Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR: Saturday the 12th of April 1958, two men – 60-year-old Isaiah Dixon and 32-year-old Matthew Kavanagh – returned to their boarding house at 11 Hillmorton Road in Rugby. Kavanagh strangled Dixon with his own tie, stole 34 10s from his pockets, went shopping, and confessed to his murder. But then in court, he denied murder, and used an alibi which had got many 1950s killers off a murder charge.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m still in Rugby, Warwickshire, to explore an alibi to a murder, so baffling, yet it’s still being used today. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 354: The Strangler’s Excuse. Saturday the 12th of April 1958, mid-afternoon, Rugby town centre. Among the bustling market stalls, and down a tight network of old alleys, two men stagger. They giggle and guffaw, tottering unsteadily on their feet after a boozy session in some of the neighbouring pubs. To any passer-by, they seemed like a father and son, as with 60-year-old Isaiah Dixon, slim but slightly greying, and 32-year-old Matthew Kavanagh, similar in size and shape, their differing accents made it unmistakable that these were friends, as Isaiah had the soft drawl of a Cheshire accent, and coming from County Meath in Ireland, between Dublin and Belfast, Kavanagh’s was lyrical and sounded rural. As lodgers, they had only known each other for a few weeks at best, but living in a four-storey boarding house at nearby 11 Hillmorton Road, their rooms were so basic (a single bed, a wardrobe, a side table, a wash stand, and very little else), they often chatted while waiting outside of the shared bathroom or cooking in the communal kitchen, and living in close quarters, this made many of them firm friends. Across that boozy afternoon, the two new pals sauntered into several pubs, whether The Squirrell Inn on Church Street, The Old King’s Arms on Market Street and The New Inn on Regent Street, and even if they seemed a little worse for wear, with rosy cheeks and slurred words, they weren’t rude or rowdy. Isaiah Dixon was born on the 18th of May 1897 in the town of Sale, Cheshire in the north-west of England, where he lived for the first half of his life in the family’s home, a simple two-storey terraced house at 19 Northenden Road. Usually reserved for the first born boy, it may seem odd that being the last of four brothers, that he would be named after his father, but dying on the 19th of February 1897, when his mother, Annie, was six months pregnant, Isaiah Dixon Junior would never met his father. Remaining fatherless as Annie never remarried, by 1901, the boys - Harold aged 13, George 12, Frank 8 and Isaiah aged 3 - would all be raised healthy, educated and instilled with an ethic of hard work. When World War One broke out, wisely one year before, Harold had emigrated far from the European conflicts having moved to Queensland, Australia, but Isaiah enlisted as a Private in the East Lancashire regiment. Serving at home, he was discharged from the Army in November 1918, like all soldiers he was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal, and as a skilled labourer and erector of towers, walls and structures for our homeland’s defence, this may be where he got his love of engineering. By 1921, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Frank, who was an insurance inspector, Isaiah was a fire insurance clerk for the British Law Insurance Company in Manchester, but being too old to be conscripted by the Second World War, still being physically fit and a lot stronger than men half his age, Isaiah served his country working as a ‘stall erector’, assembling the engine cowlings on bombers. Isaiah accomplished a lot across his years, he rarely took a day off, and (unlike so many) he never used sickness as an excuse not to be busy and productive. But one side of his life was lacking. He was never married or had children, and for whatever reason, prior to the death of his mother in February 1933, he lost all contact with his brothers for the next 30 years, so a work colleague would identify his body. By 1958, the year of his death, Isaiah was working as a clerical officer at RMS, the Government radio measuring station at Pailton, 5 miles northwest of Rugby, which was once the largest transmitting facility in the world, which tested and calibrated the strength of aviation and navigation systems. He was described as first class, and having had just one day off that year, he was letting off a bit of stream. In the pub, the two men continued drinking, as what else is there to do on a weekend? They chatted about nuclear weapons as the Cold War hotted up, and with Isaiah swigging back eight and a half pints, Kavanagh drank a similar amount but never paid a penny, as he was unemployed and broke. It was Isaiah’s treat, as if you can’t help a pal, what’s the point, and it meant he wasn’t drinking alone. As for Matthew Kavanagh, we know a lot less about him Born on the 7th of September 1910 in the rural village of Carlanstown in County Meath, Ireland, he too was one of four siblings, two girls (Bridget & Mary) and two boys (Daniel and himself) to Patrick & Julie Kavanagh. Likewise he was unmarried and childless, but lacking a specific skill or trade, sometime in the 1950s, he came to England looking for labour in the heartland of British Industry – Birmingham. In 1957, he was a power press operator in Small Heath, Birmingham, but having lost his job due to a criminal conviction for which he was acquitted, in 1958, he moved to Rugby, 30 miles away. On the 20th of February 1958 his mother died, and being unemployed, struggling to pay his rent, to buy food, and with his clothes looking shabby, on Saturday the 12th of April, Isaiah Dixon treated him to drinks. By early evening, being plastered, Isaiah needed Kavanagh to help him up the front door steps to their lodging house at 11 Hillmorton Road, and with no witnesses of any kind to what happened next… …we only have Kavanagh’s word. Giving a full verbal confession to the police, while still drunk and without a solicitor present, Kavanagh said “I told him, ‘come up and get your head down for a couple of hours and you’ll be all right’”. They went into Isaiah’s ground floor room, “He just pulled me down on top of him. He never spoke at all”. With Kavanagh being unsteady on his feet, he said he was just trying to make his pal more comfortable. “I grabbed his tie and slipped the knot out, and tried to get up again to walk out of his room”, making it seem like it was a drunken accident, but it was clear that this was not. With Kavanagh later admitting “I caught hold of the two parts of his tie and pulled it right across his neck until my wrist was practically dead. I didn’t know how long I held the tie tight. He looked very purple in the face, I thought he was done for”. But he didn’t call for help, instead he emptied his pockets of £4 and 18s (about £120 today). At the ensuing trial, R K Brown QC for the prosecution said “this was murder for money”, nothing less, as an hour after Isaiah’s killing, Kavanagh bragged to a lodger that he’d got a new job, and showed him the £4 in his hands. He later went to a shop to buy a new shirt, then at around 11pm, he headed to 11 miles west to Coventry, and on Far Gosford Street, he ordered some food in a late-night café. William Steele, the manager of a café spoke to him as he looked morose, and with Kavanagh still being drunk and his lips blathering freely as his brain was not in gear, he confessed “I am in trouble. I have killed a man”. But this wasn’t an accident, Kavanagh admitted “I thought I might take him for £1 or 10s. I helped him into his room. All the time he was making a fuss of me. I did not know what I was doing, and I strangled him with his own tie. I went through his pockets and took £4 and some silver”. The manager convinced Kavanagh to call the police. At 11:50pm, Kavanagh told the dispatcher “Send a car to Hillmorton Road. There has been serious trouble", and with the dispatcher not believing him as he was drunk, the manager took over, and when the police arrived, Kavanagh just sat there, quietly. The body of Isaiah Dixon was found at 12:35am. He was lying on his bed, partially clothed, his pockets were empty, and his black tie was wound but not knotted around his neck. Pathologist, Dr Frederick E D Griffiths of the West Midlands Forensics Laboratory performed an autopsy of the body. Isaiah Dixon was deemed physically fit for his age, he had no disease or sickness except for mild hypertension, and with “the neck-tie being the means and cause… he died of strangulation, with no evidence of assault”. The investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Woodward was short and perfunctory, as they had a dead body, a murder weapon, fingerprints, and a confession by the killer himself. At 7:45am on Sunday 13th of April, just a few hours later, Kavanagh was formally charged with murder in the furtherance of theft. He replied “I understand”, he then made a full confession, and with that he was as good as dead. Mathhew Kavanagh was on a one way trip to the hangman’s noose… …until this strangler put forward a very plausible excuse. It was known as Vagal Inhibition. Originating in the lower brainstem, the vagus nerve is our longest cranial nerve. It exits the skull at the neck, splits into two branches, travels through the chest and abdomen, innervates our vital organs like the heart, lungs and stomach, counteracting the fight-or-flight responses and sending signals when to rest or digest. Body functions, such as the heart beat or blood flow are regulated by the vagus nerve. When the vagus nerve is stimulated, it releases a neurotransmitter to slow the heart, drop the blood pressure, and can be triggered by shock, injury and emotional stress, as well as dehydration, extremes in temperature, certain foods, drugs and alcohol, as well as prolonged standing and even coughing. It causes swift fainting spells, and is incredibly common; with 40% of the world’s population having recurring spells of vasovagal fainting in their lifetime, especially if they’re young, or in their later years. Common symptoms prior to fainting often includes dizziness, blurred vision, sweating and nausea, but in rare cases, the vagal response can be exaggerated, as when pressure is applied to the carotid artery in the neck, this excessive reflex can cause the heart to beat dangerously slow, and even stop instantly. These are just a few of the hundreds of examples of vagal inhibition from 1950s Britain. 21st of July 1950. It was reported that 25-year-old, Royston McDonald of Fulham headed to the Butlin’s holiday camp in Clacton, he was feeling good as over the last 12 months he had lost 3 stone in weight. The day was hot, but as he entered the cold pool, the extreme temperatures caused a vagal inhibition, and with his heart stopping instantly owing to the shock, he was found dead at the bottom of the pool. 23rd of April 1958. 12-year-old schoolgirl Brenda Holt of Washwood Heath in Birmingham was walking her dog off-lead, when it rushed out into busy traffic and was almost ran over by a car. Luckily, it was unhurt. Brenda walked the dog home to fetch its lead, but when she got back, feeling pale and clammy, her mother recalled that she collapsed in a chair, dying instantly. Before that she was healthy and well. And 17th of October 1951. 14-year-old Brian Samson of Rochester got on the school bus having had a larger than usual breakfast, he collapsed while being seated, and died on route to the hospital. Cause of death was “vagal inhibition caused by the stimulations of a full stomach”, he wasn’t hit or tripped. Death due to an extreme reaction by the vagus nerve is more common than it sounds, it is accepted as a cause of death in a coroner’s court, and it was also a very popular murder defence in the 1950s. In 1952, six years before Isaiah Dixon’s death, 32-year-old Edmonton Arthur Pye of Aveley, Essex was upset that his wife, Mary was having an affair and planned to leave her husband and child. He admitted that during a heated row, “I put my hands round her throat to frighten her, and then it was all over, she was dead. I did not intend to hurt her, I was humiliated”, but being scared of what he had done, he admitted to strangling and burying her body in the garden, but was found not guilty of her murder. Dr Francis Camps, the pathologist stated “cause of death was manual strangulation, but she had died of vagal inhibition as soon as the grip was applied”, and with the injuries to her neck being too slight to have caused her murder, at Chelmsford Assizes, he was sentenced to 10 years for her manslaughter. In 1954, four years before Isaiah’s death, 25-year-old newly married factory-worker Lillian Joan Collins was heading to her home in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, when on a patch of waste ground, 19-year-old soldier Kenneth Causer grabbed her, and attempted to rape her. He claimed “I did not intend to kill her, I only intended to make love with her”, and in a contradictory statement, he recalled “I put my hand on her mouth to stop her screaming, she fainted when we were on the grass. I got frightened. I dragged her to the wall and left her because I thought she’d fainted and did not think she was dead”. Professor Webster, the pathologist, stated that she died of asphyxia caused by his hand being placed on her nose and mouth to stifle her screams, and vagal inhibition owing to the emotional shock. Found guilty of murder, he was sentenced to death, but reprieved on appeal, this was commuted to life. And at the time of the investigation into Isaiah’s death, 23-year-old Brian Candish of Kingsteignton in Devon was standing trial for the murder of his lover, Yvonne Hannaford, a married mother who had separated from her husband, but was planning to go back with him. The pathologist, Dr Warren stated that vagal inhibition was the cause of her death, but as he couldn’t determine if it was caused by blows or squeezing of the neck, Brian Candish was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to five years. It was an alibi which was causing a uproar across the 1950s by many victim’s families who felt that a case of wilful murder was being excused owing to a medical loophole, which was often unprovable… …so it seemed odd that this could be Matthew Kavanagh’s defence, but it was. Kavanagh would claim he didn’t intend to kill Isaiah, he was just helping him get undressed. That the theft was a mistake, and borne out of desperation. And that his earlier confessions were inadmissible, not only because (as was common in that era) a solicitor wasn’t present, but because he was drunk. Tried at Warwick Assizes, on the 2nd and 3rd of July 1958, Kavanagh pleaded ‘not guilty’ and offered no evidence in his defence. This seemed a smart move as ‘vagal inhibition’ had – for a decade – been impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, so his acquittal or manslaughter seemed a dead cert. Ironically, 47-year-old Enoch Puncus, one of the prosecution witnesses actually died by vagal inhibition while crossing the street, and with it not seen as suspicious, the coroner accepted this cause of death. But when pathologist, Dr Frederick Griffiths gave evidence, stating “the neck-tie was the means and the cause”, death was by “strangulation, with no evidence of assault” and with Isaiah’s neck being purple and bruised with a slight ligature mark, he concluded “death could not have been caused by vagal inhibition”, nor was he accidentally smothered by Kavanagh lying on his face or neck, as claimed. The jury deliberated for 40 minutes, and found guilty of murder, Kavanagh was sentenced to death. He appealed his sentence, but this was rejected. He asked for a reprieve, pleading to The Queen for clemency, but the Home Secretary found “no grounds to recommend that Her Majesty interfere with the due course of law”. And having been held at Winson Green Prison, on Tuesday the 12th of August 1958, at 9:30am, Kavanagh was hanged by executioner Harry Allen, and buried in the prison cemetery. The strangler’s excuse had failed… …but why did he think it would work? Born around Christmas in 1920, Evelyn Williams was the youngest of six siblings to Thomas, a colliery labourer and Gertrude, a housewife. Raised in the mining town of Bargoed, 16 miles north of Cardiff, for years this struggling family of eight was crammed into a small miner’s house at 13 Factory Road. With little prospects for their children, as although William was a boy, he was likely to follow his father into the pit, but unless the five sisters (Margaret, Isabella, Alice, Iris and Evelyn) got married and had children, opportunities were slim so many moved to where the work was in Coventry and Birmingham. In April 1944, at Cardiff Registry Office, Evelyn married Azim Ulla, a stoker in the Merchant Navy who had come to the UK from India. They lived for five years in Allerton Street in the Welsh capital, but in need of better wages, by 1950, they were living in a small flat at 174 Bordesley Park Road in Small Heath, South-East Birmingham. They had no children, and she earned a modest living in factory work. In 1954, they moved to 73 Longmore Street in Balsall Heath, a rundown inner-city area synonymous as a red-light district, and by the May of 1957, with the marriage not a happy one, they had separated. Around the same time, 37-year-old Evelyn Ulla had been dating a 31-year-old man for five weeks; he was a power press operator in a local factory who lived nearby on Charles Road, he had a Irish accent and although always broke, being prone to heavy drinking, he was said to be jealous with a temper. Catherine Cooper, one of Evelyn’s friends said “a fortnight before her death, we were all sitting in a pub when I heard him threaten to slice her up”, if Evelyn ever went out with other men, except him. His name was Matthew Kavanagh… and he was ten months away from murdering Isaiah Dixon. The summer of 1957 had been unusually hot and clammy, as with June being a month of back-to-back sunshine, temperatures had entered 30 degrees in places, which (back then) was considered extreme. On the Whitt weekend of Saturday 8th of June, Evelyn Ullah & Matthew Kavanagh headed out for some fun. After lunch, they lay in the sun. By afternoon, they went to The Luxor cinema on Balsall Heath Road to watch a film, possibly An Affair to Remember starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, they went to a few pubs, and getting the bus into Sheldon, they went to the Wheatsheaf pub on Coventry Road. It was their regular haunt, and Kavanagh admitted that he drank about ten pints. When ‘last orders’ was called, at 10:45pm, witnesses saw them leaving the Wheatsheaf together, but instead of getting the bus home or staggering back - with large swathes of Birmingham, like most cities in the decades since the blitz, still being riddled with bomb sites – they headed to the waste ground behind the pub, as being drunk and amorous, Kavanagh would claim “we went there to make love”. By then, the sun had set and with thick clouds causing the temperature to dip sharply, Kavanagh would later tell the Police, “she said she was cold, I took hold of the scarf she was wearing and pulled it tight… she didn’t speak or struggle in any way”, and with no intention to harm her, he said “she just went out like a light”. He denied strangling or attempting to kill her, he wanted her to be warm, and she fainted. With her body limp in his arms, he claimed that for ten minutes, he sat there, calling her name in panic and slapping her face, “but it was no good”. She was clammy and cooling, silent and motionless. Scared at what he may have done, he placed her under an oak tree amidst the long grass, folded her arms as if she was sleeping, and headed back to his lodgings in Small Heath, where he said, “I didn’t sleep”. The next day, Whitt Sunday, when the nearby churches would have been busy, Kavanagh returned to the waste ground, and her body was still there, so unable to sleep that next night, as he had done in Isaiah’s killing, on Whitt Monday, he called the police, claiming “there has been a tragic accident”. The investigation was headed-up by Superintendent Hubert James, and as would happen in the next killing that Kavanagh was accused of, they had a body (as Evelyn Ullah hadn’t been moved), a murder weapon (as like Isaiah’s tie, her spotted silk scarf was found around her neck, but it wasn’t tied tight), and with no obvious motive (no rape or robbery), all they had to go on was Kavanagh’s confession. On Wednesday the 12th of June, two days later, he was charged with Evelyn’s murder. This was the first of two times in a year that Kavanagh would be charged with wilful murder, only by that point, having a relatively clean criminal record in this country, when he was committed for trial at Solihull magistrates court on the 4th of July 1957, they had no reason not to accept his strange alibi. M D Hutchinson for the Prosecution said “if Kavanagh’s defence was that her death was an accident, if this was true, we would have expected him to have gone for help, instead of leaving her body there for two days”, but Kavanagh would claim that he was too shocked to go to the police, as (not being a medical man) he didn’t understand what had happened to her, as she had fainted and died instantly. CC Ladds, his defence counsel, queried why – four times – he had asked for a copy of the autopsy into Evelyn’s death, and yet, the Prosecution had one, but the defence had not. Was there something they were hiding, as CC Ladds stated “the medical evidence will be of considerable importance in this case”, as it all rested on whether she had died by ligature strangulation, or a very common medical loophole. With the magistrate, F W Neway unable to find a case for murder, Kavanagh was committed to trial, under the lesser charge of manslaughter, and against police opposition, he was released on bail. (End) So, surely Matthew Kavanagh, the man who was tried for the murder of Isaiah Dixon, had his appeal rejected, clemency denied and was executed, that he was imprisoned for the killing of Evelyn Ullah? On the 24th of July 1958, at Birmingham Assizes, he was tried before Mr Justice Lynskey. With not a single witness to her murder, the primary evidence was given by Dr Frederick Griffiths, the same Home Office pathologist who, a year later, ruled out vagal inhibition as the cause of Isaiah Dixon’s death. With no bruising to her neck muscles or skin, and no fracture to her hyoid bone, no clear strangulation marks were found around her throat, and she had no obvious defensive wounds. With vagal inhibition being the most likely cause of her death, Dr Griffiths agreed with Kavanagh’s defence counsel that “it was caused by an action, not intended to do her harm”, “it was caused by an emotional disturbance when the scarf was tightened”, “a nerve in her neck was compressed, resulting in instant death”, and with no clear motive, no witnesses, and no proof that an argument or an attempted rape had taken place, CC Ladds for the defence stated “Kavanagh had done nothing more than adjust her scarf”. After a one day trial, 31-year-old Matthew Kavanagh was acquitted of all charges and walked free from court with the judge stating “there was no case for the defence”. A month later, an open verdict was recorded in the death of Evelyn Ullah, and with his name being mud, he moved to Rugby, where few people knew that he had been tried for murder, and that included his new pal, Isaiah Dixon. Vagal inhibition is still used as an alibi today, and since it was first published in a scientific paper by pathologist Professor Keith Simpson in the late 1940s, ‘sudden neurogenic cardiac arrest’ as it was then known was heavily debated and in cases such as ‘rough sex pleas’, it remains highly controversial. 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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Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE: Wednesday 20th of March 1985, the 9:02pm slow train from London Euston to Birmingham New Street pulls out of Coventry Station, having passed through Northampton, Long Buckby and Rugby. It was silent, empty, and as the lone passenger slides open the door, in an off-side compartment, he saw blood up the windows and its seats saturated in a dark goo, as running twelve feet from the seat to a door stained with red sticky prints, a ‘river’ of blood ran along the aisle. A woman had been brutally murdered, and her body was missing, But how, and why?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Rugby in Warwickshire to unearth a truly terrifying case which changed train travel in Britain, forever. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 353: The 9.02 Killer. Wednesday 20th of March 1985, 11pm. Through the inky blackness of the Warwickshire countryside, a Class 50 DMU engine chugged sedately, pulling eight BR Mark 1 coaches. At 9:02pm, the Birmingham New Street train departed London Euston on time, but unlike the InterCity express which left 40 minutes later and arrived 30 minutes earlier, its 300+ passengers chose the slow train as it stopped at every town on the commuter belt; from Bushey, Watford, Kings Langley, Apsley, Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring and Cheddington, to Leighton Buzzard and Bletchley, so by the time it arrived in Northampton, just six passengers were onboard… …one of whom had been brutally murdered. A decade after the unsolved murder of Heidi Mnilk, wrongly attributed to serial killer Patrick MacKay, and one year before the sex-attacks by ‘The Beast of Belvedere’, these coaches nicknamed ‘rape traps’ were feared by commuters. With each coach split into seven or eight compartments of eight seats - with two on either side, split by a central walkway and separated by a sliding door - it was designed to give the passengers privacy, but it left many trapped in an enclosed space with a dubious stranger. Robberies, rapes and assaults were common, as high-backed seats and partition walls blocked many sights, upholstery muffled many screams, and the only security was an often broken emergency cord. At 11:10pm, having passed Northampton, Long Buckby and Rugby, as the train departed Coventry, Dennis Overton boarded the second carriage. It was silent, empty, and as he slid open the door, in an off-side compartment, he saw blood up the windows and its seats saturated in a dark goo, as running twelve feet from the seat to a door stained with red sticky prints, a ‘river’ of blood ran along the aisle. Had someone had a fight, an accident, or a medical emergency? For twenty minutes, he sat alone pondering its possibilities, until at Hampton-in-Arden, Paul Spindler boarded the coach, and with that same look of horror on his face, he too believed that someone had been critically injured or murdered. At Birmingham International, they showed the chargeman the carnage, and with the British Transport Police meeting the train at Birmingham New Street, being a crime scene, it was taken out of service. The 300+ passengers were gone, and no-one had reported any violence. The driver and the guard had heard nothing; no screams, no shouts, and the emergency cord wasn’t pulled. And as expected, the perpetrator had fled, but bafflingly, dragged to the door, bleeding profusely, the victim had vanished. But how, and why? At 15 minutes passed midnight, PC Alan Perkins and WPC Jennifer Tooze boarded a ‘light train’, a small carriage-less locomotive fitted with large headlamps to inspect the rails, but as it crept slowly south, it performed a slow methodical search of the line back to London for something more grisly – a body. At around 2:30am, three miles north-east of Northampton, outside of the village of Church Brampton where the rail line crosses the Harlestone Road, a woman was found, her twisted and mangled frame slumped between the rails of the southbound line, her face and neck bloody and barely recognisable. But this wasn’t an accident, as she had been stabbed, partially stripped, and had sadistic slashes. A fingertip search of the area found some of her personal effects scattered along the length of the line; a pen, a woollen glove and a handbag; empty and like everything else, it was heavily bloodstained. Dr Dela Haye-Davies the Police Surgeon determined she had died of her injuries before being thrown from the train, and with her death listed as ‘murder’, although the investigation was overseen by Detective Superintendent Anthony Buckmaster of Northamptonshire Police, the co-operation of the British Transport Police, and the forces of West Midlands, Thames Valley and Strathclyde was needed. But who was this woman, and why was she killed? Having been reported missing by her family, friends and co-workers, at Kettering General Hospital, she was formally identified by Peter her husband and Rex her father, as 35-year-old Janet Maddocks. Born on the 8th of March 1950 in Beckenham, Kent, Janet Mary Goddard was the daughter of Rex and Kathleen Goddard. As a petite blonde who was kind and softly spoken, strangers may have mistaken her as too big hearted to be able to handle herself and easily a push-over, but having spent years as a social worker with Birmingham Social Services and Birmingham Children’s Hospital, she was a skilled listener and negotiator dealing with juvenile delinquents who had troubled lives and unstable minds. In October 1978, she married Peter Maddocks, a social worker from Norfolk, but with both of them so dedicated to their jobs which required long stints away from their home at 96 Institute Road in Kings Heath, Birmingham, by late 1984, they had separated on good terms and by mutual agreement. Wednesday 20th of March 1985, at 8:40am, Janet caught the Intercity express from Birmingham New Street to London Euston. Being sat in a packed carriage beside a slew of sharp-suited salesmen, Filofax-toting businesswoman and a Yuppie shouting loudly into one of the first mobile phones costing £5,500 and having the size, weight and connectivity of a 5 ½ kilo brick, she felt safe, but this was rush-hour. Dressed in a burgundy coat with tartan lining, maroon tights, boots and a handbag, with a light brown scarf, skirt and blouse, she was fashionable and business-like. And wearing a pink popper necklace, butterfly earrings, a ladles watch and two gold rings, one her wedding ring, she didn’t exude wealth. At 10:15am, as pre-arranged, she met her husband Peter, at Regent’s Park tube station, as this was an era when people made plans by landline or letter, and stuck to it. At 11:30am, they headed to Harley Street to see a specialist, as a car crash five years before had left her plagued by pain and migraines. As it was almost Peter’s birthday, they spent the day together; dinner at a restaurant, a drink in a pub, a spot of shopping, and to the cinema to watch the Oscar-winning David Lean film ‘A Passage to India’. It was an ordinary day, for an unassuming woman, living an uneventful but ultimately fulfilling life. She hadn’t received any strange calls or suspicious letters, she wasn’t being stalked, she had no debts, no enemies, and she didn’t engage in any criminality, as she was just a good person living a decent life. Having taxied to Liverpool Street Station, Janet waved Peter goodbye for the last time as the 8:35pm train to his home in Kings Lynn departed, and with at least £15 in her purse, she taxied back to Euston. According to the departures board, the next train to Birmingham New Street was at 9:02pm, which she (along with 300+ commuters) boarded, and being seated in the second carriage from the front… …as it chugged out of the station, the countdown to her death had begun. But her killer wasn’t onboard. Scenes of Crime Officers from the British Transport Police, Northamptonshire and West Midlands, as well as the Home Office Forensic Science Laboratory at Huntingdon swarmed the out of service train. Five key locations gave a timeline to Janet’s murder. First, the window seat where she had sat for the journey (as spoken to by one witness), her fingerprints visible on the glass, wood and metal of the compartment. Second, an imprint of her face where (seen by two postal workers) she had rested against the glass. Third, the blood-spatter up the partition wall, which saturated her seat, having been stabbed. Fourth, the aisle where her body was dragged by her ankles to the door. And fifth, the offside carriage door which her killer had opened with a bloody palm. Tossing her, feet first from the speeding train onto the track, three miles north-east of Northampton, this was where her body was found, but the trail to find her killer had vanished. At the time of the attack, the carriage was empty except for Janet and her killer, and with the train being a high traffic area, it was impossible to find his fingerprints, as they had no idea where he had sat, if indeed he had. But he had left his mark. As he dragged the body to the door, he had stepped in the blood leaving a size 8 imprint of a Hi-Tec baseball boot, made in either Korea or Hong Kong. It was a man’s boot, but small. It was unlikely to be a businessman, so he was probably young. A pebble embedded in the sole gave its chevron and circular pattern a unique marking, but with less pressure being applied by his left foot and a recurring drag mark at the heel, it was clear that her killer walked with a bad limp. But who was he, where had he come from, and why did he attack Janet? Eight days after her murder, with an unnamed housewife from Northampton wearing clothes identical to Janet’s, she retraced her exact route for the press in the hope of jogging the memory of the 300+ people who had caught that train, saw her, spoke to her, or better still, had seen or heard something suspicious, or may they’d been at 1 of the 19 stations it stopped at and saw her killer board the train. Rail staff and commuters were interviewed, spent ticket stubs were examined at each station and with witnesses coming forward, although no-one had seen her murder, a limited picture could be painted. As the train sedately trundled through the unlit rural commuter belt from Bushey to Leighton Buzzard, being a week day, it wasn’t full of football louts or abusive drunks, but knackered business types, yet the further it travelled north-west, the emptier the carriages got. At 9:53pm it arrived at Bletchley, and as Anthony Denton went to leave, Janet asked him why the train was taking so long, he told her she was on the 9:02pm slow train which stopped at all 19 rural stations, the 9:40pm was the express. It was an easy mistake to make and one which many articles blamed her killing on, like it was her fault. At Bletchley, Paul Jackson boarded the second carriage, saw Janet, and as he exited the train at Milton Keynes station, unknowingly, he would be the last person to see her alive, except for her killer; a young man wearing white baseball boots, who some said had “hair like a woman” and used a walking stick. They didn’t see or hear the attack, but several independent witnesses referenced the same suspect; a scruffy male in his mid-20s, short being about 5 foot 6, medium build, with mousey collar-length hair with blonde streaks, an acne-scarred face, and like a 1960s outcast, he wore a leather jacket, flared trousers and carried cassette player at which he blasted out tinny tunes whether others liked it or not, and walking with a noticeable limp to his left leg, he drew attention due to his ‘glazed, staring eyes’. He hadn’t done anything by this point, but he was being watched owing to his odd look and actions. At 9:50pm, at Milton Keynes Station, having removed his cassette player from a left luggage locker, he was seen by Allan Unger sitting on a bench on Platform 3. At 9:59pm, before he boarded, he asked Allan “Is this the train to Rugby?”, it was, so he got on, and sat in the same carriage as Janet Maddocks. It wasn’t planned, it was chance. They were strangers… …but 30 minutes later, he would brutally murder her. By that point, the entire train consisted of just six people; the driver and the guard who were in their cabins at either ends of the train, two commuters Barbara Buxton & Margaret Allen-Terry in the third carriage who saw and heard nothing, and in the second carriage, Janet was about to have company. With each coach split into seven or eight compartments of eight seats, split by a walkway and a sliding door, as the train chugged 4 minutes north to Wolverton, it was then that he sat opposite her in this small enclosed space, nicknamed ‘rape traps’, where the high-backed seats and partition walls blocked sights, upholstery muffled many screams, and the only security was an often broken emergency cord. He attacked her during the 28 minutes it took the train to travel from Wolverton to Northampton. He later confessed “I was going to steal her bag”. DS Tony Buckmaster theorised “I feel she may not have taken him too seriously when he demanded money”, as being a social worker used to dealing with delinquents who had troubled lives and unstable minds, she may have tried to talk him out of it. He said “I tried to steal it, but she started fighting. I stabbed her once. It was an accident”, and even that was far from true, he would flatly deny the more sadistic aspects of the Janet’s cruel murder. Her post-mortem was conducted by Home Office Pathologist, Dr Peter S Andrews at Kettering General Hospital. As expected, she had extensive bruises, abrasions and cuts to the backs of both hands as she put up a fight as he tried to steal her handbag. Using what the pathologist described as “considerable violence”, he stabbed the lock knife into the left side of her neck, which severed the jugular vein. She bled profusely, getting weaker and paler as blood drained from her body, but she had no way to fight back, as with the blade having penetrated her spinal cord, it was said that “she fell like a rag doll”. During the last moments of her life, as the train roared between the villages of Roade, Middleton and the gradient made the blood run to the rear, she couldn’t put up any resistance as Janet was paralysed; her arms, hands and legs were entirely useless, as her would-be killer began the most sadistic aspect of her massacre, and - most terrifyingly of all – the only part of her which still worked was her senses. Janet saw and heard everything which happened next, but was powerless to stop it. With her face propped up to the window, her attacker pulled down her tights and knickers. He didn’t rape her, nor was there any penetration (as far as we know), but as some form of warped sexual thrill, he stabbed her in her genitals; one to the left of the vulva, four inches deep; one running laterally into the upper part of the thigh; with a series of six lacerations to the left of the vulva, and two to the right. Janet died of haemorrhage and shock due to the wounds to her neck and groin… …but he would deny removing her knickers and mutilating her genitals. It was then that he was almost caught. At 10:31pm, the train pulled into Northampton station. No-one got on and no-one got off, as the station was empty, except for two postal workers who were loading mail onto the train using a tractor-trailer which had pulled up alongside the second carriage. The train was dark and sparsely lit; but in the third carriage, they saw Margaret & Barbara who had heard nothing; slumped against the window, seemingly asleep, they saw Janet’s slowly cooling body; and standing, blocking the nearside rear carriage door, her attacker stood glaring at the postal workers from the moment the train stopped, until it started again, with his look said to be “nasty and furtive”. Departing, with the next stop being Long Buckby, he dragged Janet’s body by her ankles, as proven by an absence of blood on her shoe’s soles, and leaving his bloody palm prints on the door, he hurled her body feet first onto the tracks outside of the village of Church Brampton, disposing of her handbag and any ID, having killed her for the sake of roughly £30 in her purse, and two inexpensive gold rings. At 10:50pm, the train pulled into Rugby Station, one of the major train junctions on this route. The station was so badly lit, few people noticed his bloody clothes, and being scruffy with glazed eyes, when he asked a station worker when the next train to Glasgow was, they thought the stain was either drink, urine, or blood having been in a fight. His next train was at 12:15am, and suspecting that the rings could trap him, he tossed them away at Rugby station, sat in the waiting room, chatted to Elaine Smart and her boyfriend Colin Morgan, and then, their friend Scott Bryce joined him on the train. Unlike Janet, Scott wasn’t killed, as he sat opposite her killer on the night-train to Glasgow. For most of it, they chatted, the man gave Scott £10 to buy some beers and sandwiches, he excused his bloody wrists by saying he fell through a window while drunk, and at Glasgow, the men two parted company. Janet’s killer had vanished into the ether… …he left a set of palm fingerprints it would take the Police weeks to match, if he was on their database at all, a bloody footprint of a trainer which was sold by the 1000s in the UK, and as the motive seemed to be robbery and he was looking so dirty and dishevelled, the detectives believed he was homeless. So, how did they find him? Given his crimes, it was highly likely he had a criminal record for robbery and assaults on women. With witnesses seeing him boarding the train at Milton Keynes and departing at Glasgow, they knew where he had been and possibly lived. And with every ticket stub handed in when the journey was completed, although it was unlikely to have his name on it, it would show where and when the ticket was bought. Over 3000 tickets were handed in at Glasgow central station on Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st of March 1985. It took two officers - DS Alistair Cumming & DC Nicky Watson – five hours to find it, but with a particular stub for a return ticket being heavily-bloodstained, tracking its purchase, they found it was issued by Glasgow Social Services as a client needed to attend a bail hearing in Milton Keynes. His name was Jack Roy, and he wasn’t in his mid-20’s, he was just 15 years old. Born in the Pollockshaws (Pokeshaws) area of Glasgow on the 17th of October 1969, being short and stocky, Jack Roy Jnr was described as a “hard case”. Raised in a dysfunctional home, he was in and out of special schools, children’s homes and borstals across the 70s and early 80s. To assuage his boredom, he took to drugs; sniffing glue aged 7, smoking cannabis aged 12, and taking LSD three times a week by the age of 14. So it’s unsurprising that, hanging with gangs, his criminal career started aged 10. Charged with robbery, aged 12, he was sent to an assessment centre, but absconded and committed ABH. Aged 13, while living with his mother in Milton Keynes, he attacked a 67-year-old-woman, the same year he mugged a Scout for £1.50, the year after in 1984, he attacked a 25-year-old mother with her children for £10, 6 days later he punched a 35-year-old women for the £40 in her bag, and with his wanton violence escalating, weeks before he murdered Janet, he violently assaulted an old lady. His father, Roy Snr said “I tried everything to get him away from crime, he just laughed. If he wanted something, he thought it was his to take. He felt he had no future and the world owed him a living”. On Monday 18th of March 1985, two days before the murder, he was ordered to attend a bail hearing at Milton Keynes Police Station, but with the charge having been delayed and with Jack Roy unaware of this until it was too late, as fate would have it, he didn’t need to be in Milton Keynes at all that day… …and if he had received that letter in time, Janet Maddocks would still be alive. At 2:15pm on Thursday 28th of March 1985, just 8 days after her murder, detectives from Strathclyde, Northamptonshire and the British Transport Police arrived at his father’s home on Shawbridge Street. As evidence they secured his bloodstained clothes (which his father had attempted to wash), a bloody pair of Hi-Tec baseball boots with a unique sole matching the prints found at the scene, a £10 which had Janet’s fingerprints on it, and the bone-handled lock knife he had used to stab and mutilate her. At Craigie Street police station, he claimed that two black men had pestered Janet, so he intervened and they attacked him. He then claimed that she had jumped off the train. But having broken down - not out of remorse, but seeing the evidence against him he knew he was screwed – Jack Roy admitted to stabbing her, stealing her rings and throwing her from the train, but denied any sexual offences. On Friday the 29th of March at 7:05pm, having been flown back to Campbell Square Police Station in Northampton where the investigation was based, he was formally charged with the murder of Janet. His first trial at Northampton Crown Court was stopped as he claimed that, being high on LSD, he was not responsible for his actions, stating “when I got on the train I was seeing things, patterns, colours”. With witnesses recalling his ‘glazed eyes’, his defence stated “the real killers are those who let drugs like LSD get into the hands of children like Jack Roy” and therefore he should be tried for manslaughter. At a retrial held at Birmingham Crown Court, with the manslaughter plea dismissed, although he pled ‘not guilty’, on 21st of January 1986, after just four hours, a jury of five women and seven men found Jack Roy Junior guilty of wilful murder. Justice Otten branded him “a danger to women”, stating “I am abundantly satisfied that this was an evil and callous killing”, with the wounds to her groin “to degrade her or out of sheer bloodlust”. Given age, just 16 at his trial, he was detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Motivated by greed and sexual perversion, he was given an indeterminate sentence, and after the terrifying and brutally violent murder he had committed, it was unlikely he would be released. (End) But that isn’t the end. It should be. But it isn’t. On the 14th of August 1989, four years into his sentence, a manhunt was initiated with roads blocked and ports searched, as having stolen a pair of pliers to cut open a ventilation grille in the paint shop roof at a Young Offender’s Institute in Dumfries, 20-year-old Jack Roy and his pal, 19-year-old Thomas Gordon broke out of prison and fled. They split, and Jack Roy was recaptured in Priest’s Hill, Glasgow. He was evil, cruel, and being unrepentant for his crime, he had no intention of staying behind bars as the law had decreed. And this was a constant worry of the detectives, lawyers and probation officers. So, it may seem baffling that, in 2005, aged 36, he was considered fit to release on licence. It may even be less baffling that, although he supposedly lived under close supervision in Edinburgh, on the 8th of November, being described as "a high risk to the public, particularly lone females" that he vanished. With contacts in Glasgow, Dundee and Milton Keynes, police were uncertain where he had fled, and with social services having had their concerns that he posed a flight risk being ignored prior to this, he could be anywhere, and again driven by poverty, drugs and perversion, more bodies could follow. Thankfully, following an anonymous tip-off by a Good Samaritan, 6 days later, Jack Roy Junior was found in Edinburgh city centre, not far from Leith. With the justice minister, Cathy Jamieson revoking his licence, he was returned to Saughton Prison to serve out the remainder of his life sentence. Now aged 57 years-old, it’s possible he has served his time, and his current whereabouts are unknown. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO:
Back in 2019, the ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road in Kew was home to 34-year-old Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, a busy singleton working in the media who had big plans of being a creative success, and was striving to make it happen. She had a good job, a busy social life, she was liked, and she was popular. By the March, she was about to begin (what she believed or maybe hoped) was a fresh start by moving to a new flat. Yet, something was eating away at her, a sickness that pervaded her life, and a terminal disease which could never be cured, but this wasn’t a virus which festered within, it was all around her, and it had been for a decade.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: How do you cure yourself of a cancer, when it isn’t inside of you? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Darell Road in Kew, near Twickenham; two stops south of the ‘meticulous’ disposal of Alec Vanags’ wife, two stops south-east of the ‘coldblooded’ killing of taxi-driver George Heath, three stops east of the sadistic rape and murder of two young girls at Teddington Lock, and one stop north the severed body parts strewn over Richmond Park - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 4 Darell Road sits a two-storey brown-bricked Victorian terraced house. It’s desirable being so close to Kew Gardens, but undesirable being so close to the Lower Richmond Road. Its unusable, postage-stamp sized front garden is reserved for the bins, and typical for London, a place so devoid of greenery, that it has a pencil thin rear garden covered in large paving slabs, except for a single small flowerbed. It’s the kind of house you would imagine a harassed mum screaming at her brat for smearing jam on her white walls, a teen slamming doors like she was King Kong reborn, and dad snoring so loud the neighbours accuse him of all-night drilling, but you don’t imagine anything really bad happening. Every street has a murder house, and this is theirs. Back in 2019, the ground floor flat was home to 34-year-old Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, a busy singleton working in the media who had big plans of being a creative success, and was striving to make it happen. She had a good job, a busy social life, she was liked, and she was popular. By the March, she was about to begin (what she believed or maybe hoped) was a fresh start by moving to a new flat. Yet, something was eating away at her, a sickness that pervaded her life, and a terminal disease which could never be cured, but this wasn’t a virus which festered within, it was all around her, and it had been for a decade. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 352: Living with ‘Cancer’. Sunday the 3rd of March 2019. The front room of Laureline’s ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road in Kew was packed full of boxes, half-loaded as she still has items to bubble-wrap, secure with parcel tape and neatly store for the removals van. The flat looks bare, yet oddly chaotic, as bin bags of rubbish sat by the door, and with the dishes and the cutlery in a box marked ‘kitchen’, there was the obligatory mug of tea and takeaway boxes. Except for the persistent bark and whimper of Laureline’s beloved dogs, a Rottweiler and a Husky, the flat was silent. All that was heard was the click and bleep of her phone, as being a millennial, Laureline was never off it. It was an exciting time, and being a fresh start, her friends and family received texts. To her friend Iain Richards, one text read: (Laureline’s voice) “bought a few dresses, two pairs of shoes, and I can’t stop. And I met an interesting guy, maybe will go and have a coffee with him later on”, as - with £17,000 worth of debts paid off, moving to a new flat and (said to be) on better terms with her ex-boyfriend, who some say, she was still besotted with – she seemed to be giddy with excitement. To her best friend, Beth Penman, one text read; “soooo, I met someone quite interesting, he’s a vet and we are going for coffee. I don’t know why I said yes, but wish me luck. He’s fit, shy and confident at the same time”, and although Laureline was supposed to be moving house that day, it seemed odd, that all of this was being put on hold for a shopping trip she rarely did, and a blind date out of nowhere. To her loved ones, it didn’t seem like the Laureline they knew… …and it wasn’t, as she was already dead. Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, nickname Lolo, was born on the 25th of November 1984 in Aix-en-Provence, a university city in southern France, 30 km north of Marseille. As a hub of education and culture, being the birthplace of painter Paul Cézanne, and bustling with 17th-century mansions, it was an idyllic place to be raised. And having lived for while in Corsica (a Mediterranean island north of Sardinia), this gave her a thirst for travel, adventure and self-discovery, with her family giving her the freedom she’d need. The name ‘Laureline’ means ‘to be crowned with laurels’, deriving from the Latin Laurus, it symbolizes victory, honour and distinction. That summed her up. As tall and confident woman, she strode when others shuffled, she was strong willed but never rude, a force of nature but compassionate, with her many friends praising her as "talented, loyal, caring and vivacious" as well as “talkative and friendly”. As a natural performer, from the age of four, Laureline loved to dance; any kind, from street to ballet, modern jazz to belly-dancing, she got the acting bug early on and appeared in many school plays, she performed in a cover band called The Tam’s and was a talented singer-songwriter in her own right, but seeing that her talents lay behind the camera, she began to experiment with art and music videos. Laureline studied at Sorbonne Université in Paris, and seeking to expand her skills further, in 2008, she studied at the St Martin’s School or Art and Design in Central London. She was ambitious and driven. For five years she worked as a Production Assistant at the Discovery Channel. In her spare time, she cut her teeth as a line and co-producer on short films, such as; Being Ernest in 2012, K & P in 2013, Then & Now starring Julian Glover in 2015, Gerry in 2018 with Joan Collins, and Spanish Pigeon with Robert Glenister & Don Warrington in 2020, and as a step-up, she worked on the feature film 'Tower Block' staring Sheridan Smith, and ‘Bone in the Throat’ featuring John Hannah. This was her passion. She was also a keen fashion blogger, she loved music, and catalogued every aspect of her life on social media, but knowing that passion rarely pay the bills, especially in the British film industry, she worked as an executive assistant at the PR firm Golin, based out of their offices at 99 Clifton Street, Shoreditch. Laureline’s life was busy, yet the thing she loved most was taking her beloved dogs for a walk or curling up with her ‘babies’ (as she called them) on the sofa, covered in fur and dribble like a good dog mum. …and yet, a cancer was about to infect her life. They met in 2009. Her friends never liked him, and for good reason. Kirill Belorusov held an Estonian passport, but was born in Russia's second-largest city, St Petersburg on the 4th of March 1987. His name, Kirill, derives from the Greek, Kyrillos meaning ‘Lord’ and ‘Master’, which those who knew him felt was how he saw himself. He was possessive, jealous and manipulative, he wasn’t well liked, and he believed he was the master of everything he possessed, including women. As a pencil-thin rake-of-a-man with an expressionless face, as if it has been moulded on by a machine, he was so odd looking, even his own lawyer later described as looking “like a Bond villain”, and with the personality of a walnut, it’s hard to know what made Laureline fall in love with Kirill, but she did. Little is known about his early life. He was raised in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital city, where his father was a policeman. Like all Russian men, he served a year in the military as part of the national draft. With a limited online presence, we know he liked Western bands like Slipknot, and brands like Burger King and PlayStation, and yet he never posted anything about his family to his 10 friends on Facebook. We know he worked in bars and nightclubs, he was a night owl, who liked loud music and hated being communicative, so that suited him, but unable to accept that his life wasn’t a rip-roaring success, he also claimed he was casino security for many high rollers, and (fittingly given his looks), he claimed he was a stuntman on the zombie-apocalypse movie ‘World War Z’, but most of his facts were all a lie. He lied about everything, as his life was vapid and empty. He was friendless, often unemployed, and described as a "cruel and heartless fraud", Kirill wasted his life surfing for porn, gaming and gambling. Laureline was healthy and well before she met Kirill… …and yet, he was ‘real’ cancer in her life, in more ways than one. Having met in 2009, by 2013, they were living in a ground floor flat at 208 Court Road in Mottingham, South London. The relationship was the epitome of toxic, as being a manipulator; he professed to love her, yet ridiculed her ‘curvy’ figure; he could kiss her with the same lips he would curse her; and across their ten-years together, the way he gaslit her was later described as “psychological waterboarding”, as this confident and strong-willed woman slowly became withdrawn, sullen, lost and submissive. This wasn’t love, this was control. He was an unemployed “slob” who leeched off Laureline, and even though (as an assistant) she wasn’t earning a lot, across the years, she loaned him £17,000 (the equivalent of the average annual UK wage after tax), which he always promised to pay back, but never did. While he was gambling, she became more frugal, and struggling to pay the bills, if she spent any money, it would be on her dogs not herself. In 2017, they split up, but stayed in contact. He moved out. She began online dating on Tinder, Bumble and The Inner Circle, and although she was free, the damage had been done. Some said she was still besotted by him, as like many abused partners, she was made to feel worthless like she was nothing without him, and that he was the answer to her problems, when in truth he was the cancer killing her. Mentally, she was dying, as he had already infected her with his lies. At the trial, Martin Rutherford QC said: “That is the level, extent and breadth of his dishonesty… one cannot rely on anything Kirill Belorusov says. He is someone who lies and lies brazenly over and over and over again. He is someone who believes in his power to tell lies and his power to be believed”. With Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC stating: "He just tells them on a scale and magnitude which I have not encountered before… he is a calculating and deceitful liar”, as deep down, he knew he was worthless. But his lies weren’t just manipulative, they were also cruel. To avoid paying Laureline back the £17,000 he owed her, he told her, her friends and family that he had advanced pancreatic cancer, and was receiving treatment at The Royal Marsden and other cancer hospitals, only he wasn’t. To make his lie believable, he fabricated his symptoms; intense stomach and back pain, nausea and severe fatigue, and already being skinny and pale, enema and weight loss was hard to spot. The symptoms hard to fake, like jaundice and onset diabetes, he found excuses for; and like a cruel cherry on a cake full of horrible lies, he shaved his head totally bald, as if he was on chemo’. He always looked sick, and mentally he was, but now he looked sicker. Police found no trace of him receiving cancer treatment in London or the UK, as being nowhere near a hospital when he told her he was seeing his oncologist… he was actually seeing his other girlfriend. Neither women had met, and although both lived in London, they never knew of each other. His other woman was fed the same lies about his cancer, she too was duped into giving him money, and as he lay on her sofa moaning and groaning about his illness, like Laureline, this girlfriend did everything for him, as this ‘Lord’ and ‘Master’ sat on his throne, being waited on hand and foot by his loyal servants. By November 2018, their friendship had started to sour, whether Laureline had begun to see cracks in Kirill’s lies (like his bald head being smooth but not patchy, and his eyebrows and armpits still hairy), with his unpaid loan of £17,000 causing her misery, she texted him, begging “I don’t think you realise how bad the situation is! I can barely pay my rent this month, and food for myself and the dogs!”. Months before, she had moved into the ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road. It was within her budget, but only just. It had a thin back garden, which was vital for her beloved dogs. And although it had two bedrooms, that was for friends and family when they came to visit, including her ex-boyfriend, Kirill. At the trial, although he deleted all of their messages, and destroyed her phone so it would never be found, retrieved by the Police’s digital forensics team, every message was read out to the jury which showed how desperate and anxious Laureline was, and how callous and controlling Kirill remained. By the start of February 2019, Laureline was in a financially precarious position, as unable to pay her bills or rent, although the £17,000 loan he had promised to pay back would have saved her, she was threatened with eviction with Sunday the 3rd of March 2019 being her last day in the flat. Kirill’s greed and selfishness had driven her to homelessness, and once she was gone, he would lose her forever. So how does a serial liar solve an impossible problem? With another lie. Still sporting a bald head, a wince and conveniently-timed nausea, he told Laureline he would sort it. In February, he paid her back a tiny portion, but not all, of the money he owed her as a token gesture, and said he had pulled out all the stops to find her a lovely new flat in South London to move into. She believed him, as that is the mark of an abused partner, being besotted beyond the realms of belief, and unwilling to see the truth as she had been made to believe that she was nothing without him. Whether she knew it or not, the cancer had infected her heart, and only cure was to cut Kirill out… …but was Laureline strong enough? That final weekend, Kirill claimed he had come down to help Laureline move to her new, fictional flat. He came to her like a shining knight, and although this was his fault, he wanted something in return. At the trial, Laureline’s mother saw him smirk as his text to her dead daughter was read, it said “Will it be possible for some nudie (photos of you) to keep me motivated and happy until Friday? I wanna see all of you, please be kinky. Me want booby and you naked and pretty. I miss your soft curvy self”. On Friday 1st of March 2019, he treated her to dinner at Jackson + Rye in Richmond, an American-style brasserie at 1 Heron Square on the banks of the River Thames; they held hands and drank prosecco. Anyone watching them would have believed she was once again in love with him, and not a prisoner to his lies, but as they got the R68 bus back to Darell Road, although they held hands, the CCTV clearly showed that across the 18-minute journey, the couple were quiet and Laureline was upset and tearful. Unlike the cancer, Kirill could fake a miraculous recovery, but his latest lie (created entirely by himself) had a large impending problem, as once that deadly deadline was crossed, the truth had to be outed. Saturday the 2nd of March 2019 was the day when Laureline was supposed to be packing to move out. She had everything planned; she had disassembled her bed, bubble wrapped the telly, boxed up her possessions everything from the cups to the cutlery, and needing a big bag of dog food and some other essentials, Laureline & Kirill went shopping at Pets at Home and Argos nearby on the Richmond Road. But the lie was unravelling. For weeks, she had asked him for photos of the flat, and the address to redirect her post, but he kept coming up with excuses. With the packing half-done, she may have realised it was a lie and challenged him, and with his cruel deception about to be unmasked, Laureline became a hurdle to Kirill’s cruelty. With neither injured or drugged, the dogs may have been in the garden when he grabbed a cable and strangled Laureline. Oliver Glasgow QC for the prosecution said: "the last few minutes of her life must have been truly terrifying as he squeezed the very life out of her. She realised the man who cared for her was a cheat and a killer. It was the kind of calculated and selfish callousness that only a man who would lie about his impending death could show… as Laureline was a problem that had to be removed and the only way… was to silence her. And as a bonus he walked away with the money he owed her”. In a killing described as “calm and methodical”, he kneeled on her with so much force, the pathologist said “it was as if something heavy had fallen on her chest”, taking at least four minutes for her to die. But this wasn’t a killing out of rage or hatred, but financial necessity. The Judge described it as a killing with “brutal and clinical precision”, and so lacking in remorse was this man, that he didn’t cry a single tear. Instead as her slowly-cooling body lay at his feet, he ordered himself some takeaway, he prowled the internet on PornHub and PaddyPower, and then he messaged his other woman, telling her; “you’re the most beautiful and most precious lady in my life… I’d kill for you and lie for you”… …only his litany of cruel lies had only just begun. The front room of Laureline’s ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road was packed full of boxes, half-loaded as she still had items to bubble-wrap, and as her dogs whimpered anxiously as her body lay cold and dead, sat on the sofa scoffing his takeaway and slugging back beer, Kirill held her phone in his hand. To her friend Iain Richards, he wrote pretending to be Laureline: “bought a few dresses, two pairs of shoes, and I can’t stop. And I met an interesting guy, maybe will go and have a coffee with him later on”. To her best friend, Beth Penman, he wrote “soooo, I met someone quite interesting, he’s a vet and we are going for coffee. I don’t know why I said yes, but wish me luck. He’s fit, shy and confident at the same time”, with other messages sent to her family to make it seem like she was alive and well. That day, Sunday the 3rd of March, he calmly walked to Homebase, as if he was planning to do a spot of DIY, he casually purchased some heavy-duty rubble sacks, a bag of soil, an axe and several reels of duct tape. He paid for it using her card, with not a bead of sweat on his brow. He went to a convenience store on Market Road for more duct tape as well as eight cans of strong lager, and headed back to do the unthinkable… at least, something unthinkable for anyone with a heart and an ounce of humanity. First he stripped her. It wasn’t to hide her identity as everyone would know who she was, so maybe it was to shame this body-conscious woman in death as he had done in her life? Like she was rubbish, he wrapped her in black binbags, bound her wrists behind her back (to ensure that this corpse did as he demanded, even in death), and with this thin back garden paved over with heavy slabs, he dug up a 6 foot by 3 foot flowerbed with a spade, and he dragged her body into this painfully shallow grave. In his eyes, she was dead and buried, but to her friends and family, she was very much alive. To cover his tracks, but also give himself an alibi so no-one would suspect him, he texted her friends and family so they would believe he had been as good as his word. On her phone, as Laureline, he wrote “I went to see the house it’s BEAUTIFUL! And Kirill gave me another £7,000 so I’m going on a shopping spree... he transferred another £10,000 a week ago and he left... housewarming party coming real soon, so hot tub and boob lift”, which some of her friends believed and even praised him. …but others saw through his lies, as only someone who truly knew Laureline would; she never spoke of boob jobs or liposuction, she never went on shopping sprees as she was financially broke, and as for the date with the “fit vet”, this seemed far fetched, as that weekend, she was meant to be moving. But one detail proved that these messages weren’t written by Laureline. Her first language was French, she wrote in French to her family, yet Kirill, a non-French speaker, had put it through Google Translate. It’s impossible to fabricate someone else’s prose, especially in a foreign language. But Kirill didn’t see that, as his arrogance knew no bounds, and stripping her family of any hope, he shut down her phone. On Monday the 4th of March, with Laureline having failed to turn up to work at the PR firm Golin, Kirill professing to be “out of his mind with worry” when asked by her brother if he had seen her, and with her flat locked up but her beloved dogs “unusually subdued”, with her disappearance being out-of-character, she was reported as missing, and Police called by to 4 Darell Road to do a welfare check. Looking through the letterbox, it was clear that she hadn’t gone anywhere, as her purse and keys were on the door-side table, her dogs had soiled the carpet suggesting they hadn’t been let out in hours or days, and with her possessions only partially boxed up, she must be inside, but she wasn’t responding. Gaining entry via the back door, it was clear that the flat was empty and Laurelin was missing, but one detail stood out among the boxes and parcel tape. With a spade wet with soil next to the flowerbed, who would do some gardening in a flat they were only renting on the day they were due to move out? A detective moved away a few inches of top soil, and wrapped in plastic, they saw her feet. To build a timeline of her movements, text messages from Laureline’s phone provider suggested that she had met a man for a date, but she hadn’t. She was supposedly moving house, only a removals van hadn’t been booked. To resolve this, they needed to speak to her ex-boyfriend, Kirill, who by text, was initially helpful. But on Wednesday 6th of March, the day her body was found, he fled to Estonia. And as predicted, he didn’t come across as a man remorseful at his crimes, as heading out in his home city of Tallinn, he got drunk, he partied with his pals, and to his 10 friends on Facebook, he posted footage of himself playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and hashtag #winnerwinnerchickendinner (End) With the evidence stacked against him, a European Arrest Warrant was issued on the 12th of March, it was processed on the 13th, and with the help of Europol, Estonian Police arrested him in five minutes. Extradited to England, his fingerprints and DNA matched those found on the binbags and duct tape, so even without a confession (which they knew he wouldn’t give) Kirill was charged with her murder. Tried at the Old Bailey before Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, on the 9th of September 2019, as Kirill took the stand to testify in his own defence, he doubled-down on his lies. When told “there is no evidence you ever had cancer”, he replied “I do”. When told “you aren’t a stunt man”, he replied “I am”. When asked if he killed her, he replied “I didn’t, it was someone else”, as a liar can’t help but lie. And so cruel was Kirill, that as he finished his testimony, walking passed Laureline’s family, he winked and smiled. With his guilt proven, and it stated he was “a monster who had swindled several other women out of cash”, on 30th of September, the jury of seven women & five men took just two hours to deliberate. Still smirking, Kirill Belorusov was sentenced to life with a minimum of 24 years. Summing up, Judge Hilliard remarked “It was all about you. I am satisfied you killed her in an effort to stop being exposed as an imposter and fraud. Having seen you giving evidence, I'm sure you held yourself in high regard”. After sentencing, her mother Frederique said "The death of one's own child goes against nature. There is not a moment during the day I don't think of my Laureline. I can't touch her, I can't kiss her anymore. I watch videos of her just to hear her voice, hear her laugh, to see how she moves. I would give anything to hear her happy moments, even sad moments, and to hear her say 'mum I love you'. Laureline Garcia-Bertaux was kind, generous, loving, and Kirill Belorusov exploited this. In her life, he was the cancer… and like so many cancer’s which plague society, he took an innocent life with him. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
an imagining of 'Veronique' as there are no known photos of her
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE:
In the spring of 1942, a young French girl known only as ‘Veronique’ vanished from the streets of Soho. No-one knew her real name, where she came from, or how she had got there, but she had lived and worked as a prostitute for almost two years, and then having tried to escape, she vanished. Her disappearance is as much of a mystery as her life, or identity. Unlike others episodes of Murder Mile, this was compiled over a decade from the reminiscences of those who knew her or knew of her, therefore not everything should be taken as fact. Memories are subjective, and over time, the accuracy fades, and details are shifted, rearranged or adapted to suit a bias or perspective, so all that remains is a mystery.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Did ‘Veronique’ finally find happiness or vanish from existence? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Rupert Street in Soho, W1; one street east of Harry Gimber who murdered his newborn, one street west of the unsolved murder of Camile Gordon, the same street as Larry Winters’ wasted life, and one street south of the baffling porn theatre killing - coming soon to Murder Mile. Rupert Street has been gentrified over recent years, as Soho (or more precisely the council) shakes its image as a cess-pit of seedy brothels and mucky book shops where men in flashing mac’s stifle a boner. With the piddle and plop washed from the street nightly, by morning, when the artisan food market opens and Tarquin & Fenella sample a soupcon of East Asian curries - supposedly made by a 100-year-old monk from an ancient recipe, yet the website suggests his name’s Tom, he has a hipster beard, and it was slopped from a vat in an exotic place called Wembley – just as the giant dish of paella beside it looks fresh, but is as crunchy as a crusty’s knickers – everything is part truth, part lie, part mystery. ‘Veronique’ was a woman like so many who came to Soho seeking an escape from the hardships they had lived, but found only a den full of drugs, drink, desperation, misery, pain and violence. Her life was the epitome of tragic, and although we have few clues as to where it began, like so many nameless women in her occupation who vanished never to be seen again, we have no idea where her life ended. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 351: The Ghost of ‘Veronique’. I first heard about ‘Veronique’ a decade ago, when I was a tour guide of Soho’s murder sites. Like the Soho Strangler, locals had told me the story, but I always believed it was a myth, until I dug deeper. There are no written records of ‘Veronique’s life as we have no idea who she truly was, so unlike other episodes of Murder Mile, this was compiled from reminiscences by those who knew her or knew of her, but nothing should be taken as fact. Memories are subjective and over time as the accuracy fades, details are shifted, rearranged or adapted to suit a bias or perspective, so all that remains is a riddle. Where possible, I’ve sifted the more fanciful stories, given weight to the more plausible, and tried to tell a more logical side of her life by using similar tales from those in ‘Veronique’s predicament, but we will never know the truth, as to many, she was a nothing and a nobody to be used and abused. Her name, we think, was ‘Veronique’. It was said she was aged 18 to 21, but may have been younger, she was small (about 5 foot 1) and slim framed, she was a short-haired brunette with a pixie-like nose, small ears, a smile which few ever saw, and had a birth mark on her hip. She was neither pretty nor ugly, but unremarkable and forgettable. Born at the start of the 1920s, she was raised in a new era after the devastation of the First World War. With technology making lives better and education no longer only for the wealthy, in a small way, women were finding freedom from the shackles of marriage and – ironically - domestic slavery. Her English was limited, just a few words, but those who spoke to her said she was softly spoken, and although she said she came from Versailles on the Paris outskirts, the French girls said it didn’t match her accent. But this typified ‘Veronique’, an enigma who said little about herself, her life, her family, and although she wore a Crucifix and was often seen praying, Christianity seemed to be alien to her. Some gossiped that she may be Jewish, and she hid it well because she had to. Fleeing everything she had known as the Nazis invaded Paris and France fell - knowing that if she stayed she would be beaten, raped, persecuted, hunted and sent to a camp to be executed - she had to escape no matter what. By the summer of 1940, when she crossed the mine-ladened English Channel to seek sanctuary, what greeted her when she got to London was a smoke-wreathed city ablaze, eviscerated by blitz bombs, with many homes blasted to pieces, body parts strewn across the street and millions evacuated, but for now, this hell hole of fire and death was a comparative haven, but her life was about to get worse. With no passport, no visa and no-one to protect her, this lone girl was in a world she didn’t understand, and likely arriving illegally via a gang, they claimed they could marry her to an “Englishman” for a fee. But as she had no money (few did and they knew that), the marriage was a sham, the “Englishman” would be a Maltese-born gangster, and she would be made to work to pay off her debt… only the debt would never be paid off, and her misery would only end when she was exhausted, broken or dead. ‘Veronique’ – likely an easy-to-pronounce alias which hinted at a foreign mystique, like ‘French Fifi’ or ‘Dutch Leah’ – was married to a man called ‘Frank’. She barely knew him, didn’t like him and certainly didn’t love him. To pacify him, she cooked and cleaned for this fat foul-smelling yob who was drunk, aggressive and treated her as cruelly as any may treat a rabid rancid dog, but he didn’t want a wife. As a young, slim, pretty brunette, ‘Veronique’ was sold into sex-work. If she refused, she was beaten. If she cried, she was beaten. And if she said ‘no’ to a client’s cruel demands, she was beaten. Her life would be spent, day and night, in a small dingy room on the upper floor of an unknown flat on Rupert Street, but also Peter Street, Brewer Street, Archer Street, Tisbury Court and many other dirty dens. ‘Veronique’ never sold sex on the streets, she wasn’t a familiar face among Soho’s working girls, and so never had a criminal record. She lived like a prisoner in a small room lit by a red lamp, with a drawer full of lube, condoms and pornographic photos, and spent many long hours flat on her back on a manky mattress, as an endless slew of sex-starved soldiers sweated and grimaced over her motionless body, a blank expression on her face, a dead look in her eyes, and not a single utterance from her lips. She’d come to this country as a young woman fleeing tyranny, with still an ounce of hope in her heart, but a few months in, she becomes his product, a commodity, a hole to be pumped and paid for. She had forgotten how to scream, her tears no longer flowed, for fear of being beaten again she only cried on the inside, and every day, she wept silently, praying her pain would end, but knowing it wouldn’t. She was broken, alone, afraid and exhausted, unable to recall the girl she once was… …and before too long, ‘Veronique’ had become a ghost. Soho was the kind of a place where dreams die, cruelty reigns and a nobody could vanish without a trace, as being so transient, few stay for long, many have aliases and their existence is only recorded when they’re arrested for illicit reasons, which (as far as we know) she never was being well hidden. But what did happen to ‘Veronique’; did she die, was she killed, or did she find freedom? By 1941, at the height of the London blitz, ‘Veronique’ had spent almost a year as a Soho sex worker, although she wouldn’t have known it, as with her skin growing paler and more haggard, she rarely saw daylight. This was her life; wake, wash, fuck, cry, pray in secret, drink herself to sleep, rinse and repeat. She couldn’t go to the Police as she spoke very little English, she had no papers, she was here illegally, and if she was arrested, she risked being deported back to France, which was under the Nazi’s control. She lived in a world of despair and blackness with no joy and no love just an existence of hurt. But she did have one friend; having been a prostitute herself, ‘Manon’ was a maid in her late 60s whose job it was to tidy the room, clean the sheets, replace the condoms, and nurse the girls bruises when they were attacked by their punters or punished by their pimps. She wasn’t French, but she had been maid to enough French women over the years to pick up the lingo, so when times were quiet, they chatted. It was a brief moment in a horrible day when ‘Veronique’ felt normal again, maybe even human, with her highlight being to go shopping with ‘Manon’ at the Berwick Street market, Old Compton Street, or Piccadilly. It made her smile and it gave her hope, but seeing couples walking hand-in-hand, kissing, with kids running about their feet, it also reminded her of the life she had lost and may never have. But all that would change… and not in a good way. As a risk of her enforced occupation, ‘Veronique’ got pregnant; whether by a split condom, a punter who paid to go bareback or being raped by ‘Frank’, but decades before the Pill was commonly available to the average woman, pregnancy could be a death sentence, especially for someone like ‘Veronique’. She wasn’t allowed to stop selling sex during her pregnancy, as to her pimp, time was money and she was his cash-cow. For a while, she may have been sold as a fetish for perverts, but even though she was just a child herself with a baby in her belly, this didn’t stop the drunks from abusing her, the woman haters from hitting her, or the sadists from strangling her for their own sexual satisfaction. Whether she wanted to keep it or not, this wasn’t her choice, as her body wasn’t hers, it was his. She knew she couldn’t flee (as she knew no-one, had no money and nowhere to go) and knew he wouldn’t let her keep it as the baby would ruin her body, and if she did give birth, he would probably sell it. Like her, the baby was a nothing, a nobody, an annoying impediment to Frank’s business, and with an illegal abortion planned, this would mean she would be unable to earn for him for a few days, and with the abortion being added to her escalating debts, ‘Veronique’ was a step further from freedom. Sometime late in 1941, the abortion was arranged. A doctor of dubious credentials arrived at the flat, his unsuitable tools were sterilised in boiling water, his fee was paid, an agreement was made in which he would be protected from any prosecution if anything went wrong - as he had value, but she did not - and if she happened to die owing to blood-loss or infection, her body would be dumped like rubbish. No-one would be arrested, even if her remains were found. But the abortion had failed. ‘Frank’ was furious, not at the doctor who he would use again, but ‘Veronique’ whose pregnancy had cost him time, money and tested his patience. Needing a cheap, proven method to abort this parasite, and dismissing old wives tales like hot baths or neat gin to force a miscarriage, he chose a way which – from experience – he knew never failed, even if it risked her life. ‘Frank’ beat her black and blue. In the quiet of that dingy little room where nightly ‘Veronique’ was raped, he rained down fists upon her. For several minutes, he pummelled her, trying to avoid her face and breasts - not out of any compassion but business acumen - and although everyone on the street knew what he was doing and why, the locals simply hung their heads in shame and went about their duties, too afraid to speak up. Later that day, a dead foetus was aborted into a waste bucket, and disposed of. ‘Veronique’ was in a bad way, broken and bloody, the worst that ‘Manon’ had seen in all the years she had witnessed the brutality of the pimps, and although that same abortionist was called back to check that his patient wasn’t about to die, he wouldn’t be there to see her back to health, as that cost money. ‘Manon’ was free, and it was her job, but she also would have done it as this was her friend. ‘Veronique’ was bedbound for days if not weeks. Slowly, the cuts stopped weeping, the bruises healed, and although possible cracks or fractures to her ribs meant that this young girl came precariously close to death, somehow she made it through, and once she was on her feet, ‘Frank’ put her back to work. That was the first time she could have died… but she didn’t. The Christmas of 1941 was cold and bleak, a hard frost had ravaged the streets, a bitter wind howled down the alleys, but still – warmed by great glugs of whiskey – an endless slew of drunks lined up to pump a pretty little thing with their pointless little winkles as festive pay-packets burned a hole in their pockets. As always, ‘Frank’ was getting fat on her earnings, but she saw very little of it, owing to her debt, the rent of the room and the cost of the abortion, which meant she would never escape. ‘Veronique’ was also earning less, a lot less, as although ‘Frank’ had tried to avoid punching her face, her cheek was bruised and swollen like an old piece of beef, and still aching from the severe beating to her belly and ribs, every time a punter pumped her a little too hard, she winced in pain. Gone was the dead-eyed stare, as now she grimaced and groaned, which the boys said “put me off my stroke”. Even the drunks wouldn’t pump broken goods, and they certainly weren’t willing to pay for it, so for a while (while ‘Frank’ worked out what to do with her), ‘Veronique’ became a maid like ‘Manon’. She cooked, cleaned and fetched, but earned a fraction of the pittance she once had. In the mornings, she washed the sheets, cleaned the toilet, shopped for bread, milk and powdered eggs, and although she rarely spoke, this tragic little girl was seen limping around town, wheezing like an asthmatic crone. But sometime in the New Year, it was then that she saw a face that she recognised, and liked. ‘Stan’ was 16, he was a quiet boy, a little shy, who had visited her a few times before. The first time he said nothing, he just sat on the edge of the bed, unable to look at her, he paid and red-faced, ran. The second time, he smiled and apologised (not that she understood him), but he didn’t want sex, he just wanted to cuddle. Some men do being too drunk or unable to get it up, but he was sober, lonely and just wanted to be held. The third time, they cuddled again, held hands, smiled, and he bought her a flower. It had been a while since anyone except ‘Manon’ had been nice to her. At first it felt odd, as if it was a trap, but she knew he was good, she knew he was nice, and she knew she could trust ‘Stan’. In a different world, at a different moment in time, they could have been sweethearts. Seeing the love he had in his eyes for her, every so often she caught a glimpse of how her life could be; happy, loved, free. Across the hour that they’d spent together, they had barely shared a word, and although in him she saw hope as this small polite boy invited her for tea and cake, she was far too nervous to accept. ‘Frank’ was watching, ‘Frank’ was always watching. She could never escape… or could she? In February 1942, the front door to the brothel on Rupert Street was splintered by a blue-helmeted hulk swinging an oversized axe. As black boots broke it down, a buzz of coppers swarmed every floor, arresting clients, assaulting sex workers, smashing anything they saw and seizing any cash as evidence, never to be seen again until the Inspector bought a round and each of his boys got a ‘bonus’ for a job well done. ‘Frank’ wasn’t arrested, as he wasn’t there, pimps never are, and neither was ‘Veronique’. As a bruised and (some say) unsightly girl who no-one was paying to poke, ‘Veronique’ was doing the laundry when the brothel was raided, and - even though this could easily have been a shakedown by the cops for cash, or maybe ‘Frank’ had forgotten to pay someone off – she was the one he’d blame. Why? Because of ‘Stan’. It was said that ‘Stan’ was seen talking to a copper and that his uncle was a policeman, none of which could be verified, and with ‘Veronique’ conveniently missing when the brothel got raided, even though she always did the laundry at that hour, she was blamed, beaten again, and with more bruises to her face, wheezing to her lungs and cracks to her aching ribs, she was even more useless as a sex-worker, and – with her looks gone and her never ending debts impossible to pay off - she was as good as dead. She saw ‘Stan’ once more, laying rat traps in the alley by the shop where he worked. He hadn’t spoken to her for weeks, he changed direction when he saw her walking towards him, and she wondered what she had done; had he gone off her, or was he hurt by her rejection of his invite to tea and cake? But it was as she caught his gaze that she realised why he was avoiding her – his eye was black and swollen. As far as we know, they never saw each other again, and the flower he gave her wilted and died. Her short and tragic life was coming to an end; she was alone and frightened in a dangerous and cruel world, with no friends or family, and she lived in a vicious circle of pain and fear. She was a nobody, a nothing, a faceless, nameless girl, who had been isolated further from any chance of hope. Every day she wondered if this was her last, and with ‘Frank’ still deciding what to do with her; maybe he’d sell her off, or dispose of her. And as a corpse in a river or a body part on a bombsite, being a prostitute, the Police would probably assume that she was killed by a client, and with that, it would be case closed. She was a ghost awaiting her second death, and she knew she would never be free. But she still had a friend, ‘Manon’, the mother-figure she so badly needed, who knew ‘Veronique’ was a child needing protecting, and (as an experienced maid and ex-sex-worker) she had seen this before. ‘Frank’ was always watching, but he wasn’t watching ‘Manon’ or the other girls who sold sex in Soho. If ‘Veronique’ packed a bag, he would know. If she squirrelled away some money, he would know. If she wore too many clothes on a warm day, he would know. He had eyes, ears and people who worked for him, he could be in a million places at once and knew everything that happened, even when asleep. But ‘Manon’ knew what to do. These girls would have put the spies of the Special Operations Executive to shame with their cunning and bravery. With a series of well-timed distractions – whether fights, fires, thefts or tantrums which drew attention – a girl slipped away and in an alley, hidden in a gutter pipe or behind a loose brick, they stashed something to get ‘Veronique’ as far away as possible - an envelope of money, a bag of clothes, a box of food or a list of train times – just like the Great Escape. On a March morning, ‘Veronique’, wearing nothing out of the ordinary and carrying nothing suspicious left the brothel on Rupert Street with two large bags of dirty bedsheets, with a pronounced limp, she walked her usual route to the laundry, stopping every so often near a gutter pipe or loose brick as her wheezing lungs made her slow, and having got her wind back, she headed toward Piccadilly Circus. She had everything she needed to vanish, and be gone forever… …all she had to do was to hop on the tube. But ‘Frank’ was watching, he was always watching, and as a myriad of stranger’s eyes seem to scan her suspiciously, as she stood, sweating and shaking, how far could this sick girl get; South London, the South Coast, or France? And even if she managed to flee her violent pimp, if she made it all the way back to her homeland, she risked extermination by the Nazis. ‘Veronique’ didn’t leave. She did her laundry, she limped back to Rupert Street and stopped at every gutter pipe or loose brick on her way, and maybe one day - when she was fitter - she would try again. Maybe? But maybe not. Whether ‘Frank’ saw, heard or knew of her escape attempt can never be known, but her life didn’t get any easier; as again she was beaten, at least once he raped her (to keep her in her place), and when a bomb landed not far from Golden Square, eviscerating ‘Manon’ and scattering her body so the only way to identify her was the charred remains of her handbag, it seemed as if ‘Veronique’ had given up. ‘Veronique’ became even more of a ghost after the death of ‘Manon’. As far as we know, she rarely left the brothel, she never smiled or spoke; she cooked, she cleaned, and she became the new maid. As a compliant worker and ‘wife’ to fat ‘Frank’, she did as she was told, and she was safe, for now. But this isn’t where her story ends, as what happened to her remains a mystery? On an unspecified date in March or April 1942, having made ‘Frank’s dinner and watched him gorge himself silly on suet pudding, as she washed up the crockery, ‘Frank’ began to sweat. He felt giddy and nauseous, and although her cooking was half decent, he began to puke like he had never puked before. Somehow, rat poison had got into the pie mix, and with common brands having a bitter but slightly sweet and nutty flavour to lure in the rodents, he didn’t realise he was dying until he felt an intense burning in his throat, a boiling in his stomach, and hot acid-like tears rolling from his bright red eyes. And as much as ‘Frank’ pleaded for ‘Veronique’ to help him as he got even sicker and weaker, she just stood there, staring, doing nothing, and with a Gallic shrug she muttered “je ne comprends pas”. With him pale and his eyes rolling into the back of his head, this was her one chance to escape her prison… …only ‘Frank’ didn’t die. Fate can be cruel, somehow he survived, and then ‘Veronique’ vanished. (End) With no friends or family, with ‘Manon’ dead and ‘Stan’ laying low, although some of the girls saw that ‘Veronique’ was missing and that the maid was swiftly replaced, no-one else really noticed, as the girl with the pronounced limp and the eternal frown was never seen again - as these kind of things happen. It’s uncertain what happened to her. One theory was that with the beatings cracking her ribs, she had died of pneumonia, but as no-one knew her name, her death certificate may have read ‘unknown’. A second theory, as had happened to ‘Manon’, was that she was one of 1000s of unclaimed body parts in a London morgue, having been victim to one of the blitz bombs which had decimated the city. A third was that she was dead, having been killed by ‘Frank’; chopped up, scattered across the rivers, drains and bomb sites of London, with the Police classifying the case as just another ‘dead prostitute’ - one of many found in the years before and after the Blackout Ripper and other sadists of his ilk. And then there was a fourth theory, more hopeful than the others and possibly more fanciful, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Some believe that ‘Veronique’ escaped. Some believe she made it to Piccadilly Circus and hopped onto the first tube out of the city. And some believe that the only reason ‘Frank’ never spoke about her, and denied knowing where she was, was because she had bested him. It was said, she got to the coast, she made a life for herself by the seaside, and with no ferries for civilians travelling between England and France until the war was over, that she finally went home. But life isn’t a fairytale, and it certainly isn’t fair. So, although we hope she made it out safe, and got everything that she deserved; she could have been arrested, deported, or convicted as a potential spy. The truth about ‘Veronique’ will never be known, as over the decades, most of what was remembered about her tragic life has become a pale imitation of the truth. But there is one theory that many still cling to, as when the girls went back to the gutter pipe and loose brick, the bag and the box were gone. 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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