Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
Woking Close, Roehampton @Googlemaps2025 Aug 2024
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHT: In the early hours of Tuesday 27th of August 2019, in an unnamed flat on Woking Close, 15-month old Jacob Lennon was lying in his cot and dreaming innocent dreams. Like every child, he was small, fragile and needed protection from life’s dangers. But whereas many children are shielded by the very worst of predators like drunks, junkies and paedophiles, there is one person who is every child’s nightmare.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a green 'P' south of the Thames below the words 'East Sheen'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: How could a child die weeks before his own death? Find out in Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Woking Close in Roehampton, SW15; three streets south of the cuckooed flat of William Algar, four streets east of the drowned body of 18-month old Dorothy Kaslofski, and three streets west of the teacher who loved detention ‘a little too much’ - coming soon to Murder Mile. Woking Close is a small u-shaped road surrounded by 16 identical brown-brick council blocks for some of the area’s neediest residents. With most of its spare space taken up by transit vans, hot-hatches and stolen Lime bikes, its children are stuck playing on a microscopic patch of brown grass strewn with weeds, dog-shit and car parts. Even though just over the wall at Roehampton golf course lies 100 acres of lush greenery reserved for a handful of old middle-class tax-dodging codgers in garish sweaters. It could be turned into a playground, but it won’t as I’m guessing the town’s counsellor is a regular golfer. Playtime is vital for dealing with stress, not just for children but for their parents and guardians, as it eases the tensions which arise during the day and soothes them both with a peaceful sleep at night. In the early hours of Tuesday 27th of August 2019, in an unnamed flat on Woking Close, 15-month old Jacob Lennon was lying in his cot and dreaming innocent dreams. Like every child, he was small, fragile and needed protection from life’s dangers. But whereas many children are shielded by the very worst of predators like drunks, junkies and paedophiles, there is one person who is every child’s nightmare. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 309: Every Child’s Nightmare. This story begins and ends with a parent’s greatest fear – a sick and injured child. The night of Tuesday 27th of August 2019 was uncomfortably hot, as a mini heatwave had made the nights sticky. In the bedroom he shared with his 4-year-old brother, 15-month old Jacob lay in his cot restless as he was recovering a fever. And down the hall in their bed, 31-year-old Louise Lennon, his mother lay beside her boyfriend of three months, Jake Drummond, who wasn’t the boy’s father. Jake told the Police “I woke about 6am…I heard a bang and a little squeal. When I jumped up, Louise was awake, wide awake…”. As a father of two girls, “it was my parent's instinct, when you hear a bang and you know there is a kid next door, you run to check on him. It was a whingey squeal, the type that would scare you like you'd [wake up and] think ‘oh that doesn't sound right’”, so he went in to check. Only Jacob wasn’t in his cot, but face-down on the floor. “I started seeing his lips turn blue and that's when I put my hands in his throat to make sure he wasn't swallowing his tongue. His nose had loads of sick come out of it, I turned him onto his side. I put my hand in his mouth to make sure his airway was clear... I was heaving from the sick, but I had to try my best to save him... I couldn't just sit there”. Crying as she gave evidence, Louise recalled “I woke as Jake bought him into the room. He was holding him like he was serving him to me, not holding his head… Jacob looked all floppy and unconscious… and Jake was saying 'babe, babe, call an ambulance'”. At 6:02am, Louise called the emergency services in panic; “999, which service do you require?”, “an ambulance, my baby’s been sick, his lips are turning blue and he’s not breathing”, stating that they ‘heard a bump like he fell out of bed of something’ and that “he’s been like this for five or ten minutes”. The dispatcher instructed Jake to perform CPR on Jacob, “he told me, lay him flat on his back, tilt his head back and give 30 compressions on his chest. I might have messed it up a little but that's because I was in shock”, later telling the Police that “the ten minutes I was giving Jacob CPR felt like a lifetime”. At 6:09am, just 7 minutes after the call, Jake recalled “when the paramedics turned up, I was clearing his airways of sick”, but Jacob was already cold, lifeless and in cardiac arrest. Rushed to St George’s Hospital in Tooting, the paediatric team fought to save his life, but Jacob was declared dead at 7.22am. Jacob Lennon died that day… and yet, his death had begun barely three months before. His mother, Louise Jane Lennon was born in August 1990, and as the daughter of Anthony & Caroline, she lived in Wandsworth all of her life, but little is known about her upbringing as she doesn’t appear in any papers and everything she has posted online has been deleted, except her musical preferences. In 2015, she gave birth to her first son, she never married, she lived off benefits, and in March 2018, her second son Jacob was born healthy and happy, but he was far from safe from danger. In December 2018, aged 9 months old, a Child Protection Plan was implemented by Wandsworth Social Services “because of existing concerns about his biological father” due to ‘emotional abuse’ - that implies he was subjected to threat, neglect, degrading acts or being exposed to domestic abuse or drug taking. Jacob needed a role model and a protector, but in the months before his death, what he got was Jake. The similarities between their names are a coincidence, but Louise had known Jake since 2006, when as two families with hard and difficult upbringings, they lived in the same bed and breakfast in Putney. In June 2019, they connected via Facebook, Jake said “she messaged me about bringing her a joint”, and as a recently separated father-of-two girls who worked in a nursery, Louise said “he was nice”. Jake Anthony Drummond was born months and streets apart from Louise, but was far from a suitable father having never really worked; he was sometimes a painter, a decorator, a plumber's apprentice, and briefly a nursery caretaker until he was sacked for heavy drinking, but mostly he was unemployed. Since the age of 11, he used cannabis and cocaine he claimed “to deal with my personal problems”, and had a short history of violence including a juvenile warning in 2005 for holding a knife against his mother’s throat, and in 2008 when he assaulted an ex-girlfriend by strangling her until she passed out. 2013, aged 23, saw a new beginning in his life when he got together with Julie Sanders, an unmarried mother of five boys, and (in 2014 and 2016) they had two daughters together. He recalled in court “I loved it. I always wanted to be a dad, so it was nice to have a big family… I would change nappies, bath them, put them both to bed”, and as one of his daughters was fragile having been born with medical issues, “I’d lay on the floor holding her hand while she went to sleep. I would never hurt a child. Anyone who hurts a child, I think they're disgusting, I would never hurt a child, never”… unlike their mothers. Julie stated that Jake’s violence began early in their relationship, he was jealous, possessive, and he told Louise that they had broken up back in February 2019 after one of her sons accidentally killed one of his daughter’s guinea pigs by knocking a cage onto it, when in truth, he was cheating on them both. Jake only saw Louise he said “as a friend with benefits”, but Julie was the woman he still wanted. By July 2019, having found out he was cheating on her, Julie sent angry messages to Louise. Like a set of tumbling dominoes, Jake lost his job at the nursery, Julie banned him from seeing his daughters, later on video-calls too, and owing to his obsessiveness, she reported him to the police for harassment. That month, Jake moved in with Louise in her flat at Woking Close in Roehampton… …within days the abuse of Jacob had begun, and within weeks, her son would be dead. As had happened before, even though Jake was cheating on Julie with Louise, as cheaters always do, he couldn’t believe that anyone could be faithful, so he assumed that they were both cheating on him. Louise said “after my birthday” in early August “I told him I had gone out”, and after that he started to block numbers in her phone’s contact list; ex-boyfriends, men-friends, and anyone he didn’t trust. With his life spiralling out of control, “he seemed more agitated and aggressive... he was taking more drugs, he wasn't sleeping”, and on more than one occasion, she said he pinned her down and assaulted her. And although she still sent him loving messages, she claimed “that was my way of keeping him sweet, keeping him happy, I didn't want him to get aggressive”, and living in fear of him, “I was very intimidated by him, I was scared... when I was with him, it was hard. I didn't know how to get away”. But he always denied that he ever assaulted Jacob, “I would never hurt a child, never”. In court, Jake claimed "I’m not to blame for it. I did not touch him", denying that he blamed Jacob for losing him his job at the Mr Sheen factory “because he’d been playing with my phone, so I missed a call asking me to come in”, even though he’d slept-in as his drink and drug-use increased, and again, implying she was a bad mother, “I asked her to seek medical attention for Jacob, but she refused”. Jake’s first alibi was to lay the blame on 15-month old Jacob for what became his own death, “at first he was okay with me, then he seemed to be jealous that I was close to Louise... he did have a few bad habits picked up from [his brother]… slapping his mum and screaming at her, stuff like that”. As many abusers do, he claimed Jacob was clumsy, “I heard a bang and cry, and Jacob was on the floor next to [his brother's] bed, crying. I picked him up, gave him his dummy, a cuddle, and put him back into bed”. He claimed that (like many toddlers) Jacob was accident prone, when that month, Louise sent Jake a photo of him with a severe burn to his scalp, having rubbed Veet hair-removal cream on his own head - something that the prosecution said was a malicious act of cruelty by Jake, which he flatly denied. He also claimed in defence of himself, “I’ve see him in a temper tantrum… hitting his head on the floor. He'd have red marks all over his head and then the next day little bruises”, but of course when it didn’t seem feasible to blame a tiny toddler for his own abuse, there were always others Jake could blame. Jake claimed “I'd seen [Jacob's brother] lash out a few times… I'd seen him punch him in the face and slap him”, and of course, as a self-proclaimed good dad and with Louise being a negligent mum, he said “she turned it into a big joke, she’d pick up Jacob’s hands and use them to punch his brother. I never saw [Jacob's brother] told off… on one occasion, [his brother] had kicked him and cut his lip. I said she needed to take him to the doctors, but she said 'no. it’s fine, I'll just put some Savlon on it”. In her defence, it was claimed; she was coercively controlled by Jake her abusive boyfriend, that she was ‘extremely fearful’ of reporting Jacob’s bruises as Social Services had him under a Child Protection Plan, and with the prosecution stating she had prioritised her relationship over her son's welfare... …there was some truth to his claims that she was a bad and manipulative mother. Jake stated he was a good surrogate dad to her boys, “I got on really, really well with [Jacob's brother], he came out his shell a lot, he used to call me buddy”, but also that Louise was lacking as a mother, “he was still wearing nappies day and night at four years old… she said it was because he liked to wear them… (and) ‘it's easier if he wears nappies then I don't have to keep taking him to the toilet’”, also stating “she’d let them go to sleep at 1 to 2 o'clock in the morning, I didn't think that was right. They’d sleep when they fell asleep and she’d do them dinner at odd times, sometimes it’d be very, very late”. Jake & Louise’s priority was themselves, but also the vast amount of drugs they both consumed, with it said, they smoked 15 joints and spent £120 a day on cocaine and cannabis. In fact, in his autopsy, both drugs were found in 15-month old Jacob’s system, whether by accidental or deliberate ingestion. On 16th of August, 11 days before his death, Louise claimed she awoke to find Jake in her son’s room, a large bruise on Jacob’s forehead, and her boyfriend claiming “he fell out of bed”. Again, on the 20th, one week before, she said Jake had awoken to find Jacob banging his head against the floor. In court, under cross-examination, her lawyer stated “Louise had been deceived… and was a victim of Jake’s violent and sadistic behaviour”, of which, Jake’s lawyer refuted this, claiming that even though he had ‘anger management problems’, there was no evidence of his “gratification or glee” at harming Jacob. They accused each other when a hefty custodial sentence was dangled in front of them, but a web of lies had been concocted by them both, to hide the truth, that - together – they willingly abused Jacob. On the 20th of August, the day that Jacob supposedly bruised his whole forehead by headbutting the floor, a social worker arrived at their flat for a routine visit, only to receive a text sent by Louise stating “sorry, we’re in Hastings”. The Prosecutor said it was a ‘deliberate lie’ to stop the social worker from seeing Jacob’s bruising and making it clear that they both were putting themselves over Jacob’s safety. With his bruises still visible, a visit was re-arranged for the 23rd of August, but again Louise postponed it. Yet when Sharon Kane, a friend visited that same day, she said “Jacob’s head looked like a basketball and his eyes were so swollen, he couldn’t see”. Said to be “extremely shocked by Jacob’s face”, Louise lied to her, claiming he’d fallen out of bed, that she’d taken him to hospital and was given the all-clear. The judge levelled no criticism at Wandsworth Social Services, as although the upstairs neighbour had contacted them, concerned that they “often heard children screaming and crying”, by the time that a fourth appointment was re-arranged, it was too late, as Jacob had been failed by his abusive parents. The judge, Mr Justice Sweeting said “perhaps the most haunting photograph is not one of those that show injury, but that taken on August 12th when Jacob appears well, a bright and cheerful toddler… …but less than a fortnight later he was dead”. Jake and Louise were every child’s nightmare… not just one bad parent, but two. He had no-one to protect him, as being so focussed on their own needs, they saw his torture as little more than a game. On the day that the social worker was told “sorry, we’re in Hastings”, Louise texted Jake a photo of her posing with Jacob – whose face was so bruised, the toddler “looked like a panda” – with a baseball cap to cover up the bruises, she joked “he looks like a lil mad man lol, sure he’ll be OK by Friday" (when the next visit was planned), at which, Jake had replied with "fingers crossed" and laughing emojis. Often they joked using a meme from the film Happy Gilmore with the phrase "now you will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep", and on the 22nd of August, just five days before his murder, Jake sent Louise a text saying he was putting the toddler in his bedroom, which he referred to as the "torture chamber". That was how they got their kicks by torturing a young defenceless child… …but the bruises to his face and body weren’t the worst of his injuries. At his autopsy, one of a catalogue of ‘sadistic’ assaults that 15-month old Jacob Lennon had endured was “a gaping 3cm long laceration on the surface of the penis… consistent with extreme pinching or biting”, and “a penetrating injury to his scrotum which was as a result of a semi-sharp or sharp object such as a small-blade or a skewer”, believed to be a knife in the shape of Toy Story’s Mr Potato Head. Jake denied it was him, repeating that he would never harm a child and that “I would never change a nappy that was not my own child’s” implying he never saw or had no reason to see the injury. Louise also claimed she never saw it, but how could she miss it, when she’d have changed his nappy daily? Monday 26th of August 2019 had been a melting pot of bubbling tensions; as the sun was baking hot, the flat was impossible to cool, the social worker had been fobbed off for a third time, and Jake was cautioned by the Police for harassing Julie. Jake later pleaded “I was very upset I was not seeing my daughters. I actually cried because I was missing them, just looking at their pictures really got to me”. According to him “Louise made my favourite, sausage casserole, because of the day I’d had. Jacob was lying on the sofa in a nappy with a cold compress on his head. It seemed like he was in and out of sleep. Louise was sat next to him smoking a spliff”, and as part of his so-called coping mechanism for his issues, that night Jake went out partying with a friend, drinking, taking cocaine and smoking weed. “I got back about 2am, and went to bed not long after that”, he said. Four hours later, “I woke about 6am… I heard a bang and a little squeal. When I jumped up, Louise was awake, wide awake… it was my parent's instinct, when you hear a bang, you run to check on him. It was a whingey squeal, the type that would scare you like you'd [wake up and] think ‘oh that doesn't sound right’”, and that’s when Jake said “I started seeing his lips turn blue and he wasn’t breathing”. Dispatchers received their call at 6:02am and Louise said “he’s been like this for five or ten minutes”, but it was all a cruel lie by two evil parents who put their own needs over those of a defenceless boy. At 1am, an hour before Jake said he went to bed, he was up and (as usual) he was high, pacing their small flat with his phone in his hand and unable to sleep owing to the cocktail of drugs in his system. With Jacob still struggling with a fever in this hot weather, the pain from his bruises, and possibly because of an infection to his scrotum, he wasn’t in his cot, but sharing the bed with his mum, Louise. Ranting, stressing and obsessing about his ex-partner, Julie, as baby Jacob wriggled in the bed and his pained cries split their ears, the jury heard “it is clear that at some stage that night, someone must have taken him out of the bed and the room” and that someone, the Crown said was Jake Drummond. Forcefully yanking the wailing tot as it dangled from Jake’s arm, the more this so-called ‘good dad’ got frustrated with the child’s screams, the more he shook him. Being scared, Jacob cried louder, hoping that his mother would be there to defend him, but she wasn’t. And as Jake snapped, having slapped and punched the child, as its screams only got louder, it was then that – like a broken rag doll – Jake grabbed the boy by either his romper suit or his arm, and slammed him onto the hard bedroom floor. Dr Cary, the pathologist confirmed that “Jacob was thrown to the ground with such force, his injuries were consistent with being hurled from a first-floor window, or being hit by a car at high speed”. Based on the formation of the bruises and the clots in his brain, this violent assault had rendered the boy senseless, and although he lay there silent and still, with the first call to the emergency services not being made until 6:02am, the expert clarified “he had probably been unconscious for (five) hours”. But again, Jacob’s injuries were attended to, and they didn’t call for an ambulance until it was too late, possibly around the time that they realised that he would never wake up, as his brain and body bled. Louise and Jake both claimed they were fast asleep until they heard the baby fall at around 6am, but again, this was a lie to protect themselves and they didn’t seem too concerned with his dying state, as later that night, Jake downloaded a game onto his phone, but his main focus (or obsession) was Julie. Jealous that she was (supposedly) seeing someone else, from 2am to 3:38am, he texted her several times, with the final message at 5.16am reading 'wonder who you were talking to at 3.30am', all while Jacob lay silently in a pool of his own vomit as his brain swelled inducing nausea. In court, Jake denied this, and implied “the texts were sent before I went to bed, but were received later cos of a bad signal”. As for Louise, she claimed she had slept through it, even though she was a ‘light sleeper’, but when the prosecution prodded “surely a mother is attuned to the cries of her baby?”, she had to agree. They did nothing to save him, less to protect him, and realising he was either dead or dying, to protect themselves, “they concocted a story before phoning for the ambulance”… only their alibi was flawed. Jake told the Police “I woke about 6am”, five hours after the assault, “Louise was wide awake”, only having failed to hear her baby’s screams, she said “I woke as Jake ran into the room holding Jacob”. As we know, the baby didn’t (and couldn’t) cry, just as he couldn’t move, and although Jake said “I started seeing his lips turn blue”, when the paramedics arrived 7 minutes later, Jacob was barely alive. Together, they blamed his injuries on his clumsiness getting out of his cot, a severe burn to his scalp on him playing with Veet, his other bruises having fallen in the street 5 or 13 days before, two horrific injuries to his penis (using a knife, hand and/or teeth) on Jacob’s 4-year-old brother, and when the paramedics arrived, Jake made himself sound like the hero - “the ten minutes I was giving him CPR felt like a lifetime”, but with the toddler limp, cold and still, it’s possible that that CPR never happened. Even before his death at 7:22am, it was clear to the doctors that Jacob had been violently assaulted, as there were 20 fresh bruises to his face and neck, 11 to his arms, 7 to his legs, and 7 to his torso. His head was so swollen that the skull was soft and spongey, his bruised eyes were too puffy to open, a haemorrhage constricted his spinal nerve, and a neurologist confirmed that some of the clots were formed “48 hours before his death”, meaning his devastating head injury wasn’t his first that weekend. It was a sustained attack over several weeks, but as the police questioned them, to defend themselves, Louise and Jake turned on each other, but both of them were arrested as the only suspects. (End) With the trial delayed until February 2023 owing to the Covid pandemic, Louise Jane Lennon and Jake Anthony Drummond were tried at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Sweeting; she denied ‘causing or allowing a child’s death and cruelty’ and he denied ‘grievous bodily harm with intent’ and ‘murder’. The prosecutor Sally O’Neill KC told jurors: “It is the Crown’s case that Jake Drummond had embarked on a campaign of deliberately assaulting and hurting Jacob between July and the end of August. The injuries which he caused were obvious and noticeable”. Throughout the trial, he denied responsibility for Jacob's injuries, and Louise claimed she was "coerced and threatened" by her abusive boyfriend. Alibis and lies flew back and forth, but the jury saw through it, as both of them lacked any remorse. On Thursday 16th of March 2023, the jury began their deliberation, and having concluded the next day, they returned with their verdict. For the charge of ‘child cruelty and causing or allowing Jacob's death’ (the latter charge she admitted to), on the 26th of May, Louise Lennon was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years and 6 years in prison to run concurrently, so she will be out before the decade is over. Jake Drummond was found guilty of ‘wounding with intent’ and sentenced to 6 six years, and guilty of the wilful murder of Jacob Lennon, he must serve a minimum of 32 years before parole in considered. Summing up, Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Jolley described the case as “by far, the most difficult, the most sad” of his thirty year career; “no-one who has listened to the catalogue of injuries inflicted on Jacob can be anything but horrified. It is hard to comprehend how such a young and vulnerable baby could have been so abused”, by these two parents who were truly ‘every child’s nightmare’. 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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Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
9 Effra Road, Brixton (@Googlemap2025 June2018)
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SEVEN: Tuesday the 18th of February 1992 at 7:15pm. Merlyn Nuttall was kidnapped, raped, stabbed and set on fire by a drug-crazed assailant inside of a crack den at 9 Effra Road in Brixton. She could have died owing to her wounds and she should have been scarred for life owing to the attack, but as you’ll hear, from the precipice of death, it was the woman she was who ensured that the case was resolved, the culprit was convicted, and that the rest of her life was worth living.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with an orange 'P' south of the Thames below the words 'Peckham'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Kidnapped, raped, stabbed and set on fire, but how did she survive? Find out on Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Effra Road in Brixton, SW2; one street north of the cult leader’s bookshop, three streets west of a God called JACKIE, a few doors up from the first bombing by David Copeland, and a short walk from the policeman who paid for the ultimate price for porn - coming soon to Murder Mile. In the heart of Brixton, passed the Ritzy Cinema and towards Tulse Hill sits a series of five mid-Victorian townhouses with sash windows, doric columns and stone steps up to the ground floor. Having survived the blitz bombings of the 1940s, the slum clearances of the 50s and 60s, misused as squalid immigrant lodgings in the 70s, with some buildings burnt out during the race riots of the 80s and reduced to crack dens in the 90s, since its redevelopment, today each flat is worth a cool £500,000 to £1 million apiece. At the last house of the left still sits 9 Effra Road, a house which has been witness to poverty, cruelty and one of the most shocking crimes imaginable. Yet this isn’t an ordinary tale about an evil man doing bad things, but a strong and resilient woman whose strength and courage is the reason she survived. Merlyn Nuttall could have died owing to her wounds and she should have been scarred for life owing to the attack, but as you’ll hear, from the precipice of death, it was the woman she was who ensured that the case was resolved, the culprit was convicted, and that the rest of her life was worth living. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 307: The Sadist and the Survivor. "I was always streetwise and confident" Merlyn said, "I was the last person you'd describe as a victim”. Much of what you can attribute to her strength came from the kind of family she was raised in. Born in 1964 in Harrow, West London, Merlyn was the youngest of four daughters to Reginald and Merlyn Nuttal, Anglo-Indian parents, who ensured their children had the best of everything even when they couldn’t afford it, and no matter what life threw at them, they always weathered the proverbial storm. Raised in the leafy residential calm of Morland Road and Lodge Avenue, Lorraine, Sharon and Lesley protected their little sister, Merlyn, shaping her to become independent, sociable and with a strong belief in God, Merlyn always felt “I’m here for a purpose”, but at that age, she never really knew what. In 1970, the family moved to Astley Bridge in Bolton, a middle-class suburb of Manchester where they lived comfortably, and with Merlyn described as “bright, intelligent, eager and enthusiastic”, she excelled at St Gregory’s Convent School. But this was when the first of two tragedies shaped her life. On the 27th of May 1974, when Merlyn was just nine, her mother was returning from her first day back at work having been a full-time housewife and mother for years, when – aged just 50 - she collapsed in the street and died of heart attack. The death of a parent can be devastating, and as Merlyn later said “her death left a huge sadness in my life, but I came to understand, even then, that hard knocks only make me stronger and more resilient” – and it was this strength which would later save her life. "I was always the baby of the family”, Merlyn recalled, “mum called me her shadow, and I followed her everywhere. When she died, Dad became doubly protective towards me and my sisters”, and eager to ensure that - even without a mother - that his daughters never went without, they all thrived. In 1975, Merlyn went to secondary school where she developed her keen interest in art, and as a solid netball and tennis player, she also represented her county at badminton. In 1980, with good grades, she went to Thornleigh College, and later having graduated from the University of Brighton, by the early 1990s, she had become a respected fashion buyer for the famous retailer British Home Stores. And yet, all this she had achieved after the two tragedies which shaped her early life, as on the 12th of May 1989, while sitting her degree, her father also died of a heart attack. Again, this grief only made her stronger. Every day, she wore her mother’s wedding ring to keep her close. And although his death upset her, Merlyn said “I'm glad he didn't live to see what happened to me. It would have killed him"… …and yet, being blessed with her parent’s strength, that led to her survival. Tuesday the 18th of February 1992 was a typical winter’s day in London, as a thick blanket of grey cloud drizzled but never bothered to rain, and it was cold but the light rain couldn’t be bothered to snow. In her rented flat in Tulse Hill just off Effra Road, Merlyn awoke, and got herself ready for a busy day ahead; with her hair and make-up immaculate as always, she dressed stylishly for an 8am meeting at the company’s head office on Berner’s Street in Fitzrovia, and had arranged to see her friends later. Since she had moved to the Tulse Hill side of Brixton, her life had been good; she was single but hadn’t any horror stories about ex-boyfriends, she lived well but wasn’t in any debt, the neighbourhood had its seedy side but she kept herself safe by being savvy to the ways of city life, and like her sisters – who all succeeded in their own way as lawyers, restauranteurs and mums – she was driving her own dream. At roughly 7am, she left her flat in Tulse Hill and headed south down Effra Road, a route she had taken 100s of times before without incident or worry, seeing the same people and passing the same sights, as the usual rush hour traffic staggered and snarled on its way towards Brixton tube station. It was 30 minutes passed dawn, the pavements were busy, and the only fear Merlyn had was about the meeting. As we have all done many times before, as she got half way to the bus stop, Merlyn realised she’d left her bus pass at home and had to head back to get it, delaying her by minutes. Again, realising she had left without a letter she needed, she headed back a second time, as this seemingly ordinary morning became more frantic than usual, but it was as her black ankle boots clacked quickly and a fake Chanel scarf billowed in the breeze, that although she ran, at 7:15am, she missed the next bus by seconds. Usually, as the precursor to this kind of tale, the victim would be left alone on a dark and isolated alley with nobody there to help her. But this wasn’t a terrifying incident, it was just a mild inconvenience which occurred in the daytime on a busy intersection in Brixton as it had many times before, and with her only chance of arriving on time being to get the Victoria Line tube from Brixton to Oxford Circus, as she crossed Effra Road, she narrowly missed being clipped as a taxi pulling away from Bus Stop Z. It was then that she crossed paths by chance with her attacker, two strangers from different worlds who would have never met had a bus pass and a letter been in Merlyn’s bag barely 15 minutes before. At the bus stop where several commuters stood waiting impatiently, he approached her with urgency in his voice, pleading “help me, please”. He clearly wasn’t begging for change as being a tall, well-built black male with a newly trimmed ‘flat top’ haircut with a stylish swoosh shaved into one side, wearing bright white trainers and a dark blue Hummel tracksuit, he looked like any other resident of Brixton. His plea seemed genuine and honest, as he implored Merlyn “my girlfriend’s pregnant and she’s fallen over”, pointing towards a mid-Victorian townhouse 30 feet away. And although he pleaded “can you stay with her while I get an ambulance?”, there was something about his eyes which unsettled her. Her heart said ‘yes’, and her brain said ‘no’, but it was as she momentarily looked at her watch to give an excuse that she was late, that in a split second, “he reached out, grabbed me and held a knife to my side. I froze. I didn’t think that’s what I’d do. As far as I was concerned I was capable of fighting someone off… but my instinct was to freeze”, as lethal levels of adrenaline coursed through her veins. Nobody noticed, or seemed to notice, as every pedestrian was too focussed on their own lives. She couldn’t scream, as the blade was embedded into her flesh, just inches from vital organs. And as he calmly ushered her off the street and onto Kellett Road, as they entered the private garden in front of the townhouses, ascended the dirty stone steps and entered through the battered wooden door, they looked like any ordinary couple (of similar age and height) heading home to 9 Effra Road… …only this was a door which Merlyn’s attacker never intended her to leave. 9 Effra Road had been a derelict squat for a decade. Declared ‘unfit for human habitation’, nobody owned it and (legally) nobody lived there, except the rats which scurried among the rubbish piles, and the undocumented denizens of the darkness who hid from the law under leaky pipes and a mountain of filth; whether a vagrant collapsed in a puke-spattered stupor, a crack-head lost in a paranoid haze, or the most desperate sex-worker who would sell their body for a hit in a piss and shit stained hovel. Silently, he ushered her up five flights of stairs, knowing exactly where he was taking her, and why. From the outside, over the traffic, no-one could hear her if she screamed. On the inside, if she ran, she had no idea if anyone would come to her aid, or to attack her, or if they were conscious or alive. After a long terrifying minute, on the top floor, he dragged Merlyn into a small empty room; the walls thick with graffiti, crack pipes crunching under foot, cockroaches scurried into the corners, and as she had already predicted, there was no pregnant girlfriend who had fallen, just a filthy soiled mattress. Merlyn later recalled “I can’t describe the fear when I realised there was nobody else in the room and I thought he was going to kill me. This realisation sent jolts of panic thudding through me. I half turned and finding my voice, I screamed ‘No!’ No!’ and pushed to get by him”, but as he shoved her inside and the closed the door tight, “it was an eerie feeling; a mixture of terror and frantic despair”… …which (for him) marked the start of her brutal murder. Antony Ferrira, known locally as Usher was a crack dealer, an addict and a pimp who had spent a large chunk of his first 27-years alive in prison. Born in 1961, he was the second of four children to Devon & Ruby alongside his siblings Pauline, Colin & Annette, and being raised in and around the working class areas of Wilsden, although life was hard, he had every chance, but chose to take instead of earning. Little is known about his early life, his upbringing, his traumas, and why he became the monster who inflicted such a horrific attack on Merlyn, but there are hints through the crimes he was convicted of. In 1981, when he was 16-years-old, he indecently assaulted an 11-year-old girl in a sex attack which had some of the sadistic hallmarks of his crimes, but as a first-offence, he wasn’t imprisoned or even sent for a psychiatric assessment, but was put on an ineffectual supervision order for a limited period. With drugs taking over his life, in October 1984, aged 19, he was sentenced to two years for robbery in a Young Offender Institute, and although he blamed his crimes on drugs, Merlyn refuted this saying “(the sadism) must have always been there. Drugs don’t make someone a murderer or a sex attacker”. One year into his sentence, having been weaned off crack, because of a petty spat over a tackle in a football match at Rochester Youth Custody Centre, Ferrira attacked and killed 17-year-old Latyre Khan, a fellow prisoner who he stabbed to death in the paint shop with a pair of scissors. When questioned, he claimed it was self-defence, and in a trial at Maidstone Crown Court, with the jury not satisfied that his motive was to kill, he was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to just five years in prison. Again, he wasn’t assessed as ‘a danger to society’. When released, he went back on crack. And in the two years he was free, he was convicted of possession of Class A’s, burglary and the GBH of a police officer, and described as “a very nasty piece of work”, he sold women for sex, including his girlfriends. Seeing himself as a big time pimp - who was cocky, arrogant and only had respect for himself – while every penny he stole was spent on the trainers, tracksuits, gold chains and a ‘flat top’ haircut with a neatly crafted ‘swoosh’ on the side; his two main girlfriends (Heidi and Jeanette) lived in near poverty, with one barely able to feed her child in a small council-flat at Telford Parade Mansions in Streatham. Living in fear of his jealousy and paranoia; both women cooked and cleaned to keep him happy, sold sex to fuel his drug habit, and whenever he was high on crack, as a sexual sadist, he always forced these women he claimed to love to commit sex acts described as “deeply sickening and humiliating”. On Monday the 17th of February 1992, the day before the attack on Merlyn, dressed in a blue Hummel tracksuit, he left Jeanette’s flat at 10:30pm having had a row, he stayed at Heidi’s until 6am, called a taxi at 6:30am, had it drive him to Fiveways (a set of flyovers in Finchley where drug deals take place), and at 7am, the driver was asked to wait while Ferrira headed into a derelict crack-den in Brixton. Inside, he got high. Outside, thinking his passenger had fled, the taxi drove off. By Bus Stop Z, the driver almost clipped Merlyn as (having missed her next bus) she crossed over the road. And as a sexual sadist with a need to degrade and humiliate women, it was then that Ferrira left 9 Effra Road. That was the only time they had ever met, and it was all by chance… …as Ferrira later confessed “I was looking for a thrill, and she took his fancy”. Trapped in the foul-smelling squat, as the door slammed shut, Ferrira started strangling Merlyn with her own scarf. Through pained rasps she gasped “why me?”, as with his staring eyes wide, he replied “because you are pretty and I would never get a woman like you”, and having made her pliable and weak through a severe lack of oxygen, he stripped her naked and threw her onto the rancid mattress. “I knew I was going to be raped”, she later said, but for him, this wasn’t about sex or penetration but degradation and humiliation, the kind sadistic acts his girlfriend’s had described as “deeply sickening” and Merlyn stated were “repulsive, but I thought I’d do anything to stay alive”. Acts so abhorrent they couldn’t be reported in the press, so the Sunday Independent alluded that “after he had finished with her mouth, he got up off her shoulders and told her to turn over”, as by then, he was done with her… …but her ordeal was far from over. From a plastic bag beside the bed, Ferrira pulled a metre of stainless steel wire used in catering to slice cheese. Merlyn recalled “the wire bit into my neck and I felt pain like I had never known before, sharp, searing, tearing, blocking out my breathing. I knew that he was going to kill me, that he had always intended to kill me, that it didn’t matter who I was, he was out to rape and kill me”, and although she had slipped her hand under the wire, as he pulled the wire tight, it almost severed her right thumb. As his mood swung from silent to seething, Merlyn said “this crazed violence started. I fought to stop him killing me. I was frantically struggling. Somehow we fell off the bed. I remember fighting for my life”, but as the cheese wire got tighter, as much as she wanted to live “I wanted to lose consciousness. I wanted it to stop, just to stop the pain, even if it meant dying. Then there was this profound agony, which I presume was unconsciousness. It was a strange state of not knowing if you are alive or dead”... …but again, her ordeal was far from over. With her throat slit so wide open that her windpipe and hyoid bone were exposed, rolling onto her front as her breath gargled blood, using his full weight upon her, he smashed a bottle and frenziedly stabbing her in the back of her neck, as this sharp shard of glass gouged ten deep wounds to the bone. He wanted her dead, and she was dying, but knowing she was now too weak to fight him off, “I thought I’d play dead. I had to give no indication that I was alive. I lay as still as I could and he seemed to stop”. She fought every instinct to cry, flee, blink or even breathe, knowing that any movement could be her last, and although – believing she was dead – he stole her boots, her scarf and her bag, what hurt her the most was the one thing he stole which she would never get back - her mother's wedding ring… …but again, her ordeal was far from over. To destroy the evidence of his crimes, Ferrira bundled up her torn clothes and soaked it in the smashed alcohol. Merlyn recalled “the next thing I remember was a crackling” as she drifted into consciousness. “I thought my hair was alight, but I had to keep still and bear the heat because I could still hear him”, and although the smoke almost made her choke, “I hoped I’d die before the flames got to me”. But it was then that he left, and having smashed the handle from the inside of the door, he locked her inside. At 8am, bell of St Matthew’s rang, her attack had lasted 45 minutes, and she was trapped and dying. In the attack, she had lost 5 pints of blood, more than half of her body’s supply, and feeling weak and faint, many would have simply laid down and died, but Merlyn still had enough fight within her. She dragged herself to the door, “I was convinced this was the end. I could feel the heat of the flames. I was convinced I was going to die”, so as she called out for help, a lodger who was squatting one floor below heard her screams, broke down the door, and ran to safety before the fire enveloped them. Staggering down five flights of stairs, her naked body saturated in blood, as she crawled on all fours to the front door and slumped on the cold stone steps, although the bus stop was barely 30 feet away, the commuters ignored her weak cries, believing she was a junkie and they didn’t want to get involved. The first responders on the scene wasn’t a paramedic or the police, but a fire engine called to a report of fire in a flat, but as firefighter Ian Crittenden saw the horror of Merlyn’s injuries, with the ambulance delayed 25 minutes as the system had crashed, until their arrival, he held her neck together with his hands, but no-one held out much hope that she would even survive. Detective Inspector John Jones who headed up the investigation later stated “the only time I have ever seen injuries approaching that kind of gravity was on a dead body… we truly believed that this was going to be a murder injury”. Merlyn Nuttal was rushed to King’s College Hospital and after a 3-hour operation which required more than 400 stitches, internally and externally, her condition was said to be “serious, but out of danger”. Her survival was a miracle, a testament to the surgeon’s skill and her courage and strength… …but although it seemed solvable, the hunt for her would-be killer proved problematic. The squat at 9 Effra Road had been gutted by fire, erasing almost every trace of DNA or fingerprints. As an abandoned crack den used by 100s of undesirables who wanted nothing to do with the Police, there were no witnesses. And although Merlyn gave a detailed description of her unnamed attacker, looking like 1000s of other locals, 15 known rapists and crack addicts were questioned, but released. Forensics thoroughly searched all floors at 9 Effra Road, but even if they had found Ferrira’s fingerprint in any room, as an addict in a crack den, it wouldn’t directly link him to Merlyn’s attempted murder. In fact, the only evidence they had was a single hair on a shard of glass, but that belonged to Merlyn. With a description but no name, on Thursday 19th of March 1992 at 9:30pm, Police issued an appeal on BBC1’s Crimewatch, and seeing an accurate e-Fit of his own face staring back at him, Ferrira almost overdosed on crack, he stopped going out and even started sleeping on his own roof to evade capture. Following a tip-off, on the 26th of March 1992, in a dawn raid at both of his girlfriend’s flats, Ferrira was arrested and interviewed, but only spoke to claim it this was a case of mistaken identity. With little concrete evidence against him, he was placed on an ID parade, but having changed his identity by growing his hair and wearing a shirt and jumper, both the tenant and Merlyn failed to identify him. That day, without enough proof to charge him, Ferrira was released on bail for a minor drugs offence. Throughout, even in the face of potential failure, Merlyn had remained strong and resilient. But it took three acts of luck, strength and perseverance to finally bring her rapist and attempted killer to justice. With the Police desperate to hunt down the owner of the Hummel tracksuit (of which only 5000 were made), Merlyn was shown a photo of a man wearing one, and although she wasn’t told that this was Antony Ferrira before he changed his appearance, she stated “that’s him”, positively identifying him. That week, a new forensic technique had extracted his fingerprint on a tissue spattered with Merlyn’s blood, directly linking him to the crime, but now they needed to prove when he was in the crack den. Merlyn had shown unwavering strength and bravery throughout, and now the detectives needed his terrified girlfriends (Heidi and Jeanette) to give statements against this man who had beaten them, threatened and intimidated them, and committed degrading and humiliating sexual acts against them. They were terrified, but together, their statements helped convict him; they proved that at 10:30pm he left Jeanette’s flat in the tracksuit, stayed at Heidi’s until 6am, had a taxi drive him to a crack den in Brixton, and at 7:15am, the driver almost clipped Merlyn with his car as he drove from 9 Effra Road. 30 minutes after the attack, Ferrira returned to Jeanette’s flat, having disposed of the tracksuit. (End) On the 11th of January 1993, at the Old Bailey, Merlyn Nuttall gave her evidence against her attacker and although “I saw him briefly, I was surprised that I felt nothing. He looked pathetic”. With the jury deliberating for two hours, Antony Ferrira was found ‘guilty’ of kidnap and sentenced to 5 years, indecent assault for which he’d serve 8, and 20 years for attempted murder, to be served concurrently. Summing up, Judge Richard Lowry praised Merlyn’s courage, with her later stating “I am not prepared to stop my life because of what has happened to me”. In 1995, she was awarded damages of £76000 which barely covered the cost of five operations to heel her scars. In 1998, her book ‘It Could Have Been You’ won the Cosmopolitan/House of Fraser Achievement Award. That year, she helped launch the first 24-hour telephone helpline for victims of crime. And in 2001, the same year she married, she helped set-up The Haven, the first self-referral safe house for victim of rape at King’s College Hospital. Today, having taken control of her life, she runs her own fashion outlet. After the trial, she stated “no sentence is long enough for him, he should never be allowed out to do the same thing to anyone else”. In 2002, 10 years into his sentence, Antony Ferrira became eligible for parole. Merlyn stated “I feel scared for his next victim because I don’t feel that his time behind bars will have rehabilitated him”. But as an evil arrogant man with wickedness to his core, on the 23rd of April 2002, he was convicted at Hull Crown Court of attacking another prisoner at HMP Full Sutton with a broken bottle, stabbing and slashing his victim’s face and neck, as he had with Merlyn. As far as we know, he is still in prison. Antony Ferrira wasted his life on drugs, sadism and cruelty, whereas Merlyn Nuttall flourished against all odds. She later said “Every day feels like a plus. I love my life. That’s why I fought so hard for it”. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIX: The tragic life of Annie Curtin is one that you will have never heard of before, and yet, it’s unnervingly familiar. She was an ordinary woman, a wife and a mother, living a regular life who deserved the right to live unharmed and unhurt. Frustratingly, there were laws put in place to protect her, but witnessing failure after failure after failure, many of those same laws are as unfit today as they’ve always been.
THE LOCATION:
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SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Why didn’t the law save Annie Curtin from being murdered twice? Find out on Murder Mile. Today I’m standing outside of 11 Old Compton Street in Soho, W1; the same street as Edith McQuaid and the Black Cap Farce, Dutch Leah and the Soho Strangler, the same house as Susan Lattaney’s Stockholm Syndrome, and next door to a dirty doctor’s deadly dealings - coming soon to Murder Mile. On the ground floor is Chai Time, a bubble tea takeaway for fans of drinks which taste like frogspawn, but on the floor above sits Eyemazy, a little studio where they will photograph the iris of your eye; up-close, hi-res and in full glorious detail. Not for medical purposes (although I’m sure they could), not if it’s infected (although that’d be fab for Halloween) and it’s not where I went to when my eye ruptured (although now I wish I had), but for fun. What next? Arty colonoscopies, or celebrity ear wax? Hmm. And yet, it’s nice that this building has finally become a place of merriment and joy, as in its lifetime, it has been witness to some truly horrific crimes against women, and this case is no exception. The tragic life of Annie Curtin is one that you will have never heard of before, and yet, it’s unnervingly familiar. She was an ordinary woman, a wife and a mother, living a regular life who deserved the right to live unharmed and unhurt. Frustratingly, there were laws put in place to protect her, but witnessing failure after failure after failure, many of those same laws are as unfit today as they’ve always been. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 306: The Double Murder of Annie Curtin. Before I begin to tell you Annie’s story, I need to show you how it ended. Sunday the 10th of May 1931; two years since the Wall Street Crash, the Great Depression was slowly easing, Hitler was nothing more than a provincial annoyance somewhere in Germany, all women over 21 were allowed to vote on the same terms as men, and as a time of innovation, radio was king, but as John Logie Baird had displayed the ‘televisor’ (a system for transmitting images) five years before and one street away on Frith Street, television was just years away from becoming a household staple. Outside, being at the back of a bustling junction between Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, as it was early morning, a market was setting up on the corner of Old Compton Street and Moor Street. At an unspecified time prior to 8am, 27-year-old Annie Curtin entered the street door of her lodging at 11 Old Compton Street. It wasn’t a great area, but it was cheap. She dressed well, which belied her poverty. And having taken her 10 year old son to Sunday School so that he could continue to be raised as a good boy with decent morals, in her bag she carried the basics (bread, milk and cheese) and in her arms she cradled her 18-month old daughter, Margaret, who cried ceaselessly owing to the croup. As a recently separated single-mother of two, although educated and skilled, she had worked the night shift in a local factory to keep her family afloat and was heading home to hopefully catch a few hours of rest before she began her day-shift. She didn’t look 27 anymore, as the harshness of the last decade had etched pain across her face, as well as many bruises and cuts from the violence she had suffered. Inside, as she opened the communal door, she felt safe. As she ascended the stairs to the second floor, she passed her fellow lodgers who she liked and trusted. And as she pushed the unlocked door to her small room with a bed, a cot, a wash basin and little else, the sanctity of her own space was welcoming. As was her routine, she fed her toddler, bathed her, and (when she had settled) she laid her down to sleep. With tired hands she ate a morsel to sate her hunger, laid her modest wage on the table, she slipped off her overalls, popped on her nightdress and slunk into her bed, praying she’d be asleep fast. For several minutes, she lay there, savouring the silence from her hectic life… but Annie was not alone. Somewhere in the room something creaked. Somewhere close she heard breathing. Somewhere near a familiar smell made her stomach turn. And then knowing there was a man hiding under her bed, as she tentatively peeked over the side, she saw the unmistakable sight of her estranged husband William clambering out from underneath; his red eyes furiously glaring, a sharp razor balled-up in his fist, and with murderous intent on his mind, he uttered “I’m gonna finish you, finish you properly’… …only this wasn’t the first time he had tried to murder her. 80 years prior, a shake-up of the British legal system had begun, which should have protected Annie Curtin from the violence which had been inflicted upon her at the hands of her husband, William. In her grandparents era, before the 1850s, it was said that British women “had less rights than cattle”; as they primarily existed to raise children and support their husbands, a formal education was rare, they couldn’t vote or impact the laws, they often faced harsher conditions in factories and workplaces, and although their wedding marked the happiest day of their lives, they had less rights after marriage. Once a Miss became a Mrs, under the act of coverture, a wife's identity was absorbed by her husband's meaning their home was his, not hers, and she couldn’t own it until he was dead. As a husband, her refusal of sex was grounds for him to annul the marriage, he could beat and even rape his wife without prosecution, and if she tried to flee his abuse, separation was impractical as she relied on his income, divorce was impossible unless rich, and even if she achieved this, she had no right to her own children. But change was happening. The 1839 Custody of Infants Act granted mothers limited rights to their children. Women’s Suffrage had begun in 1832 when the first petition was issued to ouse of Parliament. And in 1853, the Act for the Better Prevention and Punishment of Aggravated Assaults upon Women and Children was passed, meaning a man who beats his wife or child can be imprisoned for up to 6 months. In that era, a man could be as violent to his wife as he chose to be, as she was his property by marriage. Several cases were raised in Parliament on the 10th of March 1853, as recorded in Hansard; “On the 8th of December 1852, Henry Bennett was charged at Bow Street Police Court for assaulting his wife… he struck her repeatedly with all his force on various parts of her body… and again he seized her by the hair, drew a knife from his pocket, and attempted to cut her throat. She endeavoured to prevent him doing so, and her fingers were severely cut. The magistrate fined the prisoner 5 shillings”. “On the 7th of January 1853, James Coghlan, a floorcloth-worker was charged with beating his wife, he came home drunk, he beat her with his fists, gave her two black eyes, and whipped her severely with iron tongs. Her screams were heard, a policeman saw the husband strike her, and took him into custody at the instance of the woman”. Only he too was fined just 5 shillings for his violent crimes. These weren’t unique cases, they were so commonplace that many weren’t reported in the papers. Yet with so many women being attacked and too often murdered by their own husbands with little or no recourse, Parliament had begun to examine the laws which were meant to protect the innocent. The early life of Annie Curtin began as perfectly as any life we could have wished for her. Alice Annie Hailey was born in the winter of 1903 as the middle child of four to Alice & Thomas Hailey. As a hard-working girl from a lower-middle-class upbringing, she had adopted her mother’s maternal instincts and her father shrewd business acumen, as although he was raised on the rough streets of Whitechapel in the 1880s, having worked as a servant in the well-to-do house Mr & Mrs Henry Beddington of Paddington, he rose up the ranks, earning well, until he became a businessman himself. Having married Alice in 1900, together as a couple, Thomas & Alice Hailey ran a successful newsagents shop - selling papers, tobacco and sweets to their middle-class customers on the neighbouring streets – at 11 Buckingham Street in Fitzrovia, living comfortably in the lodgings behind and one floor above. With their son Thomas born in 1901, Alice (known as Annie, so as not to be confused with her mother) in 1903, Lillian in 1905 and Ernest much later in 1913, this became their home for two decades, it gave them a good living, and it was held together by a tight family bond, as for Annie, family was everything. By 1921, although the Education Act of 1918 had raised the school-leaving age to 14, girls were still limited by what they could become; either a mother, a housewife, or a secretary. But being smart and personable, she started a career as a stenographer at W Watson & Sons at 313 High Holborn, a very reputable firm being the leading manufacturer of photographic, x-ray tubes and optical instruments. She had a loving family, a good career and a stable homelife. So, how did it all go wrong? His name was William Curtin. Born and raised half a mile south in Soho, William James Curtin was the third eldest of seven children to Catherine, a busy and exhausted mother, and William Senior, a labourer at the local theatre. Raised in a cramped and squalid lodging house at 8-11 Bateman’s Buildings, this was little more than a dark urine-soaked alley crammed between several pubs and brothels, and a place they would never escape. Like his father, William was tough and rough, burly and bad-tempered, and although his grandfather was a tailor, liking the life of a scene-shifter – moving sets on and off a stage, and getting pissed before and after the show – he followed in his father’s footsteps, even though the pay was poor and irregular. How and why they met was never recorded, and neither do we know what drew them together? What is known is that with Annie just 17 and William only 18 – still only children themselves – with their first child, Victor William born in winter 1921, around the same time, this happy couple were married at St Martin in the Fields church off Trafalgar Square, although oddly in the Census, Annie’s listed as single. As a wife, the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882 (40 years earlier) had given Annie the same legal rights as unmarried woman and widows “to control their own money and property”, but again, it only really served the wealthy, as most working class women were denied a decent living wage, almost all jobs, and unable to open a bank account of their own until 1975, many 20th century women lived a very similar existence to their mid-Victorian forebearers, except with better rights, but only on paper. The horror of Annie’s married life can only be glimpsed at by the court records which reported it. Over the 15 years they were married, having sustained mental, physical and emotional abuse, maybe sexual assaults and coercive abuse at the hands of the man who had sworn to love her, these were just the tip of the pain she endured, as only when it got so bad did she risk everything to report it. Each of his attacks followed a familiar trail; unwarranted jealousy from him, a denial from her, and an unprovoked attack by him using his fists, feet, a belt, a knife, or whatever came to hand. Not even a year into their marriage, on the 23rd of January 1922, William Curtin was charged with her assault at Marlborough Street Police Court, she was still only 17 and she was carrying their 7-month old child. In his defence, he said “she spoke to a man in the street”, and believing she was unfaithful to him, he attacked her, leaving her bruised, bloodied and swollen. His solicitor stated that it wasn’t her fault, “she was too young to appreciate what she was doing” (putting the blame on her), and although the 1853 law stated “a man who beats his wife can be imprisoned up to 6 months” – with this being his first recorded offence – he was bound over for a year, and walked free. He wasn’t even fined a shilling. The old laws designed to protect her were as good as useless, even the 1878 Matrimonial Causes Act gave women who had experienced domestic violence in their marriage the right to obtain separation orders, and in 1923, finally the right to divorce their husbands on equal grounds of adultery, but how could she divorce or separate from him, when society decreed that a wife be reliant on her husband? The law didn’t take domestic violence seriously as Annie’s assault was tried in a magistrates court, but on the 20th of June 1922, as a drunk who supplemented his wages with theft, William was tried at the highest court, the Old Bailey and sentenced to 9 months hard labour for stealing goods from a shop. During his time inside, it was Annie who struggled, as Pentonville Prison had provided him with a bed, clothes and three meals a day, whereas without his income, she had to fund their dreadful little fleapit at 16 Greese Street in Marylebone, and although it only a few streets away from the newsagents she grew up in, as a rancid back alley bathed in industrial waste, it was a world away from her dreams. She kept their family alive, and yet, when he returned, fuelled by drink and jealousy, he attacked her again. On 27th of June 1923, William was tried at Marlborough Street Police Court, and again, on the charge of assaulting his wife, a wealth of evidence found him guilty and he was sentenced to 11 days in prison. Not 6 months as an established law had decreed, but less time than it took to process the paperwork. It was a vicious circle of poverty and abuse, because as Annie was terrified of living with him, even with her parent’s help, she knew that she couldn’t afford to leave him for the sake of her child. She was trapped by the same laws and lawmakers who had proclaimed to protect her from his abuse… …and then, three years later, he tried to murder her. On the 12th of April 1926, five years into Annie’s own imprisonment being married to William, having “spoke to another man” (maybe the coal merchant, the milkman, or the butcher), he beat Annie so viciously she was hospitalised for three days, with broken ribs and a suspected fractured eye socket. Neighbours intervened before his fists could pummel her face into an unrecognisable pulp, a passing Constable arrested him before his hands could throttle the life out of her wailing lungs, and as he was carted away to the cells, he hollered “next time Annie, I’ll finish you off, as I should’ve done before”. So serious was her assault, that he was charged with “wounding with intent to murder and to do her grievous bodily harm”. In short, wounding involves the breaking the skin, grievous bodily harm having inflicted deep cuts, stab wounds, broken bones or requiring significant medical treatment, and intent to murder meaning he had “specifically intended to kill her through the act of wounding or GBH”. It was so serious, a magistrate couldn’t preside, so it was escalated to the Old Bailey. In a 3-day trial from the 14th of May 1926, William Curtin – a thief, a burglar and a drunk with a history of domestic violence – risked 5 to 10 years in prison, and if found guilty Annie could be granted a justifiable divorce. On the 17th of May, the jury returned their verdict. (Judge) “On the charge of intent to murder, how do you find him?” (Jury) “Not guilty”. “On the charge of intent to do grievous bodily harm?” “Not guilty”. “And on the charge of wounding?” “Guilty”. William was sentenced to two months for trying to murder his wife, but having been held on remand, he was out in two weeks, and returned home. They had been married five years, and then, four years later, another child was born. The birth of Margaret must have fuelled a fire in Annie, and with her son being witness to his violence, she made the brave step, she sought out a separation order and moved out taking her kids. But she couldn’t escape him, as when she moved to a second floor room at 11 Old Compton Street, his parent’s house was just one street north off Bateman Street, he had moved a few streets west to 6 Livionia Street, and he now worked with his father at the new Prince of Wales theatre on Old Compton Street. When she walked the streets, he followed her. Any man she spoke to, he noted. From his workplace, he could see her through the window of her room. And as the theatre’s performance of ‘Nippy’ ended its run, with no shows to occupy his time, he began to drink, think and fume about his cheating wife… …until William Curtin decided to end her life. Sunday the 10th of May 1931, before 8am, William would have known that that Annie was out, as on Sunday’s, after her nightshift, she took their son to Sunday School, and he’d have watched her leave. No-one spotted anything suspicious as this local man walked the streets he had lived on all of his life, crossed the market as the stallholders set up shop, and entered the unlocked communal door of her lodging house. No-one heard him climb the stairs, enter her room, or close the door and silently wait. Before the hour struck, Annie’s exhausted frame hobbled into view; a bag of groceries in one arm, and her 18-month old daughter in the other, ceaselessly crying because of the croup. Annie’s only thought being whether she could catch an hour’s sleep before the day-shift and not whether she would survive. Having been separated from William for a few months, she had settled into a hard but reliable routine which left her shattered and numb, but although life was hard, at least she was no longer numb owing to her face being so swollen, and broken, and bleeding that the swift jab of his punches no longer hurt. Inside her pitiful lodging, feeling drained, Annie went about her duties; feeding Margaret, bathing her, and calming her cries, as - all the while, from behind the door - William later admitted “I watched her”. He watched her put their baby into its crib, he watched as Annie’s tired hands struggled to eat a paltry meal of bread and cheese, he watched her as she removed the make-up which disguised a decade of pain and broken promises, and as she went to the basement for a jug of water, he hid under her bed. In court, he claimed “I did it under terrible provocation” by casting cruel aspersions against her morals and accusing her of cheating, when all she wanted was to raise her babies without fear. He watched her get undressed, and get into bed, the springs sunk just inches of his head, no idea that he was there. At first, somewhere in the room something creaked, something big. Somewhere near, the putrid smell of bad breath, stale sweat and porter stout made her stomach turn, as every night since her marriage she had smelled that stench which made her sick with fear. And hearing the familiar rasping of a man’s breathing right underneath her, she knew who it was, where he was, and she knew why he was here. Tentatively she peeked over the mattress. Later (from the hospital, with a weakening breath) she said “after a few minutes, I heard something move. I saw my husband come from the under the bed” rising up like a dark brooding cloud; his bloodshot eyes fixed and wide, a cutthroat razor balled-up in his fist, and with her refusing to come home, he growled “I am going to finish you Annie, finish you properly”. Grabbing her by the hair and pinning her to the bed, he started slashing at her screaming face, the fast and frenzied blade hacking at her skin, as he wasn’t trying to disfigured her so that no-one could love her, but so she would never live nothing day, regardless that their children would be left as orphans. Later taking her bedside statement, a Constable recalled in court, Annie stated “I screamed the whole time. I was exhausted and collapsed on the floor”, leaving thick pools of blood where she fell and lay. William wanted to kill Annie, and this time he would succeed… …but as her screams alerted the lodgers, a bigger man rushed the room, and like a coward, William had only one way to escape – out of the second floor window. Grabbing the drainpipe, he clung on as the lodger made a grab for him, but from 35 feet up, with his only way out being down, on the cobbled road below, a crowd of stallholders was forming, and being told what he had done, they looked angry. Good people do good things, whereas bad people get their comeuppance. As they surged, he jumped from the first floor, twisting his ankle, and with this baying mob on all sides looming closer, he put his hand in his pocket like a wannabe gangster shouting “stay back or I’ll shoot”, but nobody bought it. He didn’t have a gun, he never owned a gun, and against a man, he was too scared to use his knife. He was alone, frightened, hurt, and as he tried to run, they rushed him; knocking him down, pinning him to the floor, and holding the squirming wife-beater until a passing police officer could arrest him. Pale, bloody and barely conscious, Annie was transferred to Charing Cross Hospital. Initially classed as in a serious condition owing to the wounds to her face and throat, miraculously every slash and stab had missed her veins and arteries, and after two days and just eleven stitches, she was discharged. On the 18th of June 1931, at The Old Bailey, William Curtin was again tried on the charges of wounding with intent to cause GBH and murder. He pleaded innocent, and although Annie testified with her scarred face as evidence of his violence, his defence counsel (Mr S T James) laid the blame on her; “do you associate with men?” implying an affair, “no sir”, “do you associate with bad women?” implying prostitution, “no sir”, “did you recently cut his head open with a teapot?”, “yes, but in self-defence”, “therefore you are a rather violent lady, are you not?”, “no sir”, and with it suggested “was it not you who attacked him?”, William was found ‘not guilty’ of the attempted murder his wife a second time… …but again found guilty of wounding. (End) Issuing a harsher punishment for this violent and jealous man, Mr Justice Swift sentenced William to 20 months hard labour, but released early for good behaviour, he returned home to his wife. I would like to tell you that he learned his lesson, and that the rest of Annie & William‘s marriage was a joy. But I can’t. Just after the law let him walk free, on the 18th of January 1933 at Marylebone Police Court, William Curtin had a warrant issued for his arrest having threatened to kill his wife. Convicted, he was again given a woefully pitiful sentence, and again, Annie would never be able to escape his violence… …until fate took a strange twist. After years of hard drinking and bad living, on the 15th of April 1934, 31-year-old William Curtin died of a heart attack at Pentonville Prison. If released, he would have tried to kill her a third time, and maybe succeeded, and although the laws which had been enacted almost 80 years earlier were meant to protect her, the only way she could escape him was when he was dead. This case is not unique or uncommon, it’s all too tragically familiar and for many it happens every day. Sadly, our law (decided by our elected and unelected officials) is woefully slow to react to the domestic violence which effects so many. It was only in 1956 that rape was first legally defined in the UK. It was still legal to rape your spouse in 1991. In 1993, violence against women and girls was finally recognised as a human rights violation. And with the introduction of occupation and non-molestation orders in 1997, perpetrators could be removed from the home, rather than the victim being forced to leave. But with the law being reactive rather than proactive, it wasn’t until the murder of Clare Wood in 2014 that a loophole in the Data Protection Act meant that abused parties had the right to ask about their partner’s violent history, in 2015 coercive control was finally made illegal, and it was only in 2021 that the Domestic Abuse Act become law and made non-fatal strangulation a criminal offence - 90 years after the first attempted murder of Annie Curtin, and a full century after William first attacked her. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
13 Scotts Road, Shepherds Bush @Googlemaps2025 April2023
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond London's West End.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SEVEN: 13 Scotts Road in Shepherds Bush was the home to 71 year-old Paul Longworth and 53-year-old Albert Alfonso for 12 years. On Monday 8th of July 2024, both men were brutally murdered 10 hours apart. It’s a horrific case about love, death, sex and sadism, featuring so many unsettling details (including a four-camera video of Albert’s brutal murder) that the jury were only allowed to hear it, not see it. But were they killed for malice or money?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a black 'P' below the words 'Shepherds Bush'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here. SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Two bodies in suitcases hacked apart and dumped. Was it greed or revenge? Find out on Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Scotts Road in Shepherd’s Bush, W12; four roads west of the last killing by the Shoe Box Killer, two roads south of the paedophile known as The Beast, one road south of the Prince of Shepherd’s Bush, and two streets east of the raging widow’s fury - coming soon to Murder Mile. The eastern side of Scotts Road comprises of a cul-de-sac surrounded by garages, council flats and a line of red-bricked townhouses with a garage on the ground floor, a kitchen and a living room above and two bedrooms and a bathroom at the top. From the outside, No13 looks like any other house; with a car on the drive, bins out for rubbish, cactuses in the window and its black curtains closed - it’s as if Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote have finally kissed, made up, ‘got a room’ and are making whoopie. But as innocent as this house may seem, even before this brutal double murder, this was a place of secrets; where rough sex was as commonplace as a nighttime cup of cocoa, where extreme porn was like watching Eastenders, and sadistic and racist role-play was as ordinary as a good book at bedtime. It all came to a head on Monday 8th of July 2024, when the owners (Paul Longworth & Albert Alfonso) were brutally butchered by Albert’s live-in lover. But what drove him to kill; was it money or malice? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 307: The Shepherd’s Bush Suitcase Murders. To everyone who knew them, 71-year-old Paul Longworth (formerly of Ireland) and 63-year-old Albert Alfonso (originally from France) were an ordinary couple enjoying their loving but uneventful romance in the latter part of their lives. Having entered a civil partnership in February 2023, this marked their commitment to each other, but they had actually been living as a couple for more than a decade. Back in 2013, they had moved into this three-storey townhouse at 13 Scotts Road, just off Goldhawk Road, and according to their neighbours “Albert and Paul were lovely guys… both really friendly, polite and smiled a lot… they were a very nice couple who were genuinely fond of one another”. And even though, one year after they tied the knot, they had separated, they still lived together as soul mates. Together they were inseparable, but what drove them to be close was what drove them apart being such different personalities. Paul was quiet, calm and passive, a sweet soul who many said “wouldn’t harm a fly”, and as a self-employed handyman who was enjoying a well-earned retirement, he hadn’t packed away his toolbelt, hammers, drills and power saws, as he still loved to fix and built anything. As the younger and the fitter of the two, Albert was a swimming instructor at the Mode Club in nearby Acton, and although just weeks before his murder, he told the barman at the Shepherd and Flock pub near his flat “I’m retiring soon”, he wasn’t planning to slow down, as this was an opportunity to make the most of this new stage in his life; with more travelling, more people and more anonymous sex. Whereas Paul enjoyed the emotional side of being a couple; like kissing, cuddling, meals and romantic walks in the park, Albert had a predilection for rough sex and role-play, so although, having split, they slept in separate bedrooms in the same house, they were close and loving, just not in a sexual way. In his bedroom on the top floor of 13 Scotts Road, sat naked at his laptop in front of a webcam, Albert got his thrills from tugging one off to internet porn, uploading videos of himself having sex, and also paying others to fulfil his fantasies for a fee; it was all very harmless, consensual and anonymous. In 2012, on an online forum, Albert (under an unnamed alias) began chatting to a man known only as 'iamblackmaster' and 'mrd**k20cm', paying him to film himself masturbating and performing sex acts on other men, which he also uploaded to porn sites like Stripchat, Camfinder, XGays and XHamster. For a decade, they only knew each other virtually, until Albert decided to make his fantasy a reality. In 2022, after the Covid lockdowns, Albert met him for the very first time… …two years later, 'iamblackmaster' brutally butchered both Albert & Paul. 'iamblackmaster's real name was Yostin Andres Mosquera, a slim and muscular 34-year-old Columbian from Medellin. Initially, their relationship was transactional, when in 2022, Albert flew 5000 miles to pay Yostin $80 a time to perform sex acts, but it soon blossomed into a friendship and maybe more. In March 2024, Albert & Paul holidayed in the exclusive Hotel Isla del Encanto, which translates as the ‘island of enchantment’, a luxury all-inclusive resort nestled on the Isla Barú near Cartagena. Accessed only by a chauffeur driven speedboat, this 5-star hotel on a tropical island has a private beach, pools, maid service, restaurants, sauna, and it cost per night as much as most Columbians earn in a month. For Albert & Paul, this was a regular holiday as they loved living the highlife, but for Yostin, although he was now a friend and some might say a lover, this was a life he could only experience in his dreams. So, at the end of that week of extravagance, as Albert & Paul packed their summer clothes into a large silver trunk (all battered and tatty with an address label in case it got lost), as Yostin went back to his old life as a broke and struggling self-proclaimed ‘porn star’, it must have seemed like a blessing when Albert (and possibly Paul) paid for him to fly to London and to stay in their Shepherd’s Bush home. In October 2023, and later in June 2024, Yostin arrived at Heathrow carting a battered maroon hard-shell suitcase containing his meagre belongings, and although Albert made him feel welcome by taking him sightseeing, giving him a guest membership at the Mode Club, signing him up to the five-a-side football team and even paying for him to learn English at Ealing College, being on a 3-month tourist visa, he knew he couldn’t stay forever, and although his board and lodging was free, it wasn’t all free. In court, Yostin told the jury, “I continued the sex with him, as Albert said he’d pay”, but he didn’t. His travel was paid, as was his bed, food and clothes, as well as an air-fryer which was given to his mother. That was his defence, and with Albert dead, it’s hard to contest it. During his trip, Yostin also met a young black man from a similarly disadvantaged background known only by the alias of ‘James Smith’, who stated “they seemed to enjoy one another's company", but when ‘James’ initiatively asked Yostin “are you gay or straight?”, he stated that – as a man with a wife and child back home in Columbia - “I’m just doing it for the money” - something that ‘James’ understood, agreeing “great, so am I”. It began as a series of anonymous sex acts via webcam using aliases and avatars… …but where there’s secrets and lies, there is also deception and darkness. ‘James Smith’ stated he first met Albert Alfonso back in 2005, nearly 20 years ago. In court, he alleged that when he 17 or 18 (so still technically a child), he had gone to Alfred’s flat for drinks after a rugby match. The next morning, having awoken with ‘a banging headache’, James said "I said to him, 'what's happened?'”, and on his camera, “Albert showed a video of me on all fours, and he was penetrating me”, while James was unconscious. Cross-examined in court, the defence barrister asked: "does it cross your mind that you were raped?", he said "now, yes,", "does it cross your mind that your drink may have been spiked?", "now, yes,", "and that you were groomed by Albert Alfonso?", "now, yes,". He was young and innocent, "I didn't know what to do. I was mortified. I didn't know my sexuality. I was confused and scared, [being a] black boy in London, gay - whether drunk or not - it didn't matter". He said Alfred assured him “I won’t show it to anyone, but in return, you have to do ‘favours’ for me”. Being vulnerable, broke and coerced by an older man with money, James stated that Alfred would pay him about £150 for sex, and over time “it became routine and consensual” to the point that, when James needed money, even though he had been raped by Albert, sometimes he’d initiate the contact. To many, that may seem strange, that a victim of a serious sexual assault would willingly maintain a relationship with their abuser, and even request more sex, but it’s a complicated form of manipulation and violence, where James would be treated like a friend, a lover and an object, which was made even worse when Covid isolated us all, crashed everyone’s finances, and left James stuck in a little bubble. Yostin claimed he was also a victim of Albert’s abuse, but was this the truth, or a second-hand alibi? At his trial for Paul & Albert’s double murder, Yostin stated “Albert would instruct me to do things… sexual things, he told me to use my imagination, but he was the one telling me what to do" in these sex acts he claimed “I never enjoyed”, but continued doing it for the money he said he never received. Albert’s kink was ‘black domination’ fantasies, being abused and dominated by a ‘black slave master’ and being subjected to degrading and humiliating acts as his ‘white submissive’. It was role play with costumes and characters, but it wasn’t the kind of kinky little pantomime a bored couple may engage in to liven-up a dull love life, this was rough violent sex where Albert was tied up, beaten, hurt, violated anally with a large strap-on penis, and although he thrashed and moaned in pain as the ‘black master’ beat and degraded him by urinating, vomiting and even defecating on him, it was all at his request. Yet Yostin claimed there was truth in his fantasy, as in their ordinary life, Albert racially abused him, made him feel “small” and “empty”, forced him to sleep on the floor, denied him friends, and took his keys away whenever he left the flat – of course with Albert & Paul being dead, no-one can disprove it. The last time ‘James’ saw the couple alive was on Friday 5th of July 2024, three days before the murder. In one of the bedrooms, ‘James’, Yostin and Albert were having three-way sex. It was casual, ordinary and consenting. ‘James’ stated “After the session, Paul came and sat with us and we talked … he gave me a hug, that was the last I heard of those two", with their deaths coming as a great shock to him… …but the evidence suggests this was all a premeditated plan by Yostin. He began researching the killings at the end of June, just weeks after his arrival in the UK. He searched “serial killers of London”, “how to dispose of a body” and “best ways to poison”, oddly all are blogs written by myself, but this could simply be the internet search of a true crime fan. Yet the next search was more damning, it was said that he had not only researched the value of their home in Scotts Road, but he also copied a PowerPoint document containing Paul & Albert’s bank logins and passwords. They weren’t rich, but compared to this impoverished Columbian, they were as good as millionaires. Monday 8th of July 2024 saw the start of a heatwave of 32 degrees which would last the week, and as a city which grinds to a halt the second the sun peeps from behind its usual grey gloom, when it gets hot, it gets hot, and in a concrete and glass jungle like Shepherd’s Bush, everything is too hot to touch. Overseas, Ukraine was in flames as forty miles of Russian artillery fired on Kyiv, the French far-right were kept at bay by a left-wing alliance, and England was to play Netherlands in the Euro’s semi-final. That morning, being sat in Albert’s top-floor bedroom, Yostin did several internet searches in Spanish; “where on head is a knock fatal” and how much damage a “blow to the head would cause”, as although he’d plead self-defense, for the prosecution “he murdered both men, he intended to kill them, his actions were planned and premeditated, and he immediately set about trying to steal from them”. Jurors were told “he was in complete control of his actions”, which were 'strategic and premeditated'. Between 12:30pm and 1pm, neighbours in the council flats opposite saw the black curtains at 13 Scotts Road being drawn, and being the height of a blisteringly hot day, it didn’t seem strange. Albert was at work finishing his final days as a swimming instructor, so inside Paul and Yostin had been left alone. Yostin didn’t dislike Paul - who could? – but as an obstacle to his money, it’s likely he was in the way. As Paul entered the bathroom, from behind, Yostin smashed him over the head with his hammer and shattered the back of his skull with nine frenzied blows. If he’d have hated him, he’d be mutilated, but he didn’t, in fact his killing was so fast, the 71-year-old only had defensive wounds to his hands, and having shoved the body under the bed, Yostin wiped up with a towel, and locked the bedroom door. He was killed as fast as he was forgotten, yet in court, Yostin claimed he was neither the culprit nor target, stating “I heard them pushing each other in the bathroom… Albert always had problems with Paul” – even though everyone agreed that although their lives were unconventional, they loved each other - and that Albert threatened him, “if you tell anyone, something bad will happen to your family”. At around dusk, possibly having stopped off at his favourite pub for a pint, Albert returned home. It’s uncertain how Paul’s disappearance or his locked bedroom was explained, but at around 10pm, Yostin claimed that Albert needed sex (as he did at least four times a day), so they headed up to his bedroom. He had a double bed fitted with plastic sheets to wipe clean the bodily fluids which were ejected from any-and-every orifice as the dominant ‘black master’ humiliated his submissive ‘white slave’. Around the bed to capture Albert’s sexual degradation, as always, Yostin had set-up four cameras; a webcam on the desk, one at the foot of the bed, one on a bedside table and a tablet attached to a ceiling fan, with the explicit footage to be edited later and uploaded to a wealth of S&M and hard core porn sites. For anyone else, this would seem creepy and sinister, but for Yostin and Albert, this was just sex. With the blinking red-eye of each camera flashing like jackals winking, their consensual sadism began. Both men were naked except for Albert wearing a swimming cap and a black leather eye-mask, as Yostin the ‘black master’ urinated on his subordinate, his foul waste product (somehow) arousing him. It’s all about pain and danger, as the ‘black master’ took his ‘white slave’ to and beyond his threshold, strapping his backside with bondage tape, painfully cutting it away with a sharp knife and having taken poppers (amyl nitrate) to get high and relax his sphincter, Yostin penetrated him with a strap-on dildo. Again, this was a normal night-in for Albert, so the pain he felt prior didn’t scare him, but so horrific was his murder that the jurors were only shown the video’s audio for fear that it may traumatise them. At roughly 10:15pm, with Albert on all fours and facing away, having waited for the right moment, “he took hold of (Albert’s) chin with his left hand” as if he was caressing it, “pulls his head back, and with his right hand, stabs him in the neck… deliberately, precisely", as blood spurted from his carotid artery. Mocking him, Yostin is heard on the audio saying "you likey?", and as Albert struggles to get up, with blood pouring down his chest, as Yostin holds him in a headlock, as Albert screams, Yostin repeatedly plunges an 8-inch kitchen knife deep into Albert’s face, neck and chest 13 times repeating “you likely”? No-one acknowledged his cries, as the room was soundproofed for sex, Paul was long since dead, and as Yostin pulled him back onto the bed, from ear-to-ear, he slit Albert’s throat so he too is deceased… …only his death wasn’t mercifully swift, but painfully slow. On the video, forensics stated “he is heard struggling to breathe then his body goes limp”, only Yostin doesn’t stop to acknowledge his crime or the river of blood spewing from the neck, but instead, places Albert’s slowly dying body on a plastic sheet, and in Spanish, bursts into song and starts to dance. Put aside his alibi of self-defence, and by these actions alone, his motive is clear as his goal was money. With Albert’s body barely-alive and twitching at his feet, without a single ounce of compassion, Yostin opened up the spreadsheet, searched for the cost of houses in his hometown of Medellin, and even though he had the log-ins and passwords for Paul & Albert’s accounts at Barclays, Halifax, NatWest, Moneygram and Paypal, he failed to send £4000 (21 ½ million Pesos) to his own account in Colombia. Undeterred, after a shower and a change of clothes, having left two bodies brutally massacred in both bedrooms, although he’d claim “I didn’t steal the money, I was owed it”, at 10:50pm barely 30 minutes after Albert’s murder, he tried to drain the accounts dry at the Sainsbury’s cash machine on Goldhawk Road, but with the system sensing that something was amiss, all the cards were declined and frozen. We know this because Yostin thought he had switched off the webcam but he hadn’t, he didn’t destroy the video files (no-one knows why), and as he wasn’t entitled to claim the house, any life insurance or the contents of both men’s wills, the webcam captured him counting the haul from both killings… …just £900. The clean-up and disposal of the bodies was as badly planned and pathetic and the killings themselves. The next morning, using Albert’s phone, in bad English he texted “flying to Costa Rica, family problem, back in eight weeks”, which of course raised suspicions. At 1.19pm, CCTV on the flats at Scotts Court opposite caught him in the bedroom window wearing white overalls. He left, returned at 2.09pm with the large maroon suitcase, and that evening, neighbours heard the sounds of power tools being used. In the bathroom, he decapitated both bodies, severing the heads at the neck and the legs at the hips with an electric saw, so each body was split into three; a head, a torso with arms, and legs with feet. But even with a maroon suitcase and Paul & Albert’s large silver trunk, being too small to carry both bodies in one go, that same day, Yostin went on FaceBook Marketplace and ordered a chest freezer. Again, seen on CCTV, it was delivered that day by an unsuspecting man-in-a-van who was paid in cash. The next day, on Wednesday the 10th of July, he separated the body parts; in the silver trunk was the torso, arms and legs of Paul Longworth, still wearing a black Giorgio Armani t-shirt, with a white towel and a Marks & Spencer blanket to soak up the ooze, but oddly, no plastic sheeting to trap the smell or stop the flies from feeding on his rotting meat in this mini heatwave; and in the large maroon suitcase was Albert’s torso, arms and legs, wrapped in nothing but a beach towel of Arsenal Football Club. So, what was left behind in the chest freezer? Just their heads, with Albert still wearing the swimming cap and black leather eye mask, and although the night was warm, he didn’t switch on the freezer. After a pitiful attempt at destroying the evidence; in which he mopped-up using a kettle and towels (but left blood everywhere); tossed the sex toys, the strap-on, the bloodied knife and their phones into the communal bin (even though bin-day had passed), and bafflingly left behind the hammer and his white overalls in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag with a receipt for his recent purchases, to celebrate his good fortune, he spent part of the £900 at The Central Bar on Shepherd’s Bush Green as seen on CCTV. But what did he plan to do with the bodies? Bury them, or burn them? No, he decided to throw the cases off a bridge into a river, and even though the nearest was the River Thames at Hammersmith Bridge, which was a mile away and closed to traffic – not being British – he Googled ‘tall bridge, England’ and decided on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, 114 miles east in Bristol. The problem was he couldn’t drive, so again, Googling it, he hired Julio Romero, an unsuspecting man-in-another-van to take him and these two suspiciously heavy suitcases on a 2 and a ½ hour journey, costing almost £200 of his £900 score, and then at Bristol, he hired a taxi to take him out to Clifton. Of all the nights to dispose of a body, a weekday was the quietest, but being surrounded by pubs and with England playing the Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-final, by the time he arrived at 10:50pm, pubs were kicking out, and (for no known reason) he had the taxi drop him a ¼ mile from the bridge. Outside of The Mall pub on Gloucester Row, as Yostin wrestled the two 10-stone cases from the back of a blue taxi, Mr & Mrs Malone, two tourists from Florida joked “hey, what's in them? Bodies?”, not knowing the truth as Yostin dragged the cases towards the bridge, but with one of the handles broken and two busted wheels having buckled under the weight, that 5 minute walk took almost half an hour. At 11:20pm, he tried to throw the cases off the 250-foot high bridge into the gorge below, but couldn’t lift them over the barriers, and even if he could, there were safety nets below to stop suicides. Realising he had left incriminating ‘drag’ marks on the pavement, he tried to wash it away by urinating, which alerted two maintenance staff, and then a cyclist, who spotted a ‘red liquid’ oozing from a case. With the ploy (that the cases were full of car parts and that the leak must be engine oil) not working, Yostin dumped them both, and fled to nearby Leigh Woods where he hid in the bushes. At 12:07am, the Police arrived, opened the cases to see two bodies and although he had destroyed their IDs, on the silver trunk he’d left a label from their holiday in Columbia complete with their names and address. At 4:30am, Police smashed down the door of 13 Scotts Road and found a crime scene and their heads. On Friday 12th of July, having named and distributed his description, at 2:15am the next morning, he was arrested while sitting on a bench at Bristol Temple Meads Station, wearing a t-shirt stained with Alfred’s blood, and minus a shoe. He was charged with double murder and committed for trial. (End) Held at Belmarsh Prison, the trial began in April 2025 at the Old Bailey. Yostin Mosquera pleaded ‘not guilty’ of both murders, claiming that Paul Longworth was killed by Albert Alfonso, and pleading ‘guilty’ of Albert’s manslaughter but owing to ‘a loss of control’, which the prosecution rejected. With a wealth of evidence against him - being the knife, the CCTV, the bodies, the suitcases and the video of the sex and the murder – a conviction seemed almost certain, but with an issue over the timings of when each internet search was made, for the sake of a fair trial, on the 15th of May 2025, the jury was discharged. A retrial began on the 30th of June 2025 at Woolwich Crown Court, with Yostin’s defence being that he was forced to commit each sex act against his will, that Albert had threatened his family, that he had killed in self-defence, and that although he “felt very sad and wanted to leave", he remained close and friendly with Albert who he claimed “raped me every day” – although no evidence of this exists. On the 21st of July 2025, 35-year-old Yostin Andres Mosquera was found guilty of the murders of Paul Longworth and Albert Alfonso. His sentencing has been delayed until the 24th of October 2025, as the judge has ordered him to be psychiatrically assessed. And as he wasn’t a British citizen but a Columbian national, once he has served his sentence, it is likely he will be deported back to his home country. Often we never really know what goes on behind our neighbour’s doors, and yet, even with the grisly webcam recording of Albert’s murder, what went on at 13 Scotts Road, will never truly be known. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIVE: On Monday 8th of August 1994, in an undisclosed flat on the second or third floor of York Mansions, a murder was committed which was so brutal, so frenzied, that not a single surface was left unsullied by blood. The scene was a rabbit’s warren of evidence, yet the case remained unsolved for 30 years. The Police had a likely suspect and his DNA, but why did they wait so long to convict him?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a purple 'P' below the words 'Baker Street' under Regent's Park. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Why did the Police wait 30 years to solve the murder of Marina Koppel? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Chiltern Street in Marylebone, W1; one street east of the Blackout Ripper’s pub, two streets north of the lobotomy which led to a good mother to kill her child, two streets south of the slaying of William Raven for a pair of clean underpants, the same street as the last sighting of Rene Hanrahan, and a few doors down from the cross-eyed assassin - coming soon to Murder Mile. Running parallel with Baker Street, the home of Sherlock Holmes, sits Chiltern Street; two lines of five and six storey Victorian mansion blocks made of red bricks, with black wrought iron railings and white windowsills. The flats are posh, pricey and sought after being so central, but they are incredibly tiny. Every time I walk passed, I imagine a 6 foot banker called Tarquin bent double like a pretzel simply to get into his kitchen, with one arm poking out a microscopic window, his leg stretching into the hallway and his arse blocking his 2 inch telly, all so he can spread his humus without doing himself a mischief. Yet as desirable as these flats are, they also have a horrific history when it comes to malice and murder. On Monday 8th of August 1994, in an undisclosed flat on the second or third floor of York Mansions, a murder was committed which was so brutal, so frenzied, that not a single surface was left unsullied by blood. The scene was a rabbit’s warren of evidence, yet the case remained unsolved for 30 years. The Police had a likely suspect and his DNA, but why did they wait so long to convict him? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 305: Time, Data and Death. To tell her story, we need to travel more than 5000 miles to the South American country of Columbia. Born in 1955, she was later known as Marina Koppel, but her real name was Luz Marina Gomez. Little is known about her upbringing, her parents, or her siblings, but whereas her homeland of Columbia should have become one of the wealthiest being the world’s largest producer of emeralds and Arabica beans, but with the 1950s seeing an escalation in corruption, political infighting and armed conflict, it was here that the rich got richer and more powerful, and yet, the poor only got poorer and weaker. By the 1960s, unemployment was raging and economic growth had stalled, so with criminal gangs and drug cartels (like Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel) paying off officials and running rampant as they controlled the country, Columbia descended into a cesspool of crime, being synonymous with cocaine smuggling, human trafficking, kidnapping, prostitution, slavery, extortion and executions. And although it has since blossomed, Columbia is still recovering from the aftermath of that era today. It was during the 1970s that Marina got married, she built a home with her husband, and increasing her extended family who she adored, she had two children of her own. For Marina, it was the dream. But how hard must her life have been? As in 1979, aged just 24, being small (five feet tall) and slim (barely 100lbs), alone, she left her life, her husband, her friends, even her own children, and flew half way across the world in the hope of making a better life for them by sending some money home. When she arrived, compared to Columbia, Britain’s issues were like a petty spat in a playgroup. Described as our ‘winter of discontent’, that year saw riots and looting, and with the binmen on strike, the streets were strewn with rancid litter which swathed every town and city in an overpowering pong. As for London, this new world was wet and cold. Lacking fresh fruit, all food dripped in grease, and with so few Spanish speakers, so thick were the local’s accents, she couldn’t tell if anyone was English. It was a hard transition, but her personality did most of the heavy lifting. As a woman who was liked and loved by those who knew her, or even those she was only a casual acquaintance of, it’s impossible to wade through all of the platitudes. Everyone said she was "extremely bright, highly intelligent and charismatic", she had an "abundance of energy for life", and “saw good in her family and all people she met”. She was friendly, vivacious, kind, and she went out of her way to care and help other people. In 1982, having met and fell in love with David Andrew Koppel, an antiques dealer from Northampton, although he was 15 years her senior and the two weren’t at that point in their relationship, as Marina had been threatened with deportation, they bigamously married, just to keep her in the country. She was now a legitimate British citizen living under the name of Luz Marina Gomez De Koppel… …but this wasn’t her only name, as she had at least 13 aliases. When she went into the Midland Bank on Baker Street, her cash card was in her original married name of M L Gomez, and the locals knew her as Maria, Sandra and Roseta. But as a high-class sex-worker who lived and worked in this affluent neighbourhood, she sold her services under the names of Angara and Angarita - Spanish names which made her seem more exotic to her middle-class English clients. Unlike many of the seedy stories of the West End sex trade we’ve covered before, Marina wasn’t an addict, she wasn’t coerced, and she wasn’t living in fear of being extorted by a violent gang or a pimp. She was an independent professional woman, who since 1987, had sold sex, but did everything safely. For seven years, she had advertised herself as a ‘Columbian masseuse’ in the classified ad’s of local papers, listings magazines and newsagent’s windows. She had an address book of her regular clients (usually businessmen), she worked from home and as far as we know she didn’t have a criminal record. She earned a good living, she worked five days a week and was discrete about what she did. She wore the latest fashions and was neat and presentable; her black hair with stylish blonde highlights never had a strand out of place, and to sum-up how successful her business was, in 1992, she carried the latest gadget – an NEC P3 mobile phone; it was the size of a brick, but only the most affluent had one. She did it all so that – one day – she could return to Columbia to her family, with her head held high, she could see how her years of sacrifice had paid off to give them the life they deserved. Her son, Javier called her “the best mother in the world”, and he hoped she would come home for good… …but it would never happen. On Monday 1st of August 1994, one week before, Marina had moved into a small flat in York Mansions at 84 Chiltern Street in Marylebone. As a well-presented mansion block with a concierge service, it was the kind of place a well-heeled gentleman could enter without turning heads. Being secure, its communal door could only be accessed by each flat’s intercom. And being surrounded by a courtyard of small flats, anyone who entered Marina’s yellow front door could easily be seen by her neighbours. Her flat had a small sitting-room with a sofa and a coffee table, a tiny kitchen with all the mod cons, and a bedroom with a double bed. But then, this wasn’t her home, it was her workplace, as selling sex Monday to Friday, Marina spent her weekends with her husband in Northampton. It was an “unconventional relationship”, and although David "did not necessarily approve… he accepted it". Monday 8th of August 1994 was no different to any other day for Marina Koppel. The night before, she had met a regular client at a hotel by Heathrow airport. That evening, dressed in stylish black leggings, a crisp white jacket, high heels and a black shoulder bag, Marina entered a poker tournament at the Victoria Sporting Club casino on nearby George Street, and although she gambled a little, this was really a business opportunity to meet affluent men who had money to burn. At 4am, she left, but her next movements weren’t unpredictable. At 9:30am, on her landing, she met her new neighbour, an elderly lady called Mrs Miller for the first time; they chatted, Mrs Miller said “she was very bright and pleasant… she offered to do my shopping as she had a car… and said she was tired and was going to bed”. Late morning, as a frequent customer, she ate her regular breakfast of eggs, bacon and tomato at Blandford’s café, a few door from her flat at 65 Chiltern Street, and said to be her usual pleasant and chatty self, she sat alone enjoying her meal. Between 1:38pm to 1:42pm, CCTV captured Marina entering the Midland Bank at 90 Baker Street. She was alone, she was in a good mood, she made a small regular transaction, and she wasn’t coerced. Those were the last confirmed sightings of Marina. It’s possible she visited her local newsagents called Sherlock Holmes News – said to be on Baker Street or Chiltern Street – and having purchased milk, bread and maybe updated her cards in the window, being handed a cream coloured carrier bag of her goods from the owner’s son, she headed back to her flat, and closed the front door for the last time. At 2:45pm, she called her son, Javier in Columbia, being 8:45am his time. She was happy but tired, she had no plans for the day and didn’t sound upset or distressed. When she hung up at 3pm, that was the last time he heard her voice and no-one had any idea (including Marina) that her life was in danger. Sometime after 3pm, her husband, David called her mobile phone, but she didn’t pick up. They spoke often and she always called back, but as she didn’t, he called at 5pm, getting no reply. Growing concerned as this was unlike her, he called at 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, and by 10pm, becoming more worried for her safety - given her success, stature and her occupation - he drove the 59 miles south from Northampton to Marylebone and arrived at Chiltern Street at roughly 11pm. With no key and no reply via her intercom, the concierge let the Police in to do a welfare check at just before 11:30pm. The investigation was led by Detective Superintendent Peter Slade and Detective Inspector John Ryan. With no cameras on the street, the door, or in the communal hallway, Police had no idea who had entered York Mansions that day, but with no signs of forced entry, it was clear her killer was let in. Neighbours saw no-one and heard nothing, except a scream which could have come from anywhere. Likewise, her windows were locked and her front door hadn’t been forced, and with her clients only attending by a pre-arranged appointment made to her mobile phone in - which she always vetted them and only allowed them entry to the mansion block and her flat, if and when she trusted them. Being a typical summer’s day, seeing daytime highs of 28 degrees and evening lows of 16, with her heating not on, she had been dead for 7 to 9 hours, making her time of death between 3pm and 5pm. It happened soon after her return as the carrier bag hadn’t been unpacked and was still in the kitchen. From her front door to the main stairwell, a trail of blood had been dripped as her killer fled at speed. The blood was hers, and with him said to have been saturated in it, it was obvious where he had ran; as the sitting room was untouched, the kitchen had been used in the moments prior, the bathroom was where he had failed to clean-up (as with the day being sunny, a bloodied man would have stood out as he ran in this busy part of town), but her bedroom was a scene of utter horror and devastation. The room was barely 10 foot square, with a double bed, a side table, a chair, a dresser and a wardrobe. In the moments before her violent assault, it was clear that consensual sex between a fee-paying client and his chosen prostitute was in the process of taking place; she had removed her clothes and placed them neatly on a chair, a void existed where he too had undressed, and she was wearing black lacy lingerie and expensive stockings, the kind she often wore when she was expecting one of her clients. But something had happened, something violent and brutal. Dr Ian West, the pathologist who attended the scene described the attack as “frenzied“. In court, the jury were shown the crime-scene photos, and many gasped as the whole room was drenched in blood. On the floor, wrapped in the saturated sheets from her bed, lay what was determined to be the body of Marina Koppel. It was a savage and sustained attack, which took at least two minutes maybe longer. With six-inch kitchen knife, possibly from her own kitchen, her assailant had unleashed a brutal assault without any hint of remorse, only hatred. With blood in her mouth and oesophagus, she had pleaded and screamed to no avail, and as she writhed in pain and tried to flee, he had slashed at her arms and hands as she tried to defend herself, then he repeatedly stabbed her in her chest, back, neck and face. In total, she had been stabbed and slashed more than 140 times. According to the pathologist, the wounds to her neck were more than sufficient to kill her, but stated “it was clear (he) continued to inflict blows on Ms Koppel, even after her heart had stopped beating”. The Judge stated “the terror and pain inflicted on Ms Koppel is difficult to imagine. She was attacked with a knife in her own home, when she was at her most vulnerable”. And yet, the more frenzied his stabbing became and the more bloodied his hand got, even as his grip slipped from the handle or he had to swap over owing to the exhaustion of his actions, he didn’t stop until she was unrecognisable. This was was the unequivocal hatred of a small and well-liked woman. But why? The sex (which had been interrupted) was said to have been transactional, but not part of the attack. Her diary was missing, but it seemed unlikely that someone would deliberately attack her to steal that. Likewise, her NEC P3 mobile phone was missing, but costing the equivalent of £1600 today, it wasn’t worth killing her for, and with so few around, it would be close to impossible to sell it. In fact, the only other item stolen was a rainbow coloured titanium bangle bought in America and said to be worthless. The crime scene was a rabbit’s warren of evidence, and yet, he had fled the scene heavily bloodied, but no-one had seen him. A bloodstained blue tablecloth measuring 30 x 30 inches was found under a car on nearby Bickenhall Mansions, but Police couldn’t determine if it was connected to the murder. And somewhere, her killer had disposed of the weapon, a six-inch singled-sided kitchen knife, with it impossible to tell if it came from her kitchen, or if he had brought it with him intent of killing her. This man had brutally murdered a defenceless woman, yet in a crazed moment of panic when anyone else would have fled without looking back, he stole her Switch credit card, and somehow having got her PIN number, over the next two days, on three occasions, he withdrew a small amount of cash from ATM machines in and around the area of St John’s Wood and South Hampstead, just one mile north. The detectives quickly ruled out her husband as he was in Northampton during the murder, and he was distraught at losing her. A maniac with a hatred of prostitutes was mooted, but no-names proved likely. And given that she had “a client list of men in powerful and influential positions”, it made sense that he would steal her mobile phone, as her killer would have been one of the last men to call her. The Police had no suspect, but oddly, they had enough evidence to convict someone, but who? Initially, they thought he had left his fingerprints on the cream-coloured carrier bag, but it turned out they belonged to be owner’s son who had served Marina at Sherlock Holmes News a few hours before. Having headed to the kitchen, possibly to get the knife to attack her, her killer had left two bloody footmarks of his Size 7 feet by the skirting board of the bedroom, but they weren’t clear enough to print. And on her ring, as she had fought back, the gem setting had caught one of his black head hairs. The Police were years, if not decades away from being able to accurately profile his DNA, so with no fingerprints, a fuzzy footprint, and a hair from which all they could tell was his blood group and hair colour, as they didn’t have a single witness to her murder, and no obvious suspect, the case stalled. Such a small room had harvested a wealth of damning evidence, and yet it led the Police to no-one. On the 13th of September 1994, five weeks after her murder, Marina was cremated and her remains were flown back to Columbia to be with her loved ones. Ruled as wilful murder, the Coroner declared the case as open. And although her family fought to keep the investigation alive, the anguish of never knowing who had murdered his wife led to her husband, David’s mental and physical decline, and with his family stating “he lost the will to live”, on the 24th of April 2005, he died never knowing the truth. For a decade, her killer remained a free man, walking the same streets, and no-one could convict him. So why did the Police wait 30 years to solve her murder? It wasn’t laziness or a miscarriage of justice, as sometimes evidence isn’t enough, as even though the killer has left a piece of himself (literally) in her hand, owing to the limitations of that era, to bring a killer to justice, it can take time and data. In 1987, seven years before Marina’s murder, Colin Pitchfork became the first person in Britain to be convicted of rape and murder using his own DNA. It was a new tool for detectives, and it changed the way that evidence was preserved, as even if it couldn’t solve a crime today, perhaps it could tomorrow. In 1995, the year after her murder, the National DNA Database was established to store DNA profiles of crime scenes or felons arrested for recordable offenses to help solve crimes by matching profiles. In 1995, it had just a few thousand, by 2005 it had 3.1 million, and today it holds close to 6 million. In 2008, a cold-case review subjected the evidence to DNA testing as the technology and accuracy had come on leaps and bounds in the last decade. The bloody footmarks were the same size as one of the Police’s likely suspects, but as he wasn’t on the database, they had no legal reason to acquire his DNA and they couldn’t prove it was him, even though his fingerprints was found at the crime scene. Again, the case went cold, but it wasn’t dead… …it was just waiting until the technology caught up, or her killer to make a fatal mistake. 2022, 28 years after Marina’s murder, a second cold case review was launched, the bagged evidence was taken out of storage, and in laboratory conditions, being subjected to more advanced testing, it matched a profile on the National DNA Database to the man the Police had suspected for decades. In court, the Prosecutor, Mr William Emlyn Jones KC stated "you may have little trouble concluding that if those footprints were made in Marina's wet blood, then that can only be because they were left by her killer - someone who was in that room, barefoot, at the time. All these years later, they have been identified - they are the defendant's prints - they were made by the sole of his left foot." In January 2023, Police arrested him at his home on Finchley Road in St John’s Wood, and although he denied he was responsible, his DNA and fingerprints were a perfect match, as well as his footprints. His downfall began a decade earlier when on 14th of September 2013, he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend, and as a first offence, he was given a 12-month community order and a restraining order. And as required being arrested for a recordable offense, his DNA profile was added to the database. On the day of the murder, he was nothing more than a client, a lonely man seeking sex. Whether he was a regular customer, or if he had seen her advert for a ‘Columbian masseuse’ in the classified ad’s or in the newsagent’s window is unknown, but that day, he called her number, he made a last-minute appointment and being known to her, she let him in via the intercom and her front door. In the bedroom, they undressed as part of this casual transaction, but the sex never took place. At his trial, Mr Justice Cavanagh stated “there is nothing to suggest that you went to the flat with the intention of murdering her: you went to avail yourself of her sexual services… I have a strong suspicion that you killed Ms Koppel because of the shame and embarrassment at your sexual performance”. As being just 21-year-old student with limited experience of sex, it was his failure, and he blamed her. Having assaulted her, naked and barefoot, he ran into her kitchen, grabbed a knife, and in his blistering rage, he unleashed a terrifying attack on Marina, during which – as she flailed in fear – the gem setting of her ring caught a tiny hair from his head, and later, a Forensics Officer bagged it and catalogued it. He took her bracelet for no logical reason, except (maybe) it was a present from him? He stole her phone as he was the last man to call her before her death. He disposed of the knife, possibly throwing it into the Regent’s Canal as he headed home to St John’s Wood? He wasn’t noticed by any of the locals, as he was a local himself. And he stole her bank card because being remorseless, he got greedy. With Marina being a high-class sex-worker, Police initially suspected that her killer was a wealthy client but the truth was far from it. Born on the 26th of August 1972 in London, Sandip Patel was then a 21-year-old student, who was working in his father’s shop, a newsagents called Sherlock Holmes News. That afternoon, when Marina brought bread and milk, and he handed those goods to her in a cream-coloured plastic carrier-bag, as the Police expected to find at the crime scene, he left his fingerprints on it, but until his arrest, they had no way to prove that he was her client, and also her killer (End). On the 31st of January 2024 in Court 1 of the Old Bailey, 51-year-old Sandip Patel pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge of murder. Defended by Mathew Sherratt KC, Patel gave no evidence in his defence, and was said to have “shown no remorse whatsoever”. Prosecutor William Jones KC stated "It has taken a long time to solve it, but we have evidence that she had the defendant's hair stuck to the ring she was wearing when she was attacked and killed; and his bare foot was pressed against the skirting board next to her. And that can only be because it was him who killed her all those years ago". Stabbed 140 times in a “brutal, vicious and merciless attack… it was likely triggered by his sexual insecurity”. Having deliberated for just three hours and 10 minutes, the jury found him guilty of wilful murder. Sentenced on Thursday the 15th of February 2024, Patel refused to leave the cell to hear his fate, and refused to listen in via video link, which Mr Justice Cavanagh described as “an act of moral cowardice”. Summing up, the Judge stated “the terror and pain that you inflicted on Mrs Koppel is difficult to imagine. You deprived [her] of many more years of life. No sentence that I pass can compensate her family for their loss". Patel was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 19 years before parole is considered, and having already spent 343 days on remand, the earliest he can be released is 2042. Marina’s son Javier stated "It is not easy for me to relive the saddest moment of my life after 29 years. I am convinced that my mum had a lot of life to live still, it was not her time and this is very painful - it tears my very soul. I hope to be able to close this chapter and to remember my mother how she was - the best mother in the world". Patel appealed his sentence in March 2025, but this was rejected. Finally a killer was caught, but even with the best evidence, it still took time and data. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FOUR: This hostel marks the final attack of a horrific rapist, kidnapper, paedophile, alleged necrophile and an almost triple murderer. It’s a case which caused uproar in a community, destroyed several families, and three lives which would be changed forever, yet it was barely reported and it remains forgotten. The killer came from nowhere, which begs the question, what led him to do the evil things he did?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a blue 'P' above the words 'Hyde Park'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
CORRECTION: There’s a little twist to this story which I became aware of weeks after the episode was released. This isn’t a story about one Colin Findlay, but two, who were remarkably similar. Colin James Findlay and Colin William Findlay. They were both were born and raised in Scotland, both were of a similar age and height, both were said by their victims to be polite and charming, both struggled with depression which they spoke with their victims about prior to their attacks, they both were rapists who picked on small and vulnerable women, they both have large gaps in their histories , and they both rendered their victims unconscious with strangulation and being beaten over the head with an object before each attack. It’s something truly unique in criminal history, as you never find two criminals with the same name who are so similar that their crimes have almost identical MO’s, and yet, they were unrelated and had never met. It could almost be that they were twins, but they weren’t. But that does leave us with an even larger puzzle; we have no idea what the first Colin Findlay did after his first rape and attempted murder, and we have no reason why the second Colin Findlay committed two rapes, an attempted murder and a murder 10 years later. But they did. So was the second Colin Findlay a copy cat of the first? UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: How did a killer so horrific and cruel come out of nowhere? Find out on Murder Mile. This is Craven Terrace in Bayswater, W2; two streets north of The Night Porter, one street south of the Vice Girl Killer, and one street west of the missing hands of ‘Miss B’ - coming soon to Murder Mile. As it has since 1973, at 35 Craven Terrace stands the German YMCA, an affordable and safe place to stay for Christians, Germans, non-Germans and atheists, as everyone is welcome. In this area, you’d be lucky to buy a pie and a pint without needing to sell a kidney, yet here they offer help, events and a comfortable bed for those who aren’t a fan of waking up in a bath of ice, groggy and unable to pee. But as we’ve seen many times on Murder Mile, every hotel or hostel has a dark story, and this is theirs. This hostel marks the final attack of a horrific rapist, kidnapper, paedophile, alleged necrophile and an almost triple murderer. It’s a case which caused uproar in a community, destroyed several families, and three lives which would be changed forever, yet it was barely reported and it remains forgotten. The killer came from nowhere, which begs the question, what led him to do the evil things he did? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 304: ‘Mr Nobody’. Autumn 1992, Britain was in recession, unemployment was at its highest since the war, the Queen’s Ruby Jubilee was marred by what she called her ‘anus horribilis’ and a spate of bombings by the IRA across the UK’s towns and cities left every tourist and tenant looking at waste bins with suspicion. After a long hot summer, the rubbish strewn streets were stinking by Wednesday the 28th of October, and with everybody struggling financially, it was a bad time to be begging for change on the pavement. By the late-afternoon, a homeless woman sat on the cold floor outside of an undisclosed cafe in Swiss Cottage, North London, hoping that someone would take pity on her, rather than just ignoring her. She was tired with hunger, exhausted by stress, and like most days, her life existed on a knife edge. We know almost nothing about her; she was in her late 20s, 5 foot 5 inches tall, 8 stone in weight, she was petite and frail, with brown eyes and brown curly collar-length hair. Kept warm by a dirty black bomber jacket, torn ski pants and a scuffed pair of black shoes (which detectives discovered had been bought from an Oxfam shop in nearby Golder’s Green), she was as ragged as a Victorian orphan. And yet, as a woman with no obvious history, her bag was never found, and her only possessions were a green earring in her right ear, a silver scorpion ring with a Onyx stone and one with an entwined snake. Her origins are unknown, but as a relatively recent arrival, possibly illegally, Police suspected she was a Yugoslavian refugee fleeing the brutal Bosnian war which had erupted six months before, leaving millions displaced and an estimated 100,000 people murdered by genocide and ethnic cleansing. If so, she had left everything she knew to find safety in Britain, but what she found instead was her death. As the dusk light fell, a man of a similar age with a kindly face approached. They chatted. Her in broken English, him in a thick Scottish accent, which in maudlin tones he told her of his life, woes and worries, and – as seen by the café’s waitress – using a Switch credit card, this Good Samaritan treated her to possibly her first warm meal in days, later stating “I befriended her because he felt sorry for her”. He said her name was ‘Becky’ and she came from Germany, but it’s hard to know if this was the truth. In the late evening, as the rain began to fall, they travelled 3.5 miles south to Bayswater, and under the name (Mr Rodier), he paid £60 to book her a room at the German YMCA in Craven Terrace. He said he never went in and that he stayed at a different hotel, but it’s name he couldn’t remember. In truth, a witness saw him leave before dawn. Three hours later, with the room supposedly vacant, a chambermaid entered to change the sheets, and saw a woman’s arm hanging out from under the bed. Nothing had been stolen as she had little to take, except her life. That night, inside her locked room, he had savagely beaten her about her head and face with his fists, a hard object, or against the floor. With her unconscious, dead or dying, he violently raped her. And not seeing her as a person but a hole to assuage his desires, when he was done, he strangled her and stuffed her body under the bed. It was a cold-blooded murder to silence a vulnerable woman so he could rape her. But who was he? The name he used (Mr Rodier) was an alias. The credit card had been stolen earlier that day. The Police had a fingerprint, but with the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System not set-up for three more years, the 13-year-old Police National Computer relied on prints being searched by hand. They had his DNA but no perpetrator, and with no witnesses to the crime, the case swiftly stalled. A local appeal proved fruitless. The Met’ Police and InterPol scoured 58 countries for a match using dental records, but it came back with no-one. And although a second appeal garnered nothing new, by then, the body of this unknown woman had remained in the Horseferry Road morgue for a year. Alone and unloved, on a cold day in January 1994, the nameless woman was laid to rest in a grave paid for by the council, the only mourners being the senior detective and the Westminster Coroner. Her killer had vanished as fast as he had faded from any witnesses’ memory… …but this ‘Mr Nobody’ hadn’t come from nowhere, as every crime leaves a trace. Sources state that prior to this attack he had moved from his hometown near Aberdeen to Balornock in Glasgow. Having previously served a few months for the minor crimes of theft and dishonesty, he had fled to London, and – with it alleged he’d escaped from prison – he was unemployed and alone. Yet, something had been brewing inside of him, as five weeks before his last attack, he struck again. It was an almost carbon copy of what you’ve just heard. Thursday 17th of September 1992 had been a hot and muggy day as everyone dripped with sweat, making every interaction clammy and unpleasant. At lunchtime, an unnamed 18-year-old Japanese student who was tiny (being just 4 foot 10) was leaning against a wall, feeling faint due to diabetes. Her vision was cloudy, her mind was foggy and her body was weak and trembling. As before, he spoke in a soft Scottish accent, he smiled a sweet smile of innocence, and being outside of a café in Victoria, he bought her a chocolate bar, and chatted to her about his life until her wooziness began to subside. As two Christians coming together, she saw him as a Good Samaritan. And with him pouring out his heart to her across the afternoon and being open about his bouts of depression, thinking that he was potentially suicidal, she didn’t feel threatened by this meek and mild man, so she opened up to him. In him, she had found a new friend, someone she liked and trusted enough to invite back to her friends flat in Pimlico, where the three of them sat all afternoon drinking tea (as she was teetotal), and they chatted for hours about history and politics, with him telling the girls “all rapists should be hanged”. He was polite, calm and kind, and with them both feeling peckish, using the same Switch credit card and possibly the same alias, he bought her dinner at the Jam restaurant at 289 King's Road in Chelsea. He later stated “I had the feeling she liked me, but I didn’t fancy her”, so having finished their meal at 10pm, half an hour later, as a student at King’s College, she invited him for a end-of-night cuppa on the communal seating in her University’s halls of residence at Wellington Hall, near where they’d met. They chatted until midnight and everything was fine… until she asked him to leave so she could sleep. He gave her excuses, she insisted, but it was as she pointed to the door and walked off to her bedroom, that he smothered her mouth and dragged her into her inside, with not a witness seeing a thing. Again, a petite girl had been attacked. Again, he had masqueraded as a Good Samaritan. And again, she was strangled, raped and had her head bashed unconscious with a hard object or against the floor. But this time, miraculously, she had survived. Inside her locked room, he threw her onto the bed. Straddling her hips with his knees, he pinned her arms by her sides, and strangled her with his rough calloused hands until her vision faded to black. She recalled “I saw a terrifying look in his eyes… I realised he wanted to kill me”, but being helpless and immobile, she could do nothing to fight him off, and as she passed out unconscious, he raped her. Again, he fled, with nobody seeing him run and believing she was dead. But four hours later, she came too; her swollen eyes too sore to open fully, her raging throat too bruised to breathe full gasps, and although unable to scream as she had bitten through her tongue as he strangled her, she was alive. In her room, forensics found his fingerprints and his DNA, which again, was searched manually as the National DNA Database was yet to be set-up, and the Police National Computer was ancient. To the detectives, she gave a detailed description of her attacker having spent almost 12 hours with him; he was late 20s, 5 foot 7, well built with rounded shoulders, he had short dark hair, thick eyebrows, a wide moustache, he had a strong Scottish accent, he loved history and was friendly and unthreatening. The Police had no idea who he was, or how to find him… …but being such an unassuming ‘Mr Nobody’, where did his crimes begin? This monster was branded by the press as ‘The Beast of Banffshire’, but his name was actually Colin. Colin James Findlay was born on the 9th of September 1962 as the second of five children to Arthur & Kathleen Findlay who doted upon him. Raised in the coastal village of Cullen in north-east of Scotland between Aberdeen and Inverness, he was small, bright, shy, and although said to be a bit of a loner, he was never violent, sexual or cruel. In fact, as an avid reader, he’d never returned a library book late. From 1967 to 1973, he attended Cullen Primary School, where he was said to be neither academically gifted nor a trouble maker, but ordinary and easily forgettable. He lived in a nice little bungalow on a quiet residential street at 24 Glebe Park Crescent in Cullen, being raised in a loving and decent family. And from 1973 onwards, he attended secondary school in the neighbouring village of Buckie, but left in 1977, aged 15, as – like many boys and their fathers in this fishing village – he became a trawler-man. For five years, he trained onboard the Buckie-based trawler called ‘Minerva’ in which his father had a part share; he became the ship’s cook, he worked hard, he never caused any problems, and only quit the job when he saw his father blinded in one eye when a mooring rope snapped. In 1983, hired by ARA Caterers, he became a steward on a series of oil rigs in the North Sea, and he earned a good wage. He had friends but was happier alone. He wasn’t a big drinker and didn’t do drugs. He never dated, as one friend stated “we thought Colin wasn’t interested in girls, if you know what I mean”. And he wasn’t consumed by bad influences or morbid thoughts, as passionate about Scottish history, he spent his spare-time driving to burns, glens, castles and bothies in his 2-door, wine-coloured, Datsun Sunny. Colin Findlay truly was a ‘Mr Nobody’, and yet, his first crime was horrific. Being persistently bullied onboard the oil rig, Colin (who never fought back) had been signed off with depression. Due back to work the next day, on Monday 23rd of June 1986, he said he packed a flask, and a travelling rug into his Datsun Sunny and headed off to visit historical sites like Drummuir Castle. That was his plan, he said, and nothing else. Drummuir is an isolated village typical of many in the Scottish highlands. From your eye to the horizon in every direction, you would see nothing by distant fields and endless skies dotted every mile or more with a cottage or a farm. People are sparse, cars are infrequent, distant villages are connected by thin roads and uneven tracks, and between are high hills, dark forests and craggy brooks (known as burns). Drummuir was the home of a 10-year-old girl whose name shall remain a secret. All that shall be said is she was small and thin, but strong when she needed to be. With three younger siblings, her thoughts were always of protecting them. And educated at Botriphnie Primary School, it was a fluke that just weeks before, she had been shown a video titled ‘Say No To Strangers’, which probably saved her life. At 3pm, the bell rang at the tiny 33-pupil school and the children slowly filed out. With the day bright, many were picked up by their parents, but as the girl’s mum couldn’t that day, instead she would walk the 2 ½ miles home on a regular route. Dressed in a dark uniform, white blouse and a schoolbag, she headed west down the sparse B9014 towards Dufftown and – dabbing her nose with a hanky as she had a cold – at the junction of the road to the village of Keith, she turned left and off the main road. It’s uncertain if Colin had singled her out or if this was a chance encounter; whether he watched her leave school, passed her in his car, or if he was already waiting? But a quarter of a mile from the road, he had parked his red Datsun Sunny in a remote layby, the boot wide open as if he had broken down. At roughly 3:15pm, out of sight of anyone, the girl passed him, and being polite she said “hello”… ….but it was then that Colin pounced. Putting a knife to her throat, he ordered her into the back of his car, bound her twists with twine, pushed her onto the floor and covered her in a tartan travelling rug. She was young, innocent, and as the car started up and drove further into the remote wilds, she knew she was being abducted, and that this unknown man intended to do something truly horrible to her. But she didn’t scream or panic. Instead, recalling the ‘Say No To Strangers’ video, she kept calm, she focussed her mind and she tried to remember as many details as possible, in case she survived this. Details; like the make and colour of the car, the tartan rug, the knife, the twine, the litter on the floor, and the fawn coloured vinyl which covered the backseat. Peeping up, as they passed the old toll house, she recalled the car turning right onto a bramble-covered track and bouncing wildly from left-to-right as it struggled uphill, twice it grounded, its wheels spun, and hitting a tree stump, it lost a mudflap. This was Haggieshaw Wood, a remote and heavily wooded forest, which even the Police later stated, “some of the places he stopped at are completely isolated, and even we had difficulty finding them”. It was there that the car stopped. Screaming was hopeless, running was futile, and as he got out of the front seat and into the back, she knew what he planned to do with her as he removed the rug, and then her skirt, socks, blouse and knickers. He cut the twine from around her wrists, he laid the knife on the passenger’s seat, and as he pulled down his trousers and pants, he kissed this child on the lips. She remembered everything; his age, weight, height, greasy hair with a centre parting, his local accent, his black trousers and a grey sweatshirt with an oil rig motif. She recalled things a child should never see, but as he tried to rape her, she fought him off, she scratched his cheek, and his attack would fail. But now, 15 minutes in, the most dangerous part of the attack was yet to begin. Over the next few hours, sitting silently, he drove the dark and twisty tracks of this barren landscape looking for somewhere and finding nowhere, as the girl he’d abducted and tried to rape lay bleeding, semi-clad and hidden by the travel rug – as the only witness to his crime and she’d seen his face. Around 5:30pm, after more than two hours of terror, he stopped the car. The spot is called SilverFord, but being in the middle of a desolate moor, there is nothing but a empty road wreathed in fog, and an old metal gate leading under a bridge to a burn, a shallow brook full of hard rocks and cold water. It was there that he led her, there that he tripped her, and with her face down in the burn, either with a rock in his fist or dashing her against it, he beat her unconscious, fracturing her skull, jaw and cheeks. And throwing her schoolbag and clothes into the water, he drove away, leaving her to die… …only somehow, after all that pain, this little girl found the strength to fight on. At 5:45pm, bleeding, cold, soaking wet and partially clothed, she pulled herself from the burn, up a 10 foot bank, and onto the road, where by chance, a lost tourist in a caravan was looking for a camp site. Through the fog, he saw a scene of utter horror; a pale ghost-like figure, all ragged and trembling, her hair matted with blood, her face swollen and deformed, and her innocence lost, and yet she was alive. Driven to the nearest hospital at Huntley, and transferred to Royal Aberdeen Children’s hospital, she was said to be in a serious but stable condition. The surgeon George Youngson praised her “fortitude and bravery”, the Police described her attacker as “a sadistic psychopath”, the community were in a rage, yet she didn’t pity herself, as her only concern was that her mother and siblings were alright. Police stated in the press “a very dangerous man is at large and the public must help us to find him”. This ‘Beast of Banffshire’ had abducted a child, tried to rape her, beaten her and left her for dead. The full force of the Grampian Police were hunting him with search teams, sniffer dogs and a chopper scouring the area to solve what DCI Norman McCormack referred to as “a murder without a death”. An incident unit was set-up at a nearby school, potential witnesses were questioned, it was front page news in every local paper, and hundreds of tip-offs and names came in, but it proved fruitless as the Police were looking for a paedophile, a maniac and a psycho, not a Mr Nobody with no criminal record. Having returned home that night, Colin put his car in the garage out of sight, he packed his bag, and with him due to return to his job on the Charlie Forties oil rig in the North Sea, he flew 110 miles east. The case would have collapsed if it hadn’t been for the bravery of that 10-year-old girl. But knowing that they had to be careful not to reopen her trauma, the detectives trod carefully, and the only person allowed to speak to her was a young female detective called Alison Young, who the girl called ‘Auntie’. Slowly, as she began to recover in hospital from her life-changing injuries, she told Alison everything she had tried to remember about her attacker in a calm and controlled way; she got his height right, his hair and his clothes, down to drawing the oil rig motif on his grey sweatshirt. She was so detailed, Police stated “she gave us virtually everything we needed to know about him, except his name”. She recalled his car, “a two-door red or wine coloured saloon with a boot, not a hatchback”, missing a mudflap, a fawn vinyl seat cover, and even though one eye-witness, an adult, was adamant that the car was a Peugeot and she even gave part of the licence plate, the Detectives were so impressed with how consistent this young girl was in her retelling, that they believed her details over everyone else. Detectives found that of the 675 Datsun Sunny’s shipped into Britain from Japan with that distinctive fawn coloured vinyl, only nine of them were in the Grampian area, and the first in their list was Colin’s. On the morning of Saturday 28th June, just six days later, in the garage of his parent’s home at 24 Glebe Park Crescent in Cullen, they found his car; it was missing a mudflap, it had dents where she said, it had bits of bracken embedded in the chassis, and the mudflap was found at Haggieshaw Wood. Searching his bedroom, in his wardrobe they found his shoes and socks still wet from the burn, his clothes balled-up and bloody, and next to the door was the girl’s cotton hanky, containing her DNA. That day, boarding a helicopter, detectives flew to BP’s Charlie Forties oil rig and Colin was arrested. He gave no resistance, he had a scratch on his cheek, and overcome with emotion having admitted to abduction and rape, he was transferred to Craig Dunain hospital being regarded as a suicide risk. Held at Craiginches Prison, 24 year old Colin James Findlay never said why he did it, his family and his community struggled to believe it was him, and remorseful, he wrote to the girl expressing how sorry he was. On the 30th of September 1986, he was tried at Inverness High Court on the charges of assault, abduction, attempted rape and attempted murder, having admitted that he was wholly responsible. A rapist, paedophile and attempted murderer had been caught at his first crime before he could kill… …so, how did this ‘Mr Nobody’ go onto to attack a Japanese student and an unidentified woman? The system failed. With this as his first offence, “horrible as it may be” as Lord Kincraig summed up, his defence counsel agreed to plead guilty to rape, if they dropped the attempted murder charge. The family were furious, the detectives were in tears, and instead of serving life, he got just six years. (Out) A lenient sentence for the horrific attack on a child led to a double rape, another attempted murder and a murder shortly after his release from prison. Seeing similarities between his description and his method, his fingerprints and later his DNA proved to be a match between the attacks on the 10-year-old girl, the 18-year-old Japanese student, and the unidentified woman found in the German YMCA. Again, it took just days to find him, and tracking where he had used the stolen credit card, on Saturday 31st of October 1992, he was arrested at a hotel not far from Bayswater, and gave up without a fight. It was a unique case in which the Police would convict the killer without knowing who the victim was. Tried at the Old Bailey on the 26th of October 1993, in Court 3, he admitted he knew both women, he denied raping them (in spite of the evidence) and claimed they were alive and well when he left them. He pleaded ‘not guilty’ to rape, attempted murder and murder, but with the jury deliberating for just four hours, he was convicted by unanimous verdicts on all charges, and was due a very long sentence. But again, the system failed. On the 12th of November 1993, being previously been convicted of the brutal attempted rape and murder of a child, for two further sadistic crimes, Judge Brian Smedley sentenced him to just 10 years in prison, meaning he would have been released in 2003, if not sooner. It is uncertain where he is now, maybe he has changed his name and his look, maybe he is living free in any city or town, and maybe he walks among us as a 63-year-old man whose crimes are forgotten? He never gave a motive, all we know is that he was a ‘Mr Nobody’ who came out of nowhere. 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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