrote his confession on the hotel’s headed notepaper. In his handwriting, it read “on the evening of August 8th, I killed Mrs Tattershaw and now wish to clean my conscience and confess to the murder”. He told of how they met, their date and described the killing, arrogantly bragging “I had always considered the possibility of the perfect crime – murder. I am very much interested in crime and here was my opportunity. No motive, no clues. I am quite proud of my achievement. Seeing an opportunity of putting my theory into practice, I decided to meet her. I was satisfied I had found the perfect victim. I put on a pair of gloves. I knelt on her. I was very pleased. I think I did rather well. The strangling was easily accomplished. I slid her down the bank, and left”. Rae had Mills sign each page and agreeing “we’ll take it to Superintendent Ellington in the morning, if that is what you desire?”, Mills agreed, and went to bed, as Rae had to file his explosive news story. In gambling parlance, Mills had gone all in, he’d placed all his chips on one number, the roulette wheel was spinning, and if he won, he would walk away wealthy having beaten the house. But if he lost… …it would mean his death. On Saturday the 25th of August at 10am, at Leenside Police Station, accompanied by Normal Rae, Mills handed his confession to a shocked Detective Superintendent Ellington, who having read the first page cautioned him. Sup: “is this document in your handwriting?”, Mills: “yes”, Sup: “you understand that what is in this document is of a very serious nature and can have serious consequences for you?”, Mills “yes”, Sup: “do you wish to make a statement?”, Mills: “yes”. An official statement was made, Mills read it and signed it, he was cautioned again, and was charged with the murder of Mabel Tattershaw. That week, Dr Fish of the Home Office laboratory came back with the exhibits found at the crime scene which had been sent off for scientific testing. With Mills, having repeatedly stated that he hadn’t been within 8 feet of the body, three hairs similar to his were found on Mabel’s dress which had been hidden under her grey overcoat, and although he’d placed over that his jacket to trap her arms and stop her clawing at him, fibres from his jacket were found under her fingernails, proving he was there. (End). The trial began at Nottingham Assizes on the 19th of November 1951 before Justice Bryne. He pleaded not guilty to murder and did not present an insanity plea. His own defence called Mills “a desperately lonely, hateful boy, whose character was a mixture of cruelty and boastfulness", whose confession was ‘completely bogus’ and had been a ruse to make his story more valuable. They would also state that there was no motive for the murder, as Mills didn’t know Mabel and hadn’t met her before then. On the other hand, even though the Prosecution had hairs from his head on her, fibres from his jacket under her nails, a confession in his own handwriting and he knew details only the killer knew, although a chronic gambler who admitted he did this for fame and money, the question was would the jury see the deliberate mistakes in his confession and acquit him, as he wanted, making him famous and rich… …or find him guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt? Having been instructed by the Judge that there were only two possible outcomes - wilful murder or not guilty, not manslaughter on any grounds – after 25 minutes of deliberation, they returned a verdict – guilty. As per his directions, having agreed that Mills’ confession was true, the charge of murder was established, and with his guilt proven, on the 22nd of November, Herbert Mills was sentenced to death. Described as having the composure of a gambler, the Judge said “if you have never seen a man who would gamble with his life, you are looking at one now”. Even during the trial, the prosecution asked “if you had thought it would have brought you more money would have pleaded guilty?”, Mills said “I considered it”. He didn’t appeal the decision, and although a reprieve was submitted, it was rejected. He hated prison life, he refused to see his father, he ridiculed his grandmother’s prayers for salvation, he crushed a prison officer’s arm in a door, and on Tuesday the 11th of December 1951 at 9am, Herbert Leonard Mills was executed by hanging at Lincoln Prison by Albert Pierrepoint. As a convicted prisoner, he was not allowed to profit from his crimes, and having made the biggest gamble of his life… he lost. 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.
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Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
On Saturday the 28th of August 2010, 30-year-old Izabela Zablocka telephoned her mother and 9-year-old daughter, Kasia, as she did every few days without fail. That day, she vanished without a trace and would never be seen or heard from again. And although her killer thought they had got away with murder, after 15 years fighting to find the answers, Iza's body was finally unearthed, and the truth slowly began to emerge.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Derby in Derbyshire, where a simple missing persons case unearthed something a lot more sinister. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 369: Cracks in the Concrete. Izabela Helena Zablocka (zah-BWOT-kah) was born on the 5th of September 1979 in Trzebiatów (Tshe-bya-toof), a small town of 10,000 inhabitants in north-western Poland, just 9 km from the Baltic sea. Raised in this tiny rural community where many generations of the same family had lived for decades if not centuries and everybody knew each other’s business, Izabella known as Iza followed the herd. As many did, she was married to a local man in her early 20s, she earned a modest living at a factory job, and by the turn of the millennium, her daughter, Katarzyna, who she called Kasia, was born. Times were rough, as with the town reliant on tourists who flocked to the Baltic coast in the summer months but left it desolate from autumn to spring, it had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the county. Sadly, because of their struggles, the marriage didn’t last long and soon they separated. The financial hardship they faced as a young couple was only one side of the conflict between them, as Iza was bisexual, which – although many in the so-called modern West believe that former Soviet-block countries like Poland were ran with very draconian laws – England & Wales only decriminalised homosexuality between men in 1967, and yet same-sex activities had been legal in Poland since 1932. Iza had also been ‘presenting’ as male for several years; with short tapered hair, wearing shirts, jeans and trainers, but no make-up or feminine touches like bright colours or jewellery. At that point, she didn’t ‘identify’ as a man and hadn’t adopted a man’s name or nickname, just the mannerisms, but gender reassignment surgery was something she was considering, which she knew she couldn’t afford. On the 1st of May 2004, Poland joined the European Union, along with Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia. With Britain in need of hardworking migrants willing to do the jobs that our homegrown lazy bastards refuse to do having been raised on a culture of free-benefits and self-entitlement, if they came here, worked hard and lived cheaply, young women like Iza could earn two-to-three times their wage back home, and give her daughter a much better life. In 2008, having known each other since childhood, while living in the same block of flats, a relationship blossomed between Iza and her friend, Anna Podedworna, who was five years younger. And with Bozena, Iza’s mother looking after 9-year-old Kasia, in 2009, Iza & Anna headed to England for work. London proved to be too expensive, so they headed to the smaller city of Derby in the East Midlands, with a population of 250,000, and surrounded by factories seeking hardworking immigrants willing to do the dirtiest of jobs for a minimum wage. With a good work history and no criminal record, Iza & Anna got jobs at Cranberry Foods, a turkey processing plant in Scropton, 20 miles west of the city. Slaughtering turkeys wasn’t exactly their idea of a utopia, but it was steady work with a regular wage, and although Iza only remained employed sporadically through an agency, being described as a ‘skilled butcher’ whose job involved ‘skinning, deboning and portioning out carcasses with a large knife’, Anna soon became a permanent employee at the plant, and the main breadwinner for their household. Around the same time, Iza & Anna moved into a two-bedroomed mid-terrace flat at 113 Princes Street in Normanton, a rough but affordable immigrant neighbourhood south of the city centre. Outside was often parked builder’s vans, and although its flat-fronted facade was grotty, inside Anna had added a woman’s touch by cheaply but effectively decorating the living room and kitchen with silver wallpaper, carpet, chairs, and signs reading ‘Chanel’, ‘Love’ or ‘Happy’, so it resembled a robot’s wet dream. On every wall were family photos as a reminder of who they were doing this for, and although small, it was practical, cheap, and outback, they had a small garden of uneven grass to hang up the laundry. 113 Princes Street was their home for a year… …until Iza vanished out of the blue. Every few days without fail, blessed with a close bond, Iza called her family in Poland. On Saturday the 28th of August 2010, while Anna was at work, Iza spoke to her mother, grandmother, daughter, and they said "nothing appeared to be amiss". Then all communication stopped, no calls, no emails, no nothing, and with no warning at all, she completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Her family grew suspicious, when on the 4th of September 2010, she didn’t call to wish Kasia a happy 10th birthday. This was unlike her; she didn’t reply to texts, she didn’t post on social media, she hadn’t claimed her unemployment benefits, and no-one in Derby and the wider Polish community had seen her since. In November, her family reported her missing to Derbyshire Police and they called at 113 Princes Street. Inside it was clear that Iza had moved out; her bags were gone, her possessions were taken, Anna’s mum and sister had moved-in in her place, and with Anna telling them how Iza was drinking more and working less, she stated “Iza had an argument with someone dangerous and ran away to London”. Police found no trace of her after that call; neighbours hadn’t heard her, friends hadn’t seen her, she hadn’t applied for work, her passport was unused, her bank account had no money in it to start with, they couldn’t find anyone who disliked or had threatened her, no-one benefitted from her death, and she matched none of the bodies found in the neighbouring counties. There was no proof that she was alive, or dead. So with nothing suspicious to report, Iza Zablocka wasn’t reported as a missing person. It remained that way for years, with Iza’s family "forced to live in a state of constant anxiety and dread" as not knowing was killing them. Kasia, Iza’s daughter was just 9 years old when her mother vanished without a trace. She later stated “I spent my adult life looking for answers... I felt subconsciously that she must have had some sort of accident, or something bad must have happened. Even if she had ended up homeless, she would have still managed to make contact with me and my grandma”. That day her childhood ended, and right through her teenage years, a big piece of her life was missing as the ever-expanding hole in her heart was only filled with more unanswered questions; like where her mum was, what had happened to her, and why she never called? And as much as those who worried about her suggested that (for the sake of her mental health) she should accept that her mum was most likely dead and very likely will never be found, even as a young girl, Kasia never gave up. Her mum’s disappearance haunted her sleep and her every waking moment, Kasia said "as a young child, I was incredibly close to my mother, she was my whole world, so the fact she simply vanished from my life without a single word of explanation was a horrific experience for me. This sudden void left a deep wound in my psyche which has stayed with me until this day. The worst part was the soul-crushing uncertainty. For years, I didn't know why she left me. Instead of playing with friends, I was constantly wondering where my mother was and why she stopped calling me. I felt abandoned. Even though I lived in limbo for years, in my heart, I always knew my mother didn't leave me on purpose". Every birthday, Kasia waited for a call from her mum… …but the call never came, and it never would. As Detective Constable Emma Birch stated “while she held onto the belief that her mum was safe with each passing year, those hopes diminished and the worry that she had come to harm loomed larger… (but being ever determined) she grew into a strong-minded young woman who wanted answers”. Annually, 170,000 people go missing in the UK, almost all are found but a few. Iza’s disappearance remained high-profile in Poland and with Polish nationals in the UK thanks to Kasia’s relentless search, her social media campaign to ensure Iza was never forgotten, and in June 2024, she contacted ‘Missing For Years’, a Polish charity who investigate cases. They contacted Anna, but as such a distant memory, she could only reiterate what she had told Police in 2010, “I don’t know what happened to her”. In 2025, Kasia, now a 25 year old woman increased the case’s profile further by contacting several highly-respected journalists, and having taken the case, on the 15th of May 2025, Rafal Zalewski (Rrraf-ow Za-lef-ski), a journalist for Polsat TV called Anna and requested an interview – but she declined. Six days later, Rafal and his cameraman flew to East Midland Airport, travelled to Derby, and filming an episode of his social affairs programme ‘Interwencja’ (een-ter-VEN-tysa) which means intervention, at Anna’s new home on Boyer Street which she shared with her new male partner as well as her 11 year old daughter and 6 year old son, he doorstepped her, asking the questions Kasia wanted to know. (ADD AUDIO). Rafal said “she was very surprised and nervous… I knew she could be hiding something, that she might know something more than she's not telling us". With this described as the ‘tipping point’, his call on the 15th of May led Anna to email the Police that day stating she knew about Iza’s disappearance. On the day he doorstepped her, she sent a flurry of emails giving further evidence (which Police admitted, took them by surprise). And three days later, on the 24th of May 2025, having informed detectives that Izabella was buried in the back garden of 113 Princes Street, Anna headed to Pear Tree Police Station. With her red-hair tied back, her eyes shielded by sunglasses and wearing jeans, trainers, a salmon pink t-shirt and a blue sports-jacket, she looked like any another working-class mum as she rang the phone on the door of the police station. Interviewed by a lone officer, she stated that Iza had confronted her, assaulted her, and in an act of self defence, she had killed her by accident, and buried her out of panic. In her confession, she said "I couldn't carry on any more, I couldn't look at the pain of (Iza’s) family. I couldn't bear the fact that she was lying there in the garden and I wanted to be free” - psychologically free of the guilt and remorse she said had ravaged her mind for the last 15 years. Detectives searched their former flat at 113 Princes Street, and buried under the concrete, they finally found Iza’s body. So what went wrong between these two lovers? It’s impossible to unravel the truth, as with Iza dead, we only have Anna’s version of events. With Iza frequently unemployed, Anna was the sole breadwinner and according to her, by March 2010, "we had arguments all the time… Iza drank nearly every day unless she had no money. She was tipsy all the time, not drunk, a bit tipsy", but because of that, Anna said “she was jealous about everything", everyone Anna spoke to or met, and by the summer, they had split, but had remained living together. Justice Williams KC stated “this was a source of frustration to you, as was the level of Izabela’s alcohol consumption, which you believed the two of you could ill-afford. In these circumstances the prospect of Izabela undergoing a gender reassignment operation faded into the background and I am quite satisfied from listening to your evidence that you grew increasingly angry with and bitter towards Izabela who you felt was too reliant upon you and was not keeping up her side of the bargain”. Their arguments were frequent, but so was the violence. In court, Anna claimed that Iza had given her a black eye and was the instigator of most fights, with Anna merely a passive victim, but as Kasia had lived with them both in Poland, she recalled Anna chasing Iza out of a flat carrying a butcher’s knife. In early to mid-August 2010, two-to-three weeks before her death, Anna claimed that Iza threatened to kill her and strangled her, but the Judge rejected this, “as you told no-one about this until after you were charged with murder, and your explanation for not reporting it to the police at the time lacked credibility, not least as Police officers had been called to the address by Izabela a few months earlier”. Throughout, Anna’s lies were described as "a continuation of her post-murder cover-up". Their relationship was stormy and turbulent, riddled with suspicion, jealousy, conflict, and with it said that men found Anna attractive and Iza had noticed that Anna preferred men (later beginning a relationship with a man and bearing two children with him), as Iza was only presented as a man and her gender reassignment surgery was a distant pipedream, she was no longer what Anna wanted. On Saturday the 28th of August 2010, Iza phoned her family for the very last time, and by all accounts, "nothing appeared to be amiss"; she was happy, calm and said nothing about a need to flee to London having argued with someone dangerous. Her beloved daughter’s 10th birthday was just one week away and she’d arranged a present, but that night she died, when Anna returned from the slaughter house. Anna told the court, “I was scared to be around the house… I was scared of speaking to her because I did not know what was going on”, as (according to Anna) when she got home from Cranberry Foods 10 minutes late, Iza was furious, she grabbed her, pinned her to the wall, and began to strangle her. Questioned in court by her barrister, Clive Stockwell KC; CS “Izabela pushed you against a wall, she had hold of your clothing and she was stronger than you?”, AP “Yes. After she grabbed me, she started to strangle me, and I pushed her away”, CS “Where were her hands?", AP “Around my neck”, CS “Both hands?”, AP “Yes. I could not catch my breath”, CS “What did you do?”, AP “Pushed her, but it was not working, so I started strangling her”, CS “So you took hold of her neck to stop her from strangling you? What did you think was going to happen?”, AP: ”That it was the end, the finish, that she’d kill me”. Anna’s defence was that this was self-defence, but Gordon Aspden KC for the Prosecution stated “that this was yet another lie by this defendant to try to conceal her guilt”, as the violence escalated further. CS “What did you then do?”, AP ”On the window ledge there was a big figurine, and so I grabbed it… it was quite heavy, it was some kind of horse, I don’t know”, CS “Having grabbed it, what did you do with it?”, AP “I hit her”, CS “Why did you do that?”, AP “To make her weaker so she would let me go”. In all the panic, Anna said couldn’t remember if she hit her on the head or the arm. CS “How hard did you hit her?”, AP “I don’t know”, CS "Did hitting her with the figurine work?”, AP “No”, CS “Did she release her grip on your neck?”, AP “No”, CS “You were still struggling to breathe?”, AP “Yes”, CS “What did you then do?”, AP “I was strangling her, it was all happening that fast, I know I was strangling her, I know I hit her, and I know she fell somehow”. Anna’s defence counsel stated "something must have happened to make this defendant of previous good character behave in the way that she did”, but both the jury and the judge would reject this claim that Anna had acted in self-defence against Iza. So, was this a murder? Anna would deny this, as when Clive Stockwell KC asked "Did you want to hurt her?”, Anne replied to the court “No, absolutely not, I did not have such an intention”. But did she? CS “Can you remember hitting her a second time with the figurine?”, AP “I could have hit her a second time”, CS “Do you know where?”, AP “It could have been the head. She fell… she was lying on her back”, CS “Was she moving?”, AP “No”, CS “Did you want to kill her?”, AP “No”, CS “What did you want to achieve by hitting her?”, AP “I just wanted her to leave me alone and let me go”. And she did. Iza was motionless, silent and still, as the flushed colour slowly drained from her cheeks. Her defence asked CS “What did you do?”, AP “I checked her pulse in her neck”, CS “Was there a pulse?”, AP “No… I tried to resuscitate her”, CS “How?”, AP “Mouth-to-mouth”, CS “How long did you do that for?”, AP: “I don’t remember”, CS "Anything else?”, AP “I was pressing on her chest”, CS “Was she breathing?”, AP “No”, CS "What were your thoughts when you realised she was dead?”, AP “To call the police and call the ambulance”, CS “Did you call the police?”, AP “No”, CS “Did you call an ambulance?”, AP “No”, CS “Why did you not?”, AP “there were no witnesses, no one would believe I was defending myself”, and as the last person to see her alive, having killed her, AP “I’d go to prison for the rest of my life”. But it wasn’t the killing of Iza which convicted Anna… …it was the disposal of the body, and the lies proceeding it. Even her defence counsel stated “there is nothing I can say about what she did to Izabela's body and how she acted for the next 15 years. She is the mother of two children, aged 11 and six, and they will live the vast majority of their young lives without their mother", all because of her selfish actions. Iza’s body lay on the floor of the silver living room, bleeding profusely; a broken horse figurine by her side and overlooked by photos of their loved ones and cut outs of words which read ‘love’ and ‘happy’. AP “I could not leave her like this, and I had to do something”, CS “Were you thinking clearly at that time?”, AP “No. I was just terrified, I felt fear”, CS “Did you think what you were going to do to Izabela’s body?”, AP “At that address, there was a garden”, CS “You thought you would bury Izabela there?”, AP “Yes”, CS “Why did you think that?”, AP “I don’t know. I did not want to do that, but at that point it was the only option. I went into the garden, I looked around and checked if there was a place where I could have done it. When I located that place, I made the decision to bury her in the garden”. She stripped her former lover of everything but her underwear and tossed them in a bin, AP ”I wanted to move her somewhere into the kitchen but she was heavy”, which was odd, as Anna was a manual worker used to physical labour, and as Iza wasn’t fat or muscular, they were roughly the same weight. She said she couldn’t lift her or pull her by the arms, AP “I had an idea to cut her… to cut her in two”, and as a skilled butcher in a slaughter house, taking a knife from the kitchen, on the living room floor, it took her two hours to sever the body into two manageable pieces. CS “What were you thinking?”, AP ”I think at that point I was not thinking”, CS “You managed to cut Iza in half. Was there much blood in the living room?”, AP “I don’t recall. It didn’t seem that much”. And any there was, she cleaned up. The autopsy was carried out by Home Office pathologist Dr Stuart Hamilton who stated “it required ‘considerable force’ to cut through her spine with a knife”, severing it at the lumbar vertebrae. And although seemingly crude, basic and hasty, “the dismemberment and concealment of the body proved to be extremely successful. She had destroyed all evidence of how she had murdered Izabela". Both parts; the torso, arms and head, and the hips, legs and feet were wrapped in electrical tape and “trussed up like a turkey”, taping the arms across her chest, and her legs bent up against her buttocks and the two halves of her body placed in black plastic bin-liners and tied at the top. She then cleaned up the house, mopped up the blood, and with the body in two parcels dumped in the kitchen by the backdoor, she threw out everything (the figurine to Iza’s phone) which connected her to the murder. By nightfall, she was sweating and exhausted… …but the horror was far from over. In court, Anna said “I felt like some kind of monster", and so having spontaneously taken two weeks off work, she dug a hole (1 metre deep) in the back garden – in what would have been a backbreaking job – and dumped Iza’s severed body parts in what the judge described as a “filthy, makeshift grave”. And to erase any chance of the body being discovered and Iza’s family finding peace, she had the back garden covered in a concrete hardstanding; a thick, durable paved surface used to support heavy loads which (according to forensic anthropologist Gaille MacKinnon) crushed many of her skeletal remains so that forensics had to sieve them, some were never found and her cause of death remains uncertain. For 15 years, Anna lied to Iza’s family, to her friends, to the police, and as much pain as she caused to Iza’s young daughter, Kasia, who held onto the hope that one day her mother would return… but never would, in court, she had to hear everything you’ve just heard about her mother’s death and disposal. Kasia never gave up, even as Anna (the woman she suspected of knowing more about her mother’s death than she was letting on) lived her life and started a family as if nothing had happened. And even though Anna would never show an ounce of remorse during the trial, the guilt was there. Police searched both properties; her old house on Princes Street and the new one on Boyer Street. A phone discovered proved that she made internet searches of Iza’s name, her daughter’s social media campaign, Google Streetview’s of the house, but also murderers who had reformed, a Catholic prayer, messages to a local church asking for help interpreting dreams about a dead woman, and summing her up perfectly whether she could still get Universal Credit (a UK benefit) if she had a criminal record… …as well as all the lies she had told to everyone who was searching for Iza. On Sunday 1st of June 2025, in the back garden of 113 Princes Street, having used ground penetrating radar to isolate a spot, and jackhammers to dig through the concrete, 15 years after she went missing, the body of Izabela Zablocka was found, entirely skeletonised with a few fragments of human tissue. Having been bailed while evidence was gathered, the next day at 6:25pm, in the hallway of her home on Boyer Street – spoken in whispers so as to not upset her children – Anna Podadworna was arrested. (End) She was charged with perverting the course of justice, preventing an lawful burial and murder, along with two women and men of similar age, who were arrested on suspicion of murder but bailed. A three-week trial began at Derby Crown Court on the 20th of January 2026 before Mrs Justice Williams KC, at which Anna pleaded not guilty to all charges and stuck to her alibi of self defence. Prosecutor Gordon Aspden KC stated “ two of you were arguing and you murdered her didn't you?", Anna denied this, Aspeden re-iterated “you hated her so much that you chopped her in half and chucked her out with the trash didn't you?", to which Anna admitted "I'm accepting I did it. I was only defending myself". But having told so many lies and caused so much pain, nothing Anna said would be believed. On the 10th of February, the jury returned with a unanimous verdict for all three charges – guilty. With her sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years and 116 days, minus the days she had already served on remand, summing up, Mrs Justice Williams KC said: “Your actions caused untold misery to Izabela's family who could not hold a funeral until last year. You have shown no remorse ". Calling her actions “violent, manipulative and cruel”, the Judge stated "I am satisfied that you became more angry and bitter towards Izabela who was not contributing or keeping her side of the bargain. Izabela suffered a violent death at your hands and I am sure you killed her in anger and frustration rather than being under attack from her. Your account you gave to the jury was untrue. To all intents and purposes you carried on your life as though nothing had happened", but now her life is over. In a rightful tribute Iza’s mother and daughter, the Judge said “had it not been for the persistence of Bozena and (Kasia) who did not give up hope of uncovering what had happened to Izabela, it is likely that your crimes would have remain undetected. I pay tribute to their tireless dedication”, with lead investigator, DI Kane Martin reiterating “nothing can bring Izabela back, but it is my hope that today's sentencing allows her family to lay her memory to rest", and bring a sense of closure to this horror. Kasia said “In my heart I always felt that my mother did not leave me on purpose”, and having worked so tirelessly to find the truth, she can be certain that her mother loved her until she day she died. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT: On Monday the 26th of April 2021 at 12:15pm, 63-year-old retired Police Constable, Clive Porter approached Lock 14 at Broughton on the Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal. As a License Enforcement Officer, he placed a notice on an unlicensed boat... and then was brutally murdered by NOT the owner of that boat. But why? And what secrets was his killer hiding?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN: From Saturday 20th of March 2004 to Friday 15th of May 2004, in numerous lakes and rivers, across several countries, the head, hands, thighs, lower legs and feet, but not the arms, torso and pelvis of 63 year-old Ian Halls was found. He wasn't a criminal and hadn't double crossed anyone, so why was he brutally murdered and dismembered?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in several counties exploring the tragic case of a greedy little man and his dream of being a serial-killer. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 367: The Serial Killer’s Handbook. For many in Britain, Saturday 20th of March 2004 was marked in two ways; with protests across every city in anger at the first anniversary of the Iraq War, and geeky hurrahs as Christopher Ecclestone was named as the ninth Doctor Who. Elsewhere, life went on. It was a typical spring day as shards of light burst intermittently across the River Witham in Lincolnshire, just off the coast of the East of England. Near the hamlet of Anton’s Gowt, two miles north of Boston, a dog walker was savouring the fresh air of these wide waters, as several boats navigated Anton's Gowt Lock to explore the backwaters beyond. The reed beds bristled, the trees swung softly, and everywhere there was peace and tranquillity. It’s the kind of a place you don’t expect to see crisps packets, Coke cans and discarded junk lying about, so when the dog tentatively crept into the foreshore and began sniffing, its owner took heed. Weighing about 5 kilos, a parcel bobbed below the waterline. 16 inches long and 20cm thick, it was oddly shaped like a long breeze block, but it was squishy when touched. Wrapped in black bin bags and sealed with electrical tape, someone had wanted its contents hidden, but an end had been nibbled loose by fishes. Through the torn plastic, a fleshy stump protruded; the skin was jagged and ripped, not surgically cut like in an operation, as the muscle was shredded as if it had been severed by something brutal; and with the thigh bone sheered off near the hip and the knee, they didn’t need the festering maggots, the buzzing of flies or the feted stench to tell them that this was the upper part of an adult male thigh. But what was it doing here? Had it been misplaced being sent to a medical incinerator, was it a prank by junior doctors, or had a bad lad received his comeuppance having crossed a big time criminal? Two days later and 10 miles north, along the serene banks of the River Witham, running through the leafy village of Tattershall, another parcel was found floating. Owing to the decomposition, it was hard to tell if it was from the same person, but identification was made easier, as this package comprised of two hands and a head. He was an adult male possibly in his 60s. But who was he, and was he local? Lincolnshire detectives searched the vast and winding waterways of the county expecting to find the rest of the body, but all they found were these four pieces of a man who was most likely murdered. The bits were examined by a pathologist, his details were ran through Missing Person’s, and his fingerprints and biological data were uploaded to the Police National Database and the DNA database. It led to a man, who was not the kind of person the Police were expecting to find, it unmasked a darker tale spanning large swathes of the country, and resulting in the arrest of a wannabe serial killer. The body parts belonged to Ian Edgar Halls. Born on the 30th of August 1940, possibly in the borough of Lambeth, South London, Ian was described as a ‘kind soul’, who was ‘liked’ and ‘well respected’. He was warm and social, but never married or had kids as maybe he didn’t find love, or his focus was the things he loved in life, the pursuit of knowledge. As a bookish man who loved history, from the early 1970s, around the time that he lost contact with his mother, he had worked and managed many public libraries in the country of Surrey such as Ditton’s in Thames Ditton, one in Elbridge, one in Weybridge, and he was the manger of the library in Walton. “Ian was a very gentle and well-liked fellow”, a friend said, “he was always pleasant and helpful… and went out of his way to help my son with his history schoolwork…. he was a thoroughly nice guy”. And that was Ian in a nutshell; a friendly and peaceful man who never ruffled any feathers or made ripples. In 2002, after almost three decades as a librarian, Ian retired aged 61, and unlike too many who work themselves into an early grave, he wanted to make the most of his golden years. Moving to the coastal town of Ipswich in Suffolk, as a slim man with glasses and a crown of greying hair, Ian was often seen at the public library, head down and neck deep in research, enjoying his life in the way he knew how. His step-sister, Diana said “Ian was a gentle person who was enjoying his retirement… in the year prior, he had been the happiest anyone had ever seen him… relishing the time to pursue his many interests”, and enjoying his new home; a £150,000, three bedroomed detached cottage called South View. Set north-west of the heart of Ipswich town centre, it was the perfect home for this 63-year-old bachelor. Situated roughly 100 miles south of where the head, hands and an upper thigh would be found, what had Ian done to end up dead and dismembered? Who had he cheated, hurt, offended, or blackmailed? The answer is… no-one. Six days after his dissected thigh was found in the River Witham, another 95 miles north-east, a team of workers for the Environment Agency were clearing a site on the River Ouse at Skelton, near York, when they stumbled across an identical parcel; an adult human thigh, wrapped in black bin bag, sealed with electrical tape, with the flesh jagged and ripped, and severed near the hip bone and the knee. DNA would later prove they belonged to Ian, but as the River Witham doesn’t directly connect to the River Ouse except by a meandering series of rivers and open-water, it was becoming clear to the police that his body hadn’t been dumped in one spot and drifted away, but had been deliberately scattered. So far, a head, two hands and two thighs were found. But what had happened to Ian Halls? For Christmas and New Year of 2003, Ian stayed with friends in France, by all accounts he was filled with his usual humour and laughter, and as planned, on the 2nd of January, he headed home to Ipswich. But was never seen alive again. His step-sister, Diana kept in regular contact with him, and although he was known as a loner, she said “it was out of character for him not to keep in touch”. Diana reported him missing on Thursday 29th of January 2004. With no suspicious circumstances, at this point, Ian was only a missing person, but when Diana visited his home two days later, the owner of a workshop, maybe Deben Vehicle Repairs directly opposite told her “I’d seen a man in a cap… I saw this person come out, I knew he didn’t live there”. Alerting the Police, officers called at South View and were greeted by Ian Halls. At least that’s what he said his name was, and although similar in appearance, he didn’t match Ian’s description; this man was shorter, fatter, easily a decade younger, with a similar crown of hair and glasses, but was portly. Arrested on suspicion of deception, with his painfully pathetic ruse revealed, he was proven to be 49-year-old Michael Harvey, Ian’s nephew, but when questioned at Ipswich Police Station, his series of impossibly pathetic lies continued when he denied knowing anything about Ian's disappearance, and claimed “he’s joined a religious cult and gave me permission stay at his home and use his money”. Ian was last seen on the 2nd of January, but one week before he was reported missing - as if his uncle was already dead, missing and never to return - Harvey had cashed in Ian's life insurance, £20,000 in premium bonds, drained his bank account, and an applied for £150,000 in loans against Ian’s house. At this point, it was nine weeks before the first piece of Ian’s body was found, and with no proof of life or death, a search of Ian’s home gave detectives a startling insight into the horror of his demise. A crude attempt had been made by someone to clean up the pools and spatter of blood, but behind the radiators, under the door handles and in the fibres of the carpets of the kitchen, lounge, utility room and the foot of the stairs, it was proven that this was where Ian was murdered and dismembered. But how could the detectives prove that this was a murder, and not manslaughter? Monday the 10th of May 2004, six weeks after the first discovery, at 1.50pm, another dog walker made a shocking discovery. This time at the Ransome Road Lake, near Delapre Abbey in Northamptonshire; 75 miles south-west of the River Witham, 100 miles west of Ipswich and 135 miles south of Skelton. Again, it was wrapped in black bin bags with electrical tape, this was a lower right leg and foot, and it had been washed up beside a jetty next to the Northampton Water Ski Club where many families sit. Search teams scoured the surrounding woodland with sniffer dogs, a police helicopter made a survey of the area, and with divers exploring the depths of this former gravel pit, by Friday, the lower left leg and foot had been found, wrapped and sealed like the others. As angler, Paul King stated "It seems such a strange place to dispose of a body part… all sorts of things go on down here; waterskiing, fishing and horse riding. You've got to be really pushing your luck to drop it in here because the chances are it will be found". Unlike a river, it wouldn’t drift and perhaps vanish forever, instead it just floated. Both lower legs and feet were taken to the Leicester Royal Infirmary where a Home Office pathologist confirmed that the DNA matched Ian Halls. Further searches were conducted, but although his head, hands, feet and legs (in four parts) were found, his arms, his torso and his pelvis would remain missing. Harvey would never say where they were dumped… …exacerbating the trauma and grief of Ian’s loved ones. Little was reported about Michael Harvey; we know he was a bachelor, one article said he was “an unemployed drifter”, another said he went by the alias of Michael Mulkeirn, but having spent roughly 20-years working as a surveyor in the architecture department of Northamptonshire County Council, a colleague, 71-year-old Alan Ede recalled “he didn't mix much. I wouldn't say people got on with him”. He worked there until 2001, and in a catastrophic fall from grace, he got a job as a caretaker at Delapre Abbey, next to the Ransome Road Lake, and lived onsite in a small flat. By 2003, the year of Ian’s death he had moved to a council flat on Northdown Avenue in Hulme, Manchester, and was £20,000 in debt. He wasn’t a master criminal, an experienced killer, or even a fraudster with a history of semi-successful cons, Harvey was a half-wit, with bad debts, who struggled to hold down a simple job, but had an ego and an arrogance which vastly outweighed his limited ability. He did everything to hide the evidence of (what he assumed was) the perfect crime by dismembering the body and scattering it far and wide. And yet, his own sense of superiority would be his downfall. The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull of Suffolk Police, with the support of the neighbouring forces. From the start, Harvey denied any involvement in the murder, yet his phone records proved he had called Ian, his uncle, on several occasions in January, cell mast data put him in Ipswich, and a bus ticket from his home put him in the town when Ian was murdered. The blood found at the house was Ian’s, and with the weapons used to dismember and kill him having been disposed of, the only way to prove the guilt of this greedy little man was by following the money. It’s likely Ian was still alive by Wednesday the 21st of January 2004, 19 days after he was last seen alive, but as a quiet, solitary man who lived alone and was new to the town of Ipswich, this wasn’t unusual. On Thursday the 5th of February, a week after Ian had been reported missing, Harvey had hired a Ford Transit van using Ian’s Visa card. Having disposed of the body and cleaned-up the house so if the cops came calling it wouldn’t raised any suspicions, believing he was a criminal genius, he parked the van a few streets away, and inside it he stashed everything (and I mean everything) to do with the killing. Sliding open the door, Detectives found a treasure trove of evidence to prove his guilt; a Derringer pistol, a crossbow, a slingshot, a set of bloodstained overalls, bin bags, electrical tape and tarpaulin. On all of them were his fingerprints, as well as his DNA, with Ian’s blood found in the floor recesses. Even a haphazard killer with lower than average IQ would know to destroy everything, and given that Harvey drove around the country dumping body parts in rivers far and wide, why didn’t he toss any of these items in a skip, or a bin, or buried them, or burn them. Instead, like a moron, he stored them. Found among his files, he also kept a ‘kill list’, a list of 12 or 13 potential victims who he would murder for their money. One was his ex-colleague at Northamptonshire County Council, Alan Ede, who said “It had been 12 years since I'd last seen him. I was very surprised he had thought of me", as if this was a nice treat. With two others being his ex-neighbours, Tony Markham (who, like Ian, had lost contact with his family), and Tony’s girlfriend Jennifer Galsworthy had inherited a large sum of money. Tony's brother, Colin said "we’d go to Tony’s flat regularly. he used to say there was a strange bloke living next door, but we haven't heard from him for years. The last I heard, he was living in north Wales". Harvey’s ‘kill list’ comprised of those he knew who fitted his criteria; they had to be single, preferably with few relatives, who had paid off most of their mortgage and had £25,000 in savings whose identity he could assume. Harvey called his marks, ‘Don’, and although each ‘Don’ had potential, only one was perfect (being a bachelor with £300,000 worth of assets), but he was only #6 on the list – uncle Ian. His ‘kill list’ wasn’t the most moronic thing he had left in the van for the Police to discover, he had also left for the detectives to peruse at their leisure – his murder manual – a series of blood-stained files, written by him, describing his plan to befriend, kill and dismember a single man, assume his identity and strip all his assets. He also wrote detailed notes on how he would do it, with maps and diagrams. In his so-called serial killer’s handbook, Harvey – in which he had written ‘SK’ next to his name claiming he fit the profile of those like Bundy and Dahmer – he had drawn a diagram on how to dismember a body complete with comprehensive notes, he had created detailed flow-charts on how to maintain his web of lies (like Ian joining a religious sect) and how to deal with any possible scenario (like Police not believing he was Ian, a man several stone heavier and 15 years his senior), he had left examples of him practising his uncle's signature, drafts of letters to the insurance company, and a list of ‘'people to be sorted'; as he wrote, “the old bill… the social worker who keeps calling… nosey neighbours… and Diana and Rosie", Ian’s step-sister and her daughter, who were getting far too close to the truth. When quizzed about this at Ipswich Police Station, Harvey claimed that his ‘murder manual’ wasn’t in relation to his uncle - whose name doesn’t appear anywhere in it, but ‘Don’ or the initials ‘ONK’, which he would never explain what it meant – but that it only related to the carcass of a dead sheep. With the files being so detailed - comparing the 1,675 miles he had travelled over four days in a hired Vauxhall Vectra, to the maps and the descriptions - detectives tried to identify where the outstanding remains of Ian’s body may have been dumped; they searched the waterways in Sheffield, Nottingham, Peterborough, Huntingdon and Cambridge, and even though Harvey had marked in the tidal patterns and in one case, where a noisy dog lived, none were ever found, having drifted away, or been eaten. But how far did he scatter the body parts? As Ipswich to Anton’s Gowt is 95 miles, it’s 10 miles more to Tattershall, it’s 95 miles to Skelton, and 135 miles to Ransome Road Lake, totalling 340 miles, if they were dumped on the same journey. But as he drove 1,675 miles in four days, where did he drive over those remaining 1,335 miles, and which parts of the country did he dump the arms, torso and pelvis? He had connections to north Wales, and although Police searched, nothing was found. Regardless of whether some or all of the body was found, as the ‘no body, no crime’ rule has never required a physical body to be found for a murder charge or conviction to be secured, given the wealth of evidence Harvey had left behind, it wouldn’t be difficult for the prosecutors to prove ‘beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was dead and the defendant caused the death’, but what detectives feared was that the case could be scuppered with Harvey claiming manslaughter, or accidental death? The tragedy of it all was that the killing occurred because of Ian’s kindness. In 1999, four years before, when Ian’s estranged mother had died, she had left an insignificant amount of money to his nephew, Michael Harvey. Doing the right thing, Ian traced him, and they kept in touch. Over the next years, as Harvey’s life collapsed and his debts rose, he contacted his uncle more often, and in November 2003, the nephew had stayed for a few days at his uncle’s house in Ipswich, and the two (Ian thought) grew closer, but it was all a ploy for the sake of money. Diana, Ian’s step-sister said "he maliciously exploited Ian for his own gain. He betrayed Ian's welcome, his openness and his trust. Ian was a sociable, knowledgeable, humorous man. He was excellent company”, and as we know, when someone needed his help, Ian was there to help them, but Harvey was there to help himself. Ian was last seen alive on the 2nd of January 2004, having returned from a trip to France, at some point Harvey travelled from Manchester to visit him, and on Wednesday the 21st of January he killed him. In court, Harvey denied many odd details which the Prosecution claimed. According to the pathologist, he killed Ian by firing a crossbow bolt into his neck, Harvey refuted this, stating it was a single wound from a flick knife which killed him instantly, in a ploy designed to plea manslaughter by provocation. He also denied that he had stabbed him to death at the foot of the stairs, and bafflingly, considering the pre-meditated nature of the crime and how Harvey had written and drawn every element of the killing down to the tiniest details, he denied cutting up the body in the spare room, instead claiming it happened in an outbuilding, and would state he suffered from amnesia, and forgot many key details… …mostly when it suited himself. With his uncle Ian dead by the front door, Harvey moved the body out of sight, locked up the house, switched off the lights and headed to Manchester where - with Ian’s bank and credit cards - he went shopping, and with no relatives to spot irregularities in his spending habits, Harvey went on a spree. On Saturday the 24th of January, three days later, Harvey effectively moved in, using his uncle’s ID and living his life as if a dead body wasn’t in the spare room, slowly rotting, as decomposition took hold. He drained the bank accounts, cashed in his premium bonds, attempted to claim on his life insurance, and referring to Ian’s corpse in his murder manual as ‘pongo’ and ’whiffy’, he wrote that he “set about finding something to wrap Pongo in", and in another note, he wrote "prepare for chop daytime". That same day, at Argos in Ipswich, using Ian’s credit card, he bought a sack barrow (to cart the body parts from the vehicle to the dump sites) and rather than a kitchen knife or a power saw, he bought an angle grinder - an odd choice, as (being a spinning blade used to cut, sand and polish metal, stone and concrete, not flesh, hence it splattered congealed blood everywhere), it left the limbs shredded, jagged, and although a loud and grating noise, it was possibly disguised by the car workshop opposite. In his murder manual, as if he wanted the Police to follow his every clue, he wrote "a) get the place cleaned up" (in refence to the house), "b) prepare for exit" (by cleaning up the bloodstains) and “c) get stuff distributed" (the stuff being his dead uncle’s dismembered body parts, which on Monday 26th of January, he purchased black bin bags, electrical tape and heavy-duty rubber gloves to aid this). It was around this time that Diana, Ian’s step-sister was added to his list of ‘people to be sorted’, as she’d have called Ian’s phone, knocked on his door, and - that same week - reported Ian as missing. With the body parts severed into at least 15 pieces, he had marked on his murder manual that it was too risky to dump any body parts in "Ippers", his name for Ipswich, so compiling an elaborate map, in the hired Vauxhall Vectra, over four days, he drove 1,675 miles, crisscrossing the nation and scattering Ian’s body parts far and wide to draw attention away from the house and himself, but failing massively. Between the 20th of March and the 15th of May 2004, everything except the arms, torso and pelvis was found in a river or lake across Lincolnshire, Yorkshire & Northamptonshire. He believed he was a serial killing genius with a master plan, but if he had weighed them down, maybe none of them would ever have been found, proving that Harvey wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box… he was just a tool. (End) On the 12th of February 2004, just six weeks before the first body part was found, 49-year-old Michael Harvey was charged with Ian Halls’ murder. At his committal hearing on the 29th of October 2004, he denied murder as expected, but admitted to dismembering and disposing of his body. The Prosecution had a wealth of evidence, so were ready to prove that this was not manslaughter by provocation. And then, the day before his trial at Norwich Crown Court, this criminal mastermind changed his plea from ‘not guilty’ of murder to ‘guilty’. Even his own solicitor, Charles Riddleston, was stunned. On Thursday the 21st of April 2005, before deputy High Court Judge Sir John Blofeld, with the jury not needing to deliberate, the next day, Michael Harvey was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 29 years, meaning he will not be eligible for parole until 2034, when he’ll be 79. Upon hearing this, he tutted loudly, rolled his eyes, and muttered “it’s about time” as he was lead away to the cells for life. Summing up, the Judge said "you murdered your uncle for gain. You had clearly thought about it long and hard before you did so. It may have started as a fantasy project; you went through the gruesome task of dismembering, you scattered the body parts… it was all precisely planned and pre-meditated". Ian’s body was released for burial on 24th of September 2004, but as said, not all of it was found. When asked if Michael Harvey was a ‘serial killer’ given his ‘kill list’, Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull said “it would appear that he had identified a number of other potential victims. We believe we have traced all of those individuals and have found them to be alive and well. At this stage, it does not appear that Michael Harvey is a serial killer. I cannot stand here and say he has not murdered before, but we have not uncovered any evidence that he is responsible for killing other individuals". And that seems the most likely truth. Michael Harvey wasn’t the master criminal he thought he was, he was an idiot, an ego-ridden loner who was desperate for money, showed no emotion for the uncle he had murdered, and was just a sad little wannabe who was caught by his Serial Killer’s Handbook. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX: Sunday the 7th of February 1988 was a typical day for Samantha, Colin and their family, residents of Kingsley Way in Tring, Hertfordshire. They went to church, they had dinner, they went to bed, and by the morning, Colin had brutally murdered his wife, cut up her body and hid it in the freezer and the back garden, But why?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Tring, Hertfordshire to unearth a barely reported murder, which is as baffling as the day it occurred. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 366: Dole Cheat. On Christmas Day 2025, I began my journey to tour the canals of England. Travelling at a whopping 2 miles-per-hour, I made it to Cowroast by the 5th of January, only to find the three locks at Marsworth were shut for repairs until the end of March. With no option, except to wait it out, I was stuck in Tring. Which is no bad thing. Tring is a market town whose name in Old English means 'a slope where trees grow’. it is nestled between the Chiltern Hills, was built on an old Roman road, is mentioned in the Domesday Book, has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and currently has a population of 12,500. As a surrogate Londoner with a big city mentality who has been spoiled by 24-hour transport, all-night shops, limitless choice, but also sky-high rents, unbreathable air and a 100% chance of being stabbed, I feared that a small town like Tring would drive me bananas with boredom by teatime. What I found was a warm, welcoming place, where everyone knows each other, and (shock) they say “hello”. I know. At least once a day a stranger would stop to talk to me, and it only took a week or two before I realised they weren’t going to mug me, and there was no ulterior motive, they were just being friendly. To keep myself busy, I started researching murder cases in Tring to upload as 90 second shorts. But that’s when I hit a hurdle. Unlike cities whose inhabitants tend to be transient, as small towns are held together by pride and a neighbourly spirit, they have fewer murders but what I did find was interesting little cases which mostly gave an insight into the rising and falling fortunes of the town’s inhabitants. One case occurred in 1906, when the body of a former Shoesmith known as Rivett was found dead in a ditch at Pound Meadow. His life had been one of hardship and poverty. He had been homeless for months, living on the kindness of others who gave him bread, cheese and water. The Saturday prior, being seen in a “filthy condition”, Fanny Probots said his ankles looked withered and blue, and Rosa Alibone noticed “a dreadful discharge coming from his legs and running from his boots”. It had a feted stench, and his legs were “badly affected by blowfly” (insects which feed on the flesh after death, or when it becomes necrotic). Rivett was alone, hungry, broke, and suffering with chronic bronchitis, his death had been caused by heart failure, exhaustion and neglect. And although, when Rivett needed to, he went to the workhouse, he hated it, saying “I’d prefer to die in a ditch, than go back there”. For those who saw my little video, it struck a chord with the people of Tring; some were sympathetic to Rivett’s plight, some found they were related to those mentioned, and others (bereft of brains) said “that was years ago, who cares” as if a life story isn’t worth retelling if they didn’t live in their lifetime. Murders rarely occur in Tring, but one case in particular seemed to have been forgotten, with many details lost to the mists of time, re-arranged over generations, or simply swept underneath the carpet. It remains as baffling today as back in the 1980s, yet it begs the question, will we ever know the truth? For the sake of the relatives (who still locally) many details have been redacted from this retelling. Samantha was born in October 1963 in the neighbouring town of Hemel Hempstead; she was raised local, lived local, worked local, and every moment of her life existed in and around Hemel and Tring. Little was reported of her early years, but everyone who met her liked her; neighbour James Sharp said “she was a pleasant girl… always said ‘good morning’” and Paul Dickinson recalled “she was lovely. She had the patience of a saint”, as all agreed Samantha was quiet and polite, pleasant and charming. In the early-1980s, while in her late teens, she was in a relationship, and around 1983, she gave birth to a daughter. Being a young single mum can’t have been easy, so it made sense when she got together with a man six years her senior who had a boy and a girl from a previous marriage, his name was Colin. Like Samantha, Colin was born and raised local, as were his family and many generations before them. By 1985, with a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, life became more hectic for this young family headed-up by a 21-year-old mum and a 27-year-old dad when they had another son, and another was still to follow two years later, making this a family of seven. Life is expensive, especially with kids, and even the basics – like rent and food - can be a struggle. For this family, money were tight living off Colin’s modest income as a decorator specialising in aertex ceilings (which were all the rage then), but they did it, they held it together, and as the neighbours said “she never raised her voice to the kids”. Cementing their love but also giving this family the stability they deserved, in February 1986 Samantha & Colin married in the district of Dacorum, and slowly (although with the typical chaos that family life brings) they began to settle into a steady routine; the three eldest attended Dundale Infants School, the two youngest were looked after by Samantha, Colin drove to painting jobs in his white Ford Transit van, and they lived in a terraced house on Kingsley Walk in Tring. In fact, the only hint of criminality was that their home had previously been occupied by the wife of Michael Fagan, the man who broke into the Queen’s bedroom at Buckingham Palace – but that’s it, and even that link is tenuous at best. Their story was as ordinary as any other young family, struggling with the stresses and strains of life. Almost 100 years before, and just a few streets over, on the 15th of October 1892, Charles Smith and his wife were convicted of child cruelty. They lived in a one-room lodging on Akeman Street, and often, being so poor, their children – a boy and a girl - would beg in Tring High Street; their faces dirty, their clothes ragged, their feet bare (even on the coldest of days) and they were malnourished. Two weeks before, their 10-year-old son Charles was admitted to the Workhouse Infirmary. He was so emaciated that his bones poked through his skin, and when they weighed him, instead of five stone, he was one and a half. He died the same day, and his parents were sentenced to just three months hard labour. The Smith family lived in an era before the Welfare State, sickness and unemployment benefits, when no-one had holiday or sick pay, no-one had savings except the wealthy, and there was no safety net for those who needed it. You worked and lived, but only just. If you didn’t owing to sickness, you died. Samantha & Colin were blessed, not only with the strength of their love and their commitment to their children, but also their extended family, friends, and Samantha found faith as a born again Christian. According to Pastor Ian Walker of Tring Community Church, an independent Pentecostal church at the Exchange Christian Centre on Frogmore Street, Samantha attended the mid-week meetings, her family regularly attended Sunday Service and (as a couple) the church had become a big part of their life; just before Christmas, Samantha & Colin had joined the Pastor and his wife for a meal at their home, they were preparing for the church’s sixth anniversary, and as the Pastor said “just the Sunday before, she had said that she and her husband were looking forward to attending the Valentine’s Day supper”. It was a killing which (seemingly) came out of nowhere, and would devastate a family forever. But there had been murders in Tring before. In the early hours of the 22nd of March 1950, outside of the Britannia pub, 21-year-old Peter Thomas Jackson was shot dead. 100 yards away at the Duckmore Lane allotments, his flat-mate and RAF buddy 22-year-old Stanley Christopher Payne was found, dying, a bullet wound to his head and a gun by his side. Back at their shared room, a note was found in which Stanley had written “although I had every cause to hate him, I still have pangs of affection”, and asked that the two men be buried together. Found guilty but insane, Stanley was convicted of his murder. Sunday the 7th of February 1988 was a typical day for Samantha, Colin and their family. That morning, they had attended Sunday Service at Tring Community Church. Unlike the traditionally depressing dirge of over-long hymns and sleep-inducing prayers, Pentecostal worship is deliberately upbeat and lively, beginning with joyful singing, clapping and raised hands, followed by testimonies, passionate preaching, and an invitation to the altar to pray for healing, salvation or spiritual renewal. Attendees come away feeling enlivened and revitalised, rather than suicidal and plagued with guilt. Like many millions that year, with Britain still struggling through a recession which had unemployment at 10% and record high-interest rates, the basics were more expensive and with the average person having less money to spend, Colin’s business was struggling, as aertex ceilings weren’t a necessity. As a born-again Christian, Samantha had been praying for help, whereas to supplement their meagre income during this difficult time, while still working, Colin had been claiming unemployment benefits, also known as ‘the dole’. It wasn’t a major crime, it was a minor fraud. It wasn’t like he was dealing drugs or burgling houses, he had seen his friends do it and saw it as a temporary means to an end. As a married man, it would have earned him an extra £52.95 per week (about £200 today) which wouldn’t have covered his rent, and with five kids, it would have made very little dent in his food bill. With Britain precariously balanced on a fiscal cliff, in 1988, the UK government initiated a nationwide crackdown on those who fraudulently claimed ‘the dole’ resulting in 90,000+ claimants withdrawing their benefit claims and recouping roughly £65 million of the tax-payer’s hard earned cash. TV appeals shamed them into submission, and letters arrived on doorsteps threatening court action and arrest. It’s uncertain how Samantha found out that Colin was double dipping by working and taking ‘the dole’ – maybe they got a knock at the door by an investigator, a court summons, or simply a letter with the initials DHSS on it – but as a born-again Christian, it is said that what worried Samantha most was what her Church and its congregation would think of them, and so said she would report him to the Police. It wasn’t illegal what he was doing, it was dishonest, and caused increased frictions between them. Colin had a bad habit of taking the easy option, and Douglas Climson, his friend said “Samantha would nag him dreadfully”, yet what young family living on a tight budget with five children don’t squabble? But was this enough motive to commit a murder? Just a few streets away, seven years before, on the 7th of September 1971, believing his wife Patricia had cheated on him, 29-year-old David Draper, a decorator held his wife and two children hostage in their home. Armed with two shotguns, in a siege lasting five hours, he indiscriminately fired shots at Police, a passerby and a coach; when Police brought in his mum to mediate he shot at her too, and at 1am, having fired CS gas into the house, Police stormed inside, and Draper was arrested, unharmed. Draper was sentenced to five years for resisting arrest, having a loaded weapon in public and causing malicious damage to a coach. His attempted murder of Inspector George Rafter and Sergeant Alex Shears were reduced to GBH, but he wasn’t convicted of the death of the brave Police dog called Rolfe. People react to stress in different ways; some talk it over, some shout, hit or lash out in ways which make no sense at all, even when alcohol and drugs aren’t involve. Emotion is a flood of chemicals into the bloodstream, and when you’re stressed, that level of adrenaline could kill an average human if it was injected directly into your body while you were calm, but when you’re upset, your body adapts. That evening, the family had dinner, if they watched telly they may have viewed Antiques Roadshow, All Creatures Great and Small or Perfect Strangers, the younger kids – aged 5, 3 and 18 months were bathed and put to bed in their pyjamas, the older two - aged 8 and 6 – stayed up a little later and when it was finally quiet time for the adults, Samantha & Colin couldn’t help but bicker over the dole money. As they sat on the sofa, ice formed between them as the air became decidedly chilly. Colin felt he had done it for the right reason, but Samantha couldn’t live with the shame, as life is there to test you. It’s about hard-work and battling through, not taking the easy way out by stealing it. And with Samantha insistent that she would report him to the Police (or so he said), they went to bed, hostile and upset. And as they drifted off, all that we are left with is Colin’s version of events. The night was cold and wet, as a 90mph storm barrelled in from the coast, leaving roads flooded and trees uprooted over the coming days. Maybe they kept their argument quiet, maybe the approaching storm muffled any shouts, or maybe there were no screams. It wasn’t said whether the children heard what happened next, but let’s pray that they didn’t, as what followed was grim and deeply traumatic. Colin claimed, that at 3am, he was awoken by Samantha (a usually placid and quiet women) shouting, swearing and punching him wildly about the head. Last night’s issue was still brewing, she called him a ‘dole cheat’, and in a fit of tears, she kept attacking him, and as he said, he tried to defend himself. It was never reported why he had these two objects near his bed; maybe he headed to another room, maybe he slept on the sofa, or as a tradesman, maybe they were in his toolbox, but in a pique of anger, with a hammer in his hand, he struck her several time across the head, caving in her skull, and then, with a kitchen knife, he stabbed her six times in the chest, right up to the hilt, telling the Police, “she wouldn’t die, she must have been a fanatic to last so long”, but he kept stabbing until she was dead. If Samantha had gone to the Police over this ‘dole cheat’, at best he would have had a criminal record for ‘making a false statement or misrepresentation under social security legislation’ which would have resulted in a fine of a few £100, or at worst, a custodial sentence of up to three months. It would have been an inconvenience which affected their marriage, but (for the kids) they would have got over it. Aged just 24, Samantha, this loving and devoted mother-of-five lay dead in a pool of her own blood, motionless, silent, and slowly cooling. At no point did Colin attempt to call for an ambulance, and with their children still sleeping just a few feet away, he dragged the body of their mother to the bathroom. The aftermath of Samantha’s murder was more horrific than her death itself… …so why – in the town of Tring – has it been mostly forgotten? Like many of the cases I’ve mentioned, I think there’s three possible reasons; for the sake of their own sanity, most people don’t like dwelling on morbid stories; four years before, sadistic sexual predator Malcolm Fairley nicknamed ‘The Fox’ had committed a series of burglaries, violent assaults and sadistic rapes which had terrorised the community; but also, residents of small towns tend not to dwell on the horrors on the streets around them, as living so close together, a person standing next to them in the butcher’s could easily be a cousin of the culprit or the dad of the dead, so they let it lie and move on. Unless it directly impacts their life, for the sake of retaining a sense of normality in a place where many people are directly connected or tenuously related, you can’t dwell on the past and risk the future. Samantha’s murder had occurred about 3am, the next day was a school day, and with Colin knowing that the kids would be awake within a few hours, having dragged her body from the bedroom into the bathroom, as hastily but also as quietly as he could, he set about disposing of his wife’s dead body. With the bath taps on to drain away the blood, using the serrated blade of a carving knife, he severed her arms at the shoulder, wrapped them in black plastic binbags and sealed them with electrical tape, he cut off her legs at the hip-joint and the knees and wrapped them likewise to limit the seepage, and dismembering her head from her torso, within hours, he had reduced the woman he loved to 7 pieces. With dawn slowly approaching and hearing an occasional creak as the kids stirred, throwing out bags of frozen chips and daily tea-time staples, but not a jumbo pack of beef burgers, he made space in the freezer for her torso, but with it too tiny to stash her limbs and her head, they would remain in a shopping trolley in the garden until he could work out what to do with it. But first, he had to be a dad. That was the morning of Monday the 8th of February 1988. The storm was brewing, the bathroom had been cleaned and their bedroom was off-limits, as the kids got ready for school, but all of them were asking the question ‘where’s mum?’. She was the centre of their world, the warm and reliable sun they orbited around, and now, for no reason, she was missing. It is said, that day, Colin had cancelled his jobs, and with the kids at school or elsewhere; he disposed of the bedsheet, he cleaned the carpets, he threw away the knife, and as a decorator he used the tools of his trade to disguise his crime, but someone can’t simply vanish, especially in a small town like Tring. That day, neighbours thought it odd that Samantha didn’t leave her home on Kingsley Way, she wasn’t seen by the other mums at Dundale Infants School, or didn’t do any shopping on Tring High Street, and when they quizzed Colin about it, he stammered that they had quarrelled and said she’d left him, which made no sense at all, as – with no warning to her friends and her family – she had suddenly left everything she knew and had vanished into thin air, leaving behind her children, who she adored. As happens in every small town, word spread fast, and Colin began tripping over his own lies. For a full day, being surrounded by crying kids who couldn’t understand what was happening, the only proof of this dreadful murder remained in the fridge and in a shopping trolley in the back garden. The following night, Tuesday the 9th of February, using the early evening darkness of this stormy winter night, having backed-up his Transit van to his house, he loaded the body parts into the back, and drove half a mile north of Kingsley Walk to Little Tring Road on the town’s outskirts. Being a remote country lane surrounded by fields which seem to stretch as far as the horizon, with no streetlights, a few odd houses dotted sparsely and cars infrequently passing, he pulled up at an unspecified part of the road. Shielded by wind and rain as the storm reached its peak, no-one passing would have blinked an eyelid as this tradesman in overalls opened the side of his van, pulled out two big and unwieldy binbags, and tossed them into a ditch beside an unidentified field, as fly-tippers are a common curse in this stretch. But this wasn’t builder’s rubbish, it was the arms, the legs and the head of his dead wife. And as he drove off, heading away from his home, that begs several unanswered questions; why didn’t he bury them, why didn’t he disguise them, and why did her torso remain in the back of his van? Could he not bring himself to do toss it, had he been spooked by a passing car, or did he want to be caught? When murders happen, the culprit is rarely rational and in moments of panic, they seek out something or someone familiar, which may explain what he did next. Having already dismembered and disposed of everything except her torso, he called upon his friend in Hemel, Douglas Climson, a dustman who knew everywhere that locals dump their unwanted waste, and met him for a pint at The Beehive pub. Over what must have been a bizarre chat between two pals, Colin told him the version that Samantha had attacked him in his sleep, and threatened to go to the police for being a ‘dole cheat’, he asked for Douglas’ help in disposing of the body, but guilt got the best of him, thanks to his friend’s wise words. At around closing time, his pal convinced him to confess. At the old Police Station on Combe Street, a place more used to call-outs (at that time of night) for drunks, thefts and public urination, the duty officer must have thought he was being pranked when Colin said “I’ve murdered my wife and chopped her up”. But his red-raw eyes showed this wasn’t a lie, and he led the curious detectives to the van. He had parked it at the rear of The Bell public house at 51 High Street in Hemel, 10 minutes from his home where his children were asleep, unaware of what he had done, and how it would impact them. Just after midnight, licensee of The Bell, John Buteux, said “I was taking my dog for a walk after closing, everything was quiet. I came back and there were police everywhere”. Police approached the van, but before they opened the door, Colin stated “there’s no point in looking, I killed her”. Inside they found her torso, and on Little Tring Road he had guided them to the rest, which had already been discovered. Interviewed by Detective Chief inspector Richard Pottinger, Colin gave a full confession in-between bouts of tears, he told them of the attack, the ‘dole money’, and said “it’s been building up over a long period. I just went crazy”. He admitted to disposing of her body and the evidence, but when forensics examined the freezer, his clean-up hadn’t been that thorough, as having made space for her torso by binning several large bags of oven-chips, her blood was found on top of a jumbo box of beef burgers. Both men were arrested, his friend, Douglas was later released without charge, and with the blood a match for Samantha’s, as well as fingerprints and dental records, Colin was charged with her murder. Only his version of events wasn’t as accurate as he had claimed. The autopsy by Pathologist Dr Peter Canezis agreed that she had been beaten over the head with a hammer and stabbed six times with a six-inch blade, but Colin hadn’t done it to protect himself, as with no defensive wounds, the stab wounds were to her back so it’s likely he attacked her as she slept. Committed at Dacorum Magistrates Court, Colin plead guilty to manslaughter by provocation, sticking to his story about ‘dole money’, shame and a 3am attack by Samantha, even though everyone agreed that – as a loyal and dedicated mother and wife - she was quiet, kind, and ‘had the patience of a Saint’. Tried at St Albans Crown Court, although John Lloyd-Eley QC for the Prosecution and Anthony Hopper QC for the Defence put forward both sides of the case, with the evidence overwhelming, on the 9th of December 1988, the jury found him guilty of the murder of his wife, and he was given a life sentence. After 10 years inside, described as a ‘model prisoner’, ‘trustworthy’ and being reduced to Category D, 41-year-old Colin was transferred to Springhill Open Prison in Grendon Underwood. On Sunday the 28th of November 1999, having failed to turn up for 9pm roll call, it was determined he had fled prison, and although it was assumed that he would head to Tring to attempt to see his children, he headed in the opposite direction, and was arrested in Highbury, North London on the 27th of December 1999. Sent back to prison, having served 15 years, it appears that in 2004, he was released and lived in Queen’s Park, in 2013 he moved to Hemel, and with no reported death, his whereabouts are unknown. Although Samantha’s murder was horrific, the forgotten victims in this case were their five children; all were young, all had lost a mum and a dad, and all had their childhood stolen from them for what was said to be £52.59 a week. Tring Community Church held a service for Samantha, funds were raised for her orphaned children with Pastor Ian Walker as trustee, and the children were initially cared for at a community home in St Alban’s. Let’s hope that they found peace, and put this horror in the past. 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.
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EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE: Thursday the 11th of October 1962 at 4:20pm, off Cherry Lane, in Sipson’s Field in West Drayton, the body of 16 year old Carol Ann White was found; she had been brutally stabbed, but not sexually assaulted. Police believed it was connected to a string of other sex attacks in the area. But the true culprit wasn’t hiding in plain sight, but standing by their side.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
Daily Mirror Sat, Feb 02, 1963 The Daily Sketch Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Oct 12, 1962 The Daily Sketch Wed, Jan 23, 1963 The Daily Telegraph Sat, Dec 01, 1962 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Evening Standard Wed, Oct 31, 1963 Nottingham Evening News Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Huddersfield Daily Examiner Fri, Oct 12, 1962 The Daily Telegraph Thu, Nov 01, 1962 The Daily Telegraph Thu, Oct 18, 1962 The Daily Telegraph Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Herald Express Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Herald Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Daily Mirror Sat, Dec 01, 1962 Daily Mirror Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Eastern Daily Press Sat, Feb 02, 1963 Evening Post Fri, Oct 12, 1962 The Bolton News Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Herald Sat, Oct 13, 1962 The Guardian Journal Sat, Dec 01, 1962 The Citizen Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Coventry Evening Telegraph Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Evening Standard Fri, Jan 25, 1963 The Daily Telegraph Sat, Feb 02, 1963 The Birmingham Post Sat, Feb 02, 1963 The Guardian Sat, Dec 01, 1962 Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Wed, Feb 13, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Evening Standard Fri, Nov 30, 1962 The Daily Sketch Thu, Nov 01, 1962 Manchester Evening News Tue, Oct 30, 1962 Manchester Evening News Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Nottingham Evening News Mon, Oct 15, 1962 The Argus Tue, Jan 29, 1963 Evening Standard Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Manchester Evening News Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Southern Daily Echo Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Evening Standard Thu, Nov 08, 1962 The Birmingham Post Sat, Oct 13, 1962 The Daily Sketch Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Thu, Nov 01, 1962 Nottingham Evening News Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Evening Chronicle Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Southern Daily Echo Fri, Dec 07, 1962 The Bolton News Fri, Dec 07, 1962 Southern Daily Echo Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Manchester Evening News Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Lancashire Telegraph Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Echo Fri, Dec 07, 1962 Evening Post Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Evening Telegraph Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Liverpool Echo Thu, Jan 24, 1963 Manchester Evening News Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Evening Standard Sat, Oct 13, 1962 Western Daily Press Wed, Jan 23, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Nov 30, 1962 The Argus Fri, Oct 19, 1962 The Guardian Journal Tue, Oct 16, 1962 Daily Mirror Sat, Dec 15, 1962 Evening Standard Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Evening Standard Fri, Dec 14, 1962 Evening Post Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Evening Telegraph Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Evening Telegraph Tue, Jan 29, 1963 Eastern Daily Press Sat, Dec 15, 1962 The Argus Sat, Oct 13, 1962 Evening Post Sat, Oct 13, 1962 Grimsby Evening Telegraph Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Daily Herald Sat, Feb 02, 1963 Evening Telegraph Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Liverpool Echo Fri, Oct 12, 196 Daily Mirror Tue, Oct 16, 1962 The Argus Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Mirror Thu, Nov 01, 1962 Evening Standard Mon, Oct 06, 1958 Daily Mirror Tue, Oct 07, 1958 Daily Mirror Wed, Oct 29, 1958 Daily Herald Fri, Nov 28, 1958 South Wales Argus Fri, Nov 28, 1958 Evening Standard Fri, Nov 28, 1958 The Daily Telegraph Fri, Nov 28, 1958 South Wales Argus Fri, Nov 28, 1958 Daily Herald Sat, Nov 29, 1958 Evening Post Tue, Aug 25, 1981 The Journal Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Evening Post Tue, Aug 25, 1981 Daily Mirror Tue, Oct 07, 1958 Daily Record Wed, Oct 29, 1958 Daily Herald Fri, Nov 28, 1958 Evening Standard Fri, Nov 28, 1958 The Guardian Journal Sat, Nov 29, 1958 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London, and hello again, as while I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat to bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit, this week, I’m back in West Drayton, Middlesex exploring a case we touched on in Undressing Jack the Stripper. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 365: The Foul Stench of Garlick. Thursday the 11th of October 1962; one week before, The Beatles had released their debut single ‘Love Me Do’, that day the African country of Uganda had gained its independent from the British Empire, and the Cuban Missile Crisis would soon be taking the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. The summer was drawing to a close, the sky was cloudy and blue, and the day was warmer than usual. At 4:20pm, having had a nice lunch at his aunt’s house in Harmondsworth, Edward & Barbara, a newly married couple in their 20s and 30s were heading to their home in Princes Park Lane. To the side was Stephen, Edward’s 11-year-old stepson, in a pram was their child, they were walking their landlord’s mongrel dog, Curly, and with it being a long day, they were tired, but still had two more miles to walk. Heading north up the quiet of Cherry Lane, a semi-rural road in West Drayton; with a line of post-war semi-detached houses to the left and to their right running parallel to Sipson’s Road was Sipson’s Farm, a huge field full of foot-high crops, few farm buildings, and surrounded by a thick gorse hedge. Edward recalled, that around 4:20pm, with the traffic busy, he went to put the dog on its lead, but it ran through a gap in the hedge and off into the field. “I called him, but he did not come. He was sniffing around, and I went in after him”. Curly hadn’t gone far, maybe 10 yards at best, but as Edward chased the excitable mutt around, Edward stated “I tripped over something” – something which shocked him. He recalled “I felt sick”. Unable to believe it, he called “Barb! Barb! Come here”, but he couldn’t talk. Barbara said “I saw him come out, he was staggering. He put his arms around me and said ‘Oh God’, I asked him what was the matter and I shook him to wake him out of it, he said ‘Barb’, I found a body”. Barbara checked and it was. Flagging down the first passing car, Frank Squires, a farmer from Old Slade Farm in Iver, Buckinghamshire, saw the body, called the Police, and the crime scene was sealed off. The body was of 16-year-old Carol Ann White. Said to be a shy and timid girl who was the second eldest of nine children to her father James, a crane driver and his wife Irene on nearby East Road, by day she worked at a shop assistant at Woolworths in Yiewsley, in the evening she liked to go to dances, coffee bars, and she was a Sunday school teacher. Being tall and pretty, although said to be ‘reserved’ and ‘bookish’, at the time she was dating 23-year-old Peter Watson of Guildford, who she had met a year before while doing his National Service at RAF Northolt. Everyone who knew them said they were madly in love, with her parents giving their blessing to get married, but they were holding off on getting engaged until Carol’s 17th birthday in January. Her murder shocked her friends, her family, her (soon-to-be) fiancé, and the whole community. Given the sadistic nature of her injuries, Police suspected she had been the victim of a sex attacker, as across that era and in eerily similar ways, the murders of several women and girls had gone unsolved. 14th of September 1954, having attended a party in London’s West End, 21-year-old costumier, Jean Mary Townsend caught the last Central Line tube to South Ruislip. At 11:45pm, she exited the station, walked along Victoria Road, heading to her parent’s home on Bempton Drive, but never arrived. The next day, her body was discovered on the waste ground to the north side of Victoria Road. She had been strangled with her own scarf, and – although partially undressed – there were no signs of rape. 3rd of May 1957, setting off to work at the Nestle factory in Hayes, 35-year-old widowed mother-of-two, Muriel Gwendoline Maitland cycled through an isolated and wooded area in Cranford Park, as she always did. Having failed to arrive, she was reported missing, and beside the River Crane, her body was found concealed in a hollow beneath the roots of a fallen tree. She had been raped and strangled. 25th of August 1958, in her cottage called Dawn Warren on Old Mill Road, Denham, Buckinghamshire, 31-year-old divorced single mother, Joyce Vera Green was attacked in her own bed by a man who had forced his way in. With her seven-year-old son locked in an upstairs cupboard, Joyce was gagged and raped, then strangled. And even though her son had seen her attacker, no-one was ever identified. And finally, on the 28th of October 1960, while walking home from her Girl Guide group in Heston, 12-year-old Brenda Nash went missing. A search was undertaken of all fields, pits and ponds, and after 44 days, her body was found in Hampshire, miles from her home. She was sexually assaulted, strangled and with a second victim stating her attacker had driven a black Vauxhall, 44-year-old Arthur Albert Jones was given a life sentence in June 1961, but continued to profess his innocence, as did his wife. Even though there was no evidence to prove that these cases were connected, as well as others, many believed that they were; as all four victims were accessible to someone with a car, their deaths had hints of sadism and were sexual in nature - like the murder of Carol Ann White, just a few miles away. Her killing terrified every girl in the district of West Drayton. Wednesday 10th of October 1962 was as ordinary as any other day for 16-year-old Carol. She finished work at 5pm, was back in their semi-detached house on East Road on the Bell Farm council estate by 6pm in time for tea, she helped her mother bathe and put to bed the younger of her seven sisters and one brother, and at 8:50pm - dressed in a fashionable green and white blouse, a skirt and white shoes but no coat or hat as the evening was relatively warm and her journey was short - as planned, she left. Being two hours after dusk, although her route – along East Road, down the alley and into Cherry Lane – had limited street lighting, she didn’t need a torch, as she knew this walk well. Crossing a semi-busy street circled by long rows of houses, just before 9pm, she arrived at the phone-box at the top end of Sipson’s Farm, near the corner of Sipson’s Road, and beside the Yiewsley & West Drayton Boys Club. Peter Watson, her boyfriend who lived 26 miles south in Guildford told Police “she was going to ring me to arrange what time she would meet me at the weekend. I was coming to stay with her family… there isn’t a phone in Carol’s house or mine, so we always rang each other from phone boxes. On Wednesday night, I was to phone Carol at the Cherry Lane box at nine o’clock”, but that night, Carol was early, so instead (she did as she done before), she called Alan & Molly Willis, Peter’s neighbours on Yew Tree Drive, who had a home phone and they happily took calls for these two young lovebirds. Peter recalled “while I was on my way to our nearest kiosk, Carol phoned my neighbours”. Molly spoke to Carol, who she said “sounded quite normal”, and she went to fetch Peter. But by 9pm, when Peter dialled West Drayton 4497, “I phoned the Cherry Lane call-box, there was no answer”. The phone just rang and rang. Richard Rogers who ran the boy’s club next door closed up the club at 9pm exactly, and stated, “as I passed, the phone was ringing. There was nobody in sight”. But Carol wasn’t missing… …with the call taking too long, she had run out of money, so by the time Molly had ran back and told her “I’ve got him now”, Carol had hung up. At 9:05pm, he dad, James recalled “She had no money for another call, so she came home”. She took her pink plastic purse, a blue pencil “and went out again”. At 9:13pm, back at the Cherry Lane phone-box, Carol called Peter’s phone-box in Guildford where he had been, but she got no reply. She never made another call, and she was never seen alive again. Carol had vanished. At 10:30pm, growing concerned, her dad, James said “when she hadn’t returned after an hour, I went to look for her. I went down to the phone-box, but there was no sign of Carol. Her pink purse was on the shelf and her blue pencil was on the floor. I got terribly worried then. I started searching the fields”, while her mother put the children to bed and waited at home in case Carol returned. But she didn’t. At midnight, having searched everywhere he could think, he called the Police. Initial thoughts was that she was a runaway or had met a friend, but no-one had seen her. Nothing sinister was suspected as no screams were heard. And with an unnamed woman using the phone at 9:30pm, but no signs of violence or a potential abductor, maybe she had left her purse by mistake, as it only had 5 pence in it. Her disappearance wasn’t reported to the press, and few people talked about it. But all that changed at 4:35pm, when Frank Squires, a passing farmer called the Police, having been alerted to a girl’s dead body in a field at Sipson’s Farm by Edward & Barbara, when their landlord’s dog, Curly had found her. The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Maurice Osborn, who had led the case into the unsolved murder of Muriel Maitland. Surrounding houses were canvassed, but no-one saw or heard anything. At that time of night, Cherry Lane would have been quiet, but not dead, so any passing motorists were questioned, but information was slight. The owner of Sipson’s Farm was quizzed, he heard nothing suspicious, but recalled “I knew Carol, she worked for me for a time last year during her holidays when she was still at school. She would have known the field well”. But why was she here? Between the lane and the field stood a chest-high hedge, over which – as Frank Squires recalled “when the man and woman flagged me down, he said ‘there’s a woman lying dead in that field’. I looked, but could only see material”, possibly her blouse, but when he looked though a larger gap in the hedge, being just 10 yards (roughly 30 feet) away “I saw this young girl lying in the grass, obviously dead”. Edward & Barbara gave statements, as did Mr Squires, and all three were said to be “pretty shook up”. 16-year-old Carol was found on her back, her eyes open, her mouth etched in fear, and in her left hand she held a clump of bracken which she had grasped in her final moments alive. With bruising to her face (as with Muriel’s killer) she had been viciously punched to stop her screaming, a piece of rag had been pushed into her mouth “so firmly, she could not have done it herself”, and then with a six-inch double-edged knife, he had stabbed her seven times; five times to her left lung and once to her heart. The detective’s initial theory was that a serial sex attacker had seen her in the phone-box, pulled up (possibly in a black Vauxhall car which a witness saw parked opposite the phone-box at the time Carol had vanished), threatened her with a knife (hence she left her purse and pencil behind), walked her to his car (but didn’t drag her as her shoes were unblemished), then gagged, raped and murdered her. Her autopsy was conducted by Dr W Evans at Uxbridge Mortuary. Death was caused by asphyxiation owing to the rag in the throat, the repeated stabbing “suggested a sadistic attack”, and yet, none of her clothes were ripped or disarranged, and all the evidence suggested that she hadn’t been raped. Irene, her mother stated “I hope they get this maniac before he kills someone else. The man who killed my Carol must have a mother who knows something. I beg her to give her son up before he kills again”. The search for Carol’s killer was a mammoth undertaking; 1800 people were interviewed, 6000 houses were questioned, officers with dogs, sickles and metal detectors searched every surrounding field for the knife, laundries and drycleaners were asked to be on alert for bloodstained clothes, coffee bars in a five mile radius were quizzed, soil samples were taken, and fingerprints taken from the phone-box. But it all proved negative; the fingerprints were Carol’s, as was the blood, and with no signs that she had been abducted by a stranger, but more likely that she had walked from the phone-box to the field of her own accord, with the pathologist confirming that sex was most likely “consensual”, Police were no longer seeking a serial sex attacker, but someone who Carol knew – a friend, family or a fiancé? This theory was given greater credence when 15-year-old Christopher Denny came forward to report that at roughly 9:30pm, he and two pals cycled down Cherry Lane and saw a girl matching Carol and a man (early 20s, tall, dark-haired) “walking very close together” and entered “the hole in the hedge”. She wasn’t upset, crying, or in fear for her life, in fact, they cycled on, thinking nothing more of it. Said to be a quiet and timid girl who wasn’t going to get engaged until she was 17, the Police drew up a list of the boys she knew, roughly 24, mostly from the Bell Farm estate. Her dad said “she’d never go with any down and outs”, meaning rough looking boys as she was always smartly dressed, but as Peter, her fiancé-to-be would agree in court, when Ashe Lincoln QC said “I am not anxious to blacken Carol’s character, but we know there were other young men besides yourself she was friendly with”, when asked “did she have another boyfriend, and you were annoyed about it?”, he had to agree “yes”. Bill Johnson, a 24-year-old ex-guardsman who owned a black Vauxhall, one of 5000 in Middlesex, came forward and stated that three weeks before, he had met Carol at a fair, “she told me she had a regular boyfriend, she seemed a nice quiet girl, I made a date to meet her on Monday 24th of September, but I forgot all about it. I haven’t seen her since”. Bill Johnson was in the Midlands with friends when Carol was killed, and her boyfriend, Peter was ruled out as a suspect, as he was 26 miles south in Guildford. So, if she had another boyfriend or was open to seeing others, who was he? Those who found her body, although shaken by the sight of her, remained helpful to the investigation, and had their alibis checked; Frank was on his farm in Iver as confirmed by his family, Barbara was at her home in Princes Park Lane 2 and a ½ miles north, and her husband Edward had driven to four different pubs to find a brand of aspirin for her as she had a headache, and said he was home by 10pm. But one of them was unusually helpful, and when Detective Inspector Robert Field cross-referenced Edward’s statement “suspicion fell on him when we did not get truthful answers we put to him”. He said, after Curly the dog ran into Sipson’s field “I went in after him. I tripped over something and I saw the body of a girl”, but both Frank and Barbara said the body was visible from the hole in the hedge. He claimed he had to driven to four pubs to find aspirin, but the two he had said didn’t stock it, did, and they didn’t recall seeing him that night. He also said he owned a six-inch double-edged knife, but couldn’t recall where it was. He drove a black Vauxhall, like the one seen near the phone-box on the night Carol was murdered, but denied being anywhere near Cherry Lane. And yet, Winifred Coleman, who knew him, saw Edward at 10:25pm in nearby Goulds Green, when he was supposedly at home. The more he lied, the more he became a suspect… and then, Police looked into his past. Questioned at Harlington Police Station, Edward said “I never went into Cherry Lane that night. It was not me who attacked the girl. I am willing for the police to take my blood to prove my innocence”, but worried, he continued, “If you find blood on my clothes, you and everyone will say I’m a liar”. His new statement was written-up and presented to him, but he refused to sign it until he’d spoken to his wife. His name was Edward Garlick… and as his name suggests, his past had a foul stench. Born on the 30th of July 1937 in Staines, Middlesex, 25-year-old Edward Donald Garlick was a tall, dark-haired and handsome young man, said to be the only child of elderly parents. Little was reported about his upbringing, but in 1957, aged 20, he met 18-year-old Wendy June Hornblow of nearby Hanworth. Her mother Nancy recalled, “I disliked him the first time I saw him. He had some sort of terrible hold over Wendy. We rowed about him keeping her out late”, as with Wendy having to walk home alone by Bluebell Woods where Muriel Maitland was murdered, “we were only anxious about her safety”. Arguments flared, tears flowed, “we refused to give her our consent to marry”, so Wendy left home, and on Boxing Day 1957, Wendy married Edward Garlick, and her parents were not invited. Nancy said “we were willing to forgive and forget, but Wendy couldn’t… I only saw her once more, as I passed her in the street. Wendy didn’t look at me, I suppose she was too proud or ashamed of us to help her”. Times were hard, debts had piled up, many of their possessions were paid for by hire purchase, and with Wendy & Edward Garlick living in a caravan, even this was reclaimed by the finance company. In September 1958, nine months into their marriage, they were living in a grotty, two-roomed flat on Mosslea Road in Penge, South London for of £4 a week. Edward Garlick said “it was all we could get”. Phylis Stoneman, their landlady said “they were very quiet people, and appeared to be very much in love”, but were so broke, that when he lost his job as a plaster moulder, she helped them out with money and food. He also claimed, “Wendy suggested she should go to Piccadilly, go with some men and get money”, implying prostitution, “she went to Piccadilly twice and got about £1 30s”, about £60. On the morning of Saturday 27th of September 1958, Phylis handed him a bill for £9, 5s and 3d (£350) for two weeks rent and milk, which had to be paid by the following morning. Garlick said “we walked to Hyde Park Corner, where I stood around while she waited for men. But she didn’t not earn any. It was no good”, and as they walked the 10 miles back home, he recalled “I said ‘I am fed up with this. How about suicide?’ Wendy said she did not feel like living, and said ‘if you want to do it, then do it’. That night, as they sat in the kitchen, he taped up the doors and windows, put three sixpences in the meter, left a note for their landlady stating “we are very sorry for the trouble we have caused you. This is the only way out. We have no money”, and turned on the gas. Or so, Edward Garlick would say. Garlick said “Wendy said she did not like the smell of gas. We struggled. I think she banged her head on the floor”, but also said “there was a struggle in which I hit the wife. I got a knife and I tried to get off the tape I had stuck round the door off… I fell back unconscious. It was the last think I remember”. Smelling the sulphurous stench of gas, and hearing groans, Phylis called the Police. Wendy was dead by the time the ambulance arrived, but taken to Beckenham Hospital, Garlick remained unconscious for four days, and when he was fit enough to be questioned, he was charged with his wife’s murder. Tried at Maidstone Assizes, the pathologist Dr Francis Camps stated that although Wendy had died of coal gas poisoning, with Edward also suffering the effects, his memory could not be relied upon as the sole witness, and the medical evidence suggested there were no signs of a struggle, violence or force. 21-year-old Edward Garlick was acquitted of Wendy’s murder but found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, with it said she had died by suicide pact. Justice Slade stated “it is clear you have suffered enough, I sentence you to three years probation on the condition you spend a year in a mental hospital”. He spent five months on a psychiatric ward, before he was paroled. Nancy told the press “until the day I die, I will never believe that Wendy wanted to kill herself”, and told the Police, “he forced my Wendy into her grave, he is a menace to women… he will kill again…” …and she was right. In 1959 he was released, in 1961 he married Barbara Barham, a 30 year old mother of two with an 11 year old son, Stephen, and they had a child of their own. He got a job as a storeman, a black Vauxhall car, and they lived in a council house in Princes Park Lane, two and a half miles north of Cherry Lane. Garlick later confessed, in March 1962, “I met the girl about seven months ago at a bus stop. I offered her a lift. Because of that, we arranged to meet at the weekend”, even though in his earlier statement he said “I had never seen her before I found the body”. He didn’t say if they were dating or just friendly. On the night of her killing, he implied that their encounter was entirely coincidental, Garlick stated “I met her by the phone-box, we saw each other at the same time… she came dashing out to speak to me… we chatted… and I asked her for a light for my fags… I then said ‘what about coming for a walk’”, a phrase many people took to mean ‘having sex’, “and she said she knew a place up the road”. According to Garlick, she walked of her own accord, accidentally left behind her purse and pencil, his car was parked by the phone-box and a short walk down Cherry Lane, they entered a hole in the hedge. He claimed at some point “I showed her my knife, she was not frightened, and put it in her handbag”, which makes no sense either way. He then said that they had consensual sex, which the autopsy would clarify, as she had no restraint marks, torn clothes or vaginal tears, just dry soil on her blouse and skirt. Garlick claimed, this is when the mood shifted. After sex, “she said I needed more practice”, a barbed comment which impugned his masculinity, they then spoke about girls who scream during sex, and he said “the girl said ‘have you got anything to put in my mouth to show that I am not one of those… and put it in her mouth”, but the autopsy stated “it was so firmly pushed in, she could not have done it”. Bafflingly, according to his statement, “when she was straightening herself, she used the handbag and gave my knife back. I then went mad. I got my knife in my hand and pushed it into her. I don’t know how many times I stabbed her”, and having brutally butchered her, he drove back to his family. That night he returned home about 11pm, an hour later than he stated, and with no aspirins. Barbara recalled, “his left hand was bleeding, he said he had cut it on a fence, he was cheerful and joking about it”, and although he claimed that the guilt tormented him, his morbid curiosity was to be his undoing. The next day, with nothing on the radio or the papers, he said “I asked myself ‘did I really do it’?”. Having had lunch at his Aunt Alice’s in Harmondsworth, with his wife, step-son and new baby in tow, he deliberately walked them the four mile journey home, going the long way round along Cherry Lane. When he arrived at the hole in the hedge, there were no Police officers, just cars passing obliviously. He claimed the dog ran in, but that was disputed. He said he couldn’t see the body until he had tripped over it, but Frank Squires had seen it from the road. And according to Barbara, his wife, she said “he ran in and called ‘Barb! Barb! Come here’. I saw him come out of the field and he was staggering. He came over to me and put his arms around me and his head on my shoulder and said ‘Oh God’, I asked him what was the matter and I shook him and he said ‘Barb’, I found a body. I’m not sure whether I did it or not’. I replied ‘I will go into the field with you and if I see it, you will know you did. I left the babies, went into the field with him, and I saw her. I told him ‘we can’t leave her there. We will have to get help in some way’”. And with the farmer being the next car to pass, the Police were notified. Questioned at Harlington Police Station, when Barbara arrived at 3am, with tears in her eyes, instantly she asked ‘did you do it?’, he hugged her, and crying said ‘yes, I did’. As with the death of his first wife, Garlick said “I’ll only spend a year in a mental home, wait for me?’”, she said “‘I’ll wait for you forever”. Charged on the 30th of October 1962, he showed the police how he had killed her, he led them to the knife which he had hidden in his back garden, and said “I never thought you would think I did it. I tried to forget about it, but I can’t. If I tell you all about it, perhaps it will help me to forget”, but he wouldn’t. Tried at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Paull, Edward Garlick tried to have his detailed confession of how he had murdered Carol Ann White retracted to “protect his wife and children from the details”. He stated he only made a false statement as he was worried that his wife and eldest stepson would be implicated as accessories after the fact. He pled ‘not guilty’ to murder, and given his prior conviction and brief stint in a psychiatric hospital, he pled guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility. But the jury were not buying it. On the 1st of February 1963, having deliberated for 75 minutes, they found him guilty of Carol Ann White‘s wilful murder, and Justice Paull sentenced him to life in prison. He appealed his sentence just 13 days later, but this was rejected, as were all subsequent appeals. By 1981, having served 18 years, being of good character, 44-year-old Edward Garlick was transferred to HMP Leyhill, an open prison in Gloucestershire. On the 25th of August 1981, having been on home leave to visit his parents in Ramsgate, failing to return to prison, at 4:15am, a grisly discovery was made in a tunnel on the Bristol to Paddington line – his decapitated body, having taken his own life. He had murdered Carol, and possibly his first wife, but had he killed others and taken this to his grave. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette Saturday, 2 June 1990 Shropshire Star Saturday, 2 June 1990 Portsmouth Evening News Saturday, 2 June 1990 Shropshire Star Wednesday, 12 June 1991 Daily Mirror Saturday, 2 June 1990 Staffordshire Sentinel Saturday, 2 June 1990 Peterborough Evening Telegraph Saturday, 2 June 1990 Wolverhampton Express and Star Saturday, 2 June 1990 Wigan Evening Post Saturday, 2 June 1990 Belfast Telegraph Saturday, 2 June 1990 Dundee Evening Telegraph Saturday, 2 June 1990 Shropshire Star Wednesday, 19 September 1990 Sunday Tribune Sunday, 3 June 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jun 14, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jan 30, 1992 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jun 07, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Aug 10, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 08, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Dec 27, 1991 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jan 04, 1991 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Nov 01, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 22, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 07, 1991 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Aug 24, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jan 31, 1991 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jul 13, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Nov 16, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 15, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 08, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 14, 1991 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Sep 21, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jan 31, 1991 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Sep 20, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Sep 21, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jun 07, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Nov 22, 1991 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jun 07, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Aug 24, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Jul 26, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Oct 05, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Aug 09, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 08, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 29, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jul 20, 1990 Lichfield Post and Staffordshire Times Thu, Sep 20, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 08, 1990 The Lichfield Mercury Fri, Jun 08, 1990 https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/2011/12/02/lichfield-walkway-named-after-soldier-shot-dead-by-the-ira/ https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/my-boy-fathers-heartbreak-losing-28087569 Sunday Independent (Dublin ed.) Sun, Dec 06, 2015 Sunday Life Sun, Apr 07, 2024 Irish Independent Tue, Jan 12, 1999 Belfast Telegraph Thu, Aug 06, 2009 The Argus Thu, Jan 09, 1992 Irish Independent Thu, Aug 06, 2009 Leicester Mercury Mon, Jul 08, 1991 The Journal Sat, Apr 10, 1993 Daily Echo Mon, Jul 08, 1991 Sunday World (Southern ed.) Sun, Mar 24, 2024 Irish Independent Fri, Feb 05, 1999 Irish Independent Fri, Nov 10, 1995 Daily Post (3 a.m. ed.) Tue, Jul 09, 1991 The Daily Telegraph Tue, Nov 08, 1994 The Daily Telegraph Mon, Jul 08, 1991 The Guardian Tue, Jul 09, 1991 Sunday World (Southern ed.) Sun, Dec 06, 2015 Sunday Independent (Dublin ed.) Sun, Dec 06, 2015 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m back in Lichfield, Staffordshire to explore the terrorist attack which shocked the city, and the nation. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 364: Soft Targets Like most of the world’s issues, it began with us (the British) taking whatever we want, from whoever we want, whenever we want, and under whatever pretext and lies we have fabricated to achieve it. The historical roots of the IRA (The Irish Republican Army) began after the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion, it escalated in the early 17th century with the colonisation of the northern Irish province of Ulster by English and Scottish Protestants who displaced its native Catholic landowners, and led to the War of Independence (1919 to 1921), with the newly-formed IRA using guerrilla tactics against British forces. In 1921, Ireland was partitioned between Northern Ireland (as part of the United Kingdom) and the self-governing Republic of Ireland, and with the Protestant-dominated government controlling all housing, jobs and political boundaries leaving the Catholic minority marginalized, this began a 30-year sectarian conflict (from 1968 to 1998) known as ‘The Troubles’, where a dormant and splintered IRA re-emerged to protect Catholic minorities facing discrimination and civil unrest in Northern Ireland. It’s impossible to fully explain the origins so I would recommend The Troubles podcast by Oisin Feeney. In 1968, inspired by the US civil rights movement, Catholics formed the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association to demand fair treatment. Subsequent unrest and rioting prompted the UK to deploy the British Army to ‘restore order’ resulting in further clashes, and in 1971 as a reaction, the UK introduced Internment, the arrest and detention without trial of suspected republicans, which inflamed tensions. But the conflict would only get bloodier. 30th of January 1972, Bloody Sunday, British paratroopers shoot and kill 14 civil rights protesters in Derry. March 1972, the UK imposed Direct Rule, suspending Northern Ireland's local government. In retaliation, on 21st of July 1972, the IRA detonated 21 bombs in Belfast, killing 9, injuring 130, and the bombing and shootings escalated across the 1970s, not only in Ireland but also the British mainland. The 1980s and early 1990s saw a period of escalation (with simultaneous nail-bomb attacks at Hyde Park and Regent’s Park in July 1982, Harrods in 1983, a failed assassination attempt on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet in the 1984 Brighton Hotel bombing, to name but a few), but also a stalemate, with both sides unable to back down, losing sympathy, and neither achieving their aims. By the 1990s, the UK Government and Sinn Fein (the political wing of the Provisional IRA) were taking tentative steps towards the peace process, and with the Provos (as they were known) greatly depleted to roughly 200 active members, they wanted to be seen as negotiators not as murderous psychopaths. But what happens to those terrorists when the killing is over? Born on the 13th of September 1971, William Robert Davies known as ‘Rob’ grew up like many young men unsure what he wanted to be. Raised in the village of Pontarddulais in South Wales, he didn’t want to be a miner like his dad, Des, or a nurse like his sister, but as fit and strong lad (keen on rugby, football and cricket) with a bubbly personality who was always cracking jokes and “who would do anything for anyone”, his mum Helen instilled in him that he could be whatever he wanted to be. Leaving school at 16, William tried his hand as a trainee butcher and a plumber, but as his dad, Des, recalled “he lived for the Army… when he wanted to join – (as his parents, we) had to sign for him - but we wouldn't because we were worried about the IRA”. They dreaded the thought of him serving in Northern Ireland, but with his mates already overseas, when he was 18, being of age, he signed up. It was his dream, his ambition, and his life, but it would lead to his death. Like all recruits, the first part of their 21-weeks of training took place at the Junior Infantry Battalion at Shorncliffe in Kent, before being billeted at Whittington Barracks, outside of Lichfield, Staffordshire, a training base for 770 staff and young soldiers, aged 17 upwards, from nine English and Welsh Army regiments. They were trained in weapons handling, shooting, drill, first aid, map reading, sports, and radio communications, and after three months, William would have joined the Welsh Royal Regiment. He lived for the Army, it was his life, and it was where he met two new friends; 19-year-old Neil Evans from Llanelli in South Wales, and 20-year-old Robert Parkin from Cheltenham. Three young men, all single, all happy and all part of the Gheliveli (ghel-ih-VEE-lee) Platoon on the 12th week of their training. A photo taken of William standing next to his grandma Freda shows him standing tall, beaming with pride and wearing his blue British Army jumper, pressed and starched trousers, black boots bulled to a mirror-shine, blue beret with regimental insignia, and the regulation ‘short-back and sides’ haircut. As his aunt, Christine said “he was only a boy, he never wanted to hurt anyone, he was just in love with the Army”, but one thing would single him out as military, even when he was dressed in civvies. The summer of 1990 marked “a chilling change in terrorist tactics by the Provisional IRA” by attacking what was known as ‘soft targets’; men, women, children and military recruits. As a teenage cadet in the Air Training Corp, I remember being warned by our Commanding Officer not to wear our uniforms on the streets for fear of being shot, and searching cars for bombs before I’d even passed my GCSE’s. Rubbish bins were a threat, abandoned cars instilled fear, any Irish accent was seemed suspicious, and the words of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams were banned on telly unless they were voiced by an actor. In the lead-up to this attack, barracks were on high-alert following bomb attacks at Inglis, Tern Hill, Deal, Wembley and Colchester, as well as many more. A week before, an IRA weapons cache had been discovered in Tottenham and nearby Gnosall. And although the escalation of their bombing campaign left hundreds dead or injured, some attacks by the Provisional IRA were riddled with incompetence. November 1989, a bomb planted under a senior Army Officer’s car fell off before it could explode. On the 20th of Feb 1990, the same happened in Leicester leaving three hurt. And on the 27th of May 1990, just five days before, Provos shot dead two Australian tourists in Holland, being mistaken for British. Described as ‘nauseating hypocrisy’, Gerry Adams called the killing “inexcusable and unjustified”, but Sinn Fein made few attempts to disguise the demoralisation that this failure had created in their ranks. Two weeks before, Army Chiefs were warned that an attack was imminent; “we knew it would not be a bomb attack… terrorists were monitoring the barracks. The warning came right from the top, but it didn’t reach the lower ranks”. The last time the Provisional IRA had shot anyone on the UK mainland was the killing of Guinness Book of Records co-founder, Ross McWhirter, in November 1975…. …but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen again. Friday the 1st of June 1990 was an ordinary day for Privates William Davies, Neil Evans & Robert Parkin being just over half way through their 21-weeks of training. Like many recruits, given a weekend pass, they were heading home to see their loved ones. With the threat level high, they left Whittington Barracks at around 5:30pm wearing their trainers, jeans, jackets and carrying suitcases or rucksacks with no insignia - the only way you could tell they were military was how they stood, and their haircuts. Hopping in a taxi, they headed 3 miles north-west to Lichfield City train station, they purchased tickets, William bought a can of pop, and at 5:50pm, having ascended the stairs, turning right, Neil and Robert stood on Platform Two waiting for the connecting train to Birmingham, as William sat on the bench. They were chatting and laughing being distracted by a fun-weekend ahead, but outside, having been seen earlier on Upper St John Street - seeking likely targets - three men sitting in a red Ford Cortina with a black vinyl roof had spotted them, identified them as Army, and followed them into the station. The platform was almost deserted as the 5:52pm train from Birmingham New Street had departed. Students, Emlyn Phillips & Simon Curran recalled, “we got off the train, were walking down the stairs when I saw the three lads. One was sitting, the other two standing. You could tell they were soldiers”. From the red Ford Cortina, two men emerged – both early 20s, short, in dark clothes and caps, with one dark-haired and one ginger – as the getaway driver moved to its new position. Simon recalled “they must have walked past us, but we were so busy talking and didn’t notice anything”. No-one did. The attack took seconds. It happened so fast, it was impossible to work out what had happened until it was too late, and with the three boys – being unarmed and unprepared – they were ‘sitting targets’. Peter Irmer, a taxi-driver for Bond Taxis had passed the railway bridge when he thought he heard “a car backfiring”. An unnamed British Rail employee thought “it was kids playing with thunder flashes”, but as a ticket inspector ran up the stairs, he recalled that after the first four or five shots; seeing Neil Evans on the floor, a bullet wound to his right arm, Robert Parkin collapsed and bleeding from his neck and his shoulder, and William Davies on the bench, where he had been seated sipping his can of pop. Already heavily bleeding from a bullet wound to his stomach which had lodged in the small of his back, “one of the suspects was standing over Private Davies with a gun” – said to be a .357 calibre Magnum - “he fired down at his prone body”, hitting him twice in the left temple and the centre of his forehead. Jason Swingler who was waiting for his girlfriend’s train to arrive, recalled “it was awful, the head was split right open”, and as the commuters scattered, the two gunmen ran across the tracks, over a wall, into Barns’ builder’s yard, and having slung a small black bag into the boot, diving into the red Ford Cortina, they sped along Upper St John Street, with witnesses seeing it driving “fast”, “erratic” and “overtaking cars”, almost crashing and clipping a few, they headed towards Tamworth, then vanished. Station staff gave first-aid as best they could. Ambulances were mobilised from Burton, Tamworth, Cannock and Lichfield, blood banks were put on alert, and all three were rushed to Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. With armed guards on the doors, all three were operated upon, with Neil & Robert slowly making a good recovery, but William in critical condition as surgeons fought to save his life. Des, William’s dad recalled, at 8pm, "me and my missus were visiting my mother in the next village, we came back and there was a police car parked outside. They told us what had happened… and sent a taxi to take us up… we kept on thinking 'perhaps it's not him, it could be somebody else'". But even though they raced to be by his side, William died at 9pm, having suffered shock and internal bleeding. His aunt Brenda said “everyone was just numb and completely shattered. These were just boys, hardly out of school, not even in Army uniform”. The press called it as a ‘cold-blooded murder’, describing the IRA as ‘pure evil’, the killers as ‘madmen’ and ‘psychopaths’, or simply just as ‘cowards’ and ‘scum’. A carpet of flowers was laid outside of the train station and the barracks, prayers were said at Lichfield Cathedral, and even though Sinn Fein wanted to be seen as politicians not psychopaths, Gerry Adams refused to apologise for the killing “while there’s an apartheid in my country”, and when the Provos finally claimed responsibility they stated “while British troops remain in Ireland, attacks will continue”. Their aim was to sew the seeds of fear, and sadly, in Lichfield (and also across the UK), many who were led like donkeys fell for their trap. In the McDonald’s on Conduit Street, staff were bullied and attacked following a rumour that the fast food giant funded terrorism - a myth that had begun two years before as US employee pay-packets had the ‘IRA’ written on it, but meant ‘Individual Retirement Accounts’. Tom King, the UK’s Ulster Secretary said at the time, “the awful thing is that the godfathers who send (these killers) out, actually know that the killings are not going to achieve anything. They are sending them out to kill unarmed people in cold blood, and the people who commit the crimes will end up on the scrapheap sooner or later, in jail, or dead themselves… they are trapped by their own terror”. And this was true. The era of the Provisional IRA was coming to an end… …but what do you do if all you know is killing, but the killing has stopped? The investigation was headed up by Detective Chief Constable Malcolm Bevington of Staffordshire CID who stated “this is a full blown murder inquiry”. With an incident room at Tamworth Police Station, detectives liaised with Anti-Terrorism, the Met’ Police, RUC, Garda and the Continental police forces, with 38 two-man teams checking hotels, hostels and guest-houses for men matching their description, with all ports and stations under surveillance, and the police helicopter searching for the getaway car. Recovering slowly, Private Evans aided the Police by returning to Lichfield City Station, stating “I was very shaky, my whole body was trembling”, and forensics teams sealed off all platforms and tracks. Commuters were asked ‘did you see anything’, a recreation was broadcast on Midlands Tonight, every abandoned farmhouse was searched, anyone with suspected links to the IRA were interviewed, and once detectives had left, where the gunmen leapt over the wall, someone graffitied ‘IRA bastards’. On Saturday 9th of June 1990 at noon, the funeral service of Private William Robert Davies took place in his village with full military honours. Hundreds of mourners lined the streets outside of St Michael’s church, as with every pew full, a PA system broadcast sermons by the barrack’s chaplain Reverand Jim Symonds and the vicar of St Michael’s, Reverend John Walters, as his fellow recruits carried his coffin, four Army buglers sounded The Last Post, and a volley of shots was fired when the procession ended at Swansea Crematorium. In attendance, although unwell, were Privates Neil Evans & Robert Parkin. Determined not to let evil win, on the 10th of August at Whittington Barracks, alongside 50+ recruits, Private Robert Parkin took part in the passing out parade, with Private Neil Evans still unit to return to duty, although a few weeks later, he joined the Royal Regiment and began a 3-year tour of Honk Kong. In his memory, the William Robert Davies Memorial Cup was given by the regiment to be presented to the recruits who excelled, and the Inspecting Officer, Brigadier David Harris described the attack as a ‘despicable act’ and said “the determination to continue shown by Parkin & Evans is an example to all of us. I repeat, the IRA will not win, and these murderers will be bought to justice”. …but a year later, they still hadn’t. The investigation wound down as every piece of evidence only led to a dead-end, as with the assassins being protected by the Provisional IRA, their names would never be revealed (at least not officially) and they would never stand trial for their crimes, as politicians on both sides entered a Peace Process. After many false starts, on the 10th of April 1998, The Good Friday Agreement was signed, a permanent ceasefire was established, closer links and power-sharing was established to build a shared framework for peace, and in 2005, the IRA decommissioned its weapons. And although the so-called New IRA and the Continuity IRA remained active, committing criminal acts on a smaller scale, times had changed. The killing was over and with talk being the weapon on choice, for Sinn Fein as a democratic political party, the psychopaths of the former Provisional IRA who had killed in their name were now a liability… …men like Private Davies’ suspected killers - Nessan Quinlivan and Pearse McAuley. Nessan Quinlivan came from Limerick, but after the attack, he didn’t flee to Ireland, instead he laid low somewhere in the UK, planning the next attack with Pearse McAuley. Seeking a high-profile target, on the ‘Who’s Who Kill List’ they had compiled was Sir Charles Tidbury, the ex-chairman of Whitbread who had close links to Northern Ireland, but little did they know, that he also had Police protection. Surveillance were watching his home in Crocker Hill Farm in Wickham, Hampshire, 150 miles south of Lichfield, but worse still, their assassination was doomed to failure as detectives had covertly arrested their accomplice, William McKane of Willesden, along with a cache of Semtex explosives, six guns, five car bombs, false IDs, binoculars and the ‘Kill List’ which had Quinlivan & McAuley’s fingerprints on it. After a 17-day man-hunt, on 2nd of October 1990, both men were ambushed by Police in a lane close to Stone Henge. Charged with conspiring to murder Sir Charles Tidbury and to cause explosions, while awaiting trial at the Old Bailey, Quinlivan & McAuley were held at Brixton Prison in South London. They were to be tried, convicted, and imprisoned for a very long time… … on Sunday the 7th of July 1991, having been held for 8 months, even though they were psychopathic murderers with a rabid hatred of the British – bafflingly – they were cell-mates and had privileges, like being escorted by van to Sunday Mass, not in prison, but nearby at Corpus Christi Church, Brixton Hill. Somehow, during the service, having pre-cut a three quarter inch deep and four inch wide hole in his size 9 ½ trainers, he was slipped a .25 calibre ‘Baby Browning’ pistol and hid it in the cavity. At 9:40am, having been transferred back to HMP Brixton, McAuley held a prisoner officer hostage, forced him to hand over the keys, fled leaving his trainer behind, scaled a 17-foot perimeter wall, clambered over the roof onto a dog kennel, stood on a wheelbarrow to scramble over the barred wire fence, and once out onto Jebb Avenue, waving gun in the air and shouting, they hijacked a red Vauxhall Corsa, shot the driver in the leg, sped off with members of the public giving chase, dumped the car behind Lambeth Town Hall, then took a taxi to Baker Street station, and using false passports, they fled to France. On the run and in hiding for 18 months, McAuley was captured on the 4th of April 1992 as he stepped off a train at Dublin station, and Quinlivan five days later at a farmhouse in County Tipperary, he was armed with a revolver and three rounds. Both men were convicted and held in the Republic of Ireland, and in November 1996, were released as part of the Irish government’s early release programme. For years, Scotland Yard fought to have both men extradited to Britain to face charges of conspiracy to murder Sir Charles Tidbury, to cause explosions, escaping from prison and wounding with intent, but - with Quinlivan claiming this would be pointless, as under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, he would have had to be freed by July 2001 - in August 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service announced it was no longer seeking the extradition of Nessan Quinlivan and Pearse McAuley for any crimes… … including for the murder of Private William Robert Davies. As said, the other suspected killer was Pearse Gerald McAuley; a ginger-haired, buck-toothed, 5-foot-6 inch, long-standing member of the Provisional IRA and a senior figure in Sinn Fein for 30 years. Six years after the Lichfield shooting, the failed attack on Sir Charles Tidbury, and five years after the break-out from Brixton Prison, on the morning of 7th of June 1996, McAuley (and his cohorts; Michael O’Neill, Jeremiah Sheedy and Kevin Walsh) robbed a security van escorting IR £81,000 to a post office in Adare, County Limerick. Armed with Kalashnikov rifles, Detective Jerry McCabe, a 53-year-old father of three was shot dead, and his partner Ben O’Sullivan injured, before they had drawn their own guns. All four were charged with murder, but this was dropped when key witnesses refused to co-operate after IRA intimidation. Sinn Fein denied responsibility for the killing. And in August 2009, having served ten-and-a-half years of his 14 year sentence, McAuley was released as part of the peace process. He wasn’t extradited back to Britain for the crimes he’d committed on the UK mainland, and never would. But times had changed. When freed, he wasn’t hailed as a hero, but a ‘psychopathic gun nut’. In the Dublin edition of the Sunday Independent in 2015, it stated ‘when is a psychopath not a psychopath? When he’s doing it for Ireland. That’s Sinn Fein’s attitude to former-IRA member, Pearse McAuley”. But what happens to a terrorist and a psychopath when the killing is over? In 2003, having met while he was incarcerated for the killing Jerry McCabe, he fell in love with Pauline Tully, a softly spoken Sinn Féin councillor, and they married. Pauline said “I’ve known people involved in the conflict all my life, just because they are involved in a war, doesn’t mean that they are violent”. In 2009, he was released, they had two sons, but he was abusive, violent and had an alcohol addiction. In February 2014, they separated but remained close for the kids. At a Dublin hotel, she recalled “he put his hands around my throat and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to fight back and when he let go, I went into the bathroom. He came in and tried to choke me again, I screamed and screamed”, until she was rescued by a hotel guest. Two months later, they were separated, and he started seeing someone else. On the 24th of December, saying he would bring presents and a turkey so they could enjoy a nice family Christmas, he knocked at 11am, “as soon as he came in, he lifted his fist and hit me in the left eye. I got such a shock. He started accusing me of seeing someone else. He got me by the arm, and told the boys to go upstairs” and over the next three hours subjected his soon-to-be ex-wife to a horrific attack. Pauline said “I remember his words were ‘well if I can’t have you, no one else will’. He stabbed me in the stomach, the upper chest, and I remember him sticking a steak knife into me. It was such a shock. I can actually see his face as he was doing it, and the anger on it, and the blood was everywhere”. With air whistling from the holes, she worried how long she had left to live, as over those three hours, he stabbed her 13 times - her boys (aged 3 and 7) only knowing their mum was alive when she screamed. At one point, he ordered the boys downstairs, and told them to say ‘goodbye’ to her, and as if she was an IRA target he had been sent to exterminate, he wouldn’t let them hug her, as she lay bleeding. A killer is always a killer, but then a drunk is always a drunk. As he sat scraping the knife on the worktop while laughing, to pacify him, “I made up a name, and that calmed him”. He swigged a bottle of cream liquor, and fell asleep on the floor beside her. At 2:30pm, with him snoring, Pauline dragged herself from a pool of her own blood, locked herself in her car, and with the Police called, McAuley was found hiding in a field, and miraculously, Pauline survived. (End) Found guilty on the 28th of November 2015, Pearse McAuley was sentenced to 12 years, but with the final four years suspended, he was released in June 2022. Prior to his release, for his attack on Pauline, unnamed sources warned “you won’t be the first man to disappear in a bog if you return to Cavan”. Having moved in with his new partner, Mary, two years later, being forgotten and broke, the body of 59-year-old McAuley was found at his home having died of natural causes. Neither Pearse McAuley nor Nessan Quinlivan were ever charged or convicted of the murder of Private William Robert Davies. On the 2nd of December 2011, in an unnamed walkway at the back of Lichfield City Station, a lone piper played. With a ribbon cut, the small assembled crowd of council, army and religious dignitaries, as well as Des & Helen Davies, William’s parents, unveiled a new sign. In memory of their son who never liked the name William, a walkway the council had planned to call Plum Lane was now Robert Davies Walk. By the steps at the station below the bench where William was murdered, a plague also now hangs as presented by the Royal British Legion. His parents said “we can still feel (our son) in Lichfield… It means a lot to us that he has been remembered in this way. We would like to thank the people of Lichfield for making us feel so welcome and for this beautiful dedication. Everybody has been so kind”. Des said “there’s now a little part of Wales in the heart of England”, ensuring his name will never be forgotten, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that their son’s killers were never brought to justice. As his aunt said “he was only a boy, he never wanted to hurt anyone, he was just in love with the Army”. 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.
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Ronald Evans, 'The Clifton Rapist' aged 82
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-TWO & THREE: This is Part One of Two of The Beast of Bedsitland. As one of Britain’s longest serving prisoners, Ronald Evans has been incarcerated for more than 55 years for GBH, ABH, rape and murder, and has never expressed any true remorse for his victims. Aged 22, he murdered Kathleen Heathcote in Mansfield, across the late 1970s he terrorised the city of Bristol being known as ‘The Clifton Rapist’ and even in his 80s, he committed a sexual assault. So why wasn’t he rehabilitated?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67412230 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4543195.stm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx241ndl114o http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4098477.stm https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67440198 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67420687 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-67440198 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2ld0l877zo https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/16/killer-known-as-clifton-rapist-82-jailed-for-sexually-assaulting-woman-after-release http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4543195.stm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzyWhYdDfDg https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/clifton-rapist-bristol-ronald-evans-b2693541.html https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-12744387/Murderer-serial-sex-attacker-dubbed-Clifton-Rapist-Britains-longest-serving-prisoner-bars-sexually-assaulted-woman-licence.html https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/clifton-rapist-back-behind-bars-28108307 https://www.bristolworld.com/news/the-clifton-rapist-back-behind-bars-for-sex-assault-whilst-out-on-licence-4408585 Western Daily Press Thu, Nov 03, 1994 Western Daily Press Tue, Jul 24, 1979 Western Daily Press Tue, Jul 24, 1979 Western Daily Press Tue, Jul 24, 1979 The Birmingham Post Tue, Dec 19, 1978 Brent and Kilburn Times Thu, Nov 23, 2023 The Herald (Glasgow ed.) Fri, Nov 17, 2023 Western Daily Press Wed, Oct 26, 1994 Evening Post Thu, Nov 03, 1994 Western Daily Press Sat, Mar 16, 1991 Evening Post Wed, Oct 26, 1994 Evening Post Sat, Dec 01, 1990 Western Daily Press Fri, Feb 13, 1987 Western Daily Press Sat, Dec 15, 1979 Evening Post Fri, May 17, 1991 Western Daily Press Sat, Apr 22, 1978 Western Daily Press Fri, Feb 02, 1979 Western Daily Press Sat, Oct 04, 1980 The Express and Echo Thu, Nov 28, 1963 The Argus Thu, Nov 28, 1963 Daily Mirror Mon, Nov 25, 1963 Liverpool Echo Thu, Nov 28, 1963 Birmingham Evening Mail Wed, Nov 27, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Wed, Nov 27, 1963 Liverpool Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Mon, Dec 02, 1963 Manchester Evening News Fri, Nov 29, 1963 The Guardian Journal Sat, Dec 14, 1963 Birmingham Evening Mail Thu, Nov 28, 1963 Huddersfield Daily Examiner Mon, Nov 25, 1963 Manchester Evening News Thu, Nov 28, 1963 Evening Post Mon, Jul 23, 1979 Hull Daily Mail Mon, Nov 25, 1963 Swindon Advertiser Wed, Nov 27, 1963 The Mail (Millom and South Copeland ed.) Wed, Nov 27, 1963 Lancashire Telegraph Wed, Nov 27, 1963 Birmingham Evening Mail Wed, Nov 27, 1963 Liverpool Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Mon, Nov 25, 1963 Grimsby Evening Telegraph Wed, Nov 27, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Nov 29, 1963 The Daily Telegraph Mon, Nov 25, 1963 The Guardian Journal Mon, Nov 25, 1963 Evening Telegraph Wed, Mar 18, 1964 The Daily Sketch Sat, Mar 21, 1964 Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Tue, Jul 24, 1979 The Guardian Journal Thu, Mar 19, 1964 Daily Herald Mon, Nov 25, 1963 Evening Post Fri, Dec 06, 1963 The Guardian Journal Sat, Mar 21, 1964 Hull Daily Mail Thu, Nov 28, 1963 Evening Telegraph Fri, Mar 20, 1964 Western Daily Press Thu, Nov 03, 1994 Daily Mirror Tue, Jul 24, 1979 Western Daily Press Wed, Oct 26, 1994 Western Daily Press Thu, Feb 22, 1979 Evening Post Thu, Mar 30, 1978 Evening Post Tue, Apr 25, 1978 Western Daily Press Wed, May 03, 1978 Western Daily Press Mon, Mar 26, 1979 Western Daily Press Sat, Mar 03, 1979 Evening Post Tue, Jun 05, 1979 Evening Post Fri, Aug 19, 1977 Western Daily Press Sat, Nov 26, 1977 Daily Star 24 July 1979 Birmingham Daily Post 19 December 1978 Mansfield & North Nottinghamshire Chronicle-Advertiser 22 December 2004 Bristol Evening Post 03 November 1978 Western Daily Press 12 May 1977 Western Daily Press 17 March 1978 Sunday Mirror 13 August 1978 Evening Post Sat, Dec 31, 1977 Evening Post Tue, Feb 27, 1979 Evening Post Thu, Jan 05, 1978 Evening Post Sat, Dec 31, 1977 Evening Post Mon, Mar 26, 1979 Evening Post Fri, Feb 23, 1979 Western Daily Press Thu, Apr 27, 1978 Evening Post Fri, Mar 23, 1979 Western Daily Press Wed, Aug 09, 1978 Western Daily Press Mon, Feb 05, 1979 Evening Post Fri, Nov 10, 1978 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Sort of, I should be saying goodbye London, hello Britain, as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat to bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit, but this week, I’m back to West London where a monster of pure evil lurked and stalked his prey. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 362: The Beast of Bedsitland – Part 1 of 2. Community centres are the backbone of so many inner-city boroughs, as being places of concrete and chaos, it’s easy for the infirm, the fragile and the vulnerable to feel overwhelmed and lost. To the side of Wembley Park station sits the Chalkhill Community Centre, a vital hub providing a safe space and a lifeline for adults and children, whether through education, art, exercise, prayers, and food banks. With a range of classes and courses, it can provide a springboard to new skills, a kind ear to those who need it and a shelter for those with nowhere to turn, or somewhere to have a chat over a cuppa. Being self-funded, Chalkhill also relies on good people with big hearts volunteering their time to help others. Back in 2023, it hosted a mental health drop-in service organised by the borough’s MP and Counsellor, where the vulnerable sought help, advice and support through group therapy and solo sessions. One volunteer at the centre was 82-year-old ‘Ron’, a tall man with a wispy frame and a slight stoop; whose East Midlands accent was reassuringly honest, his neat practical clothes eluded to his working class roots, and his bald head with grey sideburns hinted that in the 1960s and 70s he had a little style. ‘Ron’ lived alone in a council flat, and with a lot of spare time on his hands, he said he wanted to give something back, so had volunteered at the centre for the past four years where he carried crates and helped deliver food bags to the needy. Said to be “the life and soul of the party”, Ron was likeable, fun and kind, he was well-thought of, and made the attendees of the predominantly female mental health drop-in group feel at ease as they struggled with their physical disabilities and emotional difficulties. But who was ‘Ron’? No-one really knew. He acted like he was kind and honest, but was a man with a past and a monster branded a danger to women. He’d spent 52 years in prison for his crimes, including GBH, ABH, rape and murder, and many had said that he should never have been released. But he had. Wembley was now his new hunting ground for vulnerable women, and although he was a stranger, back in Bristol of the 1970s, he terrorised the city being ominously known as ’The Beast of Bedsitland’… …and to his victims as ‘The Clifton Rapist’. His dark history began a decade before. Thursday 21st of November 1963 was an uneventful day in Britain; the Vietnam war was raging, NASA was testing rockets to land a man on the moon, The Beatles were mid-way through a UK concert tour, the famous bird man of Alcatraz had died, the headlines were still dominated by Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair, and seemingly less important was that President John F Kennedy had begun a two-day trip to Texas, and that morning had boarded Air Force One for (what would be) the very last time. The day was horrendously cold and wet, it hadn’t stopped raining and it wouldn’t till the weekend. Mansfield is a historic market town, north of Nottingham and near to Sherwood Forest. Since her birth in September 1942, it had been home to 21-year-old Kathleen Rita Heathcote, and as she did most days, she sold boots at the Mansfield & District Cooperative Society, where she worked as an assistant. Being shorter-than-average (5-foot-4) and slim-framed with brown wavy hair and glasses, Kathleen was quiet and intelligent, well-behaved, and described as “good, moral and decent”. She was liked by everyone as she hadn’t a bad bone in her body, and went out of her way to do the right thing by all. Times were hard for her family, as being the youngest of four children to Harry & Edith Heathcote, described as a solid and respectable family, Harry had been forced to retire from his job as a boiler man at Mansfield Brewery, having suffered heart trouble aged 54. Money was tight and Kathleen’s wage went a little way to help them, but what she was really saving up for was her dream of marriage. Kathleen was in love with her childhood sweetheart, George Whalley, an apprentice colliery fitter from nearby Selston. As a sensible girl, although they had got engaged, they said they wouldn’t marry until they were 21, so with Kathleen being of age, and George just 20, they were saving for their wedding. That day, about 5pm, Kathleen headed to her parent’s house at 22 Princes Street, a small mid-terraced two-storey house. As it was a Thursday, and she always went to see George on a Thursday, she did her hair, her make-up, and dressing in brown dress and white blouse, as the torrent of rain had refused to relent, she popped on a brown hat, a raincoat and leather boots, and opened up her blue umbrella. As only a fifth of homes had a phone in 1963, and theirs hadn’t, Kathleen stuck to a rigid routine; she caught the bus from the stop on Sutton Road, and travelled the 7 miles / 30 minute journey to George’s at 68 Portland Road where they had tea and cake while listening to the radio with George’s mother. It was all very sweet and innocent, and those who knew them agreed “they were very much in love”. With George working nights at the colliery, at 10:25pm, although the weather was miserable and cold, their hearts were warm and joyous as they kissed each other at the bus stop and waved goodbye. The journey was as ordinary as any other, Kathleen thanked the driver, and just passed the King’s Mill hospital, at 10:58pm, she got off the bus on the unlit Sutton Road. It was dark and deathly quiet as with houses sparsely peppered, an odd light was seen, but Kathleen wasn’t worried as this was home, and besides, her mother always met her at the end of their street, just shy of the old Brickyard Tip. At 11pm, Kathleen walked into Moor Lane, a darker and more isolated side street. She could see her home straight ahead, but with the street shaped like an unfathomable u-bend which led up Victoria Street before she came back down Princes Street, instead Kathleen took a shortcut over Brickyard Tip; a derelict 40 acre waste ground, where everyone dumped their rubbish… and her short life would end. Kathleen Heathcote was a lone women walking up an unlit side street… …and vulnerable prey for the monster who would become ‘The Clifton Rapist’. Born in December 1940, Ronald Evans known as ‘Ron’ was raised as a shameful lie, as with his parents actually his grandparents, he was raised in a strict Victorian code of morality, yet all the while he hid from the world that his 14-year-old sister was really his mother, and with that his mind was scrambled. As a strapping 6 foot 2 inch, 14 stone man of a solid build who was said to be handsome and charming, ‘Ron’ Evans didn’t have any problems pulling girls, in fact, by November 1963, his wife Jill was heavily pregnant with their first child, six miles north in Shirebrook, but what he did wasn’t about love or sex. That night, as a 23 year-old colliery electrician, Evans went to a dance at Teversal Miner’s Welfare, he drank two or three pints, and having had his advances rejected by a girl, at 10:45pm, instead of heading 6 miles north-east to his home on Brunner Avenue, he drove his maroon and grey Ford Consul 5 miles south-east through Stanton Hill and Skegby, passed Kings Mill Hospital and into Sutton Road. Earlier that night, locals had reported a prowler peering through girl’s windows, but as his needs were unsated, randomly seeing Kathleen alone as she entered the darkness of Moor Lane, doing a U-turn, he creeped his car ever closer, his window down, hassling her for a date or maybe to take her home. Quickening her pace, Kathleen made it to Brickyard Tip, close to her home and her waiting mother… …only her mother wasn’t there, as in a decision which must have haunted her forever, as the rain was heavy and she was getting soaked, she headed home, leaving Kathleen alone with a sadistic predator. No-one heard her screams as the howling rain muffled any sounds. Being almost a foot taller and twice her weight, there was no chance of her fleeing his grip as he grabbed her from behind. She fought back as best she could, but being punched into submission, he broke her nose, he bloodied her lips, he bruised her face, and so violent was the struggle that her hat and bag were scattered far and wide, along with her smashed glasses, her broken watch, and four false teeth from her upper dental plate. In a last gasp at survival, she cried for help, but as he stared into her tear-soaked eyes, the last sight she would have seen was as he asphyxiated her in a two-handed strangle hold until she went limp… …and then he raped her, twice. He said “I did it to prove my manhood” having been rejected by another girl. Kathleen wasn’t this type, he didn’t have a type, as stinking of drink, he didn’t go hunting a girl to satisfy a specific whim, what he wanted was a lone, vulnerable girl on a dark and isolated street who he could control and humiliate. He claimed “I didn’t intend to murder her. I had intercourse with her there, and then at the top of Princes Street. When she screamed, I put my hand over her mouth. I must have lost control”, and as he drove away with her slowly dying on the backseat, among her scattered remains on the muddy waste-ground of the Brickyard Tip, he left behind a grim hint at her cruel demise – her ripped knickers. We’ll never know what he planned to do with her, but one thing was certain; pulling out of Moor Lane, he headed onto Sutton Road and into the rural and isolated wilds of Skegby Lane. At Skegby Sands, he claimed “she was still groaning”, so in a rare and unlikely act of remorse, he said “I decided to turn the car around” stating he was going to take her to nearby King’s Mill Hospital, but the wheels got stuck. He claimed “I tried to give her the kiss of life” and “waved down some cars but none of them stopped”, or so he said, and with a dying girl on his backseat, having choked on her own vomit following the ferocity of the attack, he locked her in the boot of his Ford Consul and went in search of a telephone. At around 1am, at the garage of Raymond Palmer on Skegby Lane, he made two calls which sealed his fate; one to a garage who wouldn’t be able to tow him out until the morning, and – bafflingly – as he didn’t have a home phone and he knew his pregnant wife, Jill would be worried about him, he called Mansfield Police Station, said he’d broken down, and asked if a Constable could make his wife aware. The call was logged, his wife was told, and in the morning, his car was pulled out of Skegby Sands. That night, Kathleen’s mother didn’t sleep as she was worried sick, she thought maybe due to the rain that Kathleen had stayed at George’s, but having failed to return a second night, she called the Police. Ron Evans on the other hand only thought about himself. The next day, he sent his suit to the cleaners, he kept her body in the boot overnight in temperatures which plunged to barely above freezing, that evening he drove his wife and mother-in-law to bingo with the body just feet away, he collected his £15 pay-packet from the colliery, and later confessing “I looked in the boot to see if she was alright. I could not believe she was dead”, before he was due to collect his wife, he calmly disposed of the body. At 8pm, he drove 30 miles north-west of Mansfield to Ladybower in Derbyshire; a 2 and a ½ mile wide, 95-to-135 foot deep reservoir containing 6.1 billion gallons of water, it’s so big, in its construction, two villages - Derwent and Ashopton – were submerged. With it unlit and tree-lined, at Ashopton Viaduct, he stripped off some of her clothes, tossed her body into the water, and drove back to pick up his wife. The following day, a neighbour saw him cleaning his car including the boot, and Evans later said of this incident to the Police, “I finally did it”, as if the murder of a young woman was always on the cards. The early seeds of ‘The Clifton Rapist’ began right here… …so, why didn’t anyone stop him before he attacked again? The investigation was headed up by Detective Chief Superintendent Joe Smalley, head of Nottingham CID. Moor Street, Princes Street and Victoria Street was sealed off and Brickyard Tip was a crime scene. Kathleen’s disappearance didn’t make the national papers as the case was local, and being Saturday 23rd of November 1963, by evening, the news was dominated by the assassination in Texas of JFK. Scattered evidence at the Brickyard Tip told the horrifying story of Kathleen’s fight for her life; a violent assault which left her false teeth smashed, her glasses shattered and - just 75 yards from her own front door - the ripped knickers of a sadistic rape of a girl who was saving herself for her wedding. And with her watch-face twisted and buckled, it was frozen in time at the moment of her attack - 11pm. Her missing handbag containing £6, her house keys and her driving licence, but robbery wasn’t the motive, and a revenge attack seemed unlikely as Kathleen was a quiet girl who ruffled no feathers. Hundreds of Police officers swarmed the area; knocking on doors, checking bins, searching alleys, with dogs sniffing the surrounding fields and lanes, and using eight bulldozers, they examined tonnes of rubbish to find clues to her attacker and her possible demise. A rusty steak knife with a cork handle was found, but with no blood or fingerprints, possibly due to the rain, it was ruled out as evidence. Finding a set of tyre marks on the muddy ground of Brickyard Tip, plaster casts were made, but could only be attributed to one of several makes of car, including a two-tone Ford Consul, several of which was seen prowling the area around the time of the window peeper. Its licence plate was unknown, its driver was unseen, and having driven out of Brickyard Tip and into the darkness of Sutton Road… …it vanished without a trace, along with Kathleen. Everyone who knew her was questioned and ruled out. All friends and loved-ones were grieving and had no reason to harm her. Any local men with a history of violence or sexual assault were assessed, but the Police had no viable suspects. And using specialist divers to search the local ponds, and even the River Maum half a mile away, not a single clue hinted at whether Kathleen was alive or dead. The violence of her assault and her vanishing into thin air brought terror to this close-knit community. Fearing a killer was in their midst seeking a new victim; people locked their doors, women walked in twos, passing cars caused a shiver, and with their hackles up, neighbours began to turn on each other. Something evil lurked among them, maybe someone they knew, maybe a friend, a father, or a fiancé? Two and a half years later, aged 57, Kathleen’s father died, it was said that her death had broken him, and with the house a reminder of her pain, her widowed mother moved out of Princes Street. With not a single sighting of Kathleen Heathcote or any proof of her life or death, a few days after the attack, Alexander Shand, the Assistant Chief Constable stated “we are treating this as a murder”. But how do you solve a murder without a body? Simple detective work. The incident log at Mansfield Police Station listed a call made two hours after the attack by Ronald Evans of Shirebrook after his two-tone Ford Consul became stuck on Skegby Lane just two streets away. On Monday the 25th of November, three days into the investigation, Evans was questioned, he claimed he missed a corner while driving home, but the Police weren’t buying his story. He denied knowing Kathleen or having anything to do with her disappearance, even when confronted with his freshly laundered suit, his spotlessly clean car and his tyre marks which matched those at the crime scene, and although he couldn’t explain why he was in Mansfield that night, when Detectives threatened to question his heavily-pregnant wife, Evans swiftly confessed “she’s in the water”. He said “I wanted to hide the facts from my wife”, which exacerbated the endless pain of Kathleen’s family. 23-year-old Ronald Evans was arrested, charged with suspicion of murder and held at Lincoln Prison. Royal Navy divers from the training school at HMS Vernon in Portsmouth were called in owing to the extreme depths and the pitch-black darkness of the Ladybower Reservoir. Stating he had dropped her body of Ashopton Viaduct, as ice and snow and rolled in, divers could only explore the submerged village below for short periods of time, and being so dark, they had to search for her body by hand. After a five-day search of the reservoir, on Monday 2nd of December, Petty Officer Gunnell found her partially-clothed body in 96ft of water, just 30 feet from the pillars of the reservoir’s bridge. Cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation, she had severe injuries to her face and body caused by a fist, she had sustained a prolonged sexual assault, and it was left up to her brother Derek to identify her body. The trial was held on the 18th of March 1964 at Nottingham Assizes before Justice Hinchcliffe. Ronald Evans admitted attacking her and disposing of her body, but he denied rape. With emotions running high, Justice Hinchliffe directed the jury “do not be influenced by feelings of sympathy for the family of Miss Heathcote… if you are satisfied that Evans must have known that his acts were likely to cause serious harm, then the verdict you come back with must be murder, but if you come back with the conclusion that his acts had caused her death, but that he did not intend to kill her or do her serious harm, then it was open to you to bring a verdict of manslaughter”. He also stated, “no-one suggests to you that a verdict of ‘not guilty’ is appropriate”, as the evidence of his evil crime was irrefutable. On the 20th of March, the final day of this three day trial, having deliberated for 25 minutes, the jury of ten men and two women returned with a unanimous verdict – Ronald Evans was guilty of murder. Summing up, Justice Hinchcliffe stated “you have been found guilty of the murder of a decent, moral girl who wanted nothing to do with you”. Evans was given a life sentence. His wife, Jill, said she would stand by her husband, but hearing the horrifying facts of the case, the next year she divorced him, she took their child, and later she remarried. He appealed his sentence in July 1964, but this was rejected. ‘Ron’ Evans was a cruel and sadistic danger to women who many argued should never be released. Fearing his safety, Evans was moved from Mansfield, 150 miles south-west to the city of Bristol, where he spent most of his sentence in Bristol Prison, commonly known as Horfield. Being locked-up 23 hours a day in a foul, rat-infested hell-hole surrounded by the deranged and the dangerous, this was believed to be enough to make him change his ways, as back then, there were no anger management classes. With the abolition of the death penalty looming, the last man hanged at Bristol Prison occurred three months before Evan’s arrival, so with his life no longer in danger, all he had to do was to bide his time. Across the late 60s and early70s, Evans was seen as a model prisoner. With a lot of time on his hands, he said he wanted to give something back, so had volunteered his services in whatever way the prison needed; Ron was said to be likeable, fun and kind, he was well-thought of, and made the newbies feel at ease as they struggled with their difficulties, and he attacked no-one but then all of them were men. So was ‘Ron’ reformed? In 1973, nine years into his life sentence, owing to good behaviour, Evans was moved to HMP Layhill, an open prison just north of Bristol. Under the Prison Hostel Scheme, as part of his rehabilitation, he was given a day pass to exit the prison and work at ISC Chemicals in Avonmouth, where his work record was good, and in June 1975, 11 years into his life sentence for murder, he was released on parole. Derek, Kathleen’s brother later said “It would be vindictive to say I told you so, but that is what I said… he was only sentenced to ten years. I hope the people who decided it was OK to set him free are now looking at their own consciences, he’s obviously not learned anything”, but to them, it didn’t seem so. With his prison sentence commuted to life on licence, in 1975, Evans met Jadwega Radziminska, they fell in love, and they married in May 1978. With their first child together being born one month before, Evans had retained his job at ISC Chemicals having retrained and been promoted to an electrician. He was reliable, industrious and charming, and earning an okay-living, they managed to secure a council house on Windemere Road in the Patchway housing estate, six miles north of Bristol City Centre. As part of his parole, he regularly saw his probation officer, and as a strict condition of his life licence, he committed no crimes; he wasn’t caught speeding in his yellow Ford Capri, he wasn’t charged with drunkenness at the works social club, and said to be ”nice but quiet” he was part of the skittles team. By day, ‘Ron’ Evans was good husband, a kind father and dedicated worker… …but by night, he was ‘The Beast of Bedsitland’ In the north-west part of central Bristol in the district of Redland is Clifton, an area densely populated with universities and colleges, dorm rooms and cheap bedsits, hence it’s nickname of ‘bedsitland’. With a high influx of young women gaining a degree, a technical qualification, or training to be nurses, at night these residential areas were awash with lone ladies walking home along the city’s busy streets. Every women knew how to be mindful of their safety, but from as late as July 1977 to December 1978 and maybe later, the city’s women would live in fear of being attacked by a cruel and sadistic monster who had no remorse nor conscience. Haunting their dreams, he was also known as ‘The Clifton Rapist’. Targeting women between the ages of 18 and 33, but also possibly younger and older; he knew every pub and club in the area, he regularly drank there, and maybe having had his advances rejected by a girl, he prowled the streets of Clifton looking for a girl walking alone as he did with Kathleen Heathcote. His usual hunting ground was the Whiteladies Road, a bustling throng of pubs, clubs and takeaways even on weekday nights, and with the last train out of Clifton Downs station being relatively early and there no night buses, any girl who hadn’t got a lift home and couldn’t afford a taxi would have to walk. Prowling the streets in his yellow Ford Capri, when he saw a lone and vulnerable girl turn off the well-lit and partially busy main road and into a darker and more isolated side-street, his method was always the same; he did a U-turn, he parked up his car, and silently walking up behind her, by the time she had heard his footsteps or smelled the beer on his breath, he had grabbed her, and she was trapped. Covering her mouth, she was unable to scream. Being a few inches taller and a few stone heavier, he overpowers her quickly. All were dragged into unlit doorways, bushes or gardens. Many were punched into submission, some were strangled in a two-handed throat hold, almost all were subjected to a prolonged sexual assault of almost an hour where there minds and bodies were scarred forever, then he calmly walked away unseen, and regarded as a good, decent man, he returned home to his family. No-one knew it was him as he lived a double life, family man by day, monster by night. But it wasn’t the sex which drove him to hurt, as - just as he had done with Kathleen - it was about controlling these women, and humiliating them. He was excited by the thrill of hurting them, but also bringing terror to this community, as he had done in Mansfield a decade before and would do 50 years later in Wembley. The Prosecutor state “Mr Evans is a leopard that cannot change its spots. Despite his age, he was and remains a sexual predator”. ‘The Clifton Rapist’ was coming to London, but first, he’d terrorise Bristol. Part two of two of ‘The Beast of Bedsitland’ concludes next week. UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Episode 363: The Beast of Bedsitland – Part 2 of 2. By the summer of 1977, 37 year old Ronald Evans had lived in the Parkway area of Bristol for almost two years. He was a qualified electrician with a good career and a steady wage, he was engaged with a baby on the way; he was liked, quiet, unassuming, and seemed like a law-abiding member of society. 150 miles south of Mansfield, no-one knew his name, no-one knew his face, and no-one knew he was on a life licence for the sadistic rape and murder of Kathleen Heathcote. He brought grief to her family, terror to the town and only chose her at random to prove his manhood having been rejected by a girl. Sentenced to life, many said he should never have been released, as being a danger to women, he was violent, depraved and remorseless. But having usurped the parole board into believing that this model prisoner had reformed, he was now living as a free man just six miles north of Clifton - his new hunting ground where every night thousands of lone women walked the unlit streets heading to their bedsits. By day, he was a family man… …but by night, he was a monster. Nicknamed ‘The Beast of Bedsitland’, he terrorised the city of Bristol for almost two years, yet for his many victims, he would forever be known as ‘The Clifton Rapist’. Before we begin, some sources have named the women that ‘The Clifton Rapist’ attacked. Many are still alive, traumatised and may have kept their past a secret from their families, so as victims of sexual assault deserve the right to anonymity, I shall not be naming them and shall keep their details vague. It is said that his first attack was in July 1977, four days after his second wife had given birth, unfairly blaming her, as if by denying his so-called carnal rights, this led him seek out other women, and unable to cope with their rejection, he hunted lone and vulnerable ladies across the city ruining their lives. But this is untrue, as their child was born in April 1978 and conceived when his first attack took place. Why he began and when, we shall never know. Maybe his incarceration only bottled up his frustration, likely he had attacked before Kathleen Heathcote or perhaps he indulged in perversions as a boy, but we know his attacks weren’t fuelled by sex or pornography, they were about control and humiliation. Prior to his first confirmed attack in July 1977, others occurred on same streets, hours and nights using familiar methods by a man of a similar description; 16th of March 1977, a 20-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at Clifton Hill House, a student halls of residence in Lower Clifton Hill; three days later, a 27-year old was assaulted and forced her to kneel as her assailant made his getaway in Hollybush Lane. 23rd of March, a 20-year-old was chased by a man in Clifton Hill near to Clifton Hill House and escaped. 7th of April, a 21-year-old women in nearby Victoria Square was punched in the face, thrown to the ground, and as a man sat astride her, he gagged her and threatened her with a knife, but ran off when he was spooked. And on 14th of April, a man broke into the bedroom of a nurse in Manor Hall on Lower Clifton Hill, but fled as she screamed, with a similar attack a week later in nearby Goldney House. Was this him making mistakes and perhaps ‘learning his craft’? Saturday the 16th of July 1977 was memorable as the day that James Hunt won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, but for one 27-year-old woman, that night her life would be changed forever. At 2am, she left the Platform 1 Club at 21 Whiteladies Road, unaware that (as the last dregs of club-goers left) a man in a yellow Ford Capri was waiting for a lone women to enter one of the quiet unlit side-streets. As she turned onto Alma Road, unnoticed the car did a U-turn, parked-up behind her, and before she even heard his footsteps, from out of a garden on Pembroke Road, "somebody came steaming out of the bushes, he grabbed me from behind and got an arm around my neck so I was in a strangle hold”. With every cruel action intended to instil absolute fear in them, his method was often the same; he’d drag them somewhere dark and isolated (a doorway or garden), he’d threaten to kill them if they didn’t do as he said, he’d ask if they’ve ever been raped, then tell them “well, you’re about to”, and having strangled them into submission in a two-handed throat hold, he’d subject each to a prolonged, degrading sexual assault lasting almost an hour in which they were groped and forced to fellate him. With his morals warped, in the same way he confessed to killing and disposing of Kathleen but denied raping her, his first five confirmed victims weren’t raped according to the 1970s legal definition as anal and vaginal penetration was classified as rape, yet oral penetration was not. But sex wasn’t his motive, it was power, humiliation, and he’d claimed “to prove I could accost women without murdering them”. Three days later, an 18-year-old hairdresser left Tiffany’s Club at 2am, and as she entered Alexandra Road, a man dragged her into the doorway of a mansion block, threatened to kill her, asked if she’d been raped, forced her to perform oral sex and gripped her neck so hard she tasted blood in the throat. He calmly walked away, as if nothing had happened… …and then his attacks stopped. No-one knows why, if he did, or if some of his attacks went unreported, but he didn’t strike again until 29th of September 1977 on Leigh Road in Clifton, with this more violent and brutal. That November, at the junction of Grove Road and Redland Hill, he attacked a 21-year-old Austrian au-pair in another prolonged and degrading attack, crafted to humiliate and traumatise each woman into silence. Although slightly different, his known victims gave a similar description of their attacker; “25 to 40, 5 foot 8 to 11 or as tall as 6 foot 2, medium build, with ear-length dark wiry hair and a drooping Mexican style moustache, and drove a light-coloured car”, either a Ford Capri or Cortina. It may seem a unique description, but Ford Capri’s and Cortinas in the 1970s were as popular as the handle-bar moustache. Beside, many descriptions of The Clifton Rapist became confused, not only due to the victim’s trauma, but because several rapists were stalking the same streets of Clifton, at the same time in a similar way. Western Daily Press reported on 17th of March 1978, “Police believe there is more than one sex fiend operating in the Clifton area of Bristol” and with many being labelled as The Clifton Rapist; some were bearded, stubbly or clean shaven; some wore tracksuits, overalls or leathers; one wore a balaclava, one drove a white MBG sports car, one cycled a bike, one was only 5 foot 4, one was black, some of their victims were aged between 9 and 80, several times a window peeper was reported in the area before a woman was raped; they attacked on side streets, in doorways and broke into bedrooms; and on the 9th of November 1978, several articles reported “Police are hunting ‘The Clifton Rapist’ who lured a 14-year-old girl into a churchyard in Redland… he was about 30, 5 foot 8, with ginger permed hair and a beard, he wore black trousers, a black bomber jacket and carried a bright red crash helmet”. This wasn’t ‘Ron’ Evans, as he was 6 foot 2, stocky with a dark wiry hair and a handle-bar moustache, but often changing from suits and jackets to jumpers, he tried to throw Police off his scent by telling his victims that his name was David, and his attacks were intermittent. But he couldn’t hide his accent. So, were his attacks a compulsion, or a desire to instil terror? By 1978, the women of Bristol, especially the students living in ‘bedsitland’ grew ever more fearful as his attacks grew for violent and the Police failed to catch him. With ‘The Clifton Rapist’ being frontpage news almost every day, women were warned not to walk alone, many armed themselves with knitting needles, special nighttime buses were laid on for female students, and the Reclaim the Night campaign called for better lighting on the streets. It also led to vital conversations which had remained silent. The pressure group WAR, Women Against Rape stated that the law was “aiding and abetting rapists”. They asked for the definition of rape to be changed, tougher sentences for rapists, that men accused of rape not to be released on bail, that rape in marriage be made illegal (a law which only came into effect in 1991), that a victim’s character and sexual experience not to be used in court, and that anyone who is raped or sexually assaulted be treated sympathetically, not poked and prodded like evidence. The hunt for The Clifton Rapist was headed-up by Detective Superintendent Brian Theobald from the incident room at Redland Police Station in the heart of the attacks. 40 officers were assembled solely to arrest him, but with no independent sightings of the assailant, his details and photofits vague and inconsistent, his car said to be a Ford Capri or a Cortina but they didn’t have his licence plate, and with no fingerprints and no hair samples, as he rarely committed vaginal rapes, with no known semen sample to define his blood group (and only decades later, his DNA), they had no idea who he was. At least 20 sex-offenders matching his description were questioned but were released without charge. He clearly had a history of sexual assault, but no-one in the Bristol area matched his method. Given his knowledge of the pubs, clubs and side-streets of Clifton, Police wrongly assumed that he was local, and had been for most of his life, but Evans had only lived there two years, and mostly six miles north. Given his escalating violence, one theory detectives were exploring was that he was likely to commit murder, and possibly had. By April 1978, terrifying the community even further, the newspapers wrote “is Bristol’s ‘Clifton Rapist’ a murderer?”, speculatively linking him to the strangling, sexual assault and killing of 20-year-old Glenis Caruthers in 1974, and the sexual assault and battering to death of nurse Susan Donoghue in 1976. They searched for sexually-motivated murders in Bristol and the surrounding countries across the 1970s, but found nothing. And as his Nottinghamshire accent was barely noted, they didn’t search further, or for a rapist and murderer recently released on licence from Bristol Prison. ‘The (real) Clifton Rapist’ proved to be an enigma… but the hunt for him didn’t stop. Across July and August 1978, a peeper had persistently tried to break into the Clifton Gardens bedsit of a 23-year-old model. Having followed her home, from the dark of the bushes, he’d spied through her windows to watch her undress, sleep, and although on one occasion when he entered her room, as she screamed, her flatmates burst in with knives and he fled, they knew he would be back. With his description identical to ‘The (real) Clifton Rapist’, Police kept surveillance on the flat and laid a trap. On Tuesday 28th of August 1978, at 2am, through the French windows, he watched the model sleep. With her flatmate’s rooms dark and empty, having followed her home and knowing she was alone, he tapped on the glass of the open door to startle her, but as he crept in, he saw the shadow of a police officer and his dog inside and ran for his life, losing the surveillance team after a chase up a side street. Detectives almost caught him… …and as December 1978 turned into one of the worst winter’s Britain had seen in years, with the city plunged in a windswept icy-deathtrap, they assumed that his attacks would cease. But they didn’t. On the 18th of December, he committed his last confirmed attack on a 21-year-old university student, walking home at 3am from a party at a friend’s house. Dragging her into a derelict waste-ground off The Fosseway near Victoria Square, in his East Midlands accent he hissed “I haven’t had a woman for a long time”, then for the next hour, subjected her to a violent rape and prolonged, degrading assault. Six women had been attacked, maybe ten, maybe more, and with New Year approaching, there would be no festive cheer in the city of Bristol while a sadistic maniac stalked the streets. Detectives had no idea who he was or where he would strike next, but what they did know was they had to lure him out. But how? Bait. In January 1979, Avon & Somerset Police launched Operation Argus, named after the Greek god with many eyes, an undercover operation designed to lure and trap ‘The Clifton Rapist’. As WPC Michelle Tighe later said "there was a lot of ill feeling that the Police weren't doing anything… the bosses felt something had to be done”. Headed up by Detective Superintendent Brian Theobold, they conceived a honey-trap, which was bold, inventive, and for those like Michelle at the sharp end, life-threatening. It was comical in its conception, as like a 1970s farce, it required four male officers (one a rugby player, one a blackbelt, who were slender but lacking in any femineity) wearing blonde wigs, stockings, high heels and padded bras as if they were women. But they were not the bait, as even in the darkest of nights, the most myopic sex-pest wouldn’t be fooled by a cross-dressing copper with an Adam’s apple. They were the protection. The targets were real women, rookie officers from the Policewoman’s Unit, who – like 23-year-old Michelle – knew that as a female in a male-dominated Police force, she would never be taken seriously, with her role relitigated to typing and making the tea, unless she took a risk. Several female officers including Carol Miller who ran the policewoman’s unit put themselves forward, and from 5th of January 1979 - on the nights, the time and the streets he was known to attack - dressed in plain clothes, these lone women followed the same route that so many others had walked before. Twelve weeks in, with 10,000 man-hours spent, several streets had been patrolled 16 times, so by the early hours of Friday 23rd of March 1979, morale had started to slip as this maniac hadn’t been caught. At around 2am, with this being only her second decoy run, Michelle was dropped off at St Paul’s Road, and the unmarked car drove away, as she walked north up Whiteladies Road. But she was never alone and never out of sight, as along this pre-planned route, surveillance teams watched from unlit bedsits, burly officers hid in doorways and bushes, wearing a radio ear-piece she knew everything that was happening around her, and later stating "any time you felt you were in danger, you could call it off"… …as it was her life at risk, and her decision to abort, or continue. At 2:20am, as she passed Clifton Downs station and the Platform 1 Club, the Police radio squawked, “yellow Ford Capri, black vinyl roof, possible suspect vehicle”, having been witnessed at the scene of at least one of the rapes and described by several victims. Catching its licence plate, it was radioed in. This could have been a coincidence, but as the car slowed ahead of Michelle, it then did a U-turn. As surveillance eyeballed the driver, the radio squawked “male, early 30s, brown wiry hair, handle bar moustache”, an incredible likeness to the photofits, but was it him? As Michelle turned into Chantry Road, a small unlit side-street, again the radio squawked “he’s got out, he’s on foot, and he’s following Michelle”. If they stopped this man, and he turned out to be innocent, the operation would be blown. They could only arrest him, if he attacked her, so Michelle had to continue walking. There was a delay, a silence until the radio crackled back into life. “attention everybody, this man has previous convictions for rape, and is on life licence for murder”. It was him, ‘The Clifton Rapist’, a sex-attacker and killer was approaching Michelle from behind, and she thought “I did think, should I go on or should I stop”. But the decision was made. Michelle recalled “As I got to the streetlight, I couldn't hear his footsteps. As I turned, there he was on my shoulder. He grabbed me around the throat, and said 'Don't scream or I'll kill you' and began to drag me back into the garden”. Screaming, she hit the panic button on her radio, and as swarms of burly officers and squad cars sped to location, realising this had been a trap, he punched her twice in the face and fled, only to be brought down by PC Andy Kerslake in a rugby tackle. Handcuffed, identified and arrested, Ronald Evans was taken to Southmead Police Station. At first, he denied the attacks. But as before, when the detectives began questioning his wife, Evans stated “I don’t want to cause any more distress”, and confessed to five assaults, but denied the rapes. Tried at Bristol Crown Court, with 38-year-old Ronald Evans pleading guilty to five counts of indecent assault and one of the assault and ABH of a policewoman, on the 23rd of July 1979, Justice Kenneth Jones sentenced him to 18 months for each offence to run consecutively, and stating “the terror you struck into these young women, you humiliated them beyond measure, the public and young women must be protected”, so given that Evan’s was highly dangerous, the judge revoked his life licence, so being jailed for life for a second time but with no minimum tariff, this time, he may never be released. The officers of Operation Argus, and especially the female decoys were praised for their extraordinary bravery, with Michelle recalling "I feel proud that I bit my bit to take somebody so evil off the streets". In May 1991, having served 10 years, he appealed stating that a life sentence was ‘unfair’, but this was rejected as what he had subjected these women to was a life sentence of trauma. In November 1994, he appealed to the High Court, stating that he ‘felt remorse’, ‘had reformed’ and was ‘model prisoner’. But again, 53-year-old Evan’s conviction was upheld, and he was denied access to an open prison. By 2004, on top of his initial 10-years for murder, he had served 25 years for his attacks in Bristol, and with it said that 63-year-old Evans had “addressed all aspects of his offending and women”, with his release pending, DNA samples from the rapes of two students, aged 21 and 22, in Bristol in 1979 were linked to Evans, and although he denied this, found guilty, he was sentenced to a further 10 years. Gary Mason, who headed Avon and Somerset Police's Major Crime Review and matched Evan’s DNA to those earlier rapes stated “the last time I saw him was 2004 and he was still a danger to women”. With regards to Evans’ parole review which would have been successful had the DNA not convicted him of rape, he stated “(Evans) must have presented himself as a frail old man… you begin to wonder how many times does someone have to have their life licence revoked for it then to be permanent”. But they did. In 2015, 74-year-old Evans was about to be released on parole, when his DNA was linked to an attempted rape, buggery and an indecent assault in 1977 and 1978 in Clifton. Found guilty, he was sentenced to a further ten years, with the judge stating “it is unlikely you will ever be released”… …only he hadn’t counted on the Parole Board. In November 2018, after a total of 52 years, making him one of Britain’s longest serving prisoners, said to be frail, reformed, approaching his 80s and having presented himself as a harmless pensioner, Evans was released on licence to an area far from where he was known and feared - Wembley, West London. A spokesperson for the Parole Board stated "decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released, and whether that risk is manageable”. But how could they protect the public from a man who – for half a century - lived a double life, good by day and evil by night? In 2019, even though he was monitored and held under curfew, he kept it a secret from his probation officer that – although a violent serial rapist – he was volunteering at the Chalkhill Community Centre, and a predominantly female mental health drop-in group, many of whom were vulnerable and alone. By 2022, 82-year-old ‘Ron’, a tall man with a wispy frame and a slight stoop had volunteered his time for four years; his East Midlands accent was reassuringly honest, his neat clothes eluded to his working class roots, and his bald head with grey sideburns hinted that in the 1960s and 70s he had a little style. Ron was likeable, fun and kind, he was well-thought of, and said to be “the life and soul of the party”. At his trial, the Judge stated “your old crimes were all committed against women alone at night. Being a man in your 80s, you realised you had to change your tactics”; he was slow, frail, and incapable of beating a woman into submission, strangling her into semi-consciousness or raping her without Viagra, “people would think that a man in his 80s wouldn’t have sexual desires, but you maintained yours”, as on his phone he watched pornography and in his bedside drawer he had a dildo, condoms and lube. His unnamed final victim was a 53-year-old survivor of domestic violence during the Covid lockdown, who came to Chalkhill seeking sanctuary and therapy later stating “I didn’t want to be alone anymore”. She recalled “the women didn’t seem to be very forthcoming, maybe because I was new, but he was very friendly. He was articulate, clever, but handsy with the women. One time he told me ‘I’m a very touchy-feely person’ and I replied ‘well, I’m not’”. But she was put at ease, as he was well regarded. The Judge stated "It’s apparent that you manipulated (her) obvious vulnerabilities and cultivated her friendship, so when the chance presented itself, you could pursue sexual contact. It is apparent that time has done nothing to change the fact that you are a sexual predator… a significant risk to women”. After a session, to make friends, she exchanged numbers with several attendees including Evan’s, but within hours, he was already texting. Worried that he wanted a relationship, he assured her he didn’t, “but clearly this was a lie in order to stay close to her so you could exploit her and her vulnerabilities”. Having rejected several invites to come to his flat, with him persisting, in early July 2022, she agreed and they had a cup of tea and a chat in his garden, but this was all a cruel ruse to lure her even closer. On the 15th of July 2022, having treated her to a pub lunch, they went back to his flat and chatted. The day had been uneventful, and as they sat on his sofa, he seemed calm and unthreatening. She later recalled "I've met some monsters… I've never met a man who probably doesn't even understand what remorse means. He's got not one grain of remorse in him", as suddenly, “his demeanour changed”. She then said “his eyes glistened”, he got out his phone, and showing her soft-core images of women who – he claimed – wanted to have sex with him, rejecting his advances, he leaped on her. “I thought is this the point where I get killed, hit or attacked, or is this the point where I get forced and raped?”. As she sat there, terrified, she froze as he groped her… …but although prison had failed to cure him of his evil ways, being frail and slow, all his 52 years in prison had done was to dull his strength, as ‘The Clifton Rapist’ still had all of the cruel and sadistic urges of the monster he once was, but now, physically weak, he groped her again, but she had fled. The attack left her “violated, dirty and with PTSD”. She called to confront him, but (as if it was a joke) he replied "this kind of talk will get me in trouble" before hanging up. And although he continued to work at the drop-in centre as the organisers were hesitant to react, discussing it, other attendees said that they had been sexually-assaulted by him groping their breasts and rubbing his penis against them. On the 2nd of August 2022, she reported it to the Police, but they couldn’t find Ronald Evans, the rapist and murderer on their system so nothing was done. Miraculously, 8 days later, she saw a documentary on ‘The Clifton Rapist’, and seeing his name, his face and his crimes, she said "Oh my God, It's him”, she phoned the Police, it was referred to the Serious Sexual Offences unit and Evans was arrested. Tried at Harrow Crown Court, having denied all charges, after five hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of one count of sexual assault, but not guilty of assaulting the other two women. On the 16th of November 2023, 83-year-old Ronald Evans was sentenced to four years. His victim stated that the attack left her broken: “I don’t know what it feels like to be happy, the damage is beyond repair”. In December 2024, Evan’s appealed his sentence, and although eligible for parole in November 2025, this was rejected. As of today, being weak and unrepentant, ‘The Clifton Rapist’ remains behind bars… …but for how long? 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. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #361: The Vanishing of Wendy Upton (Steve Salisbury, Lichfield)12/8/2026
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE: Wednesday the 7th of October 1998, 40-year-old Wendy Upton of Lichfield went to her local Tesco’s to buy the basics, and vanished without a trace. For nine months, there was no trace of her; no sightings, no calls and her bank account wasn’t touched, her husband believed she had been murdered, but the Police held firm to their belief that she was missing, had fled, or had overdosed. But what was the truth, and how did her killer subvert the investigation to his own need?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Lichfield, Staffordshire, where the hunt for a missing woman led to a callous killer in their midst. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 361: The Vanishing of Wendy Upton. It seems impossible that anyone could go missing in the modern era, that a person - with friends, family and a life - could be seen going about their everyday business one minute, and vanish the next. Wendy Ann Upton (as she was later known) was born on the 11th of May 1958 in the city of Lichfield in Staffordshire, and like so many others she was ordinary and unremarkable. She didn’t court danger, she didn’t make enemies, and she didn’t stand out as a target to any sex pests, deadbeats or thieves. She was a smaller-than-average woman (five foot two and eight stone), she was no healthier or sicker than anyone else, she struggled through life’s trials and tribulations, and with pale skin, green eyes and auburn hair, she was pretty in her own way, but drew little attention – as I said, she was ordinary. What made Wendy so memorable was her warm and generous personality. Those who knew her said she was “a lovely woman, happy, lively, a free spirit”, she was fun-loving, her face always beamed with a beautiful smile, and “she didn’t have a malicious bone in her body”. They said “she would give you her last penny even if she couldn’t afford it, but if she didn’t have a penny, she’d give you something of hers to help make your life better”, and if she had to borrow some money, she always paid it back. When the Police examined her photo albums to learn more about her life, it was filled photos of this wonderful woman enjoying her life, with her arms wrapped around her wealth of life-long friends; happy, smiling and living her life to the full, whether on trips to Wales or the Glastonbury Festival. Having met in 1985, in July 1991, she married Peter Upton of the nearby town Burntwood, who earned a modest income as a gardener and planned to start his own business, and although he said “she told me she loved me every day of the thirteen years we were together”, they never had any children. Maybe this was a conscious choice, maybe they couldn’t conceive, or maybe her heart was truly broken having given up her baby daughter for adoption back in 1977 when she was just 19 years old? By 1998, the year she went missing, her life had taken a turn for the worse; she was unemployed, she was broke, she was living on benefits, and had an addiction to amphetamines. It was never said why; whether prescribed by a doctor to help her with ADHD (as it sharpens focus and reduces impulse control), narcolepsy (as it’s a stimulant), obesity (as it suppresses the appetite), or for recreational use. As a registered drug addict, she was receiving counselling, and according to Peter her husband, she’d got her addiction under control and trying to piece her life together, she had everything to live for. So, how and why did she vanish into thin air? Wednesday the 7th of October 1998 was an ordinary day in Lichfield, but elsewhere; President Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, the Kosovo war was escalating, Myra Hindley was appealing her ‘whole life’ tariff, and actor Kevin Lloyd who played Tosh from British TV series The Bill had died. That year, Peter & Wendy Upton had moved from Mesnes Green, south of Lichfield City train station, to Crane Field, a cul-de-sac on the Dimbles Estate comprising a handful of post-war council houses. As far as we know, her day began no better or worse than any other, and with dusk falling at 6:27pm, as they had ran out of the basics, it wasn’t unusual for her to head out to the supermarket for essentials. Dressed in a dark calf-length floral skirt, dark jacket and a white top, she told her husband “just going to Tesco’s”, a journey she had made hundreds of times before in this city she had lived in all her life. With it being cold and drizzly with lows of 8 degrees, she wasn’t wearing a coat as she wouldn’t be out for long, she hadn’t a mobile phone, and she had no bank cards in her handbag, just £2 in her pocket. Her route to the Tesco’s on Church Street was simple; a zig-zag path onto Dimbles Lane, down Dimbles Hill, into Curborough Road (where she had friends in the Ash Court flats), over St Chad’s Road (and in a pay phone, at 7:30pm, she called her friend on Wissage Road, 33-year-old single mother-of-six, Karen Cook, and made plans to meet up, but Wendy never arrived), she walked around the edge of Stowe Pool (where she was seen by someone who knew her at 8:30pm, 90 minutes later, even though this was a 25 minute walk), she crossed over Stowe Road into Partridge Croft (passing Smithfield Rise), up St Michael’s Road to the Tesco’s – a smaller version of current Tesco’s Extra, being demolished in 2009. She didn’t look harassed or afraid, rushed or flustered, she was just a chatty and likeable woman on her way to the supermarket for the basics, barely an hour before it was due to close for the evening. At 9:09pm, CCTV captured her entering the store, she bought nothing, she spoke to her friend, Steve, a security guard, they chatted briefly, she asked to borrow some money off him which he said he’d loan her tomorrow, and at 9:15pm, six minutes later, Steve saw her take that same ‘zig zag’ path home. Wendy was never seen alive again… …and she vanished without a trace. Worried, Peter spent the night searching for her and calling her friends as she had never gone missing before, and by lunchtime the next day, with no sign of her, he reported her missing to the Police. After a week with no calls, no confirmed sightings, her bank account untouched and no benefits withdrawn, even though this was unusual for her, the Police stated “we do not believe she has come to any harm”. Police had three theories as to where Wendy was; she had ran away to start a new life in Ireland with her friends, she’d gone in search of the daughter she had given up for adoption 21 years before, or as a registered drug addict, she may have overdosed and been disposed of by someone who was scared. Karen Cook, her friend, told the press: “I don’t think she is dead. She’s too clever. I think she’d planned it for a while… she’s gone and wants to be left alone. I don’t think she’s dead for one minute. She may have gone to look for her mum or her adopted daughter”, and many friends had the same thought, so it makes sense that Detective Chief Inspector Peter Hall, who headed up the missing person’s hunt for Wendy Upton stated “the suggestion is that Wendy is dead, though not necessarily murdered”. So, where was Wendy? As she didn’t suffer with depression, suicide was ruled out, but the detectives continued to check any bodies found against her medical record. Her home was searched, but no clothes or bags were missing, she hadn’t a passport, and she was so broke, she would barely have had the bus fare to leave the city. Being a case where a wife had vanished for no reason, her husband, Peter was suspected. Police poked into their past, spoke to their friends, examined their bank and phone records, and with Peter being a gardener, they removed nine paving slabs from the patio in their back garden at Crane Field, as a shed had recently been removed from this spot, but Peter had sold it, as without Wendy, he couldn’t work. After six months with no sightings, and mounting pressure by locals, on the 15th of April 1999, Police held a press conference appealing for Wendy’s safe return. Sat beside DCI Hall, Peter pleaded “I have no idea where she is. I hope she is alive. We were in love. I would like to appeal to Wendy, if you are out there, I would like to know if you are safe and well”, he appeared to be grief-stricken and broken. Also taking part in the appeal was Steve the Tesco’s security guard, who was last to see her alive, “we talked about a friend Pete had round the flat, she was edgy and nervous when she mentioned him. I didn’t question her. I wouldn’t force her to tell me what was wrong. I didn’t want to get involved. I hope she’s alive. I miss speaking to her. I think she was in trouble, but I was waiting for her to tell me”. Police investigated Peter’s friend, and he was ruled out as a suspect. With no proof of life, desperate for any tip as every avenue of inquiry had ended in dust, a phone line was set-up at the incident room “with a reward of ‘up to £10,000’ for any information which leads to a conviction, the finding of her body or evidence of wrongdoing”. But this was hit by disaster, when on day one, the faulty equipment had knocked out the phone lines at Lichfield CID for 18 hours. But some promising leads did come in. Of the 600+ calls, some gave names, some gave addresses, and on the 6th of May, a caller said that Wendy had “asked to borrow cash and needed it desperately”, which backed-up the security guard’s statement. And on the 5th of July, an anonymous male caller said “she’s been murdered, her body taken out of Lichfield to be disposed of”. This could have been a hoax, so Detective Sergent Simon Chapman said “no-one has told us where the body is, or if there is a body, but we’ve had information as to the area where it might be. We have been told it is outside Lichfield, but that is not to say we’re not keeping our options open”. They investigated, and although a female body was pulled from the River Trent in nearby Burton, “officers have not ruled out that it could be Wendy”… but it wasn’t. To capitalise on the re-investigation of this missing person’s case, on the 18th of May 1999 at 10:10pm, an appeal was broadcast on BBC Crimewatch, an episode which drew in 8 million viewers being the first after the murder of the show’s co-host Jill Dando. DCI Hall stated “Crimewatch will be the biggest audience we are likely to get for our appeal, and if we don’t get anything positive, that will reaffirm our suspicions that she is dead”. They wanted to know who Wendy met after she left the Tesco’s store at 9:15pm, and although some interesting leads came into the incident room, again, it led to nothing. In a final attempt to shake loose any memories from anyone who may have seen Wendy on the night she had vanished, Peter made another appeal, and Chris Ryan, a Staffordshire Police typist played the part of Wendy in a reconstruction of her last known movements at Tesco’s; they filmed the walk from her home, arrival at the store, chatting to Steve the security guard (who no-longer worked for Capital Security, but was given an identical uniform so he could play himself), they recreated the two of them chatting, and Steve watched as Wendy walked the ‘zig zag’ path towards Stowe Pool, and vanished. DCI Hall said ”this is not a murder investigation, but we suspect something untoward or sinister may have happened to her. The most likely explanation for her disappearance seems to be she is dead”. But without a body or evidence of any foul play, they couldn’t call it a murder. On the 25th of May 1999 at 8am, based on a tip-off, Police raided a flat at Ash Court off Curborough Road on the route that Wendy had walked that night. A 40-year-old man said to be “a friend and an associate… but not her husband” was arrested, his flat was searched by forensics, and although he was re-arrested, on the 3rd of June, he was released as “they had insufficient evidence to charge him”. Again, the Police had no proof as to how or why Wendy had vanished… …until on Thursday the 22nd of July 1999, nine months after her disappearance, at 4pm, while specialist teams were searching the perimeter of the Tesco’s, Royston Cunnett of Smithfield Rise told officers that his 8-year-old son had noticed a bad smell coming from the bushes. Officers came to investigate, and at 4:40pm, peeping over the garden fence into a 10 foot wide patch of waste ground between his house and the back of Tesco’s store, in an overgrown area enclosed by fences, “as I looked over, I saw a bra and then a body. I shouted to the police… and guided them to where the remains were lying”. The body wasn’t buried and it wasn’t covered, it had been left to the elements for almost a year, just a few yards from where Wendy was last seen alive. Over those first few months, as flies, maggots and foxes ate at her remains, it’s likely somebody had smelled it, but assumed it was a sewer or the bins. Taken to Queen’s Hospital in Burton on Trent, Dr Kenneth Scott performed the autopsy. He stated “it was on its back with the head under a tree… the remains were completely skeletonised”, so with no skin, no blood and no internal organs remaining, the pathologist concluded “there were no fractures to the facial bones… I am not able to say how this woman died… I cannot say if it was strangulation”. Dental records confirmed that this was Wendy’s body, but with it impossible to determine if she had died by overdose, murder or natural causes, coroner Reginald Browning had to record an open verdict. If she‘d wondered into this space by mistake, tripped, was knocked unconscious and died of exposure, that couldn’t be proven. If she had overdosed and been dumped here by a scared friend, that would be just a theory. And with the crime scene non-existent after almost a year exposed to the elements, if someone had lured Wendy here for nefarious reasons and killed her, they had got away with murder. The Police would deny this, but it was a cock-up of cataclysmic proportions, as across the nine months, teams of detectives and forensics officers had swarmed this site, staff and customers were questioned, and CCTV was supposedly checked, but barely 100 feet from the store’s front door, her body had lay. Peter, Wendy’s husband, complained that the Police hadn’t taken it seriously, they’d investigated her murder too late, that her amphetamine addiction was seen as the reason she had vanished, he also stated he had asked for sniffer dogs to search the grounds of the store, and that – with one, and just one suspect in his eyes – he had pointed them in the direction of this man, but again, he was ignored. Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Lawton retorted “there is much with Mr Upton’s statement that we could take issue with, but we understand the trauma he is going through. We do not intent to add to Mr Upton’s distress by conducting a public discussion about the details of this investigation”. The detectives stated that their investigation was “painstaking and thorough”… …so how did they miss a dead body, just yards away from where she was last seen? So far, every suspect had been eliminated and all that remained was one who (from the start) came across as calm and normal, he helped the police in their search, he offered names of possible suspects, and having taken part in the recreation, it put him above suspicion. But as the last person to see her alive, and possibly dead, claiming “I saw her walking the zig zag path towards her home”, which led their hunt away from his crime, the next day, on Friday 23rd of July, Police went to his new workplace. When Detective Inspector Graham Ingley arrived at the warehouse, “I arrested him, I told him a body had been found” - not murdered, not skeletonised and not at Tesco’s, just found – and without missing a beat, “he said ‘yes, I killed her. I was expecting you. I am sorry for wasting everybody’s time’”… … his name was Steven Salisbury. 31-year-old Steven Alexander Salisbury - although that wasn’t his birth name - was born in Lichfield in 1968. At school, he struggled, as he was of ‘below average intelligence’ with an IQ of 80, but he wasn’t sub-normal or incapable knowing the difference between right and wrong. So how did he manipulate the Police for so long? Simple, he was polite and helpful, and got lucky owing to their incompetence. With a crew cut and a bad moustache, he looked like an Army reject as he drove his Reliant Kitten to work at Capitol Security, who provide security for Tesco’s. In November 1995, he married Jayne Cooke who had two sons from a previous relationship, and in 1997, they had a daughter called Steffany. Their relationship was strained, and for good reason. Salisbury told the press, “I wasn’t really a close friend. I didn’t know Wendy that well”, which was a lie, as they’d been neighbours at Mesnes Green for the four years before she vanished. He also told Jayne, “that Wendy came into the store pestering him for money, it just went in one ear and out the other”, and yet it was Salisbury who was the ‘pest’. Giving evidence in court, Belinda Shepherd, his second cousin said “he’d often say to me, if we weren’t related, he’d like to have sex with me. At first I laughed it off. It was said more than once and it started to scare me. I told him ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole’”, he said he was joking, but he wasn’t. He would flirt with her in front of Jayne, invite Belinda round for coffee when Jayne was out, and then, in February 1997, on the morning that his daughter was born, Belinda said he came round to her flat “he wanted sex and to keep me warm in bed. I told him to get out”, and only left when she screamed. Unsurprisingly, there were also rumours he was sexually harassing customers and staff at Tesco’s. It’s impossible to know what happened on the night Wendy vanished, as with no witnesses, the CCTV incorrectly checked, the crime scene destroyed, and her body mere bones, all we have is his version of events, which he’d use to paint her in a bad light, and re-write his narrative as if he was the victim. We know she left home at 7pm, telling Peter “just going to Tesco”, her walk should have taken just 25 minutes, but not arriving till 9:09pm and seen at Stowe Pool at 8:30pm, she headed somewhere else. Maybe to see a friend, or maybe (unseen by the store’s cameras) she had met Salisbury in advance? In court, he told the jurors “she badgered me for sex in exchange for waste groceries”, and being unemployed, broke and an amphetamine addict, this seemed feasible, but did it happen? It made him seem like a stud, her a slut, and with the food not being stolen from the shelves, but spoiled waste scavenged from the compactor, this portrays her as a tragic figure, and him, somehow, as her savour. But was it true? Lisa McCleod, a checkout assistant told jury “I frequently saw Salisbury and Mrs Upton and thought they were having an affair”, so was this an illicit rendezvous, had he been pestering her for sex, was she breaking up with him to save her marriage, or did she really sell her body for old food? In his initial alibi, he claimed “she asked for a few pounds, I told her to come back tomorrow”. So was this all she was doing when she was seen entering the store at 9:09pm, as at the customer service desk she asked to speak to Salisbury, they radioed him, she left, and 30 seconds later, he followed her. That was the last time she was seen alive, and given his job, he knew where the cameras were… …and weren’t, so why did he need to hide from the CCTV? For sex, or for murder? In a dark and isolated patch of waste ground, covered in high fences, between Smithfield Rise and the back of the store, Salisbury claimed that he met Wendy. He was carrying no groceries as an unnamed security guard had been watching him. “She was hysterical, she threatened to report me for rape. I told her I couldn’t get it and she should return tomorrow. She started attacking me. I pushed her away. I kept telling her to pack it in and started to walk away. She hit me with her handbag. I started shouting at her. I pushed her again and she fell to the floor”, laying his plea of manslaughter by provocation. He claimed as they struggled on the floor, his radio went off as a member of staff needed his help with a flower display. He dropped his radio, and as he was searching for it, he suddenly saw a piece of cord. “I put it across her throat. She started laughing… I was angry. When she said she’d accuse me of rape, I was thinking about prison. She was mad and hitting me. The cord was tight round her neck and she said ‘do it, do it’. She started gurgling and was laughing as well. I pulled it tight and she just went limp”. With her dead or dying, he didn’t bury her or cover her, and he never went back. He claimed “I planned to get her body to St Chad’s church with a note of confession”, but he didn’t, as just six minutes after she had left the store, Salisbury returned as if nothing had happened, and carried on with his job. To portray her as the villain, he said she’d driven him to kill her, “so I put the cord round her throat to stop her wrecking everything”, to portray himself as the hero, he claimed, “I tried to do the kiss of life. I put her in the recovery position”, he also said he made two attempts to hang himself, but did he? Salisbury showed no emotion for his victim, no remorse for his crime, he blamed innocent parties to aid his alibi resulting in their arrest and ruining their lives, he could have been the anonymous caller who told the Police “she’s been murdered… her body is outside of Lichfield”, in the same way he led the investigation towards the ‘zig zag’ path to Stowe Pool and away from the body in the overgrowth, and he threw Peter’s electricity card just a few feet away from the body to put the suspicion on him. Based on his creepy demeanour in which he harassed women at the store and his cousin Belinda, Detectives believed “Salisbury did not accept rejection by women and was persistent in his pursuit”. But Salisbury wasn’t a desperate man driven to kill by sex-obsessed woman who put him in a deadly dilemma, as after he’d murdered her, he joked to colleagues that he had hidden her body in his car. He quit is job three days later, but Jayne his wife recalled “the strange thing was he insisted we do our shopping at Tesco’s, when we always shopped at Co-op. I just thought he wanted to stay in touch with friends… but he always parked in the same spot, and I now know it was the nearest point to her body”. Only his weirdness didn’t end there. After his arrest, having read his statements and piecing all of the strange little things he had done over those nine months, Jayne stated “he took a morbid interest in the police’s hunt for her killer”, and when the reconstruction of Wendy’s last known movements was broadcast, “he was at work and he kept ringing me up and saying ‘Can you see me? Do I look alright?’ For the next month he was on a high. He never stopped talking about it and was bragging to everyone about how he had been on TV. Looking back, I’m surprised he didn’t start handing out autographs”… …as being a local nobody, by killing Wendy, he had suddenly become a someone. (End) The trial was held at Stafford Crown Court, before Mr Justice Hughes. Anthony Baker QC for the defence stated that Wendy Upton had ‘goaded him to kill’ by threatening to tell his wife that he had sex with her, her husband that he had raped her, and maybe this was true? He confessed to strangling her, stating “I put my hands around her throat, and I squeezed”, with her goading him “do it, do it”, and no other submissions by his defence except for his low mental age. David Crigman QC for the prosecution stated “it was a killing executed with coolness and callousness, no doubt because she angered him. That he killed her is clear… I tell you immediately that his protest of manslaughter, not murder, is as false as other lies he had told”, as even in court, all he did was lie. On the 28th of June 2000, having deliberated for 85 minutes, a jury of 10 men and 2 women found 31-year-old Steven Salisbury guilty of the wilful murder of Wendy Upton, and he was sentenced to life. Summing up, Justice Hughes stated “you killed her by strangling her and you then hid her body and it stayed hidden for months. There is not the slightest doubt that you added appreciably to the grief and distress of those who knew her by hiding it and taking steps as you did by casting suspicions on others”. DCI Hall told the press, “Salisbury gave the impression, even after he had confessed to the killing, that he did not care at all about what happened to Wendy Upton. He only cared about himself. His lack of remorse shows what a dangerous and callous man he is. Even minutes after he killed Wendy he was able to collect himself and go about his job. He lied and lied again to cover up what he had done. One by one we eliminated people from our inquiry until we were left with one person – Steven Salisbury. As he piled on the lies, Salisbury’s version of events were discredited. Salisbury is a dangerous man. He is a callous individual and a liar. He is going to prison for a long time and that is what he deserves” Upon his conviction, his wife, Jayne called him ‘pathetic’ and said he deserved to remain behind bars. As of today, 26 years on, it is uncertain if Steven Salisbury is out, or soon to be released. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: Thursday the 5th of June 1975, hairdresser William ‘Tommy’ Walker headed into Birmingham to buy supplies, he went to a few bars, and the nest day, his body was found 6 miles from his home, in a lover’s lane having been beaten to death and robbed. The police convicted two men of his murder, but how safe was this conviction?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Bentley, Warwickshire to explore how solid the conviction of Tommy Walker’s killers really were. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 360: Who ‘Rolled’ Tommy Walker? This killing began like any other; it had a victim (Tommy Walker), a suspect (Martin O’Halloran), a motive (robbery) and it ended after an investigation with two arrests, a trial and two convictions. It barely made the national press, yet it was called a miscarriage of justice, full of lies and corruption. In the eyes of the law, the murder was solved. The evidence was overwhelming, the culprits confessed, corroborated by witnesses, and Martin O’Halloran & Arthur Langford were convicted and imprisoned. So, why does a question mark hang over the killing Tommy Walker? Tommy hated his Christian name of William, so William Thomas Walker was known by everyone in his circle as ‘Tommy’. He also said he was 54-years-old, but being a little vain, Tommy wasn’t born in 1921 as he claimed, but in 1918, making him 57, but who doesn’t shave off a year or two as they age? Tommy was born and raised in the former mining village of Polesworth in North Warwickshire, living with his father, Christopher, who was a bricklayer and his housewife mother, Sarah, at 14 The Common with his older brother Albert and sister Dorothy, where they were educated at The Polesworth School. Generations of Walkers had lived and died in Polesworth, so everyone knew Tommy… or they thought they did, as although he never married or had a girlfriend – with homosexuality being only partially decriminalised in 1967 – few villagers knew he was gay, as many thought he was ‘eccentric’ or ‘camp’ like the other secretly gay or bisexual men of that era, Larry Grayson, Rock Hudson or Freddie Mercury. Aged 14, in the early 1930s, Tommy found his calling under the training of a local hairdresser and after a decade learning his craft, by the end of World War Two, he opened his own salon on the Tamworth Road which he ran for almost 30 years, becoming ‘one of the top ladies stylists in the district’. Many of his clients were wealthy, but his salon never expended being staffed by two assistants and his sister. As a man of sophistication and class, he was always stylishly dressed, he loved the finer things in life like fine wine, good food and high art. He was said to be pleasant and well mannered, if occasionally, a little bit sassy, but he was never embroiled in fights or arguments, as he always chose an easier life. For several years, he had lived in a small but tasteful flat at 23 Abbey Green Court in Polesworth, with his “friend” Tony Haynes, a bus driver with Midland Red in Tamworth, having met him 16 years before. Tony said “he was the kindest man you could wish to meet… if he saw anyone alone in a pub, he would buy them a drink. He was always smiling”, but he wasn’t a big drinker or a party animal. Described as a “perfect gentleman”, Tommy had no enemies, his business didn’t make a fortune, he had no secrets (except the obvious), and two months prior he’d holidayed with Tony in Morrocco, but he didn’t live an extravagant life. Some people said he was wealthy, but he wasn’t, as didn’t own his flat, his car was a nearly new Mark II Ford Capri in roman bronze, and in his will he left just £3400, £37,500 today. Tommy was murdered as proven in a court of law, but how safe was this conviction? Thursday the 5th of June 1975 was his last day alive, and also, although an important day for Britain, as a referendum had been called to see if we were to remain a member of the European Community, it was a typically ordinary day for Tommy Walker. He awoke, had breakfast, dressed in a white vest, blue blazer, a blue and red tie, a pair of hush puppies and – as a rare snow storm had hit a few days before, being a cool 12 to 14 degrees – he wore a distinctive suede jacket with a green flecked lining. Thursdays were the salon’s half day, so he closed at 1pm. At 2pm, he went to the poling station to cast his vote, Tony saw him chatting with two ladies and recalled “he said ‘cheerio, I’m going to Atherstone to tax my car, then I’m going along Watling Street to Birmingham”. All of this he did, and having filled up with fuel, at 4pm, he collected his stock at the wholesalers, leaving it in the boot of his Ford Capri. He bought a bottle of Bordeaux at Rackhams and at 5:20pm parked at the back of New Street Station. Far from the prying eyes and gossiping tongues of his village, this was where his secret life began… …but he wasn’t nervous or afraid, as he did this most Thursdays and Saturdays. Edwin Jowitt QC for the Prosecution unfairly stated in court “it was Mr Walker’s practice to spend the evening prowling the public houses and lavatories… to pick up a homosexual partner and take him back to Polesworth… he liked them manly and unkempt… younger men who looked down and out”. This is why robbery was said to be the motive, “as among the ‘gay set’, his nickname was ‘moneybags’ and ‘the millionaire’… he was often seen with rolls of notes in his hand”, and being an easy mark – not just for ‘queer bashers’ who violently attacked gay men, but also petty thieves who masqueraded as homosexuals – several times he had been assaulted, with his car stolen and his flat burgled. The pubs and clubs he visited were described as ‘dangerous’, ‘depressing’ and ‘grubby little hell holes’, and although he stood-out amongst the unwashed drunks, here he was known, liked and was a regular. At about 7:30pm, he was seen outside of the Toreador pub on Edgbaston Street, a dive for deadbeats, with an unidentified man, possibly Martin O’Halloren or Arthur Langford, but this is uncertain. At 8pm, he phoned Tony at his flat, “he said that he had met a friend” - someone nicknamed either ‘Irish’ or ‘Irish Thing’ but the line was crackly – he said nothing else, “but his last words were ‘I shan’t be late’”. At roughly 9:45pm, a short walk from the Bull Ring, he was seen by a friend, alone and outside of The Crown on the corner of Station Street and Hill Street, they talked and Tommy seemed his usual self. Then, a little after 10:10pm, he was seen near a set of notorious toilets at New Street Station between platforms 7 & 12, as used by gay men for cottaging, although the Police found few witnesses to confirm this, as that required them confessing to an illegal activity with Tommy just hours before his death. But is this where Tommy met his killer? In a pub in Birmingham’s gay district? In a public toilet for sex? Did they meet elsewhere as planned? And did Tommy plan to bring him back to his flat in Polesworth? Tony confirmed that Tommy often bought men back, “rough types”, so had no reason to hide it, and sometime after 10:40pm, Tommy drove his car 19 miles north-east in the direction of his village… ..and yet, he never made it home. Sometime between 11:10 and 11:30pm, five and a half miles short of Polesworth, Tommy’s Ford Capri pulled into the entrance of a dark secluded bridleway off the B4116 Coleshill Road in the tiny rural parish of Bentley. Opposite, the Horse & Jockey pub was closing, and at 11:40pm, as licensee Mary Taylor waved goodbye to her staff for the night, she saw Tommy’s car was parked up, dark and empty. No-one suspected that anything bad had happened, but 100 yards away, Tommy was dying in pain. The next morning, realising that Tommy was missing, Tony rang the hospitals to see if he had been admitted, then phoned the Police recalling “I can’t think who would want to do such a thing to him”. Around dawn, Alfred Stringer, a miner heading to the Baddesley Colliery walked down the bridleway, found a black pen and pocketed it, thinking nothing more of it. Passing again around noon with fellow miner Sam Keeling, “in the spot where I found the pen, the grass at the side of the path was lying flat. Being nosey, I saw a man in the ditch. He was lying face up with blood covering his face. It stunned me. He was partly covered in bracken”. He ran to the Horse & Jockey and Mary Taylor called the police. The investigation was headed up Detective Superintendent Harry Atkinson of Warwickshire CID. Timing-wise, a couple left the bridleway just after 11pm and didn’t see Tommy’s Capri, Mrs Mercer of nearby Meadow Cottage heard raised voices at around 11:15pm which she described as “cries of pain, then all went quiet”, and Mary Taylor saw the Capri parked and empty, but heard nothing at 11:40pm, which matches the fact that pathologist Derek Barrowcliffe established death as just before midnight. The crime scene was simple; tyre marks for a Ford Capri lay at the bridleway’s entrance, a flattened patch of grass suggested a struggle had taken place, his pockets were empty, drag marks led to a ditch, the body was dumped and covered in bracken, the car was stolen, and the culprits had vanished. Newspapers reported “Police believe that robbery was the prime motive for the killing”, which made sense, as everything of value or that could identify him was missing; two chequebooks, his credit cards, his wallet, his wrist watch, his keys, as well as his umbrella, his trilby hat, his suede coat, and his car. Police used tracker dogs to search the surrounding area, but none of these items could be found. For the police, this seemed to be the obvious timeline; Tommy went to Birmingham, met an unnamed man or men at 8pm as confirmed in a call to Tony, Tommy and both men had planned to drive back to Tommy’s flat, but instead stopped off at this lover’s lane in Bentley. All three – Tommy, and it is said Martin O’Halloran and Albert Langford, even though they both denied this - walked 250 feet into the isolated darkness of the bridleway, and either on the pretext of sex or masquerading as gay men mistakenly believing that Tommy was wealthy, they beat him and robbed him, but took it too far. Reports state “Tommy was about to engage in sexual activity”, it wasn’t clear how they determined this, whether his flies were undone or his penis was out, but he had partially undressed, as he had left his suede coat in the car, his tie was undone, his blazer was open, and his white vest was bloodstained. Prior to or during sex, in a surprise attack, one of the men (said to be Langford) grabbed Tommy from behind, pulled his blazer over his head and trapped his arms so he couldn’t fight back. With one culprit (maybe O’Halloran) described as “brutal, merciless, experienced in violence”, he viciously beat Tommy about the head, kicking him as he lay helpless on the ground, with pathologist Derek Barrowcliffe stating “his skull was fractured, he died in considerable pain and agony”, as haemorrhaging internally, it took at least an hour for Tommy to die, as he lay paralysed and barely conscious in the cold ditch. So, did this begin as a robbery by two down and outs masquerading as gay men… …and mistakenly end in a murder? Tommy Walker had no enemies or rivals, only friends, so that side of the investigation hit a dead end. His credit cards and his chequebooks weren’t used after his death, and his jewellery wasn’t pawned. His car, a bronze Mark II Ford Capri was one of 38,000 sold that year so it wasn’t exactly unique, but on the first day of the hunt, the West Midlands Police helicopter was called in to search for the car. Eight hours later, 105 miles north-west of Bentley, in the village of Rainford in St Helen’s, Merseyside, a farmer found the Ford Capri abandoned in a field, its registration plate TKV195J was missing, as well as Tommy’s driving licence, insurance certificate, MOT, registration book, and being forensically aware it had been wiped clean of fingerprints, with the carpet ripped out, and the console’s ashtray missing. Five days later, the licence plates were found not too far away, having been wiped clean and smashed. Were his killers from Merseyside? The Police thought not, as believing it was probably a smoke screen to throw them of the trail, they kept their focus local, thinking that Tommy’s attackers had initially planned to ‘roll’ Tommy and raid his flat, but realising he may be dead, they dumped the car, and fled. Four weeks into the man-hunt, the investigation’s HQ moved from the nearby village of Atherstone to Steelhouse Lane in Birmingham City Centre, stating “we are certain that the ‘twilight’ world in which Tommy lived could give us the answers we want” believing his sexuality was also a motive to his killing. But this side of the investigation was flawed from the outset, as their relations with the gay community was hostile, and their detective skills were peppered with ignorance and prejudice. Treating every gay man as a suspect rather than a potential witness, constables swarmed the gay district, and (laughably) undercover officers dressed in floral shirts and tight trousers tried to “blend in”. Many gay pubs were raided, regulars were “rounded up”, and the Police seemed shocked that “they were unwilling to talk”. And why would they, as back then, being one of the most corrupt Police forces in the country – who at that moment were fabricating evidence and forcing confessions leading to the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham 6, which in 1989, led to the disbanding of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad – the gay community went silent over the killing of one of their own, for fear of being ‘fitted up’. Details were sparse and sketchy at best, and said to be “corrupt to the core”, a month later, the Police announced “we have traced a witness to the murder who is being given full police protection”, yet in hindsight, it’s likely that this was either a lie, as they claimed “we have a photofit of the killer, but have decided not to release it”, which is an odd move in a nationwide man-hunt, or that this witness was actually Mrs Mercer of Meadow Cottage, who admitted she heard “cries of pain”, but saw nothing. One month in, and the Police didn’t have a name or a description of his killers. All they had to go on was a remark made by Tommy to Tony over a crackly phone line in which he though he said at 8pm, he met a man nicknamed ‘Irish’, ‘Irish Thing’ or ‘Irish Something’ suggesting he couldn’t recall the rest. Reports state “exhaustive inquiries pointed in the direction of Arthur Langford”, a 35-year-old Scottish born native of Birmingham, twice divorced, who was nicknamed ‘peg leg Jock’ due to his artificial limb. With fair hair, side burns and a handlebar moustache, his criminal record was so long he was on first name terms with the police, he was seen drinking with Tommy in Birmingham that night, he was broke and of no-fixed-abode, and admitted of Tommy, “I know the bloke. He was a hairdresser. I had known him a long time and he used to give me money. I knew where he lived and I liked his apartment”. Arrested in a pub in Vauxhall on the 15th of July 1975, Langford was charged at Atherstone Magistrates Court, he plead ‘not guilty’ to murder and said he was in the company of his friend, Martin O’Halloran. Two days later, O’Halloran was arrested at his sister’s home at Honeysuckle Gardens in Hatfield, where he is said to have stated to Police “I have been expecting you”. Martin Anthony O’Halloran was a 26-year-old Irish drifter from Kildare, who was known as ‘Gypsy Dave’ and ‘Kojak’, he had brown hair and arched eyebrows, and having a low IQ, it was said he couldn’t read or write, and had a poor memory. In his first statement, Langford said that on Thursday 5th of June 1975 (the day of the murder) himself, O’Halloran and a friend Alan Smith hitchhiked from Birmingham to London, met O’Halloran’s girlfriend Patricia Riorden, Alan left them, they slept rough in Charing Cross, and headed to O’Halloran’s sisters house in Hatfield, where they stayed for several weeks. And at no point did they return to Birmingham. Read Langford’s statement, O’Halloran agreed with this version, but the detectives weren’t having it, “I was arrested” O'Halloran recalled “and this copper said ‘you’re guilty, that’s it’. I told him he’d got it wrong but he slapped me across the face”. As far as the police were concerned, they had their man. And then, Langford entirely changed his story claiming he was in fear of the police’s brutality… …and put the blame on Martin O’Halloran, his friend with the low IQ and bad memory. Presenting himself as O’Halloran’s lapdog, Langford said they met Tommy in Birmingham on the night of the murder. Raymond Conners, manager of the Ringway Club on Bromsgrove Street recalled seeing ‘Peg Leg’ and ‘Gypsy Dave’ along with a woman, believed to be Patricia Riorden, they then went to the Rendezvous café, and was spotted by a bus conductor who recalled the man with the artificial leg. That night, between 9 and 10pm, a barman at The Crown on the corner of Station Street and Hill Street recalled seeing Tommy, Patricia, Langford and O’Halloran sitting in the back lounge, drinking together. The mid-section around the murder was sketchy in Langford’s retelling, and yet, backed-up by other witnesses, what happened next painted what was described as “a heartbreaking picture of betrayal”. In the early hours of Friday the 6th of June, after the body was hidden and the car was dumped, Martin O’Halloran’s sister, Mary, said they both arrived at her house in Hatfield, and she was shocked at their state, “Martin’s clothes were stained with blood and there were grass marks on his knees”. He told her he had been in a fight, so she washed his clothes, and she scrubbed his shoes with a nailbrush. In her statement, Mary recalled that O’Halloran had said they had argued, “Martin said ‘I hit him, he went down and didn’t get up’. Arthur said to me ‘I went to see if the bloke was dead’”, but he wasn’t. Keen to make it ‘look good’, “Martin hit and kicked him again”, and then emptied Tommy’s pockets. Some details in her statement make no sense, as she claimed “they put him in the car, and drove him to his flat”, which Arthur knew, recalling “I knew where he lived and I liked his apartment”, but for no known reason – except that Tony was in - “Arthur said they went back to the (bridleway) and put him in a safe place”. They covered the body in bracken, drove the car to Merseyside, stripped it and fled. When asked by the judge why Mary was testifying against her own brother, Martin O’Halloran said it was because she was in love with Arthur Langford, and O'Halloran had "taken him away from her". As for Patricia Riorden, O’Halloran’s girlfriend, even though in the first of six statements, she said she had been with both men in London, his alibi was shattered when she stated that he was supposed to meet her that night, but he didn’t turn up and threatened to hurt her if she didn’t corroborate his lies. According to the statements of his best friend, his girlfriend and his sister, Martin O’Halloran, the Irish drifter with the low-IQ and the bad memory had targeted Tommy Walker, attacked him, and ordered Arthur Langford, his patsy, to help get rid of the body. He had then ordered Alan Smith to claim they had hitchhiked to London together, providing him with a weak alibi, and forcing Mary & Patricia to lie. The Police believed this wasn’t a grudge attack or a targeted hit, as unlike Langford, O’Halloran didn’t know Tommy, so it was more likely he was a victim of ’queer rolling’. In court, an unnamed witness stated that O’Halloran told him he’d ‘rolled a queer’, and was seen wearing a watch, possibly Tommy’s. But why, if he had planned to rob a supposedly wealthy homosexual who was nicknamed ‘money bags’ and carried rolls of notes, why did O’Halloran not attack Tommy in one of the notorious public toilets where he was seen cottaging, where witnesses would be few and the Police would fail to investigate? Why did he travel, with Tommy and Langford, 19 miles from Birmingham, a few miles from his flat in Polesworth and stop at an isolated lover’s lane in the tiny rural village of Bentley? Did Tommy demand sex, and scupper their plans as heterosexual thieves masquerading as gay to ‘roll’ a wealthy stylist, or was the car stopped here as it had become clear that, he couldn’t rob Tommy’s flat as Tony was home. Either way, a robbery went too far, and instead of being beaten senseless, Tommy was murdered. Questioned over many days and weeks, O’Halloran broke down being interrogated by the police. So, had the Police finally uncovered the truth… …or was this illiterate drifter with a low IQ and bad memory just confused by all these statements? On the 3rd of March 1976 at Birmingham Crown Court, Martin O’Halloran and his ex-best-friend Arthur Langford pleaded ‘not guilty’ to murder. Initially both were defended by Faber & Co, but Langford’s defence was later presented by John Field Evans QC with Brian Escott-Cox QC for O’Halloran. Edwin Jowitt QC for the Prosecution pulled apart their alibis stating “both men have lied their way out of trouble”, with Alan Smith being charged with perjury for providing a false statement. With a wealthy of witnesses condemning them, 80 pieces of evidence against them, Tommy having stated before his death he had met an “Irishman”, and with O’Halloran portrayed as a drunk with a foul temper and Langford as his terrified lapdog, the jury took just three hours of deliberation to come to a conclusion. On 26th of March 1976, Martin O'Halloran was found guilty of murder and given a life sentence, with the judge describing him as a ‘very dangerous man’. Albert Langford was found guilty, but of the lesser charged of manslaughter, and he was sentenced to just four years in prison. Summing up, the Judge said to Langford “I accept on the evidence I have heard that you were the weaker element… you were dominated by O’Halloran… you were his lapdog, tagging along, willing to join in anything he was doing. I think one of the few things you said that was true was that you didn’t want this to happen to Tommy”. Both men were convicted, but how safe were these convictions? (End) Before the Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Police could decide which evidence they brought to trial, even if it unfairly favoured one defendant over another in an era of endemic Police corruption. After their convictions, Langford sent O’Halloran a series of letters (even though he was illiterate); one read "Martin, as you know, I did this killing on my own", another read, “every day I feel a little more sad knowing that you are walking around convicted of a crime you did not do”, and although he also sent a confession to O’Halloran’s lawyers, as it conflicted with the trial’s conclusion, it was dismissed. In 1995, he begged for a fresh investigation, but the Prisons Minister Ann Widdecombe rejected this. By then, he had served his eight-year minimum tariff, but still pleading his innocence, after two strokes and a heart attack left him partially sighted and paralysed, O’Halloran went on to serve a full 28 years. In 1996, Langford died, taking the truth with him. But Maggie, Langford’s daughter, later verified the letters as real and stated that her dad "was adamant that he'd done it… he wouldn't say that all this time if it wasn't true", and she said that her father went to his grave protesting O'Halloran's innocence. In June 1999, the BBC’s Rough Justice programme found a witness who admitted they lied under Police pressure, one lied in court, several retracted their statements including Patricia Riorden – who said that O’Halloran was in London at the time of the murder – and questioning Mary, O’Halloran’s sister, she said that the bloody clothes she washed actually belonged to Langford and not O’Halloran, and being illiterate, that she had no idea what she was signing when the police wrote up her statements. In 2003, Martin O’Halloran was released from prison, being nearly blind and disabled. For 12 years, his appeals were rejected, so in 2015, he submitted himself to the Utah Test, the most accurate polygraph test, and he passed. And even if that system is flawed, ask yourself this; given that he was illiterate, had a low IQ and a bad memory which Langford abused to get off a murder charge, could he have come up with this plan to use himself as a gay honey-trap, would he have known wipe Tommy’s car clean of his fingerprints, strip it of any documentation, destroy the licence plates, the carpet, the ashtray and anything which would have forensically linked to him? Or was this just a coincidence that it fitted the Police’s needs? Was the conviction of Tommy Walker’s killer safe, or was it a miscarriage of justice? 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. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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