Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 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.
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 London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE:
This is Part Two of Five of Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan. Peter Bryan is regarded as one of Britain's most infamous serial-killers and cannibals with almost every article and documentary about him slavering over the grisly details of his murders, and especially his cannibalism. But how much of this story is the truth, an exaggeration or a lie? Who created these myths, why do we still believe them, and what evidence is there of cannibalism? Told in full for the very first time, this is Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
This series is primarily based off the Inquest papers into the care and treatment of Peter Bryan (September 2009).
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Thursday 18th of March 1993 at 6:55pm, outside of ‘Omcar’ at 149 King’s Road in Chelsea, Peter waits; his forehead sweats, his heart pounds, the bleach burns on his face sting, and his right ankle tingles. Inside his brown leather jacket is stashed a claw hammer, only this isn’t about death, it’s about love. For 10 years, Peter had loved Nisha, and for the last six (by his count), she had loved him back. It began as teasing, jokes and giggles, but being so close, he said they found a love which she had hid from her parents. It had progressed beyond kissing to rubbing and touching, always initiated by her, but every time they got close, her mother pulled her away and he feared that her father would send her to India. Since he had been sacked, Nisha was never left alone in the shop, but as Michael was out, Rita headed upstairs to make dinner and Bobby fetched the pavement sign in, Peter saw his chance to talk to her. Told in full for the very first time, this is Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan - Part 2. (Shop bell) When he entered the shop, Nisha was on the phone, blanking him, “it was time to find out where I stood with her” he later stated, and although he waited – still feeling ‘buzzed’ from the wine, the weed, smashing a car and some windows - he hadn’t the patience and slammed the receiver down. 23 and still a virgin, Peter’s sexual frustration fizzed, as every time she teased him, going hot and cold, turning him on and blowing him off, she’d rub her breasts against him and as just quickly turn to stone. But this encounter would be different. Right then, with her parents out, “she started kissing me” Peter said, but it was as she started touching him, that she grabbed him and demanded “make me… rape me”. Peter was shocked, horrified, “I knew the relationship had to end, or move on”, he thought, so with the half-kilo claw hammer balled-up in his tight fist, “my hand went up and that was that. I hit her three or four times” hard across the head. “She didn’t shout or say anything, she just stood there and took it… I had the strong impression Nisha wanted me to kill her… she didn’t tell me to stop… because she didn’t give a damn and wanted to get out”. And as she hit the floor, he hit her twice more, and he walked away, “I had no idea what to do”. (Shop bell). Peter recalled this in interviews with noted psychiatrists across the decades… and yet, not a single word of it was true, except in his head, as witnesses and survivors told a very different story. Born on the 1st of February 1973 in Hampstead, north London, Nisha Menhidra Sheth was Michael & Rita’s only daughter. To her friends, neighbours and even strangers, she was “quiet, clever”, “a lovely girl”, “intelligent and charming”, “her cheery manner brought smiles to weary workers on the street”. She was loyal to the shop, loving to her family, and having obtained 3 A Levels at college and secured a place at South Bank University to study a degree in Social Science, she made her parents very proud. She didn’t have a boyfriend, but then she didn’t want a boyfriend, as her future held a bright career, and although (over the last ten years) she’d been a friend and colleague to Peter, it was nothing more. No-one knows why he killed her, except Peter, but was his reason a delusion or reality? This was the truth. (Shop bell) Peter deliberately waited until Nisha was alone. Storming into the shop, he smashed Bobby twice across the head with the claw hammer, rendering the 12 year old boy senseless as he crashed to the floor, and seeing the seething attacker wielding a bloody hammer, the shop’s customers fled. Nisha screamed, terrified, as grabbing her roughly, Peter threw her down, and with barely a grunt, he rained down six hard blows to her head, smashing open her skull until her brain tissue was exposed. Staggering and bleeding profusely, being no match for this barrel-chested brute, having gained some consciousness, Bobby ran into the street and frantically rang the flat’s doorbell to alert his mother, as Nisha lay broken and smashed. Passersby stared in shock, passengers recoiled in horror, and although one man bravely chased her killer down Chelsea Manor Street, after a few roads, he lost sight of him. That was the reality of this brutal murder, it took less than 30 seconds, and Peter never said a word. Police and ambulances were on the scene in minutes, as Rita wailed and held her dying daughter tight. Miraculously, Bobby survived, as with two glancing blows, he only needed a few stitches. But as Peter’s intended target, Nisha got the full force of his fury. Transferred to Hammersmith Hospital, Michael, her father sat by her bedside pleading “please don’t leave me”, but that night, she died of her injuries. For several years, the family stayed on the King’s Road, saying “she loved it here, so we try to carry on as if she still is, but every corner reminds us of her”. In her bedroom were her dolls, her school reports, a signed photo of Cindy Crawford, and although painfully grieving, the family stayed strong for each other. But Michael said “time doesn’t heal, it stopped that day, the numbness blows you to pieces”. Detective Chief Superintendent Clive Ritchie described it “as a cowardly and horrific attack”, witnesses came forward, and police cars were on the look-out “for Peter Bryan who was armed and dangerous”. In his retelling to psychiatrists, he’d later claim “after this, my mind went blank”, yet he said a woman at a bus stop pleaded for him to kill her asking “what about me?”, that he dumped the bloody hammer by a door but not in the River Thames which he passed, and at 7:05pm as he crossed Battersea Bridge, he claimed – while high on skunk, drink and adrenaline – he went searching for a place to take his life. At about 7:15pm, having passed a six-storey block of flats (maybe Musgrave Court), in a storage room, he said he removed his bloodied clothes, put on an old boiler suit, threw away his rings, climbed over the railings of a third floor walkway, and – like his friend, known only as P1 – “I wanted to end it by throwing myself head first”, but having second thoughts, he slipped, and fell 35 feet onto concrete. Rushed to St Thomas’ Hospital with severe fractures to his legs and ankles, bilateral pins were inserted into his heels and he was placed in traction. A drug test revealed a weak positive for cannabis (proving he hadn’t smoked any in 2 to 3 days), and with the Police still searching for him, he kept muttering to the nurse a number, it was the phone number at Nisha’s shop, and later that day, he was arrested. Discharged on the 25th of March 1993, he was charged with Nisha’s murder and the wounding with intent of her brother, Bobby. In a Police interview he gave a “wholly delusional” account of his motive, and expressed no remorse for Nisha or her family. A psychiatrist stated “he displays a remarkable lack of concern and an eerie emotional detachment about the killing…”, being “cold and indifferent… he regarded the event as a matter of great regret, as he was now crippled and facing a bleak future”. Peter had taken her life, with his expression as lifeless as if he had taken her lunch money… …and yet, he wasn’t entirely broken or devoid of all emotion. Awaiting trial, he was held at Brixton Prison, a crumbling Victorian Category C jail, famed as cold, harsh and brutal. With a wealth of evidence against him, if convicted of wilful murder, he risked being sent down for a life sentence, which is a very long time for a young man who had never served a day inside. In his first weeks, he launched two unprovoked attacks on fellow inmates, one while in his wheelchair. He was violent, aggressive, uncontrollable, and was often segregated for the safety of other prisoners. Assessed by the prison doctor, and later psychiatric nurses from Homerton Hospital, his paranoia and anxiety “was a reaction to the prison itself”, but when removed “he was polite and cooperative… quiet and withdrawn ‟, he openly spoke of the murder, his love for Nisha, and the abuse within his family. In hour-long interviews with clinicians, he said of how the police watched him and strangers conspired against him. As a Christian who believed in ghosts, he said that “dead souls listen to my conversations” and hurt him if he doesn’t obey, as prior to the killing, his right ankle was tingling. Raised to Caribbean parents, he said he used voodoo to quell his demons. And having no prior convictions for violence, he said he didn’t know why he had murdered Nisha, but that a dark force and voices were pulling him closer. But he did admit, after he had battered her to death, “I got an appetite, a thrill from the killing”. On the 24th of November, prior to his trial, assessed to consider his admission to Rampton Psychiatric Hospital, the Forensic Psychiatrist of Brixton Prison stated “I found his mental state hard to assess. Although I am confident he suffers from a psychotic illness, his symptoms are not well defined”. Certified as ‘fit to plead’, Peter Bryan was tried at the Old Bailey on the 25th of February 1994. Said to be “floridly psychotic at the time of the murder”, he pleaded ‘not guilty’ of wounding with intent and ‘not guilty’ of murder, but ‘guilty’ of manslaughter and wounding owing to diminished responsibility. Satisfying the criteria, on the 4th of March 1994, under sections 37 & 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983, he was sentenced to a ‘hospital order without limit of time’, meaning that “for as long as he is believed to be a threat to the public”, he shall remain locked-up at Rampton high-security psychiatric hospital. It was said, “he may never be released”. But was this diagnosis a mistake, was it a quirk of his sickness, or was he manipulating both so this first-time murderer could escape the prison time he feared? His history of mental decline suggested that his symptoms were real, and his killing was the work of a man who was not in control of his faculties, but three months before his trial, he sent Nisha’s father a letter which – they would state - showed he was not insane and should have been tried for murder. Dated 22nd of November 1993 and sent from Brixton Prison, in neat handwriting with no grammatical errors, corrections or spelling mistakes, he wrote: “Dear Michael. I am writing to say how very, very, very sorry I am. I would have liked to be a part of your family, but due to this situation, this does not look possible. Telling Nisha that I love her over and over again does not work. Really Michael, if there is a problem with the colour of me, you are selling yourself too cheap. So if you would be so kind to send my clothes to HMP Brixton, I would be very, very, very happy. In my mind, Nisha will always live and sooner or later I will meet her, and no one can tell me to keep away from your daughter. Good luck. Peter”, followed by a list of the bloody clothes he wore when he slaughtered Michael’s daughter. To this grieving family, “it was a psychological slap in the face, as if the killer was laughing at them”. On the 17th of December 1993, prior to his trial, Peter was admitted to Rampton, one of three high security hospitals in England, alongside Ashworth and Broadmoor, where he was later incarcerated. When Rampton is mentioned, the media relies on a painfully trite list of the most heinous criminals to grace its wards; like serial killer Beverley Allitt, kidnapper Ian Ball and rapist David Carrick, Charles Bronson, Stephen Griffiths and Ian Huntley, as well as which were paranoid schizophrenics, so this detail embeds in the reader’s mind the idea that all sufferers of psychosis are drooling psychopaths. Many of the most infamous schizophrenics were killers, just as the majority remain forgotten, but just as many have used their mental illness to improve our lives, such as; Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Vaslav Nijinsky the ballet dancer, actress Veronica Lake, artist Louis Wain, author Robert Walser, Professor Elyn Saks, and John Nash, Nobel Prize winning mathematician as featured in the film A Beautiful Mind. Throughout their lives, they had all suffered and struggled with delusions, hallucinations and paranoia, but whereas they channelled their mental disorder into a career or creativity, Peter’s outlet was drugs. Writer, Mark Vonnegut wrote “the voices weren’t much fun… part of it was my being uncomfortable about hearing them, no matter what they had to say, but the early ones were mostly bearers of bad news”. Judge Dr Daniel Schreber said “It was as if single nights had the duration of centuries”. John Nash said it isn’t always about suffering “I think mental illness can also be an escape”, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys said “of my 40 years of auditory hallucinations inside my head, all day, every day… the voices say something derogatory to me, but I have to be strong enough to say to them, ‘Hey, would you quit stalking me?’… ‘leave me alone’… I have to say this type of thing all day long. It’s like a fight”. But how could Peter fight the (supposed) demons inside his mind, if he was high on illicit drugs? His first six months inside were difficult, but not unusual. On the 25th of January, one of his first reports stated “he presents some issues but his behaviour is appropriate”. It said, he got excited seeing blood while watching Alien 3, he stated “I should be in America, kids of 8 go around with Uzi’s”, and when recalling his own crime, “he appeared dissociated and vague”. He had suicidal thoughts, he bragged about wanting to be a serial killer, he made home-made hooch in his room, and he threatened to kill staff twice. At Rampton, this was all normal for a new patient, whose diagnosis was still being assessed. With every interaction and incident reported; on 7th of July 1995, he allegedly exposed himself in the showers ‘while erect’ to a female cleaner, he denied this, and it was deemed ‘an accident’. On the 1st of August, he burned a different cleaner with a cigarette, but later apologised. On 20th of September, he mocked Nisha’s death, stating “the Paki’ had it coming”. And on the 18th of February 1996, he said to a nurse, that if he got out, he had some “unfinished business” which would lead to his re-arrest. Again, outside of Rampton, that would be concerning. But inside, it was noted and evaluated. On the 17th of May 1994, for the first time in his life, Peter was prescribed an antipsychotic medication, 10mg of zuclopenthixol “and he improved markedly over the next two or three months”. Stopped in August, “suicidality and sexually disinhibited behaviour returned”, so it was restarted and he settled. Away from life’s stressor (like his family) and with no access to drugs (like ‘skunk’), “the staff thought he had made considerable progress regarding his behaviour, attitude, maturity, anger and insight". He slept soundly, he ate his meals, he took his medication and he seemed willing to get well. He had his ups and downs but who doesn’t, and every day, he was one step closer to being a better person. Several years in, being described as "a model patient"; he bettered himself by attending an upholstery workshop and requested anger management courses and sex education. He regularly went to the gym as he still required therapy for his fractured ankles. By April 1999, his Responsible Medical Officer (the RMO) wrote to the Home Office and Peter was granted six day passes to go shopping in the local town and (escorted by a guard and a nurse) they “passed without incident”. And when interviewed on the 17th of March 2001 by a psychiatrist at the request of his solicitor in preparation for a tribunal, Peter stated “I am remorseful. I have destroyed Nisha’s life” and although he still believed she had rejected his love, he said “it was not justifiable, I was ill at that time. Most definitely the ‘skunk’ was part of it”. That year, Peter’s diagnosis of schizophrenia was re-assessed, with it reported that at the time of the murder “he was suffering a paranoid psychosis… exacerbated by stress, (but) the fact that he did not display any symptoms of schizophrenia other than paranoia was an important factor”. A later report states “Mr Bryan is a cheerful and relaxed young man who has co-operated fully with the psychological assessment… he has spoken openly and honestly about his background, his offence and situation. It is likely that he has a predisposition for mental illness exacerbated by stress”, as seen in his brothers. At his mental health tribunal in January 2001, it was said “Mr Bryan posed no significant management problem. However, it is questionable as to what extent he is being managed by his medication”. Two months later, a tribunal ruled “he can be conditionally discharged provided that he takes anti-psychotic medication”, with the plan to transfer him from high-security Rampton to a medium security unit on a six month trial, which if he passed, he’d be moved to a low-security hostel in the community. If he had been convicted of murder, he would have spent 23 hours a day for at least 20 years in prison. But given a ‘hospital order without limit of time’ from which – it was said - he may ‘never be released’… …in just over eight years, he was close to being free. Months prior, the inquest papers state that a man known only as Social Worker 4 gave a stark warning in an ongoing assessment – “Peter is very resourceful. He is cooperative but in a superficial way and mostly complies because he believes that this is the best way to achieve conditional discharge.” (Clock ticking) His six month trial began on the 12th of July 2001 when Peter was escorted by staff to the John Howard Centre, part of Homerton Hospital, a medium secure psychiatric unit in East London. Assessed, in the first weeks, his mood was typical of new patients being a little down and withdrawn. He was verbally (but not physical) hostile to staff, which was blamed on his upbringing “having no real coping strategies and a lack of structure in his life”. He made some inappropriate comments to female staff but wasn’t aggressively sexual, he admitted his attraction to Indian girls, he made racists remarks like “you know us darkies can’t read”, and he accused some doctors of using ‘white magic’ on him. He was doing better, but he would never ‘miraculously’ be well, skipping through the hospital gates singing “I’m cured, I’m cured”, as if he was a schizophrenic, he would always be a schizophrenic. Every day, he would have hallucinations, delusions and persecutions - just like Brian Wilson and John Nash – but it was all about how well he managed those symptoms, so he could try to live as normal-a-life as possible in society, without endangering himself or others. And right then, he wasn’t out of control. (Clock ticking) Five months. Said to be a “model patient”, to acclimatise him to the real world, he went on escorted trips to Victoria Park, later to the National Portrait Gallery where he enjoyed discussing art, to watch the Harry Potter film which he liked, and to a local pub where he played pool and had a pint of beer, and according to his occupational therapist, “he was stable with no signs of psychosis”. (Clock ticking) Four months. A progress report stated “Mr Bryan’s mental state has remained stable, free of psychotic symptoms and he is compliant with his medication. He is polite, appropriate and has not been a management problem on the ward… Mr Bryan was always appropriately dressed, punctual for meetings and apologetic when late for reasons beyond his control. He made intense eye contact, related warmly and established an easy rapport… there were no overt signs of a psychotic or mood disorder… and he asked for clarification about his community support once discharged from hospital”. (Clock ticking) Three months. Given his constant stability, Social Worker 4 would (in the months prior and ahead) write three times to the Home Secretary asking for Peter to be released, stating “there was no change in his mental state”, “he posed no further threat” and “he does not present a grave and immediate danger to the safety of other persons”, even though he still had “delusions about the killing of Nisha… continue to push boundaries and was thought to be some risk towards Asian women”. (Clock ticking) Two months. In the aftermath, when after his release, Peter committed a suspected sex attack on a girl, two more brutal unprovoked murders and a barbaric act of cannibalism, many have accused the mental health system of protecting their own and finding a scapegoat. The first was an unnamed psychiatrist who had never assessed a patient convicted of murder, but the main fall guy was Social Worker 4. Leaking his name to the press, Roland Sillcott was young, inexperienced and “had been a social worker for only five months and had no mental health training, let alone with offenders”. He took the blame, but he hadn’t the power to release a convicted murderer into the community, that took a team of psychiatrists, nurses, lawyers, judges and politicians, who all got to remain anonymous. Roland wouldn’t face any disciplinary action, yet neither did those who put him in that position. (Clock ticking) One month. In January 2002, an anonymous three-member mental health tribunal (consisting of a social worker, a psychiatrist and a High Court judge) met in secret and agreed – against Home Office advice – to release Peter Bryan to a hostel where he could come and go as he pleased. Described as “one of the most compliant (patients) I have ever come across”, having completed his six month trial “without incident” and “making good progress”, on the 12th of February 2002, 32-year-old Peter Bryan was released from the John Howard Centre, from further psychiatric care at Rampton, and his “hospital order without limitation of time” for the murder of Nisha Sheth, just 9 years before. Nisha’s mother would state “it is terrible. He shouldn’t be out. He shouldn’t even be alive”, and yet, having served just 8 years, 11 months and 6 days, he was now being escorted to a low-security hostel, just miles from his home, where he would continue to be monitored and assessed, but he’d have his own room, clothes and key, as well as a job, friends and a sex life, while Nisha’s family still grieved. Peter Bryan was declared “no longer a danger to the public”, and yet, with his ‘unfinished business’, it took a further catalogue of blunders to turn this one-time murderer into a cannibal and a serial killer. Part three of Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan 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.
0 Comments
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 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.
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 London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-EIGHT:
This is Part One of Five of Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan. Peter Bryan is regarded as one of Britain's most infamous serial-killers and cannibals with almost every article and documentary about him slavering over the grisly details of his murders, and especially his cannibalism. But how much of this story is the truth, an exaggeration or a lie? Who created these myths, why do we still believe them, and what evidence is there of cannibalism? Told in full for the very first time, this is Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
This series is primarily based off the Inquest papers into the care and treatment of Peter Bryan (September 2009).
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Summer, 2025. Through the triple thick glass of a barred window, 56 year old Peter savours the warm sun as it dapples across the nature reserve beyond. His wrinkly Caribbean skin is greyer like the stubble of his shaved head, and although he’s sporting in a grey tracksuit and white t-shirt, he can’t go jogging. Like clockwork, a nurse hands him his pill, an anti-psychotic; he smiles, swallows it, she notes it on her clipboard, and he thanks her with a cheeky grin and a slightly sarcastic “yummy, what’s for pudding?”. For 21 years, he’s been both a prisoner and a patient at Broadmoor, a high security psychiatric hospital in the remote wilds of Crowthorne in Berkshire; with high fences, electric gates, alarms and CCTV to protect the public, the staff and other patients from violent and potentially dangerous men like him. At his trial in 2005, four respected psychiatrists certified that Peter Bryan (a convicted serial-killer and cannibal) was “seriously mentally ill”, with one stating “he’s the most dangerous man I have ever met”, and found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, Judge Giles Forrester sentenced him to a whole-life order, meaning he will be incarcerated "for the rest of his natural life". It was said “it’s unlikely he will ever be released”, yet while under the care of doctors, psychiatrists and social workers – all experts held accountable by checks and balances to keep the public safe - he committed a suspected sexual assault, two of three brutal murders, and an act defined as ‘inhuman’. Separated from the world by walls, doors and guards, Peter smirks as he’s been in this situation before. But how was he released to kill? Was it a failure of the mental health system, a quirk of his sickness, or was he manipulating both so this brutal triple-murderer could escape the prison time he feared? Told in full for the very first time, this is Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan - Part 1. On the 4th of October 1969 at Newham General Hospital, East London, Peter Andrew Bryan was born. That year heralded a new era of technology, as 10 weeks prior, Apollo 11 had landed on the Moon, yet being surrounded by crumbling decay and squalor, Newham was the epitome of inner city poverty. In 1956, as part of the ‘Windrush generation’ of Commonwealth countries who came to Britain seeking ‘a better life’, Peter’s father travelled from the sun-kissed isle of Barbados to the rain-soaked gloom of England, followed a year later by his wife, having left behind their three boys and a girl with an aunt. As one of seven siblings with only three born in England - his brother Pelham in 1959, his sister Juliette in 1963, and himself six years later – it could be said that this fragmented family unsettled him, but as the youngest, not only was Peter his mummy’s favourite, but she spoiled him rotten, as blessed with a twinkle in his eyes and a cheeky smile, he knew how to manipulate her and get away with murder. As a boy, Peter was calm, polite and laid back, he was up for a laugh and had a sarcastic wit, but what his bubbly demeanour hid was the abuse they suffered. Peter was beaten but spared the full force of his father’s violence by his mother and older siblings who endured the worst, and although this crying child had his mother to soothe him, did those beatings imprint a desire to make others feel his fear? Sadly his mother wasn’t always there. Aged 4, his parents separated, his father moved in with another women, and although he returned, to support them, his mother went to work leaving Peter (he says) with a childminder but often alone for long periods as she flew to Barbados to see her other children. What he wanted was a family, what he found was the Boy’s Brigade, a Christian youth group which educated inner-city kids in sports, arts, music and community spirit, but the damage was already done. From 1974, he attended Shaftesbury Junior School in Forest Gate, East London. Said to be sometimes smart and kind, but prone to quick tempers, often the red mist would descend, but teachers dismissed this as a side effect of “having few friends, being unhappy… and a sense of shame and embarrassment at needing extra reading lessons”. He wouldn’t know this until he was in his 30s, but Peter was dyslexic. In his own words, he said “I was slow, unable to keep up”, but he wasn’t stupid, as his letters were neat with few mistakes, and doctors would say, he was “well-meaning and asked pertinent questions”. Aged 10, with only a minor developmental disorder, Peter was sent to a ‘special needs’ school, and feeling ostracised, he continued bullying the vulnerable, stating “I enjoyed having power over weaker children”, he pressured girls for sexual favours, manipulated the staff and pushed the boundaries. It began in his early years, but a running theme in the reports written about his life, states to get what he wanted “he conned and manipulated people, primarily by telling them what they wanted to hear”. Aged 11, Peter attended Trinity Secondary School in nearby Canning Town, a regular comprehensive which made no allowances for his dyslexia, so struggling; he got into fights, went shoplifting, groped girls for his sexual thrills, and having slapped a teacher, he was suspended from school for three days. Unsurprisingly, aged 15, with only a basic pass in woodwork, Peter dropped out of school. With nothing, not even hope, his new family had become a teen gang of misfits. Aged 12, maybe due to peer pressure, he was drinking, smoking cannabis and carrying a knife, being boys desperate to be seen as men in the 1980s when action movies glamorised violence. They stole, sold drugs and mugged the weak as “something to do… and it built a feeling of power and excitement within us”, but Peter wasn’t an angry young men who sought revenge because he felt the world hated him, he had plans. As a 5-foot 9-inch barrel-chested brute with dreadlocks and a gold tooth, he could look scary, but from age 14, Peter had a paper round, he taught cooking at his local soup kitchen, and in in 1983, he got a part-time job as a Sunday assistant at a clothes stall on Petticoat Lane Market, and at ‘Omcar’, the owner’s two clothes shops on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End and the King’s Road in Chelsea. ‘Omcar’ was a small business ran by the Sheth family; with parents Mahindra & Rashmid (known as ‘Michael’ & ‘Rita’), and their two children ‘Bobby’ and Nisha. For a decade, Peter had remained a loyal trusted employee and a friend, who worked long hours – 7am to 10pm often seven days a week – and although his teenage years were difficult, as Jainists, they preached forgiveness and non-violence. Peter was disadvantaged, yet he had every chance of being a success… …but something bad had been brewing inside of him. In 1986, aged 17, when this young man needed a family more than most, as his dad had done with his older siblings, Peter was asked to leave home. Abandoned and broke, he got a council flat at The Flying Angel, a former Seaman’s mission at 287 Victoria Dock Road, Custom House in London’s Docklands; an industrial, crime-ridden sprawl, overlooking the construction site of the new London City Airport. It’s uncertain whether he was living there or squatting with two friends, but on an unspecified date, Police attended a report of an incident. The unnamed victim, a male in his late teens, said that he had been assaulted, a struggle had ensued, and Peter had tried to throw him from his sixth-floor window. With only Peter reported as being injured (suffering a ‘deep gash to the head’) and the victim unwilling to escalate it; no charges were brought, no police record exists, and Peter never discussed it. We don’t know if it was a drunken spat, drug related, a gang feud, an unprovoked attack, or if it even existed? Knowing Peter’s later crimes, several sources (perhaps incorrectly) list this as ‘an attempted murder’, but had it been successful, he could have been sentenced from 3 to 10 years for manslaughter, 3 years to life for attempted murder, or worse, as in 1988, the ‘whole life order’ was introduced in the UK for “the most heinous crimes with a sexual or sadistic factor”, which he’d be sentenced to 18 years later. This may have been a blemish on the unremarkable character of a teenage boy prone to outbursts of anger in an unrelentingly hard life, but no-one knew what made him tick or tipped him over the edge, so by 1988, aged 19, he attended West Ham College and passed his GCSE resits in English & Maths. News articles would later portray him as ‘bad from birth’, but he wasn’t, he was trying to do well. If he’d had a career to occupy his time, a hobby to busy his brain or was engaged in a loving relationship to swell his heart, he might have flourished as many of those diagnosed with his condition did… …but all he had was drugs, depression and a disintegrating family. In 1988, aged 19, Peter was back amidst the instability and violence of his family home, but that wasn’t what he said “broke him”. In the inquest files is listed an anonymous boy known only as P1. P1 was Peter’s friend, his closest friend and (some say) his only true friend. Whether through bullying, anxiety or drug-induced psychosis, P1 killed himself by hurling his body from the very top of a block of flats. It took P1 seconds to plunge to his death, yet this tragic incident shaped some of the darkest elements of Peter’s future and his personality, as after this, he said, his isolation and his sickness got worse. Unlike his body, Peter’s brain (like all of ours) wasn’t fully formed once he had finished puberty, as it was still developing up until the age of 26. Being malleable, as this was his first incidence of trauma, he didn’t know how to process intense emotions like anxiety, guilt and grief by himself, and becoming more withdrawn, he was at a much greater risk of developing PTSD and other mental health problems. Peter’s personality change could have been triggered by trauma … …but it could also have been caused by drugs. By 1989, aged 20, one year after P1’s suicide, Peter was spending £30 to £40-a-week on cannabis. But by 1992, aged 23, most of his money was spent on super-strength skunk weed which he smoked neat. His brain’s frontal cortex – which regulates his decision-making, emotions and impulses – should have steered him cautiously through his trauma, taking precautions and rewarding him justly, but with ‘skunk’ stimulating his more primal Amygdala, his logic too easily gave way to pleasure and anxiety. As with many drugs, like cocaine, LSD or amphetamines, long term use and abuse risked him suffering from a drug-induced psychosis. Skunk weed is a high-potency strain of cannabis which induces effects like relaxation, euphoria and altered senses, but can also result in a state of psychosis, which can lead to disorientation, confusion, paranoia and anxiety, especially in those susceptible to mental disorders. Peter’s personality change could have been triggered by trauma or drugs… …but it could also have been caused by schizophrenia. Schizophrenia has several symptoms; the sufferer’s perception of reality is distorted, their speech and thinking is confused, they experience hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that others don’t) and delusions (which aren’t based on reality), so they often can’t differentiate the real from the fake. Schizophrenia develops in the late teens when the brain is malleable. Its subtler symptoms (like mood swings, isolation and anxiety) are often mistaken as a ‘teenage phase’, its stronger symptoms mirror a drug-induced psychosis, and although it’s not hereditary, those with schizophrenia in the family have an increased risk of developing it. Peter had two older brothers, one was incarcerated at Dodd’s Prison in Barbados, one was held at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, and they both struggled with psychosis. So, Peter’s personality change could have been triggered by trauma, drugs, or schizophrenia… …but before he was diagnosed, a good woman would be brutally murdered. The early signs of schizophrenia are subtle; irritability, bad posture and a lack of personal hygiene, but how could anyone differentiate that from a typical teenager? His confusion and anxiety was dismissed as a learning difficulty and drug use. He was unnecessarily rude, inappropriately sexual, he claimed he was being racially abused by everyone, and he’d become sensitive to bright lights and loud sounds. He was changing, but what teenager doesn’t? Schizophrenia is treatable and recovery is possible, but although early intervention is crucial, most schizophrenics aren’t diagnosed until their 20s or 30s. By the summer of 1992, when Britain roared to the cheers of the Queen’s Ruby Jubilee but was rocked by riots across the cities, 23-year-old Peter was in a depressive spiral. He was unkempt and erratic, not unlike most men with no money, career or girlfriend, who were stuck at home with his parents. That August, having returned from an unhappy family trip to his ‘roots’ in Barbados, he found his sister living in a bed-sit with her children having been assaulted by her partner, and witnessed one of his older brothers (a convicted rapist who – against doctor’s advice, at the family’s request - was granted ‘restricted leave’ as a patient from Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital), only to be convicted of ‘GBH with intent’ having set fire to their home on Derby Road and attacked his sleeping mother with a machete. Peter said, the whole incident left him feeling “very unstable”. And who wouldn’t? On top of that, he said his brother’s girlfriend was reading his diary, his neighbours were mocking him, his dole cheques went missing and someone had stolen the £500 he’d hidden under the floorboards. From September to November, his father stated he locked himself in his bedroom smoking ‘skunk’, and on the 28th of October 1992 at Snaresbrook Crown Court, he was convicted of the possession of a controlled drug, for which (as a first offence) he received a conditional discharge for one year. Had he been ‘born evil’ as many claim, he would have had more cautions and convictions, there would have been instances of arson, GBH, ABH and mutilation, maybe even rape, incest and paedophilia - all the hallmarks of a truly evil person? But there was none of that. His history mirrored that of a young man, lost and confused, who hadn’t been to a doctor and wasn’t known to mental health services. His world was dismantling before his very eyes… …but the one constant in his life was the Sheth family. Throughout, although ad-hoc, Peter had continued to work at ‘Omcar’, the clothing shop at 149 King’s Road in Cheslea, a small family business ran by the Sheth’s. In the ten years he had assisted them, he’d become more than an employee, he was like family, who they embraced as their own, welcomed into their shop and, on many occasions, had enjoyed meals with him in their home in the flat above. He was like a son to ‘Michael’ & ‘Rita’ and an older brother to 12 year old ‘Bobby’ & 21-year-old Nisha. They liked him, they trusted him, and through all his ups and downs, they had always supported him. They wouldn’t dream of abandoning him in his time of need, as what he needed was stability and love. From December 1992 until his first murder in March 1993, the family all noticed his changes. The boy with a cheeky smile and a twinkle in his eyes was gone, replaced by a surly, foul-smelling, mess with matted dreadlocks, sometimes a beard, who seemed lost, angry and distant, often in the same breath. When they spoke to him, it was like he was miles away, and when he did reply, it was like he was stuck on repeat. He rarely washed, his clothes were grubby and sometimes inside out, and yet, as moments of crisis arose within him, he smelled strongly of disinfectant, as if he was washing his face with bleach. The changes they witnessed were odd, yet many were also disturbing. In the months when Peter had locked himself in his bedroom, his father would say “I knocked, he came to the door holding a hammer”, what Peter called a ‘bolster’. Rita confirmed, “I saw him take one from our tool box in the basement, he brought it upstairs to the shop and left it near the doors at the back”. He did this several times and never said why, yet every time she returned it, he brought it back. He loved them like family, and they had never done anything to hurt or upset him, not once. By the start of March 1993, several items had gone missing including Rita’s jewellery box. Peter denied taking it, and when quizzed, he laughed at her, boasting “it’s easy to take money from Pakistanis as when you rob them, they don’t fight back”, as if he was threatening her that he would do it again. Rita was scared of him, and then one afternoon, he came into the shop saying “I feel like killing someone”. She told her husband, but nothing was done, as in his company, Peter was always a little angel. Days later, from out of nowhere, Peter took a belt from the display and started whipping Rita around her legs with the buckle. She began to dial the police, but he grabbed the phone, cut off the call and fled. Half an hour later, he came back and apologised. His words were heartfelt and his tears were honest. They knew he was troubled, and they wanted to help him, but on the 10th of March 1993, just one week before, having openly stolen a pair of boxer shorts, Nisha told her father, and Peter was sacked. Their ten years ended in an instant, they had given him every chance, but he was too difficult to handle when Michael wasn’t around, and with Rita not eating or sleeping, they did it gently. Peter bought her a jewellery box to say sorry, and when he left “he kept in touch and we were happy to hear from him”. But that evening, Peter came into the shop when Nisha was alone, grabbed her hard by wrist and said “your big mouth”. Rita said that after that “I was very careful not to leave Nisha in the shop, alone”. And then, it went quiet, Peter stopped coming in, and it was ‘peaceful’ without him around. It was all a series of very unremarkable events which led up to this serial killer and cannibal’s first brutal murder. But nothing in this story is what it seems… …or what many have claimed, including Peter himself. Thursday 18th of March 1993 was an ordinary day, being cold and blustery. At 5pm, Peter popped on a brown leather jacket, blue jeans, trainers and a dark baseball cap, and left his parent’s two-storey terraced house on Derby Road. He had slept in till mid-afternoon, and although he hadn’t changed his clothes or bathed in days, his face was red, his skin was sore, and he had a strange smell of bleach. At Forest Gate station, he caught the 5:10pm train to Stratford, the Central Line tube to Mile End as he mingled with the rush-hour commuters, and hoped off at South Kensington, it took roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes, give or take the usual delays, with the Sheth’s shop barely a 15 minute walk away. Inside his jacket he had stashed a foot-long, half-kilo, claw-hammer made of steel, which he claimed he carried “as I didn’t want it lying about the house”, yet, later interviewed, he stated “I needed more time to decide what to do and thought the walk might stop me from attacking Michael Sheth”, as in some later recollections, Peter said that Michael owed him £500, £600 and in one retelling £1600. Later, he’d claim “I went to a mate’s house, smoked some dope and drank wine, as I was feeling tense, I still ‘buzzed’ when I arrived”, only test results told a different story. He later claimed, “a gang nicked my cap, so I smashed up one of their cars with my bolster”, only no cars were reported as attacked with a hammer that day. And as he walked to the King’s Road, he claimed “I saw lots of rocks… and broke six windows, hoping the police would arrest me” and stop him before he killed, only on his route from South Kensington tube passed Onslow Square and Sydney Street, every window remained intact. In fact, if he had set off at 5pm, and arrived at the shop at 6:30pm, as he stated, there was no time for any ‘skunk’ to be smoked, caps nicked and windows or cars to be smashed - his timings don’t stack up. At a little after 6:30pm, Peter stood on a side street – pacing and mumbling - as at 7pm, like clockwork, the Sheth’s clothing shop at 149 King’s Road would be shutting up. The street was bustling with traffic, the pavements were busy and the stop was packed with passengers awaiting the 11, 22 & 394 buses. Across from ‘Omcar’, a queue was forming at the Chelsea Curzon, as ‘Crush’, new movie starring Alicia Silverstone and Kevin Dillon was showing, and next door, the Trafalgar pub was bustling with boozers. No sane person would willingly commit a murder at this time, in this place, but this was his ‘plan’. At 6:55pm, shifting nervously and sweating profusely, Peter watched as Rita left the shop and entered the black door to the flat above, only she wasn’t his intended victim. Michael didn’t owe him a penny, and although he would state otherwise, he wasn’t Peter’s target. At two minutes to, ‘Bobby’ removed the pavement sign from outside, but being just a kid, he meant nothing to this man who’d describe himself as “a psychopath in the making”. As with his claw hammer gripped tight in his hand and his right ankle said to be tingling, serial-killer and cannibal Peter Bryan saw the girl he was here to kill… …their daughter, Nisha. Summer, 2025, Broadmoor. An older, greyer Peter stares out of the window of the psychiatric hospital he was told he will remain in "for the rest of his natural life". 32 years after Nisha’s brutal murder, which shocked a community, devastated a family and traumatised her brother who miraculously survived, you may expect that he would serve his sentence for that murder and attempted murder? And he did. He was arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned. Justice had been done. He was safely behind bars - under the care of doctors, psychiatrists and social-workers; all experts in their field, held accountable by checks and balances to keep the public safe - where he could never hurt anyone else, ever again. At least, he should have been. Yet he would go onto commit a suspected sex crime, two more murders and an act defined as ‘inhuman’. But was it a failure of the mental health system, a quirk of his sickness, or was he manipulating both so this brutal triple-murderer could escape the prison time he feared? Part two of Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan 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.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 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.
16 Grafton Terrace (Jean's home) @Googlemaps2025 Aug2022
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 London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-SEVEN:
On Sunday 8th of August 1948 at just after 10:30pm, Jean & Donald Ramsey, a young couple with two children met at this junction to discuss their collapsing marriage. It ended in murder. But how could something so simple be so complicated, as was this the story of a good man who was pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife, or a good wife who was murdered by a controlling and abusive husband?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a yellow 'P' below the words 'Kentish Town'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Ep297: Simply Complicated Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on the junction of Wellesley Road and Grafton Terrace in Kentish Town, NW5; five streets south of the murderous Greek mother-in-law, two stops north of the Camden Ripper’s bins, and a short walk from the drunken chemist who foretold his own death - coming soon to Murder Mile. Demolished in the 1960s as part of the post-war regeneration, the junction was replaced by the West Kentish Town Estate, a sprawling rabbit’s warren of four-storey council flats. With many residents boxed-in by their box-like flat, snoozing in a box bed, glaring at a telly box and gorging boxed meals until they’re carried out in a pine box, some may complain that its sense of community has gone. But was it any better or safer back in the days when we had nothing to occupy us, but life itself? On Sunday 8th of August 1948 at just after 10:30pm, Jean & Donald Ramsey, a young couple with two children met at this junction to discuss their collapsing marriage. It ended in murder. But how could something so simple be so complicated, as was this the story of a good man who was pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife, or a good wife who was murdered by a controlling and abusive husband? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 297: Simply Complicated. Born in the late Victorian era, Sophie Butler had been a mother, a grandmother, a wife and a widow. Like many women, she had survived child birth, poverty and two World Wars, yet, on the 7th of January 1949, four months after the trial, she wrote a letter to the coroner of St Pancras Coroner’s Court. Written in a shaky scrawl, she pleaded for her daughter’s case to be re-opened. “Dear Sir. Six months ago, my daughter (Jean Ramsey) was stabbed to death by her husband (Donald Ramsey) who walked out of prison ‘a free man’. Why, can you tell me?. You asked the people to help find him, we helped. You had your man, the right one, and he was allowed to go free. I cannot rest until justice is done”. Justice. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, as she wasn’t a mother who refused to accept the truth, or sought revenge in an era when the court demanded “an eye for an eye”; as the last thing a murderer saw was a white silk hood being placed over their head, the last sound they heard was the spring of the trap door, and the last thing they felt was a short drop and a sudden stop, as their neck snapped. Her daughter was dead, her killer (she said) was free… …yet this simple case was more complicated than it seemed. Sophie Butler was born Eliza Sophie Peverall on the 20th of November 1898, and for most (if not all) of her life, she had lived in the same area and the same house; a two-storey mid-Victorian terrace at 18 Grafton Terrace. As a typical working class family, several generations lived within, with their numbers swelling across the decades as wives, cousins, siblings and offspring were added where and when. In an area thick with industry, bricks were coated in a dark soot, as each street was surrounded by rail-lines and pockmarked with factories which belched the caustic fumes of progression, day and night. In 1919, aged 23, she married David Josiah Butler in a nearby church, and although – like her daughters – she was a tiny woman, just 4 foot 11 inches tall and barely 7 stone in weight - together they raised eight children; Ruth, David, Sophie, Jean, Malvena, Edward, Victor & Doreen, two of whom died young. Jean Margaret Butler was born on 18th of March 1925 as the second of the first four children to survive. Little is written about her, but like her mother, she was tiny yet formidable, basically educated and she always lived locally, with her job predetermined as a wife and a mother with bouts of factory work. By 1939, the Second World War had begun and money was short, but times were about to get harder. On the 17th of October 1940, Sophie’s husband, David Butler was sweeping the street outside of Dell's Toffee Factory on nearby Grafton Road. Recommissioned to make armaments instead of sweets, an ariel torpedo eviscerated the factory, several houses and erased his from existence. As the sole bread winner for a disabled wife and six children, Sophie survived as her family could get through anything… …anything, except scandal. Little is known as even less was said, but during the war, Jean (as only a teenager herself) gave birth to the illegitimate child of an American GI, and being seen as an outrage, Sophie had Jean leave home. 5 Gillies Street was chosen at random, she could have lived anywhere in any house on any street, but as an unmarried single mother who’d been partially abandoned by her parent, she had limited options. Remarkably similar to her own, 5 Gillies Street was the home of the Ramsey family; Sydney Snr was a builder, and Mabel, a housewife and mother, with four children; Eileen (a biscuit packer), Sidney Jnr (a wagon repairer), Lydia (a factory hand at the chemical works), and their son, Donald known as Don. Born in St Pancras on 6th of January 1926, one year after Jean, Donald Victor Ramsey was the youngest and was treated as “the baby of the family”, hence he was a late bloomer and immature for his age. Like Jean, being tiny, at just 5 foot 2 and 7 stone 8lbs, he was often mistaken for a boy, and although he had enlisted in the Army, being an inch too short, he was conscripted into the ‘Bantam Battalion’. He was skinny, healthy, of average intelligence, with no criminal record and an adequate work history. As many did in those post-war years, their relationship moved fast. The first words they spoke together was in March 1946 when he met her and her child as a lodger in his family’s home. They became close, loving and intimate, and keen to do right by her and her family, on 3rd of August 1946 – when she was four months pregnant but barely showing - they married, becoming Mr & Mrs Jean & Donald Ramsey. With another scandal averted, they moved in with her mum at 16 Grafton Terrace, their child (Donald Anthony Jnr) was born on 26th of January 1947 and Donald Snr raised her illegitimate child as his own. It should have been the beginning of a loving family … …but from the start, something wasn’t right. Donald’s sister would state “in spite of the many disappointments, he kept on trying” to make it work. Earning an okay wage, he provided for his wife and both children (his and the unnamed American GI’s), being frugal he mended their boots using an eight inch cobbler’s knife which he kept in a toolbox, and although he served 84 days detention in the Army barracks for going AWOL, he did it “to help my wife look after the baby”, and later admitting “we were having domestic difficulties”, as many did. On the 31st of March 1948, four months before Jean’s death, Donald was discharged from the Army, and earned a living as a painter and decorator. Donald would state “I knew she was going out with other men when I was in the Army, but I forgave her. But when I was living with her, she still persisted”. His brother, Sydney Ramsey told the Police, “he said he had seen her out with a chap called Blackburn”. Walter Blackburn was a loose associate of Donald’s having worked together at the ‘London, Midland & Scottish Railway’ as carriage cleaners, and he lived on Vicars Road with his pregnant wife, Florence, On the night of Sunday 14th of June, seven weeks before, Donald claimed “Jean came home soon after midnight in a distressed condition, with her lipstick smeared and her dress disarranged. She had sperm stains on her dress and on her knickers, and I accused her of having intercourse with someone. She said ‘I have got a right to go out and have a good time’. I told her that if that was her idea of a good time, that wasn’t my idea of married life, and I wasn’t prepared to spend that sort of life with her”. They had quarrelled many times before, and being of similar size, they had also fought. But with her unwilling to repent or to remain as faithful to him as he said he was to her, “I walked out of the house”. If she was unfaithful, we don’t know who with, and if she was attacked, it wasn’t reported to the police. But with only his version of events as Jean is dead, we will never know whether he was a good man pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife, or she was a good woman killed by an abusive husband? Sydney said of Jean & Walter “he was trying to catch them together with a view of divorce. He wanted proof of misconduct”. Yet, Walter denied this, as did his wife, Florence, and when Police investigated, “there were no grounds for any suspicion of infidelity”, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen? This is what dogged the case, it seemed simple, yet every angle was complicated by bias. In Sophie’s handwritten letter to the coroner, she continued; “my daughter was frightened for weeks …yet a man can walk about like him, who always carried a knife on him… he threatened her on many occasions with a razor and knocked her down in Wellesley Road, until some men shouted out to him”. Their relationship was tense, seeing each other only made it worse, so by June, Donald had returned to his home on Gillies Street, with Jean and their two children at her mother’s on Grafton Terrace. Donald stated “she caused trouble… my wife and her mother came round frequently causing grief”, and although “she was drawing money from the Public Assistance Board”, a hand-out from the council, “I was very willing to support her”, but he said she refused to take his money, possibly to shame him? On 16th of July 1948, three months before, Donald was summoned to attend Marylebone Police Court. There were two summonses against him for ‘disturbing the peace’; one by Florence Blackburn, Jean’s friend (and the heavily-pregnant wife of Walter, the man Jean was allegedly having an affair with) who there to support her, one by Sophie Butler (Jean’s mother) and a third by his wife, Jean, on the grounds of desertion and non-payment of maintenance. According to Donald, “Jean and her mother made a poor impression… and the case was dismissed”, as were the other two summonses. Whereas Florence would state, “in the waiting room, Donald’s said ‘I will kill her before I see her go with any other man’”. Everything detail which could simplify this story was littered with speculation and rumour. Outside of the court, Florence said Donald asked Jean to come home with him to “start again”, she said “no”, so – according to Florence – “he tried to push her in front of a bus”, but – just in time – she stopped him. There were no independent witnesses to this assault, Donald couldn’t recall it and no report was made to the Police. But in that era, domestic assault was considered a ‘private’ not a ‘police’ matter. On one occasion, when - it was said - Donald had beaten up Jean, Sophie stated “I dialled Scotland Yard… two officers arrived, and all they said to him was ‘we cannot have this’”. That was it, no report nor warning. But according to Sophie, “each night, he was always waiting on her, until the fatal night”. Sunday 8th of August 1948 had been a horrible day, as with a bruised sky, a torrent of rain lashed down. At 7pm, wearing just a light tweed coat and leaving her kids with her mother, Jean headed to 20 Vicars Road. It’s uncertain whether Donald followed her there, but this was the home of Walter Blackburn. With the curtains closed, Donald would have thought the worst, only Jean wasn’t here to see Walter, but Florence: “I paid her 30s a week to help me look after the baby when it was born”, as being due any day, Jean was helping her out with the duties she could no longer do. She was a good friend doing a kind deed for a woman in need, but jealousy always twists the facts. “She was afraid of her husband and feared his violence… so nearly every night, her mother took her home”. Only that night, she didn’t. At 10:10pm, 20 minutes before Jean would always head home, Donald returned to 5 Gillies Street. His brother Sydney stated “he knocked… and walked past me without speaking. He went up to the top of the house where Billy Russell (their brother in law) lived. Five minutes later, I heard him go out. He never spoke to me and I was not aware that anything was wrong”. It could be a coincidence, but in a tool box in Billy’s cupboard on the top floor, used to mend boots, he kept his eight inch Cobbler’s knife. Donald was on Gillies Street two streets north, as Jean was on Vicars Road three streets west, and when she left at 10:30pm, she was heading to her home one street south of where these roads intersect… …at the junction of Wellesley Road and Grafton Terrace. It was a bitter night, so bitter, no-one walked the sodden streets except those who truly had to. With very few streetlamps and being more than an hour after dusk, the moon was strangled by a brooding cloud, the only light was the intermittent flash of lightning, and – to anyone who may eavesdrop – any shouts or screams were distracted by thunder claps and the torrential rain washed away any sounds. It’s unlikely they met by design as the rain had left them both sodden; Donald in a blue striped suit and Jean sporting Florence’s scarf, even though from here, she was barely 100 yards from her home. At the T-Junction, the tiny couple met, yet what was said was only ever recounted by Donald’s words. “I left home to see my wife to make it up with her and give her money for the children”, both children, his and the child of the unnamed American GI who had abandoned her, and whose son he was raising as his own. “I said ‘hullo’ and asked her how the children were”. He loved them, he cared for them and he missed them, according to his siblings. Only she would reply “‘all right, but no thanks to you’”. The summonses at Marylebone Police Court still rankled, “I said ‘what do you mean?’, I tried to give her money, she refused, I begged her to take it, I said ‘it wasn’t right to go on this way on account of the kids’”, but as he pressed two £1 notes into her hand, she threw it in his face, and then she said it. “I’ve found someone else”. Whether she had is debatable and whether she said this is uncertain. “So I said to her ‘well, it’s hopeless, and there is no chance of reconciliation’, and she said ‘no chance whatsoever’, so I said ‘well, I’ll leave it at that’ and said ‘goodnight’”. According to Donald, his marriage to Jean ended right there, she had found someone else, and there was nothing he could do about it. That’s what he said. Then… “As I turned to walk away, she said ‘before you go, I’ve got something for you’, she said she had been ‘saving it for me’”. With a fist, she tried to strike him, he grabbed her arm, and in her hand “it looked like a chisel”. As they tussled violently, Jean wrestled to stab him, “I ducked back, and as she stepped back and tripped, she caught it in her coat, and went on the floor”, the handle sticking out of her lapel. “I tried to lift her up, but she was shouting and swearing one thing and another as she lay… so I ran all the way down Malden Road to the ‘Shipton’. I was terrified she might come after me with the knife”. Donald ran home, and having told Billy “there’s been an accident… Jean tried to dig a knife into me”, being convinced by his family to go to the Police, he made a statement at Kentish Town police station. But by the time that Sophie, Jean’s mother was told … …her daughter was already dead. Inspector Charles Strath was patrolling the nearby streets in a Police van at the time of Jean’s demise. Alerted to the junction just minutes after an ambulance had carted her away, her scarf remained, and through the torrent of rain, fresh blood has splashed the brick wall and pooled in a manhole cover. Only one resident, Alice Dicks of 15 Wellesley Road directly opposite, had witnessed it: stating “I heard someone scream ‘Help! Murder! Police!’. I got out of bed, I saw two people struggling… the man ran towards Queens Crescent, the woman collapsed at the junction of Malden Road and Grafton Terrace”. She was just 35 feet away when it happened, but with no lights and being in torrential rain, she heard little and she saw less, as the couple were in shadow. In fact, “I didn’t know it was Jean until I got to her. She was lying on her back, bleeding from her throat… her eyes were open, she was perfectly still”. At 11:40pm, Inspector Strath interviewed Donald Ramsey, who had volunteered to make a statement; his clothes, hands and face were still sopping wet. His first words to the officer were “is my wife alright – not dead”, as at that time, there was still a faint hope that she might make it, but by 12:40am, when Donald asked again “how if my wife, is it serious?”, this time the Inspector replied “your wife is dead”. With a wealth of evidence against him, 22-year-old Donald Ramsey was charged with the murder of his wife, Jean. In his cell, the police doctor described him as “agitated and frequently depressed”. On the surface, it seemed like such a simple case of wilful murder… The 8-inch Cobbler’s knife was found by the steps of 15 Wellesley Road, a few feet from the stabbing itself, and although rain had erased any fingerprints, the underside of the blade was still dry and caked in blood from hilt to tip. When asked, Donald stated “it is my knife, but the last time I saw it was in my tool box before I parted from Jean” last June, and yet he couldn’t account for how it had gone missing. Examined at the Met’ Police Laboratory, Dr Holden confirmed that the blood on the knife was ‘Group A’, Jean’s group, but as Donald had admitted the knife was his, Dr Holden wasn’t called as a witness. Her autopsy was conducted at St Pancras Mortuary by Dr Teare, and although Donald had claimed that Jean had viscously attacked him with the knife - even though not a mark was found on him and that “she stepped back, tripped and went on the floor” - the medical evidence strongly disputed this. Her face had been scored by five inch-long slashes to her left eyebrow, cheek and chin, consistent with the knife, yet the attack was so fast and frenzied, she had no defensive wounds to her hands or arms. Her cause of death was a single stab wound to the neck; 1 ¼ inches wide and 8 inches deep (the same as the blade), which entered her throat “having been plunged violently, piercing the thyroid gland, the jugular vein and the right side of the 7th cervical vertebra of the spine… being partially withdrawn and then plunged through the top of the right chest…”, nicking the apex of the left lung, “the right chest filled with 2 pints of blood and the left lung was markedly collapsed”. In short, Dr Teare stated in his report, “it could have been inflicted by the cobbler’s knife… and this was not a self-inflicted injury”. Two days after her murder, Bentley Purchase the St Pancras Coroner’s opened the inquest. That same day, Donald Ramsey was formerly charged at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court and being held on remand at Brixton Prison, the psychiatrist confirmed “he is sane and fit to plead”, as was to be expected. Tried at the Old Bailey from Thursday 9th of September, barely a month after the murder, Donald stuck to his defence that he was a good man pushed to his limit by an unfaithful wife who had attacked him. His alibi was swiftly demolished, as all agreed “Jean never carried a knife”, her outfit only had one pocket which was too small, she hadn’t been to his home where he kept his toolbox in months, and Florence Blackburn who had spent three hours with Jean that night, did not see her with any weapon. The evidence against Donald was presented, and although it seemed simple enough, over those three days, it began to fall apart piece-by-piece. Two crumpled up £1 notes in his pocket proved that he’d tried to give Jean money for the children, as he had said, disputing that this was a premeditated attack. He denied that he was jealous of her, he said he had accepted that the marriage was over, he said he wasn’t looking for evidence of an affair with Walter Blackburn (or any other man) so he could divorce her, and there was no proof that he had stalked her that night, or that he had collected the knife itself. When the sole eye-witness, Alice Dicks gave her testimony, owing to the rain and thunder, she couldn’t state whether it was Jean or Donald who had shouted “Help! Murder! Police!”, and although she knew them both, she stated “I know Donald well, but I cannot say if he was the person I saw running away”. With Dr Holden of the Met’s Police Laboratory not called to testify as the evidence was so strong, he wasn’t able to account for why none of Jean’s blood was found on Donald’s suit or shoes. And when the pathologist gave evidence - even though this does not appear in his report - in cross-examination, Dr Teare said “the throat wound with the double thrust could have been caused by a struggle”, suggesting – as Donald had said –this had been nothing but a minor domestic and a tragic accident. On Monday the 13th of September 1948, with the jury directed by Justice Sellars to disregard a charge of manslaughter, they returned a unanimous verdict of ‘not guilty’, and Donald was acquitted. (Out) Four months after the trial, still grieving, Sophie Butler, Jean’s mother wrote a letter to the coroner pleading for the case to be reopened. She continued: “There was too many stabs to be an accident… she hadn’t a chance. You have proof that he had a knife on the night”, but the proof was unprovable. In her eyes, his grief was merely tears for the court, stating “there’s a murderer walking about bragging because he gave himself up, and was then let free, not even caring about his wife’s death. He has the insurance policy, and promised to pay the undertaker, but instead he bought a suit for 19 guineas, a brown one”, and although, she gave the undertakers name, we’ll never know if this was looked into. To her, he was violent and manipulative: “he ripped the furniture up with a razor… he was a deserter, and got away with everything”, as being the baby of the family, his loved one’s always protected him. But to them, he was innocent, abused, and was a good man pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife. Sophie continued her plea to the coroner: “Trusting you may re-open the case, for my daughter and my sake. Respectfully yours. Mrs S Butler”. Only it was not to be, it was closed and it remained closed. In 1948, Donald Ramsey was living at 7 Wellesley Road, just 3 doors from the murder. In 1949, he was living and working at the Reform Club, and in May 1990, aged 64, he died not far from his old house. Sophie Butler died never finding the conclusion she craved. But although every family seeks the truth, it is always their version of the truth they seek; with some believing he was innocent, provoked or guilty. Murder is rarely clear and concise even when it looks simple, as it’s the details which complicate it, as when anyone comes forward with evidence, the question to be asked is “is any of it even true?”. 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.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 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.
Hella's coffin being led from the house
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 London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-SIX: On the night of Wednesday 28th of July 1954, 11 South Hill Park was the scene of one of London’s most shocking and brutal murders. It was so horrific, it caused an outrage in society, an uproar in the press and a debate in Parliament as how could anyone be so callous and cruel? It was a murder which devastated a family, yet, the killer would claim they did it not out of hate, they did it for love.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a purple symbol of a 'P' just under the words 'Hampstead Heath'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on South Hill Park, near Hampstead Heath, NW3; four streets west of the Night Porter’s hangout, a short walk from the home of the suicidal pathologist, two stops east of the suitcase of death, and three streets north of the war hero and his cheating wife - coming soon to Murder Mile. This is 11 South Hill Park, a mid-Victorian five-storey terraced house with brown brick walls, black wrought iron gates, white window sills and a set of stone steps leading up to the ground floor. It’s a perfect little house on a pleasant little street being the kind of place a loving little family would live. It’s so joyous, I’m sure that meal-times are a masterclass in etiquette and manners, the teenagers float upstairs as softly as pixies tip-toeing on marshmallows, dad goes out of the room to ‘blow off’, mum is never drunk on her ‘special afternoon refreshment’, and there’s no crying, fighting or screaming. (sound: “I hate you”, door slams). Of course, that kind of family life is fantasy, as in truth, it’s pure hell. On the night of Wednesday 28th of July 1954, 11 South Hill Park was the scene of one of London’s most shocking and brutal murders. It was so horrific, it caused an outrage in society, an uproar in the press and a debate in Parliament as how could anyone be so callous and cruel? It was a murder which devastated a family, yet, the killer would claim they did it not out of hate, they did it for love. My name is Michael, I am your guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 296: An Afterglow of Hate. Thursday 29th of July 1954, at around 1am. It was a warm night, silent and still, as not even a slight breeze shook the Elm trees which cast shadows down South Hill Park. With no moon and few streetlamps, everything was shrouded in darkness. And although every light was out, every door was shut and every window was closed at number 11, being hours passed bedtime and a nice part of town, this wasn’t the kind of place a stranger passes through. Yet, something roused Styllou from her sleep. A noise? It could have been anything, as the old wooden floorboards and walls were prone to creaking. Then she felt a movement, as if something or someone was inside the family home; but - with both of her grandsons (Nicholas, aged 11 and Peter, aged 10) fast asleep beside her in their back bedroom on the ground floor, her daughter-in-law Hella and granddaughter (Stella, aged 8) in the front bedroom, and Styllou’s son, Stavros at work and not due back for two more hours - it could have been nothing. But then, in the hallway, beyond her door, she heard two voices, two men, two strangers. Styllou pulled aside her bedsheets, popped on her slippers and got out of bed quietly so as not to wake her grandsons. It’s uncertain what she planned to do, as being a 53-year-old grandmother who wasn’t even five foot tall, weighed a slight 8 stone 3 lbs (or 53 kilos) and walked with a slow stoop after years of hard graft as olive farmer in Cyprus, a stiff breeze could topple her, or worse, two burly intruders. But although small and frail, Styllou was a typical Greek-Cypriot mother; tough, domineering, a force of nature, who will kick, scream and fight (literally fight with feet, fists and teeth) to defend her family from those she believes are out to do them harm, and she will do anything to protect them, anything. Entering the hall, she saw that the front door was open, which before bed, had definitely been locked. The voices were downstairs in the basement kitchen, and with no phone in the house, Styllou peeped into her daughter-in-law’s room to rouse her, “Hella? Hella?” - unsure how to explain this as Hella was German and Styllou could barely speak English – but it was all for nothing, as she wasn’t in her bed. Only one witness, an elderly neighbour later confirmed that she heard two men whispering, as Styllou had said, but being blind, she didn’t know what they were doing, and she could do nothing to help. Alone, as Styllou crept down the stairs to the basement, she saw that the kitchen light was on and the men’s voices were close, but Hella was nowhere to be seen. Drifting through the French windows, a choking smoke rose as flames danced in the dark. Translated, Styllou said “I saw a man with a suitcase” and as she stepped into the garden, “I saw another man” holding a metal tin, who both quickly fled. She didn’t chase them, as something horrific caused her to freeze. A yellow glow illuminated the steps as wood and paper crackled. Paraffin made the flames to lick higher as the air hung with an acrid smell of paraffin, but stinging her nostrils was the sickening stench of singed hair and the bubbling of burned flesh. Styllou raced back and forth with bowls of water to extinguish the fire, but Hella was dead. Naked except for her knickers, the slim frame of this former fashion model was blackened and charred, her pretty face was burned beyond recognition, and as Styllou touched it “blood stuck to my hands”. Desperate for help, Styllou ran into the street, but it was empty. In slippers, she dashed down South End Road, but that was dead. Seeing no cars, she ran a third of a mile away passed Hampstead Heath station which was shut, till at Pond Street, she flagged down a car with screams and frantic hands. Mr & Mrs Burstoff said “she was panicked, in broken English she said ‘Come. Fire burning. Children sleep’". Arriving at 11 South Hill Park, they saw the burned body of Hella, and called the Police. It was a callous, brutal murder of a loving and devoted mother of three children, which destroyed a family forever… …but where did it all begin? Styllou was born Stylliani Nicola Parpotta in 1901 in the north-eastern village of Rizokarpaso, a small remote town on the Karpas Peninsula in the northeastern part of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Her upbringing was hard, being an impoverished Cypriot family living far from the city and existing under the rules of the British protectorate. With no schooling, she was illiterate, but all her education came from her father who taught her to till the dry soil all day in the blistering sun for little reward, and her mother, who – like many stereotypical Greek-Cypriot mothers – was small and domineering. As was expected of her, in 1915, aged just 14 years old, Styllou was made to marry Pantopiou Christofi Antoniou, a poor farmer with a tiny olive grove in Varosha which barely sustained them. Renamed Styllou Pantopiou Christofi, they raised five children, one of whom in 1922 was her son, Stavros. It is said that Greek-Cypriot mothers have a reputation which proceeds them; they’re loyal and loving, but (especially with their sons) they smother them with love and protection. They’re deeply religious and rabidly superstitious, they’re always right and know best, they’re pushy and critical of their son’s wife or girlfriend as there will only ever be one woman who’s good enough for her ‘little prince’, who – she still cooks and irons for into his 30s or 40s, whether he likes it or not - as she is his momma. You don’t defy them, you don’t answer back, and you don’t ever, ever, get between her and her son. It’s part of how many traditional Greek-Cypriot families were in the remote rural villages of that era. Family was everything, the momma was the lynchpin, but (especially from 1878 until its independence in 1960) Cypriots didn’t trust their British overlords, so they dealt with their problems their way; their law was the law, they were the police, and if needs be, the family was the judge, jury and executioner. In a community based around family honour, you followed the rules, or your justice was meted out. In 1925, Styllou, her sister-in-law and a neighbour meted out some serious justice against her mother-in-law, Maria Goula-Christophi. For her community, a wrong had been righted, but in the eyes of the British courts – who saw these ‘Cypriot peasants’ as little more than ‘savages’ - she had broken to law. Tried in court at Famagusta, the real punishment for this mother and wife was her husband separated from her. Unable to divorce owing to Cypriot law and poverty, after that, she earned a living as a fruit picker and a cleaner, but with sides taken and the damage done, it had driven her family apart. In 1937, aged 15, her son Stavros left the village and headed to the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, far from his mother’s smothering arms. He was only 30 miles away, but to a woman who lived hand-to-mouth, he might as well be living in another country. Then in 1941, having saved-up enough money working as a waiter, seeking a better life, Stavros permanently moved 2500 miles away to the city of London… …which to her was as far away as the moon. She was broke, distraught and it was war-time. Her son was gone, she didn’t own a phone and couldn’t afford it if she did. And although she wrote letters to him regularly, back in Cyprus, she grew lonely. This was a fresh start for Stavros Christofi, a young man in a bright city, where he could flap his wings without them being clipped by his overbearing mother. Every day, she fretted, as London was ravaged by bombings, and working in Piccadilly, her boy was in the thick of it. But Stavros was safe and thriving. Having got a job as a wine waiter at the prestigious Café de Paris – recently reopened after a direct hit by a blitz bomb in March 1941 which killed 34 people including bandleader Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson – it was here that Stavros met and fell in love with his future wife and mother of his three children. Born in 1917, Hella Belcher had emigrated from Wuppertal in Germany, and as a slim and pretty 19-year-old brunette, her dream was to make it to America to seek her fame as a fashion model. But arriving in England in May 1939, with the Second World War looming, for now she was stuck in London. Like many war-time romances, with death on every doorstep, many couples rushed to get engaged, and although not all succeeded, being married in 1942 and with three children following in 1943, 1944 and 1946, the Christofi’s were strong and devoted. Inside Hella’s gold wedding ring it was inscribed with her husband’s name ‘Stavros’, and from the day she slipped that ring on, she never took it off. By 1953, with war a distant memory and rationing coming to a close, seeking good schools and a nice flat in a good part of town, the Christofi’s moved into 11 South Hill Park just off Hampstead Heath. As a pleasant little home for a loving family, it was small but it had everything they needed; two bedrooms on the ground floor, a sitting room and a kitchen in the basement, and a small paved garden outback, In the basement, Hella stored her tools and occasionally a mannequin having made a name for herself as belt maker at a high-end fashion boutique in the West End. When it was cold, they had a healthy pile of paper, wood and a tin of paraffin to heat the house using a cast iron boiler. But in the summer months such as this, they opened the French windows which led down the steps to the back garden. This was their home, a place of happiness and joy where their family felt safe. And although Hella was described as a wonderful women who was hardworking, dedicated and devoted to her children… …on those steps, someone would burn her beyond recognition, as if they wanted her erased. By the summer of 1953, Styllou hadn’t seen her son for 12 years. Because of the war, she had never met his wife, Hella, she’d only seen photos of her grandchildren, and having saved up every penny, Stavros said “my mother came to this country on the 26th July of 1953”, and with post-war Britain now booming, “she came to earn money to pay for a plot of land in Cyprus”. She found work as a kitchen hand and a shirt maker, and to help her out, they offered her a bed in their home for a few days or weeks, and as Hella & Stavros were both working, it would be nice for the kids to meet their granny. But the friction between them started early, as being a traditional Greek-Cypriot mother, Styllou didn’t like Hella, she didn’t think she was good enough for her ‘little prince’, she critiqued her skills as a wife and mother, and was incensed that her British-born children knew nothing about their Cypriot culture. Often, they argued, with Stavros (as the interpreter) taking his wife’s side. Often, Styllou belittled Hella in the same way her own mother-in-law, Maria had done to her back in Cyprus. And although, they tried to make the best of it in their cramped little flat, with Styllou insisting that she should move in permanently, it exacerbated their mental health. By the winter, six months in, Hella was so sick, her nerves were shot, she had chest pains, her hair was falling out, and Styllou was anxious and depressed. Styllou had brought her old-fashioned ways from a remote rural village of yesteryear to Hella’s modern progressive style of child-rearing. She refused to accept she was wrong, as is her mind, she was right. She was pushy and overpowering, so much so that three times across that year, she had to move out. By early July 1954, almost a whole year into her quick trip to England, Hella & Stavros had had enough. The marriage was struggling, tensions were fraught, and the whole house was in a state of upheaval. Desperate to appease everyone, Stavros came up with an amicable solution. As Hella’s 37th birthday was at the end of August when the schools had broken up, why didn’t she take their children to stay with her mother in Germany? And while she was away, as Styllou had suffered several colds in the last bitter winter, Stavros told his momma “it would be better for your health if you went back to Cyprus”. Later, J F Claxton for the Prosecution asked in court “did your mother say anything about her feelings in this matter?”, Stavros replied “she said ‘if you feel that way, I’ll go back’”. It was said, they all agreed it was the right thing to do, and although no date was set, Styllou did seem to have accepted this. Styllou was hurt, but she could never blame her son for any of it, this was all the fault of his non-Greek, non-Cypriot wife who she could never see as good enough for her ‘little prince’ and would never accept as a daughter-in-law. She hated her with every breath, and with this woman having impugned her role as the matriarch, this problem had to be dealt with her way as the judge, jury and executioner. It was all down to family honour, and if Hella didn’t obey the rules, her justice would be meted out. Back in 1925, as a 24-year-old mother of five, Styllou was sick and tired of Maria, her pushy and critical mother-in-law, who – with the irony lost on her – demeaned her as a wife and made her life a misery. This was how rural life was, but there was a dark secret in Maria’s past which fuelled Styllou’s hatred. When Styllou’s husband was a boy, Maria had killed his father to be with her lover. With the family incensed, Styllou, her sister-in-law and a neighbour cornered this maniacal matriarch, and as the two other women held her down, it was said that Styllou had rammed a flaming stake into Maria’s throat. In their small rural community, by murdering Maria, they had righted a wrong as she had dishonoured the family, but with the law now broken, all three women were arrested. Tried at Famagusta Court, it is uncertain what their fate was; some sources state they were acquitted owing to a lack of evidence and (unsurprisingly) any witnesses. In other accounts, Styllou served five years for manslaughter. And although, some villagers claimed Styllou had murdered someone else in Varosha during war-time… …this was what had driven her family apart, yet, Styllou always believed that she was right. Wednesday 28th of July 1954 was the day of Hella’s brutal murder. It had been an ordinary day; Hella was at work, Starvos had slept as he started late, Styllou collected the kids from school, and - as a barmy summer evening - the Christofi’s sat around the kitchen table eating a Shepherd’s Pie, and being too warm to pop the boiler on, they had the French windows open. At 8pm, they got the children ready for bed. At 8:30pm, heading out to work, Stavros kissed them all good night, shutting every curtain and closing every window to ensure his family were safe. Kissing his wife goodbye, as the front door was locked behind him, it left Hella & Styllou alone in the house. Translated, Styllou later stated “when I went to bed, Hella & I were on perfectly good terms”. Then at 1am, awoken by a noise, a movement and two men’s voices; “I saw the front door open, as I go down to the kitchen, I see a man with a suitcase… two men” standing on the steps by the French windows tossing paraffin over the bludgeoned body of her daughter-in-law, burning it beyond all recognition. That was Styllou’s statement, but it was all a lie, as unbeknownst to Hella, her killer was already within. Two hours after dusk, with the children asleep, Hella was in the kitchen washing up; she didn’t talk to Styllou nor could she look at her, which is why the attack seemed to come out of nowhere. With force and ferocity, Styllou smacked Hella across the back of her head with the boiler’s ash-plate, this foot-wide one-and-a-half kilo slab of cast iron fracturing her skull, as she hit her again and again and again. Slumping unconscious onto the linoleum, with the head wound gaping and the occipital vein severed, blood had spattered up the kitchen walls and ceiling, as it slowly pooled around her broken skull. Only, Styllou wasn’t finished, as wrapping Peter’s school scarf around his mother’s neck, with every ounce of strength in Styllou’s thin but powerful arms, she strangled Hella until her body stopped twitching. Hella was dead, only Styllou’s hatred of her was so rabid, that her vengeance couldn’t end there. From her left hand – being another thing which disgusted this very traditional Greek-Cypriot – Styllou removed Hella’s wedding ring, wrapped it in transparent paper and hid it inside a vase in her bedroom. Why? We don’t know, but it was the first thing she did before the dead body had even begun to cool. Then she stripped it of all its clothes, except the knickers. Perhaps to shame her, as because of this and the false alibi about the two male intruders, a tabloid newspaper made accusations that Hella was a prostitute, which were proven to be wholly untrue, but that decision was detrimental to her plan. Out of the kitchen and onto the garden steps by the French windows, Styllou dragged Hella’s lifeless corpse. Around it, she formed a pyre of rags, logs and kindling which she had soaked in paraffin, and with a lit match flicked towards the symbol of her son’s misguided love, it erupted in a ball of fire. As Hella burned, in Styllou’s eyes, she had righted a wrong, as she had with her own mother-in-law, and as the hair singed and the flesh peeled and bubbled, to disguise the evidence of her crime, with a knife, she cut the scarf from the neck, split it into four pieces, and scattered it. Only she knows why. At roughly 11:40pm, John Bryce Young, an engineer who lived two houses down had let his dog out into the garden to do its business, when he smelled smoke. It was common to burn your rubbish so he thought little of it, but seeing the flames licking higher, “I saw the whole of the house was aglow”. Worried, he crossed the neighbours wall, and peering over the fence, “I called out, but got no reply”. Before him lay the fire, and within it, the unmistakable shape of a woman. John told the Police “I could not see a head, but the legs were pointing out towards the garden. It was surrounded by a circle of flames. The arms were raised and bent back at the elbows…”. Yet, to him, it didn’t seem strange. With Hella’s body having the shapely frame of a fashion model, dressed only in knickers, and the smell of paraffin being mistaken for wax, as Hella was a fashion designer who often used old-fashioned wax mannequins to display her latest range, he thought it was a broken old dummy. And who wouldn’t? “A figure came out of the kitchen… it was Mr Christofis’ mother. She was bent over it and gave the impression that she was about to stir the fire. It was dying down. I thought all was in order and I left”. Styllou didn’t see him, as in the afterglow of hatred, she was so focussed on erasing it from existence. Over the next hour, Styllou washed the kitchen lino, placed Hella’s clothes in a bucket as if she’d been washing them, she hid the wedding ring, and added more paraffin to the fire. Believing the body was destroyed, at 1am, she hysterically ran out from the house, until at Pond Street, she flagged down the car of Mr & Mrs Burstoff with screams and frantic hands, crying ‘Come. Fire burning. Children sleep’. Thankfully, the children slept through it all, but returning home at 3:30am, Stavros not only had to be told that his wife was dead, and identify the body, but he had to translate his mother’s fabricated alibi. The investigation by Detective Superintendent Leonard Crawford was short and swift. An autopsy by Dr Francis Camps confirmed that death was due to asphyxia by strangulation, and with no smoke in her lungs, Hella was dead before she was set light. Styllou stated that she was awoken at 1am by two male intruders, but with John Young having entered his garden at no later than 11:45pm, this dismantled Styllou’s alibi as well as the old blind witness who said she heard ‘two men whispering’. For the Prosecution, Christmas Humphries stated in court, “this is a murderess who is remarkably tidy in cleaning away the evidence of the murder”, only she wasn’t exactly thorough; the washed kitchen lino was still spattered with blood, she’d left paraffin soaked rags on the floor, she’d claimed Hella’s wedding ring was a curtain ring of which none were found in the house, her bed hadn’t been slept in, and when examined by the Met’ Police laboratory, her slippers were stained with blood and paraffin. Two days later, Styllou was arrested and charged with Hella’s murder. (Out) The trial began in Court 1 of the Old Bailey on Monday 25th of October 1954, before Mr Justice Devlin. In the dock, with a black scarf of grief draped over her head, when asked “did you kill your daughter-in-law?”, she muttered “oudepote” the Greek word for ‘never’, “did you strangle her?”, “oudepote”, “did you burn her?”, “oudepote” and as Stavros gave evidence, he couldn’t look his mother in the eye. On remand, Dr T Christie, principal medical officer of Holloway Prison had diagnosed her with “a non-systemised, delusional mental disorder” and certified “she is insane, but medically fit to stand trial”. Yet this diagnosis was not used in evidence, the doctor was not called as a witness, and even Styllou herself refused to plead insanity as a defence, stating “I may be poor and illiterate, but I’m not mad”. With this being her second trial since her mother-in-law’s murder in Cyprus, this time, a jury of 10 men and 2 women deliberated for two hours, but found her guilty and sentenced her to death. An appeal was lodged, with a several MP’s requesting the Queen grant her the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, but with Styllou found to be sane by three psychiatrists, her appeal collapsed in less than four minutes. On Wednesday 15th of December 1954 at 8am in Holloway Prison, having prayed with a Greek priest, Prisoner 8034, Styllou Christofi was hanged by executioner Albert Pierrepoint and his assistant Harry Allen. Her son, Stavros, refused to visit her in prison and he made no requests for clemency, stating “I cannot find it in my heart to forgive my mother. The word 'mother' has become a mockery to me". Buried at Holloway Prison, when it was redeveloped in 1971, Styllou’s body was exhumed and reburied in Brookwood Cemetery, and up until his own death in 1998, Stavros never visited his mother’s grave. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
Archives
June 2025
Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast
Categories
All
Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
|