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.
junction of Bishop’s Bridge Road & Porchester Terrace North in Bayswater, W2 (image capture Dec 2022, @Googlemaps)
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-SIX: Saturday 15th of January 1994 at roughly 1am, at the junction of Bishop’s Bridge Road & Porchester Terrace North in Bayswater, W2, 19-year-olds Jamie Petrolini and Richard Elsey stabbed 44- year-old Mohamed Abbas Nassif el-Sayed to death in a fake SAS initiation by two fantasists. But why?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a black coloured symbol of a bin above the words 'The Long Water'. 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 the junction of Bishop’s Bridge Road & Porchester Terrace North in Bayswater, W2; one street east of Barbara Shuttleworth’s shooting, directly opposite the attacks by the Old Lady Killer, and a short walk from the crime spree of the ‘chinless wonder’ - coming soon to Murder Mile. At a little T-Junction off Porchester Terrace North sits a Give Way sign, and usually a long line of truly useless drivers, all eagerly waiting to get snarled up behind the chocking fumes of trucks. Only to first get wedged behind a learner driver struggling to find first gear, a yummy mummy whose talons scratch rainbows on the windscreen every time she turns the steering wheel, or cyclists either taking an age to fix their feet to their stupid clippy-cloppy cleats, or darting from the road to the path shouting “look at me, I’m a vehicle, now I’m a pedestrian, and now I’m a vehicle again, the rules don’t apply to me”… …until – of course - they get strawberry-jammed under the No 27 bus to Baker Street. Good. Life is not a game. But for two boys with an SAS fixation, it was. Saturday 15th of January 1994 at roughly 1am, at this junction, 19-year-olds Jamie Petrolini and Richard Elsey stood dressed in black, like SAS soldiers on a deadly mission. Armed with a combat knife, whereas some boys play cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, being stuck in a bizarre world of fantasy and initiations, their playtime had become a reality, and soon, an innocent man would be butchered. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 256: The Initiation. Far from being driven to kill owing to hardship, both boys came from privilege. Born in 1975, Jamie Petrolini had the kind of upbringing most kids would dream of. Raised in the tiny hamlet of Cromdale in the rugged Spey valley of northeast Scotland, every morning he would open his window to stunning glens, fresh streams and highland cattle. As the only child of Johnny & Wanda, being Polish and Italian post-war immigrants who ran a café and an ice-cream parlour, their long hours had blessed him with a good home, a happy life, and the privileges they had been denied as children. Only Jamie didn’t see it like that, all he saw was “heather and sheep”, claiming “I was on my own a lot. I grew up with nearly no contact with others”, no siblings and no best friends, just his collie dog Jake. Keen for him to do well, his parents sent him to Aberlour, a prestigious £11000-a-year prep’ school, and later being educated at Gordonstoun, the elite Scottish public school as attended by King Charles. For some, it’s seen as the best education that money can buy, but for Jamie, it was just another form of isolation, a boarding school stuffed with pompous little scrotes with no emotion, except arrogance. Bullied and demoralised, although he struggled to fit in, sport became his saving grace, as he busied himself with rugby, canoeing and a parachuting, becoming leader of the running group, captain of the karate team and such an accomplished skier, that he almost made it onto the Scottish national team. Aged 14, growing into a small and silent ‘Action Man’, his dream was to join the Marines, but lacking an attention span and drifting into the realms of fantasy as he sat in desperate solitude, having failed his A’ Levels, his university scholarship bid was futile, and his Army application was rejected. 1990 to 1991 saw the invasion of Kuwait and the war in Iraq, all of which were heavily televised as was the Iranian Embassy siege by the SAS in 1980. With Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab’s SAS memoir being released in 1993, it was a time of heroes and bravery… only Jamie Petrolini was part of none of it. As a sullen sensitive boy, what he needed was a mentor to guide him… …what he ended up with was a deluded fantasist. Like Jamie, Richard Elsey’s upbringing was the epitome of privileged, Raised in the leafy upper-middle class enclave of Wilton Road in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, his English father and Iranian mother had also sent their only son to Brockhurst prep’ school, Merchant Taylors public school, and later doing his A ‘levels at Dr Challoner’s Grammar in Amersham, with hopes that he’d study at Oxford university. Both were isolated and anxious, but whereas Jamie had sports as an antidote to his insecurity, Richard was described as “quiet and passive”, “a reserved chap” and “not a natural mixer”. As a shy boy who many said “when he left the room, he left no trace that he’d been there”, keen to join the Army, but knowing he lacked the confidence and the physical frame being too slightly built, he tried to rebel. It was all a bit pathetic; he took up smoking, he sometimes lied, he collected knives, and he stole a travel card from a friend, only to pretend it was an SAS identity card, which it looked nothing like. But lies can also bely a much darker side, having agonised that “the real me is hiding from my pretend self”, as fanciful as it may seem, he’d claim he was a 2nd lieutenant in the Paras having been seconded to the SAS (Britain’s elite military unit) stating he was on secret missions, and he spoke of his grief seeing his sister killed, writing “blood was everywhere, on my clothes, on the car, on the road, on my soul, the soul that is now In hell… it seems as though my sister, my one true source of love, has been lost since the beginning of time”. Only there was one problem, Richard had always been an only child. As a morose lonely boy, what he needed was a friend… …but what he wanted someone to dominate, someone like Jamie. In September 1993, by chance, both were sent to Modes in Oxford to re-sit their A’ levels. Described by the principal Dr Stephen Moore as “young and immature… they behaved strangely, as if they were plotting something”, and although neither were happy, together they had met their soul mate. They would be friends for just four months. Neither had a history of violence, cruelty, drugs or drink; and they had suffered no trauma, no accidents and no bullying beyond what is seen as the norm’, they were just two privileged middle-class misfits who found solace in a shared fantasy of being soldiers. All children are daydreamers who learn life lessons by role-playing and who know it’s time to cease when someone’s bored, hurt or it’s time for tea. Their problem was not knowing when to say ‘stop’. It all started harmlessly enough. In October 1993, as that month’s best-selling book, Richard purchased Andy McNab’s Brave Two Zero, the (partially) true story of an SAS patrol stuck behind enemy lines in Iraq, which became his obsession. Devouring every code word, such as ‘SOP’ for the standard operating procedures, ‘E & E’ for escape & evasion and being littered with comical and racially insensitive terms like officers being ‘Ruperts’ and Arabs are ‘rag heads’, its words became his mantra. Recording his favourite phrases onto tape to learn them verbatim, being tired became ‘on your chinstrap’, beaten up became ‘filled in’, and with slotting meaning to kill, he’d repeat “you never kill – you slot the little rag heads if they get in your way”. Every teen has a dark obsession, but it wasn’t anything to worry about, as Richard was also so timid. Sharing the book with Jamie who loved it as much as Richard did, Richard’s mantra became Jamie’s as he mentored this special forces fledgling into the ways of the SAS. From now on, they’d state “there is no failure, you just follow the SOP”. “Fear? There is no fear because there is no feeling”. For every mission, they spoke as Andy McNab did, shouting “just fucking let’s do it”, and rejecting any family or feeling because “if you’re worried about people getting hurt and killed, you’d spend your life on anti-depressants. They’re only people; ‘slime’ or ‘dickheads’ or ‘wankers’. Here today, rat-shit tomorrow”. Ditching their college uniforms, by the winter of 1993, the boys were dressed in black like a baby-faced battalion, wearing leather jackets, Army boots, caps and sunglasses. Again, it was just harmless fun, a fashion fad, and (like most teens) they wanted to be unique but dressed identical to feel connected. Again, along with the grief he’d shed for his dead sister who never existed, Richard told Jamie that he was 2nd lieutenant in the Paras and offered to train him – based on his experience - as an SAS recruit. It was all a lie, everyone else knew that, except Jamie. So whether he believed it, or wanted to believe it is unknown. But having also expressed some homosexual longings, was this a friendship or love? Jamie would later state: “He was my best friend. Why should he lie? He lectured me about good and evil, glory and pride. And still wanting to join to Marines, I became a clone of him, arrogant and brash”. By day, Richard had him marching through the streets of Oxford. By night, he had him blacked-up and crawling on his belly through the undergrowth as if he was hunting an enemy sniper. And sometimes, as ordered by Richard’s (fictional) Commanding Officer to test Jamie’s metal, they went on ‘missions’. Akin to kids dressing up in an older siblings’ clothes, adopting a deep voice and drawing on stubble so they’d look old enough to buy cigarettes and alcohol, their ‘real world missions’ were silly little games. In November 1993, posing as Captain T G Walker and Lieutenant Chris Winter, they claimed they took a room at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington and arranged for the bill to be sent to the Army (which seems unlikely), they said they walked into a wedding reception and stole a bottle of vodka, and celebrated a successful mission by swapping the breakfast orders hanging from the hotel’s doorknobs. It was hardly the epitome of an SAS mission, and it’s uncertain if any part of it was even true. That month, they walked into the Golden Horseshoe Casino in Bayswater, pretending to be CID officers assigned to root out gangsters. But with these baby-faced teens having no ID and no idea, they were booted out by the manager and the bouncer. They had chosen that casino at random, and that was also their only prior link to their victim – that they’d been in the same room, but not at the same time. Jamie & Richard were two stupid little boys who were as incompetent as they were cowardly… …and yet, a few weeks later, they’d brutally murder a stranger for an SAS initiation which didn’t exist. But why? (Cliffhanger) At college, their attendance was bad, their course work was shambolic, and having found each other, they had become even more isolated. Their fantasy had become their reality, with Richard believing he was recruiting Jamie as a member of the Special Forces, and that soon, Jamie would fulfil his dream. Jamie said “I was an automaton… Richard was the murderer, and I was just the knife”, or so he’d say. Day and night, they talked of killing, quoting Andy McNab: “be a sniper… head shots only. If you’re not good enough, don’t bother. Be a man, be a killing machine”. But that’s all it was, talk. They never acted on those words or were cruel to a stranger. It was just the bluff and bluster of two bored, lonely kids. In what they’d describe as the murder book, Richard had Jamie copy down all the ways Richard said he should kill, with one being “from behind, hand over mouth, stab the heart once, hold until dead. Insert knife at top of vertebrae, sever spinal cord and brain, wrench to the left, sever jugular, note lots of spray”, and although some may call this killing, “Andy McNab called it ‘giving them the good news’”. With Jamie’s basic and plagiarised training coming to an end after just two months, Richard set him his final assignment – the ultimate SAS initiation. Agreeing to do it on his birthday - Friday 14th January 1994 – having bought a Fairburn Sykes commando knife, Jamie was now planning his ‘first blood’. That morning, both boys caught the bus from Oxford to London Victoria. In their minds, the mission was simple; as Richard told Jamie, “we’re going to kill someone. It’s an SAS test for you, ordered by my boss. There is no good or evil, only tasks to be done quickly and efficiently… we’ll go to Kings Cross… wear rough clothes or we’ll stick out like the balls on a bulldog… wear gloves and carry a bag for blood-stained clothes. You think of everything. Then you act, you fucking do it”. Who they killed was irrelevant, “so we decided to slot a pimp or a drug pusher, not a real person”. That was the plan… but when it actually came to doing the dirty deed, rather than bragging about it, they cacked it. On the doorstep of The Flying Scotsman on Caledonian Road, Jamie asked the female bouncer, ”I’m sorry to ask, I don’t want to be rude but do you know where we could find some pimps?” Heading to the Malt & Hops pub a few doors down, in the toilets, both boys got dressed like a budget ninjas going apple-picking - wearing army boots, sunglasses, black woollen hats and black gloves, which was deeply suspicious especially in an era when IRA bombings still prevalent in London - but with the barman growing suspicious as they had hogged the loos for too long, he asked them to leave. In King’s Cross, which is a hotbed of sex and drugs, they said they couldn’t find a pimp or drug dealer. They’d failed before they’d even begun, not because of a lack of targets but owing to their cowardice. For months, they’d bragged so much, with Richard as the mentor and Jamie as his student, only now they both felt a deep sense of shame and betrayal at their failure. But as Andy McNab would state “There is no failure. You just follow the SOP. Fear? There is no fear because there is no feeling”. So, with this decision being as random as a roll of the dice, they took the Central Line tube to Queensway. Their victim, they had never met; they didn’t know his name and they didn’t care. 44-year-old Mohamed Abbas Nassif el-Sayed was born in Cairo, Egypt. Having trained as a chemistry teacher, he came to London in 1976 to continue his education. Four years later, at the Empire Ballroom in Leicester Square he fell in love. His wife Susan would state “I looked at him and he saw me and we danced together all night. Somehow, I knew we would be together forever”. Married in Hackney in 1981, that night, “he cried because he was so happy at finding me”, said Susan, “I just hugged him”. Described as a gentle giant, as a hard-working husband with two young sons, Sharif aged 7 and Tarek aged 3, by day Mohamed supported his family by working as a chef, as by night, he let off a little steam at the Golden Horseshoe Casino in Queensway. For Mohamed, it had been an unremarkable day. At 6pm, he had dinner with his family, never knowing that it would be his last. At 7pm, he kissed his boys goodbye as he tucked them into bed, unaware that he would never see their faces again. At 7:30pm, having picked up his friend Yasser Hamouds in his silver blue Audi, they headed to the casino. Always smartly dressed, polite and wearing thick tinted glasses owing to an eye condition, Mohamed was said to be “a sweetie” who was no bother to anyone. After midnight, he dropped his friend home, and although he was happy to be heading back to his family, he was a little sad having lost £300… …only his night was about to get worse. The two tragic teens had failed their misguided mission to slaughter a stranger on the supposed orders of a fictional SAS chief. With his chest puffed out, Richard strutted and barked like a cut-price Rambo, as Jamie his deluded subordinate who would do anything never be lonely, skulked in the cold darkness. By about 1am, the junction of Bishop's Bridge Road and Porchester Terrace North was deathly quiet, as a low fog rolled in along the tree-lined street. In the half an hour they’d stood by the Give Way sign, ten cars had passed by, ten potential victims, all of which they’d rejected for one reason or another. Another failure was looming, and the boys knew it… …but as a silver-blue Audi approached, chosen at random, it was now or never. Richard barked “Him!”, and that was it. Jamie dived into the passenger’s seat, with Richard in the back, and slipping the razor-sharp combat knife to Mohamed’s throat, Jamie ordered “drive round here”, as at a creeping 10 miles per hour, the car rolled up the well-lit street towards Paddington Station. It was a pointless move by two inexperienced idiots, having gone from a dark secluded side street to a much busier bus route, and having travelled no more than 70 metres, Jamie spat “pull in here”. The Audi was parked on Bishop’s Bridge Road outside of several unlit houses on Gloucester Gardens. With the engine off and the interior in darkness, Jamie turned to Richard and said “Rich?”, as if he was awaiting his orders. Only Richard said nothing, he simply froze, as now the fantasy had become reality. As planned in their Murder Book, Jamie would brag “I struck him under the Adam’s apple, just to the left of the neck and severed a vein”. As expected, there was a lot of blood. What they didn’t expect was Mohammed to fight back, as he grabbed the knife’s blade with his bare hands and tried to flee. Jamie also boasted (as if he was recounting his own SAS memoir of bullshit) “Richard was holding him from the back seat. After a couple of seconds, I changed the target… it was a direct stab to his heart. The knife went in all the way up to the hilt. I left it in there for four or five seconds and pulled it out. I turned to Richard and said ‘Jesus, there is a lot of blood’”. And within minutes Mohammed was dead. Pointlessly stealing the car keys and his glasses for no reason other than as a cruel souvenir, these two deluded losers saluted each other on a mission well done and fled into the night, leaving a hat behind. Callously admitting to a psychiatrist, Jamie said “I walked off as if nothing had happened… I enjoyed the killing”, and on the bus back to Oxford, Jamie opened his birthday cards and Richard fell asleep. Eight hours later, at 9:20am, a traffic warden found Mohammed slumped in his seat, a crime scene was established, but with no fingerprints, no witnesses and no motive, the culprits were a mystery. It was a baffling crime with no real chance of a conviction… …but not being real soldiers, these two pathetic boys couldn’t help but gloat. Said to be a “private joke”, at a Burger King, Jamie put on the glasses, donned the blood-stained gloves, bit into a ketchup sachet and let it pour it down his chin to mock the dead man’s last moments alive. Having bragged about “doing some slotting as a regular thing”, not realising that he wasn’t living in a fantasy world, Jamie boasted about the murder to two friends, his flat mate and even his father. With the school principal informed, the CID were called, and both boys were arrested. (End) Tried at the Old Bailey in autumn 1994, both boys blamed each other for the murder. Described as “emotionless and callous”, it is said they were ‘lifestyle psychopaths’ obsessed with being SAS soldiers. Examined by psychiatrists, although no signs of psychopathy were found in Richard, Jamie’s lawyers posited the defence that he was suffering from early-stage schizophrenia at the time of the crime, but a plea of manslaughter by diminished responsibility was rejected by the prosecution and the jury. The jury deliberated for five hours. Returning with a 10-2 majority verdict on Mohamed’s 45th birthday, on the 8th of November 1994, Jamie Petrolini & Richard Elsey were both sentenced to life in prison. Summing up, Judge Neil Denison QC stated “you were both playing out your fantasies. It started with harmless pranks and progressed to the brutal and senseless slaughter of a complete stranger”. Mohamed’s widow Susan said “I'll never forgive them. They are evil. They should never be freed”, also stating of them, “my two boys may never have the wealth or opportunities that they have had, but we are a far better class of people than those two. My life is a misery and I am fighting to keep afloat. But at least I can hold my head up high and say I am a civilised citizen, unlike those animals”. On 14th of June 2012, following a legal fight by his family, with the Court of Appeal having recognised “that Jamie’s responsibility for the killing was significantly impaired by his mental illness”, his murder conviction was quashed, and he was committed to a Hospital Order. Having served 18 years of his life sentence in prison, aged 36, Richard Elsey was released in February 2012. And even though it was his SAS fantasy which drove them both to kill, he was never diagnosed as ‘mentally unwell’. 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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Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #255: The 'Other' Ronald True (Gertrude Yates & Ronald True)22/5/2024
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.
13A Finborough Road (basement) (C) GoogleMaps Oct 2023
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-FIVE: The basement flat of 13A Finborugh Road in Fulham was the home of 25-year-old Gertrude Yates, a high-class call-girl who was smart, well-liked and polite. But on the morning of Monday 6th March 1922, Gertrude was found beaten, gagged and strangled by her latest client – an Army Major who was called Ronald True. But who had really murdered her? Was it Ronald True, or was it the ‘other’ Ronald True?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a lime green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Earls Court'. 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 Finborough Road in Fulham, SW10; three streets south-west of the beating of Gunther Podola, a tube stop south John George Haigh’s bubbling drum, two doors down from the woman in red, and one street east of the lynching of the last fighter - coming soon to Murder Mile. Opposite Brompton Cemetery sits 13 Finborough Road, one of ten five-storey Victorian terraces in a block, with fake doric columns around the door and its stucco painted white, as if the house was hand-chiselled from marble like a Greek god’s buttocks flexing majestically to lure the inhabitants of Lesbos. The last time I stood here, a man living in the flat where the woman in red’s body was smashed on the steps, glared at me, as I told his grinning neighbour about the murder in his flat. And although, a hint of one-upmanship permeated her lips, today – sorry missus – but your house is equally as bloody. The basement flat was the home of 25-year-old Gertrude Yates, a high-class call-girl who was smart, well-liked and polite. Her preferred clients were titled men or men of rank who could treat her to the finer things in life she felt she deserved. But on the morning of Monday 6th March 1922, Gertrude was found beaten, gagged and strangled by her latest client – an Army Major who was called Ronald True. But who had really murdered her? Was it Ronald True, or was it the ‘other’ Ronald True? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 255: The ‘Other’ Ronald True. Gertrude’s life was as typical as many woman in that era. Born in August 1896, Gertrude Yates was the daughter of Lillian & Lionel Yates, a working-class family who struggled, as with their father being a commercial traveller, he’d schlep from door-to-door selling pots, pans and bog brushes to the masses for the sake of a few pennies so his ragged family could eat. In 1904, aged 8, her father died, so being the sole breadwinner, against her wishes, Gertrude was sent to The Royal Commercial Traveler’s School in Pinner for the next 8 years. Away from her mother and her brother, she was taught the ‘useful skills’ for a young lady, like sewing, cleaning and cooking. In 1912, aged 16, Gertrude came to London to find work. Being a girl who had nothing but dreamed of better life full of life’s finest, she knew her only chance of success was by hope, luck and hard work. Rising from invisible rank of floor sweeper to the slightly loftier heights of an apprentice draper and a seamstress, it was in the fashionable workshop of Bradley & Coy in Westbourne Grove that Gertrude learned her trade, but also developed an expensive taste for silk, laces and the latest fine fashions. As a lone girl with a basic education, she was doing well, but as the First World War had confiscated every material for the fight, her career was finished, and all she was left with was her looks. Gertrude wasn’t a prostitute, as such. If anything, as a call-girl, she was more of a ‘paid companion’ to a host of moneyed men with titles and ranks who would treat her to meal at Claridge’s, a show at the Palladium, a gift from Harrods, a hamper from Fortnum’s and being whizzed back to her bijoux pied-de-terre at 13A Finborough Road in a chauffeured car, she would satisfy the desires of her handsome young man in return for an agreed price, a weekly allowance, and another ‘date’ popped in the diary. Gertrude (who with four convictions for soliciting was known to the West End police as Olive Young) wasn’t a snob, but she didn’t hobnob with the riffraff, as having come from nothing, she knew that her only way of escaping the life that she had no intention of returning to was through the wealthy. All her clients were well-off… …and that included Ronald True. Sort of. As a born liar, the life of Ronald True was a fanciful as any story. Born on the 16th of June 1891 in Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester, Ronald also came from nothing being the illegitimate son of Annabelle Angus, the 16-year-old daughter of a Scottish innkeeper. Her life was a struggle having recently got divorced, until their lives were changed by a fairy tale romance. In 1902, when Ronald was 11, his mother married Arthur Reginald French, the 5th Baron de Freyne. As an aristocrat who lived in a grand terrace at 1 Green Street in Mayfair by The Ritz, their marriage made her Lady Annabel de Freyne, and with him being childless, Ronald was raised by the Baron as his own son. It may sound like the kind of lie that Ronald might spew, but I assure you, it was true. In Ronald’s eyes, his stepfather was his hero and rightfully so, having lived his earlier years as an officer in the North-West Mounted Police, a private in the 8th Infantry Regiment at Slocum in Texas and later as a Captain of the 3rd Battalion of the South Wales Borderers, but as a man of expensive tastes which often outstripped his means, he wasn’t averse to theft or fraud to shore up his dwindling coffers. So in awe was Ronald, that he’d claim his stepfather’s exploits were his own. In truth, Ronald wasn’t a well boy, with many even suggesting that his mental illness may have stemmed from before his birth. At school, his attendance was poor, his behaviour was bad, and lacking any love, when told his mother was dying, he callously replied "oh well, if she dies, all her property will be mine”. He rarely worked, he was promiscuous, and growing addicted to morphine in Shanghai, his mind was always unstable. In August 1915, with the First World War having soaked the fields of France with the blood of millions of men, being the epitome of an aviator - 6-foot 2, slim, swept back hair, a natty moustache and a cut-glass accent which purred “I say old bean, what-what?” – using his stepfather’s career, Ronald enlisted in the Royal Flying Corp. Being the son of a Baron, they didn’t check his history, as having taken it on “a gentleman’s word”, on 10th of October 1916 he was given a commission as a Flying Officer. Trained at Gosport in Hampshire, being the early days of aviation, it wasn’t uncommon for a trainer – an Airco DH6 or a Bristol Box kite - to crash owing to pilot error or malfunction. And although Ronald was assigned to 40 & 45 Squadron, he never had a dogfight, being listed as “a substandard pilot”. In February 1916, he said that during his first solo flight, he crashed in Farnborough. Pulled from the wreckage, he suffered a severe concussion and was unconscious for two days. The next month, having crashed at Gosport, escaping with just cuts and bruises, a medical board certified him as ‘unfit to fly’. Hospitalised for ten months, he’d later claim, “I relinquished my commission as a Major owing to my crash injuries”. Only little of what he said was even true; the limp to his right leg he’d had before the crash, the ‘brain contusion’ was said by doctors to have been caused by Gonorrhoea and Syphilis, the Flying Corp would declare “he was never a Major, just a 2nd Lieutenant”, and of his heroics having seen active service overseas, these were entirely a figment of his imagination, just like his accidents… …as his military record states, there was “no record of any crashes”. In 1917, bafflingly hired as a test pilot at Westland on a gentleman’s word, but having actually crashed and shattered his teeth, after two months he was sacked owing to his mood and poor performance. No-one would hire Ronald, as the diseases he’d contracted and had spread in many Shanghai brothels had left him physically lame and mentally unwell suffering bouts of depression, mania, psychosis and dementia, all of which he was prescribed with a single dose-a-day of morphine, only he was taking 30. Having abandoned his wife and child, with a lethal mix of STDs and morphine increasing his paranoia, at an addiction centre in Southsea, Ronald was diagnosed with a dissociative identity disorder. This is also where he met the ‘other’ Ronald True. The ‘other’ Ronald True was his doppelgänger, a slim, tall man with a hawkish nose and beady little eyes, who stalked his thoughts and whispered into his ears. Seeing this sinister clone (who no one could see but him) as his mortal enemy, the ‘other’ Ronald True was a drug addict, a sex fiend, and a habitual conman who survived on theft and forged cheques. And although Ronald would often be blamed for his look-alike’s crimes, he was insistent “I am innocent”. In December 1921, while at Fleming’s Hotel on Half Moon Street in Piccadilly, again, the ‘other’ Ronald True racked up debts and fled without paying, as his ‘armed and dangerous’ duplicate shadowed him across Soho and Mayfair. So terrified was Ronald of his stalker, that for protection, he bought a gun. But how could he defend himself from a monster who only seemed to exist in his head? The relationship between Ronald and Gertrude was as fleeting as any other meet-up between a call girl and a punter. Six weeks earlier in an exclusive West End lounge, ‘Olive Young’ as she was known met Major Ronald True, a dashing war-hero, a test pilot and a Baron’s son who (he said) was invalided out of the prestigious Royal Flying Corps owing to his heroism having fought in dogfights with The Hun. On Saturday the 18th February 1922, having agreed to go on ‘a date’ with the Major, as was standard, he treated her to a meal, a show, and chauffeur driven back to 13A Finborough Road, he stayed over. The two chatted, they had sex, and then they slept. By the morning, the Major had fled, he had left without paying. But it was as she opened her handbag which she’d left by the bed, that she also spotted that £5 was missing. Gertude couldn’t prove it, but having she told her friend, Doris Dent “I want nothing to do with him”. the relationship was now over… … or at least, it should have been. (Cliffhanger) For many people in the 1920s, the loss of £5 (£400 today) would have had consequences on their daily life, but for Gertrude, being a professional woman who could make that money back in an evening, it was little more than a mild inconvenience, and having not told the police, she carried on with her life. To her, Major Ronald True was as forgotten as a piece of chewing gum stuck to the sole of her shoe, but with him being a disturbed man with odd obsessions, he loved her as much as he loved her money. Over the next two weeks, Gertrude received a series of unnerving phone calls from a ‘Mr Armstrong’, who pestered her for dates, only to then cancel. Telling her friend Doris Dent “I felt convinced it was Major True” as having broken his jaw in a crash “I recognised his voice”, she also stated she was afraid to meet him in her flat “as he had admired her rings and jewellery, and I was sure he’d steal them”. Of course, Major True would deny all of this, blaming it all on his alter ego - the ‘other’ Ronald True. It was also said to be that Ronald True who booked him into The Grand Hotel and charged champagne and caviar to a room he couldn’t afford as his mother had cut him off from the family inheritance. Seeing himself as too regal to ride around on a bus with the plebs, on Thursday 2nd of March 1922 - again on credit, and again “on a gentleman’s word” because it was believed “a gentleman would never lie” – he hired a Rolls Royce, with the chauffeur Luigi Mazzola to be at his beck-and-call, day or night. That night, claiming “I have a lot of business to attend to, drive me as fast as you can”, he was whizzed across the West End, picking up a Mr Armstrong (a man who had known Ronald for a month), only to then be sped to a junction off Finborough Road, at which True returned saying “there is nobody there”. The next day was the same, having raced from Piccadilly to Croydon to Maidenhead, and having been let out again at the corner of Finborough Road, once again with “no-one in”, he requested a quick stop at a nearby coffee shop, only to return to the same flat on the same street, and then return dejected. By the morning of Saturday 4th of March, looking red-eyed and stiff jawed, again he was driven from place to place with no real reason, as if he was seeking someone who wasn’t there, hunting a human who didn’t wish to be found, or biding his time until the object of his obsession was home. Again, at around midnight, off a familiar junction in Fulham, he told his driver “I have business to do but cannot find them in”. And yet, he’d confide to a couple, “I have money to get, even if it must be by murder”. Gertrude wasn’t in and for good reason, as knowing that he was seeking her, wisely she’d made herself scarce, even cancelling ‘dates’ with her usual clients in her regular haunts, as word had got around that he was in the area. And the last thing she wanted to see was his looming frame and glaring eyes. Sunday 5th of March 1922 began as an ordinary day for Gertrude Yates. At 9am, Emily Steel (her maid for the last two years) descended the stone steps and let herself into the basement flat at 13 Finborough Road with her own key. Entering the long hallway, as usual, she heard no sounds of sleeping or stirring, as by the door lay her mistress’s shoes. To the right were two doors. First was the sitting room, all empty and clean except for two glasses and the ash of stranger’s cigarette, although given Gertrude’s profession, every guest was a stranger. Second was the bedroom. With the curtains closed, through the frosted glass pane on the door, the room inside was black, silent and still. So not wanting to wake her, Emily crept by, unworried and calm. As she always did, in the back scullery, she popped on a fresh pot of tea, she slathered the toast with lashing of salted butter, she let the sausages sizzle to a golden brown, and portioning it onto two plates (one for herself as her mistress allowed), on a tray she took Gertrude’s breakfast to the bedroom. (Knock) “Madam?” (no reply). “Madam, breakfast?” (no reply). (Opens the door) “Madam?”, and then she heard it, “ah morning Emily” as alone snuggled in her bed lay Gertrude. “Breakfast Madam?”, “fantastic” as the curtains were opened, and the radio popped on. The morning was as predictable as any other, during which she read a book, darned some socks, made some calls and prettied herself ready for the evening’s work, as Emily cleaned the flat. She could see Gertrude was tense, as with Major True having called to say that he planned to meet her here at 10pm, she had every intention to be elsewhere, far from his cold glaring eyes and his sticky little fingers. At 3:30pm, Emily left. At 5pm, Gertrude called Doris Dent, and stating “I don’t want to see him”, they made plans to meet in Piccadilly, where they chatted, ate, drank and she occupied her troubled mind. But she couldn’t stay there forever, so having parted at 10:30pm, she would arrive back by 11pm. After five stops on the Piccadilly Line to Earls Court and an 18-minute walk, on the corner of Redcliffe Place and Finborough Road, her heart sank and her throat gulped, as she spotted a Rolls Royce waiting. “Major True?”, “Yes, t’is I” said the looming presence on her stone steps. Said to be “a woman of sober habits, not quarrelsome but good tempered”, she wouldn’t have made a scene, she’d have been polite, she’d have apologised for being late, and having agreed to let him in, he told his driver, “I’m going to stay the night”, and with the chauffeur-driven car speeding away into the night, Gertrude was left alone in the empty flat with either Ronald True or the ‘other’ Ronald True. She locked the door using her key. She removed her shoes and placed them in the hall. In the sitting room, they had a drink. And wanting to make this as normal as possible, she took him to her bedroom. (we hear sex noises and then snoring). (A door opens). A little later than usual, Emily arrived. “I got there at 9:15am. I let myself in. I noticed a gentleman’s coat and a blue & red scarf in the sitting room”, which wasn’t unusual, so knowing that a guest was in the bedroom, “I went to cook breakfast”, with no intention of disturbing her mistress. It was then that the bedroom door opened, and as often happened, she saw a man. Emily said “oh, hello again”. Being smartly dressed, the Major greeted her, they chatted, she made him a tea, and having said “we were late last night, don’t wake her, she is in a deep sleep”, he gave her the 2s & 5d he owed her for a taxi, she helped him on with his coat, and at 9:35am, he left with a “toodle-pip”. With Madam’s breakfast on the warming plate, Emily spent half an hour sprucing up the sitting room, but knowing that her mistress had plans for the morning, she decided to wake her from her slumber. (Knock) “Madam?” (no reply). “Madam, breakfast?” (no reply). But noticing a crack in the frosted glass panel…. (door creaks)… “Madam? Breakfast?” (scream). The investigation was headed up by Detective Chief Inspector William Brown. The hallway, the sitting room, the scullery and the WC were all neat and clean, even before Emily had done her daily chores, with no signs of forced entry, ransacking, wanton destruction or obvious theft. The cracked glass pane was the first clue that something was wrong. Inside the bedroom, cupboards were opened, drawers rummaged and its contents strewn, as someone was looking for something. Missing was a silver cigarette case, a ladies’ watch, a pearl & diamond brooch and two diamond rings, as well as a red jewel case, and £8 from her purse. In total, £200 worth was missing, £9400 today. The evidence told an odd little story. At roughly 8:30am, Gertude’s guest had left to purchase a copy of the Daily Mirror, returned, made a pot of tea, popped it on a tray with a selection of biscuits and two cups, and entered the bedroom. Lying silently, the mistress was resting when he came in… unaware that he had hidden inside his overcoat a half-kilo rolling pin from the scullery. Attacked before she could sense any danger, five times he bludgeoned her over her head, rendering her barely conscious but far from dead. With her skull badly bleeding but not fractured, seeing her limbs move, he wrapped her own girdle around her neck, and with the elastic straps tied tight in a half-loop knot, he strangled her until she went limp. In the bed, the form of a body remained, all silent and still, but as the detectives pulled back the blood-stained sheets, the woman was missing. In her place, her killer had laid two pillows, only a red sticky trail from the bed to the bathroom told a darker tale. Dragged eleven feet, with the naked woman still clinging to life, the last thing she would have seen was as he forced a towel so far down her throat that it folded her tongue back on itself, obstructing her fractured trachea, and starving her of breath. And then, with death done, he casually tossed a pyjama jacket over her face, and having died minutes before Emily arrived, over the next half an hour, he sat quietly supping his tea and eating the biscuits. By 10am, the culprit had fled… …only it wasn’t hard to identify him; as his fingerprints were on the cup, and although Emily thought he was a Major, in the sitting room, he had also left a visiting card in the name of Ronald True. Like a callous coward, having brutally murdered a sleeping woman, he sold off her jewellery at a pawn brokers, took himself on a shopping trip in the West End and treated himself to all manner of finery; a haircut on Wardour Street, a suit and a bowler hat from Horne Brothers, a spot of lunch, a few drinks, and - having packaged-up his bloodstained trousers and left his stained shirt and tie in the barbers – he took himself and his pal (Mr Armstrong) to the Hammersmith Palace Of Varieties in the Rolls Royce. With a trail of receipts leading to directly to his seat, at 9:45pm that day, he was arrested. (End) An ID Parade, eyewitnesses and the evidence convicted Ronald True on the 5th of May 1922, during a trial at the Old Bailey. With his solicitors pleading ‘diminished responsibility’ owing to his various mental illnesses and a spiralling morphine addiction, with Ronald’s defence being that it wasn’t him who had murdered Gertrude Yates but his doppelgänger the ‘other’ Ronald True, insanity was proven. Being sentenced to death, an appeal was passed and it was recommended that he be imprisoned for life in a high-security psychiatric hospital. Sent to Broadmoor, he was weaned off drugs, he lived an ordinary life as an inmate, and on the 8th of January 1951, at the age of 59, he died of a heart attack. Unlike at many trials, his claim that a clone was stalking him and committing crimes on his behalf was not an alibi or an excuse to escape the death penalty, as he truly believed that the ‘other’ Ronald True was guilty. Even in his confession, he would state “I think it fair to state that a man, whose description is aged 31, 6 foot 2, dark suit, grey overcoat and bowler hat”, identical to himself, “was seen by myself with Miss Yates, I left, they were in the midst of a violent argument and blows. This statement is true”. And it was true. In his mind it was true that he was an innocent man wrongly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, but with the culprit looking exactly like him, sounding precisely like him and their fingerprints indistinguishable, how could he prove different when everyone was certain it was him? In his mind, the ‘other’ Ronald True got away with murder… …only he would also claim that there wasn’t just one ‘other’ Ronald True, there were two. 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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James Anderson & Michael Jamieson
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-FOUR: Between the 29th of August and 17th of September 1980, 23 year old Mickey Jamieson and 25-year-old James Anderson went on a 19-day crime spree of theft, assault, torture and murder. With most of them committed within streets of their own homes, their last crime occurred 12 and a 1/2 miles west in Shepherd's Bush Green. But why? What drove them to this part of the city?
THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (Car speeding). Monday 8th of September 1980, nine days into a nineteen-day crime spree, Mickey & Jimmy were on the run. Across four robberies, they had stolen a total of £1500 (£8200 today), only to squander it all on “booze, birds and boogying”, as if these lame losers were criminal kingpins. Being cowardly half-wits who were uncapable of committing a single crime unless they were half-cut – with no plan, no preparation, no disguise and being drunk – two seemingly simple thefts had ended in a brutal double murder and an attempted murder owing to Mickey being a sadistic psychopath. They were as lazy as they were stupid, as so far every crime they’d committed and every victim they’d attacked was a neighbour in the community they had grown up in, until the last victim – Sebi the sub postmaster – had made it clear that he knew Mickey’s name. Leaving his fingerprints on a card, a bullet at the scene and his name on the victim’s tongue, having survived, the police now had Mickey’s details. Fearing his arrest, their pal John Hamiton had fled, Jimmy (as always) would minimise his involvement in either murder or attempted murder, and alongside Mickey - who wasn’t the brightest - they didn’t flee the country. In fact they barely left the county, having sped 7 ½ miles east to Romford in Essex. Split three ways, the £560 they’d swiped from Sebi’s till as he lay bleeding was spent within four days. On Friday 12th September 1980, being typically cowardly, that evening after a few pints, they burgled an unoccupied carpet shop on South Street, stealing just £29. With it barely being enough for a night in a hotel, they also burgled a newsagents at 61 Longbridge Road in Barking, just 2 ½ miles from home. With £329 in their pockets, even though their faces weren’t in the papers, it was only a matter of time before they were caught, so unable to party it up at Snob’s disco, they headed to Clacton-on-Sea. As a place Mickey had spent happy times at with his family, as well as part of an ill-fated rehabilitation programme with a detention centre, here they piddled away their ill-gotten gains on fairground rides, arcade machines, candy floss and (of course) getting trollied and chatting up girls. They didn’t give an ounce of remorse having brought misery and death to the East End, as all they cared about was fun. That Sunday, as the pounds became pennies, Mickey sent his mother (Shirley) a series of photographs taken in Clacton. The first showed Jimmy smiling, sat on a sun-drenched wall with a girl, arm-in-arm, looking happy and well. And the second was of Jimmy & Mickey, standing side by side. Out of context, they look like two lads enjoying a jolly at the seaside, not a serial robber and a sadistic psychopath. Arriving a few days later, on the back, Michael wrote ‘Sunday 14th of September 1980’. And although it seemed like a kindly gesture by a mummy’s boy, the detective’s presumed this was part of his alibi. The next day, Monday 15th September, Police raided every one of their known haunts; from Jimmy’s mum’s home in Hammersley Avenue, to Mickey’s mum’s house in Folkstone Road, the bedsit of every friend and associate, and every pub and club they were known to frequent including Snob’s disco. Police believed “they could be hiding anywhere in East London”, but having exhausted every possible hide-out and reduced to sleeping in an unused room in St Thomas’ hospital, they both headed west… …12 and a ½ miles west to Shepherd’s Bush. On the north of Shepherd’s Bush Green, between The Wellington pub, a bookies and the tube stood The Shoe Box at 122 Uxbridge Road. As an old-fashioned cobblers where men could get leather shoes handmade by an experienced craftsman, they’d been part of the community for more than a decade. Set in a five storey Victorian terrace, it had a basement for storage, a showroom on the ground floor with the shoe-maker’s workshop outback, the owner’s flat on the first floor, and the upper flats only accessible by a side door. Although quiet, it did well, but it rarely had two customers in at a go. The owner was 74-year-old Nathaniel Taylor known as ‘Nat’, a white-haired and bespectacled Jewish gentleman who – although a widower – was always smiling and always polite. His former employee Errol James said of him “he was a helpful peaceful man… very obliging and if you wanted something, and he hadn’t got it, he would make a point of going to Northampton to get it for you”. As a single man with a business which more than covered his overheads, Nat’s only vice was gambling, often popping a few doors down to the betting shop to place £5 or £10 a time on a horse. This was his little piece of fun, of which he didn’t accrue any debts, he only spent what he could afford and although he had a reputation for being a regular winner, this wouldn’t be the reason for his brutal murder. Across the 1970s, Shepherd’s Bush had become a hotbed of petty crime. Errol said “we always had trouble from gangs of youths trying to steal shoes and money. Nat was robbed at knifepoint several times” and – being wise enough - he knew never to fight back, he only kept a small amount of money in the till, and a local paper even reported “Mr Taylor blames it on the leniency of local magistrates”. On the 28th of February 1977 in the Gazette & Post, the headline read “Nat’s footnote could bring shoe thieves to heel”. They reported that “at 6:30pm on Friday evening, two men came in and asked to try on shoes. After being fitted with different styles, one of them forced Mr Taylor into a back room”, they pushed him to the floor and threatened him with a knife, as the other robber rifled the till of £15. With it being just a pitiful sum, “they grabbed four pairs of shoes which Mr Taylor tried to hide”, and fled. As an expert shoe fitter, Nat said “the two men would be easily recognisable… I’d just have to put a couple of shoes on their feet, and I’d know them instantly, because I fitted them in the shop”. Sadly, the robbers were never caught, but we know it wasn’t Mickey & Jimmy, as both of them were black. Nat knew that he didn’t have the strength to fight back, and that by being civil, he could usher the robbers out of his shop with only a small amount of money stolen and no injuries to himself… …only his nephew wouldn’t be so lucky. Two months later, on 27th of April 1977, 51-year-old Leonard Mintz was closing-up the shop on behalf of his Uncle Nat. As he was about to bolt the door, four youths dashed in, punched him to the ground, and as one held him at knifepoint, the others ransacked the shop taking £200 worth of cash and shoes. Although a former training instructor in the Army, Leonard didn’t fight back, so only treated for cuts to his lip and bruises to his legs, this robbery would be another close call for Uncle Nat and his nephew. Shepherd’s Bush Green was turning into a warzone, and although this was just two of several crimes perpetuated on the shop, the next was a random event by two boys, which would also be their last. Wednesday 17th of September 1980 was an ordinary day. Being term time, the warm pavements along Shepherd’s Bush Green were thick with shoppers as they shuttled between the market and the tube, sometimes stopping off at a cafe. As was his routine, at 3:30pm, Nat headed to the bookies and popped a note on the door saying ‘back in 10 minutes’. As a local, he knew the bad lads who he was to be wary of, but having fled East London owing to their faces being too well known, the next two assailants were a few doors down at The Wellington pub. Down to their last few pennies, Mickey & Jimmy sat supping the last of their pints of Harp lager. Again, they were drunk. Again, they had no plan. Again, they had no disguise. Again, they had no compassion. In court, Judge Miskin QC would state “it appears you were short of money again, and so to Shepherd’s Bush you went, looking for a quiet place to rob”. As with the post office, they picked a premises where the owner was alone, only this time he was unknown to them “and there was only one old man”. They’d claim “we picked it because it was close to the pub we were drinking in”, and being armed with knives and a gun, at about 3:40pm, they both entered, pretending to be prospective customers. Nat: “Good afternoon gents, what can I do for you?”, Nat would have said. Engaging in friendly banter, the boys would have looked harmless enough - being baby-faced and fair-haired - until from their jackets, both boys pulled six-inch blades, and Mickey smacked Nat squarely in the face, flooring him. Closing the door, as the Yale lock sealed the street from the looming violence within and a large display of shoes shielded the large window, Mickey pulled Nat into the back room, as Jimmy went hunting for money. As an old-fashioned shop, he didn’t see a cash till, so all he saw was an empty cash box. Mickey was fuming “Is that it? Where’s the till?”, “I don’t have one”, “there must be”, “there isn’t”, as with the Herbert’s, Mickey had mistakenly believed that there had to be a fortune stashed away, but having been robbed several times before, The Shoe Box only ever carried the bare minimum, and no matter how hard Mickey beat this elderly gentleman about the face, he had no more money to give. At about 3:45pm, Leonard, Nat’s nephew arrived to help ‘Uncle Nat’ lock up. Finding the door locked and the lights off, but no sign suggesting he was at the bookies, Leonard let himself in with his key. Had these grunting buffoons bothered to do any research, they’d have known that Leonard visited at the same time each day. Pulled inside and dragged upstairs, as Mickey drew the pistol on both men to keep them quiet - always an arse-coverer - Jimmy later told the court “I knew he'd a gun, but he didn’t plan to use it”. And yet, having described his pal as “a nutter, just plain evil”, he’d already seen how Mickey acted when he didn’t get what he wanted, and again, he’d gone along with it. As a cowardly alibi, Jimmy would claim “as I was searching for the till, I heard two shots”. Unarmed and defenceless, having put up no fight, Leonard & Nat were gunned down in cold blood. As they lay slumped on the floor and bleeding out as their heartbeats weakened, Mickey could simply have tied them up and fled. But because these single brain-celled bandits had shown their faces, left their fingerprints and said their own names, two good men were killed owing to two idiots’ stupidity. Leaving both men dying having been shot in the chest, onto this busy street, the dim-witted robbers ran, their faces not even hidden from the eager eyes of those who stared at them. Hailing a cab, even Martin Fleischner the cab driver would state “I had a sixth sense that something was wrong”, and having dropped them off Marylebone station, he contacted police upon hearing about the murders. Leonard & Nat were discovered within minutes, as a passing customer had been startled by the shots, heard a series of loud screams and groans, and - having looked in the window – she was barged aside as Mickey & Jimmy (not wearing disguises) ran from the shop and fled in a taxi. Peeping inside, “I saw a white-haired old man spread out over some fallen shoeboxes”, and although an ambulance and the police were called swiftly, Nat was already dead, and on-route to hospital, Leonard died of his injuries. Described by Detective Chief Inspector Michael O’Leary as “a coldblooded killing. Everything is nasty about it”, the police were “baffled by such a motiveless crime”, as nothing had been taken and £100 was found in the cash drawer. But with both assailants seen by witnesses, their palm prints found in the shop and a bullet matching the shooting of a sub postmaster on Katherine Road in East Ham, 23-year-old Michael Jamieson and 25-year-old James Anderson were wanted in East and West London. As desperate fugitives, they were on the run. So where did they flee to? Scotland, France, maybe to the Costa Del Sol, dubbed the Costa Del Crime as that’s where Britain’s thickest criminals run to? No. Being as brainless buffoons… …they headed home to Plaistow. With several streets still sealed off by police tape, two days later, every newspaper was emblazoned with their names, details and the latest photos that Mickey had sent his mother, unwittingly giving the police the most accurate description of themselves. And although they had warned “publicised our names and more innocent people will die”, with four people dead, these hoodlums had to be stopped. Speaking to their families, Jimmy’s mum said “he can’t be normal. If he came back, I’d show him in, give him a bed and then I’d go out and call the police”, whereas Mickey’s mum said “the newspaper’s report that Michael is a psychopath is complete rubbish”, only all the evidence would refute that. With the facts plastered across every paper, described as ‘Britain’s most wanted killers’, people were warned that they were ‘armed and extremely dangerous’, as well as ‘sick’, ‘deranged’ and ‘insane’. So, it made no sense for these two fugitives to head back to where they were known… but they did. On the morning of Saturday 20th of September 1980, having headed right into the heart of where they were being hunted, they knocked on the door of Jean McCarthy, an old school friend of Mickey’s mum at 60 Cecil Road in Plaistow. They’d picked a bad time to be outside, as the streets were crammed full of police, but maybe that was the point, as with Jean’s home just a short walk from Upton Park, as avid West Ham supporters, it’s likely they’d come back as their team were playing against Watford. Whether they wanted to watch the match on the telly, or simply to soak up the roar of the crowd via the window, at 10am, having knocked on the door, Kim Kirby, the pregnant 20-year-old tenant of the ground floor flat let them in. Kim would later state “we all went up to Jean’s flat”, but having seen the pictures of this murderous twosome in the papers, “Jean looked very scared, she went straight out and didn’t return”. That should have been the moment for Mickey & Jimmy to run? But they didn’t. They had a cuppa, they popped on the telly and in preparation for the match, they watched the news. Kim said “the TV news came on with their pictures, and I began shaking like a leaf, I hadn’t recognised them until then. I said ‘is that you?’, they replied ‘yes, it is’. I was frightened but both men were very nervous and panicky, which scared me even more”. On the screen, Mickey’s mother begged “for God’s sake, give yourself up”, and with Kim not wanting to be part of this, she left them in the first floor flat. Again, that should have been their moment for Mickey & Jimmy to run. But they didn’t. Having spent every penny of the £1870 they’d stolen (£10,000 today) on fun and fillies, they were stuck, as their closest friends had disowned them and their families refused to give them shelter, even though again, Mickey’s mum would state “I would stake my life that Michael had nothing to do with the killings”. At 12:30pm, police received a tip-off about their location. It’s uncertain why, but possibly having gone to the shops get a few cans of beer to watch the match, Mickey had gone outside in the daylight. By 1pm, Kevin Byrne, a neighbour was fixing his car, “when I saw a man running along with a revolver. Four policemen soon arrived, they were all armed“. So insistent were the police that these murderers be stopped dead or alive, that the street was blocked, police marksmen occupied homes on Cecil Road and Stopford Road with their guns trained on the flat, and a negotiator bellowed from a loud hailer. DC: “Mickey & Jimmy, you are surrounded, there is nowhere you can run, throw out your weapons and come out with your hands up”. Having barricaded themselves in, as a further six police marksmen crowded behind a wall, Detective Constable Kathro, the negotiator ordered “keep your hands on the window or we’ll fire”, as one of the boys shouted back “the only way you’ll get me out is in a box”. Only the police weren’t messing around, this wasn’t playtime, so with several officers having smashed down the door with a sledgehammer, rushing in, a single shot rang out across the street (BANG)… …but this wasn’t the boy’s fighting back, as having accidentally fired off a shot owing to nerves, they quickly surrendered, tossed out the gun, and bundled to the pavement, they were both arrested. After a two-hour armed siege, during which no-one was hurt, their 19-day crime spree had come to an end. Taken to East Ham and Plaistow police stations, when questioned, Mickey refused to say a single word, whereas Jimmy gave a detailed account of their crimes, during which he blamed all the cruelty and death on his former pal and limited his own involvement, which caused a massive rift between them. Two trials were held at the Old Bailey. The first was the murder of Joe & Kitty Herbert. As the recorder of both trials, although concluded on the 14th of October 1981, Judge Miskin QC decreed that no details of the first trial should be published until the second trial – the murder of Nathanial Taylor and his nephew Leonard Mintz - had resolved. On the 28th of November 1981, Jimmy arrived in court with severe razor slashes down his face, having been attacked – supposedly by Mickey - while on remand in Wandsworth prison. Blaming each other for the crimes they’d committed, Jimmy denied being involved in either murder or attempted murder, and although Mickey tried to plea insanity, the prosecution said “there is a difference between badness and madness, this was just plain evil, and it has nothing to do with diminished responsibility”. At both trials, with neither showing any remorse for those they had killed, they had laughed, whistled, shouted over the witness statements, and were kept apart owing to their hatred for one another. On 3rd December 1981, after four hours of deliberation, a jury of seven men and five women returned with a unanimous verdict. Of the attempted murder of Sebi the sub-postmaster, Mickey was found guilty of murder as only he was holding the gun. Of the murder the Herbert’s, Mickey was found guilty of murder, but Jimmy could only be convicted of conspiracy to rob. But of the killing of Leonard Mintz and Nathanial Taylor at The Shoe Box, both were found guilty of armed robbery and wilful murder. Sentenced that day, James Anderson bowed his head and showed no signs of emotion as he received two life sentences, of which he was would serve at least 20 years, plus 16 years for robbery and theft. Michael Jamieson who was described in court as “a born psychopath” yawned noisily and spat a sweet into the well of the court as his sentence was pronounced. Found guilty of all charges, he received five life sentences plus 19 years for robbery, of which he would have to serve a minimum of 30 years. Their first parole hearings were due in 2001 and 2011… …but their behaviour was no better in prison than out. In June 1983, Jimmy participated in a riot at Wormwood Scrubs prison. As one of six hostage situations that year, prisoners armed with dustbins and bed legs injured 25 warders as they overran D Wing. It was said by the Governor to have been “premeditated by a hard core of young and violent men”. A month earlier, Mickey was one of seven convicts moved to another prison having been instrumental in the three-hour riot at Albany prison on the Isle of Wight, during which – using wooden staves, metal bars and broken glass – they went on a rampage in 'B' block causing £1million worth of damage. Neither of them would settle into the prison life they had earned… …and although they had both done the crimes, it was Mickey who couldn’t serve the time. (End) In June 1990, Mickey was transferred to HMP Full Sutton, a category A, high-security prison in York. By October, he’d requested to be moved back to Wormwood Scrubs to be nearer to his family “due to his mental deterioration”, but this was denied as he was considered “a bad prisoner, and unruly”. On 25th November 1990, he wrote to his mother stating “I don’t want to go on living” and he’d thought of starving himself to death. On the Boxing Day, he sliced up his left arm, but with the wound only requiring 18 stitches, it wasn’t deemed “too serious”, as he’d exclaimed to the doctor “I feel better”. Overseen in the prison’s hospital wing, he was returned to a single cell on the 23rd of January 1991. At 8:10am, the next morning, John Welldrick, an orderly opened the hatch to see what he wanted for breakfast. “I spoke to him several times but he did not answer… he appeared to be looking out of the window from behind the curtains which were drawn”. The cell was in darkness, and having called for another orderly to help him, as they pulled back the curtains, they found Mickey kneeling, a ligature around his neck, held in place by the bars of the window. He had been dead for several hours. 43-year-old Michael Jamieson known as Mickey had spent more than half of his life in prison, borstals and detention centres. Whether he would have been released owing to his bad behaviour is uncertain, but with his father having been locked up at Broadmoor when Mickey was growing up, one question remains; was he just cruel, or (as the court decreed) was The Shoe Box Killer “a born psychopath”. 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 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.
press photograph of The Shoe Box, 122 Uxbridge Road
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-THREE: Between the 29th of August and 17th of September 1980, 23 year old Mickey Jamieson and 25-year-old James Anderson went on a 19-day crime spree of theft, assault, torture and murder. With most of them committed within streets of their own homes, their last crime occurred 12 and a 1/2 miles west in Shepherd's Bush Green. But why? What drove them to this part of the city?
THE LOCATION
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The location is marked with a bright green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Shepherd's Bush'. 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 Shepherd’s Bush Green on the Uxbridge Road, W12; three roads east of the killing of Katerina Koneva, one road south of where Reg Christie euthanised his dog, one road west of the home of the Devil’s Child, and a few doors down from Bad Billy - coming soon to Murder Mile. As a once affluent shopping district, Shepherd’s Bush Green is now urgh, as the mark of how far it has fallen being that every shop either sells hair extensions, flavoured vapes, second hand phones (which are mostly nicked) and a plethora of puke-inducing takeaways, all deep-fried and slathered in a factory produced sauce as they’re too disgusting to eat sober and barely palatable to scoff when you’re drunk. At 122 Uxbridge Road currently stands Selekt Chicken, that’s Selekt with a ‘k’ nor a ‘c’, because as we all know, proving that you don’t even have the basic literacy skills of a three-year-old is cool. Back in 1980, this was The Shoe Box, a pleasant little cobbler’s shop which had been ran for almost a decade by 75-year-old Nathanial Taylor and his nephew 55-year-old Leonard Mintz. As locals, they were a big part of the community, they were well-liked, and financially their business was doing okay. But one afternoon, both men were brutally gunned down in the shop by two hoodlums in their early 20s who were on a 19-day crime spree of theft, torture and murder. And yet unlike their earlier crimes, this double murder wasn’t committed within a few streets of their East London homes. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide. And this is Murder Mile. Episode 253: The Shoe Box Killer – Part One. Mickey was an enigma… Michael Thomas Jamieson was born in West Ham in East London on the 5th of September 1957, as one of eleven children in a hectic working-class brood. Described as a mummy’s boy, being a baby-faced little cherub with light brown hair and bright green eyes, Mickey was an angel to his siblings, his pals, his girlfriend, his son and especially his beloved mother Shirley… but to everyone else, he was a devil. Little was reported about his upbringing, but with his father being an inmate at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital (a high-security prison for some of Britain’s most disturbed criminals), it was said “he had begun thieving as a child because he was hungry”, although how much of that was true is debatable. Being in trouble with the police before he was in his teens with a history of theft, burglary and assault, his very limited education was received in borstals, detention centres and approved schools, where he should have learned how to become a decent human being, but instead, he only learned to be bad. Assessed before his trial for multiple counts of murder, Dr Henry Rollin described 23-year-old Mickey Jamieson as “a born psychopath”, as he didn’t have any of the characteristics of a civilised member of society - at least, not to anyone he didn’t care about – as he abused alcohol, hated work, struggled to form lasting relationships, and towards the ‘other people’, he was aggressive, cruel and remorseless. For Mickey the wannabe thug, nothing was worth working for, everything was his for the taking, life was about having fun, and he didn’t give a damn who got hurt, injured or killed in his pursuit of money. In 1974, aged 17, recently released from borstal (which – as a failed experiment into the rehabilitation of criminals – was a few years from being shutdown), Mickey met Kay Elms, “when we were little more than kids” and moved into a rented flat together in Canning Town, not far from his mum’s house. This was his world; his mum’s house, his flat, his pals, his pub, and his beloved West Ham football club. His community consisted of a few streets around Plaistow and West Ham, with occasional seaside trips to Clacton on Sea and towns like Stratford and Romford. This was his home. But not being best blessed with brains, it was also the places he would steal from and the people he would terrorise. Living with Kay, his common-law wife, in 1976 they had a son who they named Edward, with Kay stating “he doted on the boy and couldn’t have treated him better”. And although a caring dad, he was far from a good father, as Kay recalled “he never worked, he just played pool and watched footie”. He loved his son, but whereas some dads get their child’s names tattooed upon their skin, on his right arm, Mickey was marked with the ‘quincunx’ - a square of four dots representing the four corners of a prison cell and a single dot at the centre representing himself behind bars. He had ruined his life before it had even begun, and rather than focussing on something good, it was all about being bad. Mickey was a brutal senseless thug who was hell-bent on a crime spree… …only he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) do it alone. His accomplice was 25-year-old James Anderson known as ‘Jimmy’, a childhood friend who looked equally as fresh-faced and innocent; with brown cropped hair, blue eyes, and (as criminals do as they love to ensure they’re easily caught) a tattoo of his name ‘Jim’ and his girlfriend ‘Lyn’ on his left wrist. Like twins separated at birth, who “enjoyed drinking and promiscuity”, although Jimmy would profess his innocence in court over the murders, it should have come as no surprise to him having described Mickey as “a nutter, just plain evil, who’d do outrageous things without any regard for anyone else”. The motive for his 19-day-spree of theft, robbery, torture and murder - from a burglary on the 29th of August 1980 to the double killing at the Shoe Box on the 17th of September 1980 - remains uncertain. It was suggested he had been drinking heavily, as Kay would say “people won’t believe it, but Mickey is a nice person, only he changes for the worse when he’s had a few drinks”. Another reason was two months earlier, Kay & Mickey had split, and although she was seeing someone else, “he always had other women, so our break in July was not unexpected”, Kay said. Maybe with him due to attend Snaresbrook Crown Court on charges of theft on Tuesday 9th September 1980 was his reason, wanting to have one last gangbang of wanton violence before he was locked away for a few months in choky… …or perhaps, these were all just feeble excuses for a psychopath with some seriously bad wiring? The first crime in their 19-day-spree took place on the night of Friday the 29th of August 1980. Barely a mile west of his mother’s home, two miles shy of his Canning Town flat and a five-minute walk from West Ham’s Upton Park stadium – armed with a gun he bought from a bloke down his local boozer – Mickey & Jimmy broke into the unoccupied home of Samuel Tucker on Thackery Road. Gaining entry by breaking a window, scattering like rats from room to room in search of goodies, they rifled the drawers for cash and jewellery, swiping £650 worth, roughly £3500 today. And between the two of them, they carried out a nearly new 28-inch colour television, weighing as much as a large dog. Fleeing like rabid flies lured to a fresher shit being squeezed out of an incontinent dog’s arsehole, both lads cackled, having made a sizable score. Some might say, it was an innocent crime as no-one was in, injured or shot, but as these two selfish turds stained a family home with a perpetual sense of fear that they’d be attacked again, they also pawned off the owner’s irreplaceable personal possessions. Some might also say “he just did it to feed his kids”, as they were both dads, and Mickey – supposedly – had begun his crime spree as a child, just so he could eat? But did this money go to their kids? No. That night, as the Tucker family wept, these two arrogant tossers headed to Snobs disco in Stratford; a low-brow nightclub where the East End’s hippest undesirables boogied in bright-red bodywarmers, caused a fire hazard in Spandex and an obstruction owing to their Dynasty style shoulder pads, while grooving to Winner Takes It All by ABBA, Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, a pirate copy of Baggy Trousers by Madness, and splashed out on Lambrini, Babysham, Blue Nun and a few cans of Skol lager. Having done their heist around the club’s opening, they got drunk, splashed the cash, Frenchied some girls having got them squiffy on Buck’s Fizz and generally acted like a bunch of Billy Big Bollocks. They didn’t care about the victims, all they cared about was having fun. And although £650 was a big haul… …by the morning, they had spent the lot. The next day, another life would be sullied by their cruelty. Only this isn’t a story about hardened criminals who were feared, respected and only attacked rivals who stepped on their turf. This is about two selfish cowards who only attacked the weak, the old, the lone, the vulnerable and the helpless. Raised with no sense of remorse, across their teenage years, they had burgled houses, robbed shops, and - like most sticky-fingered fiends – they were so lazy, they’d repeatedly attack the same premises, they were often too drunk to remember to bring a disguise, and although Jimmy would act like a mere innocent bystander claiming he was “only in it for the money”, knowing that “Mickey was a nutter”, he went along on the robbery with a deranged loon who was violent, cruel and psychopathic. Saturday the 30th of August 1980, another crime to fund another weekend of fun. Mickey & Jimmy sat in a pub in Plaistow nursing several pints of Kestrel until their pennies were spent, as although they dreamed of being feared, these turgid terrors could do diddly while they were sober. Last time, they burgled an empty home, this time, these utter cowards targeted the most defenceless. 78-year-old Catherine Herbert and her husband 75-year-old Joseph were a well-loved couple who had recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. In their 50 years together, Kitty & Joe had seen off sickness, disease, infirmity, strikes, recessions and a world war. They had witnessed happiness and hardship, but were always by each other’s side, holding hands and enjoying the well-deserved twilight of their years. Neighbours said “they were as devoted to each other as the day they were married”. But as old age had made them weaker, it had also made them a target of the morally feeble. A year earlier, their home on New Barn Street in Plaistow was burgled and £100 was taken. As a loving son who would do anything to protect his aged parents, 34-year-old Michael who worked at Scotland Yard’s information room had fitted a new uPVC door with dead bolts and toughen glass. It was a smart decision by a good son for the right reason, but it had just one weakness – the human factor. The Herbert’s home wasn’t chosen at random, as having left a nearby pub, Mickey & Jimmy headed to the pensioner’s home they had robbed before, knowing Joe & Kitty were weak, asleep and helpless. A little after 2am, along this busy road of two storey terraces, through the large living room window, they spotted that the lights were off, the curtains were closed and the occupants were snoozing. Unlike most targets, they knew this house hadn’t been split into flats as they’d been there before, and they had no panic alarms, no routes of escape, no lodgers and no dog, just a little green budgerigar. There were no witnesses to the crime, but we know it occurred at just before 2:15am. (Knocking). Mickey knocked on the door. It took a while for Joe to stir from his sleep, but as many of us would do, still being a little groggy and not thinking straight, he went to the door and unlocked it. Dressed in just his pyjamas, before Joe could see who it was, Mickey’s fist slammed fast into his face, breaking his nose, fracturing his eye socket and disorientating the old man, as he was pushed inside, and with the door locked and the curtains closed, none of their sleeping neighbours were any wiser. Once inside, regardless of their age and infirmity, Mickey started punching them, demanding to know where the money was, as Jimmy said “he was going crazy, saying they must have bundles stashed away”, and as he tore the watch from Joe’s wrist and smashed it, the hands stopped at exactly 2:15am. Slumped on the floor, terrified and bleeding, Jimmy would later claim “Mickey acted like an animal”. And with every drawer searched, every cupboard flung open and its contents scattered, still insistent that they had money stashed away, he would hurt them in a multitude of cruel and inhuman ways. But first, he would attack their faithful friend. From its cage, Mickey grabbed their budgie, as - fitting snuggling in his fist - he held this 35-gram bird. Asking once more “where’s the money?”, of which they had none, it squawked a last painful squawk as with his fingers tightening tighter, the budgie’s bones were crushed like toothpicks. It was a warning to Kitty & Joe, as the broken body of their faithful feathered friend was tossed at their bare feet. In court, Jimmy Anderson claimed “I left around then” leaving them alone with a sadistic psychopath. Having ransacked the house, whether he knew or didn’t believe he’d taken every penny that had, just £70 (about £370 today), he subjected the Herberts to a long and painful torture, maybe for pleasure. Dragging these petrified pensioners upstairs and into separate bedrooms, using ripped stripes of his pyjamas and leaving Joe in just his underwear, he bound their hands and ankles, he tied them to each bed, and - with this devoted couple unable to see each other – as he maliciously sliced and stabbed at their flesh, even as a pillow muffled their screams, they could still hear each other’s cries in pain. The knife was taken from their own kitchen, probably last used to make a bedtime snack. A can opener found on the bed was used to slice at Joe’s arms and legs to force him to give up the money they didn’t have. Until around 6:30am, having endured almost four hours of terror and torture, and with the dawn light well and truly risen, the sadist brutally stabbed Joe in his stomach and Kitty in her chest. Fleeing the house, with a pittance in his pocket, he smashed a wall clock in anger, which (like the wrist-watch) stopped the hands at exactly 6:32am – giving an accurate bookend to his night of sadistic fun. A pathologist would state “the couple may have survived for up to an hour after being stabbed”, and yet, tied to separate beds - gagged, bleeding and weak – as the street outside awoke and their neighbours went about their day, no-one was due to visit them and no-one knew they were dying. As happens, those who knew them thought it was odd that they hadn’t been seen since the Friday afternoon, but didn’t alert the police. Ann Hurd assumed “I thought they had gone on holiday”, but it wasn’t until five days later, when their milk bottles started piling up, that a milkman alerted the police. Notifying their son, on Thursday 4rh September 1980, the bodies of Kitty & Joe were found; bound, gagged, stabbed and tortured having died one room apart, their beloved budgie crushed and dumped. For the sake of barely a week’s wage, Michael Jamieson had perpetrated what Judge Miskin QC would describe as “one of the most revolting, loathsome killings ever”, with Detective Chief Superintendent Ron Hay stating, “we are looking for someone sick… we are looking for a very vicious animal”. It was a murder so horrific it haunted the nightmares of those who investigated it… …but Mickey Jamieson didn’t give a shit. Later calling at the Canning Town flat he shared with his girlfriend, Kay Elms, she said “he appeared very drunk and collapsed on the settee”, like (for the first time in his life) he’d done a hard day’s work. “I saw he had dried blood on his foot. He said he had been in a fight the previous night and said ‘some geezer and I were stabbing a man. I stabbed a bird and all. She was lying on the floor making a choking noise and I was laughing”, which sums up his attitude to the robbery, the torture and the murders. That day was the last day he would return to the flat, his wife and his son, as not being the smartest, his fingerprints were all over the Herbert’s house, they were also on his police file, he had a history of burglary and assault, and - like an idiot – he almost always committed his crimes on his own doorstep. Before he ran, he lied to Kay to provide himself an alibi, stating “if anyone asks, I was at Snobs disco until after 2:15am”, it being no coincidence that this was the time Joe Herbert’s smashed watch had stopped at, “I then came home and spent the rest of the night with you”. Only when she was asked, being a decent person and a good mum with a young boy to consider, rightly, she told the truth. Over the next five days, Mickey & Jimmy laid low, hiding out in hostels and sleeping on sofas, trying not to be spotted. Especially as on Thursday 4rh September, the local newspapers were plastered with ‘couple murdered in Plaistow”, which shook the neighbourhood to its core and erupted into whispers. Being wanted men, who it wouldn’t be a struggle to identify, they should have gone deep into hiding… …but with Friday 5th of September being Mickey’s birthday, like a self-absorbed twerp, all he wanted to get was boozed up and boogie, but once again, he was broke. That day, barely half a mile from the Herbert’s home, they broke into the unoccupied home of John Davis on High Street North in East Ham. Taking £260 (roughly £1400), they could have used their ill-gotten gains to flee, but as he wanted cake, he wanted booze and he wanted to boogie, he didn’t care who got hurt, as long as he had his fill. And around the time that the Herbert’s were being autopsied, he was partying heartily at Snobs disco… …until, once again, the cash ran out. On Monday 8th September 1980, nine days into a nineteen-day crime spree, having committed three burglaries and a double murder within streets of each other, like rats scurrying in a feted sewer, they were seeking an easy feast and made the decision to rob a post office on Katherine Road in East Ham. Had Jimmy been as innocent as he claimed to be, after the murder, he’d have ran. Only he didn’t. In court, Judge Miskin stated “when you looked at post offices to rob, there were too many people in some of them for you brave boys to manage”, so – along this bustling city street - they chose to rob the newsagent and sub-post office of 42-year-old Champaklal Bhagwandas Gandhi known as ‘Sebi’. Again, like idiots, the street was a place they all knew well, and being too lazy to go further as that required effort, these hopeless hoodlums wanted quick cash, fast fun and were allergic to work. Armed with the pistol he had purloined off a ponce in a local pub, Mickey, Jimmy and one other (said to be their equally-as-pathetic pal John Hamilton) – like three pitiful plebs – they sidled into the empty post-office. Sebi was by himself, but having been robbed many times before, he barely blinked. But it wasn’t just that Sebi was fearless, and was willing to stand up to them, which ruined their day… …as being drunk, what Mickey had forgotten was this - Sebi knew him. (End) Like a little boy bragging that he was now wearing big boy pants rather than Pampers, Mickey hadn’t twigged that by robbing a post-office in an area where he’d grown up, that Sebi had known him since he was a kid, he knew his name, his home, his mother, his father, his siblings and his criminal ways. Slurring his words as he’d sunk several pints of beer to drum up enough courage to be a petty thief and a pathetic waste-of-space, from a display, Mickey pulled what he said was “a card for my wife”. As Sebi rang it through, Mickey pulled the pistol from his pocket and pointed it at the postmaster, just six inches from his chest. But as he demanded the money from the till, Sebi just laughed cackling “you must be kidding, Mickey”. Never mind the fingerprints on the card, the postmaster had nailed him. Realising he was screwed, (BANG), Sebi was shot in the heart at point blank range, and as he slumped hard to the floor, like vultures, the boys ransacked his hard-earned cash from the till and fled. In total, they got away with £560 (barely £1000 each), which would barely last them a few more nights of fun. All three of them had wasted their lives… but one person who hadn’t, was Sebi’s surgeon, as although the bullet had entered his heart, the postmaster made a full recovery and gave the police descriptions of all three, including their names. Again, Jimmy would deny he had anything to do with the attempted murder of the postmaster, and Mickey would brag about to his ever decreasing circle of friends. The net was closing in on Mickey Jamieson, he was on the run, he was a wanted man in East Ham and Plaistow, and soon – in need of some quick cash in a place his face wasn’t known – he headed 12 and a ½ miles west to Shepherd’s Bush Green, bringing murder to a little shop called The Shoe Box. The concluding part of The Shoe Box Killer continues next week. 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 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-TWO: On 9th November 1940, just before 4am, the pay office of George Wimpey & Co was broken into at 16 Railway Arches in Hammersmith. The pay clerk was murdered, two gang masters were seriously injured, there were no witnesses to the attack and nothing was stolen. But why?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a teal green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Hammersmith'. 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 Hammersmith Grove in Hammersmith, W6; one street west of the pick-up by George Edward Heath, one street north of the blind obsession murders, and just three streets south of the cruel and sadistic killing spree by the Shoe Box Killer - coming very soon to Murder Mile. To the side of Hammersmith Broadway station on the Hammersmith & City line stands a defunct set of railway arches for the disused Grove Road station. It’s the kind of place you might go for a baggie of scag, a swift hand shandy, a dodgy geezer doing barely legal MOT’s for a tenner, a hand gun for a pony, and a safe blown for a score, but mostly it’s full of rats, mice, litter, porn mags and pigeon poop. Back in the 1940s, 16 Railway Arches was the pay office for George Wimpey & Co, with a little window where labourers came to collect their weekly wage from Alfred Mitchell, the pay clerk. Being a discrete wooden office in a yard full of lorries, steam rollers and building materials - with no signs as to this arch’s purpose - you would only go there if you knew where it was, what it was and why it was there. So it’s odd, that on 9th November 1940, just before 4am, the pay office was broken into and three men were attacked in their beds as they slept. But was this a robbery, a cover-up or was it revenge? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 252 – The Sleepers. By November 1940, two months into a perpetual eight-month bombing campaign by the Luftwaffe, an enforced blackout had left the city in total darkness and with millions of civilians evacuated to the country, a fleet of labourers remained to repair the infrastructure and to keep the city running. That night, Hammersmith Grove was patrolled by George Chinnery, an air raid warden who ensured that not a lamp, a bulb, a fire or a match gave away any location in the city to the looming bombers above. On Saturday 9th of November, at precisely four AM, “I know it was that time as the clock had struck four” George stated, “I saw a bright light shining from one of the arches”. As a local lad, he knew the yard was always open, he knew it was regularly patrolled by William Sturgeon the night watchmen, he knew that 16 Railway Arches was the pay office of George Wimpey & Co, and he knew that Alfred Mitchell known as Fred had recently begun sleeping there with his bosses permission - as had two of the gang masters (Wilfred Dyer and Harry Jamieson) owing to the long shifts they had been working. Entering the yard, he saw nothing suspicious, just a shaft of light from a bare bulb in the rear office shining through a wide-open window in the front office, whose blackout cloth had been removed. It happens, cloths fall down, and with it being against blackout regulations, it was his job to enforce it. Sticking his head in through the window, “I saw a man asleep on a camp bed”. Dressed in pyjamas, with his head on a pillow and his blankets up to his chest. George shouted to the sleeper “is anyone awake?”, and although the sleeper didn’t stir, from a rear office the silhouette of Harry Jamieson did. “Put that light out” George barked, the large ‘W’ on his helmet making it clear who he was and why he was here, but as Jamieson slowly stumbled into the light, it was clear that something was wrong. The warden was let in via a door which wasn’t locked, but then, it never was locked. Inside the rear office, barely 14 feet long by 9 feet wide, the windows were closed, the blackout cloth was still in place, nothing had been ransacked, and on one of the two camp beds sat Wilfred Dyer. In shock, he nursed a three-inch wound from his left eye to his ear, as a suspected skull fracture bled. Jamieson, also wearing pyjamas, had a two-inch wound to his forehead, two puncture wounds to his forearm and right shoulder, a suspected skull fracture, and although the office itself was intact, with nothing obviously missing, the walls were spattered with blood as both men had stumbled deliriously. Struggling to recall what had happened, as both men drifted in and out of consciousness, Dyer stated “a man broke in and attacked us while we slept”, which was consistent with their injuries. But having occurred during a blackout and having sustained a head wound, all Jamieson recalled was “I caught a shadow of a man in the doorway of the front office. I was on my knees at the time so cannot judge his height. He was wearing a hat of some sort, it wasn’t a cap, but a felt type Trilby”, and that was all. The air-raid warden called the police and administered first aid to the two injured men, but it was as he went to the front office to check on the silent and (seemingly) sleeping frame of Alfred Mitchell… …that he realised he was dead. Mitchell’s autopsy conducted by Sir Bernard Spilsbury stated “a violent single blow from behind, whilst in a sitting position, caused a wound two inches in length on the right side top of head, the skull was not completely exposed, and the cause of death was haemorrhage on the lower region of the brain”. The investigation was headed up by Divisional Detective Inspector Frederick Young who was left with a perplexing mystery; as with no signs of any struggle or robbery, even though the temperature of the body confirmed that they had been attacked within the last hour - with no other witnesses - Jamieson had only brief flashes of memory of the attack, and whereas Dyer could remember almost nothing. The theory that this was a burglary proved problematic, as whoever had broken in, had used a crowbar to jemmy the front office window. Only with it not being locked and only held shut with a hasp, it didn’t need a crowbar to open it, which anyone who had been there before would have known. Below the window, on a desk, police found a palm print and a boot mark which matched none of those who were injured or murdered, but proved that the assailant had entered and exited via this route, which – just like the crowbar – made no sense, as everyone knew that the main door was never locked. Recreating the event, the police hypothesised that “as the suspect got in, his entry awakened Mitchell from his drunken sleep”, having had several pints of beer that night “and he was bludgeoned over the head with a fire poker” or the crowbar, which was never found, suggesting the killer took it with them. Mitchell’s body was mistaken by the warden as sleeping as there were no signs of any struggle, and “having entered the rear office, the assailant attacked Dyer then Jamieson, and then made his escape”. But what was the motive? Outside of the open window, a wooden tray containing documents was found, but none were of any financial value. In the rear office nothing was taken, and although the front office had a desk, a deed box and an iron safe containing £150, 2 shillings & 8 pence (roughly £8000 today), nothing was stolen. It may seem odd that the security was so lax, but even though the weekly wage stored in the safe for upwards of 120 men was sometimes as much as £1000 (£53000 today), they’d never had a robbery, as very few people knew that the money was there, and no-one was stupid enough to try and steal it. There was no signs of disorder, no drawers were opened, and still in Mitchell’s pocket was his wallet, as well as his savings book, his letters and the keys to the safe. So, if the culprit hadn’t been disturbed, or a robbery wasn’t the motive, was this a case of mistaken identity, or was the attack personal? Several beer bottles were found in the office, confirming what Dyer and Jamieson had stated, that all three men had a drink together before they went to bed at 11:15pm. On the bottles, the fingerprints of Dyer, Jamieson and Mitchell were found, as well as one other person. But who was he? As part of the investigation, every street, bush and drain was searched in vain for a possible murder weapon, all employees who were paid weekly by the dead man were interrogated, their clothing was checked for bloodstains (in an era when most workmen had just two sets of clothes), and although hundreds of current and former employees were questioned, not a single suspect was identified. So, why had these three men been attacked? The dead man was 41-year-old Alfred Mitchell, known as ‘Fred’. Born and raised in Peterhead, a port town in the Scottish county of Aberdeenshire, he left school aged 14, and being short and stocky, he was destined to become a labourer, but also being good at maths, he progressed to being a pay clerk. Recently separated from his wife, at the start of the war, Mitchell had moved into his sister’s home at 77 Verulam Road in St Alban’s, but finding the daily commute to Hammersmith too long, his bosses let him sleep in the office (as some of the gangmasters did), providing added security for the wages. Mitchell was reliable and strict with no criminal record, but he wasn’t what you’d call popular. Described by Dyer as “bad-tempered”, all agreed “he was a heavy drinker with an officious manner with the labourers”, many of whom were Irish. Like many of the ill-informed who get their ‘facts’ from a ‘tabloid’, Mitchell despised the Irish and (with all the irony lost on him) he accused these ‘foreigners’ of not being ‘good workers’, he blamed them for being both workshy and stealing local’s jobs, even though he himself had travelled from Scotland to take a Londoner’s job, being paid at a lower wage. He was a bigot, but as many of those who knew him would agree, “he was all mouth and no trousers”. The two injured men were Wilfred John Dyer and Harry Jamieson. Born at Hooknorton in Banbury in 1902, Dyer had spent his working life from the age of 13 in manual labour, as a farm hand, a carter, a timber merchant and a builder, until 1933 when he joined Wimpey’s and had been there ever since. As a liked and respected gangmaster, when the windows of his home were blown in by a bomb, with his wife being evacuated, he was permitted to sleep in the office. His roommate in the back office was fellow gangmaster Harry Jamieson. Born in the Scottish town of Laurencekirk in 1908, Jamieson (a son of a gangmaster) had worked from the age of 14, as a baker, an attendant at Fife & Kinross Mental Hospital and the nightshift at Dundee Mental Ward, until in 1937, when he became foreman at Wimpey’s, and he slept onsite as the wartime road repairs kept him busy. None of the three men who were attacked had criminal records, they had no debts, they had known each other for at least three years, and all three were described as “powerfully built” and more than able to defend themselves from an attack… but not if they were attacked while they were asleep. Of the former employees of Wimpey’s who were questioned, Dyer couldn’t recall a single incident or person who would have reason to attack him, Jamieson had a minor falling out with a labourer who had stolen a pick and a shovel, and although there were two recent events where Alfred Mitchell had been accused of short-changing a labourer, police said “it was suspected that one of the men may have killed Alfred Mitchell out of spite, almost all were contacted but without a good result”. Only Alfred didn’t decide the rates of pay, that was his bosses, and just because he was the one who had died of his injuries, that didn’t mean that he was the intended target… but he could have been. Friday the 8th of November 1940 was an ordinary night for the three men. With the skies bruised by dark clouds and the unlit streets like a flat sheet of black ice, the chance of a blitz bombing that night was slim but not unexpected. Having spent the day shuttling their labourers across the West End to fill in bomb craters in the roads, at 6pm, they finished for the day, as per usual. Catching up with gangmaster John Nicoll (whose finger, palm and boot prints didn’t match those found at the crime scene) as Dyer & Jamieson went to the chippy, Nicoll & Mitchell headed to the Maltsman & Shovel public house at 6 King Street in Hammersmith, where the two others would join them. As pub regulars, the landlord described them as “some of my most well-behaved customers”, being good friends “I have never heard them have a disagreement in the year they’ve been coming here and they come in every night”, and drinking “2-3 pints of stout and a double whiskey chaser”, they were merry but not drunk when they left at 10pm, closing time, “having bought three bottles of brown ale”. It was a carbon copy of every night which had proceeded it… …only a hint of political disquiet would creep in. At 10:15pm, at the entrance to the railway arches, Jamieson met two Irish labourers who he knew, being part of his civil defence crew. They were John Crowley (aged 23) & Joseph Molloy (aged 25), and having been to the nearby George pub, the chat was friendly - “hey Jock, how you doing?”, “ah, not so bad, yourself?” – as they spoke about work, life, family and the war. John said “I didn’t know Dyer, but I knew Fred Mitchell who was a pay clerk at Wimpey’s as he has paid me my money each week”. Everything seemed fine, until Mitchell’s anti-Irish bigotry rose to the surface. The Second World War would prove to a decisive moment for Ireland, as with the Irish head of state, Eamon DeValera fighting for independence from Britain, although some advocated for Ireland to fight in the war on the Allied side, others like Eamon stated "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity". Britain needed Ireland, but unwilling to give up sovereignty, Ireland had Britain over a barrel. As a Scotsman, Mitchell had no experience of Irish politics except for the toilet bowl of half-truths he had read in his tabloid rag, believing he was reading the truth rather than piece of propaganda by the publishers for financial or political gain, but that didn’t stop him from expressing his ill formed opinion. Everyone from both groups agreed “Mitchell started arguing”. Molloy said “he shouted ‘to blazes with the Irish’ and said we were no good, and why don’t we go back to our own country”, missing the irony. Crowly said “he started talking about the Irish bases. We didn’t have a row and I ignored what he said about us. I told Mitchell I was just as proud of being an Irishman as he was of being a Scotchman”, and there was no pushing and no shoving, it was a one-sided dispute by a bigoted turd with a big mouth. It doesn’t seem like the spark which ignited a murder and two attempted murders. But that was it? Dyer said “the argument was a friendly one”, Molloy said “I didn’t get upset, I could see that he was a bit unhappy, but he wasn’t much drunk, so we bid them all a goodnight”, Nicoll agreed that’s what happened, and Jamieson would state “I could see a fight was brewing so I told them to clear off”. With the tension defused, Crowley & Molloy went back to their lodgings at 170 Hammersmith Grove, as seen by their landlady, the lodgers and they didn’t emerge until 7:30am. And doing the same, Nicoll said goodbye, as Jamieson, Dyer and Mitchell headed back to their camp beds at No 16 Railway Arches. Back at the office, as planned, they changed into pyjamas, they finished their bottles of beer, they had a friendly chat (with no-one upset by the previous political spat) and at 11:15pm, they went to bed. Nobody left during the next five hours, and they snored noisily… …until someone attacked them in their sleep. But if it wasn’t Crowley and Molloy, who was it? From what little Jamieson could remember, he’d state “I was asleep. I heard someone moving. I got up and received a blow on the head”, as the dark shadow in the felt trilby hat whacked him over the head with (possibly) the crowbar. Falling to his knees, “I got up and pushed a man against the partition. The next thing I know he struck me with several blows. I shouted for Dyer to look out”. Or did he? One theory that the police investigated was that this could have been an inside job, that Jamieson and Dyer had attacked themselves to create an alibi, but with nothing stolen, no issue with Mitchell, and no way or time to dispose of the weapon, their injuries were deemed too severe to be self-inflicted. Of the shadowy assailant, Jamieson said “I couldn’t see who it was”, giving no age, height or details of this mysterious attacker, but he did say “his shadow was a similar to the build of the night watchman”. 63-year-old William Sturgeon was the nightwatchman at the Railway Arches. Said to be small and frail, he wasn’t there as security, but to check the offices and keep the boiler fires burning during the night. Friday 8th November was a regular shift for William. Starting at 5:30pm when most of the labourers were going off-duty, in his office at the back of 16 Railway Arches, he put his food away, and locked-up the garage at the far end of the yard. He went to Wimpey’s main office at 27 Hammersmith Grove to secure it, put the lights out, lock the doors, fuel the boiler, “and I returned at 7:15pm to collect my helmet and coat. I heard the voices of Mitchell, Jamieson and Dyer in the adjoining office, I didn’t see them, but I told them to lock up properly to prevent any light leakage. I mentioned this as they had a habit of leaving the office open and the lights on. I returned to the main office and stayed until 10pm”. This is what the nightwatchman told the police; “at about midnight, I checked their office, I couldn’t tell if they were in or not, as the lights were off and the passage door shut but not locked”. And as was his duty “at 2am, I did another round of boiler fires, everything was alright, again the lights were off, and the door was shut. I heard nothing and I didn’t see anyone else in the yard at all that night”. When questioned, William would state “I was on the best of terms with these men”, which they agreed was true “and sometimes they gave me a bottle of beer to drink”. But how truthful was his statement? He claimed “I don’t know if there was any money kept in the offices”, although he knew it was a pay office and that it has a safe within it. When asked to corroborate his movements, Jamieson and Nicoll both said “we did not see or hear the night watchman all night” (not at 7:30pm, not at midnight and not at 2am) and by the time the police had arrived, the nightwatchmen turned up looking shocked, only for Jamieson to ask “where’ve you been?”, at which he replied “over in the shelter, I saw nothing”. Next to Arch 16 was an air-raid shelter, but with no air-raids that night, the shelter should have been empty. Only with Arthur Martin, the transport manager for Wimpey’s sleeping there as he had missed his bus, he didn’t mention seeing or speaking to the nightwatchman, at all that night. William Sturgeon was initially a suspect, but as the police would clarify “without doubt, this old man was asleep during the time of the murder, but this is strongly denied by him for fear of losing his job. He is old, weak and hardly strong enough to have crept in via the window or dealt the blow which killed Mitchell or caused serious wounds to Dyer and Jamieson”, therefore he was released. (End) An inquest was opened on 12th November 1940 at Hammersmith Coroner’s Court before Mr Neville Stafford. It was assumed, but not proven that “the thief would have no necessity to force the office window to gain entry and the marks were made expressly to make the murder appear to the work of an outside thief”. Although which one of the three men were the intended victim couldn’t be decided. Jamieson and Dyer were ruled out as accomplices, as both of their injuries were made while they were “seated or asleep”, based on the timings they had “no opportunity to dispose of the weapon”, and with George Chinnery the air raid warden being injured in a bomb attack a week later, only his initial statement proved viable, as like the two survivors, his memory would prove both hazy and unreliable. When interviewed, the Irish labourers made statements which Jamieson & Dyer corroborated, they admitted to a brief political argument but denied knowledge of the murder, both had alibis for the time of the attack, their lodgings were searched but no weapon was found, and their finger, palm and boot prints did not match any of those found inside the office, or on the desk below the window. On 23rd January 1941 at Hammersmith Coroner’s Court, Margaret Hodges, Alfred Mitchell’s sister was asked “do you know anyone who was likely to do him harm?”, she replied “no”, and with no-one arrested for either crime and nothing having been stolen – not a single penny – a Jury of twelve men recorded a verdict of “murder against person or persons unknown”, and the case was closed. 83 years on, the murder of Alfred Mitchell remains unsolved, with no suspects charged, no evidence pointing to a motive, and with it unclear who the intended victim was. Whether it was a failed robbery, a case of mistaken identity, a personal grudge, or an inside job, the truth may have gone to the graves of all those involved, with the memory of what happened being as hazy as those three dozing sleepers. 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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