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Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End. 

• 30 minute weekly true-crime podcast - EVERY THURSDAY
• 300+ infamous, untold or often forgotten true murders
• Based on Soho's FIVE STAR rated Murder Mile Walks
• Research collected from original and first-hand sources
• Authentic sounds recorded from the location itself
• An audio guided walk... all from the comfort of your home

To accompany your audio guided walk, what follows is a series of photos, videos and maps, so that no matter where you are listening to this podcast, you'll feel like you're actually there. ​​​

EPISODE TWENTY

Episode Twenty: On 1st November 2006, Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated in the heart of London’s West End, by two of Russia’s top assassins, using one of the most bizarre and deadliest poisons ever, and yet, from day one, his brutal murder was a textbook case of incompetence.  

• Date: Wednesday 1st November 2006
• Location: The MIllennium Hotel (Grosvenor Square)
• Victims: 1 (Alexander Litvinenko)
• Culprit: Andrey Lugovoy & Dimitri Kovtun

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THE LOCATIONS

Ep20 – The Bungled Assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about the bungled assassination attempts of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, whose truly incompetent murderers left a deadly trail of lethal poison all across London’s West End. Murder Mile contains grisly details which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 20: The Bungled Assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko.

Today I’m on Shaftesbury Avenue; not the shit bit of Shaftesbury Avenue, but the really tacky bit wedged between Soho and Chinatown, just shy of Piccadilly Circus; where every day you’ll see a slew of easily duped tourists who have either forked-out a hundred quid each to sit for six hours on a rainy open-top bus to take blurry photos of Buckingham Palace as they whizz by at 40 miles-an-hour; sightseers in transparent ponchos with eight cameras around their necks and a bum-bag full of cash who struggle with an over-sized map and might as well be holding a sign which says “mug me”; and flocks of feckless overseas students with matching backpacks and no money who simply take up space, talk too loud and (let’s be honest) shoplift, as well as idiots with self-sticks, halfwits with Harrods bags and morons who give money to a motionless man in a Yoda mask, all who’ve come to London, only to avoid all of the truly amazing traditional British pubs, cafes and restaurants, and end up eating the same shit that they do back home, in an identical branch of Planet Hollywood, McDonalds or Pizza-Hut. (exhales) Of course, if you’re visiting our lovely city, thank you for coming to London, and we hope you enjoy your stay. Oh, and come on a Murder Mile Walk, it really is excellent.

Right now, I’m standing outside of The Piccadilly Hotel at 65-73 Shaftesbury Avenue, formerly called The Shaftesbury; a four star hotel with a red-brick, gold trimmed and black glass-fronted façade, which the new owners, current staff and any future customers may be delighted to know that this was not the murder location. And yet, this is where our story begins; a true-story about espionage, Russian spies, British agents, foreign defectors and nuclear weapons, which happened under the very noses of the British secret service, and yet it wasn’t set in 1946, 1956 or even 1966, but in 2006. Fourteen years after the end of the Cold War, and yet, it began with the arrival of two of Russia’s most incompetent assassins named Andrey Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun. (INTERSTITIAL).

On the bright crisp morning of Monday 16th October 2006, at a little after 7am, a routine flight for the Russian airline Transaero departed Moscow’s Vnukovo International airport on a four hour and twenty minute flight to London Gatwick. With the Boeing 747 being sparsely filled with just a smattering of suited businessmen and eager holiday-makers, the stewardesses began serving coffee, entirely unaware that two of their passengers had hidden about their bodies something so rare that it can’t be bought, something so small that it could be hidden in an eye-dropper, something so deadly it could kill everyone on the plane and no-one would know how, when or why.

But they weren’t smugglers, thieves or terrorists, they were just two men casually dressed in jeans, t-shirts and jackets, who sat, chatted and raised no suspicions. And yet both men had dark histories.

Born on 19th September 1966, Andrey Konstantinovich Lugovoy was a 40 year former commander for the KGB’s 9th directorate proving defensive, tactical and combat training for the Kremlin’s top soldiers, agents and assassins; later promoted to a Commander in the FBS (Russia’s secret police), Lugavoy now headed-up his own security firm known as the Ninth Wave. And yet, he didn’t look like a killer, instead - being 5 foot 9 inches tall, 13 stone in weight, with blue eyes, fair hair slightly combed over to disguise a slight bald-patch and a sneering face onto which a smile seemed unnatural – he looked more like a ragged Daniel Craig portraying a stereotypical Russian in a badly directed 1980’s spy thriller.

And although his partner on the flight - Dmitri Vladimirovich Kovtun – had a similar upbringing, being childhood friends who rose together through the ranks of the KGB, 41 year old Kovtun was moody, surly, antisocial and rude, who had very few morals or rules, and would often state “I don’t care about anything in life, only money”. And yet, he didn’t look like a killer either – as being a lightly toned man, with a tanned complexion, brown eyes, dark brown hair speckled with flecks of salt & pepper colouring and a smooth unwrinkled face having never cracked a smile – Kovtun looked more like a bad tribute act to the Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho.

And although they travelled under the guise of businessmen coming to the UK for a regular meeting, really they were here to kill, having been instructed (by the highest order in the Kremlin) to assassinate a Russian defector, staunch critic of Vladimir Putin, MI6 agent and investigative journalist into Russian organised crime, who neither man had any debts with, hatred for, and who was even Andrey Lugavoy’s friend, colleague and business partner. Their target’s name was Alexander Litvinenko (INTERSTITIAL).

At a little before 11:30am, the Boeing 747 from Moscow landed at Gatwick’s North Terminal and travelling light with flight cases and suit-bags, the hired assassins disembarked hiding one of the world’s deadliest murder weapons. Lugovoy & Kovtun were briefly questioned by customs agents whose instincts were finely tuned to detect anything suspicious, and as both men gave short evasive answers, had official passports, IDs and no criminal record, having had baggage checked, none of which contained alcohol, drugs, guns, knives or explosives, they legally entered Britain.

At exactly 11:49am, Lugavoy phoned Alexander Litvinenko, his business partner and intended target to confirm a pre-arranged meeting in Mayfair that afternoon; Alexander was in, the plan was on, and his death was just hours away. It was a murder that no-one knew was coming, all but a few people were expecting, and using a silent and effective weapon which was almost completely untraceable – if successful – his killers would be out of the country before anyone even knew what had happened. It was the perfect murder. Or it would have been, if Lugavoy & Kovtun hadn’t been so laughably inept.

Having ridden the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station, at roughly 1pm, Lugavoy & Kovtun checked into The Shaftesbury Hotel. With the tiring seven hour journey behind them, they both unpacked, washed and changed into their chosen disguises, adopting the look, style and demeanour of two highly respectable businessmen… if those businessmen were colour-blind, had dressed in the dark and their attire was entirely inspired by a cheesy mob-villain from 1980’s TV series Miami Vice.

Rather than adopting anonymous black suits to help them blend seamlessly into the city, Lugovoy opted for a loud brown chequered suit, Kovtun wore the tackiest silvery metallic suit imaginable, made of finest polyester, and with both men accentuating their look with brightly coloured shirts, garish ties, day-glo socks and a wrist-jangling assortment of chunky gold chains, bracelets and sovereign rings, their unsubtle attire was so shocking and eye-wateringly gaudy, that it caused the hotel staff to chuckle, with the hotel’s manager (Goran Krgo) later commenting “The colours didn’t match, the suits were either too big or too small. They just didn’t look like people who were used to wearing suits. They looked like – I think the expression is - like a donkey with a saddle”. But feeling like they looked a million Robles, Lugavoy & Kovtun headed out to commit the perfect murder.

At 3pm, as planned, with Lugavoy dressed like Burberry’s biggest fan and Kovtun shimmering like a budget disco ball, they confidently sashayed into the London office of Erinys; a security consultancy based at 25 Grosvenor Street and the chosen spot for Litvinenko’s murder, which happened to be just five hundred metres from the heavily guarded American Embassy, that also housed a CIA surveillance substation. And yet, Lugavoy & Kovtun sat down for a meeting in the fourth-floor boardroom of Erinys, with the company’s head Tim Reilly, and Lugavoy’s business partner Alexander Litvinenko.

Born Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko on 4th December 1962, 44 year old Litvinenko (who went under the pseudonym of Edwin Redwald Carter, but was known by his friends as Sacha) was a former KGB and FSB officer who defected to the UK in 2000 with his wife (Marina) and son (Anatoly), having become a fervent critic of corruption in the Kremlin, the systematic assassination of any dissenting voices and having accused former head of the FSB Vladimir Putin of orchestrating a series of bombings of civilian apartment blocks which killed 293 people, injured over 1000, and - having blamed it on the Chechen rebels - it boosted Putin’s electoral popularity in his bid to be President of the Russian Federation. Although slightly shy, spend-thrift and religiously teetotal (having converted from Christianity to Islam), with reddish brown hair, pale skin and blue-eyes, his weapon of choice was the pen, which he used with devastating effect as a journalist, author and an expert in Russian organised crime, who now worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service – MI6.

In the Erinys boardroom, on the fourth-floor of 25 Grosvenor Street, the meeting began with the customary polite chatter and pleasantries; Litvinenko had his back to the bay windows, Tim sat to his right and Lugavoy & Kovtun seated opposite (dressed like a pair of cartoon pimps), but every time Tim tried to steer the talk to business, Kovtun huffed, hardly uttering a single word and Lugavoy seemed desperate for his comrades to have a drink, as placed between, in the centre of the circular wooden table covered in a green fabric table cloth was four white cups and a freshly brewed pot of tea.

Tim Reilly would later state that Lugovoy was oddly persistent in his need to ensure that everyone was hydrated, “he kept on saying to me – don’t you want any [tea], won’t you have any?”, to the point where so exasperated had Tim become, even though he didn’t like tea and never drank tea, he poured three cups of green tea for his three guests; Lugavoy, Kovtun and Litvinenko.

And there they sat, everyone except Kovtun talking, with the murder weapon perched just inches from the left hand of its intended target, disguised as a humble cup of tea, inside of which was a poison; so discrete it had almost no taste, so deadly they only needed a few drops, so lethal there was no cure, and it took effect so slowly, that hours from now when their victim would start dying, his killers would long gone. All they needed was for Litvinenko to take a drink.

But it wasn’t arsenic, mercury or even cyanide; three readily available poisons which are easy to buy, administer, dispose of and disguise. No, their poison of choice was the ridiculously rare and impossibly expensive Polonium-210; a radioactive isotope made in a nuclear reactor, which although invisible, undetectable and (when swallowed) is one hundred billion times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide, and yet every batch of Polonium 210 has a unique chemical signature which identifies its precise location of origin - with this batch coming from a supposedly secret FSB laboratory in Sarov, Russia.

Of course, Lugavoy & Kovtun can’t really be blamed for choosing such a ludicrous poison, as access to nuclear chemicals clearly happened well above their miniscule pay-grade, and had either man been informed what they had secreted in an eye-dropper - instead of dressing like a Laura Ashley table-cloth and an extra-long roll of tin-foil - maybe having purchased rubber gloves, gas-masks, wellington boots and a set of Hazmat suits, they may have been a tad more careful with how they smuggled, handled, and eventually disposed of one of the world’s deadliest radioactive poisons.

Weeks later, when nuclear scientists examined the Erinys fourth-floor boardroom with their Geiger Counters, it was heaving with radioactive contamination. To put this into context; the safe level of radiation that the average person absorbs (through sunlight) every 207 days is roughly 100 Clicks Per Minute, a standard Geiger counter is set to record up to a maximum of 500 Clicks Per Minute, and yet, almost every piece of furniture in that room caused a “full-scale deflection” – readings so high, they were off the scale.

But with a large uneven patch of the green fabric table cloth, where Litvinenko had been sitting, spiking at a 160 times higher than the safe radiation level, it indicated that (at some point before the meeting had ended) Alexander Litvinenko had spilled his tea… and left, having not drank a single drop.

Later that evening, with his skin having been exposed to high levels of Polonium 210, when Litvinenko arrived back at his Muswell Hill home, he began to feel unwell, and as his body was struck down with radiation sickness, he started to vomit. But by the morning, he was fine, and thinking he had eaten some bad Sushi during his post-meeting debrief with Lugavoy & Kovtun, he put his queasiness down to a mild case of food poisoning, got dressed, had breakfast and continued with his day.

The assassination was a total disaster; not just because their victim was still alive, well and unharmed, but because (having spilled the poisoned tea) everywhere that Litvinenko’s bungling assassins went and on everything they touched, they left a very distinctive radioactive trail, all across the West End, from Erinys at 25 Grosvenor Street to Itsu (the Sushi restaurant) at 167 Piccadilly.

And instead of commiserating their abject failure as the Kremlin’s most incompetent assassins ever, Lugavoy & Kovtun spent the night dressed and acting like two low-rent hoods who’d just conned four hundred quid out of a blind old lady by selling her a cut & shut Nissan Micra. Having first gorged themselves silly on £214’s worth of Italian seafood and pizzas at Pescatori on Charlotte Street, they then smoked a £9 shisha pipe on the terrace of the Dar Marrakesh in the Trocadero centre, hired a rickshaw for an hour-long midnight ride around the West End, taking in a few of its seediest bars, and feeling slightly affronted by the heavy homosexual vibe of Soho, these two very manly men (wearing brightly coloured shirts and an excess of jewellery) were so desperate to “meet some girls”, that they ended the night by partying it up at Helvo in Jermyn Street, a private member’s club styled like a Russian brothel, complete with frilly pink cubicles, mirrored walls, the dancefloor dominated by a large bronze cock, and a bordello style bathroom which spurted hot water from penis-shaped taps.

Later, in Room 107 of The Shaftesbury Hotel, being a little worse-for-wear having quaffed an ungodly excess of pink champagne, with Lugavoy being a highly trained assassin who knew not only how to kill but also how to cover his tracks, he took the remainder of the Polonium 210, and tipped it down the sink, contaminating the bathroom, the pipework and the hotel, as this highly radioactive isotope sat in the sink’s u-bend emitting 30 times the safe level of radiation for weeks to come.

And even though they’d paid in advance for two nights at The Shaftesbury hotel, Lugavoy & Kovtun promptly checked-out early the next morning, hopped in a cab and booked into the Parkes Hotel at Beaufort Gardens, Knightsbridge, whinging to the staff about the condition of the rooms, when it is safe to say that the real reason they left wasn’t a deep-seated desire to sleep on firmer beds, softer sheets and fluffier pillows, they just wanted to get as far away as possible from the nuclear disaster they’d unleashed in a Soho bathroom.

The following morning, on Wednesday 18th October 2006, having packed away their pimp costumes (perhaps feeling a little fed-up with resembling an all-white tribute act to the Blaxploitation film Shaft), Lugavoy & Kovtun hopped on the next Transaero flight from Heathrow to Moscow, and having left traces of Polonium 210 in seats 26E and 26F, they ensured that (with the British authorities desperate to test both planes) that neither Boeing 747 returned to British airspace ever again.

Sadly, the same could not be said for Andrey Lugavoy, the poor man’s Daniel Craig, as having had his hand slapped, his knuckles rapped and his bottom smacked by his bosses in the FSB, they ordered him to return to London to do it properly. Only this time he left behind his partner-in-crime, Dimitri Kovtun, a man with a bafflingly long career in one of the most secretive organisations ever – the KGB, and yet, days before his failed attempt to kill Litvinenko, he had confided to a friend “I’ve got a very expensive poison, I’ve got to put it in their food or drink, do you know any chefs or waiters who could help me?”

One week later, on Wednesday 25th October 2006, having packed a less-embarrassing suit and making full use of the FSB’s liberal expenses policy for hired assassins, Lugavoy flew from Moscow to Heathrow on British Airways flight 875, sitting in seat 6k of business class, with a fresh batch of Polonium 210 safely ensconced in his bag, and checked himself into the five-star Sheraton Park Hotel on Piccadilly, just by The Ritz, occupying Room 848 on the eighth floor, which had lovely views over Green Park.

That afternoon, in the hotel’s art-deco tea-room called Palm Court, Lugavoy and Litvinenko met once again, and this time, Lugavoy’s intended target sat there, in front of him, his left hand rising and falling as he repeatedly put the tea-cup to his lips, thirstily supping great glugs of green tea from a silver teapot, and never once spilling a single drop, until every last drop of tea was drank.

But he didn’t die, he didn’t even feel ill, in fact Litvinenko found it quite refreshing, and was very grateful for the free tea, not just because he was a skinflint who hated wasting good money on over-priced items, but – as a defected Russian dissident - it was nice to have a drink paid for by FSB.

A short while later, the meeting ended, they shook hands and parted ways. And for reasons which aren’t fully understood, inside Lugavoy’s bag was an unopened vile of Polonium 210.

Later, in Room 848 of The Sheraton Park Hotel, being a little tipsy having quaffed three large glasses of red wine and puffed away on a king-sized Cuban cigar, with Lugavoy being a highly trained assassin who knew not only how to kill but also how to cover his tracks, he took the unused bottle of Polonium 210, opened it, and poured it down the sink, once again contaminating the bathroom, the pipework and the hotel, as well as a small white peddle-bin next to the loo where he had casually discarded the radioactive eye-dropper, and several white hand-towels, having used them to mop-up the lethal nuclear poison which he had spilled all over the floor.

So bad was this spill, that weeks later, when two nuclear scientists from Aldermaston’s Atomic Weapons Establishment examined Room 848, not only had Lugavoy done an awful job of cleaning-up the mess, having splashed Polonium on the floor, walls, door, the bath, the sink and the loo, but with their Geiger counters recording ”full-scale deflections” which were 500 times higher than safe levels, the bathroom was so radioactive, that even whilst wearing breathing apparatus and Hazmat suits, the nuclear scientists asked to withdraw to a safe distance and the room was sealed until further notice.

Once again, Lugavoy returned to Russia, received another slapped wrist, rapped knuckles and smacked bottom, only to be ordered to return to the UK, so that – this time – he could kill Litvinenko properly.

So, one week later, once again, Lugavoy flew back to Britain, packing a third bottle of radioactive Polonium 210, only this time he was aided by his trusty partner-in-crime, Dimitri Kovtun, the sulky Jose Mourinho look-a-like, because clearly they had worked so well together the first time.

On Tuesday 31st October 2006, at 8:30pm, into the five star Millennium Hotel at 44 Grosvenor Square, just three hundred feet from their first ill-fated assassination attempt at Erinys offices, and just two hundred feet from the US Embassy and its CIA surveillance substation, Lugavoy entered. This time his disguise was simple and effective, as dressed in blue jeans, a black leather jacket and a mustard yellow jumper, he looked like a regular family man, as that’s what he was, as on this trip, he was accompanied by his wife Svetlana, their three daughters, a family friend and his eight year old son Igor.

Being in a jubilant mood, surrounded by his loved ones and excited to watch his beloved football team, CSKA Moscow who were due to play against Arsenal the next evening, everyone was in high spirits, unaware of the real ulterior motive for this hastily arranged holiday.

On Wednesday 1st November 2006, at just after 2pm, 44 year old Alexander Litvinenko left his home in Muswell Hill (North London), dressed in a blue denim jacket and dark jeans, and being conscious of the exorbitant cost of travel in the capital city, especially as his consultancy work for MI6 wasn’t full-time and didn’t pay all that well, using his pre-paid Oyster card, he hopped on the W7 bus, riding ten stops to Finsbury Park, then headed nine stops south on the Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus.

At 3pm, for a pre-arranged lunch at Itsu (the heavily contaminated sushi restaurant where two weeks earlier he had a meeting debrief with his bungling cack-handed assassins), Litvinenko met with Mario Scaramella, an ex-FSB agent, security consultant, lawyer and (ironically) an expert in nuclear weapons.

And yet, their lunch would only be brief; as with Lugavoy & Kovtun eager to finally do a good job, not be proved to be total imbeciles, to ensure the swift and successful death of Alexander Litvinenko, and all without missing the 7pm kick-off between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal, Lugavoy repeatedly called his target, badgering him to “hurry up”. 

With their careers and lives on the line, nerves had clearly got the better of them, as they paced back and forth, double-checked their watches and dashed into the loo every few minutes (leaving a trail of radiation on everything they touched, including the sink, the taps, the dryer, and – almost certainly - their genitals). And although they’d only been waiting in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel for thirty minutes, Lugavoy & Kovtun had clocked up a bill of £70.60, for three gin and tonics, one champagne cocktail, one Romeo y Julieta cigar, one neat Gordon’s gin, and a pot of green tea with three cups.

At 3:59pm, Litvinenko arrived in the Millennium Hotel lobby, phoned Lugavoy and was ushered into the Pine Bar where Kovtun was seated. Both men seemed uptight and jumpy; with Kovtun even more moody and depressed than usual, as he sat there, saying very little, perpetually scowling like a man who (once again) was staring failure in the face. And although they had little time to spare, as much as Litvinenko diligently steered the conversation to their upcoming meeting with private security firm Global Risk, once again, Lugavoy steered the chat back to whether his guest would like a drink.

But all that was left on the table were a few empty gin & tonic bottles, a dribble of champagne cocktail, a bent cigar stub and – having got bored of waiting – before they’d added the Polonium, Lugavoy & Kovtun had drank most of the tea, meaning all that remained in the teapot was half a cup of cold green tea, with an unusually bitter taste, which was one hundred billion times deadlier than cyanide.

Being the Pine Bar’s ever dutiful waiter, Norberto Andrade asked Litvinenko “would you like to have anything to drink?”, which Lugavoy repeated, his pestering having become insufferable, but once again, not wanting to waste his own money, Litvinenko said “no”. And for the third time in two weeks, a simple assassination attempt had been thwarted by a teetotal man who wasn’t very thirsty.

But as the conversation progressed, Lugavoy became more persistent, pressuring Litvinenko that “if you would like something, order something for yourself, but we’re going to be leaving soon”, pointing to the white ceramic teapot and adding “If you want some tea, then there is some left here, you can have some of this?”

At approximately 4:20pm, the meeting was over, handshakes were given and a small dribble of highly radioactive cold green tea remained in Litvinenko’s cup, having poured what was left out of politeness.

Impatient to get to the football match at Arsenal’s north London stadium, Lugavoy’s wife Svetlana arrived in the hotel foyer, eagerly waved at her husband and mouthed the words “let’s go, let’s go”. And as the Lugavoy family mingled in the bar, with the ever-moody Kovtun declaring “I’m very tired, I want to sleep” and bailing on the hotly-anticipated match, Lugovoi – in a truly strange act of arrogance and perhaps self-sabotage - introduced his eight-year-old son Igor to Litvinenko, saying “This is Uncle Sasha, shake his hand”, which the boy dutifully did, not knowing that – just minutes earlier – Alexander Litvinenko had used that same hand to grasp the white ceramic handle, to raise the radioactive cup to his lips and to sup three small sips of cold green tea. Shortly afterwards, both parties parted ways, a few small drops of Polonium 210 in Litvinenko’s system.

Nuclear scientists dressed in boots, masks and hazmat suits would later examine the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square and detected radioactive traces on the table, the chairs, most door-handles, an ashtray, numerous glasses, cups, spoons, saucers, a milk jug and a sugar bowl, with the largest “full-scale deflection” reading coming off the white ceramic teapot, which the staff had unwittingly placed in the dishwasher, reused it with subsequent guests and spreading the radioactive isotope to the walls, the floor, the till, an ice-cream scoop, a chopping board and even a piano stool.

That evening, in Room 382 of The Millennium Hotel, being a little tipsy having quaffed two gin & tonics and a champagne cocktail, with Kovtun being a highly trained assassin who knew not only how to kill but also how to cover his tracks… yes, you’ve guessed it… he poured what remained of the Polonium 210 down the sink, contaminating another bathroom, another set of pipework and another hotel.

Travelling his usual route home, Litvinenko rode the Piccadilly Line to Finsbury Park, hopped on the W7 bus to Muswell Hill and – by the time Lugavoy and his family were getting seated to watch an uneventful goalless match between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal – he was back home, feeling fine, and ready to enjoy a celebratory dinner with his beloved wife (Marina) and young son (Anatoly), as today was the sixth anniversary of their arrival in Britain, having sought the safety, asylum and sanctuary of London, and fled the fear, the corruption and the threats of assassination in their native Russia.

At a little after midnight, feeling a little drowsy after a hearty dinner, Litvinenko was lying in bed when his head started to ache, which was to be expected after an exhausting day. With his energy drained and his brain throbbing, he noticed that his dry pale skin had become unusually sweaty, itchy and pockmarked with red inflamed patches, which could easily be attributed to an allergy. And suddenly feeling dizzy, hot and nauseous, he started to vomit, again and again and again, but this wasn’t food-poisoning, and as the night progressed, his condition got worse.

Litvinenko was transferred to the Critical Care Unit of University College Hospital, just off Tottenham Court Road, under his British pseudonym Edwin Redwald Carter, where – for 23 days – doctors struggled to save his life, witnessing a range of symptoms they’d never seen before, or since, as each of his limb’s went numb, his bone marrow dried up and every organ in his body slowly failed, not realising there was no treatment, no cure and no hope of his survival. And as Marina stroked her husband’s head, his reddish-brown hair came out in great clumps in her hand.

As he lay, in bed, his gaunt pale skin looking ghostly against his green surgical gown, with his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken and numerous catheters, drips and tubes connecting his failing body to an endless series of life-saving machines, Litvinenko – who’s head and body was now completely bald – resembled a terminal cancer patient who was dying at an exponentially rapid speed.

Over three days, mustering every ounce of energy his body could summon, Litvinenko gave eighteen interviews to the Police, during which he identified Andrey Lugavoy and Dimitri Kovtun as his assassins, and yet – in a signed statement, read out to the assembled press by his friend Alex Goldfarb – he laid his assassination squarely at one man, stating “You may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life”.

On 23rd November 2006 at 3pm, shocked scientists at Aldermaston Nuclear Weapons Establishment confirmed that the poison used was Polonium 210. But – that same day - having suffered his third heart attack in 24 hours, medics struggled to revive his weakened body, and by the time his beloved wife Marina and their young son Anatoly had rushed to be by his side, at 9:21pm 44 year old Alexander Litvinenko was pronounced dead. He was laid to rest in a lead-lined casket at Highgate cemetery.

To this day, Russian authorities refuse to accept the findings of the British inquiry, Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the evidence as false, and both the FSB and KGB have suggested that the death of Alexander Litvinenko was either an accident, a suicide, or that he had attempted to assassinate Lugavoy & Kovtun, with Russian authorities refusing to extradite the men for questioning.

Andrey Lugavoy & Dimitri Kovtun were hospitalised having been exposed to deadly doses of Polonium 210, they both made a full recovery; today Dimitri Kovtun is a moody security specialist in Moscow, and Andrey Lugavoy is a prominent Russian politician, deputy of Russian Parliament’s lower house, and he has also carved out a niche as a TV presenter on a factual series about Russian spies who defect to the UK, with an episode about the ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. The series is called ‘Traitors’.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.

If you’re looking for a new podcast, this week’s treat is MAUL. The Mysteries and Urban Legends podcast, which delves into – not just true-crime – but also ghosts, myths, murder, mayhem, so if you like chat with charm, horror with humour, and scary tales with surprises, then this may be the podcast for you. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode… will be something different.

Thank you and sleep well.

Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. ​​Additional music was written and performed by Kai Engel, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here

*** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated.
*** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Love true-crime podcasts? Subscribe to Murder Mile on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio, Spotify or Libsyn

Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End. 

• 30 minute weekly true-crime podcast - EVERY THURSDAY
• 300+ infamous, untold or often forgotten true murders
• Based on Soho's FIVE STAR rated Murder Mile Walks
• Research collected from original and first-hand sources
• Authentic sounds recorded from the location itself
• An audio guided walk... all from the comfort of your home

To accompany your audio guided walk, what follows is a series of photos, videos and maps, so that no matter where you are listening to this podcast, you'll feel like you're actually there. ​​

EPISODE EIGHTEEN

Episode Eighteen: On Friday 2nd October 1931, West End prostitute Norah Upchurch was found strangled inside a locked empty shop in Shaftesbury Avenue; with no sign of a break-in, no-one knows how she got in or how her killer got out. 87 years since her murder, her killer has never been caught. Or was he?

• Date: Tuesday 29th October 1931
• Location: 177 Shaftesbury Avenue (now demolished)
• Victims: 1 (Annie Louise Norah Upchurch)
• Culprit: Frederick Herbert Charles Field

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THE LOCATION

Ep18 – Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop – Part 1

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode eighteen of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

Since the beginning, my mission on Murder Mile has always been to focus on a small area of a city, to show that there truly is murder on every street and to draw attention to those little known murder cases which are often overlooked by newspapers, forgotten by history and lost to the mists of time.

And rather than rehashing tired old cases using woefully unreliable newspapers, I always try to use first-hand accounts, eyewitness testimony and the original declassified police investigation files. As by trawling through the witness statements, fingerprints, autopsy reports, crime scene photos and court transcripts, I hope I’ve introduced you to long-forgotten cases you’ve never heard before, but also reinvigorated the evidence by giving it a fresh spin, and - more importantly – given the victims a voice.

And today’s case is no exception, as she was a young woman with hopes and dreams, whose life was cruelly ended by an unnamed maniac who only had thoughts for his own greed and evil needs.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s podcast of the week, this time it’s the fascinating Occultea Veritas; thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End.

Today’s episode is about Norah Upchurch; a kind, caring, trustworthy and well-loved West End prostitute whose unsolved murder shocked the city’s streets, and yet – by carefully re-examining the original evidence – it’s clear that, all the while, Norah’s killer was hiding in plain sight.

Murder Mile contains graphic descriptions of death which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 18: Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop.

Today, I’m standing on Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2. Not the nice bit of Shaftesbury Avenue near Piccadilly Circus, by Soho, Chinatown and most of the West End theatres, but by the pug-ugly nasty bit near the arse-end of Covent Garden; an angry inner-city highway known as the A401, which runs thick with the choking fumes of trucks, the snarling engines of buses, the honking horns of cars and belching exhausts of black cabs whose swirling fare-meters move faster than their wheels ever do. And surrounded by bland office space, gloomy gothic buildings, a chef’s shop, a builder’s merchants and an infamous sci-fi toy-shop for fat middle-aged twats who are desperate to look either like they’re massively nerdy, mentally defective or a predatory paedophile. Oh yes, this is the part of Shaftesbury Avenue where you would only end up if you were lost, bored, desperate or depressed.

Having been blasted to smithereens by a Nazi bombing raid on 11th May 1941 at 3.47am, the original buildings in and surrounding 173 to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue were later demolished, rebuilt and oddly renumbered, starting from left with number 151, which then jumps to 177, only to double-back on itself at 175, leaps back to 167 and 169, double-backs on itself again by becoming 184 and finishing on the far right of these buildings with number 179, with 177 and 179 now being over three hundred feet apart, even though, back in 1931, they were side-by-side. It’s almost as if the city planners were desperate to erase this horrifying moment in history.

And yet, in a haunting and ominous parallel to those tragic events, outside of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, now renamed Mayfield House, which is once again an empty office space, now hangs an estate agent’s sign simply marked with the words “To Let”. It’s almost like a discrete memorial to memory of Norah Upchurch, as it’s right here where she was last seen alive, and where she would die (INTERSTITIAL).

On Friday 2nd October 1931 at 10am, Douglas W L Bartram, the foreman and manager of Hilder & Co, and one of his loyal workmen, Frederick Field (known by his friends as “Fred”) left their workplace at 23 Great Pultney Street in Soho. As handymen who managed vacant properties on behalf of Perry & Ball, a branch of local estate agents, Bartram and Field were assigned to check a leak in the water pipes and remove the “To Let” sign of the empty shop’s exterior at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue.

At 10:50am, with the only set of keys having vanished, and concerned that this dark and empty space may have become a hostel for hobos, a drug-den for deadbeats or a shag-palace for sex-perverts, the ever conscientious Mr Bartram checked every window and door. Assured there was no signs of a break-in, vandalism or theft, armed with a hammer and a chisel, Bartram forced entry by jemmying a wooden door which had been nailed over a broken window at the rear of the property (on New Compton Street) and entered the shop, with his workmate Frederick Field a few paces behind.

Although cold and dark, except for a broken office chair, an abandoned cabinet and a few scattered files, the shop was empty, so Bartram and Field set about seeking out this leaky pipe and awaited the arrival of a locksmith to secure the vacant property.

But as Field passed the thin dark-lit passageway leading to the front door of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, partially obscured by a white partition wall and lying on the cold and dusty floor, he saw what looked like a pair of legs. “What’s that?” Field nervously asked his foreman, pointing towards the splayed ladies lower-half complete with black stockings and high-heeled shoes, “Ah, it’s just one of them wax models” Bartram reassured him. But neither man was buying this, as with its crumpled clothes and unusual pose, it looked too realistic to be a dummy, and so being unsure and keeping his distance, Bartram poked it with his umbrella. What he expected was the hard hollow thud of a shop mannequin, what heard was nothing, as his umbrella tip sunk into the soft spongey skin of the corpse’s flesh.

Gulping hard, Bartram turned to his petrified colleague and stuttered “Fred? Get to Police”, as they were not alone. As inside this empty locked shop lay the body of Norah Upchurch. (INTERSTITIAL).

Born Annie Louise Norah Upchurch on 15th August 1911 in a working class area of Wembley; to Walter, a railway engineer and Louise, a housewife, Norah’s childhood was typical of those born in and around inner-city London of World War One. As being hungry, broke and malnourished, Norah and her siblings lived in constant fear as (unlike the Second World War when the buzz of German bombers alerted the city as death approached) over Norah’s London loomed a silent terror, as monstrous Zeppelin airships loaded with a barrage of bombs blitzed the city night-after-night.
Being a free-spirited young girl, Norah was always in trouble, often running away from her violent and unloving home and eagerly vying for the attention of boys. Proving too troublesome, aged just 14 years old, Norah was placed in the care of the Salvation Army at St Cuthbert's Hospital (in South Norwood), and having left school with no education, she worked briefly as a domestic servant. But as a young girl in the late 1920’s, the best that Norah could hope for was to get married or to work as a chambermaid, and yet Norah wanted so much more out of life, so aged just 16, Norah left for the bright lights of London’s West End, where she worked as a prostitute.

Although she had a difficult upbringing, according to everyone who knew her, Norah was a good person; fun-loving, sweet, likeable, trust-worthy and loyal, a professional sex-worker who didn’t drink or do drugs, she had very few debts and – as an independent single woman who saw prostitution as a temporary solution – she never had a pimp. She was her own boss, with a rented flat in Pimlico, a rented room in Bear Street (just off Leicester Square) and – having given birth a few years earlier to her beloved baby girl who she’d named Marjorie – Norah would only work from two pm to eight pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, striving to ensure that her three year old daughter would want for nothing, and got everything that Norah never had; food, warmth, toys, and the love of a devoted mother.

And yet, aged just 20 years old, being so full of hope, dreams and with a baby daughter back home, on the evening of Tuesday 29th September 1931, Norah would meet a mysterious man, who would offer her money for sex, but instead he would end up taking her life (INTERSTITIAL).

Shaking and trembling, 27 year old Frederick Field dashed to Bloomsbury Police Station and promptly returned with Sergeant Arthur Ferridge, Constable Lashmar and ten minutes later, the divisional police surgeon, Dr William Fairlie, who entered through the front door of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue.

Beyond the black wooden door with the frosted glass, the narrow passageway was dark and dusty, running twenty feet long, three feet wide and twelve feet high, with grey plaster brickwork to the left and a wooden partition wall to the right. Immediately beyond the door, on the black stone floor were two matches and a single half-smoked cigarette, which wasn’t Norah’s brand and yet it was stained with a crimson lipstick, suggesting that it was here that Norah and an unknown associate stood, chatted and smoked, as they ironed out the details of this cash-for-sex exchange in a cordial conversation between two strangers.

Close-by was sat a fashionable green felt hat and a paste diamond brooch, which looked out of place on the dusty stone floor of such a drab and gloomy hall, but it was here, just beyond the door, that Norah’s attacker had struck, brutally strangling her, squeezing every breath of air and ounce of life out of her struggling body, and all within earshot of the busy street and visible through the frosted glass.

Although a slim petite and pretty brunette with bobbed hair, a slight frame and an eye for fashion, in her last moments alive, Norah had fought like hell, as by the door, just 18 inches off the floor were multiple scuff marks on the grey plaster wall made with a black shoe as she had kicked and clawed to stay alive, as her attacker tightly throttled her throat, until her last waking breath was expelled.

Having collapsed in a barely conscious heap; unable to see as the whites of her eyes had ruptured and filled with blood, and unable to breathe or even scream as her airway had been squeezed by his vice-like grip, either Norah’s attacker had realised his mistake having eagerly struck too early, or had lashed out in an unprovoked attack which took them both by surprise, as having strangled her too close to the bustling city street beyond the glass-fronted door, he then dragged Norah, ten feet along the dark-lit passageway to where Douglas Bartram and Frederick Field would later find her.

Having dragged her by the feet along the dusty stone floor, her left arm lay outstretched above her head, Norah’s clothes had bunched up under her back and neck, and yet, although her lower-body was partially exposed; her shoes, stockings and even knickers remained in place, suggesting her attacker’s motive was not sexual. This was the awful sight that had shocked both Bartram and Field, but hidden by the partition wall, out of views, was a sight even more disturbing… and confusing.

Once he had torn away her green skirt, entirely splitting the side seam, Norah’s attacker had tightly rolled the material and carefully placed it under her neck, as if to make her more comfortable. Then tearing at the two white vests she was wearing to keep out the cold, he had ripped these thin garments, snapping the thin rubber straps and cruelly exposing her torso from her left breast to her naval, none of which were bruised or mutilated. And yet, having ripped off her white silk jumper, he then tore off a thick strip of the fabric and forcibly stuffed it deep into her mouth, the white gag was thick with a bloodied froth of saliva and mucus, as around her throat, taken from the two-piece outfit she was wearing, he strangled Norah with her own green belt, pulling the two lengths of the felt belt tighter, strangling her for three long, slow and agonising minutes.

Where-as once she was pretty, with a sweet smile, twinkling eyes and a pixie-like nose, now Norah’s face was a contorted mess, all purple and swollen, the pupils of her beautiful brown eyes were fixed and dilated, rigour mortis had set in, and (having been dumped and left undiscovered for three days) her slender body had already began to decompose.

With her attacker having left, Norah Upchurch was left alone in the dark drab passageway of the empty shop, as the silhouettes of strangers on Shaftesbury Avenue passed by the frosted glass before her, as unable to scream or even breathe, her life ebbed away, and she died alone and terrified. Her last thought? Possibly being that of her three year old daughter, fast asleep in her cot, safe and warm as Norah had left her, who – now with no mother, no father and no grandparents to protect her - would be put into a care-home (as Norah had), the once happy childhood of an innocent destroyed by a maniac with an overpowering impulse to kill.

The autopsy of Norah Upchurch was conducted that evening by Dr William Fairlie and the Home Office Pathologist Dr Bernard Spilsbury at Westminster Mortuary in Horseferry Road. The cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation using only a green felt belt, as no finger-marks were found around her throat. Except a few bloodspots on her ripped vest, which were believed to be menstrual discharge, there was no sign of sexual assault. There was also no evidence that the murder was premeditated, no fingerprints found at the scene (as it was too dusty), no witnesses who saw Norah and her assailant enter or exit the shop, and only a slight possibility that the motive was robbery was owing to her handbag being missing. In fact, excluding the cigarette butt, along with a green felt hat, a pair of black gloves, a paste diamond brooch and a heart-shaped pendant, all of which belonged to Norah, the only other item found at the scene was Norah’s white metal wrist watch with a black band, which remained on her left wrist throughout the attack, and was smashed, stopping the time at precisely 8:20pm.

And as much as both doctors disagreed whether Norah Upchurch had been dead for 24 hours, 36 hour or 48 hours, there was no denying the fact that her watch had stopped at 8:20pm, and that after the evening of Tuesday 29th September 1931, Norah was never seen alive again.

But with very little evidence, no fingerprints nor witnesses to the crime, the chance of catching Norah’s killer was at best slim, and at worst impossible. And yet, little did the Police know, but Frederick Fields, the man who (along with Douglas Bartram) discovered the body of Norah Upchurch, would also become the investigation’s most valuable witness and would lead the Police to their chief suspect. As with no sign of a break-in at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, what they did know for certain was that whoever murdered Norah Upchurch must have had a set of keys?

At approximately 1:40pm, on the afternoon of Tuesday 29th September 1931, the day of Norah’s death, Frederick Field the sign-fixer employed by Hilder & Co at 23 Great Pulteney Street in Soho, left the office, took a brisk five minute walk down Brewer Street, Rupert Street and stopped off at Perry & Ball, the estate agent’s at 40 Shaftesbury Avenue, having been contracted to remove the ‘To Let’ signs from the windows and on the first floor exterior of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, and received one mortice key and one Yale key from Miss Kennan, both of which he signed for and headed on his way.

At 2pm that afternoon, Field entered via the front door where Norah’s body would later be found, but this time, the passageway was empty, as was the shop, and he went about his duties. But having left the glass-fronted door open so he could load his barrow with the discarded signage, after roughly five minutes of work, he noticed a tall man standing in the doorway. And although their conversation was brief, and they never exchanged names, Field’s description of the man is truly remarkable.

Field stated to the Police, that the man was “aged about 30, 6 feet 1 inches tall, tanned complexion, mousey hair cropped short at the back and sides, with a mousey coloured thin moustache with a gap in the middle, a gold tooth in his right upper jaw, he was of medium build, with square shoulders, was well-spoken and was dressed in a biscuit or beige coloured plus four suit with a two inch square pattern, he wore a gingery brown tweed cap and a gold watch on a leather strap on his left wrist, and he looked like a well-to-do man who was a native of London”.

Asking Field for the keys, the mysterious man dressed in the plus-fours suit reassured him this was all above board and handed Field a handwritten work-order stating “please hand the bearer of this note the keys to 173/177 Shaftesbury Avenue”, which was signed by the secretary of Perry & Ball, the estate agents. With the work order looking official and the Plus-Fours man clearly being senior to him, Field did as he was told.

And although they only spoke briefly, the Plus-Fours man implied he was an established leather goods retailer and the prospective owner of the premises who was looking to revamp the lighting, and with Field being a qualified electrician, they agreed to meet later to discuss the layout, with the Plus Fours man promising to return to key (once he’d finished) to Perry & Ball. But that very evening, by Piccadilly tube station, at roughly 9pm (forty minutes after Norah’s watch had stopped), as Field stood wearing his best suit, desperate to impress his future employer, the Plus Fours man confessed that he had forgotten the keys to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue and with both men being unable to enter the shop, the Plus Fours man left, promising to return, but he was never seen again… and neither were the keys.

Armed with nothing but a stunningly detailed description of the Plus Four man, during the afternoon of Friday 2nd October 1931, Field assisted the Police by laboriously trawling through the Police Crime Index at Scotland Yard, which contained the photos, details and rap-sheets of all known felons in the London area, and although some fitted the description, they didn’t find a match. Desperate to catch this maniac before he struck again, Field volunteered his free-time by patrolling the West End with the Police, having refined his description, but once again, Norah’s killer evaded arrest.

And yet, sometimes coincidence smiles on the desperate, as just four days after the discovery of Norah’s body, Police at Richmond Police Station arrested a known felon on a fraud charge; he was the right height, the right size, the right shape, with a pencil thin moustache, tightly clippered hair and (as was the fashion of the day) he also wore a brown plus fours suit. His name was Peter Webb.

At the station, Field was asked to identify Webb’s brown Plus Fours suit which was neatly laid on a table, and although it matched the description given, Field was certain that this was not the suit worn by the Plus Fours man. It was a shattering blow to the case…

…but believing they had their man, the Police wanted to make sure, so whilst Peter Webb was being interviewed on the unrelated charge of cheque fraud, Frederick Field was ushered into the room, and looking Webb squarely in the face, the following conversation took place. Field said (Cockney) “Hello, you know me”, Webb replied (Richmond) “I don’t know you”, Field “Yes you do, I handed you the keys of the shop at Shaftesbury Avenue last Tuesday”, Webb “Not to me”, Field “Yes I did”, Webb “What had I got on?”, Field “Your plus fours”, Webb “What hat did I have, the colour?”, Field “Brown, I recognise you”, Webb “I’ve never seen you before”, Field “You had a cap”, Webb “I’ve never had a cap”, Field “Do you think I’m daft?”, Webb “You must be”, Field “I spoke to you in Shaftesbury Avenue and next in Piccadilly”, Webb “I have never seen you before or talked to you ever”, Field “You can't prove different. I take my oath I saw you”, and Webb replied “I am positive you're wrong”. After which, Frederick Field confirmed to the Police Sergeant “That’s the man I handed the keys to”.

Peter Webb was arrested for the murder of Norah Upchurch. And as a career criminal and a habitual liar, who was later sentenced to twelve months hard labour for cheque fraud, when Webb was questioned, he staunchly denied any knowledge of Norah, her murder, the shop, meeting Field, or ever being given the set of keys. But after an exhaustive investigation, during which Peter Webb’s movements that night were thoroughly checked and verified, he provided the police with an iron clad alibi, proving he was not the Plus Fours man or Norah’s killer and Webb was released without charge.

On Thursday 19th November 1931, at Westminster Coroner’s Court, the case into the murder of Annie Louisa Norah Upchurch was heard before a jury. And with no suspects on trial, all of the evidence presented, and featuring the witness testimony of both Douglas Bartam and Frederick Field, the coroner Mr Ingleby Oddie concluded that with insufficient evidence to convict anyone for her murder, that Norah Upchurch was “wilfully murdered by a person or persons unknown”.

With very little money, an uncaring family and no husband, Norah was buried in a pauper’s grave, her few remaining possessions were sold to cover the cost of her meagre funeral, and the fate of her three year old daughter Marjorie remains unknown. And like so many West End prostitutes (such as Ginger Rae, Dutch Leah, Margaret Cook, Dora Freedman and Rita Green) who were murdered at the hands of a homicidal maniac, each of their killers evades the police, escaped justice and walked free, maybe to kill again? And yet, a full eighty-seven years later, the murder of Norah Upchurch remains unsolved, and may never be solved.

But then again… much of the evidence given is only as strong as Frederick Field’s witness testimony. And given that after Field picked up the door keys from Miss Kennan at Perry & Ball on Tuesday 29th September 1931 at 1:45pm, right up to the moment when he supposedly discovered the body of Norah Upchurch on Friday 2nd October 1931 at 10:50am having forced a window to gain entry to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue? No-one can actually corroborate any of the details in any of Frederick Field’s statements during this period; no-one knows who the Plus Fours man is, where are the keys, where Norah’s handbag is, or how Norah Upchurch ended up dead inside a locked and empty shop?

It may have remained as the ultimate locked-room mystery? But almost two years after her death, burial and the trail at Westminster Coroner’s Court where it was concluded that Norah Upchurch had been “murdered by a person or persons unknown”, a 27 year old man walked into the West End offices of tabloid newspaper, the Daily Sketch; he was tired, nervous, worried and desperate to get something off his chest, a secret he had held onto for over eighteen months. And it was here that he confessed to the brutal murder of Norah Upchurch. His name… was Frederick Fields.
OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.

If you’re looking for a new true-crime podcast, this week’s treat is the amazing Occultae Veritas; hosted by Ood, Sage and Leon, Occultae Veritas delves into the dark heart of some of the world’s most baffling true-crime cases, curiosities and conspiracy theories, with each show packed with in-depth discussions, a high attention to detail and lashing of humour. Check them out. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget, if you want to know more about the murder of Norah Upchurch, or any other cases, please do check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode is… part two of Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop.

Thank you and sleep well.

Ep19 – Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop – Pt2

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode nineteen of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.
If you’re a new listener? Hello, thank you, welcome and I hope you enjoy the show. Just to let you know that this episode is the concluding part of the murder of Norah Upchurch, so I would strongly advise downloading episode eighteen first. To my regular listeners, thank you so much for your continued support, for the fabulous feedback, for sharing this podcast with your friends and especially for your lovely five star reviews, which truly do warm my cockles (that’s not a sexual thing). Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s podcast of the week, this time it’s the brilliant True-Crime Finland; thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End.

Today’s episode is the concluding part of the murder of Norah Upchurch; a West End prostitute who was found strangled in a locked and empty shop by Frederick Field, a local handy-man whose detailed description of her supposed killer ultimately lead the Police to their chief suspect – himself.

Murder Mile contains grisly details which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 19: Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop Part Two.

On Tuesday 25th July 1933 at 12:30pm, in Shoe Lane; a tightly cobble-stoned road just off Fleet Street, (which is the supposed workplace of the bloody barber Sweeney Todd, but is more famously the home of many of Britain’s worst tabloid hacks who’d happily slit their own mother’s throat, spill their grannie’s guts and package up the entrails into a steamy festering pie, simply to lure their easily-duped readers into swallowing great mouthfuls of unfettered bullshit) a man paced nervously back and forth, his black scuffed boots almost wearing a hole in the pavement, the rough callused fingers of his trembling hand shaking as he chain-smoked another cigarette.

And although he didn’t look like a journalist - being just five-foot seven inches tall, ten stone in weight, with odd little elfin-like ears, hollow brown eyes, a large bulbous nose, ruffled brown hair and dressed in a tatty dark suit, he looked out of place amongst the throng of typists, scribblers and finger-smiths, and more at home on a building site, a factory or renovating an empty shop - the deep dark secret he had held onto for almost two years would be front page news for weeks to come.

With a deep breath and a determined nod, the man stubbed out his cigarette, turned on his heels and – having made a life-changing decision which would lead to his grisly death – he walked into the London offices of right-wing tabloid newspaper, the Daily Sketch, and asked for Mister Leaver, a senior reporter he had met just two years before, when the man was the principle witness in the unresolved murder trial of a 20 year old West End prostitute who died in the dark passage of an empty shop,

Tentatively greeting the nervous man with a vague smile and a distant handshake, senior reporter Mr Leaver enquired “So, tell me, what’s this is all about?” To which the man gulped, his saliva unable to swallow back the words which for so long had been stuck in his throat, and muttered “well… I did it”. Mister Leaver’s eyes widened, an eye-brow raised, with a nervous grin which crinkled the sides of his mouth, and casually asked “you mean… you killed Norah Upchurch?” The man replied “yes”. His name… was Frederick Field, and three years later, he would be dead. (INTERSTITIAL)

Born on the 16th April 1904, in Acton (West London, just three miles from the childhood home of Norah Upchurch), although poor, Frederick Herbert Charles Field was a spoilt brat and a habitual liar who was born to a strict disciplinarian father who ruled his brood with an iron rod, a drunken fist and an ever thrashing leather belt, and a molly-coddling mother whose son (in her eyes) was a blameless angel. With mixed-signals dominating his young life, Field grew-up courting trouble, openly lying and always believing that (no matter how bad he was) he would always be protected.

Being disinterested and distracted, Field left school aged fourteen with few qualifications, he drifted in and out of various menial jobs, until 1926, when aged 22, his father forced his listless son to enlist as an Aircraftsman in the Royal Air Force, which he did, for three whole years. But on 7th April 1929, having married his sweetheart Bessie Matilda, Field was discharged from the Air Force for an “unspecified” offence, and once again drifted between jobs, pubs, pawn-shops, bookies and brothels.

By 1931, the year that Norah Upchurch was murdered, with Field now being the father of new born baby daughter and finally holding down a semi-steady job as a sign-fixer at Hilder & Co in Soho, money was tight, tempers were frayed and their marital-bed was icy cold. Not because of the baby, but because of the very simple reason that at the Inquest into the murder of Norah Upchurch, Frederick Field wasn’t just their star witness, he was also… a suspect. (INTERSTITIAL).

On Friday 20th July 1933, five days prior to his confession, Field had lost his employment with Hilder & Co, and he was hungry, desperate and broke. But it wasn’t the shame, the guilt or even the horror at having strangled Norah to death and deprived her three year old daughter of a mother which drove him to confess, it was money and fame. Before he would talk, Field demanded full payment upfront, his family’s safety assured, a front page spread with his photo, and the Daily Sketch to fully fund his legal defence. When Mr Leaver said no, he wanted to hear the story first, after a whole second of thought, Field cracked and began to spill every sordid detail.

At 10:30pm that evening, at the Marlborough Street Police Station, Frederick Field made a full confession to Superintendent George Cornish. It went roughly like this:

On Tuesday 29th September 1931, at exactly 1:40pm, Field left Hilder & Co at 23 Great Pulteney Street to remove the ‘To Let’ signs from 173/177 Shaftesbury Avenue, having collected the keys off Miss Keenan at Perry & Ball first. We know this as a fact. At 2pm, Field handed the only set of keys to the premises to an unidentified man in a Plus Fours suit, having been duped by a false work-order and lured by the offer of future employment, they agreed to meet later that evening. Only Field can verify if this as fact, as neither the Plus Fours man nor the keys were ever seen again.

At 5pm, that evening, Field headed home to 148 Clensham Lane (in Sutton, South London); his squalid basement flat which he shared with his wife, baby daughter, brother-in-law and mother, arriving at roughly 6:30pm. With little time to spare, Field ate his dinner, washed, and dressed in his best suit.

Leaving home at 7:30pm, Field arrived at Piccadilly Circus tube station by 9pm for his ill-fated meeting with the Plus Fours man who oddly had forgotten his keys to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue and although he promised to return in just “ten minutes”, having handed Field £2 (which is roughly £140 in today’s money) for materials to start the job, Field waited for him in the St James’ Tavern on the corner of Great Windmill Street and Denham Street, but he never returned.

Now, whether we choose to believe Field’s story about the Plus Fours man is irrelevant. And even if every word of his confession, so far, is complete and utter lies, it is all vital to excavating the truth, as it is right here, from this point onwards, that Field takes us closer to what may have actually happened that night, and later, he is undone by his own web of lies. So take a deep breath… and let’s begin.

Dressed in his best suit for a meeting which didn’t happen, and at a loose end, Field dawdled around the West End for an hour, until 10:25pm as he was strolling down Bear Street, a side street off Leicester Square, he was beckoned forth by a petite pretty brunette with bobbed hair who was soliciting for sex, she wore a green two-piece outfit, black gloves, stockings and shoes, a black leather handbag, a green felt hat and a green felt belt. They’d never met before, and he never asked her name, but this was Norah Upchurch. Having procured sex-worker’s services many times prior, Field bartered briefly with Norah outside of 7 Bear Street, and invited her back to “his place” at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue.

Unlocking the glass-fronted dark wooden door with his keys, Field escorted Norah along the dark unlit passageway, passed the partition wall, and turned right into the backroom of the empty shop. Being almost pitch-black and barely illuminated by the street-lights outside; with no bed, sofa, sheets or soft furnishings of any kind, Field asked her to lay down on the cold stone floor.

Rightly, not wishing to ruin her pretty green dress, dirty her hair or scuff her black heeled shoes, Norah said “no”, which left them at a bit of a sexual impasse. Field enquired “well what are you going to do?”, to which Norah, not wanting to pass-up a few pounds and thinking on her feet, placed a few scattered pages of newspaper on the floor, and dropping to her knees, in her best East End slang she said “I’m gonna gam you”, and she proceeded to felate his floppy penis.

According to Field’s own confession, he didn’t ask for a blowjob and he didn’t want a blowjob, in fact he didn’t want sex with Norah at all, but during the sex-act, with the frustrated Field standing upright and Norah on her knees, her green felt hat bobbing back-and-forth like a circus seal performing for fish, Field states that Norah (whether accidentally, sexually or maliciously) bit his penis; sinking her teeth into his wrinkled gnarly knob, scraping his fleshy shaft and drawing blood. Of course, by the time of this confession, a full month later, the teeth-marks on his bloodied manhood had healed.

But that evening, in the pitch-black backroom of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, as he stood over Norah, Field saw red; not just on her lips, not just on his penis, but in his eyes. And as his rage grew, in his right hand he gripped Norah around the throat, squeezing tightly, trapping her airway, until a few seconds later, never once speaking or screaming, her body went limp and slumped to the floor.

In Field’s own words he would state “I knew that something was seriously wrong when she fell back, I lost control of myself and I cannot remember exactly what happened afterwards”. But then again, the crime-scene evidence tells us exactly what happened next; as lying unconscious on the floor, Field clawed at Norah’s vests, shredding the slight material from her breast to her naval, and ripping apart her white silk jumper he rolled it into a ball and forced the makeshift gag into her mouth, suffocating her as he gripped both ends of her green felt belt, strangling her, until her body had stopped struggling, her legs had stopped twitching, her lungs had stopped breathing, and Norah Upchurch was dead.

Before locking-up and leaving her body lying in the cold empty shop for three days, Field states he took Norah’s black leather handbag, which contained four £1 notes, a set of keys, a small ring and a packet of French letters (which is slang for condoms). At Leicester Square tube station, he boarded the Northern Line train taking it to the end of the line at Morden, hopped on a bus to the Rose Hill Estate and into a dark hedge by the Sutton bypass, he threw Norah’s black handbag and the keys to the shop. Field arrived home at 11:45pm, as witnessed by his wife.

Over the next two days, Field returned to his regular work duties as if nothing had happened, with no mention of the missing keys, the Plus Fours man, or the strangled body of Norah Upchurch.

But on Thursday 1st October, a plumber at Hilder & Co called William Thomas Finlay who was assigned to fix a leaky pipe at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue was struggling to find the keys; they weren’t at Hilder & Co, they hadn’t been returned to Perry & Ball, and just two days before, both keys were signed for by Frederick Field and were currently missing. Which brings us right back where this story began.

As on Friday 2nd October 1931 at roughly 10am, having been chastised by Miss Keenan of Perry & Ball for handing over the only set of keys to a mysterious man in a Plus Four suit who was holding a clearly falsified work-order, Douglas W L Bartram and his shamed workmate Frederick Field, using an iron hammer and a chisel, forced entry at the rear of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, planning to remove the ‘To Let’ signs, to fix a leaky pipe and to await the arrival of a locksmith to secure the property. And it is, at that moment, that Field (shaking, trembling and frightened) discovers the body of Norah Upchurch.

That was the confession of Frederick Field, as made on Tuesday 25th July 1933 at 12:30pm to Mr Leaver of the Daily Sketch, and later that evening, to Superintendent George Cornish of the Marlborough Street Police Station, where he was promptly cautioned and arrested.

With his wife and baby-daughter safely ensconced at her parent’s home in Cardiff (South Wales), a full page spread and photo of himself in almost every newspaper, the Daily Sketch covering his full legal defence, instructing Mr Henry Flint as his solicitor and having given a full confession detailing his crime, Frederick Herbert Charles Field was tried on the 20th September 1933, at the Old Bailey, for the murder of 20 year old Annie Louise Norah Upchurch.

(Silence / long pause). 

But… can Frederick Field’s confession to the Daily Sketch, or even the Police, be trusted?

At the original inquest into the murder of Norah Upchurch on Thursday 19th November 1931, at which Field was both the star witness and a prime suspect, Coroner Mr Ingleby Oddie, upon hearing Field’s baffling statement about the missing keys, the Plus Fours man and his shocking discovery of Norah’s body, Mr Oddie made it clear to the jury that they were entitled to either accept his evidence as fact, or not, stating “You might express your disbelief in his story, but at the same time you might well record a verdict against some person or person unknown”. And presented with no concrete evidence, the jury did what they were told to do, which is why they declared her murder unsolved.

Hidden behind his eye-witness accounts, court testimony, Police statements and even a confession, which was a heady mix of provable facts, half-truths and outright lies, was the arrogance of a man who – since his birth – believed he could do as he pleased and could get away with it; whether spinning an elaborate lie, leading the police across London on a wild goose-chase as he thumbed through the Police Crime Index and pointed the finger of guilt at Peter Webb, an innocent man wrongly arrested at Richmond Police Station, and all the while – at the inquest into Norah’s tragic death – feeling that he was the smartest man in the room, later stating “I was pitting my brains against the Coroner and the Police and I won”. As with arrogant relish, he added “One thing that annoyed me all the time is my realisation that, although I committed the murder and got away with it, the people I wanted to prove this to do not know it… but they will now”. Never once showing an ounce of remorse for the murder, for Norah, or her orphaned child – Marjorie.

The Metropolitan Police first suspected Field on the day that Norah’s body was found, as so rare is this occurrence that anyone who finds a corpse is instantly the prime suspect. But also because (having met this mysterious Plus Fours man for just ten minutes) three days later, after the emotional shock of having discovered a dead body, Field gave the Police a remarkably detailed description of this man, stating he was “aged about 30, 6 feet 1 inches tall, tanned complexion, mousey hair cropped short at the back and sides, with a mousey coloured thin moustache with a gap in the middle, a gold tooth in his right upper jaw, he was of medium build, with square shoulders, was well-spoken and was dressed in a biscuit or beige coloured plus four suit with a two inch square pattern, he wore a gingery brown tweed cap and a gold watch on a leather strap on his left wrist, and he looked like a well-to-do man who was a native of London”. And yet, just days later, when Field was volunteering his time to patrol the West End with the Police to find this mad-man, his description had been refined to “aged 22, 6ft 3in, medium complexion, greyish blue eyes, light brown hair, rather long face, broad shoulders, and he was dressed dark grey lounge suit with a double breasted waistcoat”. An almost entirely different man, with no reference to his gold tooth, gold watch, gingery cap, and no plus fours suit.

But then again, the inconsistencies in the first two statements made by Frederick Field to the Police pale into insignificance when you unravel the truth and lies hidden within Field’s own confession. If you’re ready? Let’s attack them in chronological order:

On Tuesday 29th September 1931, the day of Norah’s murder, Field was assigned by Hilder & Co to remove the ‘To Let’ signs from the exterior of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue. And yet, why is it that three days later, on the day Norah’s body was discovered, clearly visible on the Police crime-scene photos, on the outside of the empty shop were the ‘To Let’ signs, a simple job he attempted to do… twice?

That day, having met the mysterious Plus Fours man inside 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, in broad daylight, during which they briefly discussed the lighting layout for the shop, why would Field (who was a trained electrician) choose to meet a prospective client, at night, in a dark building, with no lights?

And why, at 9:20pm, having waited twenty minutes for the forgetful Plus Fours man, did Field over the next hour during which he was at a loose end, why did he not go back to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue where he knew the Plus Fours man had gone to get the keys for, and would eventually arrive?

Given that the Plus Fours man was Field’s alibi for the missing keys, and that these keys were the only way that Norah’s killer could have entered and exited the empty shop, why is his alibi so full of holes? Is he merely misremembering these details, or is this a desperate lie he’s making up on the spot? Which brings us onto the night of the murder.

At 10:25pm, Field states he met Norah Upchurch on Bear Street, just off Leicester Square, and having procured her services for sex, he invited her back to (what he referred to as) “his place”. And yet, on the first floor of 7 Bear Street, right where they had met, Norah had rented flat which she used to entertain her customers, so why would she go with him to Shaftesbury Avenue?

Upon entering the empty shop at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, Field states that he and Norah walked through the passageway and into a dark and dusty backroom, where supposedly the sex-act and her strangulation took place. But if the evidence shows us that they shared a cigarette by the doorway, and having strangled her in front of the glass-fronted door, Field then dragged her unconscious body, by the legs, ten feet up the passageway? Why would he make such as arbitrary change the location of the murder, when there was no evidence of anyone, or any assault, in the backroom, at all?

Field states that his impulse to kill was provoked when she had bitten his penis - a bizarre claim which is impossible to prove or refute as by the time he’d made his confession, these marks had supposedly healed – but more importantly, why would a professional prostitute who has performed oral sex hundreds if not thousands of times, deliberately or accidentally injure his penis and draw blood?

Having lashed out in anger, Fields claims he strangled Norah with his right hand until she passed out. But why would he admit this when the autopsy would clearly confirm that she was brutally garrotted using her own green felt belt, and there were no finger marks found on or around her throat?

And yet, having given a full confession to Mr Leaver of the Daily Sketch - stating that unlike his Police statements before, that this time he was telling the truth - whilst he claims that the murder of Norah Upchurch was a crime-of-passion, Field (in the same confession) would claim his motive was to attempt to pull-off the “perfect murder”; to kill a stranger (like Norah Upchurch), have someone else blamed for the crime (like Peter Webb) and to get away with it?

Ignoring the fact that a “perfect murder” is only committed if you don’t confess to it, even if we accept his assertion that her murder was pre-meditated, why didn’t Field bring a weapon with him (such as a rope, a knife, or a cosh), rather than using Norah’s own belt? And why, rather than relying on the bizarre story of the Plus Fours man as his alibi, a man who was never identified (and probably never existed) why didn’t Field simply return the keys to Perry & Ball, having first made a copy for himself?

Not to mention the fact that neither the Daily Sketch nor the Police could find Norah’s handbag or the keys in the bushes by the Sutton bypass where Field claims he’d thrown them? Why is it that the day after the murder, Bessie Field’s wife had seen Field place on the bedside dressed £2 in notes and a few coins in silvers, even he had told her he was broke and wouldn’t be paid till the Saturday?

Which brings us to the two most important inconsistences in Field’s confession: if Fields gave the Plus Fours man the only set of keys to the empty shop, how did both he and Norah Upchurch unlock the glass-fronted door and enter 177 Shaftesbury Avenue?

And, that evening, at 8pm, with Norah Upchurch having paid the rent to her first floor flat at 7 Bear Street and purchased a four-pack of condoms, leaving her with four £1 notes? How is it that Field knows the exact contents of her black leather handbag, which (just like the keys) were never found?

Armed with Field’s confession, on Wednesday 29th September 1933, Frederick Herbert Charles Field was tried at the Old Bailey on the capital charge of murdering Annie Louisa Norah Upchurch in an empty shop on the 29th September 1931, a crime which (if found guilty of both charges of murder and theft, and having been declared sane by a medical profession) would warrant a death sentence.

Having fully confessed to his crimes, signed this statement, and having sworn on the Bible to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, with the Judge, the Police prosecution and his own defence funded by the Daily Sketch, all of whom readied themselves for his “guilty” plea, making the trial a mere formality, which would be done and dusted before lunch, when Mister Justice Swift asked how the accused pleaded to the charge of murder, with a wry smile, Field replied…“not guilty”.

As gasps and shocked silences gripped the room, it was clear that had Field admitted his guilt that the evidence would be irrelevant, but having pleaded “not guilty”, the burden of proof was placed upon the Police. Their evidence of which was wholly circumstantial and based almost entirely on the confession of Field himself, in a signed statement which (even he admitted was a fabrication), none of which could either be proved or disproved, and that, having been accused of Norah’s murder at the original inquest, Field said he had falsified his confession in order to establish his innocence.

With Mr Justice Swift readily admitting to Field that this “is a peculiar way of proving your innocence by saying you are guilty”, Field replied “it was the only way”. And after a farcical trial during which very little evidence was given, on the charge of murdering Norah Upchurch, Mr Justice Swift found Frederick Herbert Charles Field “not guilty”. He was acquitted of all charges, and – that same day – he walked free, stating to the assembled press “I am satisfied now that I have cleared my name, my future plans are indefinite but I hope to start my life again without the finger of suspicion pointing at me”.

Field’s wife Bessie remained in Cardiff with her daughter, she divorced Field a few years later. Unable to gain regular work from his old employer HIlder & Co, Field re-enlisted in the Royal Air Force, but after a short stint, Field absconded from Hendon Aerodrome having stolen four cheques.

Two weeks later, on 4th April 1936, at 8 Elmhurst Gardens in Clapham (South London), a 48 year old prostitute named Beatrice Vilna Sutton was robbed and found strangled in her bed. When arrested, although he fully confessed to the crime, in a series of events unnervingly similar to the murder of Norah Upchurch, the culprit later retracted his statement and pleaded “not guilty”. Only this time, having disclosed a little too much information, which only the Police would have known, or her killer, the accused was found guilty of her murder, and on 30th June 1936, he was executed by hanging at Wandsworth Prison. His name… was Frederick Field.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.

If you’re looking for a new true-crime podcast, this week’s treat is the fantastic True-Crime Finland, in which our amazing host Minna, takes us on a grisly tour of land of the midnight sun, Finland, a country as strange, dark and sinister as the serial killers and murderers it has produced.  Check it out. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode is…. The Bungling Assassins of Alexander Litvinenko

Thank you and sleep well.

*** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated.
*** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***

ADDITIONAL DETAILS: Anneke Dubash, a Murder Mile listener and an excellent researcher has uncovered these extra details about Norah and her life, which I felt were worth posting here:

"I thought that I would try and find out what happened to Marjorie after her mother’s murder. So far, aside from her date of birth and a possible father’s surname, Kellard, on the birth registers (which may just have been made up by Norah as she went by the aliases Norah Kellard and Laveriek) I’ve found nothing. However, in doing that, I started looking for what I could find on Norah.

There is very little but I’ve found her name in the Admission and Discharge ledger for the Hackney Workhouse. She and her sister, Rosetta, were admitted to the Workhouse on the same day, August 14, 1916. What’s interesting about that is that she was discharged the same day “To Cottages” which I assume means that she was assigned to one of the cottage houses that were smaller and had a “house mother”. So far I haven’t found anything further though I am still looking. She was just a few days short of her 4th birthday which was August 16th. 

Rosetta, however, then aged 1, was discharged two days later, on the 16th. She was discharged to her mother, Emily. It seems terribly sad that Rosetta was taken home and Norah was not. Of course, not knowing the situation at home, perhaps Norah was the lucky one. I wondered if there we a lot of children at home. However, there were only 5, two boys and 3 girls. Another sister died when she was about 10 months old. And the children were each spaced out by 4-5 years. Walter, their father, was a railway porter and also a railway linesman at various times. I wondered if Marjorie perhaps she had been taken in by relations but apparently not. I didn’t find her living with her aunts and uncles. Perhaps the circumstances of her birth might be the reason. Walter Upchurch died in 1953. Emily died in 1934".

Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. ​​Additional music was written and performed by Kai Engel, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile wal