Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #41 - The Forgotten Truth about the Charlotte Street Robbery29/8/2018
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FORTY-ONE
Episode Forty-One: On Friday 19th September 1947, two bank robbers - Christopher Geraghty and Charles Jenkins - were executed having killed an innocent bystander whilst in pursuit of a robbery, as no-one could prove which man had committed the murder. It's a trial which brought about the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom. But who was the real victim?
THE LOCATION
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Ep41 – The Forgotten Truth about the Charlotte Street Robbery (Quick) Hello. This is episode 41 of Murder Mile. So, basically, three guys called Geraghty, Jenkins and Rolt robbed a jewellers on Charlotte Street, beat-up its owner, did a runner, some bloke got shot and because no-one knew which robber had killed him, as a deterrent to any criminals, all three men were found guilty of murder, one was imprisoned, two were executed (even though only one of them had fired the fatal shot), and this case sparked a big old hoo-hah which eventually lead to the abolition of the death penalty in Britain. Okay, that’s it, well, thanks for listening. Bye-bye. (white noise) What? Why are you still there? Oh, you want to know more? Oh, well, that’s strange, you see, normally – when this story is told - people only focus on those three little details; how young the robbers were, how their double-hanging failed to deter any future gangsters and how the execution of at least one innocent man sparked a debate which put an end to capital punishment, in our country, forever, so I really don’t know what else I can tell you… except the truth… and all of the pieces, that every article, ever written, about the case of Geraghty, Jenkins & Rolt has failed to tell you about this whole bloody case, and I warn you now, it’s a lot. So strap in. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio… (voiceover) “no-no-no, fast-forward this shit, we’ve no time for waffle, yup, yup, yup, guided walk, blah-blah-blah, yup there may be bangs, there might be rude bits, yaddy-yaddy-yah, okay here we go” RECORD AS NORMAL: …guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about The Charlotte Street Robbery; a bungled theft, an escape, a death and a double execution, and how one vital detail in the case is always overlooked. Murder Mile contains shocks, surprises and moments of satire, as well as loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. (Fast forward off) Episode 41: The Forgotten Truth about the Charlotte Street Robbery. Today I’m standing on the corner of Charlotte Street and Tottenham Street in Fitzrovia, W1; four streets north of the Corner House café where Jacques Tratsart slaughtered his family, five streets west of Margaret Lowe’s home, where she became the third victim of The Blackout Ripper and two roads… “You know what? Bollocks to this bit too. (Fast-forward) It’s basically just me, a Brummy, pretending to be posh (which I’m not), telling you how dull Fitrovia is (and it is), in a snarky sarcastic way and at a coma inducing speed. In essence, Fitzrovia is drab, grey and boring-as-hell; Charlotte Street has a nice bit and a crap bit, we’re in the crap bit, and even though the murder location at numbers 73-75 has been bulldozed into dust… twice, I’d still normally waste precious time waffling on about how the new building looks like its architect had a seizure whilst shoving stickle-bricks up his arse and how it’s now home to a sexual health clinic, which is a piss-poor excuse for me to insert several euphemisms for botts, foofs, plums and todgers), but not today. Right! That’s the bollocks over with, here’s the story…” (Fast-forward off) As it was here, on Friday 29th April 1947, at Jay’s the Jewellers on the corner of Charlotte Street and Tottenham Street, that a bungled robbery would bring the British legal system to its knees (Interstitial) To get to grips with details of the Charlotte Street Robbery, of the many names you’ll hear in this case, the most important are these four; Geraghty, Jenkins, Rolt and Walsh: (TYPE) Christopher James Geraghty; aged 20; tall, neat, surly; 5 foot 10, medium build, dark swept-back hair, prone to outbursts of anger and violence; criminal record includes a caution aged 11 for the theft of a torch, 3 years in borstal aged 16 for intent to rob with an offensive weapon, two escape attempts whilst locked-up, and 1 ½ years in borstal aged 18 for violence and robbery. (CLANG) (TYPE) Charles Henry Jenkins; aged 22; short, scrawny, scruffy, 5 foot 8, slim build, brown ruffled hair, an odd grimace on his face, and an extensive criminal record from the age of 11, including shoplifting, trespassing, and breaking and entering, served 12 months in borstal for theft, 2 years for assault on a policeman and 15 months hard labour for shop-breaking and theft of a motor vehicle. (CLANG) (TYPE) Terence John Fraser Rolt; aged 17; small, slim and baby-faced, curly brown hair, a short criminal history including being bound over for two years for shop-breaking and stealing cigarettes, and 18 months in borstal for loitering with intent to commit robbery and the theft of several pencils (CLANG) (TYPE) And William Henry Walsh; aged 37, stocky, squat, talks like a proper Cockney gangster but lives in Plumstead (south east London), married with two children, a heavy-smoker, a teetotaller and a keen billiard player, with prior convictions for receiving stolen goods. (CLANG) Four criminals; Geraghty, Jenkins, Rolt and Walsh; with Walsh as the fence, Rolt as the impressionable easily-led youth, and Geraghty & Jenkins being two petty hoodlums eager for some quick cash having been released from borstal barely one week prior. A few days later, three of the men would be charged with murder. So how did such a simple robbery go so badly wrong? Well, you see, Jay’s the Jewellers at 73/75 Charlotte Street wasn’t their intended target; where things went awry was two days prior, at a very different jewellers 2 ½ miles west in Bayswater. It was the afternoon of Wednesday 25th April 1947; the sky was thick, murky and grey, as dark formless clouds loomed large over Bayswater, and with Queensway being a semi-affluent street stretching from Hyde Park to Paddington with four storey townhouses, cafes and shops on both sides, as dull drops of good old British drizzle sprinkled the sparse throng of shoppers, parked across the street, three masked men were sat in a stolen Morris 10. Their target was A B Davis Ltd, a small independent jewellers at 91 Queensway, tucked to the side of Bayswater tube station; they knew when to hit, what to grab and how to escape. And with the shop having been cased by a stocky Cockney two days before, this robbery was planned to perfection. By 3:25pm, with the schools letting-out, the streets would be empty. Being staffed by just two men in their mid-to-late fifties, the jewellers had next-to-no security. Having stolen their getaway car less than one hour prior, even the owner didn’t know that his Morris 10 was missing. And being dressed in masks, gloves and dark vague clothes, the robbers would leave nothing behind to identify them. The shop was tiny; 21 feet wide by 14 feet deep, with two long glass counters left and right, chock full of watches and rings; to the left was a watch-maker’s bench, at which sat 52 year old Herbert Colpus who chatted to Albert Barron, an engineer who was fixing the phone, to the right was the safe, and serving two customers - William & Betty Thompson (who were buying an emerald ring) – was 58 year old Stanley Coleman. And although the shop was busier than usual, as robberies go, this was only a three-man-job; with one to cover the staff, one to clear to cabinets and one to clean-out the safe. Bursting through the double-doors, three armed men with their mouths masked by handkerchiefs and gripping black automatic pistols instantly turned the tranquil peace of this tiny jewellers into a chaotic noisy cacophony of shouting, shoving and confusion. ADD NOISES: “get over there”, “get down”, “you, against the wall”, “you, here”, “open it”, “open the safe”, “faster”, “hands up”, “don’t move”, “face the wall”, “stay where you are”, “you, shut it”, “don’t look at me”, “get the cash”. Being terrified, William & Betty Thompson faced the wall, eyes-shut, heads-down. Albert Barron kept his hands held high, hoping to dear God he’d make it out alive, as with a rage-filled robber losing his rag, Herbert Colpus was violently shoved hard into a cabinet, smashing the glass - ADD NOISE “no, don’t shoot him” – as obeying the armed robber’s every word, Stanley Coleman opened the safe. With their bags filled, someone shouted “come on, come on, let’s go”, and just like that… they were gone. And that was it; they were in and out in less than three minutes, no shots were fired, nobody died, no-one was seriously hurt and none of the robbers were identified. An hour later, a Morris 10 saloon, registration plate DDE750 was found abandoned on Bishop’s Bridge Road, by the Paddington arm of the Regent’s Canal. Its owner (Mr Harold Jackson Sandercock of Moscow Road, W2) was unaware that it had been stolen. And its three masked occupants simply vanished, having hopped on a number 36 bus and headed south to Victoria, with their fellow commuters being none-the wiser. It was the perfect robbery… and although it wasn’t a big score; having nabbed twenty-six rings, four bracelets, one brooch and seventeen watches which totalled just over £4500, for three desperate men (barely out of borstal) and a stocky Cockney with a gambling problem, split four-ways, it was enough. Except it wasn’t split four-ways, it was split two-ways, with Walsh taking half. The robbers had been robbed, by one of their own, and with three criminals being victims to a crime, who were they going to call, the Police? So being broke, hungry and furious, having been swindled out of their fair share of the loot; Geraghty and Jenkins set about robbing another jewellers, with Rolt, only this time, instead of remaining anonymous, this robbery would escalate their names into infamy. (INTERSTITIAL). The plan was hatched in The Billet public house in Bermondsey (South London) on the morning of Friday 27th April 1947, just hours before the robbery itself, and although a bit rushed, the set-up was the same as before; Jenkins covers the staff, Rolt clears the cabinets and Geraghty cleans-out the safe. With handkerchiefs as masks, a stolen get-away car and all three packing a revolver which Rolt had stashed in a bombed-out house on Fair Street, having swiped two 32’s, a 38 and a 45 from Frank Dyke & Co, a gunsmiths at 10 Union Street the Sunday before; the deal was done, the loot would be evenly split three-ways, and the boys went check out the target, which Jenkins said “was an easy job”. At 12pm, all three men departed Shadwell tube station and took a westbound District line train, then a northbound Northern line train and arrived at Goodge Street tube station just shy of 1pm. As before, being eager to dump the getaway car and escape amongst the mass of commuters on the London underground, they’d already purchased three return tickets to Shadwell for six pence-a-piece. Next-up, they needed a getaway car; and having found a suitable black Vauxhall 11 saloon, registration plate KPK 525, left outside of 56 Whitfield Street, just one road away, Rolt had no problem stealing it as in an less-security-conscious era before the roll-out of unique car ignition keys, Rolt knew that almost all Vauxhall 11’s were started by a single key marked as MRM11, which he had in his pocket. And having briefly cased the joint, eyed up the loot in the window (worth about five grand) and swiped a brown-paper bag from a local grocers to stash their sparkly goodies, seeing that the shop was a little bit full of lunchtime punters, and feeling a tad peckish; Geraghty, Jenkins and Rolt popped into a greasy-spoon café on Tottenham Street, to wait a while with a cuppa tea and a bacon sarnie. The plan was simple; as before, they’d get in and out in less than three minutes, with no shots fired, no-one injured, nobody dead and none of the robbers identified. Their target was Jay’s the Jewellers at 73/75 Charlotte Street, a diamond merchant and pawnbrokers on the junction of Charlotte Street and Tottenham Street, just a two minute walk from Goodge Street tube; and although they’d never set foot inside the store before, had no knowledge of the layout, the safe, the staff or the security, by rehashing the Bayswater plan, they guessed it would be okay. By 2:30pm, with the schools still an hour away from letting out, the streets were packed with parents. Being staffed by six people - some old and decrepit, some young and fit - the jewellers had more-than-adequate security. And being dressed in a bizarre array of brightly coloured masks, caps and coats, although we’ll never truly know who-was-who in this whole debacle, the robbers were easy to identify. In short, Rolt was dressed in dark clothes; bafflingly Geraghty decided to commit an armed robbery wearing a bright blue overcoat with fetching red checks, a cheeky blue cap and a delightfully white silk handkerchief over his mouth; and although Jenkins’ cap and mask was as equally florid – more importantly – he wore a fawn coloured raincoat. So, as Rolt parked the getaway car on the corner, when Geraghty & Jenkins separately burst in, via its two entrances… instantly, everything went to pot. The shop was a chaotic mess; as being spread over two floors, split into two separate rooms, both of which were subdivided into several separate sections; with its staff spread far and wide; with every cabinet locked, every door barred, every window alarmed and confusion being a big part of the store’s security as having been robbed on a regular basis, this time, the jewellers were prepared. In the first room, the pledges department, nothing was on display; no gold, no silver, no bronze; just its 70 year old shop-manager – Mr Bertram Keates – sat inside a steel cage, behind by a wall of bars, and oblivious to the masked man stood in the doorway, as he was half-blind and almost totally deaf. Next door, the sales department was no better; as although its gleaming cabinets were crammed full of watches, rings and sparkly things, here stood the bulk of the staff; youthful sales assistant Ronald Grout, two mid-twenties salesmen Alfred Ambrose and William Hazell and its owner Alfred Stock. And as both Jenkins and Geraghty stopped, gasped and recoiled, the plan went out the window. Geraghty, with a gun in each hand, pointed his rusty .32 calibre Bulldog revolver at the startled staff, and – to get their attention – he fired a warning shot with his obsolete and antiquated Eley Maxim .45 calibre pistol, blasting a thumb-sized hole in the roof, as he dived over the glass counter, totally failing to spot that 17 year old Ronald Grout, had slipped out, and dashed into a nearby café to call the Police. And once again, for the second time in two days, a West London jewellery store descended into chaos; ADD SOUNDS “hands up”, “don’t move”, “get down”, “don’t make a sound”, “shut it”, “open it now”, “stay down”, but amongst the sea of swirling confusion, it was the staff who had the upper-hand. Having shoved the barrel of gun into Mr Keates’ wrinkled and rather bemused face, having screamed “open the cage” at the top of his lungs, with a dull buzz, Mr Keates let Jenkins in; and although he was rather old, mostly deaf and practically blind, Mr Keates fought back, and pummelled the masked man with his fists and feet, as in the ensuing scuffle, somewhere in the shop, Jenkins lost his gun. An ear-splitting siren wailed as the staff hit the alarm. In panic, Geraghty fired a shot, narrowly missing the salesmen and blasting out a glass panel between the both rooms, and (seizing the chance) with the cabinet keys in hand, Ambrose and Hazell dashed out, into the safety of the New Scala restaurant. The robbery was a total shambles; as with an unarmed Jenkins being duffed-up by an deaf pensioner, the cabinets locked, the keys missing, the staff scarpered, thick crowds having formed on Charlotte Street, all eager to get an eyeful of the criminal commotion, as having refused to open the safe, Geraghty angrily beat 64 year old Alfred Stock about the head with the thick metal butt of his gun. And although, once again; the robbers were angry, bruised and empty-handed, hearing sirens, from the doorway, Rolt shouted to his comrades “come on, let’s go”, as the three masked men fled into their getaway car to make their daring escape. Or they would have done… had the car started. Being notoriously unreliable, even with the right key, as Rolt struggled to turn over the ignition of the Vauxhall 11; with horns hooting, fists shaking and distant Police sirens growing ever louder, the street began to swell with the throng of angry people. And after several seconds of sweating, thumping and colourful curse-words, by the time that the stuttering engine finally fired-up, not only had a ten-tonne truck blocked the fleeing bandit’s escape, but as they tried to reverse, a second truck pulled up behind. Being trapped, they had no choice… but to run. As Jenkins and Rolt bolted east down Tottenham Street, Rolt was roughly grappled to the ground by two passers-by, as behind him, having left Geraghty to fend for himself, an angry mob circled the heavily armed robber, wielding whatever came to hand, whether bricks, brooms or bottles. And as the shop’s bloodied owner - Albert Stock – staggered into the street screaming “Help! Police!”, his finger pointing to Geraghty; being swarmed by revving trucks, hooting buses and looming locals, as he tried to flee, roaring up Charlotte Street, a bright red motorbike blocked his path. As Rolt kicked himself free by booting the heads of his grappling pursuers, although the sharp shock startled him, Rolt fled and didn’t look back, as behind him… he heard a loud bang. One street over, on Torrington Place, Jenkins and Rolt darted into Brook House; stashed Jenkin’s black gloves, brightly coloured cap and easily recognisable fawn coloured raincoat behind a partition in a second floor storeroom, and hopped on a bus to the Strand, where Rolt flung his gun into The Thames, and both men disappeared into the crowded darkness of the London underground. And although he was pursued on foot, even Geraghty managed to escape, as the angry mob had dispersed, just seconds after he had shot a motorcyclist in the face. (END THEME) The robbers had vanished; nobody saw their faces, nobody heard their names and nobody had left a fingerprint, so the Police investigation ground to a halt. Then, eight days later, on 3rd May 1947, Mr Reginald Hyan, caretaker of Brook House in Torrington Place, found an easily recognisable fawn coloured raincoat speckled with blood, inside the pocket of which, the owner had left the tailor’s ticket, which led to known offender called Charles Henry Jenkins, and his known associates, Geraghty and Rolt, On 28th July 1947, after a six day trial at the Old Bailey, even though (throughout the robbery) each of the accused was heavily disguised, were never identified by witnesses, were unwilling to admit the truth, and as it was impossible to prove who had fired the fatal shot – even though Geraghty had confessed to the murder - 22 year old Charles Henry Jenkins, 20 year old Christopher James Geraghty and 17 year old Terence John Peter Rolt were all found guilty of assault, armed robbery and murder. Classified as a minor, 17 year old Rolt was detained in prison at His Majesty’s Pleasure, but being just a few years older, on Friday 19th September 1947, as a deterrent to would-be criminals, both Geraghty and Jenkins were executed at Pentonville Prison. An innocent man had been hung, and by 1965, after many miscarriages of justice, the Death Penalty in the United Kingdom was abolished. (END) (White noise) What? That’s it. Three angry guys robbed a jeweller’s in revenge for having been stiffed by a buddy, and in the course of a bungled robbery, someone got shot, and because the legal system couldn’t prove who had killed him, even though Geraghty was clearly the murderer, a crime which he had confessed to, Jenkins – as an unarmed and innocent man - was executed. But then, as I said earlier, when this story is told, normally people only focus on those three little details; how young the robbers were, how their punishment failed as a deterrent and how the execution of an innocent man sparked a debate which lead to the abolition of the death penalty. And yet, no matter what way this story is told, Geraghty, Jenkins and Rolt always come across as the victims. But then, who was the real victim in this story? But of the many unnamed victims in this story, there’s one who always gets overlooked. If you blinked, you would have missed him, but if you’ll let me (rewind) I’d like to tell you his story. On the morning of Friday 27th April 1947 - as three feckless halfwits called Geraghty, Jenkins and Rolt readied themselves to steal from a store because they were too lazy, greedy and thick to hold down an honest job – 34 year old Alec de Antiquis; a former corporal in the Home Guard, a loyal husband to his wife Gladys and doting father to their six children, toiled away in his motorcycle repair shop. The blitz had destroyed everything; his home, his work, his life, but being eager to put a roof over his family’s heads and food on the table, with limited funds and his own two hands, Alec rebuilt their cramped little home, and in a small structure, made of corrugated iron, to the side of the house, he built a workshop. And after two years of sweat, tears and stress, finally his hard-work was paying-off. Described by locals and loved-ones alike as a man of excellent character; who was decent, honest and polite, with short dark hair, chestnut brown eyes and an eternally cheerful face, although Alec was barely five foot four, into that little body was packed a barrel-load of bravery. As in that month alone, he’d stopped a startled horse from running over a young boy, and had ran into a burning building to rescue a child, all of which he considered part of his duty as a good citizen. That morning, having left their home at 186 High Street in Colliers Wood (South London), as a husband and wife team, Alec and Gladys would often ride from showroom to scrapyard across the city, building the business and making sales, with him on his motorcycle and her in the side-car, both dressed in matching leather helmets, but with their youngest son being sick with the flu, Gladys stayed at home. At 2:32pm, being parked one block south of Jay’s the Jewellers on the junction of Charlotte Street and Scala Street, Alec was sat atop of his flame-red 1930 Indian Scout motorcycle, dressed in black leather boots, jacket and helmet, he had just two more sales to go, and then he would go home. In the distance, he heard what sounded like a car backfire and thought nothing of it, but out of a two-storey brown-bricked building, one street north, a young boy dashed, his eyes wide with terror. And then a second bang, from the same direction, swiftly followed by two suited men who sped by Alec shouting “call the Police, we’re being robbed”, as they dashed into the New Scala restaurant. Slowly, as the traffic thickened, alarms wailed and an armed angry mob loomed large on the north-west corner of Charlotte Street, as three masked men dived into a waiting Vauxhall 11 with its engine stalled and spluttering, behind them staggered the shop’s owner, his face all bruised, his white shirt all bloodied, and his hand-built livelihood ruined by a gang of selfish thieves. Being blocked by trucks and desperate to flee, with two decent citizens having wrestled one robber to the ground and the taller masked man now ready to run, Alec fired up his motorcycle, roared the bike up Charlotte Street and right outside of Jay’s, cut off the robber’s only space to escape. Being stood face-to-face and barely four feet apart, although neither man had met before, Geraghty could have easily backed-up, climbed over or pushed by Alec, but he didn’t. As Alec was unarmed, his empty hands spread-wide to block the robber’s escape, and gripped in Geraghty’s hands was a .32 calibre Bulldog and a Eley Maxim .45 calibre pistol, with his plans having gone to pot and still being furious at his mate who’d stiffed him on the Bayswater job, seeing red, Geraghty shot Alec in the head. Like a coward, Geraghty fled, having left his victim for dead. Although unconscious and bleeding profusely from a 5 ½ inch oval and jagged bullet wound above his left eyebrow, Sergeant William Meldom attempted to administer first-aid at the scene, until at 2:47pm, when Alec was admitted to the Middlesex Hospital. Being barely alive, with his blink reflexes absent, his breathing limited to deep raspy gasps and a bloody froth oozing freely from his purple lips, as the .45 calibre bullet had eviscerated his left corpus striatum (a key part of the brain critical for movement), being in a coma, as his brain bled uncontrollably, 34 year old married father-of-six Alec d’Antiquis died of his injuries just ten minutes later. So angry was the outrage at these callous cowards who had left a decent family bereft of a father, a husband and its sole breadwinner, with Alec’s life insurance policy being a poultry £50, the Carnegie Hero’s Fund and the Daily Mail newspaper raised almost £6000 (roughly £225000 today) to purchase them a more suitable bungalow, Parliament awarded his widow an annual payment of £100 a year with £18 a year for each of his children, for his bravery, Alec was posthumously awarded the Captain Ralph Binney memorial medal, and for the full six days of the trial, at The Old Bailey, dressed in black, sat Gladys, silent and stoic, barely yards from the man who’d murdered her husband. The real victims of the Charlotte Street robbery were Alec D’Antiquis, his wife and their children; and this was their story. (OUT) OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Don’t forget, Extra Mile is after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcast of the week, which is They Walk Amongst Us (PLAY PROMO) A huge thank you this week to my new Patreon supporters, who were all very excited by the new Patreon goodies, which now include, badges, stickers, mugs, early access to Murder Mile episodes and a personal monthly video message from me. And so, to Michelle Wezenberg, Paige Spencer, Kim Harrison, Nicola Wells, Maria SlizI, Irena Zablotska, Stephanie Saloka, Jas Pearce, Donna Marie and Susan Atkins, I give you all a big e-hug. Come on, everyone get close. Ah yeah that’s nice. Hey! Who squeezed my bum? That’s not a Patreon goodie… yet. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** 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 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
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Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE FORTY
Episode Forty: On Tuesday 26th January 1943, somewhere at the back of King’s Cross station, in an unknown derelict warehouse, Glyndwr Michael; a nobody, a nothing, a homeless man became a hero, and although he saved my life, your life and all of our lives, 80 years on, his name his hardly known.
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THE LOCATION
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Ep40- The Fascinating Life, Death and After-Life of Glyndwr Michael – The Corpse Hero
Thank you for downloading episode forty of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. As a treat, this week, I thought I’d bring you something a little bit different. A true-story which doesn’t contain a murder, a manslaughter, a motive, a culprit, a killer or a crime. And although a dead body was found, strangely there was no autopsy, trial or investigation. On the surface, this may seem like the simple story of an unnamed man, who died lost, unloved and forgotten, and yet, his life and death lead to one of the most remarkable stories ever told. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about Glyndwr Michael; a nobody, a nothing, a homeless man who became a hero, and although he saved my life, your life and all of our lives, 80 years on, his name his hardly known. Murder Mile contains shocks, surprises and moments of satire, as well as loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 40: The Fascinating Life, Death and After-Life of Glyndwr Michael – The Corpse Hero Today I’m standing… erm… somewhere; straight ahead is the rear of King’s Cross station, behind is the canal, to the left is the tunnel where the body of Sebastiano Magnanini was tied to a shopping trolley and dumped, where nearby two kids found the bits of Paula Fields, and ahead are three key locations in the life of The Camden Ripper - coming soon to Murder Mile - but exactly where I am is uncertain. The appropriately named Goods Way was once one of London’s industrial hubs, as being perfectly positioned at the back of King’s Cross station and flanked by a wealth of warehouses, wharfs, grain-stores and even an ice-cellar; with its smoky sky crammed full of tall steel cranes, all carting tonnes of goods, to and from trains, onto long lines of rumbling trucks and chugging canal-boats, although Goods Way was once a big part of Britain’s economic lifeblood, today its industry has gone. Where-as once Goods Way and Granary Square were dark dens of iniquity, where (having quaffed a pie and a pint) a workman would plunge his pathetic pecker into a prozzie’s clunge for ten bob bits and a yank on her tits; but having been recently ripped-up and poncified, now it’s so much nicer. With its posh stone steps, outdoor artwork and wee-inducing water-features, the Granary Square of today is riddled with office arseholes, lazy lunchtime loafers and desk-bound dickheads in deckchairs, all sunning it up in the choking smog, as they scoff painfully pretentious sarnies packed full of (what is basically just) offal, seeds, weeds and old cheese, as it’s here that – without any hint of irony - the workplace wankers congregate to whore out their mouths to foodie fashion. And where-as once, that kind of conduct was considered criminal, today the whole square swarms with open-mouthed idiots; all sucking on an artisan’s sausage, chowing-down on a clotted cream-pie, or squirting their gentleman’s relish across an over-stuffed kebab, whilst all the big knobs and fannies watch the Wimbledon tennis (on a stupidly sized screen) and fight the urge to “come on Tim”. And although it’s a ridiculous place, it was here, on Tuesday 26th January 1943, somewhere, at the back of King’s Cross station, in an unknown derelict warehouse, that a hungry, broke and homeless man called Glyndwr Michael changed the world… forever (INTERSTITIAL). The hero known as Glyndwr Michael started his remarkable life in truly inauspicious circumstances, as unlike those who legend says “are born with greatness thrust upon them”, being neither healthy, wealthy or educated, bold, brash or brave, from his first to his last breath, he didn’t stand a chance. Born on 4th January 1909, in the dilapidated ground-floor flat of 136 Commercial Street; a two-storey brown-brick terraced house in the tiny mining town of Aberbargoed in the borough of Caerphilly (South Wales). As an illegitimate, illiterate and disabled child, born to an unmarried mother and a chronically ill alcoholic father, the odds were stacked against Glyndwr ever achieving greatness. The early 1900’s should have been a time of great prosperity for the family, as with Aberbargoed being an industrial boom town and home to the ever-expanding Bargoed Colliery - a pit so prolific that by 1909 it became the largest coal mine in the Rhymney Valley and extracted a world record-breaking 4020 tonnes of coal in a single ten hour shift – the town was flooded with jobs, money and prospects, but as poverty and illness plagued the family, Glyndwr’s misfortune began before he was even born. As a recent divorcee with two young daughters to feed, his illiterate and impoverished mother (Sarah Ann Chadwick) was forced to marry the first available unmarried man, simply to survive, and moved in with a 35 year old colliery haulier called Thomas John Michael. As a Welsh Baptist, a life-long coal-miner and a devoted father, Sarah had done okay, and although he would provide a modest income to his soon-to-be family of five and a small roof over their heads (in his tiny cramped one-roomed house at the rear of Dinas railway station), life would only get worse, as Thomas was not a well man. Being riddled with syphilis; a sexual infection whose symptoms often begin with red rashes, seeping sores and festering legions on the mouth, genitals or anus, and end by spawning into the debilitating, disfiguring and deadly infection of the spine and brain called neurosyphilis, having gone untreated for more than a decade, Thomas passed this on, not only to Sarah, but also to their unborn son. From birth, it was obvious that Glyndwr was different; as being crippled by a lack of coordination, confusion and concentration; with a severe weakness in his muscles, sight and movement; being constantly struck down by headaches, tremors and seizures, and debilitated by frequent bouts of depression, psychosis and early onset dementia; although he wasn’t classified as an invalid, for the rest of his life, he would suffer from the deformities in his bones, his eyes and his brain. And so began the early life of Britain’s most unlikely hero – Glyndwr Michael. Aged ten, as the eldest boy of five siblings, Glyndwr was forced to become a breadwinner, as his ailing father struggled to feed their ever-expanding family, but being disabled, barely literate and unfit to follow in him into the pit, Glyndwr took on any odd job which paid a penny, but it was never enough. And as the starving family carted their few possessions from flea-infested flat to dingy derelict hovel - from prosperous towns like Aberbargoed and Taff’s Wells, to those on the fringes of economic failure like Rockwood Pit and Williamstown – being starved, ragged and unable to pay the rent, as the work dried-up, Thomas started to soak-up his sadness (and the little money they had) with alcohol. By 1924, with their father, 51 year old Thomas being too sick to work, after three decades of his tired body being battered by alcoholism, syphilis and pneumoconiosis; a coal-miners disease which caused his lungs to rot, blood to be coughed-up and the left of his chest to collapse; being hungry and homeless, the seven members of the family were forced to squeeze into a single room at a charity hostel in Pontypridd for the county’s most desperate and destitute. And as Thomas’ depression slowly spiralled to darker depths, just shy of Christmas 1924, fifteen year old Glyndwr watched as his thin, sickly and suicidal dad stabbed himself in the throat with a carving knife. And although he was barely a boy himself, with a broken body and a very fragile brain, Glyndwr had to commit his own father to the Glamorgan County Lunatic Asylum in Bridgend, where – having contracted both influenza and bronchial pneumonia - on 31st March 1925, Thomas John Michael died. Having witnessed his father’s physical decline, mental collapse, suicide and death, all within the boy’s most formative years, as an impoverished boy, the only evidence that Glyndwr Michael even existed is his shaky signature scrawled in the burial register at Trealaw cemetery, as his father was interred in a pauper’s grave. But for Britain’s unsung hero, whose actions (are estimated to have) saved millions of lives, his own life was about to get even worse. With his parents having never married, not only was Glyndwr cursed with by the stigma of illegitimacy and crippled by disability, but with his mother unable to receive any benefits befitting a widow, and the hostel they lived in going bankrupt as the country was gripped in an economic depression, with no savings or property, only debts, Glyndwr and his mother were forced to survive on charity. And that’s how it remained for the next fifteen years; as being too poor to eat, too hungry to earn and too sick to work; trapped in a damp, dark and cramped backroom in a leaky cold coal-miner’s house at 135 Trealaw Road in the mining town of Tonypandy, lived a widowed mother and her disabled son. But then, on 15th January 1940, aged 58, having suffered a heart attack, Glyndwr’s mother died; she was his rock, his world, his everything. He had nothing. He was a 31 year old mentally disabled man, with no parents to love him, no money to support him, no food to feed him and no home to protect him, and with all four of his siblings having married or moved-out, shortly after the burial of his beloved mother in a pauper’s grave in Trealaw cemetery, Glyndwr disappeared. Between 16th January 1940 and 26th January 1943, for three whole years, Glyndwr simply vanished; no-one knows where he went, what he did, who he saw, or how he survived. I’d love to say that a Good Samaritan found him, saved him, trained him, and that’s how a disabled Welsh vagrant became a vital component in the allies winning World War Two, but it didn’t happen. Ironically, barely months before his mother’s death, Glyndwr attempted to enlist in the British Army; to fight for King and country; to earn a decent living, to be fed a regular meal and to sleep in a warm and cosy bed, but (with a catalogue of disabilities) he was rejected on medical grounds. For whatever reason, by the bitter winter of 1942, Glyndwr was living in London; dossing in doorways, begging for change and rummaging through bins, and as one of thousands of anonymous homeless drifters who struggled to stay alive in this badly-burned bombed-out city, by January 1943, Glyndwr Michael had finally reached rock-bottom and was lost, unloved and forgotten. And then, came the day that he would change world history forever. (INTERSTITIAL) The evening of Tuesday 26th January 1943 was exceptionally cold, as a biting wind blew a thick blanket of icy snow across the city, which instantly hardened in the intense freezing frost. Being bitterly cold, wet, hungry and homeless, as the temperature dropped as low as minus ten, Glyndwr stumbled into an abandoned warehouse, at the back of King’s Cross station After three years of isolation, malnutrition and infection, with his physical and mental health rapidly declining, and being crippled by a life-long hereditary infection which riddled his weak and weary body with tremors, seizures, migraines, depression, arthritis, blindness, psychosis, paranoia and dementia; being cold, hungry and confused, off the dusty floor, Glyndwr ate a few scraps of stale bread. But this wasn’t a kindly gift left by a generous benefactor, or a piece of misplaced sandwich dropped by an already full night-watchman, but a trap for rats. And as Glyndwr sat, shivering in the shadows, swallowing the stale lumps of bread, he didn’t notice that the gooey residue slathered on top, wasn’t butter, jam or even dripping, but a paste laced with highly toxic white phosphorous. Having mistakenly ingested mouthfuls of rat poison, as the deadly phosphide paste mixed with the hydrochloric acid in his gut and turned into clouds of highly toxic phosphine, the chemistry of his own body had begun to kill him. And as he lay on the cold and dirty floor of an unknown disused warehouse somewhere in King’s Cross; being wracked with cramp, fever and convulsions, as hot steamy vomit and smoking faeces spewed from his orifices as his bowel started to boil, with no-one knowing he was even there, not only was Glyndwr Michael lost, unloved and forgotten… but now he was dying. After two days of writhing in excruciating agony, with his central nervous system poisoned, as slowly it began to shut-down his liver, his kidneys, his lungs and his heart, having been found, Glyndwr was rushed to the South Wing of St Pancras Hospital, just one street away, but having drifted into a coma, on Thursday 28th January 1943, 33 year old Glyndwr Michael was pronounced dead. And with his heart silent, his brain empty and his blood cold, as rigor mortis set in and every ounce of life left his slowly decomposing body, his career as a war hero had only just begun. In the bowels of St Pancras Hospital, hidden in the corner of its cold stone mortuary, Glyndwr Michael was one of several corpses brought in that day, in varying states of injury and decay, and although he was an unremarkable man, to the coroner Sir Bentley Purchase, he was perfect. Unlike the other deaths, Sir Bentley didn’t give the dead tramp an autopsy. Unlike the other deaths, Sir Bentley didn’t inform the dead tramp’s family of his demise. And unlike the other deaths, (although entirely illegal) Sir Bentley falsified the death certificate, lied to the registrar, denied the dead tramp a burial, concealed the body and for the second time in the life of Glyndwr Michael… he vanished. That evening, Sir Bentley Purchase made contact with two British intelligence officers; Ewen Montagu of the Royal Navy and Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and excitedly said “I’ve found our man”. And although Glyndwr Michael was mentally disabled, physically unfit, had no military training (having failed to enlist in the army on medical grounds) and even though he was already dead, he was about to embark on a secret mission, into enemy territory, in a truly audacious and daring scheme which would turn the tide of Second World War… and its code-name was Operation Mincemeat. Operation Mincemeat began life on 29th September 1939, as a directive from the Director of British Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral John Godfrey, to engineer a series of cunning ploys to deceive the Nazi’s and lure their ships either directly into allied minefields, or away from key strategic actions. Of the thirty ideas concocted, number 28 (against which the author had written “a suggestion, not a very nice one”) was to give the Nazis access to deliberately misleading information, having concealed it on a dead body, dressed as a British officer and dumped in enemy waters. This rather grisly idea, it is believed, was written by Rear Admiral Godfrey’s personal assistant; a Lieutenant Commander who would later be more famously known for his spy novels, and his name was Ian Fleming. By 1943, after the failure of Dunkirk, which saw the mass-evacuation of allied troops from the French coast and opened the door to a Nazi invasion of Britain, the Allies needed to re-enter Europe and regain the upper-hand. But with the bulk of Europe’s coastline being heavily defended by the Germans, the only logical point of invasion for the allies was Sicily, but everyone knew that, even Sir Winston Churchill remarked that "anyone but a bloody fool would know it was Sicily". Nazi intelligence needed to be deceived and German troops rerouted, so Britain had to convince Hitler that an allied invasion was imminent, but not via Sicily, but 500 miles away in Greece and Sardinia. A deception was planned, Operation Mincemeat was born, and an unloved, lost and long-forgotten dead tramp from Welsh mining town of Aberbargoed would be the hero that our country needed. Glyndwr Michael was perfect; he had no physical injuries, no medical scars and no obvious cause of death, as with the phosphine gas having dispersed, the strychnine in his hair being hardly traceable and with his lungs full of fluid (owing to pneumonia), given a cursory autopsy, the Nazis would assume he had drowned. So back in the St Pancras Mortuary, with his body kept at a steady four degrees Celsius, the life of Glyndwr Michael was erased, as he became Major William Martin. In order to fool the Nazis, not only did Major William Martin need to have a name, a face and a body, but he also needed a life, and – for this daring deception to work – it needed to be one as real as any other persons, so Ewan Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley set about giving a dead man life. Born in Cardiff in 1907, 35 year old Acting Major William Martin, known to his friends as “Bill”, was a recently promoted Captain in the Royal Marines, a rank senior enough to handle sensitive papers; he was five foot nine tall, with short dark hair, a neatly trimmed moustache and a slender physique more befitting a man used to desk-work than a war-zone. And being assigned to Combined Operations HQ, any queries about this fictional officer’s death would be instantly be passed to Naval Intelligence. To legitimise his rank, Major William Martin was issued with a Royal Marines battledress, cut by Gieves & Hawkes (the military tailors at nearby Savile Row); complete with the appropriate badges, flashes, insignia, braces, gaiters, size 12 boots, a trench-coat and a beret; each piece of which was personally worn, every day, by Charles Cholmondeley to ensure that its wear and tear looked real. With the devil being in the detail, Major Martin was decorated with what MI5 described as “pocket litter”; several pieces of small and seemingly unimportant fragments of everyday detritus which every person forgets they carry, but which completes the detail of a person’s ordinary life; such as a book of stamps, a pack of cigarettes, a box of matches, a set of keys, a silver cross, a St Christopher, a pencil, a receipt from Gieves & Hawkes for a new shirt, ticket stubs from a West End show, a bill for four nights' at the Naval & Military Club, a letter from his imaginary father, a note from his solicitor, a letter from Lloyds Bank demanding payment of his overdraft of £79 19s 2d; and even though Glyndwr was single, inside his wallet was a photograph and two love letters from his fictitious fiancée called 'Pam', and a receipt for £53 10s 6d, from S J Phillips of Bond Street, for a diamond engagement ring. And finally, the most important piece – the letter. To aid its authenticity, Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye personally composed a letter to General Sir Harold Alexander (commander of the Anglo-American 18th Army Group in Algeria & Tunisia). And although this two–page letter looked like a routine piece of correspondence between two high-ranking officers; hidden away, in a single paragraph, amongst a mess of everyday military waffle, were two very matter-of-fact sentences, which stated that with the Germans “strengthening their defences in Greece and Crete” that “…the 5th Allied Division should be reinforced by one brigade for the assault on the beach south of Cape Araxos and similarly for the 56th division at Kalamata”. And that was it; barely thirty words, scrawled in a letter and hidden inside a briefcase, which would be chained to the arm of a dead (and entirely fictional) Naval officer, who had supposedly died in an air-crash and whose body would be found by the enemy floating in the sea, off the coast of Spain. And given that diplomatic protocol denotes that any intercepted official correspondence must be returned unopened to its country of origin, to confirm if the document had fallen into enemy hands, inside they had placed a single eyelash. If it was missing? They knew that the Nazis had read the letter. The plan was audacious, risky and ludicrous, but being so unbelievable was part of its brilliance. Having been shaved, dressed and decorated with “pocket litter”, the body of Glyndwr Michael, under the alias of Major William Martin was packed into a vague metal container, loaded with nine and a half kilos of dry-ice, and filled with carbon dioxide to refrigerate and preserve the body. On the 18th April 1943, having been loaded by Charles Cholmondeley & Ewan Montagu into the back of a non-descript black 1937 Fordson van with a V8 engine, through the night the metal canister was driven, at speed, by racing champion St John Horsfall, from King’s Cross to Greenock on the west coast of Scotland, where it was loaded on-board of an S-Class British submarine called HMS Seraph. 11 days later, at 4:15am, on Friday 30th April 1943, just off the port of Huelva on the south-west of Spain, as the dawn light glistened across a serenely calm sea, HMS Seraph surfaced. With the coast clear, the captain - Lieutenant Norman Jewell – and only his most senior of officers, placed the body of “Major William Martin” gently into the warm waters; a life-vest on, a black attaché case chained to his wrist and as the submarine’s propellers slowly pushed his dead body towards the shore, Lt Jewell read a passage from the 39th Psalm – (“hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my ears: for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were”) - as Glyndwr Michael floated into infamy. At a little after 9:30am, four hours later, just off the beach of La Mata Negra, a local fisherman called Antonio Rey Maria spotted the body, dragged it ashore and notified the Spanish authorities, all under the watchful eye of Adolf Klaus; an unimaginative and easily duped German spy, living in Huelva. And yet, Operation Mincemeat still had one massive hurdle to overcome; as having discovered a body, it was standard practice for the authorities to perform an autopsy to determine its cause of death, and any deviation from this would raise suspicions, but to any trained doctor, it would obvious that this body hadn’t been dead for three days, but three months, so the autopsy had to be rushed. Luckily, having stored the corpse in a makeshift mortuary in Nuestra Señora cemetery for more than 24 hours; as two Spanish doctors examined it, finding no injuries, no scars and its lungs full of water, as the festering body rapidly decomposed in the blistering heat of the midday sun, the autopsy was cut-short, and the death certificate was signed off as "asphyxiation through immersion in the sea". In keeping with Spanish tradition, although there were no mourners, the very next day, Major William Martin was buried in Nuestra Señora cemetery with full military honours, and upon his headstone was an inscription which read: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”; a line from the Roman poet Horace, which translates as "it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country". On the 5th May, the briefcase was passed to the Spanish naval headquarters in Cadiz, the letter was dried, photographed, resealed, soaked in salt water, re-inserted into the envelope and the information was passed to the Germans. On 11th May, the briefcase and all of its contents, seemingly untouched, was returned to British authorities, minus a single eyelash. On 14th May, codebreakers at Bletchley Park intercepted a German message warning of an imminent invasion via Greece and Sardinia. Brigadier Leslie Hollis – the secretary to the Chiefs of Staff Committee – sent a secret communique to Winston Churchill, it simply read “Mincemeat swallowed rod, line and sinker." On the 9th July, with Hitler having redeployed 1000’s of troops from the Russian Eastern Front in Kursk to Greece, Corsica and Sardinia, having launched one of the largest amphibious assaults of the war, 400,000 American and British troops invaded the woefully undefended island of Sicily; it fell 8 days later, and opened the door to mainland Europe. Two years later, the war was over. Glyndwr Michael was a nobody, a nothing, a mentally and physically disabled man, who died unloved, lost and forgotten, in a derelict warehouse somewhere in King’s Cross. He was a homeless man who became a hero, and although he saved my life, your life and all of our lives, almost 80 years on, with no statues in his image, no streets in his honour and no portraits in his likeness, his name his hardly known… and yet, without Glyndwr Michael, our lives would have been very different. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Don’t forget to stay tuned to Extra Mile after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week, which are Witching Hour and Murder in My Family (PLAY PROMO) A big shout-out this week goes out to my new Patreons, who are Clare Bernardin, Daryna Tarasenko, Leslie Quinones, Sue Harrison and Nicole Graves, who all made my little chubby cheeks go all flushed with their supreme generosity, so to you guys, here’s a kiss. Don’t worry, I don’t have the lurgy. Also a quick “hi” to Doug and Karen who booked onto my Murder Mile Walk for their 20th anniversary, because what’s more romantic than that, and Lynn and her family who came all the way from Vancouver to delve into some grisly Soho murders. Hello to you all. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** 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 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE THIRTY-NINE
Episode Thirty-Nine: On Monday 8th October 1963, George Thomas Pickering; a hard-working husband and doting father-of three, who was the epitome of a Jekyll & Hyde character and whose mania led him to brutally slay a Soho sex-worker called Rosa O’Neill. And yet, why he killed her remains the real mystery.
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THE LOCATION
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Ep39 - George Thomas Pickering – The Silent Killer
SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about George Thomas Pickering; a hard-working husband and doting father-of three, who was the epitome of a Jekyll & Hyde character and whose mania led him to brutally slay a Soho sex-worker called Rosa O’Neill. And yet, why he killed her remains the real mystery. Murder Mile contains upsetting details which may cause the easily startled to spew, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 39: George Thomas Pickering – The Silent Killer. Today I’m standing on Brewer Street in Soho, W1; one road north of the White Horse pub where Larry Winters gunned down Paddy O’Keefe, one road west of the bombing of the Admiral Duncan and two roads north of the unsolved killing of Police informer Black Rita – coming soon to Murder Mile. Originally called Welles Street, although this single-lane side-street (stretching from Regent Street to Wardour Street) is barely 1200 feet long, as home to the now-defunct and demolished Aryes and Davis breweries, in the late 1900’s, Welles Street was renamed Brewer Street. But for at least the last century, being crammed full of seedy sex-shops and sweaty strip joints, all occupied by spunky-handed willy-fiddlers in dirty flashing mack’s, surely it’s time to rename this mucky Soho backstreet with a more appropriate moniker, like Pervert’s Parade, Wanker’s Way, Spooge Street or Jizzy Junction? Initially called Doc’ Johnson’s Hollywood Love Shop & Cinema, today 12 Brewer Street is called Soho’s Original Book Shop. And as a deeply dull three storey brown brick building, instantly your eyes are drawn to its dark green wooden façade on the ground-floor and its garish neon signs which flash forth with words like “sex-shop” and “triple X”. Featuring a wealth of arty erotica for the more discerning pervert, downstairs is a veritable pornucopia of mucky mags, dirty DVDs, pep pills for your percy ponker, va-va-voom juice for your vajayjay and chocolate mousse for your rusty bullet-hole, as well as all manner of strange shit like spikes, crazy crap with clamps, and - if you’ve got £150 to spare - even a life-sized and very realistic rubber bum-hole… apparently. And yet, as much as this building is synonymous with sex, it’s also the home of death. As it was here, on Monday 7th October 1963, in the first floor flat of 12 Brewer Street, that Rosa O’Neill was savagely slaughtered by a silent killer. (INTERSTITIAL) On Tuesday 19th November 1963, in the cold sterile surgery of Brixton Prison, dressed in over-sized prison fatigues and a pair of slip-on shoes, sat 26 year old George Thomas Pickering. With short curly brown hair, a cheeky grin and arched eyebrows which gave his impish little face an eternally surprised expression, being barely five foot six inches tall, George didn’t look like a major criminal, and yet, as a Category A prisoner, amongst all these thieves, rapists and thugs, he was considered one of the worst. “George?”, Dr F H Brisby, the medical officer asked, but as the prisoner’s bloodshot eyes glared down at his guilt-ridden hands, he ignored him. Not owing to ignorance or the arrogance of a hardened con who refused to spill the beans to a screw, but because George was trapped in world of silence, as being both deaf and mute, George heard no words and could say nothing to reply. “George?” Dr Brisby asked, as he softly tapped the tearful prisoner’s shoulder, stirring this broken man from those bloody visions forever burned into his retina. “George? That day. Did you know what you were doing?” he asked, but George didn’t reply. Not as a false ruse to secure an insanity plea; a ploy which his lawyer had toyed with, and the prison warden had taken seriously, having confiscated his belt, his tie, his shoe-laces and placed him (for the last six weeks) on suicide watch, but the delay was solely so his interpreter could translate the words that he could neither hear nor speak. But being polite and prompt, Dr Brisby got the reply he expected, as George simply nodded “yes”. “George, did you know it was wrong?” Dr Brisby asked, as being eight days away from his murder trial at The Old Bailey, the doctor’s question would be the difference between life and a death sentence, and again George simply nodded “yes”. And yet, in a Police investigation which was short, swift and thrift, although George’s guilt was guaranteed, one question remained unanswered. “George?”, Dr Brisby asked “…if you knew all that, then why did you murder Rosa O’Neill?” In the ungodly hours of 21st February 1937, a high-pitched scream wailed down the maternity ward at Stanmore Hospital; an ear-splitting sound so sharp and shrill, the patients felt as if knitting needles were being stabbed into their brains, but this was not a cry of death but of birth. And with his vocal chords set to loud and two fully functional ears which heard his beloved mother slowly soothe her baby boy to sleep, into the world came George Thomas Pickering, and he was perfect in every way. Hailing from the seaside town of Scarborough (in Yorkshire), Margaret & Reginald Pickering were two doting parents to their beloved son George; and with no history of disability, criminality or mental illness in the family, these were good people; solid, proud and stoic, who battled through the tough times and together they triumphed, but for the Pickering family, a major test was yet to come. After days of stiffness, dizziness, insomnia and vomiting, four year old George was rushed to hospital, gripped in a fit of fever, as (once again) his high-pitched shrill echoed the walls, but not in a cry of birth but of intense pain, as bacterial meningitis strangled his spinal cord and (like a halo of death) slowly crushed his brain. And although, his young life was saved by antibiotics, by the time he’d left hospital, the damage had been done, and being left deaf, mute and crippled by chronic headaches, the last sound that George ever uttered or heard were his own tears, as his world descended into silence. Eager to ensure their son wasn’t hindered by his disabilities and that he’d retain his confidence, pride and independence, Margaret & Reginald enrolled George at the Royal Deaf & Dumb School in Margate (on England’s south coast), where he learned to sign, made new friends, never got into fights, and as a better than average student, he left school, aged 16, with a lust for life and a passion for wood work. And as a solid young man who did his parents proud, George lived a very normal, happy and productive life. Having graduated, George trained as a carpenter for Kodak in north-west London, earning £12 a week and accruing a satisfactory work record. But as a recently married man and a father to twin daughters and (soon) a son, eager to be nearer his family, George uprooted and found new employment at Humphreys (a furniture makers) in nearby 161 Kingston Road in New Malden. Life was good. He had an honest job, three healthy children, an active social life with his old school friends from Margate, and lived in a delightful little terraced house on a pleasant tree-lined street at Oxford Avenue in Merton Park (South London), with his wife Beryl (who was also deaf and mute). And although he’d cheated death and coped with disability, the meningitis had done its damage and being crippled by headaches, the older he got, the worse they became, and as his painkillers proved pointless, it was quickly replaced by alcohol to quell the pain. But like all drugs, drink had its downside. On 20th February 1957, on the eve of his twentieth birthday, having partied heartily with his pals, George was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, causing wilful damage and inflicting grievous bodily harm in an unprovoked attack. He was bound-over by the courts for two years. On 15th August 1961, in another unprovoked attack, George smashed up his furniture, at work, with an axe and was committed to Shenley psychiatric hospital, where even though he was tearful, tense and complained of being wracked with deep bouts of depression, suicidal thoughts and unnaturally violent urges, he was discharged after just 24 hours, and the incident was blamed on drink. Four weeks later, on 12th September 1961, whilst heavily intoxicated, George was arrested for inflicting grievous bodily harm in an unprovoked attack on a West End prostitute. He was sentenced to two months in prison, but – owing to good behaviour – he served only one. Later that year, whilst carving-up the Christmas turkey, George had to be physically restrained by his family as – in an unprovoked fit of depression and rage - he tried to slit open his wrists. Prior to his murder trial, George said to Dr F H Brisby of Brixton Prison that he felt like Jekyll & Hyde; part man and part monster; with one side of him as a good father and a loyal husband who was decent, passive and polite, and the other side was a violent, drunken, homicidal maniac. Desperate to quell his uncontrollably violent urges, George quit drinking and (for almost a year) life returned to normal. But without a steady hit of booze to dull the incessant throbbing in his head, his insomnia increased, his depression darkened and suicide seemed a better prospect than living. Two years later, being at his wit’s end, George Thomas Pickering made the unfortunate decision to take his own life… but strangely, it wasn’t he who would ultimately end up dead. (INTERSTITIAL) The following is based on the original police investigation files, autopsy report, witness statements and George’s own hazy and confused recollection of the events that day, so some details are patchy. By the morning of Monday 7th October 1963, George hadn’t slept for three whole days, and although his kids cried, with wide cracked eyes which glared vacantly at the ceiling, the only sound he heard was dull thud as blood erratically pumped from his fluctuating heart to his throbbing head. Feeling like his body was a deadweight; with his head like lead, his feet like they were stuck in peat and his limp arms like they were anchored to the bed, George lay prostrate, an empty hollow man devoid of hope. But as a good dad, with bills to pay and mouths to feed, like a pre-programmed automaton with one basic function – to earn, as George crawled out of bed and his lifeless legs thudded to the floor, he didn’t feel like he normally did, he felt… strange. It started like any ordinary day, only slower and less certain, as all he could think of was his own death. Off the hard wooden floor, George dragged on last night’s clothes - a blue corduroy jacket, a dark blue shirt, a brown jersey, light brown trousers and black boots – all splattered in yesterday’s stains, which (he surmised) no-one would spy when the corduroy which covered his corpse was bathed in his blood. For the last time, he hugged his kids; their voices he had never heard before and their sweet faces he would never see again. And as his soundless lips softly kissed Beryl’s cheek, as he signed his wife a sweet “goodbye”, he left his home for the very last time, never to return. At 7:30am, George walked out of Oxford Avenue and trudged south to Kingston Road; the sky was dull, grey and full of foreboding as dark ominous clouds loomed large. And as the interminable British drizzle soaked him to the bone, on any other day he’d have turned right and headed off to work at Humphrey’s, but (in a rash decision which would ruin his life forever) he turned left. At 7:45am, as he stood alone on the packed platform of Raynes Park station - isolated and trapped in a solitary silent world – feeling the violent rumble under his feet as the train thundered near, as he stared at the bare track, he pictured 200 tonnes of roaring steel wheels slicing over his soft neck, severing his head and leaving behind a lifeless bloody stump… but his feet wouldn’t budge. By 8:10am, as his train sidled into Waterloo station, George lumbered aimlessly towards The Strand, on the south-side of the West End, but with his full focus being on what way was best to meet his death, as the hard heavy thump of his boots sent a dull throbbing pain into his brain, with his every movement making him even more nauseous, although he’d been teetotal for weeks, his only thought was the pain-free lure of liquor. And then, for the next three hours, George disappeared; no-one knows where he went, or what he did, not even he, but with every pub and off-licence closed till lunch, at 11am, by the time he had stumbled into Soho, George was drunk. And being part man and part monster; as the meek, mild and timid man within him slunk into shadows, the other side of his Jekyll & Hyde took over. With an unquenchable thirst, at a little after 11:30am, having staggered passed The White Horse pub and stumbled into Edward Roche & Co, an off-licence at 33 Shaftesbury Avenue, as its young assistant eyed with suspicion this strangely silent man, having handed over 17 shillings, the only sound that George heard was the heavy gulping as he necked great glugs of 66 per cent proof vodka. Being deaf, dumb and (now) blind drunk; stuck in a deep dull depression which booze couldn’t shift and eager to give his spirits a lift, George stumbled into the garish neon haze of the nearby Cameo Moulin Cinema, to watch ‘Women by Night’; a tawdry sexploitation film full of tits, tush and tassels. But as his glazed-over eyes gazed at the soundless screen, ogling bums and boobs, amongst a salty sea of sad bastards, whose hands all bobbed about their pants like they’d all lost their last pound; George hated what he saw, where he was, and who he had become. And as his suicidal thoughts stewed, so too were his unnatural urges and strange stirrings within; as bubbling to the surface came a hatred, a rage and an uncontrollable desire for violence. Desperate to die, at a little after 1pm, George staggered into Cutlers Tool Makers at 52 Brewer Street, pointed to a shiny stainless-steel blade, and having handed over 10 shillings, he stumbled out, into the bustle of Brewer Street, brandishing a six inch filleting knife, one step nearer to slitting his wrists. What happened next is debatable, as with no slashes to his arms, cuts to his neck or puncture wounds on his body, whether he sobered-up, cooled off or got cold feet, George suddenly decided to forgo his suicide and – instead – headed east to 12 Brewer Street (where Soho’s Original Book Shop now sits) and where George would fulfil a very different and uncontrollable urge. The time was 1:15pm. On the ground floor, to the left of the store, was a black wooden door. Instinctively, although he would never hear it, George rung the bell, and waited in the doorway, as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. Opened by the housekeeper (Sophie Georgina Willis), although he was obviously arseholed, without a sound, just a smile, she ushered him up to the first-floor, with a wave which said ‘you know the way’. Having visited her several times prior, George had always liked Rosa. And even though he never knew her name, age, history, or (because he was deaf) he never heard that this well-rounded woman in her early forties, with an obvious Irish surname like O’Neill, had a Polish accent; none of those details mattered, as being one of the few Soho sex-workers who didn’t mock, pity or shun him, he liked Rosa. And with no heirs, no graces and no pretence - to many young men - she was just a nice lady. As George drunkenly stumbled up the white wooden staircase, bouncing off the floral wallpaper and almost tripping-up over the soft green carpeting underfoot, at the top of the stairs stood Rosa O’Neill. Being five foot four at a push, fourteen stone at her lightest, and with a motherly yet matronly face, dressed in a pink quilted dressing gown and slippers, although George was drunk (as he always was), she smiled and welcomed him in, like a loving aunt who’s first words would be “you fancy a cuppa?” But being part man and part monster; with the meek, mild and timid man having shifted into the shadows, and the other side of his Jekyll & Hyde now making strange stirrings within; as from his heart to his head his blood heavily thumped, inside pumped a dark and hollow rage. George would later state “I don’t know what happened, I just went berserk”. With his eyes wild and his knuckles white, from inside of his blue corduroy jacket, George pulled the filleting knife. With his left hand having roughly grabbed the scruff of her bathrobe to steady his terrified target, having raised the blade high, he plunged the full length of the six inch steel deep into the left of Rosa’s chest, and – using all of his force, anger, hatred and rage – he repeatedly stabbed the sliver of stainless steel into her torso, slashing at her flailing arms and slicing her splayed fingers, as the bloodied blade sunk four inches deep, into her right lung, her liver and gut. Desperate to fight off her frenzied attacker, as Rosa shoved her short assassin, over the soft green carpeting underneath, George stumbled, and as his sticky red hands left thick bloody smears over the white wood, Rosa slammed the door shut, and George fled. As her housekeeper rang the alarm, feeling queasy, Rosa lay face-up on her bed, a damp flannel on her forehead to cool her sweaty brow, as wrapped in a duvet, she was suddenly gripped with the icy cold chill as slowly her body drained of blood. And although they had called for a doctor, by the time he’d had arrived, just seven minutes later, Rosa O’Neill was dead. The next morning, although the previous day was a booze-soaked blur, seeing his clothes crumpled on the floor, his dirty corduroy caked in crusted blood, as he slowly sobered-up, George realised he’d done something truly awful. And being wracked with guilt, having unsuccessfully tried to kill himself by swallowing 300 aspirins, George handed himself in a Wimbledon Police Station. The Police investigation was swift. Having fully confessed to the crime, with a wealth of evidence and having been identified by the three witnesses, in a trial which barely lasted a day, on 27th November 1963, at The Old Bailey, George Thomas Pickering was found guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility owing to insanity or illness, and was sentenced to life in prison. Four years later, eager to quell his thundering headaches which had haunted his every waking moment since the spinal meningitis had robbed him of all speech and sound, on Tuesday 8th May 1967, in the D Wing rec’ room of Wormwood Scrubs prison, having no access to alcohol to halt the incessant hammering in his head, George drank a homemade cocktail made from orange juice and copier fluid. And as the mix of acetone and methylated spirits inflamed his stomach, drowned his lungs, and as he drifted into a coma, having already been rendered deaf and mute by illness, (in a sad twist of irony) the booze which blocked the throbbing in his brain, had robbed him of another sense and rendered him blind. And after a slow and agonising death, which lasted almost a week, on Sunday 14th May 1967, George Thomas Pickering died of alcohol poisoning, and (once again) his whole world was silent. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Don’t forget to stay tuned to Extra Mile after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcast of the week, which is Redhanded (PLAY PROMO) And if you’ve ever in London, why not book a ticket onto my five-star rated Murder Mile Walks; it’s a guided walk of Soho’s most infamous murder, and you get to see my big fat bald head, and you get to say “oh, is that what he looks like? Ah, that’s a shame”. And on Saturday 8th September 2018 at The Salisbury pub, at 90 St Martin’s Lane in London, Murder Mile will be attending the True-Crime Meet-Up, along with many of your favourite British true-crime podcaters. Join us! Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** 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 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio, Spotify or Acast.
EPISODE THIRTY-EIGHT
Episode Thirty-Eight: Justice for Martine Vik Magnussen: On the morning of Sunday 16th March 2008, the body of 23 year old Martine Vik Magnussen was found raped and strangled in the basement of 222 Great Portland Street, London. And although the Police know who her killer is, where he is and can prove he was guilty, he has never been arrested. Why?
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THE LOCATION
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Ep38 – Justice for Martine Vik Magnussen
Thank you for downloading episode thirty-eight of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. If you enjoy listening Murder Mile and want to support the show, please do leave a review on iTunes or even on the podcast app you’re using right now, as it brings the show to a wider audience, ensures its future and recently your five star reviews rocketed Murder Mile into iTunes top 50 podcasts, so your support is truly appreciated. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about Martine Vik Magnussen; a bright, loving and vivacious student, who travelled from Norway to study in London, but was murdered at the hands of a friend, and although her brutal death has been solved, more than ten years on, her killer has never been brought to justice. Murder Mile contains unsettling details which may make the timid tremble, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 38: Justice for Martine Vik Magnussen. Today I’m standing outside of Seaford Court at 222 Great Portland Street; one road west of Gosfield Street, where the West End’s most infamous strangler murdered his third victim, one street south of Regent’s Park where the Provisional IRA exploded two bombs killing 11 people and injuring 50, and a few streets south of Hampstead Road and Gloucester Crescent where two more possible victims of The Blackout Ripper were murdered - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated just north of Oxford Circus; where-as Soho is the home of every hobo, homo, hipster, ponce, pervert and deeply desperate extrovert; being its bastard little brother, Fitzrovia is little more than a half-way house for those moody, vague, ashen faced arseholes who aren’t as rich, hip and famous as they think, hence they live on a street where every building looks like an accountants. Being a place where no-one bothers to stop, situated in the west end of Fitzrovia, Great Portland Street is a pretentiously hideous concrete jungle, unaware of how truly shit it really is. As outside of its endless uptight eateries sits a slew of grumpy gits and frumpy sows, all dressed in fur coats, fedoras and painfully tight facelifts, who sip blinis on its kerb-side tables (like they’re sunning it up on the French Riviera) when actually, every time they chug back an oyster, they choke on a caustic mouthful of dust, truck fumes and the whiff of poodle plop. Yup, Great Portland Street truly is an awful place. Now renamed The Armitage, Seaford Court at 222 Great Portland Street is a semi-exclusive set of serviced apartments; and with a stark black and glass fronted façade on the ground floor (which makes it look like a funeral directors), a storage vault in the basement (which, again, is ironic, given its history), and with a five-storey red brick mansion block above, built in a faux Parisian style, here you can rent out a flat once owned by a minor celebrity, a failed pop-star, and maybe even a murderer. As it was here on Friday 14th March 2008, that 23 year old Martine Vik Magnussen was lured back to the flat of a close friend… and murdered. (INTERSTITIAL) As a bitter Norwegian wind blew across the icy frozen tundra, in the early hours of Wednesday 6th February 1985, the deathly silence was cut short by the sharp squeal of tyres and the roar of a high-revving engine, as a set of Saab headlights ripped along the pitch black coastal road from Nesoya to Oslo. To the left, darkness; to the right, the sea, eerily still and black like blood in the moonlight. Behind the steering wheel, fighting the grip, as the speeding weaving car blew through every stop sign, red light and road-block, was 25 year old (Aad) Odd Petter Magnussen. Being a tall slim man with wavy blonde hair and a kindly yet concerned face, although (for the first time in his life) he’d broken several traffic violations, Petter wasn’t a criminal, a fugitive or a maniac, but a loving father. And as a series of pained screams echoed from the backseat, between the legs of his heavily pregnant wife (Kristin), a tiny blonde crown of hair peeped out, as their excitable second child got bored of waiting and with a new world to explore and no time to waste, out she popped, just inside the doors of Oslo hospital. With wide hazel-green eyes, soft blonde hair and a bright beaming smile, as Petter held his perfect little girl in his arms, he promised to love and protect her. The childhood of Martine Vik Magnussen could easily be described as idyllic, and as the beloved middle child of two loving parents, who was adored by her older brother Magnus and younger sister Mathilda, she grew-up surrounded by love, joy and happiness. On the small beautiful island of Nesoya, 25 miles south-east of Oslo, the Magnussen family lived in a little wooden cottage on the brow of a hill overlooking a stunning snowy fjord. And with the air being fresh, the water being clean and the streets being safe, as an active child, here Martine could run, swim and play, all day. But being an inquisitive girl with a thirst for knowledge and an adventurous spirit, coming from a remote island, her family knew that one day she would leave to see the world. As a popular, generous and honest girl with a heart so big it’s amazing it managed to fit into her 5 foot 4 inch frame - being bright, kind and bubbly - Martine was beautiful inside and out. Every summer, when the Norwegian snow had melted into crystal clear streams and crisp blue lakes, in a little wooden hut nestled on the shoreline at the bottom of the family garden, Martine would host parties for her nearest and dearest; singing, dancing and cooking treats. And as an instantly likable young lady with no enemies, only friends, Petter described his daughter as "pure sunshine". (Silence) So, I guess you’re probably expecting to hear about a horrific incident in her idyllic childhood – maybe involving drugs, death, debt or disaster - where everything she ever loved fell apart and her life was changed forever? But it didn’t. In fact, the worst thing that happened was the divorce of her parents when Martine was 15, but as a loving couple, deeply committed to their children, they amicably split and remained close, spending birthdays, Christmases and holidays together. (End silence) Encouraged by her doting father to be confident, independent and ambitious; having once dreamed of being a prima ballerina, a showjumper and a professional netballer, after graduation from Kristelig Gymnasium (a private Christian school in Oslo), in February 2007, Martine moved to London and later enrolled in an International Business Relations degree at Regents Business School, barely a 15 minute walk from Seaford Court - the five-storey red brick mansion block at 222 Great Portland Street. As a dynamic girl in a bustling city, 23 year old Martine academically thrived, emotionally blossomed and socially flourished, and although she was over a thousand miles from home; she lived well, stayed safe and made many new friends. One of whom was Farouk Abdulhak (INTERSTITIAL) Born in Sana’a, the capital city of the Arab sovereign state of Yemen, on the 18th February 1987, Farouk Abdulhak was the eldest son of Egyptian and Yemeni parents. And although the Yemen is the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, with half the population living on less than £1 a day and with limited access to fresh food and clean drinking water, the life of Farouk Abdulhak was very different. Raised in opulence, wealth and privilege, Farouk was the first-born son of billionaire Shaher Abdulhak; dubbed the ‘King of Sugar’ owing to his business interests in Coca-Cola, as a powerful man with many influential allies, Farouk’s father was a close personal friend of the Yemani president and his personal net worth of $9 billion was the equivalent of 1/10th of his country’s annual GDP. As future heir to his father’s fortune, Farouk attended Azal Hadda primary school in Sala’a, was educated in the traditional core values of Islam - tolerance, abstinence and compassion – and although a lot rested on such a small set of shoulders, Farouk was friendly, respectful, pleasant, polite and shy. The kind of guy his school friends said “wouldn’t hurt a fly”. Being 5 foot 7 inches tall; slim and toned with chestnut eyes, cropped dark hair, a chiselled face and a neatly trimmed designer beard, being dressed in the latest brands, gold chains and snazzy trainers, although slightly vain, 21 year old Farouk was an unremarkable young man, who looked like almost any other wealthy Arab’s son raised in the West on an excess of money, freedom and privilege. Eager for the offspring to his ever-expanding empire to be well-educated and develop solid experience in both Arab and Western cultures, Farouk’s father sent his son to some of Britain’s top boarding schools, and - although Farouk rebelled against his strict Islamic father by drinking, smoking and professing to be agnostic - in September 2007, he enrolled in an International Business Relations degree at Regents Business School in London, where he met Martine Vik Magnussen. (Silence) So, I guess you’re probably expecting to hear about a horrific incident in his idyllic childhood – maybe involving drink and drugs, guns and gangsters, massacres and mental illness – of how a shy boy became a psychopath and his life was changed forever? But it didn’t. Farouk was a billionaire’s son, living in London, studying by day, partying by night and although he was 4500 miles from his home, the worst thing that happened to Farouk was the pressure of having to uphold his family’s honour. So, as far as we know, Farouk had no reason to kill Martine… but he did. (End silence) In June 2007, Martine moved into a modest four-bedroomed flat just off Chelsea Bridge Road, in a safe, local and well-lit part of town, that she shared with three Norwegian friends, and which she funded by working a part-time job at Mulberry clothing store in Mayfair. And as a confident girl who liked the nightlife, hailing from a small island and living in a big city, Martine never took risks with her safety, she was street-smart, careful and cautious. She didn’t walk home at night, she didn’t hitchhike, she never accepted lifts from strangers and if any of her flatmates decided not to come home, the rule was "always text, always stay in touch”… and Martine always did. Her female friends would often joke that there were no men left in London as they were all in love with Martine, and being a mesmerising woman who had an innate ability to make everyone feel special, warm and loved, some men fancied Martine, where-as others were besotted. Farouk and Martine had known each other for eight months; and (to the best of our knowledge) they never dated, fought, kissed or fornicated; they had no debts, lies or secrets; and often being seen together, although it was obvious that Farouk fancied her, he never asked Martine out and she never rejected him. They were just two good friends… one of whom would end up dead The murder of Martine Vik Magnussen is part of an on-going investigation, so the following details are based on the limited information available, therefore there will be gaps, lapses and loose-threads. Thursday 13th March 2008 was a night for celebration, as not only was this the end of term for the students of the Regents Business School, but in her exams, Martine had come top of her class. Being eager to drink, dance and let off steam; Martine, Farouk and some school friends headed out to a boutique nightclub called Maddox at 3-4 Mill Street in fashionable Mayfair; where the guest-list is by invite, membership is by referral and being secreted beneath an unassumingly bland office building, with no neon sign or flashing lights, the Maddox Club is only for those who know. Stylishly dressed in skinny blue designer jeans, a fawn coloured vest-top and brown snakeskin shoes, which she’d accessorised with Christian Dior earrings, a silver Guess watch and a black leather Marc Jacobs handbag, and with her trademark blonde hair, pink lipstick and silver eye-shadow, as Martine slinked down the spiral staircase, into the club’s pseudo-futuristic back-lit façade, she seamlessly blended in midst a sea of student and socialites; singing, dancing, mingling and laughing. By all accounts, a fabulous night was had by all, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. There were no fights, spats, strops, huffs, tuts, tears or bad-blood spilled. It was an evening perfectly summed up by one of the many photos taken that night; it shows Martine and Farouk, two friends in a gentle embrace, her arm draped over his shoulder, and both are happy, smiling and relaxed. At 3:20am, with her pooped-out friends’ eager to sleep and a full-of-beans Martine desperate to dance till dawn, outside of the Maddox Club, they parted ways. And having misplaced her mobile phone one week prior, her flat mates knew not to expect a text, and besides, she was with Farouk, so they knew she’d be safe. A few moments later, Martine and Farouk hopped in a black cab on Mill Street and headed north into Fitzrovia. That was the last time anyone (but her killer) saw her alive ever again. On the morning of Friday 14th March 2008, her bleary-eyed flat-mates spotted that Martine’s bed hadn’t been slept-in, her snake-skin shoes weren’t scattered on the floor, her Marc Jacobs handbag wasn’t slung over the door, and although she didn’t have her phone, she knew the rules and (no matter what) she would find a way to say she was safe… but she hadn’t. They messaged her via Facebook – no reply. They called all of her friends – no sighting. They called Farouk – no answer. And growing even more concerned, as day turned to night, they retraced her last known steps, handing out flyers adorned with her photograph – but no-one had seen her. Having been missing for 24 hours, Martine’s disappearance was reported to the Police, but being a popular foreign student, in London, on a bank holiday weekend, it was assumed she was partying and no search was done. But then again, Martine wasn’t the only person who had gone missing that night. Unusually, for such a media savvy man, shortly after his arrival home, Farouk switched his mobile off. Strangely, for such a social climber, the door to his flat remained firmly shut. And – in a sinister twist - at roughly 4am, barely forty minutes after he and Martine had hopped in a black cab, Farouk updated his Facebook status, it read “Farouk is home alone”. One day later, he deleted his profile completely. Knowing their friend and fearing the worst, Martine’s flat-mates approached the Police with their findings and pestered them to call on Farouk. And seeing the clues before them leading to something unseemly, PC James Tauber was dispatched to Seaford Court at 222 Great Portland Street. Farouk wasn’t home. He hadn’t been for more than a day, and with his clothes, his phone, his wallet, his bag and his passport missing, it looked like, wherever he’d gone, he’d left in a hurry. And although she was nowhere to be seen, the officer instinctively knew that Martine had been there, and that something bad had happened to her, as sprawled across the flush white carpet, in a crumpled messy heap, lay her fawn coloured vest-top, and - like a grisly version of Hansel & Gretel – pointing towards the flat’s front door, in an ominous spotted line, were rivulets of little red dots. As PC Tauber traced the sporadic speckles of concealed blood down the cold stone stairs, as his booted feet echoed off the hard walls, his ghastly treasure hunt ended, as the crimson spots came to a dead stop at a basement door, its padlock dotted with dried and crusted blood. At 10:20am, on Sunday 16th March 2008, in the damp, dark and unlit basement of 222 Great Portland Street, the semi-clad body of 23 year old Martine Vik Magnussen was found, hastily dumped under a pile of builder’s rubble, as her left arm protruded from a mess of sand and cement, in a rushed attempt by her killer to conceal his crime. Martine had been raped and strangled. The next day, Odd Petter Magnussen, Martine’s doting father (who just 23 years earlier had raced through the icy Norwegian tundra, from Nesoya to Oslo, to ensure the safe birth of his beautiful baby) had flown from Oslo to London, to undertake a duty which no father should ever have to do. In the sterile coldness of the mortuary, on an aluminium gurney, draped in a blue plastic sheet, lay the body of Martine Magnussen. And although the Police told Petter everything to prepare him for the sight he was about to see – that she’d been strangled, that she’d been raped and that she’d fought for her life – it would never be enough, as lying in front of him, was his daughter, all cold and lifeless. And although her flawless skin was mottled with a mix of yellow, brown and purple bruises; with her face swollen, her tongue protruding and her neck etched with an odd mark, it was the little details which brought the most pain for Petter. He would say of that day, “she looked like Martine, she still had her eyeshadow on”. And as she lay there, and his trembling hand stroked her cold face, even as an unemotional man, Petter was reduced to tears, at the sight of his beautiful baby - dead. And of all the harrowing details he had heard that day of his daughter’s demise, the worst he would have to live with was this; as an illuminous young woman who had brought so much happiness to the world, her last moments alive weren’t spent in love, or joy, or delight, but in pain, fear and dread. Forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Carey confirmed that Martine had 43 substantial injuries to her head, neck and body. And although toxicology tests confirmed she had consumed 130mg (milligrams) of alcohol and a small amount of cocaine (consistent with any weekend drinker and recreational user); she was fully conscious at the time she was raped, and that the unusual mark across her neck was consistent with compression, as if she’d been pinned to the floor by an object, a hand, or a foot. Almost ten years on, the murder of Martine Vik Magnussen remains unresolved, but not unsolved. After a short Police investigation, although they only had one suspect; they knew who he was, where he was, and they knew (and could prove) that he was guilty. His name was Farouk Abdulhak. The problem was, they couldn’t arrest him. On the afternoon of Friday 14th March 2008, having erased his Facebook profile, packed his bags and pocketed his passport, Farouk boarded a flight from London Heathrow to the Egyptian capital of Cairo, where he was spirited out of the country, to Sanaa in Yemen, in his billionaire father’s private jet. Protected by armed guards, iron gates and a vast wealth, although his whereabouts cannot be verified, it is said that Farouk is hidden in the remote village of Thaba Abous in southern Yemen; he’s grown a beard to blend in with the strict Islamic culture, he studied Arabic at the local university, he recently married a divorced Yemeni woman, and – although a European warrant was issued for his arrest - as neither Britain nor Norway have an extradition treaty with the Yemen, it is unlikely that Farouk Abdulhak will ever be arrested, imprisoned or convicted, and (as of today) he remains the one and only suspect in the murder of Martine Vik Magnussen. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Don’t forget to stay tuned to Extra Mile after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcast of the week, which is Bloody Murder (PLAY PROMO) A big thank you goes out to my amazing Patreon supporters, who get treated to some very exclusive content but also they get a big load of love from me: this week’s star Patreons are Kate from the fabulous Ignorance Was Bliss podcast, Steve Stadalink who, like a blumming hero, increased his pledge to mega proportions, and a new patreon – the lovely Ambar from Phoenix (Arizona), who I met on my weekly Murder Mile walk, and she gave me £30 in cash to support Murder Mile. So to all of my Patreo-fans, I give you big kisses, from the bottom of my heart, the bottom of my liver, but not from the bottom of my bottom, because nobody wants a kiss from there, except real weirdos. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE THIRTY-SEVEN
Episode Thirty-Seven: On Sunday 14th June 1964, in the bar-room of The White Horse public house on Rupert Street in Soho, 21 year old Larry Winters shot 44 year old barman Paddy O'Keefe to death, having never met him before. But why?
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THE LOCATION
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Ep37 – The Wasted Life of Larry Winters
Thank you for downloading episode thirty-seven of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. If you enjoy Murder Mile, listening to the authentic sounds, imagining the sights and wishing you were actually there? Well, if you’re ever in London, why not join me on my 5 star rated guided walk of Soho’s most infamous murders, and absorb the sights, sounds and smells of Soho for real. Tours are every Sunday at 11am, and feature many stories you will never hear on the podcast. Ooh. For tickets, click on the link in the show-notes. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about Larry Winters; a loving son, a soldier and a violently disturbed psychopath, who never got the help he so badly needed and (in a moment of madness) destroyed two lives forever. Murder Mile contains shocking details which may make the delicate go doolally, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 37: The Wasted Life of Larry Winters. Today I’m standing outside of The White Horse public house on Rupert Street in Soho, W1; one road west of the Old Compton Street death-bed of Dutch Leah, one road east of the Salted Almond cocktail bar where Greta Haywood met the notorious The Blackout Ripper, and one road south of Brewer Street, where Soho sex-workers (Ginger Rae and Margaret Cook) were last seen alive, and where Rosa O’Neill was viscously stabbed to death by a deaf and mute murderer – coming soon to Murder Mile. Originally built in the 1720’s and rebuilt in the 1930’s, The White Horse has stood on the cobblestoned corner of Rupert Street for almost three hundred years. And being a four-storey building of sandstone brick; with a dark-wood facade, frosted glass, brass fittings, black double-doors and a defunct Victorian gas-light above, as much as Soho may change, this pub has remained traditional inside and out. With no creaky old bikes hanging from the ceiling, no rusty old signs nailed to the walls and no brass plaque dangling on the door etched with the words “ye olde English pub”, having avoided the urge to scatter several skip’s worth of battered books, church pews, butter churns, washing dolly’s, milk urns and other such factory-produced shite, deliberately made to look old so the tourists go “ooh, that must be original”, The White Horse public house is a proper pub; a time-capsule of Soho life. Barely fifty feet long by fifty feet wide and dominated by a central bar island so broad, when the pub has sixty punters in there’s hardly enough room to breath - with a familiar smell of stale ale, meat pies, sweat, bleach and botty-burps; a tobacco stained ceiling which looks like some old geezer painted it with inch thick phlegm using his cancerous old lung; tables stabbed with several decades worth of flick-knives, knuckle dusters and six-inch stilettos; a portrait of The Queen, and possibly Prince Charles, Prince Albert and any other royal whose name is synonymous with a painful penis piercing, and a bar so sticky, that to pick up your pint you have to turn and twist it first - having barely changed in decades, The White Horse truly is packed full of history, character, stories and even the odd murder. As it was here, on Sunday 14th June 1964, in the bar-room of The White Horse public house, where 21 year old Larry Winters… (stops) …do you know what? Why am I telling you this? Let me show you. As the fading summer sun dipped below the western end of Shaftesbury Avenue and that last crack of light plunged Piccadilly Circus into a disorientating mix of auburn twilights and shuffling silhouettes, it’s reassuring warmth no longer soothed Larry’s exhausted face, as slowly, a dark chill set in. Although, like many young men barely out of their teens; Larry was usually tidy and trim; today with his eyes all crusted-up with sleep, his fuzzy brown hair a tangled mess and hanging off his five foot nine inch frame was his crumpled dark suit, white shirt and black tie, which was etched with an odd cross-cross of lines, as if he’d slept a bit but not in a bed, Larry was tired, hungry and broke. For the last twenty-four hours, Larry had aimlessly walked around the West End, as the endless streets of Soho scuffed his once shiny shoes. And although - with no money in his pockets, no food in his belly, and a thick Glaswegian accent which told the world that this desperate young man was stranded 380 miles from his Scottish home – he didn’t ask for help, and he couldn’t; as having a bulbous nose, sticky-out ears and eternally smirking lips, Larry was a wanted man, on the run, who was easy-to-spot. As Larry slinked off Shaftesbury Avenue and up the shadowy cobblestoned road of Rupert Street, being bathed in lurid neon lights that flashed a stream of unsubtle single-syllable words like sex, nude and girls from its many strip-clubs, sex parlours and backstreet brothels, although a young man, Larry wasn’t here for that. And yet, as a convicted thief, he reminded himself of the promise he’d made to his beloved mother that he’d stay out of trouble - and he had, for a while - but with a second night of homelessness and hunger looming, he knew that where there was sex and drink, there was money. Illuminated by a Victorian gas-light, through its frosted glass, Larry spotted barely a handful of slightly tipsy drinkers, all of whom were being served by a just single barman, so with this being a usual quiet Sunday night, The White Horse would be an easy target. As his hand slid into his canvas army knapsack; pushing aside a well-thumbed poetry book, a battered notepad and a stubby pencil, he grasped at the little gift he’d brought home for his brother – a brown wooden handled, matt black, 38 calibre Enfield MK1 service revolver. He knew how to hold it, he knew how to shoot it, and although six bullets sat in the barrel, he knew he wouldn’t need any. With speed and surprise as his ally, he’d rush in, hop the bar, ping open the till, grab the cash, make a dash, hop on the next train to Glasgow, and with nobody hurt and the Police none-the-wiser, by dawn he’d be home. It was a simple plan, fuelled by hunger, thirst and tiredness. And as his fingertips tingled, his brain thumped and his vision grew hazy, Larry pushed open the black double doors of The White Horse to commit an ordinary robbery, of an ordinary pub, for the usual ordinary reason – money. But then again, Larry Winters wasn’t an ordinary boy. (We hear screams, “open the till”, gun goes off, more screams). And although this incident would change the life of Larry Winters forever, this is not the end of his story, and it’s certainly not the beginning. (INTERSTITIAL). Taken from his prison diaries, the earliest memories of Larry Winters are at best patchy and at worst vague, so whatever is a truth, a lie or an exaggeration, is up to you to decide. Born in Townhead, on the eastern end of the bustling Scottish city of Glasgow on 21st March 1943, Lawrence Costigan Winters was one of three siblings raised in a loving, loyal and devoutly Catholic working class family during the grip of World War Two, as the Nazi bombers obliterated its shipyards and factories, reducing great swathes of the city to rubble, as poverty and hunger became endemic. As a sickly child, Larry spent much of his formative year’s bedbound in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, staring at the bland hospital ceiling through choking tears, desperate for a reassuring kiss and a warm hug, as he pleaded for his mum to come and take him home, but every day, the doctors said “no”. Being imprisoned and trapped by the hospital ward’s cold stone walls with bars on the windows, locks on the doors and uniformed guards on patrol; as often as his mother Mary questioned these quacks as to why her little boy was ill, being too arrogant to simply say “we don’t know”, having doled out a pot of pills and prescribed some bed-rest, once again, the doctors would trot out that same old vague phrase of “he’ll probably grow out of it”, but sadly, Larry never did. Larry’s turbulent childhood started with a simple headache; a dull throbbing pain possibly caused (the doctors thought) by eye-strain, a thundering heart rate (so acute it caused his fingers to tingle) and as a dark red mist descended over his blurry eyes, being in the grip of a violent and uncontrollable rage, the terrified young boy would be struck down with anxiety, paranoia, black-outs and hallucinations. And yet, still, the doctors did nothing. As a highly-strung and easily aggravated boy, growing-up amidst Glasgow’s bombed-out tenement blocks; with no real sense of right or wrong, having been misdiagnosed and being un-medicated, Larry – led by his older brother (Don) – soon descended into loutish destruction, petty thuggery and minor misdemeanours, such as fighting, stealing and vandalism, all punishable by being roughly manhandled by a Policeman, and frog-marched home, to be shamed in front of his mother. On one undocumented night, in the early 1950’s, as Larry and Don (being two terrible tykes) restlessly strolled down Glasgow’s North Frederick Street; kicking cans, cars and cats, a gang of young bruisers corned the two boys and demanded money. Larry had nothing to give and nothing to lose, so with his fingers tingling, his head pounding and his heart racing, Larry smashed a glass milk bottle over the ringleader’s head, and grinned as the blood oozed down the crying boy’s face. Seeing them slowly slide into petty crime and wanting only the best for her two boys, with her husband having begun a new job as a groundskeeper, the Winters family left the squalor of the city behind and uprooted to the stunning Carbisdale Castle in the Scottish highlands. And with the air being clear, clean and crisp; the landscape an intoxicating array of colours, sights and smells; and being free to swim in the lakes, to run through the fields and to climb up the trees, here Mary’s boys began to flourish. In his diaries, Larry talked of his time at Carbisdale Castle as the most wonderful part of his childhood; peaceful, joyous and calm; and being closer to his beloved mother and further away from his fears, his temper quelled, his hallucinations halted and his panic attacks got less frequent. But nestling in the murky mess of his mixed-up head, the dark demon sat; goading him to stab at deer with his knife, to stomp rabbits to death with his boots, and never telling him why. And with the season over, and the greenkeeper’s job now ceased, the family reluctantly trudged back to Glasgow; to the grit, the grime, the crime and the gangs, and – soon afterwards - the old Larry Winters returned. Being ticked-off by uptight teachers, dictated to by dipshit doctors and picked-on by pushy Police, although Larry was a bright lad with a deep love of poetry, being easily bored and restless, he bunked out of school, regularly engaged in knife-fights, and having begun a career as a petty criminal, by 1957, aged just 14 years old, Larry was sentenced to two years at the notorious Larchgrove Remand Centre and later St John’s Borstal. And, once again, being trapped by four cold stone walls, with bars on the windows, locks on the doors and uniformed guards on patrol, borstal was the worst place for Larry to be, and being separated from his beloved mum who’d ask the staff what was wrong with her little boy, they’d simply trot out that same old vague phrase of “he’ll probably grow out of it”, but sadly, Larry never did. By the age of 20, unable to curb his aggression, he had notched-up five more convictions for theft and violent assault. In early 1964, a few months shy of his 21st birthday, being eager to instil some discipline into his own troubled life, having shamed his mum one too many times, Larry enlisted in the Parachute Regiment of the British Army and was posted to the Maida Barracks in Aldershot, 35 miles south-west of London. What he wanted was structure, what he needed was medication, what he got was more walls, more doors, more locks, more bars and more guards. And being barked at by bullies, day-in and day-out - as happy as Larry was that he was holding down an honest job and posting money home to his proud mum - inside his head, the dark demon sat; goading him to stab, to shoot, to kill, but with Britain’s war over and no enemies left to fight, all Larry had was routine, ridicule and a bubbling rage. On Friday 12th June 1964, in an unprovoked attack, Larry beat a fellow soldier into unconsciousness with his fists and feet. No-one knows why, not even Larry. On Saturday 13th June 1964, fearing arrest, having packed into his canvas army knapsack a well-thumbed poetry book, a battered notepad, a stubby pencil and a 38 calibre Enfield MK1 service revolver as a gift for his gun-loving brother, Larry snuck out of Maida Barracks and deserted from the British Army. Larry was heading home, to Glasgow and to his mum - that was his plan. But having blown almost a pound on a ticket to London Waterloo and a tube ride to Euston, having arrived at the train station, he realised he was £2 too short to afford the £5 fare to Scotland, and being hungry, tired and broke, Larry drifted towards the bright lights of Soho (INTERSTITIAL). Being stranded in a strange city with no friends, no family and no funds; as the sun set over Shaftesbury Avenue on the evening of Sunday 14th June 1964, with his shoes scuffed, his throat parched and his brown suit crumpled having fitfully slept the night in an abandoned Soho sex cinema, as homelessness and hunger loomed once again, Larry ambled into nearest side-street and entered into infamy. Illuminated by a Victorian gas-light, The White Horse on Rupert Street was just an ordinary pub, on an ordinary street, which he’d neither been to before, nor would ever return. And being full of ordinary people, who Larry had no hatred, malice or grievance with, with speed and surprise on his side, no-one would get hurt. And as his fingertips tingled, his brain thumped and his vision grew hazy, Larry pushed open the black double doors of The White Horse to commit a very ordinary robbery. But then again, Larry Winters wasn’t an ordinary boy… just as Paddy O’Keefe wasn’t an ordinary man. Patrick O’Keefe, known as Paddy, was a 37 year old Irishman who’d been raised in the roughest parts of Dublin, had served three tours of service in the formidable Irish Guards and as a bull-headed barman who’d turfed-out every type of tosser, loser and low-life out of some of South London’s dodgiest clubs, pubs and snooker halls, although not physically imposing, Paddy exuded authority. Smartly dressed in a dark brown suit, a crisp white shirt, a neat black tie and shiny black shoes; with short trimmed hair and a clean shaven face, Paddy was the epitome of a professional barman. And to any punter in (what he regarded as) his pub, you abided by his rules, or you were out. On any other day, Larry and Paddy might never have met, they should never have met, but – by chance - they did. Bursting open the black double doors, before the first scream had blurted passed a pint of luke warm ale, Larry had leaped over the bar-island’s sticky wooden surface and armed with the Enfield Mk1 revolver, he bruskly barked “this is a robbery, I want your money”. As his left hand swiftly reached for the cash-till, his right kept control of the terrified customers, their mouths agog. So far, so good. But having never worked in retail and with no knowledge of cash-registers, as Larry furiously pounded the till, thumped the buttons and hoped that his fists would (somehow) force great plumes of cash to fly out, Paddy sidled-up from the other side of the bar-island; his chest puffed out and his knuckles tight and white, as his cold glaring eyes fixed on this little shit who was robbing his bar. Feeling the dull ache in his brain as the pain burrowed deep and the rhythmic pulse of blood thumped like a mad man hammering on head, with the till remaining stubbornly shut, Larry barked “Open the till”, the gun’s barrel aimed squarely at the unflinching barman’s chest but calmly Paddy retorted “no”. And that was it, their whole interaction was just four words, but that is all it took. Never had two men hated each other so much and so fast, but having never met before, it wasn’t who they were that they despised but what they represented, as years of hate were condensed into less than seven seconds. To Paddy, Larry was just another little toe-rag; a tyke, a shite and a scrote; a wastrel with no brains and a loser with no rules, who every week, with a boot up his bum, Paddy would kick out into the street. To Larry, Paddy was just another authority figure – a doctor, a copper, a guard and a warder - who had stood in his way, had told him “no” and kept him from being with his beloved mum. And as both men stood eye-to-eye, inches apart and unwilling to back down, as the hot moist stench of Paddy’s breath scolded Larry’s face; with his head throbbing, his pulse racing and his finger tingling as it gripped the gun’s trigger, as a red mist descended, before he knew what he had done… (BANG)… clutching his chest, Paddy staggered back, his face flushed with shock as sharp arcs of blood spurted between his fingers and stained his crisp white shirt a dark shade of crimson. Being gripped with giddiness, and going ghostly white as pint after pint of thick sticky blood trickled down his panting chest, as Paddy’s unsteady feet stumbled on the rough wooden boards, he fell. It was said, he was dead before he even hit the floor. (FALSE ENDING) With the cash till unopened, Larry fled empty-handed, but as an easy-to-spot Army deserter, with a Glaswegian accent, a bulbous nose, sticky-out ears and eternally smirking lips, he was swiftly arrested at Euston Station trying to sneak onto a last train home. On the 16th June 1964, 21 year old Larry Winters was charged with murder whilst in the furtherance of a robbery, a crime punishable by death. But having been declared insane by a psychiatrist who’d stated that he was “an abnormal man with violent psychotic tendencies”, on the 31st July 1964, at The Old Bailey, a jury found him guilty of manslaughter owing to diminished responsibility, and with Justice Stephenson concluding that he should be put away “for the protection of himself, as well as the public”, Larry Winters was sentenced to life imprisonment. (Record scratch) Of course, as I said at the start, although this murder would change the life of Larry Winters forever; that was not the beginning of his story, and this was certainly not the end. What Larry wanted was help, what he needed was medication, but what he got was more walls, more doors, more locks, more bars and more guards. And for a clinically insane, mentally ill man with an uncontrollable rage and hatred of authority figures, prison was the worst place for him to be. And the more his mum queried these psychiatrists as to why her little boy was ill, being too arrogant to say “we don’t know”, having doled out a pot of pills and prescribed some bed-rest, once again, they’d trot out that same old vague phrase of “he’ll probably grow out of it”, but sadly, Larry never did. And being left to rot, alone in a cell, all Larry had was routine, ridicule and a bubbling rage. On 27th May 1968, in Aberdeen’s infamous Peterhead prison, as a protest against the brutality of the guards, Larry was one of four ringleaders who led a violent and bloody riot, during which he stabbed three prison officers and a civilian instructor with a set of tailor’s scissors. With the riot quelled, having cornered their culprits, as they waited for the police, the prison guards took their revenge, and using a flying fury of batons, fists and feet. Larry suffered two broken ribs and needed 14 stitches in his head. Found guilty of two charges of attempted murder and two of assault, Larry was sentenced to a further fifteen years in prison, in an already indeterminate life sentence, and being unable to curb his violent psychotic rages, finally he was prescribed medication… but not the kind he needed. And being eager to keep him doped-up and docile, they dosed him with an addictive daily cocktail of strong sedatives. On 29th December 1972, Larry attempted to escape from the Inverness prison, and in what should have been a simple plan; when confronted, he stabbed four prison officers in the back, chest, neck, face and eyes using a makeshift dagger fashioned from a sharpened table fork. He was found guilty of four counts of attempted murder which increased his sentence by a further 26 years in prison. And with his head throbbing, his pulse racing and his fingers tingling, the more he got hopelessly addicted to prescription drugs (which failed to quell his anxiety, paranoia and hallucinations), the more he became dependant on harder drugs such as opium and heroin, to make the voices go away. On the 16th March 1973, nine years into his incarceration and almost a decade after the murder of Paddy O’Keefe, Larry Winters was transferred to the notorious HMP Barlinnie Prison; a cramped, squalid, overpopulated, rat-infested, powder-keg of drug-addicts, rapists and murderers, so infamous, feared and hated, Barlinnie has earned a place high up on the list of the world's most infamous prisons alongside Alcatraz, the Bangkok Hilton and Wormwood Scrubs. But seeing his mental health rapidly decline, Larry was moved to Barlinnie’s Special Unit; a pioneering facility dedicated to the treatment of ultra-violent prisoners, which used medication and therapy, in a calm and friendly environment, where the guards were tolerant and respectful; where the days were full of open doors and fresh air; and Larry’s recovery was supported by education, enpowered by recreation and was rewarded by supervised visits to his home, his friends and – more importantly – his mum. And it was here that - reading poetry and writing his diaries - Larry began to flourish. …but by then, it was too late and the damage had been done. (Outro music fade back in). On Sunday 11th September 1977, 34 year old Larry Winters was found in his cell, slumped naked on the toilet, having overdosed on sedatives and choked on his own vomit. Of the few papers who carried the story, most described him as a thief, a murderer and (most notoriously) as “one of Scotland’s most violent prisoners”, almost as if it was badge of honour… but what they had forgotten was the truth. The mental illness of Larry Winters had been misdiagnosed and had gone unmedicated for almost three decades; and no matter where he went, what he did, or who he hurt, Larry Winter was simply just a frightened young boy, desperate to go home, to be with his mum. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Don’t forget to stay tuned to Extra Mile after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcast of the week, which is Yours in Murder (PLAY PROMO) A big thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, who get murder location videos, crime scene photos and little extra pieces from myself, days before anyone else, as well as a personal thank you from me; this week’s star of Patreon is Kim Nixon. I bless you, the world blesses you, and Murder Mile blesses you, may you stay safe and happy forever. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** 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 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. Archives
February 2025
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Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
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