Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
main gates of Wormwood Scrubs prison
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 SIXTY: On Saturday 23rd of June 1979, a decision was made for two prisoners to share a cell at wormwood Scrubs prison. One was convicted of a driving offence, and the other was a psychopath convicted of murder.
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 lime green coloured symbol of a bin above the words 'Shepherd's Bush'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing outside of Wormwood Scrubs Prison on DuCane Road, W12; one road south of the death of Lena Cunningham, four roads north of the child rapist Bernard Cooper, the same street as the infamous police massacre, and a short walk from ‘The Squawk’ - coming soon to Murder Mile. Designed by Edmund DuCane, Wormwood Scrubs Prison was built in 1875 on scrubland named after a herb used to eradicate parasitic worms, which – of course - our painfully biased tabloids love to draw a comparison to, as these flag-waving bigots spew their bile to its readers that “most of these convicts are foreigners, and your taxes are paying for it”, even though many of the arseholes who run our tabloids are foreigners, whose own income is registered overseas… so they pay no taxes. Oh the irony. As 1 of 32 Victorian prisons still operational in England and Wales, after 149 years, Wormwood Scrubs still houses just over 1000 Category B male prisoners for crimes ranging from theft to rape to murder. With a mixture of single and shared cells, careful consideration is made when mixing prisoners charged with different offences. On Saturday 23rd of June 1979, a decision was made for two prisoners to share a cell; one was convicted of a trivial matter, and the other was a psychopath convicted of murder. It’s a tragic case which occurred 45 years ago this week, and although it was said that “lessons should be learned”; with higher crime rates, increased population, aging prisons, chronic underfunding and overcrowding, it’s a system in a rapid state of collapse, and the situation is only going to get worse. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 260: Cellmates. Paul Lehair was an ordinary lad struggling to find his feet in an ever-changing world. Born on the 26th of October 1958 in Manchester, Paul was one of seven siblings to his mother Irene, a hardworking woman who strived as best she could, especially following her divorce to her husband. Like many young boys leaving school aged 16 with a basic education but no plan, he dabbled in a range of low-paid and semi-skilled jobs such as being a housepainter and a cook in pubs and cafes, but with big dreams and no cash, none of these tickled his thirst for adventure or his entrepreneurial spirit. Being 6 foot 5 inches tall, almost a foot taller than most males in the 1980s, some assumed that Paul was a tough guy, but weighing just 14 stone, he was tall, thin and said by many to be “a gentle giant”. He wasn’t a bad lad, he was just a little bit cheeky and easily distracted, but he got on well with people. In 1978, aged 19, he moved to London, he got a bedsit in Tottenham, and tried his hand at any work which paid him a wage, but being broke, he stole. Even Paul’s mother would say “he wasn’t an angel, he was a petty thief”, but he wasn’t in a gang, he wasn’t a hoodlum, he wasn’t escalating to bigger crimes, and he also wasn’t an idiot who banged on about “the life” and thought that dealing weed would lead to him being feared and respected like Al Pacino in Scarface, only to end up in a pine box. Paul was just a bit lost, he’d made some stupid mistakes, and he knew it. On the 16th of June 1979, he’d shared a joyous day back in Manchester as his mother Irene had married his stepfather Clifford, it was a fresh start for this struggling family. Rightfully, it was a happy occasion, but Paul’s dalliance with crime would turn his life (which had only just begun) to disaster and tragedy. On Tuesday the 19th of June 1979, Paul was recalled to Tottenham Magistrates Court. A few weeks earlier, he had been convicted of his first offence, and having taken a car without the owner’s consent, being uninsured and having stolen a penknife worth 50p, he was given a suspected sentence. In short, all he had to do was commit no crime within a mandated period of time, and he wouldn’t go to prison. Keeping his nose clean, as Paul hadn’t been to prison before and didn’t want to, he tried his best. But being unemployed, unable to pay the £20 fine (£250 today), that non-payment resulted in a breach of his suspended sentence, and even though the magistrate himself regarded the crime as a “trivial offence”, with the law being the law, he was sentenced to six months at Wormwood Scrubs Prison. As a first timer, a stint inside could have shaken him up, made his re-evaluate his choices, and set him on the straight and narrow to a stable life. It all depended on what experience he had in prison… … and who he shared a cell with. On the 2nd of March 1978, politicians in the Houses of Parliament debated the state of British prisons, stating “the prison population, which is over 41500 shows no sign of falling, and with overcrowding in local prisons (like Wormwood Scrubs) it is a matter of continuing concern. I hope that some relief will be afforded by building schemes which are expected to provide 4700 extra places by 1981–82”. After decades of underfunding, even back then, these crumbling prisons weren’t fit for purpose; many cells squeezed three or four inmates into a space built for two, punishments by staff had led to many high-profile riots, and with unsanitary practices like ‘slopping out’ (where each morning, prisoners had to carry and empty their own bucket of faeces elsewhere, as the cells didn’t have working plumbing) still enforced until 1996, Paul was about to enter a world which would be alien to a modern youth. With his hands and feet manacled to the chair, as the prison van pulled off DuCane Road, Paul would have been terrified by the large fortress-like gates of Wormwood Scrubs. Designed in white stone and brown brick like castle turrets, they declare “from here, you will never escape”, and although as a first offence - with good behaviour - he would most likely be out in three months, for Paul, that was true. For all prisoners, whether first offenders or life-long lags, day one starts with an induction. In the reception room, he was disrobed of his clothes, his possessions, and given a prison unform as he was no longer an individual but an inmate. Stripped of his name and identity, he would be known for the rest of his term by his prison number, as he had lost all of the privileges that a free man enjoys. With his fingerprints and a photograph taken, any contraband was removed from his person, officers took his details, a doctor assessed his medical and psychiatric needs, and he was given a two property boxes of bedding, clothes, a ‘first night pack’ of tea, milk, sugar, soap and a sometimes a toothbrush. Unlike in films where newbies are stripped bare, burned with lice powder and thrown in a cell as old lags taunt them by chanting “fresh fish”, in 1979, as today, Wormwood Scrubs has a ‘first night unit’. After a shower, a meal, and a fitful night’s sleep away from the main block, it was here that Paul was observed, and being a nice chap who could handle himself, a decision was made over his cell mate. As days and nights in prison can be long lonely affairs, it was vital that Paul got on with his cellmate. For Paul, the hardest part was to be the isolation and the monotony. Moved to the Young Prisoner’s Wing as he was under the age of 21, his cell door was unlocked at 8am, three times a day he ate a barely edible meal in his cell (costing 28p per day), and given one hour for exercise, as a newbie with no work or education to occupy him, at 6pm, he was locked-up in a cramped cell until the morning. By day, surrounded by bored criminals with violent pasts and undiagnosed mental illnesses, this baby-faced boy was an easy victim to bully, rob or beat-up for food, ciggies or to pass the time. But by night, with the door locked and no way to get help except by screaming, he was at the mercy of his cellmate. Debated in Parliament, Fred Silvester, the MP for Withington in Manchester would raise Paul’s case to the then-Minister for State, Leon Brittan, saying “I understand it would be most unusual to allocate a young man on a first sentence for a minor offence to the cell of a man with pronounced and well-known violent tendencies. In this case, almost immediately, the decision was taken to mix Paul Lehair with a prisoner called Vincent Smith - in other words, to mix a minor offence with murder”. The right people were asking the right questions in the right place about the issues of prison overcrowding… …but by then, it would be too late, as Paul was already dead. His cellmate was 20-year-old Vincent Richard Smith. Born on 13th of March 1959, Vincent’s life started badly and got progressively worse. Abandoned at a few weeks old and gripped by a feeling he was unwanted, although a couple adopted him and gave him love, hope and a better future, this early trauma left him anxious and disturbed. Sent to a school for maladjusted boys, Dr Elmo Jacobs said “he had a history of psychiatric problems since he was eight” and having left home as he hated his adopted mother with a vengeance, he turned to crime and was incarcerated for most of his teenage years. Diagnosed with "a severe psychopathic personality disorder”, in 1973, aged just 14, he attempted to take his own life while in police custody. Vincent was a confused young boy with no mentor or moral barometer. Burdened by a violent streak, he lashed out without warning, he attacked those he liked, and claiming he heard voices, he struggled to make sense of whether what he did was right or wrong, or what he saw was real or imaginary. In February 1977, aged 18, Vincent escaped from Feltham Young Offenders Institute and hitched a lift to Oxford. Six weeks later, in the early hours of 30th of March, in an unnamed park (said to be Oxpens Meadow), he claimed that 51-year-old Nicholas Feodorous sat, began chatting him up, and then “he touched my bottom”, Vincent said, “I told him not to, and said, if he did, he’d get a bang in the mouth”. Believing the boy was playing hard to get, Feodorous fondled Vincent again. As promised, he punched the lecherous sex pest in the face, but now thinking this was a kinky little game, Feodorous’ hands kept groping him. “I lost my temper” Vincent said recalling the sexual assault “and I steamed into him”. Dragged off the bench, with no control over his pent-up fury, Vincent punched and kicked the bleeding man as he tried to flee. Constricting his neck until the last breath seeped out of the dying man’s lungs, as he collapsed, still trying to fight back, Vincent stamped on the semi-conscious man as he lay helpless on the ground and booted his head like a football. Barely alive, but still somehow flailing, for nothing more than malice, Vincent pulled out a pocketknife, and slashed and stabbed him in his legs and back. But after three or four wounds to his throat, Vincent said “I knew had gone too far”. Pulling his body down to the river, Vincent stole his money and fled back to London. But being racked with guilt having taken a life, returning to Feltham, he gave himself up, and was arrested for murder. Vincent Smith was given a life sentence for the killing of Nicholas Feodorous… …but why did that, and his adopted mother, lead Vincent to murder his cellmate? (Cliffhanger) Questioned by the police, in a second statement, Vincent gave a very different account of the murder of Nicholas Feodorous. As a gay man seen getting off the train after a night out, making his way home through the park, Vincent admitted he planned to rob him, and “I was thinking about killing someone. It always appealed to me to watch someone die, so seeing this bloke, I said it was going to be him". With a replica gun, Vincent robbed him of his wallet, and then unleashed a volley of fists and feet for his own sadistic pleasure. Smashing his victim over the head with the butt of the gun, as he lay collapsed and bleeding, Vincent stole the man’s drink, took a swig, laughed at this cowering lump, and then “I laid into him, kicking, punching and stabbing him. I then picked up a brick and smashed in his head with it”, and as the skull cracked open and the man’s brains spewed, Vincent suddenly stopped. “I got bored”, the instant fix of killing a random stranger for no reason had lost its thrill as dead was dead, and a dead man neither screams nor fights back. “Suddenly I didn’t find it as funny anymore”, so having stabbed this lifeless body once more, he dragged it over to the river, and walked away. Tried on the 7th of October 1977 at Northampton Crown Court, 19-year-old Vincent Smith would claim that the second statement which implicated him in an unprovoked murder was a lie, and that the first statement about Nicholas sexually assaulting him was true. With no witnesses and much of the crucial evidence having washed away in the river, his word had to be taken as fact. Psychiatrist Dr Peter Noble concluded “it is impossible to form a clear view of his state of mind at the time of the offence. I thus do not feel able to quantify the extent to which his responsibility was impaired at the time". Found guilty of wilful murder, Vincent was sentenced to life in prison… but if the law had the evidence to prove ‘diminished responsibility’ (as the second statement had suggested), Dr Noble said “Vincent would not have been put in a regular prison, but somewhere like Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital”. Vincent Smith was diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder, but without Section 60 of the Mental Health Act being considered at his trial, upon his first day initiation – along with all of the other new prisoners – he was assessed by the prison doctor who determined “his mental disorder was not of such a degree to warrant psychiatric detention”, and he was sent to the Young Prisoner’s Wing. Some said, he belonged in a secure hospital, but the law disagreed. Placed in a drab, cold and lifeless cell for 23 hours a day for the next 20 years, with nothing to occupy his mind but four blank walls in a space measuring just four-square metres, prison is a particularly brutal place for even the most mentally stable, but it’s worse when you’re already mentally disturbed. In April 1978, he attempted suicide, and was placed on report for the attempted assault on a guard. Again in November 1978, he had to undergo an operation owing to self-inflicted wounds to his wrists. In January 1979, he was placed in segregation having been suspected of bullying. And although he was described as aggressive, a report states “his behaviour is not uncommon amongst his age group”. Across the bulk of 1979, Vincent was placed in a single cell, but beginning to settle, he briefly had two cellmates in the later part of that year, and it was said “they had got on fine”. At the start of June 1979, with Vincent having attacked a prison officer with a fork, having been released from segregation, as the Young Prisoner’s Wing was fit to burst, it was decided that a new cellmate should join him. That prisoner was Paul Lehair. There were several reasons why Paul was placed in a cell with Vincent. Both men were aged 20. Unlike Vincent, Paul was mature for his age and hadn’t been institutionalised. Being a foot taller than Vincent, it was thought that Paul could handle himself if he had to. And as a Category B prison, in which the Young Prisoner’s Wing was overcrowded, with almost 100 inmates under 21 serving life sentences for rape, manslaughter or murder, it was likely that Paul’s first and only cellmate would be a lifer. Released from the ‘first night unit’, Wednesday 20th of June 1979 was Paul’s first day on the wing. Unceremoniously introduced with a curt “Smith, you got a new cellie”, as the door slammed shut, Paul found himself face-to-face with Vincent. They knew nothing about each other, and as far as they knew they had nothing in common, and although Paul tried his best to chat, Vincent didn’t want to know. By day, they distracted themselves with routines. But by night, being locked-up from 6pm to 8am, they heard each other breath, they smelled each other’s odour, their bunkbeds creaked as they tossed and turned all night, and with no screen to hide their blushes, in front of each other, they had to shit. Thursday was no better as Vincent barely uttered a word. By the Friday, it had got worse, as Vincent’s silence had turned from disinterest to inaudible mutterings. Paul tried his best to make friends, and although Vincent had been nice to his last cellmates, there was something about Paul that he disliked. It all came to a head on Saturday 23rd of June 1979. There were three incidents reported. The first was a small spat in which Vincent called Paul a “dirty bastard” and accused him of not washing. This was deemed no different to most cells, as when men are banged up together for 14 hours straight, even the closest of cellmates sometimes get a bit tense. The second was when Vincent made remarks to other inmates stating “he disliked Paul and had hostile intentions towards him”, but again, as a common occurrence in any prison, it wasn’t reported to staff. Vincent asked to move cells and this request was agreed to. Not being as straightforward as it seemed, as almost every aspect of prison life must be signed off by layers of bureaucracy – with paperwork to be triplicated, inmates to be moved, and space to be made – with the quickest they could give him a new cellmate being Monday (in two days’ time), the report states “Vincent was happy with that”. Arrangements were being made, and Paul was told that he was to be moved, which was a blessing. Later that afternoon, Vincent asked a trustee in the prison office for a letter opener. When asked why, his answer was cryptic, as he chillingly replied “you’ll find out in the morning”. Rightly, he wasn’t given it, but with this inmate not wanting to be a grass, it wasn’t reported to the staff until it was too late. At 6pm, the cell doors were locked, as both men sat quietly on their bunks. At 10pm, lights out meant that every cell was only illuminated by moonlight. And for the next ten hours, both men would silently suffer each other for what should have been the penultimate time, but would in fact be the last. (silence, night sounds, prison walla) Sunday 24th of June 1979, at just before 8am, a buzzer echoed the walls, as Vincent asked to use the wing’s toilet as his slops bucket was full. Being a reasonable request, the guard agreed, but as Vincent walked away, he casually said “oh… there’s a stiff in my cell”, and in his bed, Paul was found dead. Paul’s mother wasn’t allowed to view her son’s body. When asked, the Police told her (perhaps to give her some sense of peace in her grief) “that the way it happened, he felt no pain”, but having spoken to the undertaker, he said “it was obvious there’d been a struggle and Paul had fought for his life”. During the night, possibly while Paul was sleeping, having bunged up the observation hole in the door so any warders couldn’t see in, he launched a violent and horrific attack on this defenceless man. With thick black welts about his frozen face, and deep purple bruises about his neck and chest, Vincent had tied Paul’s wrists and ankles with ripped strips of his pyjama bottoms, and pulling it taut and twisting his pyjama top tight so it fashioned a makeshift noose, he strangled Paul until his body went limp. An inmate in a neighbouring cell said “about midnight I heard a yell and a choking noise”, but being a strange place where the night echoes with all manner of unsettling sounds, he didn’t raise the alarm. There were no witnesses to this murder, but even though Vincent was the only person other than the victim in that locked cell that night, his callous confession would convict him - “I killed him. I do not know why. The geezer was only serving six months. He did nothing to me. I am very sorry I did it”. Interviewed by Dr Jacobs (a forensic psychiatrist), when asked why he murdered Paul, he claimed “I didn’t mean to. I woke from a dream, and saw what I thought was my adopted mum, and I lost it”. After 20 years, his hatred for her was still so great, that in a haze of half-sleep, that ‘something’ about Paul that Vincent disliked welled-up inside of him, and he killed Paul as - apparently - they looked alike. But was this real, imaginary, or an excuse to be sectioned? (End) On 28th January 1980, having pleaded ‘not guilty’, telling the judge “I am sorry for what happened, but I cannot help myself”, Vincent Smith was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and this time, he was committed to Broadmoor with no time limit. Finally the law said he belonged in a secure hospital, but Paul’s mother disagreed, saying “he isn’t crazy, he’s pure evil”. Assessed by Dr Bowden, it was concluded that Vincent was a dangerous man, and with regards to the earlier murder of Nicholas Feodorous, “that psychiatric evidence at the first trial was flawed". Dr Nobel whose lack of evidence of ‘diminished responsibility’ led to Vincent not being sectioned, later revised his report by stating “with hindsight it is of course regrettable that he was not sent to Broadmoor”. At his 1997 appeal, Vincent’s conviction for that murder was quashed and replaced with manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, he remained at Broadmoor for the rest of his life. Later changing his name to Charlie Smith, on the 1st of December 1989 and again on 2nd of November 1990, under the 1976 Adoption Act, he lost a further appeal to have his birth certificate released. As Sir Stephen Brown, who presided over the Family Division of the Appeal Court said “he is a double killer with an abnormal personality and in view of the circumstances of the second killing”, that of Paul Lahair, “the identification of his natural mother could be tantamount to signing her death warrant”. In August 2006, Vincent Smith died in prison. At the first Christmas after Paul’s death, as if the bureaucracy of the law hadn’t hurt her enough, his mother received a letter from Tottenham Magistrates Court. It was a summons addressed to her dead son, demanding the payment of the unpaid fine of £20, a fine which had led to her son’s death. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
32 Davisville Road, Shepherd's Bush, W12 (Copyright, Sept 2022, @GoogleMaps2024)
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE: In the evening of Friday 1st April 1949, in the top floor flat at 32 Davisville Road in Shepherd’s Bush, W12, 38-year-old wife Mary Cooper was found murdered under her bed by her 14-year-old daughter. It seemed like an ordinary domestic, but a much darker secret was hidden behind those doors, one which would lead to this murder.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a purple green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Shepherd's Bush'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Davisville Road in Shepherd's Bush, W12; four streets east of the Shoe Box killer, two roads south of where Reg Christie euthanised his dog, two roads south-west of The Beast, and one road north of the coldblooded killer with nothing to lose - coming soon to Murder Mile. 32 Davisville Road is an ordinary house on an unremarkable street. Built in the Victorian era, this three-storey house was once separated into flats, and behind each door, many secrets may lurk, especially around “the old S. E. X”; such as dad’s dirty DVD of Suzy Melons meets the Whopper Chopper, mum’s “special pets” other than the dog being two rabbits, a moose knuckle and a black mamba, a daughter who denies being on the pill but every time she pees a swan goes infertile, and a teenage son with so many tissues under his bed, that if you knocked off the legs, it would be the same height off the floor. Everybody has secrets, but some secrets are so dark, that it makes sense for them to remain hidden. In the spring of 1949, the top floor flat at 32 Davisville Road was home to 40-year-old Bernard Cooper, his 38-year-old wife Mary and their two children. To many, they seemed like a typical but dysfunctional working class family who were struggling to make ends meet, and although Bernard’s crimes were known, a much darker secret was hidden behind those doors, one which would lead to a murder. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 259: ‘The Lone Hand of Terror’. The first three months of 1949 reflected the changes in post-war Britain; although the Second World War was over in principle and clothes rationing had ended, men aged 18 to 26 were still required to serve 18 months in the armed forces, NATO was coming into effect, Britain had announced it was developing plutonium, and that January, an anonymous national survey was carried out among 4000 British people about their sexual behaviours and attitudes. It remained unpublished for 50 years… …and thankfully, one of those who didn’t appear in the study was Bernard Cooper. Born on the 17th of September 1908 near Radford in Nottingham in the East Midlands, Bernard Alfred Peter Cooper was one of three siblings to Percy & Florence. As a catholic, days after his birth, he was baptised at All Souls Church, and although poor, he should have had everything he needed to succeed. But with his parents seeking a better life in a foreign land, his childhood was fragmented and lonely. Bernard recalled “my schooling was very poor, and I learned little”, as on 14th of October 1916, while a raging war burned Europe to the core, the Cooper’s set sail on the Orita, a passenger ship as part of the Pacific Steam Navigation Co, and one week later, they arrived in the Chilean port of Punta Arenas. Raised in the southerly region of Patagonia, Chile must have felt a little like home to 8-year-old Bernard with its lush green hills, its wealth of catholic churches and the endless sheep farms (which became a key part of its brief economic boom), but as a stark contrast to England, it had glaciers and penguins. Given its proximity to Antarctica, some referred to it as ‘the end of the world’, and for Bernard it may have been, as being raised in a Catholic school in Chile and not speaking Spanish, he would state that “everything I know I learned when I left school”, and with his parents separating, that meant his father. In 1921, aged 13, Bernard arrived back in England, and with 13 being the age at which British education ended if you were poor and working class, he learned his trade as a house painter and decorator from his father. At that point, he could have done well, but there were other things that he learned to love. When a child is young, they all need a good role model, someone they can learn from, and get a grasp of the difference between good and bad or right and wrong, only Percy was far from a perfect parent. At breakfast, Bernard would crack open a beer and had no qualms about pissing his wages up the wall. Burdened by a high sex drive, he openly admitted “I visited prostitutes at least three times a week”, which he did throughout his whole life. And although being the spit of his father – 5 foot 7 inches tall, medium build with brown hair, blue eyes, a long nose and bushy eyebrows – it was uncertain where he got his violent and cruel streak, but there was no denying who had taught him his criminal ways. On the 1st of August 1924, 46-year-old Percy Cooper and his 16-year-old son Bernard were hired as decorators by Mr Cowley, the landlord of Lavendon Inn in the village of Lavendon, Northamptonshire. In the beer cellar, they helped themselves to drinks and stole from a bowl £17 15s & 1d (£1350 today) which belonged to the Green Man Loan and Dividend Society, which helped struggling families with small loans to get through their week. With Percy guilty and undeniably remorseless of his crime, he was sentenced to six months in prison, but seeing something good in “the lad” (as they called him), they reduced Bernard’s sentence to two months, and sought him work while Percy was locked up. There was no denying that Percy was a bad influence on his son… …but Bernard seemed to make amends when he went his own way. In 1927, aged 19, as was the law for single men, he was conscripted as a Private in the Queen's Royal Army, and although it was a steady job and regular income where a better role model could teach him some discipline, unable to take orders, he was cautioned and dismissed for bad behaviour three times. When questioned, he claimed he joined the Navy in 1942, only this was a lie to hide different crime. On the 8th of September 1930, at Branksome Police Court in Dorset, Bernard was sentenced to three months in prison for stealing gloves from a taxi. Having only served one year and two months in the three years he had been in the Army, he was court marshalled and dismissed from all armed forces. By 1931, as a convict, a remorseless thief and a habitual drunk who spent more time with prostitutes than any prospective wife, owing to his cruel streak, by the time he moved to London, he was single. So it is with much sadness and misfortune, that – for whatever reason, maybe poverty or desperation - a young lady fell in love with him, and what may have seemed liked the start of something good… …would end with her brutal murder. 21-year-old Mary Fordham of Islington was a good woman seeking a good man to live a nice life and start a family with. Being far from a catch, what she saw in him was uncertain, but becoming pregnant in October 1933, the right thing to would have been to marry her - only for now, it was not to be. On the 6th of July 1934, they gave birth to a daughter who (for her decency) I shall call ‘Susan’. As a tiny tot who was no bother to anyone, she deserved to live a happy life full of joy, toys and treats, but just three months into her life, back to his old ways, Bernard was sentenced to 18 months for burglary. Mary strived as best she could, only their marriage was ‘never a happy one’, as whereas she struggled and strived to make ends meet mostly as a single mother, he spent 10 of their 17 years together, sat on his arse in a prison cell, learning even more pathetic ways of stealing only to end up inside again, or half-heartedly being a husband and a father who squandered their money on women and drink. In October 1935, with Bernard released from prison - possibly not because she wanted to, but because they’d also had a son born in an era where they’d be cruelly branded as bastards – Mary & Bernard married. Mary was now tied to a thief, a drunkard and a womaniser for the rest of his life… …and although he would cruelly murder her, he was capable of something much worse. Barely six months into their marriage and two years into ‘Susan’s life, on the 2nd of April 1936, again Bernard was sentenced to 18 months in prison on the charges of theft, burglary and common assault. Three weeks earlier, on 12th March 1936, Bernard broke into Park House, a country estate in Harrow-on-the-Hill, which was the residence of Swedish diplomat, Johan Stille. With Johan’s party having died down and his guests having gone to bed, that night – when any good father would have read their daughter a bedtime story, tucked her into bed and checked-up on her every time she had a bad dream – Bernard broke in via a side window, and as taught by his father, he stole goods and drank their drink. Being sat in the sitting room and lounging on their sofa, as he quaffed three bottles of expensive wine, being cocky and remorseless, he wrote a series of notes to the owner which he left dotted about; the first read “you can call the police if you like, but they will not catch me", the second read “you sure know a good drop of drink" as he slugged back another glass of Chateau Margaux, and third, insultingly it read “I must say you all snore like pigs. Thanks”, which he signed as “The Lone Hand of Terror”. Bernard didn’t have an ounce of compassion for his victims, he never did, and as he stumbled about, with his staggering legs bouncing off every table and toppling every ornament to the floor, Lawrence O’Shea, a guest of Johan Stille grabbed the burglar, a scuffle ensued, and Bernard hit him across the face with a fire poker. Requiring a few stitches, Lawrence was released that day. But being arrested, at Wealdstone Police Court, Bernard was convicted of burglary, plus another count of housebreaking. Only this wasn’t his worst crime. Another lengthy spell in prison did him no good, and having lost contact with his father, as well as his younger siblings, all he had now was Mary and their children, who deserved much better than him. In 1937, while he was serving his sentence, desperate to live a better life, Mary left him and took their children with her. She’d had enough of his drinking, his crimes and his cruelty, he wasn’t a husband or a father who claimed he was providing for his family, as the only person he thought about was himself. The longest he had lasted in a job was three years until he was dismissed for drunkenness, ever since then, he never fully committed to being a legitimate decorator, but he promised that he would change. In January 1938, upon his release from prison, as the Second World War loomed, Mary took him back. A month later, he was arrested for the possession of a firearm, theft, burglary, resisting arrest, and the attempted murder of a Police Constable in Paddington. On 8th of March 1938 at the Old Bailey, convicted of the lesser charge of grievous bodily harm, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. Aged just 29-years-old, Bernard Cooper had committed several serious offences for which he showed no remorse. He was evil, and yet, the burglary of a diplomat, the attempted murder of a policeman and the later murder of his wife weren’t the worst crimes that ‘The Lone Hand of Terror’ would commit… …that was yet to come. (Cliffhanger). By 1942, as many British cities burned and were blasted apart by Luftwaffe’s bombs, Bernard said he’d enlisted in an Anti-Tank Unit of the British Army only to be honourably discharged four years later, but this was all a lie. In truth, he was in Brixton Prison serving seven years for almost killing a constable. Released in 1946, he moved in with his wife Mary, their 11-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son into the top floor of 32 Davisville Road. Already a troubled marriage, their relationship was strained as this wayward father and husband had missed most of their lives, and although he would blame his actions on drink, a bout of herpes, and having his left cheek scarred and being knocked unconscious for three days by a falling window frame, his real criminality and cruelty begun under the tutelage of his father. In 1948, again having served three months for burglary, upon his release, he squandered their money on pints and prostitutes, and yet, it was then that he committed his most abhorrent of crimes. ‘Susan’ was only 14 years old, a young girl in the blossom of womanhood with her whole life ahead of her. In their own home, which should have been a place of innocence and happy memories, he raped her, he raped his teenage daughter for the sake of his carnal lusts, ruining her mind and scarring her body. As a pitiless man who was worth nothing, having forced and stripped her, he treated his own offspring like one of his badly paid whores, and with the feted stench of drink on his breath, her first experience of what should have been with a boy who she loved was instead an incestuous rape by her own dad. It was a secret she was forced to keep silent about, only nature is impossible to silence. In October 1948, with ‘Susan’s belly swollen by a foetus which had been fathered by the monster who had fathered her, with a rape allegation having over him, he admitted his crime to his wife Mary, the pregnancy was terminated by a surgical abortion, and with no arrest, it’s likely this was kept secret. It was an impossible decision for Mary to make. Bernard was an evil man who’d done the unthinkable. With nowhere to run to, no money of her own and two children to care for, when he promised “I’ll never touch her again, if you take me back”, the best of the worst options was to agree. But with all three still living in the same flat, she knew that she couldn’t keep her eye on him all of the time. Bernard tried to resume his decorating work, but failed. He tried to earn a living anyway he could, but failed. He promised her he had stopped seeing sex-workers, stating “I’ve been faithful to you all this time, except for what happened with ‘Susan’”, but the more he failed at life, the more he drank. At the start of March 1949, unable to trust this loathsome paedophile who was a liar and a drunk who lived in the same three-roomed flat as the wife he had begun to assault and the daughter he had raped and traumatised for life, Mary accused Bernard of interfering with ‘Susan’ again, which he denied. In Bernard’s own arrogant words, she nagged him and nagged him and nagged him, as (rightly) every time his lascivious eyes drifted towards the sullied frame of her once virginal child, it made her furious. Everything came to a head on the evening of Thursday 31st of March 1949. With ‘Susan’ asleep and sharing her bed with her cousin Gwendoline, the simple act of having to sleep next to the man she despised must have sent a clammy shiver down her spine, and although (for the sake of her children) she had tried to keep the peace, it had all become too much for her, that night. The argument was a hushed one, which with whispered curses, awoke no-one who was already asleep. That day, Bernard had been slowly seething, as Mary had accused him of having sexual intercourse with his own child that morning, which – of course – he denied, and there was also no evidence of. In the early hours, Bernard would claim “I tried to keep my temper, but I lost it”. Slapping her across the face, in fury, he grabbed her silk stocking from the chair, stating “I tied it round her neck meaning to silence her”. Only wrapping it twice, pulling it tight and tying it with a double knot, even as her nails desperately clawed at her darkening throat which bled her neck red, weakening, she couldn’t untie it. “I knew what he was doing” Bernard said, and as her eyes protruded, her tongue jutted forward and her last ever breath was held a prisoner in her crushed throat, he said “I realised that I had killed her”. During the night, Gwendoline said “I thought I heard screams”, but believing it was either a nightmare or had come from the street outside, she headed back to sleep, unaware of what had happened. And as a remorseless man, he removed the wedding ring from her finger, and having pushed her slowly cooling body under their matrimonial bed, Bernard went back to sleep, until the morning sun rose. Friday 1st April 1949 was a day beset by gloom. In the top floor flat of 32 Davisville Road, as an ineffectual father, ‘Susan’ got herself ready for school, made a packed lunch for her brother, and the two headed off, being told their mother was ill in bed. With Bernard keen to get her out of the flat, Gwendoline said “he said that Mary had had bad night”, having been injured years before in an air-raid, “and asked me to take a letter to her sister in Croydon". It took her two hours to get to her aunt’s house, but when she opened the letter, the page was blank. Bernard fled with a wedding ring, a £1 note and some cigarettes. At 3pm, the children returned to a silent flat. There father had gone, which wasn’t unusual, but there was also no sound of chatter, no reassuring smell of an evening meal, and no hug from their mother. The familiarity of a seemingly happy home was gone and replaced with a cold empty feeling of dread. Later that evening, seeking signs of where their mum may have gone to, ‘Susan’ checked the bedroom, and under the bed where a suitcase would usually have been placed, she found her unceremoniously stuffed like discarded rubbish, still in her nightdress, her hair in curlers, and a look of abject fear etched upon her contorted face, as rigor mortis had fixed her features with that terrified expression forever. ‘Susan’ was haunted for life by three things; the rape, her father’s eyes, and her mother’s dead face. Detective Inspector Jennings of Shepherd’s Bush police headed up the investigation. With his one suit missing, and no other suspect, a description of Bernard Cooper was put out to all stations, docks and airports, and with a long nose, bushy eyebrows, a black scar down his face owing to a head injury, and the little finger of his right hand unable to contract, he should have been easy for the police to spot. That evening, being found incapably drunk in Islington, a slow-witted constable arrested him, let him sober up in a cell, and having forgotten to check the list of ‘wanted felons’, Bernard was released on bail. Fleeing to Ashford in Kent, with no remorse, he pawned Mary’s ring, and again was arrested as a mere drunk and was bailed when he had sobered up, as the cops headed for a hattrick of cock ups. On the run, or more accurately a sozzled stagger, on 6th of April 1949, a full six days after the murder, PC Johnston of the Kent Constabulary spotted Bernard outside of the Girls’ County School in Ashford. Why he was there? He never revealed. But having ran out of money and drink, he proudly proclaimed, “you have heard of me. I strangled my wife in Shepherd’s Bush. I have been on the run ever since. I intended to give myself up at Dover but didn’t”. And finally, The Lone Hand of Terror was arrested. With all the cockiness in the world, Bernard declared “I will be perfectly frank about it. I did it, and I will tell you all about it in due course”, but not before he had a little sleep. As a pointless man who had achieved nothing but misery, he may have expected a dose of adoration being a sadistic killer with a self-coined nickname. But with the sensational trial of the acid bath murderer, John George Haigh, having hogged all the limelight, the crimes of Bernard Cooper were relegated to the inside pages. As of today, he remains forgotten. But that didn’t stop the tabloids from printing their own bile to sex up the case, by writing “Mary become hysterical, so he strangled her with her own stockings. He asked ‘Susan’ to run away with him but she, sensibly, said no”, for which there was no evidence. (End) Charged on the 7th April 1949 at Shepherd’s Bush police station, he said nothing, except to ask “the 25 shillings and 6 pence found in my pocket, I would like that back”, as all he cared about was money. Assessed at Brixton Prison, Prisoner 2853 Cooper showed “no signs of insanity, and despite a lack of intelligence, he is not a defective. There is no evidence of epilepsy, and he is declared fit to stand trial”. Further assessed by a psychiatrist, his report states “he admits that all his convictions were done when he was drunk, so drunk that he could not remember them”, which was the same convenient alibi he had used several times awaiting trial for theft, assault, and attempted murder, as were his subsequent head injuries, “but it is our opinion that his story of drunken forgetfulness was completely untrue”. Tried at the Old Bailey on the 18th of May 1949, it took the jury just eleven minutes to find him ‘guilty’. With Mr Justice Hallett summing up, “it is perfectly simple, but none the less dreadful, that this is a case of plain murder without any excuse for it whatsoever”, and with Bernard giving no evidence, even his own lawyer had to open the trial with the following words, “nothing I can say can prevent you from disliking him because of what he has done”. And for his heinous crimes, he was sentenced to death. On Tuesday 21st of June 1949 at 9am, having been given communion by the bishops of Stepney, within the execution chamber at Pentonville Prison, 40-year-old Bernard Alfred Cooper was executed by the hangman Albert Pierrepoint. Weighing 153lbs, his body was dropped 7 feet and 3 inches, and with a dislocation of the 2nd and 3rd cervical vertebrae resulting in the complete separation of the spinal cord, left to hang for an hour, the world became a better place when The Lone Hand of Terror’ went limp. ‘Susan’ lived a short life, and plagued by trauma, she died in Autumn 1978, aged just 44. 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 - #258: Three Tiny Specks (Dr Joan Francisco & Anthony Diedrick)12/6/2024
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
13 Ordnance Hill, St John's Wood (Nov 2022, Googlemaps2024)
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT: On 26th December 1994, at 1pm, the body of 27-year-old Dr Joan Francisco was found in her basement flat at 13 Ordnance Hill. With the prime suspect being her ex-boyfriend, his conviction should have been imminent. Only this isn’t just a story about obsession, this is the tale of a family’s five-year battle for justice, with the evidence being missed owing to a fatal mistake.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a black coloured symbol of a bin above Regent's Park. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Ordnance Hill in St John's Wood, NW8; three streets west of the first failed assassination by Carlos the Jackal, two streets north of the first possible victim of the Blackout Ripper, and four streets east of the seedy sex scandal of lusty Lord Lambton - coming soon to Murder Mile. Ordnance Hill is a middle-class street full of four-storey Georgian terraces. With many split into flats, it seems odd that anyone would move into basement flat, as their only view would surely be feet. But maybe that’s its selling point; basement flats are foot-fetishist’s must, where they go crazy for cankles, flip-out over foot cheese, go “phwoar” over corn plasters, or get a major boner for bunions. Oooh hot. Everyone has obsessive tendencies, and for many, it’s nothing but a bit of harmless fun… …but for one man, his obsession for a woman (he claimed) he not to love would lead to murder. On 26th December 1994, at 1pm, the body of 27-year-old Dr Joan Francisco was found in her basement flat at 13 Ordnance Hill. With the prime suspect being her ex-boyfriend who had a history of stalking her, his conviction should have been imminent. Only this isn’t just a story about obsession, this is the tale of a family’s five-year battle for justice, with the evidence being missed owing to a fatal mistake. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 258: Three Tiny Specks. Joan was an exceptional woman. Born on the 27th of January 1967 in Westminster, West London, Joan Sarah Francisco was one of three sisters to their father (Alfred) and mother (Venus). With her parents having come from the sun-kissed Caribbean island of St Lucia in the 60s to the endless drizzle of London, having dedicated their lives to giving their children the opportunities denied to them, all three of their girls flourished and succeeded. Blessed with brains, a convent education, and their parent’s hard-working ethic, both of Joan's sisters Margrette and Celia eventually sought out the bright lights of Los Angeles where they practiced law, whereas (like her mother, a former nurse) Joan was drawn to the benevolent profession of medicine. Described as bubbly and eternally likeable, Joan trained at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead where she often worked as a locum, specialising in gynaecology and obstetrics she was also trained at the famous Cedar Sinai Medical Centre in LA, and having obtained her doctorate, by 1994, Dr Joan Francisco was working at the Queen Charlotte hospital in Hammersmith, and with her said to be “at the top of her profession”, she had planned to move to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Working 100-hours-a-week, although her career was hectic, she excelled as in every field … …but like most people, her love life was sometimes a little bit rocky. In 1987, while 20-year-old Joan was a medical student, she fell in love with 27-year-old Anthony Gilroy Diedrick. Born in Paddington, Tony was doing a degree in computing at the University of Westminster, he came across well, being clean-cut and driven, but what too often shone through was his arrogance. In total, they dated for about a year, and although Joan was initially lured by his looks and his charm, as bright woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly, it was the support of her family which helped her make the right decision. Sometimes all it takes is a loved one to be brutally honest, as when her sister Celia met Tony, with amazing foresight, she forewarned Joan that her boyfriend was “a ticking time bomb”. As an inveterate philanderer who always cheated on her, and whose aggressive streak had resulted in him pushing her off a bike and smashing a light bulb which injured her eye, by the winter of 1988 to 1989, Joan ended the relationship, with Tony (defensively) claiming “I wasn’t that keen on her”. But Tony wasn’t the kind of person who took rejection well, as with his fragile ego bruised, although anyone with a modicum of self-respect would have shrugged off this snub and moved on, across the next months as much as Joan had made it abundantly clear that it was over, he refused to accept it. In February 1989, Joan complained to the police that he was harassing and stalking her. As a wastrel who drifted between aimless jobs, he followed her from the hospital by Wormwood Scrubs to her parent’s home on The Ridgeway in Acton. But with this being 8 years before harassment was made an offence, and almost 30 years before staking was criminalised, there was little the police could do. Growing ever more distressed at his persistent pestering, everything came to a head that same month, when seeing Joan with her new boyfriend at her family’s home, boiling with petty rage that the woman he claimed not to love was seeing someone else, he smashed a plate glass window of the patio door and threatened to kill her new boyfriend - as if that act of moronic violence would woo her back. With Tony admitting his guilt to criminal damage, Justice Hallett who presided over the later trial said “it’s not surprising she wanted nothing to do with you”, and although the only punishment he received was a police caution, this brief dalliance with the legal system made him open his eyes to the truth. Across the next five years, they didn’t see or speak to each other, and this lack of contact helped their lives to flourish. Joan qualified as a gynaecologist, and having graduated as a computer programmer, Tony went on to have other unhappy girlfriends, and over time, he began to forget about Joan. The two had moved on to greener and brighter pastures… …but all it took was a glimpse of Joan for his warped obsession to re-emerge. Being born, raised and educated within streets of each other, a brief interaction by chance was bound to happen, but whereas Joan only harboured feelings of revulsion and fear, for Tony, he wasn’t filled with a need to seek her forgiveness for his actions, or rekindle their love, he wanted to possess her. In February 1994, neighbours spotted him hanging around her parent’s home in Acton, spying through the window, and – as a truly sad and pathetic man with nothing better to do – again, he followed her. Knowing that any contact would give him hope that their relationship might be rekindled, Joan had considered taking out an injunction against him, but again, she hoped that by ignoring him that he’d eventually get bored and leave. Only the more she ignored him, the more obsessive he became. By the autumn of 1994, his obsession was consuming his life. In his flat on Fermoy Road, police would later find a homemade listening device so he could eavesdrop on her telephone conversations, a body heat detector so he could tell if she was in and what she was doing even if her curtains were shut, and not only had he listened into her bedroom at night, also, he had spied on her as she got undressed. By the end of October 1994, Joan left her parent’s home in Acton and moved into her own basement flat on a quiet leafy street at 13 Ordnance Hill in St John’s Wood. Desperate to keep herself safe, she made her home phone number ex-directory, and she only shared her address with a chosen few. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find her, but his twisted persistence knew no bounds. Calling every hospital and discovering that she was working at the Royal Free Hospital in Belsize Park, on one occasion, he called the switchboard 10 times to find out if she was on shift. In conversations with his friends, he denied being obsessed with her, even though she was the only thing on his mind. And he resorted to sending letters to her mother to find out where she lived, but no-one would speak. He was obsessed (not with Joan but) by the fact that he couldn’t possess and control her, and as this object of his desire vanished into thin air, far from his grasp, the more this made him need to seek her. At the trial, he could claim that “I had no meaningful contact with her since we stopped dating”… …only somehow, he had found out where she was living, and soon, she would be dead. By the November of 1994, Joan was staying with film producer Anthony Henry in Bolton having met him on a flight back from LA, and across the month, she worked as a locum in Southport. He knew she wasn’t in her basement flat at 13 Ordnance Hill, as from the corner of Acacia Road and St John’s Wood Terrace, he spent many evenings and nights watching her unlit unoccupied home for signs of life. Knowing almost nothing about her friends, her career, her plans and her boyfriends drove him wild, and whether someone let slip or he had scrabbled for scraps of details by going through her bins, it’s uncertain how he knew that Joan was leaving for Los Angeles on the Boxing Day of 1994, but he did. Before the start of the next part of her career at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, Joan had planned to take a month-long break with her sisters in California, but as Tony’s paranoid brain leaped to the illogical conclusion that she was leaving Britain, although she had only just moved into the flat, he believed that he had to act now… …or he would lose her forever. (cliffhanger). Sunday 25th of December 1994 was a typically cold wet Christmas Day. As planned, Joan spent it at her parent’s home in Acton, they shared presents, as a gifted pianist she entertained them with a rendition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it was fun, it was calm, and there were no dramas. Joan chatted on the phone to her sister Margrette, who said “see you tomorrow”. Only tomorrow never came. Having kissed her mother goodbye, Joan headed back to her basement flat on Ordnance Hill. With her flight to LA leaving the next day at 2pm, having pre-arranged to see her parents at 10am, she had a lot to get done that night. So dressed in her knickers and a red t-shirt with the words ‘Beverly Hills, California’ upon it, she finished packing and - planning to be away for a month - she cleaned the flat. That night, being full of festive cheer, Joan’s only distraction was the weather, as with the rain soaking the street, and the dark clouds hanging low, the gales were looming which risked a delay to her flight. Inside her flat, lost in her own thoughts, Joan vacuumed the carpet… …unaware that, through the window, someone was watching her. Monday 26th of December 1994, Boxing Day. Not a flake of snow had settled, but as a sodden gloom hung over the city, thankfully the predicted 70 mile-an-hour winds had missed West London, and with only minor delays at Heathrow Airport, none of the planes to LA had been cancelled, including Joan’s. Only it was a flight which Joan would never catch. Her mother realised that something was wrong when she failed to arrive at her house, and then, when her home phone just rang and rang and rang. At 1pm, growing concerned, Police broke in via the locked front door, and at the foot of the stairs, her body was found. When questioned, not one neighbour had heard a sound as their new resident was murdered, as few knew her name or the circumstances which had plagued her for the last few months. With the front door locked from inside and the back door left open, Detective Superintendent Phillip Bebbe initially believed that it may have been a burglary which had gone wrong, but what baffled him was that no cupboards were opened, no drawers had been ransacked, nothing had been taken, and although Joan was only dressed in a knickers and a red t-shirt, there no evidence of a sexual assault. Somehow her killer had got in, and with footprints across the back garden implying that was how he’d fled, it was likely that Joan had opened the front door to him, suggesting that maybe she knew him. At some point, the two had a confrontation. At some point, a violent struggle had ensued. At some point, knowing they were never to be, he had pummelled her face with his fists, as if to say ‘if I can’t have you, then no other man can’. And in the ultimate act of possession, at some point, wrapping the vacuum cleaner cord around her neck, he choked the last breath from her lungs, and ended her life. The last thing she’d have seen was the eyes of the man who claimed “I wasn’t that keen on her”. With no fingerprints found at the scene and no witnesses to the incident, the police were at a loss. Eight years earlier, DNA fingerprinting had been successfully used to solve a crime, so although it was still in its infancy, Joan’s knickers and t-shirt were sent to forensic expert Dr Ann Priston for analysis. Being fresh on, the t-shirt was clean. Several sections were tested, but they only matched Joan’s DNA, and with three tiny specks of blood on the inside believed to have dripped from a wound to her mouth, even the latest innovations of forensic science couldn’t find a trace of the man who murdered Joan. Or it would have done, if a cruel assumption hadn’t been made. Joan’s family believed there was only one suspect, Tony Diedrick, Joan’s ex-boyfriend and her stalker. A few days after her murder, he was arrested and questioned at length. He denied knowing where she lived, but the police knew he was lying. He gave an alibi as to where he was that night, but the police had 19 witnesses who saw him loitering outside of her flat that night. And although his statement was littered with lies, the evidence against him was circumstantial; no-one saw him knock, no-one saw him enter, and with no fingerprints, witnesses or DNA, they couldn’t prove that he had been in her flat. Ten months later, after an exhaustive investigation and endless false leads and dead ends, the inquest declared that Joan had been ‘unlawfully killed’, but the coroner Dr Paul Knapman stressed that “more evidence was crucial in order to catch the killer… and if found, it’s likely a person could be charged”. Everyone associated with the case knew that Anthony Diedrick was the culprit, from the police to the family to the coroner, but the definitive proof was missing. After the inquest, even Detective Inspector Michael Bennett said “Everyone on the inquiry is 100 per cent certain they know who the killer is”. But with no new evidence, the investigation stalled. And yet, still, her loved one’s fought on. As a close-knit family, still grieving from their loss and seething that the only suspect was living his life and walking around having (literally) got away with murder, Joan’s sister Margrette would state “the police are supposed to bring criminals to justice and nothing was happening, but justice had to take place, so it meant I had to do something. That was the scariest part. At some point I realised something had to be done and”, as a lawyer “I was the only one who could do it. I couldn't depend on the police". Seeing a programme on the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence in Plumstead, Margrette hired Caron Thatcher, one of the lawyers in the case, and in March 1998, they took the evidence to a civil trial. Unlike in a criminal trial, the standard of proof at a civil trial is lower, therefore it didn’t require new evidence to be presented. Across the two-week hearing in March 1998, this was an unprecedented case in which (for the first time) someone was to be sued for a murder they hadn’t been charged with. Forced to relive the trauma, seeing the crime scene photos containing her daughter’s strangled body, Venus said "she must have called out for me and I wasn't there to help her. She was lying on the floor with that vacuum cleaner cord around her neck, she must have been pleading and crying out". Not being legally bound to attend the hearing, the accused (Tony Diedrick) gave no evidence, at which the judge said “I find it incredible that he would not seize the opportunity to declare his innocence”. And although, maybe it was his arrogance which compelled him not to… …that was also part of his undoing and the beginning of the end. On the 24th of March 1998, Joan’s family made legal history when they successfully sued her alleged killer. Awarded £50,000 in damages plus £17,000 in funeral costs, the money wasn’t the victory, but the fact that – after the Crown Prosecution Service had refused to prosecute him owing to insufficient evidence - a High Court Judge “was satisfied on the balance of probabilities” that Diedrick had stalked and harassed her, that he had no alibi for the day of the murder, that he was watching her that night, and “believing she was about to set off for America, he entered her home… struck and strangled her”. The judge decreed "I consider those factors make it a very strong prima facia case. This is a dreadful judgment to have to pass on any man... but I find the assault and battery alleged, in effect the murder, to have been proved". Anthony Diedrick had been successfully sued in a court of law for damages. They had won the civil case… but the criminal case would be a very different matter. In a criminal trial, you have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not based on the balance of probability, so having re-examined the evidence put forward at the civil trial, on the 16th May 1998, the Crown Prosecution Service said that “as no new evidence was forthcoming, the original decision not to prosecute stood”. Rightly, Joan’s mother was furious, stating “I can’t find words to express my anger and dissatisfaction. I am utterly disgusted and disappointed with the CPS for thinking so little of the life of a human being. We will fight on until Joan's killer has been put behind bars and justice is seen to have been done". That month, with the Met Police being embroiled in a racism row over Stephen Lawrence’s murder, the family met Met’ Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon and he ordered a fresh investigation in her murder, and (four years on, with new advances in DNA testing) that the evidence was re-examined. Re-submitted to the forensic expert Dr Ann Priston for analysis, the same red t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Beverly Hills, California’ was tested. But this time, a crucial piece of information was given. At the time of the murder, Joan was wearing the t-shirt inside out. Therefore the three tiny, almost pin prick sized specks of blood which were found on the inside and were mistakenly believed to have dripped from her bleeding mouth, were actually on the outside of the t-shirt. Using a more advanced DNA test which hadn’t been available in 1994, the blood around the neck was proven to be Joan’s, but the three tiny specks of blood had to belong to her killer. Arrested on the 15th January 1999, held at Marylebone Police Station, blood samples were taken, and Tony Diedrick was proven to be the murderer of Dr Joan Fransisco. When asked - if he hadn’t seen her since 1989 and her t-shirt had been washed hundreds of times in the six years since – to explain how her t-shirt contained traces of his blood on the day she was murdered? He said “I don’t know”… …and yet, the only possible conclusion was that he was her murderer. (End) In a three-week trial, held at the Old Bailey, in late September and early October 1999, Tony Diedrick pleaded not guilty to murder. With both the defence and prosecution in agreement that the three tiny specks of blood on her shirt was his, there was only a 1 in 170 million chance that the DNA wasn’t his. But still he tried to plead his innocence, denying that he was obsessed with her, claiming "I did not set out to do it" but also stating "I can't explain why I did it", which made Joan’s family worry that (still with no proof that he had been in her flat) he could still be acquitted, and again, he could walk free. With the jury deliberating for four hours, on the 12th of October 1999, a cry rang out in Court Room 2 when the verdict was read: “on the charge of murder, how do you find the accused?”, (pause) “guilty”. After almost five years, a coroner’s inquest, a civil trial, CPS battles, a failed investigation and a forensic test which was fatally floored, Joan’s family had done the unthinkable and successfully brought their loved one’s killer to justice, when everything else had failed and everyone else had given up. Anthony Diedrick was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum 15 years before parole is considered, during which, as an arrogant man, he accused Joan’s family of lying. He was due for release in 2014. Summing up, Mr Justice Hallett said "You claim to have loved her. I am not convinced you know the meaning of the word. You were obsessed with her, but you could not have her. You stalked her in a mean and despicable way, knowing that if she knew what you were up to, she would be terrified". Of Joan’s family, the judge praised their dignity and determination. And feeling that they could finally put Joan to rest, in her honour, they set up a foundation in Joan's memory to train black doctors. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
West Kensington Mansions - copyright Aug 2022 @GoogleMap2024
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN: At 8:30am on Monday 12th of November 1923, in the nursery of Flat 1 of West Kensington Mansions in Fulham, the bodies of Sonia Katzman aged four, and her 10 month old sister Jean were found, along side their nursemaid Dora Sadler. Dora loved Sonia, but did she love her too much?
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 North End Road in Fulham, W14; four streets west of the tragedy of Mr & Mrs Park, three streets north-east of Lyn, Jan & him, a tube stop south of killing of a super spy, and one street north of the terrorist who forgot who he had planned to blow up - coming soon to Murder Mile. A short walk from Fulham Broadway sits West Kensington Mansions, a seven-storey red-brick mansion block containing close to eighty mid-Victorian flats. For more than a century, every neighbour has had to endure each other’s noise; whether the grating wailing of ungrateful brats, the rutting of amorous newly-weds, the daily bellowing of “I hate you” as love leaps to loathing as the honeymoon goes from hell to “Oh! Hello!”, with walls so thin, when the loo flushes you can hear what your neighbour’s eaten. One sweet detail is that the old signage still lingers over each entrance, telling you which flat is where. But what it doesn’t tell you are the terrible tales of what happened beyond those front doors. Back in 1923, Flat 1, a basement flat on the north-west corner was the home of Mr & Mrs Katzman, a middle-class couple with two young daughters. Keen to provide full time care for Sonia aged four and Jean aged just 10 months, they hired a nursemaid who loved their children… but maybe too much? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 257: “Passionately fond of Sonia”. Love can be as destructive as hate… which the Katzman’s were unaware of. Born in 1894, as a boy, Benjamin Katzman was one of hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews who fled the pogroms, carrying only what they could carry and taking with them only those who might survive. Arriving in England, a place of freedom and seemingly less persecution than in his homeland, although an outsider, like so many, he’d use his skills as a milliner to make a better life for himself and his family. Like many good men, having built a prosperous business, he set his sights on marrying a good woman and was instantly smitten with Rebecca Specterman. Born in Spitalfields, as a British born Jew (who like Ben) spoke Yiddish, Bessie & Ben made a perfect partnership and soon marriage was on the cards. Living just a decade after the Victorian era, they were a remarkably progressive couple, as not only did Ben run a fashionable hat shop, but so did Bessie, with hers being on the same street as their basement flat at West Kensington Mansions. But when it came to marriage, they were a very traditional couple. Married in October 1915 in Whitechapel, Rebecca Specterman became Mrs Bessie Katzman. To keep their flat clean, to iron their clothes and to make meals for this busy couple, they hired a housemaid called Minnie, and discovering she was pregnant at the start of 1919, Bessie also sought a nursemaid. In August 1919, Bessie & Ben welcomed into the world their first born - Sonia Sarah Katzman, a sweet girl with fairish brown hair and apple blossom cheeks who was the spitting image of her parents. She was healthy and well, happy and joyous, and blessed with a loving family, her life would be good. With Bessie working fulltime, just days after the birth, she went to Hunt’s Registry Office seeking a nursemaid. And although Bessie said “I did not receive a good reference for her”, she liked her, they got on well, and by all accounts, they’d struck gold, as the nursemaid clearly loved her daughter Sonia… …but did she love her too much? Born on 21st of May 1886 in Queens Park, West London, Dora Sadler was one of five sisters and four brothers to Mary, a housewife and George, a stationmaster. As the eldest, Dora saw herself as another mother to her younger siblings, especially in 1907, when Vera, the last of the family’s brood was born. As a button-nosed child, Dora adored Vera, so it was no surprise (given the era) that with limited options, Dora became a nursemaid with her livelihood devoted to caring for children. So, it’s tragic in a way that someone so loving and devoted to the welfare of the most vulnerable, would never marry, had no known lover, and never had a child of her own. But maybe that was part of the problem? Something was wrong with Dora, it always had been, according to her family. On the surface, she was the epitome of a professional nursemaid; polite, wholesome and cheerful. If a child in her care cried, she knew exactly the song to sing, and how to soothe them back to sleep. But being prone to mood swings, although fervently sober and never a drinker, this “passionately loving person” was said by those who knew her to be “erratic”, “quarrelsome”, “moody” and “possessive”. Her younger sister Mae described how “she would get into a violent temper over nothing, only to then come back a week later as if nothing had happened”. Fuelled by emotions rather than logic, aged 17, having blown up into a petulant rage over something said to be trivial, she swallowed a bottle of spirits of salts (a caustic cleaner made of hydrochloric acid) which burned the insides of her throat. Surviving, in 1911, she worked for Mr & Mrs Salomon, a Jewish couple in Hampstead. From 1912 to 1915, for Dr & Mrs Rawlence of Southampton, who later stated “we had to dismiss her on the grounds of insanity”, and although they didn’t elaborate, both being doctors “it was our opinion that she was insane”. And in 1916, struggling with insomnia, she was sacked as a nursemaid in Selsey “owing to her violent temper and her abnormal jealousy”, which – again - resulted in a failed suicide attempt. By the August of 1919, having worked in Sloane Square, Dora Sadler became the Katzman’s nursemaid, who described her as “loyal, loving, devoted to our child”. In short, they couldn’t have asked for more. Working from 8am to 8pm, her diligence ensured that Bessie & Ben could run their businesses, then return home to a child who was clean, well-fed, healthy and happy. Across the next three years, Dora proved to be a blessing for the Katzman’s, then in January 1923, their second daughter was born. Her name was Jean, and like her older sister, even though she would always have a stronger bond with Sonia, Dora adored Jean as if she was her own child, being at her beck-and-call whenever she cried. If she’d had children of her own, Dora would have been a wonderful mother, as she was patient, calm and caring. But – again - that was part of the problem, that she wasn’t the mother of these children. And when it came to sharing the children who she saw as her own with their real mother… …Dora’s jealousy shone through. Following Jean’s birth, Bessie made the decision to shut-up her hat shop and become a full-time mum. But after three years of caring for Sonia, and now sleeping in the nursery to give Jean her night feeds, Dora loved the children with all her heart, but in equal measure, she hated Bessie with all her soul. Bessie said “during the years I engaged her, she looked after Sonia and Jean well from the time they were born, but she wouldn’t allow me to advise her, or even to be a mother to my own children”. She found Dora to be “a perfectly sane person who always acted in rational ways”, but as Dora disliked Bessie being in what she saw as her home, she began to treat her like an unwelcome stranger. For the first time, “Dora became quarrelsome over the silliest of things”, getting upset, then quickly calming. Struggling to find a housemaid who could cope with Dora’s temper, since Jean’s birth, several had quit and by the November of 1923, even the ever-reliable Millie had needed to take a week-long holiday, so with no housemaid there, Dora had to do those jobs too, which she resented. At around the same time, Dora stopped going home to see her siblings, saying the three-mile journey was “too great for the children”, and so, from that moment on, she slept beside them in the nursery. Dora’s behaviour was irrational and inconsistent, so it’s hard to tell if her hatred of Bessie was jealousy. In those final months, Dora was heard expressing her hatred of Jews, which was odd, as almost all of her former employers were Jewish, and she had never spoken any antisemitic words in their presence. But like a darkly familiar presence which had plagued her teenage years, and possibly the later stages of her previous employments before she was dismissed, a deep depression had crept back in, and with Dora having uninterrupted access to the children, day and night, Bessie would say “she tried to turn Sonia against me, and in consequence, Sonia did not show me the love a mother would expect”. A cloud hung low over the flat at West Kensington Mansions. Dora wasn’t cruel, just sullen. She wasn’t violent, just dismissive. And although for the third time, a few months before, Dora had threatened to take her own life, telling her friend Edith Jones “I am fed up. I will put my head in a gas oven”… …this wouldn’t be her only threat. That summer, Ralph, Bessie’s brother had bumped into Dora outside of the West Kensington Cinema. Seeing both Sonia & Jean looking so neat, he remarked “oh my, don’t the children look lovely… like father and mother”. Seeing a black look creep over Dora’s face, she glared “if I thought they would look like either of them, I’d do them in”, meaning to kill them, “because I am sorry they are Jews”. Being Jewish himself, he told his sister Golda, but always seeing Dora as a kindly woman who only had the best interests of the children at heart, “I did not take any notice of this. I did not take it seriously”. It could be a coincidence, but around the same time that Dora began to mentally decline, Vera, the baby sister who she doted on, collapsed in the street dying of an abscess of the brain, aged just 17. Her middle sister Mae said, “this seemed to affect Dora terribly” and left her with an ache in her heart. In an odd sort of way, Vera was like her own child… …but was this loss the trigger that led to Dora’s suicide, and a double murder? (Cliffhanger) By the October, growing ever more exacerbated with her nursemaid’s disobedience, Bessie dismissed Dora, but having said that she wouldn’t go as “Sonia would fret”, Bessie believed her and she was kept on. Dora wasn’t bad, she was a great nursemaid who the children loved, but she disliked Bessie. The coroner would later state “when the mother asked her to leave, this appeared intolerable to her unbalanced mind. A blind, jealous hatred dominated her to the exclusion of any other feeling”. For some nursemaids, this would just have been a job. But for Dora, this was her life and her children. Sunday 11th November 1923 began like any other day. At 7am, Dora awoke. Letting Jean sleep a little longer in her cot, so the wailing didn’t wake her parents, she rolled over and softly roused Sonia, as when the children had a fitful night, she slept beside them. Turning the gas fire up to warm the brightly coloured nursery, she washed, she dressed, and she made the children presentable, as the Katzman’s agreed “there was no disagreement during the morning”. At around 1pm, Ben & Bessie, Sonia & Jean, along with Dora walked three streets north-east to Queens Club Gardens and the home of Bessie’s sister, Golda, where they ate a brisket, roast potatoes and a medley of vegetables, and although Golda & Ben had wine, Dora had water and Bessie had lemonade. Later questioned, Golda said “during the meal, there was no ill feeling between of Bessie and Dora”. By 2pm, with their bellies groaning, the Katzman’s and Golda retired to the drawing room, slumped into armchairs and loosened a button or two, as Dora laid baby Jean down for her mid-afternoon nap on the sofa, and Sonia sat beside her. It was a replay of many other lunches they’d spent at Golda’s. The incident started over something so trivial, and so typical of a child, that it almost went unnoticed. “Sonia”, Bessie said tapping her leg, “come and sit on mummy’s knee”. It being a simple request that any mother would make to her own child, only Sonia shook her head. “Sonia, I said come here” Bessie retorted, only the more she demanded, the more the four-year-old cuddled closer into Dora’s arm. Feeling spurned, ashamed at her own child’s snub occurring in front of her sister, and sensing that the nursemaid (her hired help) had poisoned her own child against her, Bessie barked “if you don’t sit on my knee, I will smack you”. Not expecting Dora to bark back “if you smack her, I will smack you”, without waiting for a rebuke, Dora marched across the room and punched Bessie hard on the mouth. The shock of the assault stung as sharply as the thump itself, as Dora had never raised a hand to her employer before, and especially not in front of the children. Being so flabbergasted, Bessie couldn’t even speak, and not wanting to make a scene, Ben said nothing. With Dora unwilling to apologise or explain her actions, with the children crying, she popped on their warm coats and walked them home. The decision had been made, “she must leave our employment immediately”, Bessie demanded… …only Dora had already decided how and when she was going to leave. At 5pm, before the last post was collected, Dora sent a handwritten letter to her friend, Edith Jones. It read “my dear Edith. I don’t know how to write this, but when you get it, I shall be no more. I am taking my darling Sonia with me. I know she won’t be happy here without me, you know her mother. If you had seen the way she had carried on with Sonia, you will understand. I am not tired of life, but I cannot leave Sonia, and this is the only way I can have her. Don’t be upset. Goodbye dear, try to forgive me. I don’t want to take Jean, but I cannot put her outside – Nannie”. The letter would arrive early the next morning, but by then, it was too late to stop her. At 6:40pm, the Katzman’s arrived back at West Kensington Mansions in a foul mood. In the nursery, baby Jean was fast asleep, but Sonia was awake and restless. Her mother tried to calm her, but with her malleable mind having been polluted by the words of a nursemaid with an axe to grind, Sonia said “I don’t like you, mummy. I like nanny better”, which stung like the smack which smarted her cheeks. By 7:20pm, enough was enough. With Ben, again not wanting to make a scene, as firmly as he could put it, he ordered Dora “you must go tomorrow, and that is final”, and although Dora refused shouting “I will not go until you get another nurse” as her priority – supposedly – was the children’s welfare, Bessie barged in, and stamping her foot demanded “no, pack your things, you must go now” - she did not want that woman in her house. The fight went on, as all three sides sank into a stalemate of the best way to end Dora’s employment; Bessie wanted her out now, Dora refused to leave without a nurse to mind the children, and Ben was willing to wait until the morning to resolve this, as they had a prior dinner date with his brother, John. It ended in a semi-palatable concession; in the morning, Dora would be dismissed and given two weeks pay in lieu, and Jean & Sonia would be taken to Golda’s while Bessie hired a new nurse. But that night, with the Katzman’s heading out to dinner, they would leave their two daughters alone with Dora. At 8pm, having insisted that Dora pack her bags that night, the Katzman’s kissed their baby’s goodnight and left, knowing that their treasured tots were in the capable hands of a nursemaid who loved them… …but loved one of them, a little too much. At 12:30am, their taxi pulled up outside of West Kensington Mansions. Peeping over the railings, from the entrance, they could see that the nursery lights were off (as usual) and that the window was shut (which wasn’t), but with a cold damp fog having descended that night, they didn’t see it as suspicious. Inside Flat 1, all was quiet, which for any parent is a blessing and a curse. When asked “did you suspect anything wrong?” Ben said “no, nothing at all”. As with Dora’s bed empty and the nursery door locked, it wasn’t odd for the woman who nursed their babies since birth to sleep by their sides on a fitful night, so not wishing to sully their sweet dreams, the Katzman’s thought no more of it, and went to bed. (Silence, snoring, no other sounds until dawn). Monday 12th of November 1923 was to be a difficult day, as following Dora’s dismissal, a new nurse would need to be found, one who the children would adore, but it would be a fresh start for all. It was the unusual silence which first woke Ben & Bessie, as by 8:15am, no-one was stirring. Softly, for fear of awaking his sleeping babies, Ben knocked “nurse?”, only Dora did not reply. He knocked again, “nurse?”, but still he heard nothing, not the creak of a bedspring nor the sounds of a child’s yawn. Worried, he went round to the front, only he couldn’t see in as the curtains were drawn. “Nurse?”, he asserted as his knuckles hammered harshly with the aim that someone would rouse, only no-one did. It was then, with the aid of a workman, that he slipped the latch of the window, and got in. Inside, it was dark and cold, as in the air, a sulphurous odour permeated the room and made Ben gag. Choking on this noxious air which made him retch, between the cot Jean was sleeping in and the bed both Sonia and Dora were curled up on, he spotted a flexible rubber hose which hissed like a serpent. The fire was off, but with the ring having been deliberately pulled away and hose within inches of the baby’s noses, several hours earlier, a strong flow of gas had rendered them all unconscious. Aged just 10 months, Jean was still warm to the touch when Ben picked her up, and although her little pink body gave the appearance of life, as her chubby little arms and legs hung limply, their cherry-red hue gave a hideous clue that carbon monoxide had killed her. With no bruises, a pathologist deduced that she had died peacefully in her sleep, unlike her sister Sonia, who had died in a state of panic. With it determined that the gas tap had been switched on at about 5am, although her body showed no signs of force, Sonia had died quickly, as in her final death throws, she’d taken great gulps of gas. Choking and convulsing as every lungful hurt, writhing in pain, the tiny tot had clenched in her fist a handful of her own hair, having ripped a clump from her own head as the gas made her organs seize. Both children were dead. To his wife, Ben shouted “Bessie, the nurse, she’s killed the children”, and as the hysterical mother (who had fought through hours of labour) held her dead babies to her chest, her pain echoed the room with a heartbreaking wail as everything she had loved had been taken. Two doctors tried their best to resuscitate the little limp sisters, but it was all in vain. Lying next to Sonia, her beloved Sonia, lay the nurse. Dressed in her nightdress, Dora’s skin was the same cherry red hue of the children she had murdered. Motionless, a drying foam still frothed about her lips as (during the night) she too had writhed in pain… and yet, in all irony, Dora wasn’t quite dead. Rushed in an ambulance to Fulham Infirmary, it took almost a month for Dora to make a recovery. The investigation headed up by Detective Inspector John Hedley was short and swift, as having taken statements from Golda, Ben and Bessie, the gas pipe had Dora’s fingerprints on it, as did the door key, and on the mantlepiece she had also left a handwritten letter, which bluntly read “I am taking them both. I will not leave my Sonia to the creature she calls mother”, and it was signed, “Dora Sadler”. It was a moot point to such a tragic case, but while recovering in hospital, Dora gave a full confession to WPC Waite, and being deemed ‘sane’, on the 10th of December, she was charged with the murders of 4-year-old Sonia Katzman, her 10-month-old sister Jean and the attempted suicide of herself. (End) Assessed at Holloway Prison, she showed signs of petit mal seizures, an ovarian cyst proved to be benign, and although depressed, with no signs of delusions or hallucinations, the doctor decreed “I am of the opinion that she is mentally subnormal as shown by her violent temper, her threats, attempts at suicide, and her absence of remorse. I am of the opinion that at the time of the offence she was not insane, that she is now not insane, and that she is fit to plead and to instruct counsel”. With the trial delayed until she had fully recovered from the effects of the gas, on the 16th of January 1924, 37-year-old Dora Sadler was tried at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Greer. With no dispute with regard to the fact that she had murdered both children, the defence went for an insanity plea (as supported by the medical officer at Fulham Infirmary), while the prosecution reiterated, she was sane. With the jury deliberating for 23 minutes, the foreman declared a unanimous verdict of guilty of wilful murder, and with death being the prescribed punishment, they made no recommendation for mercy. It was plain and simple, as had happened at her other employments, Dora was jealous of the mother. Sentenced to death by hanging on 21st of February 1924, the Home Secretary commuted her sentence to life in prison, and having served her time, she died in 1961, and was buried in West Thurrock. With Sonia & Jean Katzman buried at Willesden United Synagogue Cemetery, although still grieving, on 28th October 1924 – bringing a little joy to their 52 years of marriage - Ben & Bessie welcome into the world a son called Henry Aubrey Katzman. He was healthy, happy, loved and protected, but unlike the sisters he never knew, he would live to the grand old age of 97, and only passed away in 2021. 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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