Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
Image: @Google2024 - Flat 80, Third Floor, Benson Close
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE: Monday 11th of April 1994, 23-year-old Milton Wheeler entered Flat 80 of Benson Close in Hounslow and brutally murdered elderly couple Mr & Mrs Ambasna, and then, abducted and raped two teenage girls in the same flat, metres away from the dead bodies. His father was a career criminal and a convicted murderer - so was this a case of nature or nurture?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a teal green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Hounslow'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Benson Close in Hounslow, TW3; three miles south of the last sighting of Alice Gross, two miles north of the Thames Towpath killer, one mile south of the Chohan family murders, and just a few streets from the wannabe gangster’s last words - coming soon to Murder Mile. Benson Close is a cul-de-sac comprising of redbrick apartments and an 11-storey high-rise block of flats which looms a large shadow over the street. As council homes built with a ‘whack it up, make it cheap and cram them in’ mentality, the only sense of community is the nearby chip shop which serves what every racist would dub “the best of British cuisine”, like shish kebabs, pizzas, kung-po chicken, a curry sauce of indeterminate origin, mushy peas so gooey you could use it as cement, and welks. Yuck. For scores of families, this is home. But for decades, many complained that it was used as a dumping ground for a local psychiatric unit and Feltham Young Offenders institute. The same was true in 1993, when a boy (said to have been born) of pure evil came to Benson Close, and with everything within walking distance of his flat, Milton Wheeler planned his spree of torture, rape and murder. But was he evil from birth, a product of a bad upbringing, or merely copying of his cruel father? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 251: Like Father, Like Son. Milton’s mother Doreen would state “I knew he was no angel, but when I found out what he had done, I couldn’t believe it. I am not condoning what Milton did. They are saying he is a psychopath, and he probably is… just like his dad”. But who was the real Milton Wheeler - a loving son or a psychopath? Two years before Milton was even conceived, his father was already a career criminal whose selfish crimes were frequently tinged with a sadistic streak, and a frightening lack of empathy for his victims, In March 1969, in the town of Accrington, Lancashire in the north-west of England, 21-year-old Russell Gainford, Milton’s father, was found with a friend, 17-year-old Stephen Paul Daly, “huddled together behind an outhouse at the yard of a home, in possession of articles for use in connection with theft”. Pleading guilty at Accrington Magistrates Court, Gainford admitted “I knew the house cos I’d broken into it before. We were going to break in and get some stuff I knew was in there”, such as the furniture, irreplaceable jewellery, family heirlooms, personal essentials, and even the coins inside the gas meter. Collared by PC's Bromilow & Adderly, the two selfish hoodlums didn’t care that this was the home of an elderly widow who (being fast asleep) they could have frightened to death… or worse, as Gainford already had three prior convictions, with one being for an indecent assault of an elderly woman. Russell Gainford was a thief, a burglar and a sexual predator… …who would soon graduate to murder. By 1969, the year of his burglary conviction in Accrington for which he would serve just three months; Russell had recently married Doreen, his first son Ian was only three months old, and on 13th February 1971 at Rough Lee Maternity Home in Accrington, their second son, Milton Duncan Gainford was born. Raised in Oswaldtwistle, a sweet little town in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, having attended Green Haworth and Hillings Vale Primary schools, he should have had a decent but unremarkable upbringing among the rolling hills and swooping dales. But how can a boy grow up normal, when the one male role model in his life was a criminal, a sadist, a violent brute, and - some said - a psychopath? In 1977, when Milton was just six, his father worked as a coalman delivering logs, kindling and bags of coal across Oswaldtwistle, Bedlam and Accrington. It was a responsible job for a responsible husband and father, but being a habitual thief, he used his route to scope out the homes of the most vulnerable. One such home was a little bungalow on Moorhouse Avenue, where 78-year-old widow Gladys Bryant lived alone, being no bother to anyone. Like many working-class pensioners, she didn’t have much beyond her tiny pension and possibly her late husband’s watch, but all those items Russell coveted. Little is known about what happened, whether it was a failed burglary or a grudge attack, but in what was described as “an apparently motiveless killing”, he slit her throat and then stabbed her to death. Russell Gainford was sentenced to life in prison. With the family split, it wasn’t long afterwards that Milton and his brother were taken into care, and with Milton said to be “a product of violence and degradation who hasn’t met decency in his life”, this conviction had a profound effect on both boys. Like Milton, his older brother Ian had taken the brunt of the abuse from his violent controlling father, and although deep-down he despised him – either through a bad moral upbringing, learned behaviour, a wilful decision or a genetic mistake - Ian had become a carbon copy of the man he hated so much. Educated in all-boy detention centres, and “unable to communicate with women, with warnings that he was ‘at risk emotionally and socially’”, even Mr Gozen (his defence lawyer) would state “it seems that the predictions have come to fruition”. Aged just 17, Ian was tried at Burnley Crown Court of stealing a girdle, a brassiere and the indecent assault of females. He already had 15 similar counts including public exposure to his name and nine years later he was also sentenced to ten years for rape. Ian was emotionally disturbed and uncontrollable, a sexual predator who lacked empathy with other humans, and although he had returned to live with his broken family, he found even that difficult. And not just because, like his father, he had regularly sexually abused his younger brother, Milton. Doreen, Milton’s mother said “his father was a big influence on him… even after he went to jail, he would write to Milton… it used to upset him”. Whether he did this as part of his controlling nature or to be deliberately cruel to his son or wife is uncertain? But “he’d always get into trouble after hearing from his father… every time his father contacted him it brought out the worst in him. Even to this day we don’t know what made him flip. We think he may have heard from his father a few days before”. Which again, begs the question, if he despised his father so much… …why are there so many similarities between Russell’s crimes and Milton’s? On the 3rd of June 1988, aged 17, Milton Duncan Gainford of Albert Street in Oswaldtwistle was tried at Burnley Crown Court, charged with burglary, and intent to commit wounding, GBH and rape. Like a coward, his victim was a young woman living alone in her own home, which he had broken into. Seized from behind, “he thrust an eight-inch knife to her throat”, and with his strange sexual desires taking hold, “he ordered her to get into a swimsuit because he wanted her body”. Fearing for her life, she put up a fight, and although “he plunged the knife into her thigh and then throttled her with a pyjama cord until she partially blacked out”, as he tried to tie her up, she continued to fend him off. Meeting further resistance, as she attacked back, “they rolled around on the floor as he tried to fondle her breasts and unzip her jeans”, until finally he gave up, exhausted. But it wasn’t the terror he had inflicted, or the fact that he had strangled, burned and tried to rape her which caused him the most consternation. But having drawn blood, he wanted the bleeding to stop and let her go to the hospital. Stephen Hesford, his defence lawyer, stated “Gainford was an inadequate person who had never had a girlfriend, and saw the entry into his victim’s home as a way of getting experience”. Sentenced to four years in prison for attempted rape, he was told to undergo psychiatric assessment and treatment. Doctors would state “he showed signs of significant sexual sadism, coldness and a callous detachment; a complete absence of sympathy, remorse and empathy for his victims and a desire to dominate those around him” - not unlike his father. And although he attended some psychological rehabilitation… …after his release from prison, “he defaulted from treatment”. By this time, the damage had been done, and he was living among the community. Two years after Russell’s incarceration, keen to make a better life for herself and her boys, Doreen remarried. Giving Milton a more stable family life with “three half brothers and sisters who think the world of him and worship the ground he walks on” and a positive male role model in his stepfather Paul, Milton took the surname Wheeler “and he seemed to change and become more responsible. He was a good kid”, and as his stepfather would state “I would have stood by him through thick and thin”. Milton was on the first steps of a long road to recovery, as having been unable to receive a letter from his convict father owing to prison regulations, many said, he had improved… at least for a while. In 1993, 23-year-old Milton Wheeler moved 200 miles south to a small first-floor flat at 15 Cromwell Road in Hounslow. Being a stranger with no known past, and a sickly pale boy with dark neck-length hair, sticking out ears and a slightly horse-like face, he didn’t look like a danger to the community. But with an uninterrupted view of Cromwell Road and Benson Close, and with everything being within a very short walking distance from his flat, this became the new hunting ground of Milton Wheeler. His criminal spree began almost immediately, being convicted on several occasions of stealing a set of tools, a handbag, a jacket and a £1000 jumper, as well as damaging a Ford Granada and a driving a Peugeot without insurance – all small and annoying stuff. Situated a few doors from his flat, Priti Shah, who ran a grocery store said “Wheeler was a monster who blighted the community. Old people were scared to come out… to use the lifts or walk down alleyways. I’ve hardly seen any of them in the shop”. Situated on the bend of Benson Close, and visible from his bedroom, stood an 11-storey high-rise block containing 55 one and two-bedroomed council flats. It was seen as a safe place, but with a pal on the third floor giving Milton the access code to the security door, the danger was now within their walls. Just like his father’s motiveless killing of a 78-year-old widow, it began innocently enough, when in April 1994, from outside of Flat 80 on the third floor, he stole a milk bottle worth just 36p. The residents of Flat 80 were Mr & Mrs Ambasna. Described as a “quiet and gentle couple who kept to themselves”, they had come from India in 1978 to raise their three daughters. As devout Hindus, they spent many hours every day in private prayer, and (like Gladys Bryant) were no bother to anyone. When they moved to Benson Close, they saw their home as “a safe place, often saying to neighbours that their small one-bedroom flat on the third floor with its security system, was better than a ground-floor flat on this small but well-maintained council estate”, especially as they got older and frailer. With Madhavji aged 82, and his wife Raliat aged 72, both suffered from heart and kidney problems, and with Raliat becoming less mobile owing to her arthritis, both being infirm, they were easy targets. In December 1993, just four months before, an unidentified burglar (who had access to the building having used the key codes) broke into their flat, tied up this terrified old couple, and although nothing was taken, no suspect was ever identified. But there was a suspicion about who it may have been. Monday 11th of April 1994 was the day of Milton’s spree of torture, rape and murder. Milton had finished his shift as a packer at a local freight company. With no real hobbies except being a menace, still wearing his overalls and with a Stanley knife in his pocket, he headed to the pub. Being drunk, his mood was bad and still seething, he later confided in a cellmate “I wanted to wreak revenge on the old cow for having the cheek to suggest he had stolen some milk” - which he probably had. The flat at the bend of Benson Road took him past those he knew, but he didn’t care. The security door was no bother, he just imputed the code and let himself in. And climbing the stairs, no-one batted an eyelid, as he was often seen on the third floor. Only he wasn’t going to call for his pal, but someone he wanted to punish. It was roughly 7pm. (doorbell) 72-year-old Raliat of Flat 80 unlocked the door as anyone else would, believing she was safe and that the only people with access to the building were family, neighbours or friends - only he was neither. The second the door opened, Milton burst in, his Stanley knife in one hand and scissors in the other, as he repeatedly stabbed the frail elderly lady about the face and neck. Hearing her screams, although slow and doddery himself, Madhavji tried to protect his wife, but was stabbed in the face, neck, chest and stomach, as the married couple both slumped onto the living room floor in twin pools of blood. None of the neighbours had heard a thing, or maybe they’d mistaken it for something else, so nobody came to their aid. Only Milton’s revenge on this couple over a milk bottle was far from finished, as with the cord of her dressing gown, twice he strangled the life out of her (maybe out of spite) and with his Stanley knife, he severed her throat with such force that the blade went down to the bone. Mr & Mrs Ambasna were dead, and although he had taken their lives, he would humiliate them in death, as these proud religious devotees were stripped and mutilated in ways it was too graphic for the press to publish. And then, having stolen some jewellery, knickknacks and a little cash, he left. He closed the door, he descended the stairs, he exited the building, and calmly walked down Benson Close with their blood on his hands, passed his flat and onto Cromwell Road. A vulnerable couple lay dead and defiled, but just as his father had, still being on a high after the killing, Milton was hungry. At roughly 8:30pm, Milton walked into the Silver Fish Bar at 35 Cromwell Road, barely a one-minute walk from the murder, and used his victim’s meagre pension money for a slap-up meal for himself. All he cared about was how much salt was on his chips, rather than the pain and suffering he had caused. Around the chip shop, several teens on bikes had congregated, as they do, making noise and causing a nuisance, especially to two local girls - aged 14 and 18 – who were sheltering from a gang of boys. Being a few years older than these scared girls, with Milton being a stranger but someone they felt they could trust, as he left carrying his food, they asked if they could walk with him. It’s uncertain what happened next, but having been invited by him back to his friend’s flat - maybe for chips - behind the security door with the access code, this was a safe place for the girls away from the gangs of boys… …but not from him. Climbing the stairs, they had no inkling of the horrors which awaited them. Upon the third floor, they had no hint what atrocities this man had unleashed in Flat 80. But as he opened the door to his friend’s flat and let the two girls in, locking the door behind him, he uttered a sentence so chilling and cold. "I'm going to make you wish you had never come in here". Pulling out his Stanley knife and scissors which were bloodstained with the blood of the last two who crossed him, holding the blades to their throats, Milton ordered the terrified girls to strip naked. Any refusal led to them being beaten across the face, and any sounds were punished in a similar way. Across the next two hours, holding both of the trembling girls at knifepoint, he sexually assaulted his hostages and raped the youngest. The torture went on and on, and although he had violated them, the biggest fear wasn’t the pain, but never knowing if, how and when his sadistic torture would end. Only having left them bruised, petrified and crying, Milton Wheeler was far from finished. Silencing them with the threat of being stabbed, he marched the two naked girls from the flat, across the corridor, and into Flat 80, where the bloodied and mutilated bodies of Mr & Mrs Ambasna still lay. Sprawled out like trophies of this psychopath’s frenzy, and a further warning for the girls to be silent. Dragging the girls into the bedroom, he tied each girl to a separate bed where they were both sexually assaulted repeatedly at knifepoint, and given the ultimatum to decide “which one of you should die?”. After a further hour of torture, having left both girls naked, gagged and tied spreadeagle on the beds, he bit the girls so hard that he left teeth marks, and - as before - he left without a care in the world. There was no denying that Milton was a sadist and a psychopath… …and although he hated his father, their crimes were eerily similar. They both attacked the elderly, they slashed and strangled their victims, they used weapons which they carried for their jobs, neither could offer any explanation for the violence with Milton saying “I can’t remember anything” and his father stating “why I did it I still don’t know”, and they both ate immediately after they had killed, as having been arrested, Richard chillingly said “I threw away the knife and went home and had my tea”. But it was while Milton was in his flat at 15 Cromwell Road, overlooking Benson Street, that he missed the most vital detail of his killing spree… that the youngest girl had escaped. Having wriggled free from her binds, she had alerted the caretaker, and by 11pm, the whole street was swarming with police. As his father had, Milton stood watching as the block of flats was sealed off. Initially, the police were at a loss, stating ''It's a bizarre case because we can't find any connection between the white girls and the Asian couple. It's a mystery”, with the only link being that the victims were found in the same flat. With the girls being cared for and questioned by specially trained officers, slowly they began to paint of picture of the incident, the culprit, what he looked like, as well as where they had met him. As you might expect, his arrest came swiftly, having committed a double abduction, a double rape and a double murder barely 300 feet from his home and in an area he was known. And with his fingerprints at the scene, his toothmarks on their bodies, their personal possession in his pockets and the bloodied knife still inside his jacket, Milton (and his pal whose flat they were held hostage in) were arrested. Questioned at Hounslow police station, Milton tried to act like a hardened criminal but very quickly he “wilted under the pressure”, and later he gave a statement which was a vague as his father’s. But with both girls positively identifying him in an ID parade, Milton Wheeler was charged. (End) More than 200 mourners attended their funeral of Mr & Mrs Ambasna in Hanworth, with them both described as “a lovely quiet couple who were totally devoted to one another”. In court, the constable who chaperoned the two girls said “they’ve found the strength to get over this horrendous ordeal… but there is part of their youth that has gone, and I don’t think it will ever come back”. In the space of just a few hours and across a single street, this sadistic little boy had destroyed at least four lives. Tried at the Old Bailey on 20th February 1995, 24-year-old Milton Duncan Wheeler faced ten charges including abduction, rape, buggery, indecent assault and murder. With three psychiatrists agreeing he was suffering “from a severe long-standing psychopathic disorder” and “he presented a grave danger to the public”, they accepted his plea of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. Oddly though, he pleaded guilty to the charges of rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment, but he denied the further charges of sexual assault and four further charges of indecent assault. With judge Neil Denison QC summing up: “you are in the view of the doctors, and I agree, an extremely dangerous young man and you will remain so for a long time to come”, he was sentenced to 18 years for the murders, a further 14 years for the rapes, and mandatory treatment at Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital. As of today, Milton Wheeler is 53-years-old, having spent two-thirds of his life in prison. Ironically, when Milton was convicted, his father (Richard Gainford) was released on licence. Professor David Canter who pioneered criminal profiling, said of Milton, “it is not a common pattern, but the fact that his father was a murderer, and his brother was a rapist have significant bearings on his actions”. But was he born evil, a product of a bad upbringing, or was he copying of his cruel father? 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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Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY: On Tuesday 31st May 1932, in a place she had dubbed ‘The Love Hut’, although the evidence stated that (in a drunk and emotional state) Elvira shot her lover to death, the circumstances of the murder was so dubious - that the truth was easily whitewashed by an adoring press who were so besotted by this beautiful but vapid rich kid - that they made her the only victim, and him the absolute culprit.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a purple coloured symbol of a bin under Hyde Park and beneath the words 'The Serpentine'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on William Mews in Knightsbridge, SW1; two roads west of The Goat Tavern where William McSwan was treated to a farewell drink, two streets west of the Hyde Park bombing, and a short walk south of the fake SAS soldier and his cowardly initiation - coming soon to Murder Mile. Hidden off the rather posh Loundes Square, William Mews was once a cul-de-sac comprising of stables where society’s elite bragged that they kept their horses, only to have a flunky shovel up the shit - as that’s what the wealthy do, they boast about their success and have the little people do all the work. By the 1930s, William Mews had become a line of garages occupied by cabdrivers whose families lived in the flats above. One exception was at No 21, where 27-year-old socialite Elvira Barney lived, boozed, debauched and had her bad behaviour rewarded by society and her crimes excused by the law. On Tuesday 31st May 1932, in a place she had dubbed ‘The Love Hut’, although the evidence stated that (in a drunk and emotional state) Elvira shot her lover to death, the circumstances of the murder was so dubious - that the truth was easily whitewashed by an adoring press who were so besotted by this beautiful but vapid rich kid - that they made her the only victim, and him the absolute culprit. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 250: The Socialite’s Premonition. Money: it can turn the good bad, the bad worse, the needy greedy, and the wealthy blind. Born on 22nd January 1904, the early life of Elvira Enid Mullen was as pampered and privileged as any posh little prig whose first words were ‘nanny’ having been born with a silver spoon in every orifice. As the middle child of three siblings to affluent stockbroker Sir John Mullens, manager of the London Stock Exchange, and his wife Lady Mullens, with no need to understand the value of money, she was raised believing that everyone below her should be at her beck and call, and had no understanding of why she couldn’t have whatever she wanted, when she wanted it, and often without earning it. Following the death of her brother Cyril when she was only 12, what occupied her time wasn’t a career but the seeding of the sibling rivalry with her baby sister. Both described as “society beauties” who were pretty, petite and auburn haired, although Avril would make her parents proud by marrying in lofty circles - first to Ernest Simpson (the ex-husband of Wallis Simpson whose relationship with King Edward 8th almost brought down the monarchy) and later to a Georgian royal prince, meaning that she would be titled as Princess Imeritinsky - Elvira saw herself as the rebel and the troublemaker. Like a petulant child, Elvira went out of her way to do everything her parents despised. In 1924, she studied at Lady Benson’s Drama Academy, and although acting was seen as a disreputable profession for a young woman of means, under the stage name of Dolores Ashley, she appeared in The Blue Kitten, a musical about a waiter who pretended to be upper class so he can marry a socialite. In its run, it was only modestly reviewed and barely lasted a season, and although the acting career of Dolores Ashley never went much further, this brief spark of stardom gave Elvira the notoriety and the attention she craved, as by 1924, she was already being heralded as part of The Bright Young Things. The Bright Young Things were the in-crowd of the late 1920’s and early 1930s. Like the Kardashians… only with talent, this fashionable set of wealthy bohemians lived by their own rules, poo-pooed the stuffy Victorian values of their privileged upbringing and caused as much scandal as possible by drinking heavily, imbibing illicit drugs, flouting the law, and engaging in bisexual sex. The antics of the Bright Young Things set the tabloid papers ablaze, making household names of these trendsetting luminaries, such as photographer Cecil Beaton, actress Tallulah Bankhead, poet John Betjeman, playwright Noel Coward, novelists Barbara Cartland and G K Chesterton, renowned fascists the Mitford sisters and Guy Burgess the spy, as well Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later The Queen Mother. Elvira wasn’t as high-profile as many, which is why amongst such celebrities her name is barely known today, but it was her erratic and often eccentric exploits which gave her such an infamous reputation. In 1924, Elvira got engaged to Charles Graves, a gossip journalist whose articles about the Bright Young Things had established them as cultural icons, as opposed to just privileged wastrels. They were seen as the ‘hot couple’, only it was Elvira’s bizarre behaviour which ended their tempestuous relationship. In his 1951 autobiography titled ‘The Bad Old Days’, Charles doesn’t name his fiancé, but states “the girl was the daughter of a rich businessman, her home life was not particularly happy, I’d made the unfortunate error of mistaking sympathy for love… so I wrote her a note asking her to break it off…”. Returning to his Chelsea flat, “at 3am on a Saturday night I was woken up by my guest, who said “there is a girl walking up and down the pavement. I think she has a revolver. I went to the window which was on the first floor and sure enough there she was…”, an angry auburn beauty with a loaded gun. Knowing how unstable and volatile she was, he said to his guest “’when you hear me undo the latch, open the window and attract her attention. I’ll do the rest’”. It was a stratagem he had mulled over and possibly put into practice several times before, as once the latch was unlocked, his guest whistled, Elvira looked up, and Charles dashed out, stating ‘it was time enough to grab the pistol. Luckily, I knew which wrist to grab. She tried to pull the trigger, but the pistol fell onto the pavement with a clang”. Charles had a lucky escape, later stating “she was hysterical for some minutes. I made the girl sleep on the divan while I sat out the night in an armchair to make sure that she did not run away, or do herself any damage. When I saw her mother and told her what had happened, she was horrified”. It was an incident which wasn’t reported to the police, and with Charles then being the editor of the Sunday Express, it didn’t feature in any of the newspapers, and besmirched none of their names. Thus is the power of the wealthy and influential… …so, why do I tell you this? Because it is a premonition of things to come. In 1927, causing more consternation for her exasperated parents, Elvira met John Sterling Barney at a party. Married the following year, it was a relationship bitterly opposed to by her family, which ended in frequent quarrels and fights, mostly because he wasn’t a Lord or a stockbroker, just a singer. By 1929, with her husband returning to America, Elvira Barney (as she was then known) continued her spiral out of control, by combining her drinking and late-night escapades (in an era when drink driving was still legal) with the purchase of Delage D8; a French-built 8-cylinder motorcar, costing twice that of the average house, and with a 102hp engine was capable of speeds of 82mph on roads which had barely been improved since the days of horse and carts, so it was no surprise she had several accidents. In 1930, Elvira was arrested in Croydon having crashed her car at speed while drunk. It was entirely her fault, but like the spoilt little rich girl she was, she “furiously berated the constable, reminding him of her status, her name, her family, and threatened to get him sacked”. Let off with a fine, a year later, she crashed her car in Piccadilly Circus, breaking her jaw, losing a tooth and getting a slap on the wrist. The era of the Bright Young Things was coming to a close, as with the Wall Street Crash plunging the world into recession, their kind of decadence and excesses was seen as nothing short of disgusting. But did they care? Some did, but others did not, as being born with no sense of the less fortunate, when the poor struggled, the powerful and the popular only ever worry about their own pleasures… …and that included Elvira. Some may suggest that Elvira was only interested in herself, which is why, of the man she claimed to love and would ultimately murder, she said “I have known Michael for about a year. We were great friends, and he used to come and see me from time to time… but we were never a couple or an item”. Similar to Elvira, Michael’s upbringing of one of privilege, albeit of a lowly middle-class status. Born in Elgin in 1908, Thomas William Scott Stephen known as Michael was the son of a prominent financier and a Justice of the Peace. As one of three competitive siblings, with Francis becoming a respected solicitor and Harbourne becoming the managing director at the Daily Telegraph and one of the most honoured airmen of The Battle of Britain, Michael too saw himself as the rebel and the troublemaker. Educated, but unwilling to put in a hard day’s work, although it was said that Michael was a dress designer, being denied an allowance by his father, he turned to gambling and became a bit of a dandy. And this is how the story would be split in two; with the press deciding who the public should root for, based on who was the most popular and who was not, as once again, money and power would win. During the trial, being dead, Michael couldn’t defend himself. Described as ‘unemployed’ and ridiculed as ‘a sponger and a scoundrel’, they ignored the fact that Elvira was no better just more popular. Many called him a nobody as if she was a somebody. And whereas they both drank, did drugs and engaged in promiscuous sex, his faults were seen as immoral, whereas hers was a beloved part of her character. It was said that they met in Paris, and some time before May 1932 (the month he was murdered), he’d move into her little flat above a garage at 21 William Mews – which they had titled as ‘The Love Hut’. As in her volatile engagement with Charles Graves and her jealous marriage to John Barney, there was no denying that Elvira & Michael loved each other as much as they hated each other, as in so many letters found, Michael wrote “dear darling, forgive me all the dreadful things I have done. I promise to be better and kinder so you won’t be frightened any more. I love you, only you, in all the world”. Of which, she replied “my darling baby. I really do love you darling”, but stated, “I feel like suicide when you are angry. It absolutely ruined my marriage and it leads to all kinds of misery. I won’t let you down. God knows why I should when you are so lovely. Take care. All my love, really all. Elvira”. It was a relationship as tragic and fractious as it was loving and deadly, as these two wastrels with nothing to offer the world bounced from party to party, often drunk, on drugs, and claiming to live a liberated life when monogamy was shunned, and yet, they would condemn each other for cheating. Nobody really knew what went on behind their closed doors, but although (in court) Michael was accused of only using her for money, among her popular friends, he was seen as nothing but a butler. Neither had any respect for their neighbours… …as the hipsters of their day, they loved to brag about how they “lived among the real people”, and yet, they didn’t know their names, and sullied the cul-de-sac’s peace with late-night fights and parties. Like a premonition of his death, a fight occurred on Thursday 19th May 1932, 12 days before his murder as Mrs Dorothy Hall who lived opposite recalled “it was 3:30am. I was awakened by a terrible screaming out of Mrs Barney’s window”. Elvira was naked and angry “telling him to go away, as he asked her for money, she wouldn’t give him any and she said ‘go and fish for it’”. So far, so ordinary… …until “Mrs Barney looked out of the window and screamed to him ’laugh baby, laugh for the last time’, and fired. I heard the sound of firing and I saw the flash and some smoke. After she had fired she kind of fell inside the window”, both laughing and crying, as Michael walked away. The next morning he called on her, “and once again they were quite friendly”, as if nothing had happened. But with their fights becoming so commonplace, tragically their neighbours often ignored them. The night of the murder began like any other… with a raucous party. Elvira didn’t care a wit that her hard-working neighbours had jobs and lives, as from ‘The Love Hut’, this cul-de-sac echoed with loud music, arrogant voices, and the popping of champagne corks. Inside, roughly 30 members of the Bright Young Things partied heartily, being crammed full of artists, poets, painters and even a power boat racer, only Michael was little more than a helper who served drinks. At 9pm, giving respite to their neighbours, the party decamped to the opulence of the Café de Paris in Piccadilly – where more drink, drugs and pretentious chat only added more fuel onto the fire – after which they headed to the infamous The Blue Angel club on Dean Street, to ruin their livers further. Being half cut and arseholed, it was still dark when her car skidded into William Mews. As if their fight from the morning had never ceased, their hurtful barbs could be heard before the car doors had even opened, as their bickering echoed across the cul-de-sac, causing some neighbours to slightly stir. As before, Dorothy Hall heard it all, but she saw very little; “at roughly 4:30am, I heard screaming and shouting, which woke my baby. There was a light on in the top floor window. I heard Mrs Barney, who was very hysterical telling him to get out of her house at once. Then she screamed out and said ‘I will shoot you’. She said that twice, ‘I will shoot you’. He said he would be going and then I heard the shot”. One shot… …followed by Michael crying ‘good God, what have you done?’ and Elvira screaming ‘Chicken, come back to me’. “I heard Mrs Barney call ‘Michael’ twice, and then all was quiet”. Which was odd, as Kate Stevens at no8 claimed “I heard four shots before the final one, a very loud one and Mrs Barney say ’Michael come back, I love you’”. And yet, William Liff, who was as close as any other, stated “I heard Mrs Barney say ‘go away or I’ll shoot you’, a pistol shot, followed by a groan and a thumping noise”. But which was it? As all three witnesses had seen nothing, and what they’d heard was only observed through the haze of tiredness across a dark echoey mews having been woken with a sharp start at an ungodly hour. And yet, all their statements contradicted how Elvira said the shooting had occurred. The socialite would later claim in a statement which was endlessly reported by an adoring media “we arrived home about 2am. We had a quarrel about a woman he was fond of”, her name being Dora. Inside the ‘Love Hut’ there was just Michael and Elvira, no-one else, so we only have Elvira’s side. She said “Michael threatened to leave me. I said ‘if you do, you know what will happen?’”, as several times prior (with Charles, John & Michael) she’d tried to take her own life. “He knew I kept a revolver… last night it was under the cushion of a chair near the bed, He knew where it was… he took it and said, ‘I’m going to take it away for fear you’ll kill yourself’”, as Elvira was a danger to herself and others. “I ran after him and tried to get it back”, but as the two struggled with both of their hands gripped on the revolver, “it went off… he looked surprised”, I didn’t know he was hurt, he went into the bathroom, half shut the door, and he said ‘fetch a doctor’, I saw he looked ill”, which his bloodstains would prove. Summoning Dr Durrant to what she would describe as “a dreadful accident” in which a man “has shot himself”, upon arrival, the Doctor declared Michael dead. Detective Inspector William Winter arrived shortly afterwards to find Elvira in a hysterical state unwilling to explain how this death had occurred. With the revolver by his hand, an entry wound in his left lapel, an exit wound in his back, and the bullet having passed through his left lung, filling his plural cavity with four pints of blood, his cause of death was heart failure - for which he was conscious for roughly ten minutes, before he collapsed and died. On the surface, it seemed like a very plausible accident… …but by the man’s dead hand lay a .32 revolver with three live and two spent rounds in the barrel. But what was odd was the order of the bullets, which went; one live, one live, one spent, one live and then one spent, as if (at some point) the barrel had been spun, like in a cruel game of Russian Roulette. Four experts examined the body; Home Office pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Robert Churchill the Met’s gun specialist, Dr Arnold Harbour the police surgeon and the detective, all of whom would state the following: “the revolver was three to six inches from the body when it was fired”, “his hands were clean, there was no blackening or singeing”, “there was no scorch marks on the entry wound”, and with Elvira wearing a kimono and knickers, no fingerprints were found on the gun as she wore gloves”. That said, if the two of them were face to face and struggling with the gun, “it was unlikely they would hold it at lung height”, “it would have been practically impossible for a man holding the butt of the revolver and struggling to have pulled the trigger, and fired it in the direction it was fired”, and with the gun being “one of the safest revolvers made”, requiring a lot of force and only space for one finger in the trigger guard, “if two people struggled with it, they’d have great difficulty in pulling the trigger”. When asked to give an account, Elvira the pampered socialite was petulant and flew into a temper. When told she would be taken to Gerald Road police station for questioning, she struck Sergeant Campion across the face, wailing “how dare you threaten to put me in a cell, you vile swine”, which he didn’t do. Having to be restrained, with the police informing her mother, Lady Mullens of her arrest, she barked “now you know who my mother is, you will be a little more careful in what you say to me”. But what else would you expect? When questioned, she was emotional, restless, as well as cold and callous, with her only thoughts being about herself, but as a self-interested socialite, it’s what she did. Tried in Court 1 of the Old Bailey on the 4th of July 1932, she pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, before a gallery packed full of journalists, as outside, her legion of fans protested her innocence. Putting on a show before an adoring crowd, rather than focussing on the details of the case, the press dedicated the first third of every article to her hair, her clothes, her brave demeanour, how she wept and raised a tiny green bottle of smelling salts to her nose as her love letters were read out in court. But often, they forgot to even mention the name of the victim, which many of them also got wrong. With many famous faces giving testimony as to her good character, and Michael being little more than an afterthought as the socialite hogged the limelight, with the jury retiring to consider all of the evidence against her, on Thursday 7th July at 4:45pm, after just two hours, a verdict was returned. Judge: “on the charge of murder, how do you find her?”, Foreman: “not guilty”. Judge: “on the charge of manslaughter, how do you find her?”, Foreman: “not guilty”. Judge: “and on the charge of grievous bodily harm, how do you find her?”, Foreman: “not guilty”. Unable to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to kill him, Elvira Barney was acquitted of all charges, and she walked free. (End) Deluged with bouquets and congratulations, this should have been the reawakening of her celebrity status, but with The Bright Young Things having lost their sparkle, Elvira went into self-imposed exile. Three weeks after her acquittal, while travelling at high speeds and drunk, Elvira crashed her car near Cannes on the French south coast, seriously injuring Countess Caroline Karolyi, and leading to another court case. Disowned by her family, divorced by John Barney, and with her upcoming marriage to Paris dress designer Rene Jean Cady being postponed, she fell in a deep bout of depression and alcoholism. Three and a half years after the trial, having to be helped to her bedroom by the porter of Hotel de Colisee in Paris owing to hard drinking, on the Christmas Day of 1936, Elvira was found dead. She was alone, and with her fame almost gone - unlike the murder - her “natural death” was barely reported. Unlike many of those supposed Bright Young Things, Elvira Barney’s name has vanished into obscurity, just as Michael’s had at his own trial for his own death. But such is the curse of fame and infamy, as when a celebrity is beloved, no matter what, they are given the benefit of the doubt. And yet, when the other party isn’t as liked, or as famous, or as praised by the press from whom we get most of our information, all-too-often the facts are cherrypicked to sell a narrative which best suits the celebrity. 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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Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE: On Saturday 24th January 1976 at 1:30pm, in their second floor flat at 41 St Olaf’s Road in Fulham, John Park brutally murdered his heavily pregnant wife. In an act of rage which was unusual for such a calm and placid man, he would claim he murdered her over money she had given to her daughter. But was there more to this?
THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on St Olaf’s Road in Fulham, SW6; a short walk south of the slaying of a super spy, four streets north of the dumping of the woman in red, three roads east of Lyn, Jan and the man only known as “him”, and a short dawdle from the brutality of Ronald True - coming soon to Murder Mile. St Olaf’s Road is a quiet residential street complete with two long lines of brown bricked three-storey tenements with each flat accessible by a communal door. It’s the kind of place newly-weds move into; where they kiss every six seconds, say “I wuv you” in a vomit-inducing voice and decorate it with ‘live-laugh-love’ and other heart-shaped shit. Only to twig that they can’t stand each other, scream “I hate you, you noodle dicked f**k”, flush the wedding cake down the bog, use his tux as loo paper, and then be stuck in a 20 square foot prison with the world’s worst cellmate for a very long time - aaaah love. Relationships require effort, as was proven in 1975, when John & Elizabeth Park moved to 41 St Olaf’s Road. Recently married and with a baby on the way, they were described as devoted. But with a point of friction gnawing at their souls, what began as an ordinary day would soon turn into a cruel murder. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 249: Besotted: The Endless Love of Mr & Mrs Park. John & Elizabeth Park were two sides of the same coin. Recently, life had been a struggle for Elizabeth Mary Deevy, as being raised a Catholic in the Irish city of Kilkenny to a farmer father and a housewife mother, she lived in accordance with The Good Book. Born in 1937, as was decreed by her faith and family, by the age of 18, she married James Kavanagh; at 19, she gave birth to Margaret the first of her four children, and for almost twenty years she made-do with an unhappy union. But by 1973, for reasons she never spoke of, the marriage was dissolved. Leaving behind all but her eldest to be raised by her parents, alongside Margaret who was 18, they moved to London, although the relationship between them was often said to be sour and perfunctory. The 1970s was a dark time in Britain owing to the strikes, a recession, unemployment and a fever of anti-immigrant sentiment which rippled among the uneducated, especially against the Irish. Elizabeth was a lone woman in a world where a divorced or unwed mother was spurned. What got her through was her strength, looks and her savvy brain, as being spendthrift and frugal, as a loving mother, her priority was to send money back to her children, and to give them her last penny in times of strife. Working during the day as a cashier for the North Thames Gas Board and in the evenings as a much-loved barmaid at The Elm pub, both on North End Road, although a little sullen, her life was good… …but having been parted from her children, owing to a broken heart, what she lacked was love. Like two odd-shaped peas in an uneven pod, it was their differences which complimented each other, as where-as she was quiet, he was chatty, and as a previously married mother of four who was experienced in life, love and heartbreak, as a 43-year-old virgin, he was innocent and untouched. Born in the Scottish city of Aberdeen on 29th of December 1932, John Alexander Park known as Jack was one of six siblings to a housewife mother and a dockyard stevedore father. As a devout Protestant, John never let his beliefs override his life, therefore everyone said he was always polite, kind and fun, but as a moral man who was held by his traditional values of rarely drinking and never gambling, lying, cheating or stealing, although now his 40s, he refused to engage in sex before he was legally wed. John had had girlfriends before, several in fact, and always being pleasant and loving, the ladies liked him, and although – as a short, stocky, balding man, whose harelip was masked by a broad moustache - some suggested that he was ‘punching above his weight’ by dating a such stunner, but balancing each other out perfectly, where-as she was the brains and the beauty, he was the charm and calm. Since leaving school, John had always worked hard. In the early 1950s, he was a Leading Aircraftsman in the Royal Air Force. Demobbed, he became a bakery driver. In 1956, he became a Lieutenant in the Salvation Army (who he remained with for the rest of his life). But in 1958, with God testing his morals, it was while working for a cleaners in Aberdeen that he stole some money. “It wasn’t a lot” John said, but getting two years’ probation for theft, it was a mistake that he swore he would never make again. After two years as a stevedore at the Aberdeen Shipping Company, needing a fresh start, in November 1972, he moved to London. Lodging at the home of Mr & Mrs Hawes of 2 Rylstone Road in Fulham, he was said to be “a nice fellow, sober and clean”, who paid his rent regularly having become the manager of a Ladbrokes betting shop in Notting Hill, with a big part of his job being to investigate the cheats. It was in Autumn 1974 that Elizabeth and John first met during what was an unlikely circumstance. As a barmaid at The Elm pub, Elizabeth served drinks at the weekly meeting of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes known as ‘The Buffs’, a fraternal order that John was part of. As “an exemplary member who never missed a meeting”, as may be expected from an all-male group getting drunk in a pub, the banter often turned bawdy with many of the men bragging about their sexual conquests. John didn’t though. Said to be “kind and respectful to women, but never inappropriate”, maybe it was his inexperience which made him go quiet in those moments, maybe he was raised better and didn’t feel that such talk was suitable for outside of the bedroom, or maybe, it was because he was in love. Trading glances across the bar; in her he saw beauty, in him she saw kindness, in each other they saw a future, and although different, many stated “they were a couple who were clearly besotted”. Within weeks, this devoted twosome moved-in together… …one year later, he brutally murdered her. Around the time they met, Elizabeth moved into a second floor at 41 St Olaf’s Road in Fulham. It was small but affordable on a single woman’s wage, it had extra space for if her daughter dropped, and needing a bit of decorating done, in early 1975, John popped in with some paint tins and his brushes. Said by older generations to be ‘courting’, that night, they shared a meal, a little wine and a lovely chat, but being unmarried, they kissed, but did nothing more to test his bubbling temptations, so instead he slept in the kitchen which Elizabeth respected. By the month’s end, they were living together, and although they slept in the same room, until married, there was never any nookie. With their loving and wholesome relationship blossoming, seeing her as ‘the one’, in March 1975, over a meal at the Steak House on Dawes Road, John asked Elizabeth to marry him, and she said yes. Having planned a Christmas wedding amidst the snow surrounded by their nearest and dearest, to cement their love forever, they bought each other engagement rings, and wore them until they day they died. By all accounts, they loved each other, they made each other smile, and they were never unkind to one another. Their neighbours never heard them shout, as John said “we never had a cross word, we always spoke if there was anything to discuss, we always talked it out to the logical points”. Which made sense, as every relationship has its troubles, and their first test as a couple was about to come. In the first week of April 1975, getting word that her elderly father was growing sicker, Elizabeth went back to Ireland as a loving daughter, and as a caring mother, it also gave her a chance to see her kids. For some couples, time apart can be a true test of their fidelity, but reuniting on 9th April at Heathrow Airport, seeing each other and jumping into each other’s arms, their love was as a strong as ever. So much so that – whether her father’s ill health played a pivotal role in her decision is uncertain – keen to change their winter wedding to a summer one, John jumped at the chance and fixed a sooner date. With just seven weeks until their nuptials, and with neither getting any younger (as Elizabeth was 39 and John was 43), keen to start a family of their own, in preparation for their first time being intimate on their wedding night, on the 12th of May, Elizabeth said she had her contraceptive coil removed. On 31st May 1975 at Fulham Town Hall, Elizabath Kavanagh became Mrs Park. As a small but charming affair with a few friends but very few family, following a little party at his ex-landlady’s home on Lillie Road, that night they went to the seaside town of Eastbourne, and for the first time, they had sex. Mr & Mrs Park were a lovely couple, described by many as “always happy and joking” and following a week’s holiday in Jersey, by the end of June, Elizabeth was excited to announce that she was pregnant. Being overjoyed at the news that they were to become parents, as often happens, their relationship would be tested not by the stress of an impending birth, but by circumstances outside of their control. As before this beloved baby was even born… …it would end in a whirlwind of anger and hate. The summer of 1975 began beautifully but ended badly. The first conflict between John & Elizabeth was over her eldest child, Margaret, who John said was “charming to everyone, but her mother. I think she tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. I believe she’s neurotic”. Aged 19, although she was working as a typist, John said “Margaret only turned up when she wanted something” – usually money. With a baby on the way, their frugal budget was stretched even thinner. Even with two bank accounts - hers (£650 in credit) and their joint account (with just £118), being 12 years before the statutory maternity pay was introduced meaning she would have to quit her job and receive no benefits, their financial survival was based on her savings and his wage as the manager of a Notting Hill betting shop. But as things started to go wrong, it unleashed a domino effect of little disasters. John’s job was their security, but in August, owing to what he described a “mistake with a betting slip”, as he was a fraud inspector with a criminal record for theft, he lost his job. Struggling to get another, he had to retrain as an accountant, but until he graduated, they’d be living off their dwindling savings. By the Christmas of 1975, with the couple tightening their budgets further but still doing okay, on the 20th of December, Margaret – who John said was “always sponging money from her mother” – claimed she had either lost her purse, or it was stolen. As a good caring mother, although she was eight months pregnant and needed every penny she had, Elizabeth bought her a new purse and placed inside £50. John was not happy about this, not happy at all, as £1 given to a grown woman was £1 taken from his baby’s mouth, and although he knew he couldn’t win the fight as the money come from her personal account, not theirs, all he could do was to say his piece, apologise and let it lie. And yet, it was another cruel incident, which tested their nerves. Christmas had been good, New Year had been jolly, and with Mr & Mrs Park excited for the year ahead, on Saturday 17th January 1976 at around lunchtime, being a loyal loving househusband for his heavily pregnant wife, John returned from shopping, with his arms weighed down with food and nappies. Opening the tenement door on St Olaf’s Road, what greeted him was horror, as lying on her back in the communal stairwell was Elizabeth; slightly bruised, bleeding a little and screaming a lot. It was the last of several incidents which had been sent to test their love and their faith, and although she had fallen hard on the cold concrete steps, they hugged each other tight to learn that “the baby is fine”. Like many parents, they were stressed but excited to welcome to the world their first baby, a boy… …only one week later, it wouldn’t be the birth which would kill the mother, but her loving husband. Saturday 24th January 1976 was an ordinary day. It was cold and wet with a blanket of snow. As John told the Police, “everything was alright between us. I went shopping, I came back about 11:30am. Elizabeth was up, we had something to eat, then said ‘I’m not feeling too well, I’ll go and lie down’”. Being just 10 to 14 days from giving birth, and still worried after her fall, every kick the baby made or didn’t make gave them a cause for concern. “She went to the bedroom” John said, “I was watching some horse-racing on the telly. After a while, I felt tired myself, and went to see her”. It was 1:30pm. Under the covers, lay his heavily pregnant wife, all round, swollen and groaning with discomfort. “You okay?” he asked, “yeah, I’m fine, it’ll pass” she replied, as he put an extra pillow under her head. There was nothing they could do but wait, as the little mite inside her squirmed, kicking her in the kidneys. Feeling both helpless and useless, John asked “do you want anything? Cup of tea? Toast?”, but replying “no, I’m fine”, with Elizabeth not wanting to be impolite, she suggested “why don’t you go to the pub, I’ll be fine, I’m just going to try and get some sleep”. And he could have done, but as a good man who was devoted to his beloved wife, all he wanted was to look after her, so he laid on the bed beside her. As they lay there, staring at the ceiling and chatting, “Elizabeth mentioned that she was worried about Margaret because she hadn’t heard from her in several days”. She had been a constant point of friction between them, and although they always talked it out, that day their little chat became a little heated. “I said something like ‘why don’t you have nothing to do with her’”, as with the midwife advising that she get rid of “all the stresses in her life” John worried that “since we married, we’ve spent quite a bit of money, time and a hell of a lot of worry on her”. Now they had bigger priorities; a baby, no jobs and their savings were dwindling, she shouldn’t be worrying about whether her grown-up daughter who earned a good wage as a typist was getting everything she wanted, when she wanted it. It wasn’t right. But guilt can be a cruel motivator, and given that this wasn’t their money, but hers which she had earned herself, and a decision which was almost certainly guided by a sense of regret having left three of her children behind in Ireland and with the relationship between her and Margaret a little strained, “she relied ‘Jack, I’ve got my own money and I’ll use it to help Margaret in any way I can’”. According to John, that was the spark which ignited the fire inside him. The neighbours didn’t hear any shouts, any screams, or any cries, their voices didn’t raise above a level of mild annoyance, but with the weight of the world on top of them, John said “I just went potty”. Having turned away from him, as (in her mind) their little tiff was over, “I stood”, John recalled. By the bed was a wine bottle he was keeping to fashion into a lamp, “she was crying ‘Jack, it’s my money, I’ll use it any way I want’. I picked up the bottle in anger. I’m sure I was only going to throw it against the wall, but I hit her on the head once and the bottle shattered completely, and she gave a small scream”. He had never hit her before, but for some reason, with a rage bubbling inside of him, he didn’t stop, he couldn’t stop, as having mounted and pinned her swollen body to the bed, he attacked her again. “She sort of gurgled, I panicked, and I picked up a heavy ashtray from the side and hit her over the head several times. She was unconscious, I wasn’t sure if she was dead”. Only still he wasn’t finished. “I let go of the ash tray and picked up a heavy flower vase and hit her again several times on the head”. And although he had fractured her skull, with the sharp shards of bone embedding into her brain, “I don’t know why I stopped hitting her. I can’t tell you why”, but having reached over and opened his drawer, “I went for the ties, I wanted to make sure she was dead. I got two and tied them round her neck, one at a time as tight as I could”, as he strangled the life out of her, and their baby inside of her. And there she lay, her tongue protruding, her eyes glassy and wide, her beautiful face now a mottled mix of bursting purples and seeping reds, as within her swollen bump, the baby gave its last ever kick. John stood there, in a daze, his hands dripping with her blood. “I went onto the kitchen and took all my clothes off and washed the blood off”, but not thinking, he didn’t destroy them as any killer would, he hid them in his own kitchen cupboard. “I went out with the idea of going to the police station. I wish I had. Instead I went back into the house. For some reason, I then tied her legs with her stockings. I put the pillowcase over her head so I couldn’t see the blood. I then covered her over with the big red bed cover”, and there he sat, in the kitchen, trying to watch the telly. “I made a cup of tea and tried to eat but couldn’t. I still thought I would give myself up”. But the next day, having packed a bag, and with £120 in his pocket, he fled… …at least, that’s what he said. His apprehension was simple, as being a man with no plan, he headed to Eastbourne where they had honeymooned and laid low. But not wanting to be a burden, he returned to pay the milkman, he told their friends she was staying at her younger sisters, each week he attended his meeting of ‘The Buffs’, and although he put on a good show of pretending that everything was okay, he was confused by the anger he had unleashed on the woman he loved, and the baby he would never see or hold. On the 15th of February 1976, with Helena, Elizabeth’s younger sister popping by (who supposedly she had gone to stay with), as the date of the baby’s birth had passed and no-one had heard a thing, seeing the rooms in darkness and the flat’s door locked, she called the police, and they forced the door. After three weeks, with flies having feasted on her seeping blood, her body so badly decomposed that an autopsy would prove difficult. It was a murder as violent as any the detectives had seen. With both ties biting deep into her neck, her death was due to strangulation. With no money or jewellery missing, robbery was not a motive. With her nightdress rucked up and her knickers exposed, although there were bloodstains on her crotch, there was no evidence of a sexual assault. And with defensive wounds to her arms and hands, this mother had fought to protect her unborn baby with her dying breath. The scene was as he had left it… and all that was missing was the culprit. Having alerted the banks, he was spotted on Thursday 19th February at 10:30am trying with withdraw £10 from a Lloyds Bank in Eastbourne. 20 minutes later, with DS Geggie seeing him staring at a full pint of beer at the Devonshire pub on Seaside Road, he asked “are you John Alexander Park?”, and having replied “yes”, he calmly walked with the officer to the local police station, a broken man. (end) Arrested, he confessed, and stated “I am ashamed of what I did to Elizabeth. I loved her dearly”. Tried at the Old Bailey from the 23rd to the 28th of July 1976, he pleaded not guilty to murder, but offered a plea of manslaughter by provocation, having dropped his initial story that her death was over money. In court, John would state that when he saw her in bed that day, she cruelly said to him 'do you think this is yours?' showing him her stomach. As she said it, on her face “was a hysterical and smirky look and there was an incredulous tone to her voice as though I had believed that the baby was mine”. The prosecution would pour scorn over this obvious besmirching of Elizabeth’s good name, as no-one had seen her cavorting with another man, no-one had heard any gossip about her getting pregnant by anyone but John, and in his first statement, he had never mentioned that the child might not be his. But the date of baby’s conception was problematic. As a 43-year-old Christian who had refused to have pre-marital sex with her; the facts prove they were married on the 31st of May and that she supposedly had her coil removed on the 12th of May (although her decomposition made that impossible to verify), but her hospital records would confirm that the baby was conceived between 26th April and 3rd May, at least one month before they were married. John would state “I did not have sex with her until we got married”. But if he didn’t, who did? Was she seeing someone else? Was he? Or was he too ashamed to admit that he’d had sex out of wedlock? Having retired, after less than an hour, he was unanimously found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He died in Lambeth in October 1998, and although the violence inflicted upon her didn’t match their minor tiff over money, whatever his motive truly was, they both took it to their graves. 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.
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT:
On Monday 15th January 1945 at 12:15am, a Dutch seaman called Jan Pureveen was murdered at Fred White’s coffee stall on Euston Road. It was a brutal and unprovoked attack which came out of nowhere, and yet, it was both expected and unexpected, as the killer was already known to the police as ‘The Creeper’.
THE LOCATION
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The location is marked with a lime green symbol of a bin at the top right of the markers near the word 'London Euston'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Euston Road, NW1; one street west of the Camden Ripper’s picked up place, two roads south of Paula Field’s dismembered body parts, one street north of the Sad Faced Killer’s last sleep, and a short walk from the despicable deadbeat who drilled - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated at 137-139 Euston Road in King’s Cross currently stands the Travelodge. Like most chain hotels, the complimentary coffee in the rooms will undoubtably be bad, it always is; being cheapo crap which tastes like it’s been scraped off a baboon’s backside, with a single serving of milk so mean I’d be better off suckling on a mouse’s teat, and with just two biscuits (yes, two), either they don’t want me to ‘have a nice time’, or they think I’m not a man but a chihuahua on hunger strike. Thankfully, back in 1945, on the ground floor stood an all-night coffee-stall owned by Fred White, a place where during the wartime blackout servicemen and civilians could chow down on sandwiches, with cups of hot coffee and tea. It was cheap, friendly and safe… or at least it should have been. On Monday 15th January 1945 at 12:15am, a Dutch seaman called Jan Pureveen was murdered at Fred White’s coffee stall. It was a brutal and unprovoked attack which came out of nowhere, and yet, it was both expected and unexpected, as the killer was already known to the police as ‘The Creeper’. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 247: ‘The Creeper’. (Creeping feet) Most people are murdered by those they already know. Stranger attacks are rare, killings without motive are even rarer, and although it does happen… it doesn’t happen like this. Sunday 14th January 1945, King’s Cross. After the D-Day landings as the Allies swept across Europe, the German war-machine sputtered to a halt and bombing raids were few and far between, like most cities, London was no longer in a full ‘blackout’ which left its streets in near darkness, but a ‘dim-out’ meaning that (unless an air-raid sounded) lighting was permitted up to the equivalent of moonlight. The night was dark, cold and cloudy, as a sprinkling of frost peppered the pavements. At the Osborne Hotel on Endsleigh Street, two Dutch merchant seamen on shore leave met for the first time and headed out to grab a bite to eat and to sink a few pints. They were Gerrit Bravenboer, a short but stocky sailor in his mid-20s, and 27-year-old Jan Bernardus Pureveen of Rotterdam; a 6-foot 2-inch hulk with a barrel chest, ham-hock legs, no neck, no charm, no patience and very little brains, whose tree-trunk thick arms were crudely doodled with enough rude tattoos to make a docker blush. Normally, I would tell you about his life story, about the pain, misery and heartbreak of his upbringing so that you can sympathise with his plight and perhaps cry when his life is cruelly ended. But I won’t. Jan was a violent drunken brute, a racist thug and a bigoted moron, who picked fights without reason, who wasn’t liked (as you’ll see) and whose actions that night speak for themselves. And although, in theory, he was the victim, he had more to do with his own death than the man who murdered him. At 7pm, at The Rising Sun pub in King’s Cross, Gerrit said that Jan had sunk at “least eight pints of beer”. As a big man with a cast-iron liver who could hold his drink, he wasn’t stumbling drunk, just loud and mouthy having engaged in yet another pointless argument with the barman, until last orders. Being kicked out at 10pm, feeling famished, they headed to Walley’s Coffee Stall nearby, where Gerrit confirmed “we had steak and chips, some bread and coffee” to soak up the booze and mellow Jan out. Around midnight, back at the Osborne Hotel, “Jan was noisy”, Gerrit said, “he started singing, Jan said he wanted some cigarettes and asked me to go with him as he didn’t know the way”, so he did. The nearest place selling ciggies was White’s Coffee Stall at 137-139 Euston Road, owned by Fred White. As a fast-food stall with space for a few standing customers, as Fred and Charles the manager cooked and served, perched at the bar were seven customers; Jan & Gerrit, Gerardus Nederpel of Antwerp, a fourth unidentified Dutch seaman, US Army Private Jeremiah Sullivan, a black GI called Private Herman Carter Robinson, and his paid-for date for the night, a white prostitute called Alice Emily Shepherd. They’d just met, as being a lonely and in need of a little ‘lady love’, she said “hullo” to him as he passed The Liberty Club in Upper Woburn Place, and ahead of some nookie, he invited her for tea and cake. The mood was fine, until Jan, who’d become pissed off that the stall didn’t sell the brand of cigarettes he wanted got pissy, as Gerrit recalled “I was standing back as I was fed-up with him grumbling”, and as this minor inconvenience had narked him, Fred said “he was mad drunk and looking for trouble”. At 12:15am, in what Gerrit recalled as “for no reason”, having never seen each other before, Jan barked at Herman “you black bastard, you wouldn’t be with a white girl in the States. I have been over there and know what they would do with you, you Mexican bastard”, as Gerrit tried to quieten him. Being weary of this brute’s aggression as Jan spate “you Mexican nigger”, Herman rightly said “watch that stuff” meaning his foul language. But as Jan’s racist blood boiled hotter, having pushed the black GI to goad him to fight, as Gerrit held Jan back, Alice & Herman saw their chance to leave, and did. Herman and Alice were walking away, heading back to The Liberty Club, a hostel for black servicemen, and as far as they were concerned the argument was over. They had only made it 25 feet west, but as they (ironically) passed a coffin maker’s and the front entrance of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital, having broken free, as Jan screamed “I’ll break your bloody neck”, he dived right on top of Herman. Witnesses state, the fuming Dutchman repeatedly punched Herman in the face and slammed his head into the pavement, as the two men tumbled in the road risking being run over as cars swerved to avoid them, and although Fred had tried to split them up, again Jan broke free and grabbed Herman by the throat screaming “I’ll kill you, you black bastard, I’ll fucking kill you” – as all racists are thick as pig shit. As the two scuffled and Alice screamed, Fred later stated “I parted them again. The coloured soldier went away with the woman, and I stood with the Dutchman until they were out of sight. All the time they were going up the road, he was shouting ‘I’ll kill you, you black bastard’. He was raving mad”. With The Liberty Club so close, having said goodbye to Alice, Herman were safely behind a locked door in minutes, so by the time that Gerrit & Fred had released the seething sailor, he’d vanished for good. No-one at the coffee stall had anything to do with Jan after that, nobody spoke or looked at him; not Fred or Charles who worked there, not Gerardus or the unidentified Dutch sailor, not Private Jeremiah Sullivan who headed back to his hotel, or Jan’s transient friend Gerrit who had walked away in shame. Herman was gone, and yet, barely seconds later, Jan would be dead. His killer was a total stranger to him… …who was known as ‘The Creeper’. ‘The Creeper’ was an enigma, and what little we do know about him is sketchy at best. Born in 1907, supposedly in Lagos, Nigeria in West Africa, although he was also said to also be a native of Freetown in Sierra Leone, unremarkably ‘The Creeper’s real name was Phillip Berry. Being short and stockily built in a scruffy brown suit and a trilby hat, burdened by moon-shaped face, the thin black moustache on his lip looked like a slug had humped his nose, and with glasses so thick his eyes looked as wide as cracked saucers, although an odd little man, always seen wearing crepe-soled ‘brothel creepers’ on his feet, he walked with a skulking gait as if he was up to something bad. His nickname amongst the prostitutes was ‘Jesus’, as apparently, mid-coitus he was prone to quoting scripture from The Bible, and although strange, it wasn’t the only thing about Phillip Berry which was. For 20 years, Berry had been a boilerman stoking the fires which fuelled the engines of cargo ships like the SS Honomu. It was a dark gruelling job for little pay, but that all changed on 5th of July 1942, when this 7000-tonne beast was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk in the Barents Sea off Finland. Of the 41 crew, 13 died, and although 28 survived, after two weeks adrift in a frozen lifeboat with no food, fire or shelter, many were badly injured, with Berry’s left fingers falling off owing to frostbite. Rescued by a British crew, Berry moved to London, got a job as a boilerman in the bowels of the War Office in Whitehall, and although he lived in small cheap lodgings across the city, he rarely slept there. Instead he chose to snooze outside in the air, on a chair by a fire in a club (as if he was back onboard his ship), or often spending his nights prowling the street, ‘The Creeper’ had a reputation as a weirdo. By day he worked, by night he stalked, as his soft-shoes silently creaked along the red-light districts of Soho, Paddington and King’s Cross, looking for whatever love he could find, for at most £1 a time. In October 1942, at a pub in Soho, he met 31-year-old Mary Miller from Scotland, a dance hostess and prostitute, and although he said he loved her, she’d state “we met from time to time by appointment”. As a widow from an unhappy marriage with three children all of whom had died, Mary’s life was hard and made harder as her dead husband had no savings or pension, so she had no choice but to sell sex. In January 1943, Berry moved in with Mary. Only this wasn’t a relationship built on love, but fear, as being a nasty piece of shit, her face was bruised and her body battered as often he would strangle her. Being possessive and jealous of her having sex with other men - which was odd, given that he lived off earnings as a prostitute - as an abusive bully who regularly carried one of two revolvers in his pockets, at least twice that we know of, the police were called to their flat, as he had threatened to kill her. In August 1943, as Mary sat on the windowsill cleaning the windows of her flat at Cambridge Road in Kilburn, “he caught hold of my legs” Mary said “and tried to push me back out of the window. I kicked him so hard he let go, but as he pushed me, he shouted ‘you’ll look fine the other side’” meaning dead. On Saturday 19th February 1944, in her second floor flat at 20 Torriano Avenue in Kentish Town, having grabbed Mary by the throat and pinned her to the bed, before he could hurt her further, her lodger and a client wrenched him free, and insisting he leave, she tossed his suitcase out of the front door. That day, Mary complained to the Police, they filed a report, but they did nothing as being a prostitute, it was said “she bought it on herself”. Her life was worth nothing, and although Phillip Berry was a criminal who was known to the Kentish Town Police as ‘The Creeper’, they would do nothing to protect her… …until he turned to murder. On Tuesday 22nd February 1944, two days later, Berry returned. Entering what he saw as his flat (which he had been booted out of), to collect his suitcase (which wasn’t there), only to find his woman in bed with another man (a cowardly client who fled in terror with his trousers round his ankles), 10-year-old Joseph Youles, a neighbour, said that he heard “a man knocking a woman about in that house”. As he rained down fists upon Mary’s screaming and steadily swelling face, with her trying to defend herself using a kitchen knife, neighbours said they heard her rear window open. Why? Is uncertain. Maybe she was trying to call for help, or maybe it was her only means of escape. But with two 9-year-old twins (the Richardson boys) at number 28 clearly stating “the black man pushed Mrs Miller out of the window… he pushed her in the small of her back”, with the entire street alerted to her panicked screams, “I saw her hanging out of the window, she fell downwards, and screamed all the time”. Falling 20 feet onto the hard concrete of the basement steps below, she landed head-first. Berry claimed “Mrs Miller suddenly jumped from the window”, at which, again he claimed, “I hurried from the flat to get a policeman”. Only the witnesses saw “a black man calmly walk out of the house”. With the Police and an ambulance arriving a few minutes later, Dr Sydney Tibbles stated she was found in a crumpled heap wearing just her pyjamas. Bleeding from a severe skull fracture and coughing up blood, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, she was rushed to St Mary’s hospital in Islington. Listed as critical, with her left eye ruptured and protruding, blood in her spinal fluid, and her brain swollen, Mary fell into a coma, and although described as ‘at death’s door’, miraculously she survived. Callously describing her as “not my wife”, just “a girl”, in the several statements Berry made to Police Inspector MacDonald - all of which were inconsistent - pleading not guilty to her attempted murder at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court, on the 18th May 1944, he was tried at the Old Bailey. Discharged from hospital a day later, Mary was too sick to give evidence and owing to her head injury, she couldn’t recall what had happened that day. And although, it should have been a clear-cut case of attempted murder, with much of the evidence based on what the witnesses had seen, it wasn’t to be. With the defence describing Mary as “a women who preyed on coloured men when they have money to spend”, and even the Judge sympathising with him by stating “it was a great pity he had anything to do with her”, bafflingly finding ‘no intent’ to his crime, on the 22nd May, the charge was reduced from attempted murder to grievous bodily harm, and Phillip Berry was sentenced to just nine months. Sent to Brixton Prison, he served just six, and was out by November. Mary was left a broken woman, who walked with a limp, suffered from epilepsy, sickness, headaches and dizziness, and barely unable to work legally (let alone illegally), she struggled to get by on benefits. Berry was a violent man, who was selfish and sinister, and although she still bore the physical scars and emotional wounds he had inflicted upon her, on Boxing Day, at a Chinese café on New Compton Street in Soho, he stalked her for third time that month, and pestered this weak woman for money. “We argued”, Mary said, “and suffering a fainting spell, as I fell against him, I struck my head on a hard object under his coat” – a 45-calibre revolver. As an evil unrepentant beast, although she was hardly half the woman she once was, unable to give him a single penny, he spat “I failed the first time, but I won’t fail a second time”. That day, on New Compton Street, Phillip Berry tried to shoot Mary Miller dead. But thankfully, having been ushered to safety by a friend, “that’s the last time I saw him”. Mary Miller would survive her violent relationship with Phillip Berry… …and although they had never met, death was looming for a Dutch sailor called Jan. Sunday 14th January 1945. After a gruelling shift shoving coal into the boilers in the fiery bowels of the War Office, even though he lived at in a small lodging at 8 Mornington Crescent in Camden, Berry had quick snooze at the Coloured Colonial Social Club at 5 Gerrard Street, and then hit the dark-lit streets; his eyes wide, his fingers gnarled and his shoes shuffling stealthily, as in his pocket lay a .45 revolver. And although the ladies-of-the-night all knew him, they wisely crossed the street to avoid The Creeper. Where he went? Nobody knows. Why he was there is a mystery. But he was. (shouting heard) “You Mexican nigger”, “hey, watch that stuff”, “I’ll break your bloody neck”. At 12:15am, outside of White’s Coffee Stall on Euston Road, the hulking lump of Jan hurled Herman’s stick thin frame to the ground; punching, kicking and slamming his head on the road, as cars swerved. Scuffling, as Alice screamed, Fred pulled the two men apart, as aided by Gerrit, he held back the red-faced seething moron who frothed with rabid racism, spitting “I’ll kill you, you black bastard, I’ll fucking kill you”, as Alice the sex-worker led Herman the black GI around the corner, until he was out of sight. The fight was over, Herman had gone, and Jan’s temper was cooling. Herman later said “the woman walked me as far as Upper Woburn Place, where she said ‘goodnight’, and I went into the Liberty Club”. It was his first day in London, he didn’t know anyone at the coffee stall, not Fred, not Alice, and especially not Jan. Like most people, he saw nothing and heard nothing. (Creeping fast) But out of the darkness, ‘The Creeper’ crept like the wind. (wind) Fred said “the next thing I recall is that a small, coloured man ran into me, knocking me off my balance, saying ‘get out of my way’”. By then, being stood in front of a coffin makers, as he venomously glared into the inky blackness amongst the ‘dim out’ into where Herman had vanished to, the last thing that Jan supposedly heard wasn’t Berry’s brothel creepers, but him shouting “you couldn’t kill me buddy”. Berry didn’t know him, they had never met, and what he saw of the incident before is uncertain. From his right pocket, Berry pulled his revolver, and although the looming shadow of the giant pasty racist swamped the little black dot, although easily a foot taller and twice his weight, the Dutch seaman was no match for four hard fast slugs from a .45. Fired from just two feet away, Jan fell like a brick. Examined by Sir Bernard Spilsbury; the first bullet ripped open his right wrist as he covered his eyes; the second burrowed deep into his chest, 2 inches from the midline, passing through his 5th and 6th rib, severing the left lung, the aorta and ricochetting off the spine; the third smashed his left shoulder and shattering into pieces, they exited like shotgun pellets, and the fourth dislocated his left elbow. Slumping to the ground, Jan could do nothing but dribble and bleed, his pale face on the frosty floor, as blood and various fluids oozed from every orifice, whether new wounds or old holes. Like most of the coffee stall patrons, many like Gerrit ran, as – rightfully - Jan wasn’t worth getting killed over. Having been shot directly outside of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital on Euston Road, the big bearded brute was carried inside and examined by Dr Dixon, but with his beer-filled chest swimming in blood and what was supposedly a heart bleeding out, Jan Pureveen was pronounced dead on arrival. A racist was no more, which is no bad thing… …but into the darkness, his killer had fled. As you might expect, the investigation was short, very short. Eight people at the coffee stall described him as a small black man with a slug-like tash, thick lensed glasses, a brown trilby, a dirty suit and a deformed left hand, and with Alice Shepherd (Herman’s brief date and a King’s Cross sex worker) stating “I heard the shots… he ran right passed me by the fire station… I knew this man as ‘Jesus’”, Inspector John Black easily identified the suspect as ‘The Creeper’. At 12:40am, Berry returned to the Coloured Colonial Social Club to sleep by the fire, and just 11 hours after the shooting, Berry was arrested in Room 0047 of the War Office, shovelling coal into a boiler. When questioned, Berry denied being there, he claimed he was just a customer, he also blamed it on another shooter, and while being escorted to prison, Berry said “I don’t wish to make a statement. I’m in enough trouble. This is my last time to Brixton”. So, why he did it remains a mystery. (End) Changing his alibi to implicate an unnamed friend who had fired the shots, at an ID Parade held at Bow Street police station, all the witnesses identified Phillip Berry as the shooter. Charged with murder, he replied “I got nothing to tell about this case. I don’t think I knows anything. That’s all”. But escorted to Brixton prison, he was heard muttering “the Dutchman called him a nigger. No man is born a nigger”. Tried at the Old Bailey on 12th of March 1945 before Justice McNaughton, pleading ‘not guilty’ to wilful murder, after a three-day trial, the jury retired for just one hour before returning with a guilty verdict. Donning his black cap, Justice McNaughton decreed that the right sentence was a death sentence, and although manslaughter was not considered as there was no hint of provocation, later commuted to life in prison, once again, Phillip Berry would serve a pitiful sentence and was released after ten years. Oddly, in November 1945, just eight months after his trial, having been reduced to theft (having stolen a pendant and a book of clothing coupons from a neighbour on Torriano Avenue) and deceit owing to the horrific injuries inflicted by her ex-boyfriend Phillip Berry, Mary Miller was tried at the Old Bailey. As a widow, Mary had struggled to scrape by. Later learning that her husband wasn’t dead, but he had in fact abandoned her, with him also having bigamously married her, Mary was charged with falsely declaring the army allowance of a serving soldier and was sentenced to six months in Holloway prison. Hearing the news, owing to her weakened heart, she collapsed. Carried to her cell by two warders, an uncompassionate judge declared "you are obviously in need of medical attention, and you will get the best of that in a place of detention". 33-year-old Mary Miller, who still had the scars of the attack on her broken skull would serve more time in prison for bigamy, than Berry did for her attempted murder. 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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