Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
Formerly the Claremont Hotel at 95 Queens Gate, Kensington
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY:
On Monday 13th July 1959, just a few streets south, Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy was shot dead by 30-year-old blackmailer Gunther Podola, who was on the run. Being hunted by Chelsea CID, just three days later on the 16th July, the grieving colleagues of DS Purdy had tracked Gunther down to a third floor room at the Claremont House Hotel at 95 Queensgate, barely a five minute walk from the shooting. At 3:45pm, eight CID officers and a police dog would storm into Room 15… …half an hour later, Podola was escorted from the room, with a black eye, a cut to his forehead, and diagnosed with amnesia, he couldn’t remember the shooting, his life, a possible beating by the police in his hotel, or any evidence which may help his defence, when he was tried in court for murder.
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THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with an orange exclamation mark (!) near the words 'West Brompton'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE Welcome to… erm… uh. (as before). As Gunther Podola stood in the dock at the Old Bailey - diagnosed with amnesia, possibly owing to a head injury, probably caused by police brutality - he couldn’t give evidence to defend himself of a crime which would warrant his sentence of death. So, instead he read this pre-prepared statement: “Your honour, members of the jury. I stand before you accused of the murder of a man. I cannot put forward any defence. The reason is that I have lost my memory of all these events. I cannot remember the crime. I do not remember the circumstances leading up to the events or to this shooting. I do not know if I did it, whether it was an accident, or an act of self-defence. I do not know if at the time I realised the man was, in fact a detective. I do not know, in fact, whether I was provoked in any way. For these reasons I am unable to admit or deny the charge against me. Thank you, my Lord,”. With the evidence resting on whether the jury believed that Gunther had wilfully murdered Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy - a crime still punishable by death – as there were no independent sightings of the shooting and Gunther had no memory, the only witness was DS Sandford, Purdy’s partner. The case of Gunther Podola was unique, as usually the accused would plead insanity, but here pleading amnesia, the jury had an impossible task; to decide who was telling the truth, the killer or the copper? (Loop/fade/white noise) For the prosecution, it wasn’t difficult to prove that Gunther was a liar; being a criminal with three aliases, a history of theft, fraud and blackmail, a cowardly man who had abandoned his girlfriend and his child in a refugee-camp in war-torn Berlin, and a fabricator of such magnitude that he had even read out that statement you have just heard, in a North American accent, even though he was German. His life was a lie, a fantasy concocted to please himself, fueled by delusions to flee from his problems. In the statement made by Roland Gray, a former sergeant in the Intelligence Corps who had arrested Gunther in 1949 trying to blackmail an unnamed widow having “recognised Podola...” and his cunning ploy of “a defence of amnesia”, he would state “Podola was detained for 14 days… he refused speak at all; he put on a vacant expression and grinned as if he was stupid or mentally deficient… throughout he spoke with a strong Slavic accent, which suggested he was either Russian, Polish or Yugoslavian”. His con was simple, as by claiming memory-loss, the less he told the British Authorities of his crime or his identity, the more they would struggle to charge him. Only this lie would come back to bite him. Having claimed to be Major Karanov of the NKVD, “I told him we believed his story… and were going to hand him over to the Russian authorities”. And therefore, having been caught impersonating a Russian official, he would most likely be sentenced to a life of hard labour in a Siberian gulag, or death. “As we escorted Podola to a waiting car, he broke down and told us that he was German… Podola changed completely and answered all of my questions… in an ordinary German accent”. Although, prone to lying, “he told me his real name was Junkersfield but used the aliases of Podola and Fisher”. So, it’s no surprise that being accused of a policeman’s murder, that he would adopt that same ploy. On Thursday 16th July 1959 at 3:45pm, four days after the murder, Gunther stood inside Room 15 of the Claremont House Hotel, where this wanted man had held-up since the shooting of DS Purdy. It’s likely he heard the officers coming, as how silent could eight heavy-footed detectives and a police dog be, having rapidly parked up several cars outside of a half-empty hotel on a weekday afternoon? He’d have heard the engines, the boots, the barking and an abrupt silence outside of his door, followed by a hard knock, an order “police, open up” and the door being forced. With his gun in the attic and his only escape route being a window with a thirty-foot drop, he would have known he was cornered, so - outmanned and overpowered – he did as he always did and concocted a tried-and-tested lie. As if feigning amnesia wasn’t his plan, then several elements of what follows don’t make sense. If he didn’t want the officers to force their way in, why didn’t he block the door with his bed? If he didn’t want this eight-man team to barge inside causing havoc, why did he ignore their repeated commands to “open up”? And if he didn’t want them to gain entry, why did he unlock it with a key? When DS Chambers broke down the door, he would state “I caught a glimpse of the prisoner… he was bending forward… as the door hit him in the face”. Which is an odd position to be in, given that a 17-stone detective was forcibly attempting to break the door down, and Gunther had just unlocked it. Why would he be anywhere near that door, at that very moment, unless he wanted a head injury? This impact resulted in a wound which didn’t fracture his skull, it caused minor bleeding on the surface of the brain, a black eye and a half-inch scar (all of which were temporary), and when Dr Larkin was asked “could that concussion account for his loss of memory in its depth and extent?”, he replied “no”. In fact, according to DCI Acott: “afterwards, Podola struggled violently for three or four minutes”. So maybe, being trapped in a private room with no independent witnesses to verify what happened, using the Police’s well-publicised history of brutality against them, he adopted a very familiar ploy? DS Chambers would testify “I felt him go limp under me, he stopped his struggles… he appeared to be senseless… I got off him and DCI Acott ordered the officers to move him to the bed”, where he was made comfortable and his injuries (a small cut and a swollen eye) were treated using basic First Aid. If this was police brutality - as the rival Press and a Labour politician had asserted to the Conservative Home Secretary shortly before a General Election – why did he have only the most minor of injuries? When examined, he had no burns, slashes, fractures, breaks nor signs of suffocation or strangulation, as you may expect from eight angry officers trapped inside a room with the killer of their colleague. If he was beaten up by the police, where were the bruises? Having supposedly ‘gone limp’ owing to 30 stone of burly officer on top of this 12-stone weakling for almost five minutes - a weight which would surely have left him aching and sore, at least - DS Chambers would state “after a few minutes, he came round and was able to sit up on the edge of the bed”. He didn’t wheeze, cough or grumble, in fact “he sat up on the bed and watched every movement in the room. I felt he might be shamming”, DCI Acott said “so for safety, I had the prisoner handcuffed”. Through-out the 30-minutes they were inside Room 15, in which eight supposedly corrupt CID officers with a deadly axe to grind inflicted a terrifying ordeal on a suspect which ended in his amnesia, why did no-one hear him shout, cry out or scream? In fact, “he said nothing, and he showed no emotion”. At 4:15pm, as Gunther was escorted from the hotel, the officers would confirm “I saw Podola going down the stairs himself… he walked in the normal way” as confirmed by the photographs taken by the awaiting press, “but it was only when he was seen by the medical staff that he ‘needed help’”. But was he injured, declining, or was he faking his symptoms? By 4:30pm, Gunther arrived at Cheslea Police Station. As before, “he walked up the steps to the charge room” unassisted and owing to “fainting spells” (which couldn’t be disproved) windows were opened, the fan was switched on, and - deemed “unfit to be charged, arrested, give testimony or see a solicitor, the Duty Officer phoned the police surgeon” – Gunther was placed in a cell until he could be examined. When arrested, many criminals use this moment to abuse the officers and when questioned they state ‘no comment’ which affords the police no evidence but comes across badly in a court of law. Where-as amnesia is a much more sympathetic way of saying ‘no comment’ without being seen as obstructive and giving the criminal a better chance of being found guilty of a lesser charge, or even acquitted. When examined by Dr John Shanahan, the Police Surgeon, “although he appeared dazed, frightened and exhausted”, physically he was okay, “including his reactions to light, his tendon flex, his heart rate, his temperature was normal, his pulse rate was 86 and his blood pressure was a regular 140/80”. But any mental impairment would be hard to disprove and easy to fake; whether he was passing out, going limp, shaking or simply falling silent, it takes effort, but it also needs consistency, which was a problem as the symptoms of this convicted thief and blackmailer were intermittent and convenient. Moved to Cell No1, PC’s Hannagan & Hall stated: “he slept a lot”, which may have been a symptom of his supposed head injury, his need to say less and to provide nothing, or his cruel callousness having shot a policeman dead? And as Dr Brisby would state “even people on grave charges sleep well”. It could also be that – by struggling to walk, to sit up, to stand, and even undertake the most basic of tasks like going to the toilet unaided – given that the Police had a duty of care for his welfare whilst in their custody, maybe part of his petty revenge against them was to make these officers wipe his arse? With Gunther remaining silent, sleeping and shaking intermittently, unable to diagnose the cause, at 12:30am, he was removed by stretcher to St Stephen’s hospital… …where he would be assessed by experts. Back in Berlin, when it was said that Gunther had been detained for 14 days by British Intelligence, as a sergeant with no experience of amnesia, Roland Gray was out of his depth. But these doctors were trained to diagnose a patient who couldn’t talk, couldn’t think or wasn’t conscious. They could filter the truth from the lies to wheedle out an honest sick-note seeker from a workshy layabout, the chronic from the malingerers, and a death row prisoner with a convenient memory lapse. Transferred to Ward B5, Gunther would spend the next four days bedbound, bored and immobile with his left wrist chained to the bed and only able to move if – aided by an officer – he needed to pee. It may seem like all he had to do was sleep, but brains need activity and boredom can be torture, as 24-hours-a-day, three shifts of officers would watch his every move and eagle-eyed nurses would report on the tiniest change in their patient, as several doctors poked and prodded the recesses of his brain. If Gunther was lying about his amnesia, so far, he had been a good liar… …but even the best liars can make simple mistakes. When first admitted into Casualty, on initial observation, Dr Latham would state “he appears semi-comatose and responds to simple commands, his pupils are reactive, and his reflexes are present. I diagnose exhaustion, terror and concussion” but with no brain injury, he would conclude “he is not an amnesiac”, as when they offered him Nembutal, he declined, proving he knew what this sedative was. Of course, with amnesia often being selective, maybe this detail remained in his brain? Assessed by Dr Ashton, he would struggle to decide if Gunther had amnesia or not, “as it is difficult to assess this patient because he is uncommunicative and also because his head injury and associated circumstances have obscured his personality. For what it’s worth, I’d label him a schizoid psychopath”. But then again, his girlfriend Ruth would describe him as “conflicted” and “emotionally cold”? And when assessed by Dr Harvey, although a diagnosis of “severe retrograde amnesia” was stated, he would qualify “it’s patchy and breaks up as he improves”… and as retrograde amnesia affects the memories formed before the incident that caused the amnesia “not the stored memories from years ago”, it made sense (if conveniently) that he couldn’t recall the murder… but not the rest of his life. To assess his mental capacity or lack of, every detail of Gunther’s day was noted and assessed. On Friday 17th July 1959, the day of his admission, three teams of two officers in rotating three-hours shifts sat at Gunther’s bedside kept guard and watched him as he was examined by doctors and nurses. Up to 9am, the PC’s would state “he slept soundly”, which could have been a simple ploy as silence is a sign of the most sinister of symptoms, although the sickest of patients are usually the most silent? At 10am, “he asked for water” by whispering just the word ‘water’ and pursing his mouth as an officer bottle-fed him like a baby. And yet, hours earlier in Room 15 of the Claremont House Hotel, “he had greedily guzzled cup after cup” without assistance, but maybe his amnesia was worsening by the hour? At 10:35am, he needed the toilet and indicated this need by one word ‘toilet’, at which the two officers “removed his trousers and pants” as he royally emptied his bowels in their presence. Which was odd, as even when a toddler is toilet-trained, once they know how to do it, they never forget it. But he had. At 11:07am, muttering the word ‘smoke’ like he’d forgotten the name of his slave, PC Plowman lit him a cigarette and held it as he smoked. With Gunther supposedly incapable of the most basic tasks, he ordered his flunkies with a curt word of ‘food’, ‘smoke’ or ‘toilet’, only when a nurse washed him “he answered all of her questions by nodding, he assisted her in drying himself and cleaned his own teeth”. Maybe he was faking amnesia, or as Dr Colin Edwards would testify, maybe this was his ‘sheet anchor’? “A person suffering from amnesia needs a form of memory to hang onto… in great emotional conflict, such as might be aroused by fear, the mind protects the patient by shutting off recollections which gave rise to the conflict”. In this case, a beating by the Police could cause him to lose his sheet anchor? On Saturday 18th July, his second day in hospital was a copy of the first, as he said little and did little, but with PC’s Plowman and Hucklesby doing puzzles to pass the time, “he took a great deal of interest in the jigsaw”, as being mentally starved of any excitement, even a kid’s toy would look mesmerising. By Sunday 19th July at 5:45pm, 65 hours into his confinement to a hospital bed, either he was mentally improving, or – forced to see only the same four walls and the same few faces - boredom had set in. Whilst having his ears syringed, Gunther - who said he couldn’t recall his name, his age, his family or his past – began talking in fluent French to the nurse, and later in perfect German to the doctor, having only muttered the most basic of words in English. Was this a mistake, or was his brain recovering? After this revelation, now able to converse fully in English, “he ate a full meal – soup, salad and ice-cream, with seconds” and took an interest in the puzzle an officer was doing. PC Hind would state “he said ‘there’s an easy way to do it. The other men did it this morning’. He completed both puzzles in half an hour. They were difficult and had been attempted by several officers but without success”. Monday 20th of July would be his fourth and final day in hospital. As PC’s Burke and Hucklesby played chess, “Podola laughed when an officer was foolish enough to let his queen be taken by a pawn”. Later examined by Dr Latham, who was beaten by Gunther in a chess match “in which he told me he’d learned to play in Germany… and played a faultless game pointing out my mistakes and alternatives”. So at 2:10pm, with Gunther declared “fit to appreciate the nature of a charge, but not fit enough to provide testimony”, he was arrested and transferred to Brixton Prison to await his trial for murder. So was Gunther lying about his amnesia, or was it real? On this matter, the medical professionals would be split. Dr F R Brisby, Medical Officer of Brixton Prison would state “psychiatry is widely discussed in the press, movies and books, so even a layman could acquire the basics”. With Edgar Wallace being Gunter’s favourite mystery writer, it was noted that “several of his stories have a character who has amnesia”, but potentially using this source as a basis for his knowledge of amnesia, he had made many mistakes. His first was to claim a loss of memory (not just for the incident but) for his whole life, “as that kind of amnesia would be very rare and would result in his entire personality being erased” - which it hadn’t. Tested on his knowledge, Dr Brisby would state “he couldn’t recall his family, his friends, his nationality or his occupation, but he could remember details of New York and Montreal…”. The same was said by Dr Leigh of Maudsley Hospital, who found that Gunther couldn’t recall his child’s name “but was able to name the Monarch, the Prime Minister, the German Chancellor and the President. He even corrected me that Herr Ulbricht was the East German Communist Party Chief and not the Premier”. His memory was inconsistent. He couldn’t say where he was born, but he spoke German. He had no idea how he injured his head, but (when asked by the doctors) he knew he wasn’t on any medication. He had no knowledge of his career, but spoke freely about modern aerodynamics having worked (as an investigation would prove) as an apprentice draftsman at the Heinkel factory in Rostock. And yet, his memory of his girlfriend Ruth and their child Michael, who he called “Mickey” was hazy at best. But when antagonised by Dr Brisby about his Nazi past, Gunther barked that he wasn’t in the SS, as “being too young to fight, I was in der JungVolk and later in the Hitler Youth” – which was true. His second mistake – Dr Brisby said - was to lose his ability to do basic tasks. Described by Dr Stafford Clark as ‘hysterical amnesia’, trauma can cause selective physical amnesia, “but recovery often occurs within a few hours and is usually connected with the traumatic circumstances”. In this case, if Gunther was assaulted by the police, it would occur in things associated to Room 15, but not everything. His third was to be deliberately cautious when asked about the murder and possible assault, as when asked how he knew various details, he’d either state “my solicitor told me”, “I read it in a statement”, “I don’t know, I just know”, or his answers would be painfully vague like “they said I’d killed someone”. And yet, “after the initial police court proceedings, he gave me a very intelligent, detailed and coherent narrative with a keen appreciation of what he thought were the discrepancies in the evidence”. Asked in court “do you accept that this alleged case of hysterical amnesia is genuine”? Dr Brisby replied “No. There are no consistent symptoms”. Dr Colin Edwards, Dr Michael Ashby & Dr Phillip Harvey said it was, Dr Stafford-Clark claimed it was fright, and Dr Leigh testified “he is feigning his amnesia. There is no evidence of any impairment now or at the time of his alleged crime, and he is fit to stand trial”. Six specialists in neurology and psychiatry, but all with differences of opinion. Only it was two seemingly insignificant pieces of evidence which would be bring into question the recollections of those involved, which would prove so devastating to the prosecution and the defence. One was by Gunther himself… an amnesiac who couldn’t recall his own name, his friends or any of the places he had stayed at or things he had done in the seven weeks of freedom he had spent in England. And yet, on the 28th of August from Brixton Prison, Gunther wrote a letter in reply to his friend – Ron Starkey of Southsea – writing in perfect English and beginning “Dear Ron”, as he asked how he was, requested “some smokes” being sent to prison as he had ran out, and ending it with “yours cordially”. But later realising his grave error, Gunther asked the prison officer to retrieve this letter from the post box, which he did, but realising its value in the impending criminal trial, it was used against him. Where-as the second …? It wasn’t a recollection by DS Sandford, the late DS Purdy, or any of the CID officers of Chelsea Police Station, as although inconsistent, their statements were believed. It was the evidence of Roland Gray, the British Intelligence officer who was said to have arrested and detained him on the charge of blackmail in 1949 and – from a newspaper report - “had recognised Podola who is charged with the murder of Detective Sergeant Purdy and is putting forward a defence of amnesia”. From what they knew of Gunther, it all matched… a 20-year-old German blackmailer and fraudster who had a history of using aliases like Fisher, was prone to fleeing when cornered, had a willingness to shoot without any hesitation, a habit of feigned amnesia when detained, and – when confronted with a death sentence, like being handed over to the Russians – he would suddenly admit the truth. The prosecution needed this evidence to be rock-solid, but when Interpol investigated, it turned out that Roland’s memory of the events a decade ago were mistaken, as that was not Gunther Podola… …but somebody else. Deemed fit to stand trial, but not to provide testimony, on the 23rd September 1959, he pleaded “not guilty” to the murder of Detective Sergeant Raymond William Purdy and would call no witnesses. Assessed as “an intelligent man with an IQ of 115”, Gunther’s demeanour was described as “cool and cold”, as he handed his solicitor handwritten notes as each witness spoke - their contents unknown. And although he said he couldn’t remember the murder; the evidence of his crime was concrete. While the jury deliberated whether “this was a deliberate shooting by the accused?”, Gunther sat in his cell, calmly munching a nice lunch of German sausage, luncheon meat, salad and coffee. Returning just 37 minutes later - as Gunther had in the hospital - the foreman replied with one word – “guilty”. Donning his black cap, Justice Edmund Davies proclaimed “you have been convicted of the murder of Raymond William Purdy, a police officer acting in the execution of his duty. For that foul and terrible deed but one sentence is prescribed. It is that you suffer death in the manner authorised by law”. Appealing his sentence, on 15th of October 1959, with his appeal dismissed as the Medical Committee had determined that “his amnesia was faked”, suddenly - with his execution looming – Gunther had a change of heart, he would state that his memory had miraculously returned and that “at the time of the murder I was house-breaking”, and for the shooting, he blamed it on “a double called Bob Levine”. Rightfully investigated, his burglary and look-a-like claims were debunked and on the 5th of November 1959, four months after the murder, 30-year-old Gunther Podola was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. Today, a memorial stands outside of 95 Queensgate where DS Purdy was murdered, and although his killer would feign amnesia to escape the hangman’s noose, Gunter’s only claim to fame was that he was last person executed in England for the murder of a police officer. His cowardly crimes do not warrant any praise, so let’s afford him the respect he granted his victim by forgetting his name, his details and his history, as if he has already been erased by a shattered memory. (same sound as start). The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #219: Shattered Memory (The Trial of Gunther Podola) - Part Two19/7/2023
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN:
On Monday 13th of July at roughly 3:45pm, in the hallway of 105 Onslow Square in Kensington, SW7, 30-year-old German national Gunther Podola shot Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy dead. Traced to a nearby hotel at 95 Queen’s Gate, CID detectives and colleagues of the dead officer charged into Gunther’s room… thirty minutes later, he was escorted out, suffering bruises, weakness and amnesia. With one officer dead and the culprit with no memory of what he was being charged with, the whole crux of the trial would be ‘who is telling the truth’, the vengeful officers or the killer with no memory.
CLICK HERE to download the Murder Mile podcast via iTunes and to receive the latest episodes, click "subscribe". You can listen to it by clicking PLAY on the embedded media player below.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location is marked with a darker red exclamation mark (!) near the words 'West Brompton', right in the midst of all the icons. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE Welcome to… erm… uh. (as before). As 30-year-old Gunther Podola sat in the dock of the Old Bailey, the ghost of a cut still lingering above his left eye, he was not the only man on trial in the murder of Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy. As so was the testimony of his partner DS John Sandford and the recollections of the eight CID officers who stormed Room 15, and – it is said – caused the culprit’s amnesia whether by accident or brutality. Justice Davies forewarned the jury “you will have to ask yourselves, do you believe Detective Sergeant John Sandford’s evidence and regard him as honest, accurate and reliable?”, as with no independent witnesses to either the culprit’s ‘assault’ or the officer’s murder, testimony was based on an amnesiac with a death sentence hanging over his head and eight celebrated CID officers keen to protect their careers, their colleagues, their reputations and the memory of an officer shot down in the line of duty. But was Gunther’s amnesia an excuse, an accident, or police brutality? (loop/fade/white noise). Thursday 16th July 1959, on the third floor of the Claremont House Hotel at 95 Queen’s Gate, all eight CID officers would clarify “at 3:45pm, we took up position facing the door of Room 15”; a small room barely big enough for one man, comprising a bed, a chair, a wardrobe, and no exits except this door. Inside, as he washed, unaware that he was cornered, Gunther was believed to be armed and deadly. With the hotel’s residents moved somewhere safe, this incident can only be based on the testimony of those eight CID officers standing outside of Room 15; Superintendent Hislop, Chief Inspector Acott, Inspector Vibart, DS’s Chambers & Davis, DC’s Morrisey & Vaughn, PC Collet and his police dog ‘Flame’. …but when you examine the evidence, some of the details don’t make sense. As expected, their statements describe a by-the-book operation by unflustered professionals in the midst of extraordinary circumstances; being tasked to apprehend a suspect, to preserve evidence, and to protect the lives of the public, themselves and the culprit who was yet to be proven guilty. There was no confusion of orders, no impatience to get it done, and - interestingly - no frustration or anger. And yet, this wasn’t an ordinary blackmailer, this was the killer of their friend who just 48 hours earlier had been gunned down in cold blood; some saw him die, some were at his autopsy, and some would comfort his weeping widow and crying kids, in a callous murder which had caused so much outrage that a fund was set-up and many people sited this case as a reason not to abolish the death penalty. They were professionals, but they were also human, whose judgement can be clouded by anger when standing before the room of the man who murdered their pal whose body lay on a cold mortuary slab. In court, they would testify “we were issued with revolvers and truncheons”, which made sense as the unseen occupant of Room 15 was an armed suspect fleeing a policeman’s brutal murder, and yet they would all clarify “but neither were used or drawn”, which seems odd given the threat to their safety. As their training decrees, it was said that DI Vibart announced their presence by hollering “Police, open this door”, which they had to being eight officers in plain dark suits. And yet, in their statements, none of the residents three floors below would report hearing the officer holler “Police, open up”, or even his name “Gunther Podola!” or any of his aliases to make him aware that it was him they were after. Was this why Gunther didn’t reply, was he afraid, or did he not know it was the Police? But that still leaves an unanswered question; with all of the officers stating, “the door was shut”, why did they choose to open it by force, when they could have unlocked it with the hotel’s master key? The door was strong, so having given it a good run-up, when DI Vibart barged it with all his weight, the lock didn’t break and the jam didn’t splinter, it held firm and didn’t budge - everyone confirmed that. But when DS Chambers was requested to “break it down”, with the officers all confirming that they heard “a voice inside” and the “faint metal click of the door lock”, why did he barge the door? DS Chambers described it as “a terrific crash” as the door smashed open (crash, screams, shouting)… …again, the wood didn’t splinter and the lock didn’t snap, as Gunther had already opened it. The Police’s lawyers would claim that his amnesia – if it was real – occurred when he hit his head on the door as the officers stormed in, as confirmed by “his left eye swelling and the cut above it was bleeding”. But with Gunther seen not being bent forward as the Police barged in, Dr Larkin confirmed “that slight concussion could not account for his amnesia”, and the door was unlikely to be the cause. DS Chambers who forced the door would state “Podola staggered backwards, he fell over a chair and finished up lying face up the floor with his head in the fireplace”, as the other officers followed him in. It was a tiny room for eight officers, a police dog and a suspect, and yet, the crime-scene photos show no signs of a disturbance, nothing broken, and even a small wastepaper bin beside the fireplace where there the struggle took place being upright, as are the curtains, the wardrobe, the chair, and the bed. DS Chambers stated “I fell on him with my full force, I held his arms down forcibly to stop him using a weapon” - only later finding his gun, not in the room but hidden in the attic, so Gunther was unarmed. Dressed only in a vest and a pair of trousers, with the full 17 stone bulk of DS Chambers on top of this 12 stone weakling, “with Podola on his back struggling violently and continuing to resist for about 3 to 4 minutes”, two more officers fell on him “to assist in restraining the prisoner”. Held with his hands behind his back, his feet held together, and several burly coppers – weighing “at least thirty-stone” - forcing down upon him, Dr Ashby told the court “I do not know whether he lost consciousness from a head injury, a hysterical stupor or such a weight upon his chest”, but all agreed “Podola went limp”. DS Chambers said “I felt him go limp under me, he stopped struggling. I drew DCI Acott’s attention to this and got off him, saying ‘I think he’s been knocked out. He’s had a bang over his eye’”. In total, “he was unconscious for not more than a few minutes”, although – having suffered a head injury, shock and suffocation with possibly oxygen starvation - no-one called for an ambulance, no-one checked his pulse or breathing, and he would be denied professional medical attention for at least the next hour. Only, no-one would know anything of this, except the officers… and Gunther who now had amnesia. Some may say that what happened next shows the Police’s professionalism, as just 48 hours after their colleague’s killing they cared for his killer’s culprit, whereas others may simply call it a whitewash. DCI Acott ordered the bed stripped and searched for weapons, which was why blood was found on the mattress. “We put Podola on the bed, a blanket around his shoulder and a pillow behind his back”. Of course, these sheets could be used to muffle sounds and aid suffocation, but that’s just conjecture. “DI Vibart, DC Morrissey and I (DS Chambers) gave him first aid. We bathed the cut over his eye… took him to the washbasin and gave him a good sluice round his head and neck”. He couldn’t do it himself as he was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. But was he being washed or waterboarded, as being a lone suspect in a room full of officers and no other eyewitnesses, who would know different? It was then that Gunther began to suffer a slew of unusual intermittent symptoms. “Shortly afterwards, Podola began to shake violently” like he was having a seizure, only again no-one called for a doctor. Instead, blaming it on shock or his head injury, they kept him warm until it ceased. When his convulsions settled, having said that he was thirsty, with his handcuffs briefly removed, “he greedily gulped down several glasses of cold water”, and although some officers remarked that “I felt he might be shamming”, “this was a ploy”, that could explain why his face and head were soaking wet? At 4:15pm, a full 30 minutes after Room 15 was forcibly entered, although he had trouble standing up, Gunther was escorted from the Claremont House Hotel and into a police car, aided by two officers. His movements were slow and unsteady, at no time did he speak or make a sound or statement, and keen to “protect his identity” or maybe to disguise his wounds “I had his head covered with a coat”. With the killer of Detective Sergeant Purdy caught, this photo was front page news… …and yet, he hadn’t been cautioned, charged or arrested. Recollection and written record are very different things, as would be proved by the damning testimony of Roland Gray that, in post-war Berlin, Gunther Podola had blackmailed a grieving widow. It was the evidence the prosecution needed, but it was littered with problems, as with every statement destroyed, they couldn’t confirm if his confession had been acquired under duress, coercion or assault. The storming of Room 15 had some similarities, as although the officers were issued with notebooks for the purpose of recording the details to ensure a thorough record, “they had failed to take accurate notes of the events”, and even though eyewitnesses gave their statements that day, many officers did not submit theirs for at least a week, by which time they were suspiciously similar in style and tone. Which takes us back to the events prior to the murder of Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy. On Monday 13th July 1959 at 3:40pm, DS’s Sandford & Purdy approached a phone-booth in South Kensington station to apprehend a blackmailer known as Mr Fisher, an alias of Gunther Podola. But with Purdy dead and Podola an amnesiac, all we have is the testimony of DS Sandford, who the judge would ask the jury, “do you believe his evidence and regard him as honest, accurate and reliable?”. If we re-examine those moments through Gunther’s eyes, they appear very different, As how did he know they were police? Being cornered, it is said that DS Purdy declared: “we are Police Officers, who are you, what are you up to?”. But what if they didn’t, or what if he didn’t believe them? Gunther was German, a much-maligned nationality in post-war Britian, who as a fervent Nazi had fled Canada owing to his criminality, had possibly been brutalised by British Intelligence officers in Berlin, and a blackmailer who was operating in another criminal gang’s turf. How did he know? As being dressed in dark suits so they could blend in, all he had was the word of these plain-clothed officers. Again, DS Sandford’s notebook was incomplete, and his statement taken a week later, having adopted CID’s lazy habit in which they would finesse and fudge any details over a cuppa with their colleagues. It is stated that DS Purdy said: “we are taking you to Chelsea Police Station on suspicion of demanding money with menaces from Mrs Schiffman”, at which he was cautioned and made no reply. But why? At that point, he wasn’t arrested or charged, he wasn’t handcuffed or searched, so did this spook him? And as he was escorted by two men in dark suits to their car, spotting that it wasn’t a marked police car but a black Wolseley saloon, did this fill him with dread, is this why he ran, and being cornered in the hallway of 105 Onslow Square, is this why he made the fateful decision to shoot his way out? It doesn’t excuse his actions, but it could explain them. 1959 was a bad year for the Police, especially in Britain, and unequivocally in London. So bad were the beatings of “blacks, old lags and the poor by officers in private rooms with fists, truncheons, straps and boots”, that in May 1959, the National Council for Civil Liberties asked for a public inquiry. As just three examples of Police brutality by London officers in 1959: A Cypriot in Soho testified that “two officers in the presence of an inspector had beaten him black and blue with a stick” – the officers were not charged. In August, at Chelsea police station, a ‘black stoker’ was kicked and strangled in the cells – no charges were brought. And an RAF officer was “beaten for two hours with a ruler”, only for the officers to state “he got violent and slipped when we chased him”. The Police in the 1950s had become too powerful and too corrupt. Sir Robert Mark, the Met’ Police Commissioner would openly state “the CID were the most routinely corrupt organisation in London”, with many “being bent for the job” by taking bribes, dealing drugs, turning a blind-eye for profit, fitting up suspects and closing ranks when their crimes were queried. By the late 1970s, Operation Countryman investigated hundreds of City of London police officers who had facilitated a series of armed robberies, with one cop stating, “all the blokes on the robbery squad had a drink in it, going right to the top”. Only every officer was acquitted as no-one would speak. So common was this corruption, that Sir Paul Condon, Head of the Met in the 1990s coined the phrase “noble cause corruption” – as with cops too keen to nail the accused without enough proof – it was said “at every station there would be guys who excelled as scriptwriters… and the officers would leave their notebooks blank until a ‘scriptwriter’ provided everyone with “a carbon copy of the statement”. Which is not to say that Gunther was framed for murder, he wasn’t… …only the judge would ask whether the jury should take the Police’s statements as fact. At 4:30pm, at the rear of Chelsea police station, Gunther ascended the steps to the charge room. Chief Inspector Haxby recalled “he was taken to the DI’s office for two minutes until the charge room was cleared… his left eye was swelling, he had a small cut over his eye and he was in a shocked condition”. Although lightly dressed in vest and trousers with no shoes or socks, “as he kept fainting, all doors were opened and the fan switched on”, and being deemed “unfit to be charged, arrested or see a solicitor, the Duty Officer phoned the police surgeon, while two officers remained outside of his cell”. At 5:10pm, one hour and forty minutes after his head injury and possible suffocation, Gunther was assessed by Dr Shanahan as “dazed, frightened and exhausted… suffering from a withdrawal reaction” (where shock causes the patient mentally shutdown) “but physically he was normal… he had a few minor scratches to his back and face… he was fit to be detained… but he was not fit to be charged”. Moved to Cell no1, Gunther was “prescribed bed rest”, and not hospitalisation… …but as he mentally shut down and his eye swelled further, physically he seemed to deteriorate. PC’s Hannagan & Hall stated: “he slept a lot”, which may seem odd that a wanted a cop-killer held in an isolated cell in a police station known for its corruption and brutality would take a snooze, but was that symptomatic of his lack of empathy, a resignation to his fate, or was he slipping into a coma? Chief Inspector Haxby testified “at no time did he speak or suffer any interrogation whatsoever”. In fact, according to his guards, “the only time he talked was when he requested to go to the toilet”. Only, being unsteady on his feet, “he was assisted by PC Hind and myself to the toilet in the cell, where his trousers and pants were removed, and he was placed on the seat”, the PC’s would state. But oddly, with the Inspector Burdett “suggesting he had wet himself, the prisoner was stripped of his clothes”. Of course, with the charge room cleared, the only witnesses to what happened were the officers… …until at 12:30am, as seeing “a decline in his health”, Gunther was removed to hospital by stretcher. Denied medical attention for two hours, hospitalisation for ten, and confined to a cell for six hours without a solicitor, his treatment caused such an outcry that it was debated in the House of Commons by Baronet Reginald Paget, a highly respected barrister and Labour MP, to Home Secretary Rab Butler. (House of Commons sounds): Mr Paget: “I ask the Home Secretary what happened to Guenter Podola during the six hours at Chelsea Police Station which necessitated his removal to hospital on a stretcher… my concern is not whether he was charged, but on those officers who beat him unconscious”. To which Mr Butler retorted “Mr Paget has no right to say that Podola was beaten unconscious, and he had no proof that is so…”, as according to the police he was simply “resting” and was hospitalised owing to “mental exhaustion”. Mr Paget would fight on “with respect, the people should be safe in British police stations, and that the idea that either vengeance or beatings occur in British police stations is utterly unacceptable”. When questioned, Detective Superintendent Hislop denied that anything was being “hushed up”. At 12:50am, on Friday 17th July 1959, Gunther was admitted to St Stephen’s Hospital. According to Dr Latham, whose notes (along with his colleagues were exceptional and as independent witnesses would provide the backbone of the medical testimony) would state of his physical wounds “he had a ½ inch laceration over left eyebrow, a ½ inch bruise over left forehead, a slight swelling over left jaw, minimal bruising to his upper arm and blood in nostrils”, but no evidence of skull fractures. Moved to Ward B5, Dr Ashton would state “It is difficult to assess this patient because he is completely uncommunicative and because of his head injury it has obscured his personality”. That day, Dr Phillip Harvey, consulting physician at St Stephen’s sent a letter to the police reporting “Mr Podola is suffering from the after-effects of concussion and a cerebral contusion…”, a bleeding on the surface of the brain, “I anticipate the need for a further two to three days here… as his recovery will be slow”. And it was. Guarded by three shifts of two officers twenty-four hours-a-day over the next four days whilst chained to the bed, Gunther needed help from the nurses and the officers to do even the simplest of things; to walk, to stand and to sit; he had difficulty raising a spoon of food, smoking a cigarette, and again, this 30-year-old man needed two adults to remove his pants and to sit him on the toilet, like a baby. Repeating the same basic phrase to the doctor, “what happened to me?”, Gunther had no memory of his injuries, the assault or the murder, he would have no memory of his four days in hospital, or even of the life he had lived up until that point, except for a few fragments which flashed before his mind. When asked, he didn’t even know his name. Dr Harvey confirmed “it was clear that severe retrograde amnesia was present”, where you can't recall memories formed before the incident that caused the amnesia, but that “he is fit to be interviewed and to understand the nature of the charge, but he is not able at this moment to act in a testamentary capacity regarding events leading up to his admission because of the presence of retrograde amnesia”. His bruises and cuts would heal, but so painfully slow was his mental recovery, that even eight weeks later when Gunther stood trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of DS Purdy, although nine days of the eleven-day trial was solely to decide if he was fit to stand or give evidence, he could recall nothing. On Monday 20th of July, four days after the incident, Mr Williams, Gunther’s court-appointed solicitor was permitted to speak to his client, but so damaged was his memory that when he was handed a document to sign, he had no idea what it meant, and his solicitor had to spell his name for him. At 2:50pm, back at Chelsea Police Station and this time with his solicitor present, Gunther was formally charged by Superintendent Hislop for the murder of DS Purdy. He was cautioned but made no reply, before being committed to criminal trial following a hearing at West London Magistrates Court. Tried at the Old Bailey for a crime he couldn’t recall, the police would deny any accusations of brutality, statement-doctoring or a cover-up. Their defence was that – laughable as it may seem – that Gunther’s state of amnesia was merely a convenient ploy to escape a death sentence, at the hangman’s noose. Gunther was unable to testify against these eight celebrated CID officers keen to protect their careers, their colleagues, their reputations and the memory of a police officer killed in the line of duty. It was a case which Justice Edmund Davies would state was reliant on whether the jury believed them “and could or should regard DS Sandford (and his colleagues) as honest, accurate and reliable”? Recollection and written record are two very different things, but if the Police’s statements were an accurate report of the events, as they would vehemently claim, that left the jury with an odd quandary. If the Police were telling the truth… …then Gunther Podola was lying. Part Three of Three of Shattered Memory continues next week. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Roland House, demolished, scene of the burglary/blackmail of Verne O'Hara which led to the shooting of DS Purdy
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN:
This is Part One of Three of Shattered Memory. On Monday 13th of July at roughly 3:45pm, in the hallway of 105 Onslow Square in Kensington, SW7, 30-year-old German national Gunther Podola shot Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy dead. Traced to a nearby hotel at 95 Queen’s Gate, CID detectives and colleagues of the dead officer charged into Gunther’s room… thirty minutes later, he was escorted out, suffering bruises, weakness and amnesia. With one officer dead and the culprit with no memory of what he was being charged with, the whole crux of the trial would be ‘who is telling the truth’, the vengeful officers or the killer with no memory.
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THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below. Defendant: PODOLA, Gunter Fritz Erwin. Charge: Capital murder
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to… erm… uh. (Same sound rewound and replayed on a loop, but more distorted). As this pale and sullen-eyed German sat in court one of the Old Bailey, even as a death sentence was dangled over his low-hung head; he couldn’t give a word of testimony as an alibi, he couldn’t provide an ounce of evidence in his defence, nor could he rip-apart any witnesses as to their own recollection. Diagnosed with amnesia, Gunther Podola had no memory of the policeman he had murdered. Tried before Justice Edmund Davies, of the eleven days spent giving evidence, nine were to decide if Gunther was fit to stand trial or give testimony. Beginning on 8th of September 1959, “Gunther Podola you are charged that you did murder Detective Sergeant Raymond William Purdy. How do you plead?”. The defence being that – owing to the brutality of those same officers whose colleague Gunther had shot dead – he had no memory of the murder, his assault, his arrest, or his hospitalisation. But also, the bulk of the life he had lived – his girlfriend, his child or his upbringing – everything was a blank. But with the killing of an officer being one of the few crimes still punishable by death in an era where executions were being abolished, with the prosecution seeing his amnesia as nothing more than a charade, as how could a jury send a guilty man to his death, if he had no memory of the murder? With one officer dead and the reputation of the police on the line, a man’s life hung in the balance... …but was his amnesia an excuse, an accident, or caused by police brutality? (loop/fade/white noise). Gunther Fritz Edwin Podola was born on 8th February 1929 in Berlin, Germany. Of course, he wouldn’t know that, as all he could recall were fragments of a life he didn’t know if they were real or imagined. As the only child to Elisabeth a housewife, and Werner a barber, Gunther was raised in the working-class sprawl of Alexanderplatz in Berlin’s inner city. Described as a solitary boy with a short fuse, few friends and a quick temper, he lacked the concentration to study and the patience to earn a living. Being restless, to occupy his time, he engaged in petty thievery, and perused gun catalogues, crime magazines and the mystery novels of Edgar Wallace, believing that one day, he would be a gangster. Only being too thin, too weak and being “an odd little thing”, Gunther had no gang to rule but himself. In flashes of lost memories, Gunther would state “I was a dead-end kid”, a ragged youth who lived by his wits amongst the blackened smoking ruins of a broken Berlin, making enough to eat by salvaging scrap metal, black-marketing and – he claimed - wartime smuggling. No-one can verify this, as he was an ‘alleinganger’, one who works alone. But was this a fact or a fantasy concocted by his injured brain? By 1939, with Germany descending into war, like all German boys of Aryan appearance (even though his family were Czech) 10-year-old Gunther was initiated into der JungVolk, being four-years too young to join the Hitler Youth. But having already disavowed God, Gunther worshipped his country’s leader and because of his doctrine, he believed that the Fuhrer was the greatest man alive, telling a friend – “my only regret was that I was too young to fight for the Fatherland and to die for Adolf Hitler”. In 1943, with his conscription still five years away, he said he trained as an aircraft draftsman at the Heinkel factory. That same year, his father was killed serving in the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front. And yet, for many citizens of this shattered city, even amongst such death, they could still find love. Just one year his junior, he had known Ruth Quandt since his childhood and later living in same block in Neue Konigstrasse, this solidly-built blonde Berliner was his first and possibly his only ever girlfriend. Ruth & Gunther made an unusual pair, a little distant and loveless, as with her describing him as “sombre and conflicted”, although he wanted to marry her, he would claim she always forbade it. So, maybe she didn’t love him, maybe she was afraid of him, or maybe she was traumatised by her past? As with the war coming to an end and Hitler having taken his life as the Red Army surrounded this blood-soaked city, across a two-week battle as Russian soldiers occupied Berlin, in the flats that they lived in, all the women were raped including Ruth who was only 14, and all of the men were shot… …only somehow Gunther escaped. The post-war years left great holes in the history of many ordinary people, but for Gunther it also left him with a hatred of authority, a need to flee, and a desperation to fight if cornered. And yet, one witness to his early life would give an incredible account of the man with almost no memory of himself. On 10th September 1959, as Gunther sat in the dock of the Old Bailey, Roland Gray, a former sergeant in the British Intelligence Corps stationed in post-war Berlin would state “I recognised Podola who is charged with the murder of Detective Sergeant Purdy and is putting forward a defence of amnesia”. In a brief statement, he gave a recollection which had uncanny parallels to Gunther’s crimes. “At the end of March 1949, as a result of an anonymous phone call to Intelligence Headquarters at Charlottenburg, West Berlin, I & Sergeant Whitehorn went to a villa” (its name redacted) “where an armed Russian civilian was alleged to be inside the house” - only the man wasn’t Russian, but German. “As we arrived, he escaped through the backdoor” being a cowardly sort of boy who was prone to fleeing at the first sight or sound of authority - “British Army! Stop! Or we’ll shoot!” – but after a very brief chase, he was swiftly apprehended, and having been searched for weapons, none were found. Held in detention for ten days, this weak-looking slip-of-a-boy with dark sullen eyes was interrogated and gave his details as Major Karanov of the NKVD (the Russian Secret Police) stationed at Karlsthorst”, which made no sense as “he was in civilian clothing and looked barely 20 years old”. It seemed like a story made up by a fantasist living the life of one of his criminal heroes in an Edgar Wallace novel. In truth, having read in the paper that the villa’s occupant was trying to find her missing husband, this deluded little boy had spun a web of lies to make her think he could spring him from a Siberian prison for 6000 Marks. But proven to be a liar, panicking as his plan fell to pieces, with a 9mm pistol (never recovered) he had threatened to shoot the woman, her friend, his own accomplice and even himself. Handed over to West German Police, with no evidence of blackmail, he was released without charge. And although he carried no ID, he said his real name was Mr Fisher - a known alias of Gunther Podola. Gunther was a delusional, selfish, money-obsessed wannabe-gangster with no morals… …even amongst those he claimed to love. According to Ruth, on the 28th of October 1951, their son Michael was born. Seeking a better life, far from the austere confines of East Berlin, on the 16th June 1952, Gunther reported to the West German authorities as a refugee. Seeking passage to Canada to work as a farm labourer, his immigration visa was approved, and having set sail on from Hamburg on 4th August, he arrived in Halifax ten days later. Hearing the good news that Gunther had made it to Montreal to find work, Ruth and her baby crossed the heavily guarded border into West Berlin, and as planned, waited for Gunther to send for them. Only it was whilst there - being cold, hungry and scared - that Ruth received a telegram. It said he had made it to safety, and his new life was good, “but I want nothing more to do with you or your child”. Months later, Ruth was able to leave the refugee camp and return to East Berlin, but being a single mother struggling to live in a post-war world, unable to cope, Michael was placed into foster care. Gunther on the other hand was living the life of a man without a care in the world… Initially he worked as a farm labourer in Huntington, only to lose his job “when he attacked a small girl who had squirted him with a water pistol”, and unable to afford the fancy lifestyle he felt he deserved being a shipper of gowns and a welder at Canadair Airlines, he supplemented his income with crime. In March 1957, having served ten days in prison for burglary, that same month, he was sentenced to two years for six counts of car theft, two of burglary and two of deception. Upon his release, Gunther was promptly deported back to Germany, but being unwelcome there, instead he moved to England. On the 21st of May 1959, 30-year-old Gunther Podola arrived at London Airport from Frankfurt. As a German citizen travelling on his own passport and seeking work as a welder, his crimes were unknown to the British authorities, and he was legally intitled to carry in a holster his black 9mm Lugar pistol. During his brief life in West London, he didn’t work, he moved between hotels, he visited many sex-workers, and – like a pretend gangster – he used the aliases of Mike Colato, Paul Camay and H R Fisher. Seven weeks later, being cornered, he would shoot a police officer dead… …and it all began with a little bit of burglary and blackmail. Malvina Joan Schiffman was a 30-year-old fashion model and actress who went by the stage name of Verne O’Hara. In fact, so guarded was she of her privacy that few people knew her real name, she kept her work and social schedule a secret, she had only moved into the top floor flat of this secure block at 84 Roland House one month earlier, and her phone number of Fremantle 0919 was ex-directory. But often safety is only an illusion, as even though her flat was five-stories off the ground, while she was at a rehearsal for the TV show ‘Double Your Money’, someone broke in and took a mink stole, a camera and jewellery worth £2500, as well as the passports for her herself, her husband and her young child, but also – most sensitively of all – a set of private letters supposedly from her “secret lover”. On 7th July, Detective Sergeant John Sandford of Chelsea CID came to the flat, had fingerprints taken, made a report and as required, logged any actions or statements pertinent to the case in his notebook. The next day, at 11:30am, having received an Express Letter addressed Mrs Malvina Joan Schiffman, a private detective known only as ‘Levine’ threatened to expose “any pictures, writings and recordings I have”, possibly to her husband, a New York shipping executive, “or I can sell them to you for $500”. Malvina was shocked and scared, but Chelsea CID were not, as they would inform her “there’s been a string of local robberies in which attempts at blackmail have been made owing to stolen documents”. Only this time, knowing this blackmailer would call back, the Police would set a trap. Sunday 12th July just before 1pm, her phone rang. “Mrs Schiffman? This is Mr Fisher acting on behalf of Mr Levine”. Having been briefed by the officers on what to say – even though her secret love affair “did not exist” – she agreed to pay him the money and she would await her blackmailer’s instructions. Keeping several steps ahead of this thief, the detectives tracked the letter to a post office on nearby Exhibition Road, and knowing that his call had come through the Fremantle telephone exchange, the second he called to ask for his money, an operator at the exchange would be able to trace the call. The call was made on Monday 13th of July at roughly 11:30am. Being on shift, it was random which officers were on duty, as right then it was Detective Sergeant John Sandford and Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy, a 43-year-old veteran Police officer and a married father of three, with three commendations for bravery in the line of duty, his last just one year prior. (Phone ringing) “Mrs Schiffman? This is Mr Fisher”, “I agree to pay the $500”, “Good. Go to the bank and I’ll call you back at 2:30pm”, which she did in case he was watching. Only when he called back, she signalled her neighbour to call CID “Detective Sergeant Sandford? She’s on the phone to him now”. DS Sandford & Purdy were perched at Chelsea police station. In the pockets of their vague grey suits were a set of handcuffs and a pair of notebooks, as these plain-clothed officers sat in a black four-door Wolseley saloon, waiting. But before the operator could trace the call, he’d hung up. The blackmailer was being cautious, so to catch him in the act, the detectives needed his mark to “keep him talking”. At 3:15pm, he called again, and the operator had him: “he’s in a phone-box on Pelham Street”, but although the plain-clothed officers had raced to the scene, by the time they’d got there, he was gone. The blackmailer was always one-step ahead and within a hairsbreadth of their grasp… …but at 3:40pm, with the same man making a call to Malvina from Knightsbridge 2355, “it’s a phone-box in South Kensington station”, they floored the engine, pulled-up in 90 seconds flat, and ran down to the entrance hall on the lower level to see a bank of five phone booths, but only one was occupied. DS Sandford would state “We got there about 3:50pm, a man was in the phone box”. Described as 25 to 35, 5 foot 10, slim build, cropped hair, wearing a light sports jacket and trousers, a white shirt, grey suede shoes and green sunglasses, although he spoke “in an American accent”, it sounded fake. And as he noisily flipped over the pages of a black notebook suspiciously close to the phone’s mouthpiece, his conversation to an unheard woman was about his money and “the evidence I am going to sell you”. Mr Fisher thought he had won, and that the money was his… …but as the sturdy frame of DS Purdy loomed large leaving this waif-like villain trapped by two burly coppers, before Gunther even knew that he was cornered, DS Purdy grabbed the phone, spoke into it “Mrs Schiffman? This is Sergeant Purdy. Please remember my name” before he hung up, as he knew that this was a crucial moment in this case of blackmail for when it would – undoubtably – go to court. Gunther had nowhere to run, and even as DS Purdy announced: “we are Police Officers, who are you, and what are you up to?”, unsure which lie to tell or alias to use, he said nothing as was his legal right. And with that, having not resisted arrest, DS Purdy stated: “we are taking you to Chelsea police station on suspicion of demanding money with menace”, at which he was cautioned but made no reply. And with insufficient evidence to arrest him, being only a suspect, he was neither searched nor handcuffed. By all accounts, it was a standard apprehension of a suspected blackmailer by two seasoned officers, and seizing the suspect’s black notebook, DS Purdy placed this vital evidence inside his jacket pocket. …or at least it should have been. As the two unarmed plain-clothed detectives left the tube station and walked the short distance to their unmarked police car on nearby Sydney Street - without warning - Gunther suddenly fled. DS Sandford later gave the statement: “we chased after him, but as DS Purdy reached the centre of the road, he fell heavily… I continued to chase the suspect along the north pavement of Onslow Square in a westerly direction… just then, Sergeant Purdy drew level with me in a taxi. I jumped on the running board, and we followed the man, who was seen to run into the hallway of 105 Onslow Square”. Being fitter, Gunther could have kept running, but instead he would make a fatal mistake, as with this five-storey Georgian terrace being split into private flats, the spacious empty hallway offered him few options; dash up the stairs into uncertainty, wait for the lift like a prize prune, exit the door and end-up bundled to the floor by two coppers weighing 16-stone each, or – childishly - hide behind a pillar. Oddly, he chose the pillar, so with a slightly bruised and rather sweaty DS Purdy collaring him – being unwilling to play this boy’s silly games – DS Purdy barked: “sit in that windowsill and behave yourself”, which Gunther did, as DS Sandford began to head out to fetch their police car. In court, DS Sandford stated “I noticed nothing peculiar about him. He was perfectly ordinary, just a sullen type of attitude”. Only both detectives had badly misjudged their suspect, as when cornered, Gunther would panic. DS Sandford would later tell the jury: “I saw the man slide off the windowsill and turn to DS Purdy who was standing very close to him. The man put his hands inside his left side of his jacket, and to Sergeant Purdy I shouted, ‘watch out, he may have a gun’”, but by then, it was too late. “No sooner were the words out of my mouth, I saw the man pull a large black automatic pistol from the inside of his jacket, point it at Sergeant Purdy’s body and fire at point blank range, as Sergeant Purdy fell gasping - ‘ah’”. Shot from just three inches away, the gunpowder scorched the left-side of the officer’s grey suit as a single 9mm bullet punctured his heart, ripping opening his aorta and filling his body cavity with blood. DS Sandford gave chase, but having lost the suspect, he returned to help his bleeding partner. But owing to his extensive injuries, Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy was pronounced dead at 4:08pm. Of the tenants staying at 105 Onslow Square that day, only two heard the shot and yet no-one saw the shooting, so the only witnesses to the killing were DS Sandford who admitted in court “at times, had my back to the suspect”, DS Purdy who had died at the scene, and the suspect - Gunther Podola… …who would have absolutely no memory of the murder. Buy why? The hunt for the killer of DS Purdy was not a complicated one, as although they didn’t know his name, they had a description; although they didn’t have his gun, they had spent bullets and casings; although they hadn’t any eyewitnesses to place him at the crime scene, they had his fingerprints in several phone boxes and on the windowsill at 105 Onslow Square; and a later search would unearth the gun, his clothes, several identical rounds of ammunition, a mink stole and Malvina’s three stolen passports. And yet, although he was dead, it was DS Purdy who would lead the detectives to Gunther Podola. Held at Fulham Mortuary, it was whilst observing his colleagues’ autopsy that DS Holford found the black notebook, taken from the suspect, which DS Purdy had placed in his jacket pocket as evidence. Only this wasn’t any ordinary notebook, as inside – as if the author was dictating his life into a mystery novel – he had listed every building he had cased, every person he had blackmailed, every call he had made, every flight he had taken (from Canada to Germany to England), as well as every alias he used, and every hotel he had stayed at since his arrival in West London… including his current hideout. Under the alias of a Swiss/Canadian photographer called Paul Camay, Gunther had laid-low in a small room at the Claremont House Hotel at 95 Queen’s Gate, barely a five-minute walk from the shooting. On Thursday 16th July at 3:30pm - having pre-warned the hotel’s managers, ushered any civilians to safety and clarified that the suspect Gunther Podola was currently in his room - eight officers from Chelsea CID ascended the stairs to the third floor, and silently held their position outside of Room 15. All armed with revolvers, they were Detective Superintendent Hislop, Chief Inspector Acott, Inspector Vibart, DS’s Chambers & Davis, DC’s Morrisey & Vaughn, with PC Collet and his police dog ‘Flame’. As inside, being three floors up and busy washing, unaware of the officers, again Gunther was cornered. The officers stated “at 3:45pm, we took up position facing the door of Room 15”. In a loud voice, DI Vibart hollered “Police, open this door” as an officer banged sharply. Only the occupant did not reply. Wisely standing to one side, as inside was the same armed assailant who had killed one of their own in cold-blood just 48 hours earlier, DI Vibart repeated “Police. Open the door”. Only no-one replied. Making the decision to force it and storm the room, DI Vibart walked to the top of the stairs to give himself a run-up, and with all of his bulk, he charged hard against the door, only it wouldn’t give way. Unable to enter this inaccessible room with possibly a gun-toting maniac hidden within, as the officers stood ready to strike and the dog barked ferociously, hearing what they would later state was “a voice inside” and a “faint metal click”, instead, the heftier 17-stone bulk of DS Chambers took a run-up… …and the door crashed open. (crash, screams, shouting, descend to loop/fade/white noise, as at start). Except for those officers, there were no witnesses to what happened inside of Room 15. Gunther could remember little of what you have just heard, of his past, the blackmail, the shooting and that moment. Tried at the Old Bailey, the jurors would spend nine days not deciding whether he had killed DS Purdy, he had, but whether his amnesia was a convenient excuse to escape a death sentence, an accident which occurred in the heat of the moment, or police brutality for the revenge of their fallen comrade? Part Two of Three of Shattered Memory continues next week. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN:
On Thursday 29th October 1883, William Crees had married Eliza Horsman having known each other for just a few weeks. Initially it seemed like they were very much in love, but with William being a man with a few secrets, Eliza should have been worried. But everything would come to a head, just two weeks after their wedding, as William was also harbouring a deadly disease, which would not only take the host, but also the lives of those he (claimed to) love.
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THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Greek Street in Soho, W1; a few doors south of the disgruntled dishwasher who shot dead his fiery chef, a few doors north-east of the shooting at the Golden Goose arcade, and just a few doors north of brutal street attack by two good Samaritans - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 55 Greek Street currently stands a four-storey terrace built in the 1980s as the original building was destroyed during the blitz. With offices above and a café on the ground-floor, a smattering of outside seats are often occupied by fed-up couples sitting in silence; scowling like bulldogs with piles, as they dream of this ‘half-wit they once loved’ choking on a shortbread or being scolded by a cappuccino. Which is why ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffets are so popular among couples, as unwilling to do time for the other’s murder, ladles of fatty food piled high means less reason to talk but also a much crueller death. Back in 1883, on the third-floor in a front-room at 55 Greek Street lived saddle-maker William Crees and his new bride of just two weeks, Eliza. Technically, this was their honeymoon, a twee period where most couples still kiss, cuddle and say, “I love you”. But with a very common illness plaguing his insides, something nasty which had festered and lain dormant for possibly decades would soon arise. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 217: Eliza Crees and the Honeymoon from Hell. It was said that syphilis spread across Europe sometime in the 14th century. Where it came from is unknown, but with every country blaming their neighbour – as we call it the French disease, the French call it the Italian disease, the Italians call it the Spanish disease, and so on and so forth – although we all give it the euphemism of ‘cupid’s sickness’, syphilis is the most patient of cold-blooded killers. Many people may not even realise that Syphilis still exists. It’s one of those oldy-worldy diseases which you may imagine only a dapper-dressed dandy with a hanky having, alongside consumption, quinsy or gout. Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, diagnosed cases of syphilis in the UK remain at 7000 per year. Most of which are treated at primary and secondary stage, rarely reaching the tertiary stage. As a bacterial infection, syphilis can be contracted through sex, birth or by touching an infected sore. Sex is the most common vector with the disease usually passed through intercourse (anal and vaginal), kissing, oral sex and anything where there a blood/fluid transfer. Sadly, with these infected sores often being small and painless, they are not easy to spot, and often the host won’t know they have syphilis. But by the 19th century, records state that one-in-five Londoners had syphilis, and - as with STDs like VD, gonorrhea, or chlamydia on the rise - syphilis had become so common, it was accepted as normal. Unlike consumption with its symptom of a hacking cough, syphilis was very much a silent killer, as it arrived like a thief in the night, but like a burglar who secretly covets your home, it hides inside. There are four stages of syphilis: Primary; which lasts six-to-eight weeks, beginning with painless sores at the point where the bacteria entered the body, which lasts up-to six weeks, before this chancre erodes into a painless grey ulcer. Many don’t know they have syphilis as with the sores not bleeding nor irritable, who thinks to check. In the Victorian era, these sores (also called chancres) were often burned off with acid or treated with mercury. Considered more of an art than a science, doctors freely administered highly toxic mercury at levels of their own discretion, with some quacks administering it as a pill, an ointment, a steam bath or injected directly into the urethra, this treatment was often more deadly than the disease itself. Even with treatment to cauterise the sores, the second stage of syphilis usually occurs ten weeks after the initial infection, appearing as painless rashes where the grey healed sore now sits, as well as on the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet, but as they don’t itch, again, no-one thinks to check. And as the bacteria begins to infect the rest of the body, other more obvious symptoms develop, like fever, swollen glands, headaches, fatigue, weight loss and hair loss, as well as muscle and bone ache. This escalation of symptoms is something we see with many diseases, as when the bacteria ravages the body and even our own defences are unable to cope, the host often only gets sicker and weaker. But syphilis is sneaky and it’s subtle, as acting like a seasonal disease like the flu, it arrives, it infects, it announces its presence in a big way, and – regardless of whether the host gets treatment or not – the symptoms clear-up, as if the infection has gone. Or at least, that’s what it wants you to think. But without penicillin, the infection may move onto the latent and possibly tertiary stages of syphilis. Latency is the third stage of syphilis, during which as the disease lays dormant inside the host’s body with no symptoms; no cough, no fever and no chancres. The disease is entirely silent, to the point where the patient may have forgotten that they had syphilis or mistakenly believe they’ve been cured. But the latency can last a few months, usually a few years, but in some cases, it can fester for decades. Without treatment, 15% up to 40% of those infected developed the final stage - tertiary syphilis. Like the grim reaper itself, it never warns of its arrival until it’s too late. As before, ulcers appear, only as these painful chancres begin to burrow deeper into the soft skin and the brittle bone, eating away at the fleshy extremities like the nose and riddling the body with ugly lesions and unsightly growths, it leaves its breathing host with the hollow bony skull of someone who looks dead, but is still alive. But it’s not just the body that it attacks, but also the nervous system and the brain. Often developing into neurosyphilis, patients suffer from confusion, memory-loss, paranoia and changes in personality, as well as blindness, paralysis and dementia, as the host’s body, brain and soul is eaten from within… …driving them to insanity, suicide and – and in some cases - even murder. It was uncertain when William Crees contracted syphilis, or when the symptoms took hold. William Sellick Crees was born in 1845 in Blandford, Dorset on the south-west coast of England. As the son of a Navy Excise Officer, they moved to be nearer the shipyards, and as a solid hard-working family, every one of his siblings earned an honest wage, as a clockmaker, a seamstress or as a glovemaker. By 1861, with his mother Jane having passed-away, even as the youngest of seven, 16-year-old William made his way as a saddler’s apprentice, learning the leather crafting skills of making horses saddles, bits and bridles, as this grieving family moved to Great Torrington, a market town in north-west Devon. Over the next ten years, it’s uncertain what he did, as although some reports incorrectly state that he joined the Navy – possibly as a lazy way to suggest how he contracted syphilis – he remained in Devon. In early 1872, aged almost 30, William married Lucy Werry, a local girl from Great Torrington. As was the tradition, they set about building a family and a happy home in their birthplace, with four children following who – as a symbol of his pride or possibly arrogance - took William’s middle name as their own; Sidney Sellick in 1873, William Sellick in 1874, Thomas Sellick in 1876 and Lucy Sellick in 1879. This should have been the epitome of a good life; a loving wife and four healthy children helped by his wife’s widowed mother all living in a little cottage at 11 Castle Street in Great Torrington, with enough money brought in by William whose skill as a saddler meant they were never without. Life was good. But for inexplicable and unexplained reasons, just as his youngest was being born, William left. He left his job, his left his home, his left his wife and four children, and having fled the county, he would never return. Like the selfish shit that he was, he wouldn’t provide them with a single penny to aid their upbringing, he kept moving so they couldn’t track his whereabouts, and – as he had refused to divorce Lucy – this single-mother was left without any hope of finding a legitimate father for her children. And yet, as a strong independent woman who earned a living as a glovemaker, without William in her life, she made a good life for herself, her children, and in 1911, she was technically listed as a widow. So, maybe we could say that Lucy Crees, the first wife of William, had a lucky escape. By April 1880, William had moved to Kingston-upon-Thames in south-west London. Having found work as a saddle-maker to a Mr Webster, before his youngest child was even one year old, he had already bigamously married a local girl called Harriet Potter, and the two had begun a new life together. With the first Mrs Crees abandoned - unaware of his history - it seems unremarkable that the second Mrs Crees wouldn’t find the happiness denied the first; as with William now more selfish than ever and being prone to fits of anger and jealousy - although he wasn’t a drinker – violence would follow. On the 1st of October 1880, a few months after their marriage, the new Mr & Mrs Crees travelled down from Kingston to the seaside town of Eastbourne in search of work, as William had lost his job. Lodging cheaply at the pokey little home of Mrs Bourne at 8 Maybury Terrace, as they hadn’t a single penny to pay their rent, without her permission, he pawned this seamstresses’ sewing machine (being their last hope of making any money) making just 14 shillings, as well as most of her clothes for 12 shillings. As a ragged woman who officers stated was “literally starving to death”, Harriet begged her husband for just one of those shillings to give her body an ounce of strength, as by the 7th, all she had eaten was a small potato and a stale piece of bread. But having taken umbrage at her daring to question his authority, he unleashed a barrage of foul hurtful barbs and had threatened to “stab her in the heart”. It was a marriage which began in love, and ended in fear, so being too terrified to return to her home, Harriet Crees did the right thing and – aided by her sister – she appealed to the Police for protection, she obtained a warrant to have him arrested, and she asked for the police to accompany her back. In the front-room of 8 Maybury Terrace, Harriet sat with PC James Gambrill giving a statement, as Mrs Bourne, the landlady looked on. The house was quiet, until at 4:15pm, the doorbell rang, Mrs Bourne answered it, and in the hallway high words and a brief scuffle were heard, as William stormed in, his eyes fixed on his cowering wife, as his snarling mouth firing a furious torrent of rage in her direction. Constable Gambrill would state “he did not say a word to me, not one. Suddenly without the slightest provocation, he brandished a butcher’s knife, and stabbed me in the neck”. But dodging the blow and with the blade embedding into this copper’s stiff leather collar, although it was stated “an inch higher and the officer’s head would have been severed”, the tip barely left a puncture wound in his neck. With the officer briefly startled, William tried to stab – as he had promised – Harriet in her heart, but although weak with hunger, as she dodged his blade and fled the house, before he could strike again, the Constable swung the heavy cast-iron handcuffs at William’s wrist causing him to drop the knife. Bundled onto the floor by three passing constables who Harriet had fetched, William was arrested. Seen as a premeditated attack as he had purchased the butcher’s knife that day using the money made from his wife’s pawned possessions, he was swiftly charged with two counts of attempted murder. On 6th November 1880, William Crees was tried at Maidstone Petty Sessions for a crime which should have seen him executed or sentenced to a life of hard labour. But with Mrs Bourne the landlady being too ill to attend and unable to prove her illness – on a technicality – William was found not guilty of attempted murder, but guilty theft and dishonesty, and was sentenced to three years at Lewes Prison. Having served six months, he never came searching for Harriet, instead he abandoned her. So, maybe we could say that – just like Lucy - Harriet Crees, the second wife of William, also had a lucky escape… …only that luck would run out for his third wife. Born in 1861, Eliza Ann Horsman was the eldest daughter of John, a confectioner from Worthing. How they met was unrecorded, but living in an era where an unmarried woman was frowned upon, Eliza’s options were limited, the courtship was short, and her father hadn’t met William before the wedding. On 22nd October 1883, William Crees & Eliza Horsman moved into a front third floor at 55 Greek Street in Soho; a small squalid sparsely furnished room with a box bed and horsehair mattress, a washstand, a wooden table with two chairs and a fireplace. As one of the cheapest of hovels in this decrepit sea of vice, voices of disquiet echoed up its rickety stairs, as a chilly wind blew through a broken window. Only William hadn’t come here for work, in fact he hadn’t done a solid day’s work in years and having pawned off most of what they owned to pay the rent, he spent most of his days sat lost in thought. William chose Soho for one reason, as describing his head as “affected”, although there was no record of William being afflicted by such tertiary stage deformities as sunken eyes, festering sores and a hole in his face as if his nose had been eaten whole - possibly as these deformities were so commonplace – William was a frequent patient at two psychiatric hospitals, The Westminster and The Charing Cross. Suffering with confusion, headaches, paranoia, rage and hallucinations, back then there was no known cure for tertiary syphilis, except for a miraculous recovery, confinement to a workhouse infirmary, or a long slow and painful death – which may explain some of William’s bizarre actions, but not all. On the evening of Thursday 29th October 1883, William & Eliza attended the Promenade Concerts, a series of classical concerts in London’s royal parks, where the public could stand or stroll whilst taking a picnic and listening to the William Tell Overture by Rossini, Largo by Handel, and Don Carlos by Verdi. It should have been a romantic day for this unwed twosome as William had proposed to Eliza, but with this special moment having descended into ranting over the simplest of things, their love was hurt. So it’s odd, that alongside their escalating fights, with no money and no prospects, that William & Eliza wrote to her father announcing their impending marriage just five days before the wedding. A speed which either suggests coercion, a legal necessity, or maybe a moral obligation if Eliza was pregnant. On the morning of Wednesday 14th November 1883, William Crees met Eliza’s father at London Bridge station. Dressed in his one good suit, John Horsman said that he presented himself well as a saddle-maker and a lover who “felt happier” having met Eliza - not mentioning that he was still bigamously married having never divorced, that one wife he had abandoned and the other he had tried to kill. Having guided his father-in-law to be to a small service at St Ann’s church on Soho’s Dean Street, as John Horsman proudly gave away his eldest daughter, he was unaware that just two weeks later… …that hall would host the inquest into her death. The morning of Friday 30th of November 1883 began as moody and brooding as a bruised winter sky. Although still on their honeymoon, which they spent in their squalid lodging, being married for two weeks, lodgers for five and a couple for just two months, this day began as they all did - with a quarrel. Their fight was over the ring itself, although quite what the spark was will never be known. Maybe he had planned to pawn it? Maybe this band was only made of brass? Or maybe, through the murmurings of two former wives with a warning to share, word had got out that their marriage was null and void? At 8pm, William came home, and found that Eliza was out, drowning her sorrows in the Carlisle Arms. One hour later, slightly sozzled but little more than a bit tipsy, Eliza asked the landlady if a letter had arrived for her, there hadn’t been, but witnesses would state “she seemed well and in good spirits”. Shortly after this, at roughly 9:50pm, having reluctantly ascended to the squalid room she shared with her new husband who harboured a deadly disease and a festering rage, the neighbours all state that they heard William & Eliza arguing. Only this didn’t cause them concern, as their fights were so often. Louisa Brigne, a lodger in the backroom of the top floor stated “the fight lasted about ten minutes. I went downstairs to tell the landlady; I ask her to tell them to be quiet and then everything went quiet”. Suzanna Plantin, a lodger on the 2nd floor said “I heard a noise as if someone got up from a chair in the room above, ran to the door, and then fell. A little before the fall I heard three of four awful screams”. It was a woman’s screams, which echoed the house, as she fought for her life, but no-one came. Moments later, William left 55 Greek Street, taking the key and never to return. It is uncertain where he went or what he did for the next hour… …but at 11:10pm, on Moor Street, just off Old Compton Street, PC Henry Dyer saw William “behaving strangely”. Catching hold of the officer’s cape, William danced about, his eyes wide as they “protruded from his head” as he muttered “the doctor told me to do it, it is a glorious deed”. Asked what he had done, although sober, William would only repeat those same few words “the doctor told me to do it”. But looking down and seeing that the man’s clenched fists and tatty clothes were sopping with slowly congealing blood - as he hadn’t any obvious injuries of his own - PC Dyer arrested him on the charge of being “a lunatic at large”, and this strange and peculiar man was held at Vine Street Police Station. At 2am, with William committed – at the Police Surgeon’s orders - to the workhouse asylum and saying nothing but those seven fateful words, PC Dyer attended 55 Greek Street to find the blood’s origin. Inside, tenants spoke of shouting, of screams, and then silence, before William stormed away. Knocking on the door, he got no reply. Trying the handle, although the key was missing, the door was not locked. But as he opened it wide, instantly he was aware of what he was witnessing. There was no disarray in the room, suggesting there was also no struggle. By the fireplace was a chair on which a poker, a brass candlestick and a knife had been placed. And although the candlestick was untouched, the knife was thick with a still-sticky blood, and the heavy cast-iron poker was badly bent. Found lying on the hard-wooden floor before the door, although she was cool to the touch, PC Dyer sent for Dr Farquhar Matheson of 11 Soho Square, who determined her life as very much extinct. Fully dressed and lying straight with her hands over her breast, it looked as if she had been posed to be placed into her coffin, and yet her death may not have been obvious had it not been for the blood. Lying with a deep red halo about her head, Dr Matheson would state “she had been stunned fast”, as with two hard fast blows William had struck her over the back of the head, smashing her skull into sharp shards of jagged bone which embedded into the soft spongy matter of her brain. It was overkill. As witnesses had correctly heard, Eliza had fallen, but with her barely conscious and yet still alive, with the knife William slashed a great gash across her throat, tearing at all the structures from the skin to the spine, as the blade severed her muscles, her windpipe, her jugular vein and her carotid artery. It was this wound which would take her life, only he had not finished in his frenzy. With the knife, he stabbed her three times in the side, piercing her lung, kidney and heart. To her left arm, a hard blow had fractured the bone. But with his rage brewing further, with the knife as a fist, he smashed in her nose “shattering the bones… cutting the right nostril till it bent backwards, slicing up her left eye”, and – with repeated blows – he broke every bone in her face, as if to destroy it forever. Informed at St James’ workhouse that he was being arrested for murder, he seemed not to be aware of the words and made no reply. Charged at Marlborough Street Police Court, having put a towel on his head, he asked no questions, made no comment and seemed not to know what was going on. Examined by Dr John Kemp, seeing that William’s eyes did not constrict when exposed to a light (which they should), the Divisional Police Surgeon deduced that William was suffering from Argyll Robertson pupils, a known symptom of neurosyphilis, and one of the later stages of tertiary syphilis. (End) With William deemed to be “in a very bad state of health”, on Tuesday 4th December 1883 at St Ann’s church where he and his victim had been married just two weeks before, the jury returned a verdict of willful murder and he was bound over to appear at The Old Bailey on a criminal charge. With William being too ill to attend court, although there was no refuting his guilt, William was found guilty but insane, and was committed to Broadmoor where he was detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. As one of the hardest parts of the investigation, Eliza’s father John had to identify what remained of his daughter’s body, but with her face and head barely recognisable, he could only confirm that it was her; first by her dress, then by a birthmark, and finally by the cheapness of her wedding ring. Committed to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, which specialised in the mental unwell, although (at the time of the crime) 38-year-old William Sellick Crees was struggling with late-stage syphilis, it is uncertain – with penicillin yet to be discovered – how he lasted so long. On Tuesday 15th November 1932, 49 years after the murder, William died at Broadmoor, aged 85, he was said to have been in good health in his last week, but owing to senile decay, it was determined he died of natural causes. Syphilis is a deadly disease, a silent killer which arrives without warning, vanishes without a trace, lies dormant for months, years and even decades, and – like a rabid dog - springs forth and attacks. But were his actions the disease’s fault, did it exacerbate who he was, or was he always a crazed killer? 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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