Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN:
On Tuesday 17th of April 1951, Earl de Wolfe requested that Police break into his home at 19 Manchester Street in Marylebone, as he was worried about his wife Gabrielle and their four-year-old daughter Cherill. Having suffered a breakdown, Gabrielle’s mental health was being overseen by the psychiatrists in London, but being treated as a guinea-pig rather than a patient, her emotional decline would lead to chaos and a murder.
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THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a yellow exclamation mark (!) below 'Regent's Park'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Manchester Street in Marylebone, W1; one street east of the last sighting of Rene Hanrahan, two streets south-east of the SOE HQ where Churchill’s superspy was recruited and cruelly dismissed, two streets south of the luring to death of William Raven for the sake of a clean pair of underpants, and one street north of the man who couldn’t drown - coming soon to Murder Mile. Along this long line of four-storey brown-bricked Georgian terraces with white sills and black wrought iron railings, stands 19 Manchester Street. Like many buildings in this era, it currently occupies private flats and commercial offices. Some are respected, but others like the solicitors just two doors down are not. As with their Google reviews littered with phrases like “rude”, “arrogant”, “unprofessional”, and “he needs a lesson in basic human decency”, it’s a giggle to read if you’ve got a minute to spare. Thankfully, we live in a world where everybody has a voice, and every piece of praise or grievance can be heard by others. But back in the 1950s, if you wanted a professional’s help, you had to rely on word of mouth and trust. But for many, a posh office, a fancy title and a wall full of diplomas was enough. Back in 1951, the attic flat at 19 Manchester Street was the home to 36-year-old Gabrielle de Wolfe, her husband Earl, and their four-year-old daughter Cherill. With psychoanalysis in its infancy, many doctors clutched at straws, hoping that any improvement of the patient could aid their understanding. One such patient was Gabrielle de Wolfe… …what she needed was help, but what she got was guesswork. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 216: The Good Mother. Gabrielle de Wolfe was born Gabrielle Isabella Dane on the 1st October 1914 in Balaarat in the central highlands of Victoria, Australia. As the second oldest of four siblings – alongside Paul, Charmian and Winsome – it was no surprise that Gabrielle turned out well-rounded, loving and said to be “of superior intelligence”, being the daughter of Dr Paul Greig Dane, one of Melbourne’s leading psychiatrists. Psychiatry and psychoanalysis were still relatively new and unexplored medical sciences, especially in the windswept wilds of Australia, so as an early adopter of this form of mental health care, along with his family, Paul travelled the world to find the best psychoanalysts across America, Asia and Europe. For Gabrielle, she was blessed with a solid education, loving parents, the benefits of world travel and having graduated aged 17, she worked several sales positions in Melbourne for two years whilst gaining life experience, before she attended Melbourne Technical School to study photography. Many young girls would dream of having such a wonderous upbringing; a loving family, a steady home, a chance to see the world, to eat fine foods, and to sample a wealth of history, culture and people. Only she would never get to fulfil her dream of becoming a professional photographer, as by the age of 23 when she graduated with a diploma, something had happened inside of her mind. Having suffered a nervous breakdown, with her father being a specialist in psychiatric therapy, he knew that Australia had some good facilities (including his own clinic) to treat her ailment, but that he also knew that the best facilities and the best people in the world for her were currently in London. In 1937, having agreed that his daughter Gabrielle would be treated by one of the best psychoanalysts, Anna Freud, a pioneer in the treatment of childhood trauma and the daughter of Sigmund Freud, she moved to London to be close to Anna’s clinic, so she could be treated on a regular basis, until well. Anna Freud would be Gabrielle’s analyst for the next decade… …and although she was surrounded by the best specialists imaginable, London in the late 1930s was not the best place to be, especially for a woman who had suffered a mental collapse. From the 7th of September 1940, for the next eight months and five days, the Luftwaffe unleashed an endless barrage of incendiary bombs, land mines and high explosives from the brooding skies, hoping to pummel, not just the British industrial complex into submission, but also its innocent people. Today, we still herald the bravery of those who survived it by praising their ‘blitz spirit’, as being the victors, we chose only to record those who died (or sacrificed their lives). But – as was the way of the era – we still fail to acknowledge the many thousands whose mental health had been affected during and after the bombardment, as every day, a fear of death or dismemberment would haunt their eyes. But there was no denying that, once you remove the rose-tinted spectacles of historical bias, the blitz must have been a terrifying experience, as an unrelenting cacophony of bangs erupted about your ears – day and night – as a series of faceless strangers tried to kill you for something you hadn’t done. History has chosen to recall the scars of our past through joyous photographs of crowds of Londoners having a good old singsong in tube tunnels and air-raid shelters, like a flipped mid-digit to Hitler. But in reality, many couldn’t rest or sleep in these concrete coffins, as with the tunnels echoing to the sound of deadly explosions, many occupants never knew if they would come out alive, and if, what or who they had left behind could be found in one piece amidst the shattered remains of their lives. That said, with the help of therapy, Gabrielle came through it… …and having found a sense of wellbeing and happiness, she also found love. How and where they met is uncertain, but with 30-year-old Earl Felix Sylvester de Wolfe being a theatrical agent with a premises at 4-5 William the Fourth Street just off The Strand, which he ran with his partner Richard Stone, they may have met at a private function, and there, the two fell in love. Being charming, handsome and charismatic, Gabrielle’s mood was buoyed by his attention, and as an entrepreneur with big dreams of running West End shows once the war was over and the theatres re-opened, until then, he would do his bit as an entry level aircraftsman, an AC2, with the Royal Air Force. In July 1942, amidst the smouldering ruins of Paddington, they married, and Gabrielle became Mrs de Wolfe. But as with many wartime romances, being enlisted to serve his country and be sent overseas as and when decreed, for the first four years of marriage, they spent more time apart than together. With the war over, as Earl returned to the theatres, Gabrielle discovered that she was pregnant. This pregnancy marked an uncertain time for them both, as with Gabrielle often gripped with stinging bouts of paranoia, depression and anxiety, no-one really knew how she would cope with something inside her; a parasite of love who wriggled and kicked her from within, who made her sick and wheezy, and with no control over its movement, it kept her awake at night, and it dominated her entire day. Pregnancy is both a beautiful and a demonstrative thing, but oddly for Gabrielle, it gave her something to focus on but herself, a mission beyond her troubled marriage, and a distraction from her anxieties. On the 8th of December 1946, Gabrielle gave birth to a daughter who she named Cherill. Being a good weight and with all her limbs, this baby girl was healthy, happy and nursed by a woman who everyone who knew her described as a ‘loving and devoted mother’. Mothering had remade her… …but as the tiny tot became an inquisitive infant, with the wonderous ones giving way to the terrible twos and the troublesome threes, anyone who has experienced it will know that as much as child-rearing is rewarding, it can also be as mentally draining and physically exhausting as being tortured. With no end in sight and no hope of release, weakened by a lack of sleep to the point where forming basic words can be a struggle, many feel like a cash machine forever dispensing notes, a prize heffer trapped in a milking shed, or merely a wet-wiped hand eternally wiping up brown gloop from an anus. Mothering was her greatest joy as she watched her baby grow, but doing this mostly alone – with Earl often at work, having few friends and her family the other side of the world – it was also unrelenting. Apart from her unspecified ‘mental neurosis’, no-one really knew what was wrong with Gabrielle… …and as no-one knew how to treat her, she was as much as guineapig as a patient. Suffering headaches which crippled her body and depression which ravaged her mind, living in an era when GPs recommended smoking as a cure for nerves, and we were yet to arrive in an era where they doled out tablets like a vending machine having been given a full seven minutes to deduce a patient’s medical issues, Gabrielle was blessed to have one of Australia’s core experts in psychiatry on her side. In 1948, concerned for his daughter’s welfare, her father Dr Paul Dane came to London, and knowing only the best specialists to aid Gabrielle’s recovery, he introduced her to Dr Maurice Aubrey Partridge, a consultant in Psychiatric Medicine at St George’s hospital, and she continued to be treated by him. According to Earl, “my wife was highly strung and suffered terribly”, so – as was the wonder surgery of the day which had shown some success – in April 1950, Gabrielle was admitted to the York Clinic at Guy’s Hospital to undergo a leucotomy, as psychosurgery commonly known as a prefrontal lobotomy. Developed in the early 1940s, a lobotomy involved the surgical cutting of the white nerve fibres of the prefrontal cortex (which regulates our thoughts and emotions to the other parts of the brain), as well as the anterior part of the frontal lobes, which regulated our higher cognitive functions, such as our memories, emotions, problem solving, social interactions and our motor functions. With neurologist Antonio Moniz awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949 having originated this form of lobotomy, it quickly became the hot operation of the early 1950s, hailed as a breakthrough for many psycho-disorders, with Gabrielle being one of 20000 people who was operated on in 1950. Being a highly invasive surgery with a 5% mortality rate, Gabrielle was kept in for observation at St George’s hospital for the next two weeks, and given the all-clear, she returned to the new flat she shared with her husband and her four-year-old daughter at 19 Manchester Street in Marylebone. The surgery seemed like a partial success, as her mood had begun to stabilise… …but as with many of the survivors of that form of lobotomy, Gabrielle would now be struck by a slew of new symptoms; like confusion, incontinence, weight gain and seizures. A report would state that “the operation had alleviated her distress”, but owing to “severe intracranial bleeding”, this had resulted in epilepsy, anxiety, paranoia and sleeplessness, “as personality changes had taken place”. In a study conducted one year later, Dr Maurice Partridge confirmed that along with a lack of spatial awareness, a foggy thought process and patients becoming emotionally and intellectually blunted, outside of the 5% mortality rate, lobotomy patients also had an above average suicide rate. Therefore in 1952, just one year after Gabrielle’s operation, that form of lobotomy was abandoned in Britain. But once a lobotomy has been done, it cannot be undone. As a woman once described as being “of superior intelligence”, with very little after care, she was left to fend for herself, plagued by her damaged brain in an isolated flat surrounded by a screaming child. Unsurprisingly, by the autumn and following the death of her father from stomach cancer in October 1951, being gripped by suicidal thoughts, she often phoned Earl in his office to demand that he came home at once, as – in her own words – “if you don’t, I shall kill myself, and take the baby with me too”. Those who knew her felt her threat was empty, as being a devoted mother, many thought it was just a cry for help. So to ensure she got the help that she needed, Dr Partridge admitted her to the Atkinson Morley Hospital, a renowned mental health facility in Wimbledon and she remained his patient. It was said that Gabrielle exhibited symptoms such as nerves, migraines, anxiety and struck with fears that she was incurable. With – as her doctor would report - bouts of “severe depression displayed by ideas of hopelessness, frustration, everything going wrong, her husband not wanting her, or her child to have grown up like her…” although she “worshipped her child”, it would later become clear “she felt she could no longer keep trying to get on well mentally, and could not bring her child up properly”. Her report would state “…so severe was the disease of the mind… at the time of the act, the defect of reason was so severe that she would be incapable of knowing that what she was doing was wrong”. Gabrielle was struggling, she was alone and confused… …but it was made all the worse as Earl had applied for a divorce. Tuesday 17th of April 1951 seemed like an ordinary day for Earl, as he returned from a business trip to Bournemouth and went straight to his theatrical office on the Strand. The day before, he had tried to call Gabrielle at 6pm, but getting no reply on the phone, he thought she was bathing the baby. And with her not picking up at 9pm, he guessed she had taken a sleeping tablet and had gone to bed. At 10am, he tried again, but getting no reply, he tried several times across the next two hours thinking she had taken their four-year-old daughter to school. But by 12:30pm, growing concerned, he caught a cab to 19 Manchester Street in Marylebone, being described as “gravely worried” and rightfully so. As he entered the communal door and ascended to the attic flat, Earl would state “I knew something was wrong, as I couldn’t open the door with my keys”, as Gabrielle had bolted it shut from the inside. At 1:40pm, having ran to the nearest phone-box and called the Police, within minutes, Sergeant Cullen and PCs Nichols & Carpenter were met by Earl outside of the building, who stated “I want you to break down the door, I suspect my wife is in danger”. And with Sergeant Cullen placing his nose against the keyhole, getting a strong whiff of coal gas seeping through, they forced the door open and got in. Inside, the officers stumbled down the hall, as fighting back the fumes, their lungs struggled, and their eyes streamed. Being two decades before natural gas was used in kitchens, even a few breaths of 1% carbon monoxide was enough to knock a grown man out, but with coal gas containing 200% carbon monoxide, a psychiatrist at the time would state “every kitchen has an executioner’s chamber”. In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, half of Britain’s suicides were by coal gas, but with it being phased out in the 1970s, suicide by gas would drop to almost zero and the suicide rate was reduced by a third. In a small passageway off to the right of the entrance hall, officers entered the small kitchen. Spewing out cubic metres of highly combustible gas, all four jets of the ring cooker were unlit but on full, turning this little room into an airless box of death, as lifegiving oxygen was replaced by a toxic powder-keg. Turning off the jets, the officers could barely see or breathe, as with every side of each window sealed shut with adhesive tape, they had to cut each seal with a sharp knife, simply so they could breathe. But as the gas leaked out and fresh air fed in, it was on the kitchen floor that they saw a mattress. Covered in two blankets like this mother and her baby were just going to sleep, in front of the cooker lay Gabrielle, all still and pale, as in her arms lay her four-year-old daughter Cherill. Dressed in a blue woollen cardigan and a pink flowered dress, having drifted into unconsciousness, the child was dead. In the bedroom, several handwritten letters scrawled in Gabrielle’s hand were found. Described as rambling in nature, with bad grammar and odd spellings (which was unusual for this bright woman), they showed the imbalance of her mind, as she poured out her final thoughts to her loved ones. To Doctor Partridge, she spoke of her motive “I don’t think I can get well or bring up my little girl up as she should be”, some blame “my mother had no intention to come to my aid, and my husband in facing the facts”, and a thank you to him “allow me to express my thanks for all you have done”. To her mother was a fragmented letter written in a stream of consciousness “the little one is terribly intense, inherited from me, it’s nobody’s fault. She is not ill, but may well become if I sent her away. Mummy it is the morning of this terrible thing. I don’t want to do it. I want to fight till I drop”. In several letters, equally as confused, she insisted that her few possessions be shared between her siblings, that a suit (possibly her dead father’s) not to be given to Earl, and in one final request, “we had best be cremated, it’s like me to wake up, after I’m dead or baby, she is so intense, SO DO THAT”. In her letters, although rambling, it was clear that she had intended to take her own life and that of her four-year-old child by gas asphyxiation. But with the officers unwilling to give up until the doctor had arrived, having attempted artificial respiration on both, somehow, Gabrielle was still alive. (End) Brought back from the dead, Gabrielle was taken to St George’s Hospital, where physically she made a full recovery. Committed to Fulham Mental Hospital, having been declared fit to stand trial, upon her release one week later on the 25th April, as was his duty, Detective Inspector Wallis arrested her. When told that she would be charged with the murder of her child, she replied “I understand, she was such a lovely baby. Can you tell me why I didn’t go too?”. Having explained how and why she survived, she replied “the baby felt nothing. I drugged her first, then carried her to the kitchen while she slept”. An autopsy was carried out, it was determined that Cherill had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, with Dr Francis Camps confirming “her body was healthy, well-fed, there was no evidence of abuse”. Six months later, Gabrielle’s case proved a turning point in psychiatric treatment, with the president of the psychiatric side of the Royal Society of Medicine stating “there is a possible lethal complication of leucotomy with three murders committed by leucotomized patients who are now in Broadmoor”. Tried at the Old Bailey, on the 24th May 1951, the jury did not retire to consider their verdict, as the evidence was clear – Gabrielle was found guilty of wilful murder but was declared insane at the time. Seen as mentally ill, she was sent to Broadmoor to be held “until His Majesty’s Pleasure be known”. With Gabrielle declared mentally incompetent, Earl was granted a divorce. He re-married in 1960 and 1967, and as of 2005, he was still living in Paddington, although it was unknown if he was still married. As for Gabrielle, nothing is known about the rest of her life; whether she was released, remarried or had another child, but having been moved to the West Midlands, she died in June 1986, aged 71. …with those who knew her, still holding on the truth that she was “ a good mother”. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #215: The Woman in Red - Part Two (George Cyril Epton)21/6/2023
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN:
At 5:40am on Thursday 6th May 1948, on the basement steps of 17 Finborough Road in West Brompton, the broken body of 26-year-old part time waitress and prostitute Winifred Mulholland was found. Missing for four days, and dead for almost one, the position of her body posed a perplexing mystery; as had she been hit by car, had she fallen from a height, or had her killer dumped her in plain sight on a busy street? But why?
CLICK HERE to download the Murder Mile podcast via iTunes and to receive the latest episodes, click "subscribe". You can listen to it by clicking PLAY on the embedded media player below.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a purple exclamation mark (!) near the words 'West Brompton'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. On Thursday 6th May at 5:40am, as Albert Stamp strode down Finborough Road towards his work at Earls Court Station, he spotted the stockinged feet of a crumpled body dumped upon the stone steps. Found outside of a five-storey white-stone terrace at 17 Finborough Road, it was a place that 26-year-old Winifred Virginia Mulholland didn’t belong, and no-one knew how she had got there, but here lay her folded and broken body on the basement steps, among the household waste and the refuse bins. The post-mortem confirmed several vital details about Virginia’s death: She had initially been attacked a few days prior, but she hadn’t died until a few hours before her body was found, meaning this semi-conscious or fully comatose lady lay motionless for almost three days. Sustaining four injuries to her head and her face, death had occured slowly and painfully having been struck with a heavy blunt object (discovered to be a flat-iron weighing close to a kilo) which shattered her skull, lacerated her brain and caused extensive haemorrhages, paralysis and unconsciousness. And possibly whilst she was collapsed, he had struck her three times across the cheeks with a hammer. Once dead, she was dragged a short distance from where she had lain for three days, with her clothes – a red dress, a white blouse and a rabbit’s fur coat - spattered with long lines of blood droplets which had splashed at the moment of impact from her bloodied face and head, and although her handbag (containing her purse, an ID and a red diary) was near, her red-heeled sling-back shoes were missing. With her secondary injuries – fractures to her lower left femur and the 5th cervical vertebrae of her neck, as well as a dislocated hip and left knee – all occurring during the early stages of decomposition and before rigor mortis had set in, with no fresh blood under her body, although she hadn’t died on the stone steps, at some point she had either fallen or had been dropped from a height of fifteen feet. The Police initially assumed that she had been murdered elsewhere and dumped here, as no killer would be so bold, brazen or bonkers as to dump a murder victim’s body outside of their own home, almost like a grisly calling card or a callous confession to the heinous crime of killing a lone prostitute… …but as the Police swarmed and the neighbours congregated, along the street every curtain was open, every house-light was on, and every tenant was gossiping ten-to-the-dozen, except one. The first floor flat at 17 Finborough Road was in complete darkness, with the curtains drawn, the French windows shut and its short stubby balcony being just a fifteen-foot drop from where her body was dumped. At 6:40am, having arrived and assessed the scene, Detective inspector Albert Webb made his way to the first floor flat rented to George Cyril Epton, a 41-year-old engineer and widower who lived alone. (Knocking) Detective Webb was a seasoned investigator, but even he would be unsettled by George’s lack of empathy, and a demeanour described as chilly. (Door opens) “I gained entrance to the bedroom and saw a man” – who was small, thin, thick necked, with pointed ears and piercing dark eyes, with a thin side-parting and a small stubbly moustache – “who wore a grey jacket and mismatched trousers”. Without prompting, George asked “I supposed you’re here about the murder”, the DI pointedly posed “what murder?” as if to taunt him into a confession, at which he replied “the one outside”, having claimed that he had heard the neighbours gossiping, but that he hadn’t gone down to look, or to help. Knowing the answer, the DI asked “who occupies this flat?”, George said “I do”, at which DI Webb said “I’m going to have a look around. You’d better join me”, which he did. It was an odd flat, as being badly subdivided, you couldn’t enter the front room via the bedroom without accessing the landing. The front-room was barely 17-foot square, with a linoleum rug on the floor, a single sofa in front of a log fire, and a stone mantlepiece on which lay some tatty ornaments in no describable order; such as a clock, an empty medicine bottle, a small statue, and two frameless photographs of his dead wife. With the fire still warm but out, amongst the charred remains of the kindling and coal lay a few bits of detritus later confirmed as a pair of black sling-back toeless shoes with red heels in Virginia’s size. His excuse was “they are my wife’s shoes. I bought them seven months ago”, as a present purchased shortly before she entered the hospital for terminal tuberculosis, “I tried to sell them, but got no sales, so I put them in the grate last night and lit them on fire” – which was a tall tale he had little proof of. The DI headed to the balcony, which overlooked the street, and – being an L-shaped balcony with the largest section, accessed by the right French window, being 7-foot square with a small cast-iron railing surrounding it – Virginia’s body lay directly under this window, fifteen feet to the stone steps below. “The French windows were fastened. I opened them and went onto the balcony. I noticed bloodstains on the balcony floor and broken pieces of a costume clip”; blood which was Group A, the same as the victim’s, with the matching parts of the broken costume clip found on the balcony and under the body. The DI asked George: “when were you here last?”, his reply “we used to come out in the summertime”, DI “how did these bloodstains get here?”, he asked pointing to several dark flaky patches of dried blood determined to be human, to which George replied, “that’s not blood, it’s dirt”. But knowing how to read a suspect and to either illicit the truth or to make them stumble into a mistake, DI Webb left a long and blistering silence, which although only a minute or two long, felt like a lifetime for George. (Silence) Keen to fill the void, George stammered “it might be blood. My wife died of TB. She used to spit blood”, which wasn’t a lie, but having died three months earlier, the recently used cloths found in the scullery at the rear of the landing suggested that a partial if pointless clean-up of the crime-scene had occurred. Returning to the bedroom, which was 11 feet wide by 14 feet deep and consisted of a double bed and a wardrobe, “I noticed bloodstains on the wooden foot of the bed, and I said, ‘what’s that’?”, pointing to a dark flaky pool of blood. George retorted “that’s been there a long time. It looks like red ink”. To say that the DI didn’t believe his lies would be an understatement, as still wearing the same clothes he was wearing on the Sunday before, his grey jacket and mismatched trousers were “heavily stained” with Group A blood, and upon closer inspection, a few hairs from a rabbit’s fur coat were found. When asked why his clothes were bloodstained, George replied “I’ve been having a lot of nosebleeds”. With enough evidence to at least caution him, DI Webb gave George a chance to tell either the truth, or his side of the truth, by asking “I’m making enquiries into the death of a woman who was found this morning on the stone steps of the front of this house. Can you tell me anything about it?”, George replied “No, I don’t know who she is. I’ve never seen her. Someone must have dumped her. That’s the way they do, isn’t it? I heard a car driving away at 4 o’clock this morning after my bell had rung”. Only no-one on the street or in the house heard a bell ring, a body being dumped, or a car speeding away. Enough was enough for Detective Inspector Webb, and at a little after 8am, barely an hour since he had arrived at the scene, he would state “I’m not satisfied with your answers as to why there are bloodstains in your flat, and you will be taken to Chelsea Police Station while I make further enquiries”. And with that, George Epton was cautioned and driven away. On the surface, he didn’t seem like a crazed killer, or a sexual sadist… George Cyril Epton was born on the 22nd April 1903 in Kirkstead, Lincolnshire, as one of three children to George, a farm wagoner and Harriet a housewife, with an older sister and a younger brother. His education was patchy, and although this quiet lonely boy was described as “average”, it was later discovered that he had the IQ of a 10-year-old boy, which may be why - although many said he was helpful and amiable - being prone to bouts of cruelty, he was never listed as certifiably insane or feeble minded, but he would freely admit to leading a careless and an immoral life for some time. Aged 13, he left school, and spent two years as a butcher’s boy. Aged 15, for six years, he worked as a casting packer, and although he told the Police he served in the Army for five years, he never enlisted. In fact, for the next six years, until he was 27-year-old, he drove a tractor at Bardsley’s Farm in Lincoln. In 1930, George married Doris, a local girl and the two had a child. But unable to cope with his ‘cruelty’ and with the law making it impossible for her to divorce him, in 1932, Doris fled to Great Yarmouth, started a new life and meeting a good man who raised their child as his own, she cut all ties to George. George was not a great success in work or in life, so he sought happiness with the ‘ladies of the night’. Prior to his worst crime, he had two convictions committed when he moved to London. On 20th February 1934, he was bound over for 12 months for “being a suspected person” and caught a second time on 31st August 1935, he was sentenced to two months hard labour for picking up prostitutes. A year later, having hidden the fact that he was still married to Doris, he bigamously married 27-year-old Gertrude Bloomfield, and they lived as man-and-wife, until the outbreak of the Second World War. In September 1943, Mr & Mrs George & Gertrude Epton (as they were known) moved into Flat C on the first floor of 17 Finborough Road; consisting of a bedroom, a living room, a scullery and a balcony, and over the five years they lived there, they kept to themselves and rarely spoke to the other tenants. Life was going well for them both, he loved her dearly and frequently – when his miniscule wage as an engineer’s assistant could afford it – he bought her treats like chocolates, tights, and shoes. But with Gertrude’s tuberculosis worsening to the point where she was unable to sit savouring the fresh air on their balcony, being bedbound and coughing up blood across this tiny little flat, Gertrude had to be hospitalised, until her tragic death on the 24th of February 1948 left him alone, lost and broke. Unable to work owing to his depression, for the next three months George signed-on, drawing in benefits of 24 shillings a week, and seeking out the affections of girls, many of whom were prostitutes. How he afforded the services of sex-workers, alongside the cost of his rent is uncertain. According to him, he regularly saw two girls; stating “since my wife died, I’ve been friendly with Fray, a German girl who works at the Milk Bar on Charing Cross Road”. Although, the Police could never identify her, the place where she worked was where Alice Williams, the ‘Madam’ of the Victory Café had previously worked. And the second girl called Dorothy, he also met at The Victory Café, but neither of them - he would claim - he had seen that week, and no other woman had visited his flat. For the Police, George Epton didn’t seem like a crazed killer, or a sexual sadist… …and although he would strongly deny even knowing Virginia, the unshakable evidence found in his flat would lead to the conclusion that he had something to do with her death. But what? Held at Chelsea Police Station, George gave his first of two statements about his whereabouts. On the day Virginia was last seen, went missing, and was most likely murdered, he would state “I left home on Sunday 2nd May at about 4pm. I went to meet Fray” (who Police never identified) “I waited, but she did not turn up. I walked down to the Milk Bar in Leicester Square”, where even he would admit “I did not meet anyone I knew and I spoke to no-one”, and then “I got on a No 14 bus at Piccadilly and went home. I got home at about 10:15pm, and went to bed after making myself a cup of coffee”. The next day, as Virginia most probably lay collapsed, paralysed and bleeding, “I got up at 7am and went to the Labour Exchange at 2pm. I never went out before then”. His landlord visited that morning to collect the rent, stating “he paid £2 2s 10d”, even though he was broke, and confirmed “the sitting room was not in any disorder… and I didn’t go into the bedroom, I had no need to”. After this, George said he went to the Forum Pictures on Fulham Palace Road and returned home at 10:15pm”. Again, he kept no receipts or ticket to prove his movements, and no-one saw him, except his landlord. On Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th, as Virginia’s brain swelled with blood, George went to the cinema twice, supposedly with Fray, he visited two pubs and went back to Piccadilly, always getting home at about 10:30pm. Although no-one saw him, and he couldn’t prove as to how he could afford such fun. And at sometime during that night, as Virginia died of her injuries, George said he heard a sound. “At 4am, I was woken by Dr Wallace’s doorbell ringing. Then my bell rung. I heard a car starting off from outside of the house. It seemed to go round the corner. It sounded like a big car. I heard some voices talking outside in the street. I could not hear what they were saying. I went off to sleep again”. With his statement patently a complete fabrication from start-to-finish, a thorough search of the flat unearthed several key pieces of evidence which George had failed to destroy, in what was quite possibly the worst clean-up of a murder scene in history – of which he had four days to do a good job. A trail of evidence proved both his movements and his timings for the murder, but not the motive: Hairs from the rabbit’s fur were shed from her coat to his suit, to the rug where she fell, to the chair where he sat her, to the bedroom where she lay, to the balcony where she was dropped and the steps where her twisted remains were found. With blood spattered by the mantlepiece, the impact of four hard blows sprayed droplets in long lines from her head to her stockinged feet, and with her blood free flowing while she was alive, it stopped when she died, as the dried flakes scuffed the surfaces. In the scullery sink, four damp pieces of cloth were found, still speckled with Group A blood, as he had failed to fully wipe away any traces of her, from the chair, the rug, the wall, the bed, and the floor. In the charred remains of the fire lay the recognisable remains of her shoes. Although blackened and scorched, the leather straps held true, the metal buckles hadn’t warped, the red heel was still visible and although badly burnt, the shoemaker’s mark and the size of the shoe was still visible on the sole. To the side of the fire, where he had dumped it moments after the attack still lay the hammer; its octagonal face identical in every detail to the bloodied indentations left on her shattered cheeks, and the flat steel of its face, all the way to the hammer’s neck, spattered with her fair hair and dried blood. That would have been enough to convict him, but found on the scullery washboard, having left it after a very brief (but ultimately fruitless) attempt to clean-up, lay the one kilo flat iron he had used to cave in her skull. As being so old, rough and rusted, her dried blood had recessed into the deep pits. The evidence against him was irrefutable, as along with his fingerprints, although no-one had actually seen George with Virginia, he might as well have left a map and directions titled ‘how I killed her’. After a sleepless night in the cells and being confronted with the evidence, the next day, on Friday 7th May at 10pm, George requested to see DI Webb and stated “I told you lies. I want to tell you how it happened”. Again, he was cautioned and made a second statement which may be nearer to the truth... …only this statement would make him out to be the victim. George said that he met her in Piccadilly, “it was on Sunday night at about 10:15pm. She smiled at me. I asked her if she would like to come home with me and she said she would as she had nowhere to go. We got the no14 bus… we went home, then we sat on a chair. Then we had, you know, intercourse”. It’s likely this was the truth, as being a prostitute who picked up men there, with George looking small, thin and harmless, she may have had no reason to fear him and its unlikely this was a planned attack. And with semen found inside of her, but no evidence of sexual assault, it’s hard to dispute this part. But it was after the sex, that something happened, and the mood changed. “I went into the bedroom”, George would claim “and realised I was missing £9 from my hip pocket”. With no proof that George even had £9 (£450 today), all we can do is assume that either it was his and that she had robbed him, that he had paid her and he wanted it back, or that with no income of his own and Virginia making £4 per punter, he saw her money hidden in her shoe and tried to rob her. “I asked her whether she had taken my money. She said ‘no’ with a grin”, he would claim, suggesting that his attack (provoked by her) was warranted, as this woman who made her income by illegal means sought to cheat him. Although, as far as we know, she had no known history of defrauding her punters. Suggesting that he gave her a second chance to admit her mistake, “I asked her again and she still said ‘no’”. Only, with no witnesses to any of this, it was only the two of them who saw what happened; but being alive, he had everything to lose, and being dead, she had no-one to tell her side of the story. “I got hold of her and hit her on the back of the head”, he would claim, ignoring the fact that she was hit on the forehead, and making no reference to the flat iron, which he had earlier admitted “belonged in the kitchen” which was at the back of the flat and could only be accessed via the communal stairwell. “She fell down”, and as she did, seeing the £9 fall from her shoe as it dislodged in the assault, “I picked it up, and hit her two or three times on the face with her shoe”. Although, as we know, the marks on her cheeks were made by the hammer’s 3cm octagonal face, rather than her shoe’s 1 cm oblong heel. His lack of empathy was staggering, even by his own admission, “I thought she was still bluffing as she lay on the floor…”, as blood poured down her face and pooled about her head. “I pulled her into the bedroom, she was dying” he would state in court, but caring not a jot “in there, I had a cup of tea”. “After I had thrown two cups of water in her face to revive her, I pulled her beside the bed, she was alive, as I pulled the blanket over her, and she lay beside me”. Which, although deeply creepy, made no sense, as in order to move her to the bedroom, he had to drag this comatose and bleeding woman out of the front room, along the communal landing and beside the shared staircase, he risked being seen by the tenants, just so he could hide her in his bedroom, when only he had the key to both rooms. And having admitted that he slept in bis own bed, he also spent three days with a dying woman at the foot of his bed, until – with the swelling of her brain having peaked – she slowly died of haemorrhaging. The death of Virginia was long and torturous, as her swelling brain was punctured by the shattered bony fragments of her skull, until the pressure constricted every air molecule and every cell of blood. Only George didn’t care, as the callousness of his confession would confirm: “I went into the bedroom and she was dead. I pulled her in the front room, onto the balcony and threw her over”, as falling 15 feet her body slammed on the hard stone steps, a twisted mess of limbs which dislocated and snapped. “I threw her bag over and burnt her shoes”, as being out-of-sight and out-of-mind, he wasn’t a criminal genius, thinking that such a brazen disposal by dumping the woman he had killed on his own doorstep was the one place the police wouldn’t assume that a killer would dump a body, he just didn’t care about this woman, as having done what he wanted with her, he disposed of her, like household waste. And having had a quick stab at cleaning up the mess, he had cup of tea and went to sleep. (End) Assessed at Brixton Prison as “being of a low IQ, but not insane or feeble-minded”, he was deemed fit to stand trial, which began at the Old Bailey on the 15th of June 1948, just six weeks after the murder. Arraigned before Mr Justice Burkett, Mr Hawke for the prosecution stated this was a cold-blooded murder, whereas Mr Morris for the defence would claim “her injuries were caused by accident”. Found guilty of murder by a unanimous jury, although Justice Burkett donned a black cap to pronounce a sentence of death - with the House of Commons having implemented a ‘no hanging vote’ on the 14th April which began our journey to abolish capital punishment like any other civilised country – he would not be executed, but instead would be given a life sentence, to be served at Wandsworth Prison. But with his sentence commuted to life, being his first violent offence and with the wardens stating he was “a good man of quiet disposition, respectful and co-operative”, he served his time tending to the prison gardens without supervision. After ten years inside, in December 1958, he was released and returned to Lincolnshire to live with his mother. He died in August 1990, and lived till he was 87. Up to his death, he stuck to his story that he had been robbed by Winifred Virginia Mulholland, and that he had justifiably taken her life. but also her dream as sought to seek out a new life in Canada. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #214: The Woman in Red - Part One (Winifred Virginia Mulholland)14/6/2023
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The balcony at 17 Finborough Road, SW10 from where Winifred Mulholland's body was dumped is on the right
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN:
At 5:40am on Thursday 6th May 1948, on the basement steps of 17 Finborough Road in West Brompton, the broken body of 26-year-old part time waitress and prostitute Winifred Mulholland was found. Missing for four days, and dead for almost one, the position of her body posed a perplexing mystery; as had she been hit by car, had she fallen from a height, or had her killer dumped her in plain sight on a busy street? But why?
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THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Finborough Road in West Brompton, SW10; one stop west of the stabbing of Countess Lubienska, three streets east of the last killing by the sadistic drummer boy, and a few streets north-east of where Police brutality possibly led to a suspect’s amnesia – coming soon to Murder Mile. Typical for this area, Finborough Road consists of a long-line of five-storey white-stone terraces with each floor off-set, so from the basement all you can see is feet, tyres and poodle turds, and (to truly infuriate the disabled) simply to get to the ground floor you have to first ascend a set of stone steps. With no front garden, just a sharp descent down a set of hard stone steps to the basement, it’s the balconies where the tenants tend to dump their crap; whether a broken pram, a burst bouncy castle, an excess of empty booze bottles, the gym equipment they only used once, the cardboard box for a posh telly so the burglars know which flat to break into first, and an over-sized patio set for the one summer’s day they can sit and sup wine (like they’re in Venice) as they inhale the fumes of fifty trucks. But at 5:40am on Thursday 6th May 1948, on the basement steps of 17 Finborough Road, the broken body of 26-year-old part time waitress and prostitute Winifred Mulholland was found. Missing for four days, and dead for almost one, the position of her body posed a perplexing mystery; as had she been hit by car, had she fallen from a height, or had her killer dumped her in plain sight on a busy street? But why? Being easy to identify by her rabbit-fur coat and the deep red heels to her shoes, the biggest mystery about the death of Winifred Mulholland was how did she ended up here, and why she died? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 214: The Woman in Red – Part One. There wasn’t any rhyme nor reason why Winifred Mulholland would be murdered. She lived a modest life, she had a few debts, and she didn’t cause trouble, as alongside thousands of other single women struggling in the post-war era, she made the best of what she had, and she had big plans for the future. But there was a piece of her life which was missing, and this hole she filled with little white lies. Born on 11th July 1922 at Elizabeth Hospital in Birtley, Gateshead in the north-east of England, Winifred Virginia Mulholland was one of two children to Florence & James Mulholland. Raised in a poor mining community, living a hand-to-mouth existence, even though it was said by Florence & James that their marriage was not a happy one, being unable to pay for a divorce, they plodded on as best they could. Maybe this unhappy upbringing was the reason Virginia (as she preferred to be called) would remain an eternal child, always drifting from daydream to nightmare, and fleshing out her life with fantasy. Across her 26-years alive, Virginia would retain a sweetness about her; being a dainty 5 foot 2 inches tall and barely 8 stone, her fair hair was as light and airy as candy floss, her eyes twinkled as if only innocent thoughts buzzed her brain like a bee seeking out pollen, and shining like dunes on the whitest of beaches were two apple-blossom cheeks protruding as if a naughty word was perched on her lips. Years later, Lillian her landlady would state “she was a quiet babyish sort of girl, who was very fond of dancing to my wireless at home”, but she didn’t truly know her as “I thought that she was Canadian”. Why Virginia chose to pretend to be a Canadian is anyone’s guess, but she did. In 1936, aged 14, she moved with her parents and brother to London seeking better work and brighter prospects, but as happened to many families, they found the pay was higher but so were the costs. Having finished school with a basic school certificate, her options as a working-class girl were limited, and as she hadn’t the skills to become a secretary, she earned a modest wage by waitressing in cafes. And that was her life; she worked long hours to earn a pittance, she had no plans for the future, and then she went home to witness the bickering and sniping of her arguing parents. With her only escape being music, dancing and friends – her days were as typical as any other young person in that era. By 1940, being a few months into the Second World War and at the start of an eight-month bombing campaign of British cities by the Luftwaffe, with her brother sent to boarding school, Virginia and her family moved into a small cottage in the remote village of Wadhurst in Kent, 50 miles south of London. It should have been a place of safety far away from the bombed-out ruins of the West End, but being stuck alone with her warring parents – whose relationship was so bad, they lived in separate parts of the cottage - she often came home to more screams and explosions than she had heard in the city. Throughout the war-years, Virginia occupied her time and served her country by assisting the nurses at the Westminster Hospital through the Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force, but - for reasons we shall never know – her father forbade her to come home, so she took up a lodging, alone amid the bombings. In 1945, with the war finally over and a sense of normality returning, as Virginia had been struck down with an unidentified gastric disease, she returned to her parent’s cottage for two years, but then left… …only to encounter her very first brush with murder. It’s an odd link which no-one has ever connected, but in 1946, Virginia worked as a waitress at The Victory Café at 266 Edgware Road in Paddington. For two years, she was employed by the café’s manager Alice Williams who all of her staff would call ‘Madam’, as previously reported in Episode 162. Nothing could be proven, but it was suggested that although Alice supplied employment and support to many young women in a difficult situation, she was potentially also a madam; who took possession of their official papers, who got girls into sex work, and who may have taken a cut of their earnings. But on Boxing Day 1950, just 19 months after Virginia went missing, Alice was stabbed to death in the café’s kitchen by June McKechnie, a friend, a customer and a prostitute in an argument over money. It is uncertain if Alice got any of her waitresses into prostitution, but around that time Virginia received the first of four convictions for soliciting, with the last on 28th January 1948, shortly before she left. That said, there is little information about what type of prostitute she was. For Virginia, sex-work wasn’t a career option, but a casual habit she hopped into to supplement her very meagre income. As with many women in the late 1940s, the war had provided them with job opportunities unavailable prior; such as better pay and higher skills by making munitions for the war-effort. But with conscription over and many such jobs being reserved for ex-soldiers, several forms of prostitution filled the gap. It wasn’t always sex that she provided, as being an attractive and affable young lady, she sometimes escorted men on trips to the cinema, on dates at affordable restaurants and provided companionship like she was a surrogate ‘girlfriend’. And yes, she gave them full sex if they wanted it, but also a grope, a fondle, some hand relief, or a little kissing if they were that way inclined. For her services, they paid in cash, but also often with a hot meal, a warm bed, and black-market items liked chocolate and tights. With the rift between Virginia and her father ongoing, and being ashamed of her occupation, she kept a distance from her family in those final years, writing regularly to her mother, but rarely visiting. One of the last known addresses she was known to live at was the home of Mr & Mrs Evans, at a three-storey terrace at 87 Winchester Street in Pimlico, where she lodged alone in a small second floor room. It should have provided her with security, but with the Evan’s treating her with suspicion and a violent argument having erupted just shy of Christmas 1947, Virginia risked injury, poverty and homelessness owing to the unwanted affections of their son, who was described as “a little vacant”. Taking his side, Mrs Evans had threatened “to do me an injury if I did not go out with him” Virginia confided in a friend, and having paid £39 (£2000 today) in rent in advance, she risked losing it all over a sad little boy. With her contract hardly worth the notepaper it was scrawled on, Virginia left the lodging quietly, but agreed to take Mrs Evans’ rabbit-fur coat as payment for any monies lost. This was the coat she would be found dead in, but there would be nothing to connect the Evanses to the dumping of her body. In the last letter sent to her mother just a few weeks before her death, Virginia would write “my life is hard, but I hope with God on my side, I can get through it”… …only if God was watching over her, he must have blinked. It’s understandable then, that around this time, realising that Britain held nothing for her, she decided to move overseas and was in the process of applying to live in Canada. So determined was Virginia that she even adopted a Canadian accent, and – to Mrs Lillian Hall, her new landlady at 8 Bramah Road – ‘Mrs Virginia Mulholland’ of Ottawa as she called herself, said she was returning to Canada soon. For the modest price of 38 shillings-a-week for a furnished ground floor room in a Camberwell house along with breakfast and high tea if she desired, Lillian would state “she agreed to occupy the room alone”, which she did and although Lillian thought she was a waitress, no men were brought back. Quite why she lied about being a Canadian in uncertain, but these little flourishes to her life didn’t have a malicious streak – as she wasn’t running from bad men, large debts or dirty secrets – so it could simply have been her immaturity or a desire to make her dull life seem that little bit more thrilling… …but if it was a thrill she wanted, then the climax to her life was about to begin. Sunday 2nd May 1948 was an ordinary day for Virginia. As a woman who wasn’t much of a drinker, rarely argued, and was harassed by men no more than any other attractive woman, her landlady Lillian would state “she told me she worked in a café near Fleet Street, she left at 6:30pm every evening, or sometimes at 4pm she’d go to the pictures and used to arrive home at 6am. She always kept herself-to-herself and I never saw her with anybody during her stay… she’d stop away for nights, or a day or two saying she was staying with a young woman…”. That said, the café where she worked was never found and neither was the young woman, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist, just that the details the police were given were too scant to find them. At 4pm, Lillian would state “she left my house in Camberwell and said she was going out”, although she didn’t say where she was going which wasn’t unusual. Across her shoulder was slung a string handbag containing her purse and a small red diary (into which she noted her clients and the monies they paid), she wore a rabbit’s fur coat with a mend on the hem that Lillian had recently repaired herself, and on her feet, a pair of black ‘toeless’ sling-back shoes with red heels to match her red dress. That was the last time she was seen alive. With no known place of work, no close contact with family and no regular routines with friends, being the type of girl who did her own thing and could easily be gone for days, no-one reported her missing. Four days later and 4 and a ½ miles west of Camberwell, on Thursday 6th May at 5:40am, Albert Edward Stamp, a millwright was walking to work when he cut through Finborough Road, as per usual. Strolling along the north-side of the pavement, as he passed 17 Finborough Road, he spotted a stockinged foot of what he thought was a discarded mannequin peeping out of the wrought iron railings, its toes up. Peering over, the left leg was buckled underneath, twisted at an unnatural angle as if the hip had been dislocated or the knee had been snapped 90 degrees left, as long splashes of blood ran vertically along the length of both legs. Being the wrong size and shape, he knew it was too realistic to be a dummy. With her legs splayed over the stonework, her torso sprawled across the length of the top step, and her head hanging backwards over the lower step, facing the basement with her body facing skywards, either she had been hit by a car and landed in a heap, had fallen from a height, or had been dumped by someone who saw her as nothing more than disposable, like rubbish chucked out with the bins. What had happened was uncertain, as maybe in the fall, her red dress had riden up, her camiknickers were shown, to the side of her head lay her string handbag (almost as if it was a pillow to rest on), as underneath her smashed and shattered body lay her rabbit’s fur coat, worn as she was last seen in it. And yet, although she was dressed to go out, her shoes were missing, but she hadn’t walked barefoot. Believing this to be an accident, Albert ran to nearby St Stephen’s hospital. At 6.30am, Dr John Higgs examined the body and certified her as dead, and at 6:40am, Detective Inspector Albert Webb arrived. Speaking to the neighbours, no-one knew the woman, had seen her nearby and no-one had heard any suspicious sounds which could explain her injuries or how she had got there. According to her details, she wasn’t a resident at the house she was found in front of and she had no known reason to be there. If she was hit by a car, where were the broken lights or scratched paint flecks? If she fallen from one of the balconies, how did she get into the house? And if her body had been dumped here, where was she killed, as a lack of fresh blood at the scene would prove that she hadn’t died where she was found. She had no stab wounds, no bullet holes, and no obvious evidence of an impact by a car. She hadn’t been dragged a considerable distance, but where she had, it wasn’t outside. And there was no alcohol, no drugs nor poison in her system to suggest that her demise may have been a result of a suicide. If she was murdered, her killer would most likely (according to the detectives) have dumped the body in a place she had no known association with and usually within a mile of where the murder took place, as the longer he spent in public with the body, the more likely he is to be caught and leave clues. It was a crime-scene which didn’t make much sense; she was a woman who didn’t belong here, who no-one had seen, with no signs of a robbery, and although her face had sustained significant injuries, if her killer had tried to hide her identity, why did he dump her with her handbag, purse, ID and diary? Inside the red diary were entries such as “February 11, I met a client, failed to record his name - £4”, and yet there was no references to the night or any client in question, and no page had been torn out. But then again, maybe she only filled in her diary after she had serviced her client, and not before? And as for her jewellery, although she never wore anything expensive - just cheap plastic costume pieces to highlight her look - under her body lay a single clipped earring, and bit of a broken brooch, but where were the other pieces? Had someone taken them or were they in the place where she died? The pathologist Dr Donald Teare saw the body in situ at 10am. In his notes, he observed “it was lying on its back on the upper steps leading down to the basement of 17 Finborough Road… the atmospheric temperature was 57.5 degrees Fahrenheit” (roughly 13.8 degrees Celsius) “the body felt cold, but rigor mortis was not detected in the jaw or the limbs”. As it was unlikely that she had died where she was found, her time of death was impossible to determine, “as decomposition was beginning to set in the internal organs”, but as the congealed blood and the bruises were older than the decomposition, her injuries were at least two-to-three days old, but her possible time of death was no more than a day. With a dislocated left hip and knee, a fracture in her lower left femur and one through the 5th cervical vertebrae of her neck, these injuries were most likely as a result of a short fall, possibly onto the stone steps themselves, but they hadn’t been the cause of her death, as it was likely she was already dead. Like robbery, rape was ruled out as a possible motive, as “although her vagina contained a large quantity of white mucus”, believed to be sperm, “although there was a small erosion to the lining, I found nothing inconsistent with her having had sexual intercourse prior to death”, consensual or not. Which didn’t mean it didn’t happen, just that any evidence of any sexual injury was not seen. Inside her throat, “there was extensive bruising to both sides of the tongue, and as was apparently due to the teeth being driven into the tongue”, owing to a sharp impact, “and with dried blood found in the trachea”, she was still breathing after the attack, which had occurred hours, if not days earlier. The autopsy confirmed that her cause of death was not due to the fall, but to the wounds to her face. Four wounds, all swift and shocking enough to render her unconscious, and her death to be slow. Dr Teare would state “cause of death was laceration to the brain... as across the centre of the forehead was an irregular lacerated wound four inches long… with an area of depressed fractures, an inch and three quarters wide from the frontal bone… which radiated back into the roof of the eyes and nose…”. Using a blunt heavy object, she had been hit hard over the head with an object made of steel or iron, of an irregular shape and surface, it had caved her skull in sending sharp shards of bone into her brain. Owing to the force, this injury was unlikely to be an accident or as a result of a fall, as owing to free-flowing blood from the wound, she was alive and her heart was beating when she was the attacked. This swift and sudden impact resulted in rapid unconsciousness and a slow and agonising death which almost certainly paralysed her entire body in seconds, only her assailant’s attack was far from finished. Upon what was described as her once apple-blossom cheeks “a series of circular abrasions, with one on the right cheek and two on the left, had left distinct circular marks”. Being of even size and slightly octagonal, she had been struck three times with a hammer across the face, as the bones fractured across the bridge of her nose, down to her chin and right up into the depths of her eye sockets. All of these injuries occurred while she was still alive, but everything else was post-mortem. Including the superficial abrasions to the knuckles of her left hand and a laceration to her nose, which may have occurred as she was dragged from where she had died to where she would eventually be dumped. And with the fractures to the 5th vertebrae of her neck, a dislocated hip, knee and a smaller fracture to the lower left thigh bone, all were post-mortem injuries resulting from “at least a 15-foot fall”. The autopsy asked more questioned than it answered, such as where had she died, why was her body been dumped here, who had attacked her and why, and - if she was attacked on Sunday 2nd May, and she wasn’t found until Thursday 6th - what happened to her for the four days in-between? (End) All of the tenants at 17 Finborough Road aided the police as best they could with the investigation and provided witnesses statements into what they had seen and heard, prior to the body’s discovery. They were John Eldred a docker in the basement, George Eyton an engineer on the first, Zdenek Kubert a toolmaker who lived with his wife on the second, and Dr Wallace a female GP on the third floor. Police also spoke to all of her family members, her closest friends, her landlady Lillian Hall, as well as her former employer Alice Williams at the Victory Café and the possible prostitution ring she may have been involved in, and Mr & Mrs Evans and their “slightly vacant” son, whose coat Virginia was wearing. Only, there didn’t seem to be an immediate reason why anyone would want her dead. She wasn’t a bad person, she didn’t blackmail anyone, and her only real secret was her desire to move to Canada. The murder of Winifred Virginia Mulholland would prove to be one of the most baffling cases that the Police had ever encountered, on the surface at least. And yet they would have the case wrapped up and a prime suspect in custody by the end of the day, with every piece of evidence proving conclusive. But this would be a turning point for many of the investigating officers, as the murder itself would go against everything they had known about murderers and their motives, as although they believed the killer was at least a mile away, all the while, he was watching them and listening to their every word. The concluding part of The Woman in Red 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. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #213: "Finished with Life" (The Suicide of Father Louis Caceres)7/6/2023
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN:
On 15th September 1894, being part way through a world tour to spread the word of God, Father Louis Caceres, a portly elderly priest had booked a room for himself and his faithful assistant Eugene. But growing depressed at his failing health as the tour took its toll, here the priest would take his own life. His death sent shock waves throughout the Catholic faith, but not just because his suicide was a sin.
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THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing outside of 49 Old Compton Street in Soho, W1; directly opposite of the unsolved killing of Dutch Leah, six doors west of the bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub, and three doors east of the not-so-tragic demise of ‘the cruel vulture of Soho’ - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 49 Old Compton Street currently stands a four-storey red-brick monstrosity with six crappy flats above housing (as witnessed on my old tour) one of the rudest arseholes in the whole of Soho, and on the ground-floor stands a shop - which could be open, closed or empty - as with every new tenant coming up with the genius idea to sell just one item – whether croissants, hand-cut crisps or hummus – they all appear shocked when their entrepreneurial dream shuts having not had a single customer. Back in 1894, this building was a modestly-priced hotel called Blondel’s. Set over four floors with ten rooms per level, a bathroom per floor and a restaurant on the ground, Blondel’s became a home-from-home for many businessmen, travellers and even clergymen from all four corners of the world. On 15th September 1894, being part way through a world tour to spread the word of God, Father Louis Caceres, a portly elderly priest had booked a room for himself and his faithful assistant Eugene. But growing depressed at his failing health as the tour took its toll, here the priest would take his own life. His death sent shock waves throughout the Catholic faith, but not just because his suicide was a sin. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 213: “Finished with Life” – the suicide of Father Louis Caceres. Everybody has their breaking point. For the elderly, once their will has gone, their bodies simply slip away. Whereas for those who still have life to live, the only way to reach the eternal sleep is by their own hand. For Father Louis Caceres, every problem in his life came to a head on Old Compton Street. Little is known about the life of Father Louis, for obvious reasons. Said to be a native of the South American country of Peru, Father Louis came from money, being the son of a wealthy trader who had enjoyed all of the pomp and privilege that came with such high status. Unlike many in his country, Louis was well-educated - being fluent in Spanish, English and Latin - with his handwriting as neat as any scribe and his spelling and grammar was nothing short of faultless. But although his family’s wealth kept him shielded from the poverty of his country, it also broke his heart. At an early age, Louis found God and making it his mission to help those less fortunate than himself; he joined his local church as an altar-boy, and in his teens, he entered the seminary where he learned to live a humble and decent life - the whole ethos of his education was to live as simply as Jesus had. Which was easier said than done when the church was a place of privilege and excess; being a brick-built monument to God’s wonder stretching to the sky which dwarfed the shacks in its shadow; and being stuffed with ornate manuscripts, golden icons and sparkling stained-glass windows which – if sold - could feed and clothe the community for a year, it filled him full of conflict that, as the priests in their silk robes asked the poor to donate, the Church was (and still is) the world’s largest landowner. The church was a contradiction of wealth and poverty made all the more confusing by his upbringing. Father Louis liked his food, and being well-travelled, he always ate well; whether pheasant, quail, caviar or pate, with a sherry or a flute of champagne from time to time, and maybe even a cigar. And burdened by a sweet tooth, he was not averse to demolishing a pudding or two, shovelling in a few sweeties into his unoccupied pie-hole or sampling a merest morsel of cake should he pass any bakery. When he was young, this excessive consumption wasn’t much of a problem, as although being a little man of barely five-foot-tall, his health could carry his bulk. But as he entered his sixties, and his weight ballooned up to 18 stone, the additional chunkage put a real strain on his limbs, his lungs and his heart. Being shaped like a well-stuffed doughnut, when he walked, his jowls wobbled like a glorious jelly and his ankle fat billowed over his shoes like an over-generous piecrust, but with his lungs wheezing like a broken accordion, every step he walked felt like a mile and every breath was like a battle to find air. So, it may seem surprising that, in the Spring of 1893, Father Louis Caceres decided to leave his native Peru and to set-sail on a world-tour to spread the word of God. It was never said why he chose that moment to leave; maybe he felt the change of scenery would be beneficial to his health, maybe he wanted to flee his family and the excesses of the church, or maybe this was his last chance to do good. It was a journey which would cover South America, North America, Europe and England… …but having arrived in Soho, he would never return home. As a man described as being “in comfortable worldly circumstances”, the world tour of Father Louis was entirely self-financed, as into the Banco de Londrs y Rio de la Plata in Buenos Ayres, he deposited £400 (roughly £50,000 today), and with branches across the Americans but also in London and France, all he needed was his notarised letter of credit to allow him to withdraw any money, at any time. Remarkably, the Central American leg of the trip went without a hitch, but with him no longer being a spring chicken but more of a fatted duck, even the most simple of duties became a mission for Louis. Therefore, it was a blessing when Louis met Eugene; a man more than half his age and three times his strength - who as a devout Catholic, spoke fluent French, moderate English, had worked in Paris and London, and as an out-of-work chef who desperately needed a job – he was more than thrilled (if not honoured) to assist this well-respected priest in return for a warm bed, free meals and a small wage. As the Priest’s personal servant, Eugene was unvaluable; he carried his luggage, he made his meals, he re-arranged his itinerary when Louis got too weak, and he ensured that every bill was paid on time. By August 1894, having arrived in Paris, much of the priest’s planned schedule was scrapped, as having become slower and weaker, any trips to visit local charities had been side-lined in place of bed rest. And it wasn’t just the priest’s strength which was being sapped, so was his mood. Gone was the jolly man with the hearty laugh, as in its place stood a sullen man who slumped with every fading footstep. Whether life had lost its meaning, or he knew that every breath may be his last, as they travelled from Paris to Dieppe, Father Louis had even lost his love of food. Pushing a fine French cassoulet to the side of his plate, even the one true love in his life couldn’t rouse this fading light from toward the darkness. On 14th September 1894, Louis & Eugene arrived in Newhaven on the English south-coast. As neither anywhere new or even a haven (except for drunken sailors and lost deadbeats), they bedded down in a cheap B&B for one night, and – although Father Louis should have called it quits on the tour and headed home to Peru – on the 15th September, they arrived amongst the sprawling smog of London. As a Priest, Soho was an odd choice… …a godless hole riddled with the excesses of cruelty and corruption, a feted pit piled high with the shattered souls of the debauched, and with every street stained with the acrid stench of drink, drugs, sex and sin. Across the world, Soho was synonymous as a place where unlawful death was common and even the innocent were killed for as a little as a few pounds to satisfy the cravings of a dope fiend. …but Soho was where he chose to stay, and it was also, where he would die. Blondel’s at 49 Old Compton Street was an affordable but decent hotel with soft beds, clean sheets, running water, a chambermaid service if required, and a restaurant on the ground-floor for all meals. As his assistant, Eugene booked them into a twin-room on the third floor overlooking the street. It was small and simple, with the priest’s bed nearest the window so the air could aid his recovery. As a priest, although unknown to the denizens of Soho, Father Louis was respected, and knowing that his sickness was being attended to by his faithful assistant who fetched his meals and medicine, although his hacking cough would echo the halls, they gave him the privacy that this man of the cloth required. Over those three weeks Father Louis was in Soho, he never left his room and rarely left his bed. Stuck staring at a blank wall, as he gripped his crucifix in his hand, he pondered whether his time had come, or if – for sins he was never absolved of, whether of the heart or the mind - God had abandoned him. According to Eugene, Father Louis was a good man, but even his faith couldn’t save him now. At Father Louis’ request, on Wednesday 3rd October, Eugene went Banco de Londrs y Rio de la Plata with the ‘letter of credit’ signed by the priest, and with his ID, he withdrew £30 (roughly £4000 today). As was their routine, clearing the bills till the end of the week – for a laundry, a bakery and a charity –as requested, Eugene paid 17 shillings at the Hotel Blondel covering their stay until the coming Sunday. That afternoon, as had become all-too-common, Father Louis was heard coughing and choking as his body failed him once again, and having become increasingly depressed, he had decided he was done. On the morning of Sunday 7th October, four days later, the chambermaid came to change the sheets, as – by all accounts – their check-out time had elapsed, and some new guests were due to move in. Hearing nothing familiar - no snoring, no coughing and no choking – she assumed the priest had left. But opening the unlocked door, there she found his body. Dressed in just a pair of silk pyjamas, although a deep indentation of his corpulent body remained on the mattress where he had spent the last three weeks of his life, Father Louis was not in bed. Being too large and sickly to get to his feet, Dr Severs of Gerrard Street would confirm “he had lied upon his bed, tied the ends of a silk handkerchief together, and with the loop over his head and the bedframe, he put his feet on the ground and rolled himself out of the bed, and thereby strangling himself”. Found lying face-up, with his lips blue, his tongue out and his eyes protruding, a large pool of blood flowing from his nostrils was consistent with asphyxiation. And with the greater part of his body (his legs, his trunk and his right elbow) resting on the floor, although his head was just a few inches off the floor, it was a strange way to die, but being too sick to stand, the doctor said it was entirely possible. With no bruises to his body and no signs of a struggle or an assault, the room told a similar tale; as none of the furniture was disarranged, his luggage trunks were in the corner, and his slippers were to the side of the bed as if they had either fallen off or he had taken them off prior to taking his own life. On the bedside table lay two things; a loaded six-shot revolver with no cartridges spent, which he may have considered as an option; and his suicide note – which being a sin – showed the imbalance of his mind. Handwritten in Spanish, his final words were “To the inspector of Police. Dear Sir. Do not accuse anybody of my death. I am finished with life. I am disgusted with my family. I do not require any noise after my death. I have no papers. I do not wish anybody to know the other motives. Once more, keep silence in order there may be no scandal. May God bless you. Father Louis Caceras, a native of Peru”. At 10am, Mr Blondel, the hotel proprietor called James Spindelow, the coroner’s officer to state that one of his lodgers had “hanged himself”. Dr Severs of Gerrard Street confirmed this cause of death, and as was standard practice, Detective Inspector Greet of Scotland Yard headed up an investigation. It was as clear a case of suicide as he had ever seen, but the hardest part was identifying the priest. Liaising with the Spanish and Peruvian Consuls, as Father Louis had no papers upon his person and – it was believed that (as his assistant) Eugene had possibly been sent on a religious mission to a God-forsaken place in the wilds of somewhere near or far – until confirmed - an inquest was held at St Ann’s church on Dean Street into the death of an unknown priest, believed to be Father Louis Caceres. Headed up by Harold Smith, the newly-appointed coroner for Westminster, on 9th October 1894, with the jury having listened to the expert witnesses testimony of the chambermaid, the hotel proprietor, the police inspector and Dr Severs who had performed the autopsy on the body, the inquest took just thirty minutes to reach a verdict of ‘death by suicide, while the balance of his mind was disturbed”. And with that, the case was closed. The room was cleaned, his belongings went into storage, and although he had committed the ultimate sin which negated his ascent to heaven, the body of Father Louis Caceres was shipped back to Peru, and until his details could be determined, he was buried in a temporary grave. And there our story ends - a sick elderly priest came to Soho, and growing ever more depressed, he took his own life. (Pause) …only the jury would call “bullshit”. The ruling of ‘death by suicide’ was based on the evidence put before them, but having read-up further about the case in the Pall Mall Gazette which contained details neither the jury nor the coroner knew, and (as was their right) having seen hotel room with the body in situ before attending the inquest, the jury found huge gaping holes in the case and requested that the coroner insist on a second inquest. As is the role of any inquest, with the first one described as “hurried” and “anything but searching”, the second – opened just two days later – ensured that this tax-paying jury who funded this hogwash made full use of their right to pose questions to these expert witnesses, and they had a lot to say. A series of searing questions were posed by the foreman of the jury to the experts. Foreman: “Dr Severs, you say this man committed suicide by hanging, but his head was barely off the floor”. Dr Severs: “indeed I did Sir, it only takes but an inch to hang one-self”, Foreman: “I see, but surely if he had tied the noose and rolled out of bed, he would have been found face down. Whereas this man died face up, and how could a man (even of his bulk) strangle himself if he was face up?” At which, the Doctor umm’d and arrgh’d, but even he couldn’t provide a logical answer. To Detective Inspector Greet, the Foreman asked: “you said there were no signs of a robbery?”, Greet: “I did, Sir”, Foreman: “in your words, ‘nothing was found on the corpse’?”, Greet “not a farthing Sir”, Foreman: “but what about elsewhere in the room? What about his papers, his passport, his bank details? The luggage was there, but what was inside?” - it was an answer the foreman knew as they had seen the crime scene in situ – at which the Inspector replied “nothing”. Foreman: “nothing? Not his clothes or his priestly robes?”, Greet “Erm, no Sir”, Foreman: “and you say there was no robbery?”, At which, the Inspector umm’d and arrgh’d, but even he couldn’t provide a logical answer. And then there was the suicide note, which had been read in full and taken as fact that it was written by Father Louis, but having not seen it before, the jury had a few issues with this piece of evidence. Foreman: “the priest was an educated man, was he not?”, Inspector Greet: “he was”, Foreman: “a fluent Spanish speaker being a native of Peru?”, Greet: “he was”, Foreman: “hmm, so why if he wrote this note in his native tongue was his spelling so atrocious?”, as not only was it gibberish but the penmanship was so poor it looked as if a disabled donkey had scrawled it using a broken crayon. And when the foreman asked: “Is this the suicide note of a scholarly priest?”, the Inspector had to conclude “possibly not”, as the vestry room flooded with a sea of red faces who had done the bare minimum. Finding “insufficient grounds to adopt the medical view of the case being one of suicide”, the foreman returned an open verdict, and the police were requested to re-investigate this as a possible homicide. It didn’t take long to find a loose thread or two in Soho: some of the priests’ clothes were found at a pawnbroker having been sold days earlier; debts had been paid at the laundry, but from his deathbed – somehow - the priest had racked up debts in many pubs, clubs and brothels; and having emptied his account at the Le Harve branch of his bank two days after he had died - they eventually discovered that Father Louis Caceres of Peru didn’t exist, as – taking his registration at the Hotel Blondel as proof – someone had deliberately hidden the fact that the victim was Father Gabriel T Seguí of Buenos Ayres. Only one man knew the truth of what had happened that day… …and he had vanished into thin air. Eugene Roubillot, his 24-year-old assistant had left the Hotel Blondel on the afternoon of Thursday 4th October, carrying a small suitcase and being dressed in a fine set of priestly robes. Identifying himself as Father Gabriel T Segui the Chief Chaplin of the Argentine Republic, he went unchecked at any border as he caught the boat train from Waterloo to Southampton, and at midnight, hopping the train to Le Havre – as a man of God – he was treated with respect and no-one dared to question or bother him. On Friday 5th October, Eugene entered Banco de Londrs y Rio de la Plata in Le Harve, with his ID and his letter of credit, he closed the full remainder of the account, being £370, roughly £48,000 today. Knowing that such a silly crime scene wouldn’t fool anyone and that the suicide was just plain stupid, Eugene fled as far as he could and caught a French liner from Le Harve to New York, where a respected priest with the money to pay his way booked into a modestly priced hotel and laid low for a while. His escape was swift, in fact his fleeing was faster than the reporting of the case in the press, as by the time he had arrived in New York, he was overjoyed to read an article in an American newspaper which declared “an inquest in Soho, London has ruled the death of an unknown Peruvian priest as suicide”. Based on this article, Eugene had committed the perfect murder… but by the time that news of the second inquest would be reported, he would be too drunk, stoned and shagged-out to know the truth. Burning through the money like his pockets were on fire, Eugene blew a wad on fancy hotels, fine wines, sexy fillies and enough ‘white powder’ to reline a football pitch, and although this was an era when priests were as corrupt as the police, causing too much of a stink in the core of the Big Apple, he hopped the next liner to France, and fled back to his home town of Toulon in the South of France… …where he lived a raucous life full of champagne, cocaine and prostitutes. (End) The excesses of Eugene Roubillot came to an end barely one month later on 6th November 1894, when two men were arrested for starting a drunken bar fight in Toulon, one of whom was dressed as a priest and gave the name and ID of Father Gabriel T Segui, a man who had – supposedly – committed suicide. With Scotland Yard notified of his arrest, and with almost none of the money left, all he had to show for his month of fun was a black eye, a hangover, a dirty set of priest’s robes and a knackered penis. Charged with the murder of Father Segui, British Police unsuccessfully tried to extradite him back to London, but being a French citizen, he was ultimately tried in Court of Assizes at Draguigpan in Paris. To determine if foul play had occurred, the priest’s body was exhumed and a thorough autopsy was conducted, leading to a new investigation which took almost a year to bring to court. Tried on the 20th January 1896, Eugene Roubillot was found guilty of robbery and fraud, but with murder impossible to prove, the jury granted him extenuating circumstances and he was sentenced to hard labour for life. The likelihood is that the priest was strangled to death by his assistant for the sake of his money. It was far from being the perfect murder, but he almost got away with it, owing to the failure of three expert witnesses; a doctor, a coroner and a detective being too unwilling to see beyond the obvious… …that on the surface, although it looked like a suicide, a priest had been murdered in Soho. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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