Five time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
The Heath, Tattingstone @Googlemaps2025 Aug 2023
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN: This is Part One of Two of The un-Holy Trinity.
On Friday 6th of January 1967, 17-year-old Bernard Oliver vanished from Muswell Hill. 10 days later, his body was found 85 miles away in Suffolk. He had been strangled and assaulted, with his body cut into eight pieces. But who had abducted him, and why?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a YELLOW P near the words 'EAST FINCHLEY' - top middle.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Why was a boy’s dismembered body split between two suitcases? Find out on Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Steeds Road in Muswell Hill, N10; six roads east of where Alexander Litvinenko first felt the effects of Polonium 210, four roads north of the happier times of the Mercy Murderess, a short walk from another psych’ ward that the Camden Ripper conned his way out of, and three roads west of the dead pig, the tatty suit and the very romantic couple - coming soon to Murder Mile. Steeds Road is a sweet little residential street made of mostly two-storey late-Victorian to post-World War One featureless council houses with three windows, a thin door, picket fences and small gardens. 10 Steeds Road is no different. It’s the kind of house an old dear whose butt-cheeks could swallow a stool whole may have once lived, as she gossiped over the wall dispensing all her family’s secrets; like her husband’s bum grapes, her daughter’s manky ovaries, or her son-in-law’s persistently limp todger. People spoke so openly, as in their houses, they felt safe. And yet, one topic is still only whispered on this street, and that’s the disappearance of 17-year-old Bernard Oliver back in January 1967. It’s a case so horrific, it shocked a nation, it baffled a police force and it broke a fragmented family forever. Even to this day, 58 years on, his brutal killing remains riddled with more questions than answers. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 317: The (Un)Holy Trinity – Part One. Monday 6th of February 1967, exactly one month after he went missing, a cold wind blew over Islington and St Pancras Cemetery in East Finchley, two streets from his home and the places he used to play. It was silent and still except for a mumbled prayer for his soul, as with heads bowed and all dressed in black, his family surrounded his small grave; his father George, his mother Sheelah and his five siblings; Maureen, Andrew, Philip, Chris and Tony. Marked by a simple wooden cross, it was later replaced by a black marble gravestone chiselled with the words ‘Bernard Michael Oliver, born 1950, died 1967, so sad was the day you were taken from us. You will always be in our hearts forever dearest brother. Always loved. Never Forgotten. R.I.P’, but it wasn’t only this family who were mourning this lost boy. Staring, as his small coffin was lowered into the frosty ground, wasn’t just local mothers who hugged their children tight for fear of what could happen to them, but also more friends than this lonely lad ever had, as everyone came to say heartfelt goodbye to this boy who was kind, innocent and loved. Tony, Bernard’s youngest brother later recalled "there are times, even now, when I can't believe what happened. I think we could have accepted it, if Bernard had been shot or killed in a fight… It's hard to come to terms with. I can't bury it. I don't think I ever go a week without thinking about Bernard", as although no-one said it, they all thought it, as although his body was buried complete, it wasn’t whole. Every death is hard, a child’s death is harder, but never knowing how their child or sibling died or why was harder still, as this indescribable pain broke his family’s hearts forever and plagued their minds. So, who murdered him, and why? Bernard was raised in a solid working-class family as the fourth of six children to George (who worked at a printers) and Sheila (a housewife). His childhood was happy and simple, as living in a small council house at 10 Steeds Road, unlike the inner-city kids, Muswell Hill was a safe place to play where Bernard and his brothers would go scrumping for apples, making dens in the woods, or riding their bicycles. Being barely 17 years old, he was the spit of his father; handsome and striking, with thick lashes over grey-blue eyes, curly brown hair in a wavey crest, and a mottling of distinctive moles on his face and neck, yet being slim and just a dot at 5 feet and 3 inches tall, he was often mistaken for a 12-year-old. Bernard wasn’t the youngest, but all his siblings looked out for him, as being educated at Oak Lodge Special Needs School in East Finchley, Bernard had learning disabilities and he needed more protecting than most. Described as a shy boy who was quiet and gentle, it was also said that he was ‘easily led’. Tony, his brother (4 years his junior) who he shared a bedroom with, later said “he had a great sense of humour. I idolised him in many ways. He could be humorous, but normally kept himself to himself". Defined by his era as ‘slow’ or ‘backwards’, local kids knew him and liked him, but with no best friends or close friends except his brothers and his sister, Bernard was always a bit of a loner. Often seen taking long walks in the woods with his beloved white Poodle called Pepe, Terry his neighbour said “he said he’d like to work on a farm with animals one day”, but as a late bloomer, he also wanted to find romance. And although he claimed Margaret Prescott was his girlfriend, she rarely spoke to him. Aged 15, Bernard left school, and although he still struggled with reading and writing, he got a job as a washer boy at a Wimpy bar fast-food restaurant in Muswell Hill, and in November 1966, 11 weeks before he vanished, he worked as a warehouseman at the plastic bag factory Clear View Transparent Paper Works in Crouch End. Colleagues said “he was happy, friendly, would do anything for anyone”, and although he was said to be friends with several lorry drivers, at lunchtime he always ate by himself. The Christmas of 1966, he spent at home with his family, and it was said to be good but unremarkable. He had no known reason to go missing, but on Friday 6th of January 1967, he vanished without a trace. He wasn’t a drinker, he didn’t do drugs and he wasn’t involved in anything criminal. He wasn’t bullied at work or abused at home, as everybody loved him. He was lonely, often hanging seen around coffee bars and parks in the hope that girls would speak to him, but he was too shy to be a bother to anyone. There was joy in the house as his sister Maureen had a baby, making Bernard a first-time uncle, and although the family was fragmented as his parents had separated one year before after 18 years, neighbours said “he seemed depressed since last summer”, but George & Sheila did their best to keep the family running as smoothly as possible, so all the kids stayed with their father in the family home. He quit his job at the factory just before Christmas, so he had no money. He had no secrets, as his life was simple. He wasn’t gay, as he was interested in girls. He was clearly searching for something, as he had recently visited a spiritualist. And although he’d never gone missing before, just shy of Christmas 1966, Bernard’s father recalled “I had talked him out of leaving home… I said he wasn’t old enough to leave home. He accepted it without argument. No more was said”, but what was his motive to leave? His brother Tony later recalled “It had a massive impact on us. You can’t describe it. Even today it still upsets me. To be honest I don’t think any one of us have properly sat down and spoken and grieved. It split my family apart. It is still really raw after all this time. I just feel like I want to burst out crying”. Bernard vanished, and to this day, no-one knows why. The last day that Bernard was seen alive was Friday 6th of January 1967. It was an ordinary day, there were no issues, dramas or arguments as he left the family home at 10 Steeds Road, kissing goodbye to his dog. He wore a light sports jacket but no hat, gloves or scarf, and with it cold, this suggests he planned to stay inside, and with no bag or suitcase, he hadn’t intended to travel far or stay over night. Leaving, he told one of his brothers, he was going out with some friends to the cinema (either the ABC on Muswell Hill Broadway) or The Odeon (on Fortis Green Road) to watch ‘The Ten Commandments’, the 3 hour 40 minute religious epic starring Charlton Heston, although whether he did is unreported. His last confirmed sighting was in a café on Muswell Hill with his friend, 16-year-old Christine Willars; she recalled “Bernard was quiet all night, but at about 8:30pm, he suddenly said ‘well, I’m going off to see a friend’, he said ‘goodbye’, walked out, I haven’t seen him since’”. She last saw him on Muswell Hill Broadway walking in the bitterly cold drizzle, and thought that he was heading home, but he didn’t. There are no confirmed sightings of Bernard after that, no reports of an abduction, and with only a few small abrasions to his body, it’s unlikely that he was kidnapped, but – being ‘easily led’ – did he believe his dreams had been answered by a kindly stranger, when all he would find was a nightmare? By midnight, “we were worried”, so his father and his older brother Andrew checked the cinema (this was shut), the Wimpy bar (but they hadn’t seen him) and stayed up all night searching the streets as this was unusual for him. Andrew said “we didn’t think he’d run away from home, because he was so possessive”, but still missing by morning, they had Police place him on the Missing Person’s Register. He left behind everything he owned, loved or trusted… …and had little knowledge of the wider world beyond. From his last sighting at 8:30pm on Saturday the 7th to when his body was found at 9:20am on Monday the 16th January, there were many so-called sightings of Bernard in Muswell Hill and Soho, but as no-one really knew this quiet lonely boy who looked younger than 17, it’s hard to say if they’re even true. Detectives know that he travelled 80+ miles east to Ipswich in East Anglia, “possibly in search of farm work as he loved animals, but a check with the Farmer’s Union, who often found jobs for boys drew a blank”, as did the manifests for every coach service out of London, every truck driver who regularly drove that route along the A12, and every transport café he may have stopped at to hitch a lift. Given what had happened to him, Police searched every beach hut in the eastern seaside resorts of Felixstowe, Clacton, and Walton-on-the-Naze for signs of assault or indecency, but nothing was found. In fact, an abduction seemed unlikely, as when Bernard’s body was found, although his sports jacket was bloodstained, it wasn’t dirty like he’d been living rough. The nights were bitterly cold and wet, yet his skin was barely blemished. In his stomach, a partially digested meal was found, even though he’d left 8 days prior with enough money for coffee and a cinema ticket. And yet, most bafflingly, whoever looked after him, hadn’t notified the police, but they had given him a wash, a haircut and a manicure. But why? Why treat Bernard so well, only to then strangle him? Pathologist Dr Alfred Lintott confirmed that Bernard was murdered about 48 hours before his body was found, sometime on Saturday 14th of January, a week after he’d gone missing from Muswell Hill. As for where he died, detectives were hindered by the fact no murder site was found, but it’s likely he was alive when he left London, as no-one would risk transporting a dead body too far and risking their apprehension. Tony said “I’m sure that somebody knows. But it won’t make a difference. It won’t bring him back, nothing can. That is just the way I feel”, as 58-years-on, that vital clue has been lost forever. Likely to be on Saturday 14th of January 1967 in an undisclosed building somewhere in Ipswich, 17-year-old Bernard Oliver was murdered, having been fed, and given a recent haircut and manicure, and yet, it was clear that before his killing, Bernard had bitten his nails. But was he excited, upset or afraid? At some point, we know this young boy either undressed or was made to strip naked, as although only his sports jacket was found, it wasn’t torn or ripped. And with no marks on his wrists or ankles, we know he wasn’t restrained, but was he paid to strip, duped by an adult, or was he too terrified to flee? Why he was killed is uncertain, but in his last hour alive, he received two small lacerations to the back of his head and a few bruises to his body, as Police believe – that naked, cold and afraid – “he put up a vain fight for his life”, but before he was strangled to death, that same man or men had raped him. Tony recalled "I can't believe what happened. I think we could have accepted it if Bernard had been shot or killed in a fight. But the way his body was dissected, in such a clinical way, was spine chilling". Likely, Bernard was raped, murdered and his body dismembered in the same building, maybe a farm, a warehouse, a basement or a crypt, somewhere isolated, where his screams would never be heard. A clinical forensic psychologist (unconnected to the case) later stated that the killer was likely a mature person, possibly 30s or 40s, as their method of disposal suggested "criminal sophistication", and a consultant surgeon at Ipswich and East Suffolk Hospital said at the time “it was most likely committed by someone with a knowledge of anatomy, with previous experience of dismemberment”, maybe a doctor, surgeon or butcher, “as (it had been) expertly accomplished with the exception of one joint”. The body had been dissected with precision into eight pieces – a head, a torso, two arms, two thighs and two lower legs – and neatly packed in two suitcases, but “one would expect the person dissecting, irrespective of how calm he may be, to show some sign of nerves, anxiety or excitement towards the end. This could well be the reason for the bad workmanship on the left knee joint”. And we know his body hadn’t been stolen from a hospital or a mortuary, as none of the limbs had any surgical flaps. Detectives and psychologists agreed it was likely that Bernard was murdered and dissected within a short radius of just 4 or 5 miles of where his body was found, so Ipswich seemed possible, but where? In 2011, when this cold case was re-opened for the fifth time, a new witness came forward. Back in January 1967, on an undetermined week-night just before Bernard’s body was found, teenager Robert Thurston was pushing a scooter up Key Street by Ipswich docks, it was between 1am and 2am. As he and his friend approached ‘R & W Paul’, a large historic dockside warehouse on Salthouse Street, “as we came around the corner we heard a bang… there were a pair of main gates and a courtyard. We were right outside the gate and looked through the iron railings” past this unlit warehouse, which wasn’t open at this time of night, and shouldn’t have been occupied, except by a lone nightwatchman. “We stopped and looked around to see who was there. There were two suitcases which sat to the left-hand side of the archway and we thought ‘why would there be two suitcases standing there?’”. Robert couldn’t describe them owing to the distance and because it was dark, but they were medium sized. “A guy walked from the right, his forearms to his chest with his hands in the air. He had pink gloves on. I recognised them…”, they were surgical gloves, “as it wasn’t long after my appendix operation. (He) was frightening. He had a really long drawn face, he was well-dressed with a long black mac, dark trousers and polished shoes. We ran, bump-started the bike and fled. I can still see that drawn face”. Robert said he approached the Police ten years after Bernard’s murder, but didn’t make a statement, as he “wasn’t taken seriously”. But was this Bernard’s killer or an innocent man? Did Robert fabricate an unprovable story for attention? Or being 45 years after the killing and with memory only being 30% accurate immediately after an event, was it the truth, a lie, or a reality peppered with false memories? It seems plausible, but did those suitcases contain Bernard’s body? Monday 16th of January 1967 was a bitter winter’s day, the ground was hard and frosty, which may be why his body wasn’t buried. Dawn had broken at 7:17am, and at the north-easterly edge of Folly Farm in the remote village of Tattingstone in Suffolk, 43-year-old farmer Fred Burggy was ploughing a field when he spotted two suitcases hidden in a hedge of bracken. Feet from the crossroads of Station Road, Church Road and the A137 to Ipswich, Fred said “we get a lot of rubbish dumped here, so I didn’t take interest at first. Then I got off my tractor… opened one of the cases and that was enough for me”. He called the Police at 9:20am and spoke to Detective Chief Superintendent Tarling of East Suffolk CID. The investigation was led by DCS Tom Tarling, but given the seriousness of the case, it was escalated to the Metropolitan Police’s Murder Squad and taken over by Detective Superintendent Harry Tappin. 27 officers sealed off the area, sniffer dogs searched the bushes, lines of constables scoured the fields, on the crossroads a road-block had every motorist questioned, and working day and night, they rigged up generators to power floodlights to illuminate the scene, as there were no streetlights for miles. Fred Burggy hadn’t seen the suitcases when he ploughed that field two days before, and being close to the road but far from a bus or train, the Police had a likely window of when it was dumped by car. Across those two key nights, witnesses spotted two vehicles parked near the hedge, a blue Commer campervan on Saturday the 14th, and a light-coloured Ford Anglia on Sunday the 15th, and although 390 possible matches were found, every car was checked, but every statement proved to be fruitless. Psychologists believed the killer was local “as people are rarely random often guided by a mental map” of places they know and trust. They believed the plan was to dissect the body and bury the suitcases in separate sites to make Bernard harder to identify – hence his wallet, clothes and any ID was missing – but that the cases had been carelessly dumped together, as maybe he’d been spotted or got scared? As it was, it was impossible to identify Bernard, as he had no dental records, no fingerprints on file, and the Missing Person’s Register wasn’t held nationally. They thought he was possibly local, but with dark hair and olive-skin colouring, stated “he may be foreign, possibly Latin American or Continental”, and being slim, a late bloomer and just 5 foot 3, as many people did, they thought he was 12, not 17. Protected from frost, the sub-zero temperatures and the suitcases had preserved his body remarkably well, but although his description was issued, including those of his moles, no-one recognised him. As for the suitcases, neither belonged to Bernard, but they did contain several possible leads to his killer. Suitcase 1 containing the torso and head was 24 inches by 14 by 7 ½ inches, made of cardboard and covered in a dark green canvas with reinforced steel corners and a brown metal handle. On the front was a golden lion above the word Monarch, and to the left in black ink was scrawled the initials - P.V.A. 840 people in the UK were found to have those initials, everyone of them was checked and cleared. Attached was also an old war-time label for the Union Castle steamship called ‘Clan’, and with a letter ‘R’ written on it, likely the first initial of a passenger’s surname, Police checked the war-time manifests to uncover who this case may have belonged to, they found 190 names, and again, all were cleared. Suitcase 2 containing the limbs was 26 inches by 16 by 8, made of light cream cardboard. In 1977, 10 years later, a private investigator claimed she recognised the suitcase as belonging to three men who used a laundrette in Muswell Hill. Police investigated, she provided an artist’s impression of the man, but was this his killer, was this the Ipswich ‘suitcase man’, or had her memory been clouded by time? Police were dubious, as with a level of “criminal sophistication” had the killer made mistakes, or were these ‘red herrings’, as why would they remove the victim’s ID, yet leave a clue so glaring as initials? The only clothing, Bernard’s sports jacket was found neatly folded or rolled in the case. It was heavily-stained with his blood, in a pocket was a tatty receipt for a cheap necklace bought in Muswell Hill (which hadn’t been bought by him), as well as a matchbox of a brand marketed in Israel, even though Bernard had never been abroad, and as far as we know, he did not smoke. In the other suitcase was a striped hand-towel with the laundry mark ‘QL 42’, and although every laundrette, hotel or hospital who used a Mark IIB Polymark machine to make this unique code was checked, again, it drew a blank. The evidence was slim, and although it was circulated in the press, again drawing a blank… …the Detectives had to take an unusual step to identify the boy, and hopefully his killer Artist’s impressions are rarely accurate, so with him in immaculate condition five days after his death, a Co-op funeral director was asked to ‘dress’, prop-up and photograph Bernard’s decapitated head, and it was circulated in the press. On Thursday 19th of January at 7:10pm, while waiting for a bus to Muswell Hill, Chris, Bernard’s 15-year-old brother saw it in the London Evening Standard. "My mate said 'Chrissy, that's your brother, isn't it?'. I looked and I knew straight away. I hadn't read the story, just the picture, it read 'SUITCASE MURDER', and that's all I could see because nothing else registered". Bernard’s dad had to formerly identify the dismembered parts of his son’s body at Ipswich mortuary. Chris recalled "it was devastating to my whole family". Tony said “when his body was found I was just hollow, I just kept asking myself: 'why?’”. Still being so young when Bernard was found, “my parents didn't go into graphic detail, we never spoke about it… I think it changed all of us in different ways". Tony, the youngest took it worst, Chris said, but really “none of us spoke to each other about it because we were so hurt”, and as for his parents, “it devastated my mother and father. She felt guilty because she left the matrimonial home. All through my life, she cried, and felt really guilty even up until the day she died”. They had to deal with the loss, the pain, the never-knowing, and – as potential suspects – they had to cope with this, all while being questioned and having their home and car searched. Monday 6th of February 1967, exactly one month after he went missing, a cold wind blew over Islington and St Pancras Cemetery in East Finchley, two streets from Bernard’s home, the places that he played, and the street where he was last seen alive. Unlike so many grief-stricken parents whose son had gone missing that year, his body had been found and buried, but it didn’t take away the pain. It couldn’t. George died in February 1987 aged 73, and Sheelah in February 1996 aged 74, but neither found the piece and conclusion they deserved, as their son’s killer or killers were never brought to justice. And as Chris said, "it was terrible for my parents to go to their graves without knowing what happened to Bernard, I still believe somebody who knows what happened is still alive. I've never given up hope". But as we’ve seen, as time passes, witnesses die, evidence corrodes, places are demolished, and even when new sightings are reported, it’s hard to know if they’re the truth, a lie, an alibi, or peppered with news fragments which coincidentally fit the narrative or false memories fuelled by good intentions? 58 years after the murder of Bernard Oliver, this cold case grows increasingly harder to resolve, and although some say that time heals, for his family, the hurt only gets duller, and can never be erased. But then, maybe every speck of evidence isn’t irrelevant but is a step closer to the identity of his killer or killers, and maybe every red herring is actually a hint, as when each detail – no matter how small or spurious - is pieced together, they do link to very credible sighting of a suspect known only as ‘The Trilby Man’, and to a much darker, more sinister and truly sordid scandal, that of The Holy Trinity. The Part Two of ‘The un-Holy Trinity’ concludes next week. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Five time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
Swan Road Estate in Rothehithe @WikiCommons
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN: On Thursday 18th of September 1985, 23-year-old Mirella Beechook, a separated mother of two girls made an emotional appeal before the cameras and those words that no mother should ever utter - “bring her home, dead or alive, please just bring her home”. Her 7-year-old daughter Tina was missing, and Tina’s friend, 4-year-old Stacey Kavanagh had been found strangled. But who was the maniac in their tightknit community who had murdered them?
THE LOCATION:
I've stopped adding the pin to the map, as MapHub are now demanding £8 a month, and I'll be damned if I'm forking out hard earned cash for something probably one person looks at a month.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Were two children brutally murdered out of malice or madness? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing in the Swan Road Estate in Rotherhithe, London, SE16; four miles further east than we’d usually walk, but as a case too fascinating to pass, it’s not coming soon, but now to Murder Mile. Mere yards from the bank of the River Thames sits the Swan Road Estate, five five-storey red-bricked tenement buildings built by London County Council from 1902 to 1908 to house the families displaced when the Rotherhithe tunnel was built. Like a ring of solid brick, on the outside sits Winchelsea House, Seaford House, Rye House, Hythe House and in the middle is Sandwich House overlooking a courtyard. As a tight community, this courtyard used to be a safe space where kids played footie squealing at a pitch which deafens all dogs, dads ‘fixed’ Ford Escorts with a hammer and a spanner, mums hung out skiddy y-fronts, and babies lay cooing in baskets thanks to its milk and a shot of rum. Ah the 1980s. Yet, that courtyard has been little more than a parking lot for transits and hot-hatches ever since the abduction and murders of two of its children in 1985, which rocked this estate, the whole nation, and left every parent asking why this killer in their midst had taken the lives of two innocents so cruelly? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 316: Malice or Madness? That morning, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake had rocked Mexico City leaving 1000s dead, and with the Birmingham race riots still fresh and Live Aid still echoing, it was the worst day to make an appeal on ITN News, but the clock was ticking. As a small, elfin-like woman whose West Indian skin was pale with worry, tears rolled down the face of 23-year-old Mirella Beechook as she stated to the cameras those words that no mother should ever utter - “bring her home, dead or alive, please just bring her home”. Two girls had gone missing, her daughter still was, but hours before, the other was found dead. Wednesday the 18th of September 1985 had begun like any other. It was warm and sunny, as at 3pm, nattering with a gossip of other mothers, Mirella stood outside the gates of Albion Primary School, awaiting her 7-year-old daughter Tina to run into her arms. Tina was timid, quiet, but always neat, always smiling and as her father Ravi said “she was a real mummy’s girl”. As a trusted family friend and neighbour, she also picked up Tina’s pal, 4-year-old Stacey Kavanagh, as although the Swan Road Estate was barely a minute’s walk away, the Brunel Road was too dangerous to cross for any child, being thick with trucks and sexual predators. Although 20 years on, the Moors Murderers were fresh in everyone’s mind, child-killer Robert Black was prowling, ‘stranger danger’ adverts were played in every school, and barely three days before, 6-year-old Barry Lewis from nearby Walworth had been snatched by paedophile Sydney Cooke and his gang of murderous child rapists. Back at the Swan Road Estate, safely within sight, Stacey ran to her parent’s council flat at Winchelsea House, and on the opposite side of the courtyard, Mirella & Tina entered their flat at Sandwich House. With three hours of sunlight left, grabbing her red canvas shopping trolley, Mirella & Tina headed out to get something for tea. Before Stacey went out to play, seeing the story of 3-year-old Leoni Keating whose raped and drowned body was found in Suffolk, her heavily pregnant mother Lynn warned her “See that little girl? She won’t see her mum again. Don’t talk to strangers and don’t leave the square”, as the courtyard was a place she could always see her, and was surrounded by the people she trusted. That would be the last time she would see her daughter alive, and it happened in the blink of an eye. Mirella & Tina walked one block south to The Corner Shop at 39 Brunel Road, a grocers which was once a sitting room, and being the 1980s, it sold such delights as Vienetta, Arctic Roll, Opal Fruits, Space Raiders, Skol lager, Angel Delight, Hobnobs had just been launched, Marathons weren’t Snickers, and Wagon Wheel’s were still big-ish not bite-sized, but it was only then realising that they realised that Stacey had followed them. As one of the few grocers on this street, Mirella only went in to get ‘the basics’, and sometime between 5:15 and 5:30pm, she said she left the girls outside the shop, and was only gone a minute, maybe two. 23-year-old shopkeeper, Enver Chakarto served her, but when Mirella came out, the girls had gone. She said, “I wasn’t immediately alarmed, I assumed they had gone home”, that maybe Tina had taken Stacey back to her mother. Being a short walk, it only took Mirella two minutes to get back to her flat on the first floor of Sandwich House, but when she got there, the red front-door was locked and it was in darkness as she had left it. “When I didn’t find them, I went to Stacey’s flat to see if the girls were there”, and at 6:20pm exactly, the world of Lynn, Mick & Danny Kavenagh came crashing down. On her doorstep stood Mirella, her face a mix of panic and hysteria, rocking back and forth, and with her lips twisted, she spoke the words no mother should hear “the girls are missing”. And as she held Lynn’s hand, in her other, she held something she had found in the street - one of Tina’s red shoes. As fear set in, Lynn told Mick, “I thought she was floating in the river”, as The Ropes was a place the girls often played and was last seen by the neighbours. As word spread, every resident fanned out to find what should have been two easy-to-spot girls – 7-year-old Tina, West Indian and Asian in a yellow blouse and pink trousers, and 4-year-old Stacey, white, pale, Irish, dark haired and a foot shorter. But with Tina’s other shoe found nearby, and nothing else, at 7:35pm, as dusk fell, they called the Police. Their daughters had been missing for two hours, so as Mirella & Lynn kept their doors open in case the girls came home, Mick & Ravi joined the Police as neighbours swarmed the streets, search-dogs scoured the parks, and divers plumbed the depths of the murky river, only no-one could find them… …until 11pm, when all that changed. Barely three-quarters of a mile south, near the Globe Pond in Southwark Park, covered in early autumn leaves behind a little iron railing, a tiny pale body was found by a Police dog. Strangled with a severed electric flex but no sign of sexual assault, Stacey lay dead, her body hurriedly hidden by a killer in panic. Both girls were warned about the dangers of strangers, but having vanished from a safe space in a few minutes, two levels of grief now hung over the Swan Road Estate; anger at the maniac who murdered 4-year-old Stacey Kavanagh, and dread that 7-year-old Tina Beechook was missing, and possibly dead. Interviewed by the Daily Mirror beside her red front-door, Mirella said “the longer it goes on, the more I have to get ready for bad news. I can’t pretend she is still alive. That’s too much to hope”. Because, as every parent knows, the longer a child is missing, the less chance they would ever see her again. Up until that point, Mirella’s life had been one of hardship… …and this would be the culmination of her struggle. Mirella Beechook was born Marie Jacklin Mirella Ramdin on the West Indian island of Mauritius in 1962. With her mother dying when he was only 9 months old, she was raised to be a happy, contented and outgoing girl, but was later left devastated by the lie that her grandmother was not her mother. In 1974, aged 12, she left the sun-kissed tropics of Mauritius to live in the impoverished concrete slums of Peckham in South London, with her wayward father who resented supporting her and her sister. Owing to frequent fights culminating in an argument where she was beaten with a belt, in 1977, aged 15, Mirella left home, she slept rough, she ended up at the St Giles Centre for Homeless Woman, and diagnosed with “a depressive disorder of a neurotic type”, she became withdrawn and was often ill. She said “my life fell apart”, being separated from her grandmother and isolated in Britain, she became reliant on Mogadon to pacify her anxiety and insomnia, as well as the strong sleep syrup, Night Nurse. Being barely educated, her mood wasn’t helped by her belief in what we would term as ‘black magic’, as unlike the ‘voodoo’ in the Haitian culture, Mauritius is an island riddled with superstition, where a person’s fate is fed by sorcerers and witch doctors, as well as curses, voodoo dolls, and ‘the evil eye’. Aged 16, she met 23-year-old Poorun Beechook, a self-proclaimed financial consultant known as Ravi, and that year on the 6th of December 1977, they married, and days later, Mirella was pregnant. It was a real turning point in her life, as on the 22nd of July 1978, she gave birth to the first of two daughters. Tina Chandranee Beechook was happy, loved, and always smiling as if life was good, but it was a hard time for the Beechooks, as with Tina’s younger sister Sabrina born a year later, being homeless, they were rehoused into a small flat onto the Swan Road Estate – and although safe - five times they were threatened with eviction for non-payment of rent, and their gas and electricity was frequently cut off. Ravi was often said to be working late, but in truth, he was living with his girlfriend, Gita in Stratford. Trying to keep the family together in the only way she knew how, Mirella put voodoo effigies of him under his bed, with Ravi later stating ”I felt dizzy and had a blinding headache… I don’t believe in this nonsense, but I pulled the pin out, I suddenly felt better”. And yet Mirella’s ploy to keep him had failed. Having abandoned them in July 1983, living on just £23 40p a week in social security, Mirella started shoplifting, taking Tina with her, and getting her daughter to beg for money on the streets. By July 1984, as a first offence, Mirella was fined and bound over for the theft of some household basics; five flannels, a bath towel, a plug, a tablecloth, two pillow cases and two quilts from a store on Lewisham High Street, but being sent to prison for a later incidence of theft, between November 1984 and March 1985, the same year that she would go missing, 7-year old Tina lived with her aunt in East London. By late summer; with her psychiatrist unsure what to believe as Mirella blamed everything on voodoo, social services having effectively abandoned her, and her mental health in a spiralling decline having become hooked on Night Nurse (drinking as much as a bottle a day), she was obsessed with the idea that Ravi’s girlfriend had put a spell on her, and caught shoplifting again, she was recalled to prison. In June 1985, Tina was again sent to live with cousins in Upton Park while Mirella served a three month sentence. Released on Saturday the 13th of September 1985, she had only been back in her flat on the Swan Road Estate for five days, when Tina & Stacey were abducted, and both possibly murdered. It was a tragedy upon a tragedy upon a tragedy… …yet this child killer was someone known to every resident. With neighbours and officers searching every street for the girls, constables were placed on the estate 24 hours a day to reassure the residents, especially their grieving mothers, Lynn and Mirella. Raised with street smarts, it had been drummed into both girls to “stay away from strangers”, and they were told that if anyone tried to get them into a car, to kick, scream, shout, and do anything to get attention. Last seen at roughly 5:30pm, around rush hour, outside of The Corner Shop on the busy Brunel Road, Ravi stated “whoever did this must be sick… (Tina) wouldn’t even go to the shop with me, only her mother, she would never go off because someone offered her sweets… she must have been forced”. Yet, Detective Chief Superintendent Roy Gregg who headed up the investigation said “it could be someone who knows the children well”, as no one had seen them abducted or lured away in a car. As a veteran across many of South-East London’s most infamous murders and kidnapping, DCS Gregg was a man trained to read body language, he could smell out the truth as well as a lie, and seeking any information on who abducted Tina and murdered Stacey, it was he who set up the press conference. It was a bad morning to make an impassioned appeal for a missing child on ITN, as with an earthquake in Mexico, 4-year-old Barry Lewis missing and 3-year-old Leoni Keating found dead, even as Mirella pleaded “bring her home, dead or alive, please just bring her home”, this could easily fall on deaf ears. The search was thorough. It had to be as the detectives were certain that wasn’t a random snatching by a paedophile in a passing car who spotted two young girls outside a sweet shop, this was likely to be a man – maybe a friend, a neighbour, a cousin, or a parent - who lived nearby and was still lurking. Everyone was a suspect until proven otherwise, and as they dug deeper, they observed every detail. Making door-to-door enquiries, they cross-referenced every witness statement to seek out any lies. As the divers searched the river, a photographer captured the faces of everyone who was watching. Although both Mick and Ravi diligently aided the search, they too were questioned about their timings for the girl’s disappearance, as were their mothers, even Mirella, who was the last to see them alive. Across the estate a genuine outpouring of emotion wept. In the park where Stacey’s body was found, mothers and daughters laid posies and teddies. And at the girls’ school, the headteacher said “there has been no fights, no noise, no nothing. All through assembly, we cried. At playtime, nobody played”. As is standard, any known sex-pests, abusers, addicts or anyone with an unhealthy interest in children was questioned, and with every skip, drain and derelict warehouse searched, even though a child’s coffin spattered with pig’s blood was found in a squat, it turned out to be an old prank, left to rot. The TV appeal brought a few fresh sightings, many of them false, but it also drew the Police’s attention to someone whose lies had hampered the investigation from the start, along with their crocodile tears. When officers interviewed Enver Chakarto, shopkeeper at The Corner Shop, he gave a very different account of Tina & Stacey’s last sighting, as given by Mirella. Mirella had claimed, she arrived between 5:15pm and 5:30pm, she entered the shop alone leaving both girls outside. But Enver said, “it was 4:30pm, only Tina and her mother came in, they were only here for a minute” and he didn’t see Stacey. “Half an hour later”, so 5pm, 15 to 30 minutes before Mirella said they’d arrived, “Tina was back here with her mother, (Mirella) asked if I’d seen Stacey as she had followed them down to the shop”, and then both Mirella & Tina left. Later stating “I was surprised to find out Tina had gone missing too”. By his account, Tina & Stacey disappeared separately and roughly half-an-hour apart, where-as Mirella said that she went in alone for just a few minutes, and when she came out, both girls had vanished. It was a crucial discrepancy, which led the Police to suspect Mirella as the girls’ killer… …but why did she do it? Was it malice or madness? Was it revenge or voodoo? Mirella would state “it just happened. It was the shoplifting. I thought they would put me in jail”, as with another court date pending, “I was fond of Tina. I didn’t meant to do it to her. Nor to Stacey”. Dr John Hamilton, medical director at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital stated “she desperately wanted to hit back at her husband, Ravi, who had abandoned her. She wanted to hurt him by taking their own child’s life, and killed her neighbour’s child as well”. In a letter to the trial judge, Mirella blamed it on her addiction, writing “I was very drowsy with the Night Nurse I took”. At no point was she remorseful, “I can’t believe I’m in prison for this kind of crime. It’s like a nightmare”, only thinking about herself. And yet, as she wheeled that red canvas shopping trolley to The Corner Shop, both girls by her side, inside she had stashed a cut electrical flex from a vacuum cleaner, which she used to strangle Stacey. The timings were key to Mirella’s conviction. As always, Mirella picked up Tina (and Stacey) from school at 3:15pm, and they were home by 3:20pm. Lynn recalled seeing the news report on Leoni Keating at 4pm, and warning Stacey “See that little girl? She won’t see her mum again. Don’t talk to strangers”, and as she went into the courtyard to play, it’s likely that Stacey merely followed her friend, Tina, as she walked with her mother to the shop. She wasn’t killed out of malice or revenge, she was strangled because she got in the way of Mirella’s plan. At roughly 4:30pm, Enver recalled Mirella & Tina entering The Corner Shop, as the school rush had stopped and he was preparing the evening papers for the paperboys. He couldn’t recall Stacey being there, but maybe, as Mirella said “she had followed us down to the shop” and was a few steps behind. Now, with a tiny witness in tow, who hampered Tina’s murder which Mirella had planned to blame on Ravi, instead of stopping, as the ultimate revenge in what the prosecutor described as “an explosion of vengeful hatred against her faithless husband”, she would frame him for the murder of both girls. No-one saw them abducted, as both girls calmly followed Mirella, the good mother to Southwark Park, barely a 12 minute walk south, a place they loved and felt safe, surrounded by trees, ducks and swings. Arriving at Globe Pond, a favourite spot, Mirella recalled “I told Tina ‘go and play’” and as she dashed to the playground, it was then that the bible-toting Killer inside her head who she called Simon goaded her to ‘Strangle! Strangle!’, and luring Stacey into a bush, she wrapped the cut electrical flex around her neck, and unseen by anyone, she covered the tiny body with the autumn leaves, and walked away. Tina had no idea that her friend was dead and when her mother said that Stacey was missing, believing her wholly, they returned to The Corner Shop at roughly 5pm, asking if Enver had seen her, as a cruel part of Mirella’s alibi, playing the role of a frantic mother… just half an hour before she murdered Tina. She didn’t tell Lynn that her 4-year-old daughter Stacey was missing, until 6:20pm, 80 minutes later. Mirella lied “I was not immediately alarmed, I assumed they (Tina & Stacey) had gone home”, but in truth, when they returned to the dark silence of their first-floor flat at Sandwich House, later admitting to a psychiatrist “I drew images, pictures of my dead daughter”, that she stripped her naked, strangled 7-year-old Tina with her hands (having used the cut flex on Stacey) and hid her body under the bed. At 6:20pm, Lynn heard her doorbell ring, and later recalled “every time I shut my eyes, I see (Mirella) standing there, rocking back and forth, her lips kind of twisted… holding Tina’s red shoe”, but seeing Mirella in an odd state of panic “I remember she said ‘the girls are missing’, then hysterically laughing”. Everything ran through Lynn’s mind, the places she told her daughter never to play, the predators who may have abducted her, the accidents which could have happened on the busy road, but not the friend and neighbour she trusted who held her hand, with the same hand which had strangled her daughter. But it was as Mick returned at 11pm with the tragic news that Stacey’s strangled body had been found, he recalled, “Mirella was leaning against a wall, she didn’t seem upset. I couldn’t understand her lack of emotion”. But was this malice or madness? On Saturday 21st of September, Mirella stated “I rose early”. From under the bed she had slept in for the three days since the girls had gone missing – with a constable guarding her front door - she pulled out Tina’s bloated, maggot riddling corpse, shoved it into the red canvas shopping bag, and called Ravi. “She said she wanted to talk, I said ‘let’s go into the flat’, she said ‘no’ and took me by the arm. We walked and she said ‘I hope you can forgive me’, I asked why, she said ‘Tina’s in the flat’. I shook and thought she meant Tina was alive. She said ‘no, she’s dead’, I said ‘did you kill her?’, she said ‘yes’”. At 10am, the whole of the Swan Road Estate fell into silence, as a small body covered in a white sheet was removed from the flat on a stretcher, Ravi was in tears, and Mirella was led away in handcuffs. Held on remand at Holloway Prison, she told the psychiatrist “we loved each other so much. It’s like a nightmare when I close my eyes, I see them both in white lace, two angels smiling at me. I will never see Tina again, but she will always be with me… my path forever and ever until we meet in heaven” . Mirella Beechook was branded a ‘child killer’ by the press and her shocked neighbours… …and yet, there was a hint to Mirella’s murderous motive, which occurred just six years before. As I said at the start, Mirella was a mother of two daughters, not one. When Tina was just 15 months old, her sister Sabrina Beechook was born, but she didn’t live with her mother, and for good reasons. At the end of October 1979, 22 days after her birth, 17-year-old Mirella bought her baby into hospital, again she was alone, as Ravi had chosen to head overseas, leaving her alone and unable to cope. Diagnosed with gastro-enteritis, Sabrina had a common stomach bug, serious in babies as it can lead to dehydration, diarrhea, vomiting, bloody faeces and death. Every day, as a loving mother, Mirella sat beside her baby’s incubator, kissing her and cuddling her, but Sabrina only got weaker and sicker. Uncertain why she was getting worse, a sharp-eyed nurse spotted a sleeping pill beside the cot, the broken tip of a pin in the nappy, and with the baby’s blood proving positive for Mogadon, Mirella was arrested for child endangerment. Tried at the Old Bailey, she was given just three years’ probation. The safety of Mirella’s two daughters were reviewed by Southwark Socials Services, and although both were put into care, Sabrina was later adopted, but in March 1980, Tina was returned to Mirella, and she was removed from the ‘at risk’ Child Abuse Register as social workers deemed her ‘a good mother’. On Monday the 23rd of June 1986, a seven day trial began at The Old Bailey before Sir James Miskin. Having pled guilty to strangling both girls and hiding their bodies, the jury had to decide if Mirella had intentionally murdered them, or if she was deranged and her responsibility diminished. On Tuesday 1st of July 1986, a jury of seven men and five women deliberated for two hours, and returned a verdict. Guilty. She was given a double life sentence with no minimum period. Lynn Kavanagh stated “I’m glad she won’t hang, as I want her to remember my face forever”, as sat just yards from her in court, “I want her to see my face staring into her soul. I want to haunt her the way she has haunted me”. As of today, her fate is uncertain, as in 2006, Mirella Beechook renamed Jacqueline Evans appealed her sentence, but this was rejected, so whether she remains inside is uncertain. But one detail still hangs over this case, with it said that she was 2 months pregnant, did Mirella have another child? The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Five time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
29 St George's Drive in Pimlico (right hand pillars) @Googlemaps2025 July2024
On Monday 19th of February 1962, the same day that Norman Rickard’s body was found, 23-year-old Alan Vigar, who was also a quiet, handsome and secretly-gay man was strangled to death in the privacy of his flat by a tall and attractive man that the Police believe he too had picked up in Piccadilly Circus. Both men had invited their killer in, undressed, willingly been tied up and asphyxiated as part of this sex play. The press dubbed him the Twilight Sex Killer. But who was he?
THE LOCATION: (note I stopped updating the map, as MapHub were demanding money)
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: So, who was the Twilight Sex Killer? Find out in Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on St George’s Drive in Pimlico, SW1: four streets south-east of Maggie’s fall, two streets west of Martha Browning’s deadly alibi, four streets east of the woman in red, and yet a full three and a half miles south of the murder of Norman Rickard – as covered last week on Murder Mile. At 29 St George’s Drive stands yet another five-storey, mid-Victorian terraced house on the corner of a busy city street and just a short walk from a tube station - not dissimilar to Norman’s. Today, it’s an affordably priced hotel for city-breakers called ‘The 29’; with good showers so you can scrub away the London filth, and soft beds to cry away how fast you got fleeced in London - ‘Europe’s biggest rip-off’. Yet, if true crime is your thing, the front first-floor room was once the scene of a little-known sex killer. On Monday 19th of February 1962, the same day that Norman Rickard’s body was found, 23-year-old Alan Vigar, who was also a quiet, handsome and secretly-gay man was strangled to death in the privacy of his flat by a tall and attractive man that the Police believe he too had picked up in Piccadilly Circus. Both had invited him in, undressed, willingly been tied up and asphyxiated as part of this sex play. With the killer leaving no fingerprints, witnesses or obvious motive, although the coroner ruled this ‘murder by persons unknown’ as a sex game gone wrong, with a serial killer potentially stalking the city’s gay men, Police had started looking for links in unnervingly similar killings across London, Kent, Derbyshire, West Germany, even in Zurich, and - although Albert Day had seen the suspect with Norman Rickard - no-one knew his name, yet the press had already dubbed him the Twilight Sex Killer. But who was he? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 315: The Twilight Sex Killer – Part Two. Like Norman, Alan was gay and lived in a world where it was illegal to be gay, and yet he was. Alan John Vigar was born in March 1939 in Tenterden, Kent, a oldy-worldly ancient town full of quaint tearooms, church fetes, a blacksmiths, maybe a maypole, Morris dancers, a pelting stock, and as a site of a very English culture, like Norman’s town, it was a place where people and ideas do not change. Raised by Robert, an aging father, who had two previous wives and many other children, Alan was the youngest son of Eleanor Vigar, with his older brother Kenneth being the one who married and had a child. And although, as a Shoesmith in the Royal Field Artillery (awarded the Star and Military Medal), Robert wanted his son to follow him into the services, knowing that he was gay and wanted to be who he wanted to be, instead of being trapped by a career – as Norman was - Alan chose to enter the arts. Aged 23, and said to be 5 foot 6, slim, with fair hair in a quiff, Alan was softly spoken and quiet, polite and well mannered, and never discussed his love life, even though he worked in an industry where gay men flourished; he began as a window dresser in Croydon, he was briefly a male model, he joined the BBC as a costumier, and was now a ‘wardrobe boy’ at Teddington Studios working on ABC TV comedy series ‘Our House’, starring Hattie Jacques, Charles Hawtree, Joan Syms and Bernard Bleslaw. Bernard recalled “he had been my dresser for the past 26 weeks. He was extremely efficient and never talked about his private life”. Filming every Saturday and Sunday, Monday was his day off, and paying £3 10s a week, Alan had occupied the front first-floor flat – a small serviced room – at 29 St George’s Drive, of which the landlady Miss Olive Molyneux described him as “the best tenant in the house”, with the housekeeper, Frederica Thornton stating “he was a very nice man”. Being private, she said “the only woman who visited him was his mother, and I never heard any disturbance from his room”. Like Norman, he was stylish and neat, last seen wearing a fawn mohair jacket with knitted sleeves, a brown shirt, black and white tight fitting trousers, black casual shoes and brown sheepskin gloves. But unlike Norman, having his own car, he often picked up men in his slightly battered Hillman Minx. And again, unlike Norman, Alan was comfortable with his sexuality, but it was still a secret, as it had to be. On Sunday 18th of February 1962, the day before his death and when Norman’s body was found, he met his brother and his mother in Westerham in Kent, and was “excited about his holiday in Italy”… …which rules out any hint that it could have been a suicide. The next day, Monday the 19th, Frederica the housekeeper saw him at about 10am, leaving with Alfred Abbott, a foreman he’d known for a year. She normally cleaned his room at 11:30am, but as he’d been away, he asked her not to bother. He departed a little after, leaving his car, as he wanted to drink. It was a typical day for an ordinary man enjoying his life. As planned, Alan & Albert headed to a several milliners in Knightsbridge, Victoria and Piccadilly as he was looking to buy a hat. Mid-afternoon, as they sat in a coffee-house near Piccadilly Circus, Alan suddenly excused himself saying he wanted to “speak privately” to an unnamed and unidentified man who Albert said Alan had been ‘eyeing up’. He was gone for five minutes, it was never said what they spoke about, and the man was never identified. Was this the same place that Norman was last seen in? We shall never know. That afternoon they strolled the West End and having parted ways outside the Ritz Cinema in Leicester Square at 5pm, it is uncertain if Alan had planned to meet Albert again that evening, as Albert called the communal phone several times at 29 St George’s Drive from 7pm to 8pm, but Alan wasn’t in. Did Alan snub Albert Abbott, as Norman had with Albert Day, or was this just a coincidence? Like Norman, instead of going home, Alan headed back to Piccadilly Circus and at 7:30pm he entered a cellar bar called Ward's Irish House, where he got chatting to an unnamed Guardsman he had known for six months. At the Coroner’s inquest, he confirmed they parted at 8.20pm at Piccadilly Circus, Alan was tipsy but not drunk, he wasn’t worried or frightened, and said “he was going to meet someone”. It was a 25-minute journey home, but he wasn’t seen till 9:50pm, so although an hour is missing from his timeline, like Norman, his last ever sighting alive was captured as he entered his home, but whereas it is said that most eyewitnesses are only 30% accurate, this sighting was by possibly the best witness. Sergeant William Wotherspoon, a plain-clothed detective for the Met’ Police was sat in a bay window on the ground-floor sitting-room next door at 27 St George’s Drive, overlooking the busy intersection. With a notepad, he was keeping surveillance on a nearby building, and at 9:50pm, “I saw Alan, who I had known for about a year, but had never spoke to, coming from the direction of Ecclestone Square”. Trained to accurately record details, William told the inquest “I had a good look at them both and took note of the other man”, but as they passed his window, “I didn't see if they had entered number 29”. In fact nobody did. William described this man; as aged 23 to 26 (a similar age to the suspect last seen with Norman), as well as also slim, 5 foot 10, well built, clean shaven with ‘classic features’, expanding this that he had “a pointed chin, a high forehead, was effeminate, and was extraordinarily well dressed” wearing a dark brown windcheater or raincoat which was zipped-up at the front. And although some details don’t match the man seen with Norman - as this man had thick fair hair, not dark - did Albert Day get this detail wrong, because being snubbed was his focus was on Norman and not his date? Of course, if he was the killer, this man who ‘may’ have accompanied Alan to his flat could have been wearing a wig or had dyed it, but if he wanted to disguise himself, why didn’t he wear glasses or a hat? Either way, no-one could confirm or refute if this was the same man as Norman’s suspect… until later. Whatever time Alan entered his lodging at 29 St George’s Drive, as per usual, no-one heard him open the door, climb the stairs, or enter his room. Frederica the housekeeper was in all night, and stated “I didn’t hear a thing”, no voices, no bangs and no struggle, just the delicate sound of music and silence. As with Norman, no-one suspected that anything was wrong, and all stated, it was an uneventful night. The next morning, on Tuesday the 20th of February, around the time of Norman’s autopsy at St Pancras mortuary, Frederica was doing her rounds, and with most of the residents out, she was going room-to-room with her hoover, dusters and cleaning box. At 11:15am, her usual time, even though she knew he’d be out, being polite, she knocked at his door, and getting no reply, she opened it with a pass key. Was this why Norman Rickard’s killer had locked him in a wardrobe? Did he believe that Norman may have had a housekeeper, so he hid the body in a locked cupboard so it wouldn’t be found for days? Inside Alan’s one-roomed lodging was a bed, a set of drawers and a wash stand, but no wardrobe. As usual, it was neat and clean, with no signs of forced entry or a disturbance, but the second she walked in – knowing Alan – she knew that something wasn’t right. His shoes were by the door and last night’s clothes had been neatly folded over the back of two fireside chairs, but he hadn’t made his bed. Alan always made his bed. So, with the curtains closed and the bedside lamp previously broken, it looked as if he had bunched up his crinkled sheets into a messy lump in the bed’s middle, and spotting a towel ominously draped over the pillow, as she removed it, she was confronted by a horrible sight… …the bulging eyes of Alan’s contorted and discoloured face. This is where confusion often sets in, as the first officer on the scene had arrived to what was described to him as “an attempted suicide”, as with the witness being so shocked, mistakes were easily made. The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Fred Cornish, a different detective to Norman’s killer, as although both murders occurred in London, they were both in different boroughs. But the second the details were released – that another young, handsome, gay man was found in his own room, naked, bound and strangled - the gay men of London were already calling for the Police to catch and convict him before he kills again, and the press had already dubbed him ‘Twilight Sex Killer’. The similarities between both murders were startling. The room didn’t look like a typical murder scene, just as Norman’s had been mistaken (for at least a week) as that of a missing person. There was no struggle, no ransacking, no fingerprints, no witnesses, and no obvious motive. In fact, it took days to discover that a few items were missing; an electric razor, a cigarette case, two leather jackets, and his wallet, which could suggest his killer wasn’t a stranger? So was this a robbery, a sex game gone wrong by an opportunist thief, or was the theft a red-herring? The Police issued photos and descriptions of the jackets, as being of high-quality and no-longer being made, they were likely to be sold or worn by the killer, but this line of enquiry resulted in a dead end. Like Norman, the body was examined in-situ by a Home Office Pathologist, this time Dr Donald Teare. Based on the decomposition, his time of death was established as between 1am and 4am, but with a 25% margin of error owing to the house’s intermittent heating, this was extended to 11pm and 5am – a timing which was as good as useless. As before, Alan was naked, having willingly undressed and got into bed, which either suggests that he knew his killer, or that he was so used to bringing strangers back to his flat that for him this was normal. With no signs of force or assault, Alan had allowed his hands to be tied behind his back using the red, blue and yellow cord of a bathrobe – similar to the kind used to strangle Norman – and yet, it didn’t belong to either of Alan’s two bathrobes, and the one used to kill Norman was still around his neck. So, did his killer bring this bathrobe cord with him, or was he already wearing a bathrobe, if so, why? Again, forensic analysis was unable to determine if he had been sexually assaulted. Again, the motive was hard to prove. Again, he had been strangled from behind while laying face-down on the bed, but with the cord used to bind his wrists, his killer had grabbed Alan’s cotton vest from the chair, with one hand he had held him down as fingernail abrasions had embedded into his left shoulder, and as if he was pulling the reins of a horse, he strangled Alan with his right, forcing his face deep into the pillow. Alan was strangled and suffocated, and again, before he died, he didn’t have time to cry out or scream, even though it had taken his killer two attempts to take his life, as around his neck, were two ligature marks both made by the vest being seven inches long, but they were three-quarters of an inch apart. Blood on the pillow confirmed that he died by asphyxia strangulation, which again, the coroner could not determine if this was the result of a wilful murder; with Gavin Thurston stating “it was impossible to say whether death might not have been the result of some perverted play which got out of hand”. In short, Alan knew the risks of his ‘immoral’ (and illegal) way of life, and the outcome was death. Yet, if his killer had accidentally killed him, as he had Norman just one week before, why didn’t he flee immediately? Instead, he tried to hide him; by pulling the bedsheet up to his face, covering his head with a towel, possibly fabricating a robbery, locking the door, taking the keys, and again, creeping out. So, was this also an accident, or was it planned? Seeing the similarities, Detective Superintendent Cornish teamed up with Detective Superintendent Hare who was investigating Norman’s killing, as there was a possibility that the cases were linked. Like Norman, Alan kept a diary of the men he had met for sex. Police initially suspected he may have been killed as (working in television) he knew many celebrities who were secretly gay, “but there were no famous names, no royals, nor anyone who would cause a scandal”, so it was dropped as a motive. Again, as every clue only led to dead-ends and silences, with no evidence pointing to an obvious killer, the people and the press went into overdrive, and even the Police targeted any man who fit the brief; whether he was violent, sadistic, gay, or looked a little like the suspect Albert had seen with Norman. On the 16th of March, an unnamed soldier who had gone AWOL since Christmas was questioned and put on an ID parade in front of the key eyewitnesses (Albert Day, Sergeant Wotherspoon, Elphreda Weinand or the unnamed Guardsman) who may have seen the killer, but none of them picked him. On the 23rd of July, a ship’s Steward, whose own colleagues onboard the Rangitoto had alerted the Police to this possible suspect, who was gay and looked like the Identikit posted in the press. But again the ID parade failed. He also had a perfect alibi, that on the day that Norman & Alan were murdered, he was onboard this P&O liner, surrounded by 400 passengers, and was half way across the Pacific. He later stated “it is my misfortune that I am supposed to look like the man seen with Alan Vigar”, and fearing some repercussions, he stated “I have been treated well by the Police during my interviews”. This wasn’t the only desperate connection made, as many leads ended with a wall of silence by the gay men of London who felt they were being persecuted as suspects, rather than possible victims. But as before, many possible attention-seekers also came out of the woodwork to seek some notoriety. On Sunday the 25th of February, Patrick Lambert, a 32-year-old chef from Maidstone in Kent claimed “last Sunday (the day before Alan’s murder and Norman’s body was found) I had a drink in a Soho pub. At 10pm, I strolled to Piccadilly tube station. I met a good looking young man. We chatted. He told me his name was Johnny”, he was Scots-Irish “and had left prison recently after serving time for robbery”. “He wore a raincoat, grey flannel trousers… his hair was dark and brushed back… I agreed to put him up for the night. We had tea and cake in Victoria train station”, and arriving back at Patrick’s flat, “I dozed off. Suddenly the man threw himself at me and squeezed my throat. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t scream”. Collapsing unconscious, this ‘Johnny’ stole £3 from his wallet, and then fled. So certain were Police that it was him, that they visited many of the gay clubs in Soho, showing regulars the Identikit and warning them “if you see this man, call us immediately, do not take him home”. But as we know, with a provable alibi to the murders of Alan and Norman, he was released without charge. Patrick’s story could be true, but every detail he states is identical to those which had already printed in the newspapers, except one fact – that the strangulation happened during sadomasochistic sex. Running out of patience, the Police headed further into their rogue’s gallery; questioning Jack Murray, owner of the Alibi Club in Soho (which both Alan & Norman had frequented) as he had been convicted in Tangiers for “leading young men into debauchery”, but he was in prison during both murders. On the 14th of March, they interviewed an unnamed Spanish hotel porter living in London, who was Interpol’s no1 suspect in the murder of Swiss postman Heinrich Gihner in Zurich, weeks before both murders. With Heinrich found naked, tied up and strangled face down on his bed, the Spanish porter was questioned by Met’s Detectives, but he didn’t match the description, and also had a strong alibi. So, were either of these men the killer, but the Police failed to catch them as they were too fixated on believing that the eyewitness descriptions were accurate in their hunt for this possible serial killer… …or does this simply show how common this kind of murder actually is? Are we seeing similarities because we want to see similarities, and ignoring the differences because they are more likely to point to it being two, three or maybe several suspects who are unconnected? Every angle had to be investigated, so Police also explored the possibility that the Twilight Sex Killings could be linked to the Bubble Car Murders of Derbyshire, also known as ‘The Carbon Copy murders’, three murders in Chesterfield and Germany linked to convicted killer, 23-year-old Michael Copeland. But although they had undoubtably been committed by the same maniac who had a hatred of gays, 60-year-old William Elliott was kicked and stamped to death, 48-year-old George Stobbs was battered to death, Gunter Himbrecht was stabbed 37 times, and there was no sadomasochistic sex involved. Michael Copeland voluntarily confessed to those three murders, and was convicted in 1965. When the Met’ Police questioned him about the deaths of Alan Vigar & Norman Rickard, he had no knowledge at all. And although he looked slightly similar to the Identikit, he wasn’t 5 foot 10, but a huge 6 foot 4. No-one could mistake him for someone else, even given how flawed eyewitness descriptions are. They even investigated a possible link to Ellen Brabon, a 72-year-old widow who was found strangled to death in her basement flat at nearby 77 St George’s Drive, and – again – the press tried to dig up dirt to link Alan to William Vassalli who sold secrets to Russia, but why would there be a connection? The nearest Police got to a link was – as we’ve covered before – the murder of Vincent Patrick Keighrey on the 2nd of December 1964, at Carroll House in Bayswater; he was found in bed, strangled, with his hands tied behind his back, there was no sexual assault, and nothing seemed to have been stolen. He too was living a double life having worked for the Police, and although three men (John Simpson, William Dunning & Michael Odam were acquitted) it’s likely that they pretended to be gay to rob him. On the 13th of April 1962, Alan Vigar was buried at St Mary the Virgin Church at Westerham. Detectives were in attendance to pay their respects, and see if his killer was watching, but this proved fruitless. On 18th of May, three months after the murders, having deliberated for five minutes, the jury returned a verdict of “murder by a person or persons unknown”, the same as Norman Rickard. Alan was blamed for his own death, as the coroner Gavin Thurston stated “whether it had been some kind of perverted play that had got out of hand, it was impossible to say”. And today, the case remains unsolved. (End) So, who was the Twilight Sex Killer? We may never know, as there were two mistakes in the reporting of the Norman’s murder (where many witnesses learned of the killings), and in the investigation itself. Albert Day, the man who was snubbed by Norman that evening, described the man Norman was seen walking home with as “20 to 23, 5 foot 10 to 11, broad shoulders, athletic, oval or round face, dark-brown brushed-back hair and a fresh complexion, dark trousers and a grey wool gabardine raincoat”. And although eye-witnesses are notoriously unreliable, Police made and distributed an Identikit of it. That was the first mistake. Albert’s detailed description of the suspect was wrong, as the tall dark-haired German girl, Elphreda Weinand, who Norman got chatting to in Piccadilly, caught the tube back with him to Maida Vale, and living at 11a Elgin Avenue, one block south, he was escorting her home. Albert Day didn’t see a man, but a taller than average woman with short dark hair wearing masculine clothes. He didn’t notice this, as being upset at being snubbed, his focus was on Norman, not the girl. And even if this suspect, whether male or female was Norman’s killer, he didn’t die that night. Saturday 10th of February was the last time he was seen alive, and even though the pathologist could only state that he had been dead for “at least a week”, and no one had seen or heard from Norman after that moment, we know he was alive, at least at 1pm on Sunday afternoon, almost a day later. Being a weekend, he did what he always did. He had breakfast, he got dressed like an ‘urban cowboy’, and with a plan to pick up a stranger for sex, he hid his jewellery and his wallet in the usual places. At 1pm, even though no-one saw him, we know he listened to the lunchtime news on the radio, as he wrote about it in a letter to his father and stepmother posted that afternoon. He wrote “just going for lunch… the weather said it’s going to rain this afternoon, so I’ll go for a walk before the rain comes”. It was a small, overlooked detail, which most of the press missed, as they were too focussed on their hunt for a salacious sex killer and serial killer of London’s gay men, rather seeing this obvious fact. That day, although he wasn’t seen, Norman must have caught his usual bus to Speaker’s Corner, and being professionally discrete, he bought a stranger back to his flat, and that man was seen by no-one. Who was the Twilight Sex Killer? Who knows. But as riddled as both murders are with coincidences, the only way to solve it is to seek out the differences and not the similarities in a hunt for a serial killer. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. 
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
264A Elgin Avenue, Maida Vale, W9 @Googlemaps2025 June 2023
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN: On Monday 19th of February 1962 at roughly 4pm, two police constables entered the basement flat at 264 Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale seeking the occupant (Norman Rickard) who had vanished without a trace. It began as a simple missing person’s report for a man who kept to himself, and it would end in the hunt for a sadistic killer who stalked the city’s gay men.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a BLACK P near the words 'MAIDA HILL'.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Who was the Twilight Sex Killer? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Elgin Avenue in Maida Vale, W9; three streets south-east of the murder of Minnie Barrie, two streets north-west of the Mercy Murderess, a short walk from Lena Cunningham’s tragic demise, and two streets north of the acid torture gang - coming soon to Murder Mile. The basement flat at 264 Elgin Avenue is currently up for sale being part of a much-sought after five-storey, red bricked mid-Victorian terraced house on a desirable West London street. At a cost of £1.5 million for a three-bedroomed flat, you’d expect that the worst thing to happen would be an avocado going too soft, a futon being a bit lumpy, the feng shui of their bust of Buddha not being In alignment with their cockapoo’s chakras, and not having enough storage space for 872 pairs of hemp sandals. Luckily there’s than enough storage space in this basement flat, and there’s even a large wardrobe. But if you truly knew what went on just 63 years before, that’s a door you would want to keep shut. On Monday 19th of February 1962 at roughly 4pm, two police constables entered this flat seeking the occupant who had vanished without a trace. It began as a simple missing person’s report for a man who kept to himself, and it would end in the hunt for a sadistic killer who stalked the city’s gay men. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 314: The Twilight Sex Killer – Part One of Two. 1962 would be a year of conflict and suspicion; as with the Cold War ablaze, the Cuban Missile Crisis would push the world to the brink of Armageddon, the Telstar satellite shaped global communications forever, the Profumo Affair would almost derail the British government, Yuri Gagarin had orbited the Earth one year before, and plotters were planning the assassination of US President John F Kennedy. As a distraction to the so-called ‘Swinging Sixties’ which only existed to a select few whose drug-addled memories made recollection impossible, the people were kept busy by new band The Rolling Stones, the first James Bond film ‘Dr No’, and the chatter about the suicide or murder of Marilyn Monroe. With all this chaos going on, most people got on with their lives by simply being themselves… …but many could not. Norman Edward Rickard was born on the 30th of August 1923 in Devonport, a district of Plymouth in the far south-west corner of Great Britain overlooking the Celtic Sea and the North Atlantic. Raised in a simple two-storey house at 22 Bartholomew Terrace in Stoke, Norman was the eldest of two sons to Alfred (a labourer) and Edith (a housewife), with his younger brother William born three years later. As traditionally happens, with his mother dying when he was only a boy, his father ensured the family’s stability by remarrying, and although by 1939, his younger brother had left to (later) marry and have children of his own, Norman did not. In fact, he remained at home until his early-to-mid-twenties, and raised far from any city, this is the way it had been for centuries, as here people or ideas do not change. With Devonport being the largest naval dockyard in Western Europe, it’s unsurprising - with the smell of the salty sea in his nostrils and swarming with men in crisp uniforms - that Norman became part of the Navy. Yet he was never a rivetter or stevedore, as being as well-groomed and handsome man who was polite and softly spoken, the only thing he pushed was pencils, having become a clerical officer. In 1948, he joined The Admiralty, the department of the British Government responsible for the Navy. Blessed with a good brain and a facility for languages, in 1951, he headed to Hong Kong as a supply officer as part of the victualling department (ensuring the accurate flow of supplies) as the Chinese Civil War came to an end, and returning to England in 1954, he was transferred to London in 1957. Working out of Queen Anne Mansions in St James’, just off The Mall, having lived in Paddington and Fulham, in the summer of 1961, he moved into the basement flat of 264 Elgin Avenue, owned by a retired civil servant who said “I saw little of him. He was a quiet tenant who paid his rent regularly”. Norman Rickard was an unremarkable man on the surface… …but then he had to be, given his secret. It may seem like nothing today, but Norman was gay. Until the 1967 Sexual Offences Act was passed, it was illegal to commit a homosexual act, and because he worked for the British Government, if he’d been outed, he’d have lost his career, his home and his reputation, so he has to be very discrete. By day, he was an efficient clerical worker who never spoke about his private life, he wore drab suits with no flourishes of colour, he came across as a bookworm who liked classical music, poetry and art, and he was unmarried and childless by choice. In public, he was heterosexual, but in private, he wasn’t. Behind closed doors, his flat often echoed to the tinkling of Liberace, and as a keen photographer, his salmon pink walls were adorned with stills of muscle-bound men in very tight shorts, including himself. But by night or weekends, it was then that he entered what the Police described as a ‘twilight’ world. Flamboyantly gay clubs in Soho like The Flamingo or The Sunset were too dangerous for Norman, as Police kept surveillance on its regulars and often raided it on flimsy charges. La Duce was more subtle but a casual chat in a loo with a heterosexual could result in him being busted for ‘lewd’ conduct. And although he was said to frequent The Alibi Club on Berwick Street, Norman was more of a ‘lone wolf’. Dressed in overtly masculine clothes like a rainbow coloured James Dean of the 1950s, this drab office worker dressed in a black leather jacket, tight-blue jeans, a red and white checked ‘cowboy’ shirt, blue leather gloves and black ‘cowboy’ boots. To the uninitiated, he looked like a fan of westerns like The Misfits and One-Eyed Jacks which came out in cinemas one year before, but not to those in the know. Being a decade before the ‘hankie code’ was popularised – in which a coloured handkerchief hanging from a gay man’s back pocket denoted his sexual preferences – his outfit could only hint at his needs. It was impossible to ask the men he spoke to as that constituted ‘propositioning for sex’, undercover officers often posed as gay men to entrap them, and with the law’s definition of ‘indecent’ behaviour often being dependant on the judge’s own morals and prejudice, it all had to be done in covertly. From his flat, he rode a bus down Edgware Road to the eastern edge of Hyde Park. Avoiding the public toilets, and any queens or effeminates who drew too many eyes, he chatted to likeminded anonymous men about politics at Speaker’s Corner, and as if he was heading home, he escorted them to his flat. As a secret homosexual with so much to lose, Norman had to be subtle so nobody would notice him… but that also meant there were no witnesses, his date’s description was vague, as they strolled out of Maida Vale tube station they looked like two ‘pals’, and with the curtains shut, the music on and the door closed to the basement flat of 264 Elgin Avenue, the neighbours wouldn’t have heard a sound. Because of the laws which persecuted men like him, he had to enter a ‘twilight’ world… …it was clandestine, it was dangerous, and it lead him into the hands of a sex killer. Saturday the 10th of February 1962 was the last day that Norman Rickard was seen alive. Being a weekend, for breakfast he ate poached eggs on toast, he listened to the news on the radio, with his drab office clothes in the wardrobe he dressed like an urban cowboy, and before he left; he padlocked his suitcases, he hid his wallet behind a kitchen cabinet and his jewellery on a ledge under the dining room table, as he planned to bring a stranger home for sex and was afraid of being robbed. This was something he regularly did, as did many men who solicited strangers for sex; he then caught the bus to Speaker’s Corner, and it is believed that, possibly in Piccadilly, he may have met his killer. The last of two confirmed sightings of Norman Rickard occurred that evening. Just hours earlier, Albert Day, a despatch clerk of Islingwood Place in Brighton had met Norman at Speaker’s Corner. Being a typically miserable day of grey clouds and perpetual drizzle, the crowds were slim, so Norman & Albert walked around casually chatting, and under an umbrella, they headed through Mayfair into Soho. Albert said “we went to Foyle's bookshop where I believe he bought a book”, and at 5:30pm, they parted ways, having arranged to meet between 8pm and 8.15pm at Maida Vale tube station, one block from Norman’s flat. Albert was 80 miles from home, so they had one reason to meet there – sex. …only for no known reason, Norman seemed to have changed his mind. At 7pm, in an unnamed Piccadilly restaurant, Norman got chatting to Elphreda Weinand, a 24-year-old cleaner from Germany whose English was limited, so with Norman fluent in German, they chatted. Being a tall, slim girl with short brown hair and wearing a dull-coloured raincoat and trousers, and with him resembling John Wayne on acid, they looked as dissimilar as a pea and a porcupine in a pod. But they got on well, they enjoyed each other’s company, and with Elphreda needing to head home, at roughly 8:55pm, they left the restaurant and boarded the Bakerloo Line tube from Piccadilly Circus. Yet three miles north, someone was waiting. Back in Maida Vale, Albert Day, Norman’s supposed date for the night was feeling snubbed. As agreed, he was standing outside of the tube station between 8pm and 8:15pm, but Norman wasn’t there. At 8:30pm, he asked around, found Norman’s flat, and rang the doorbell, but got no reply. Albert: “I went back to the station and waited, after a while, I went back”, even though being just 10 doors down, he could see the flat clearly, and with no reply again, “I then decided I’d waited long enough, and I left”. Walking on the east side of the Elgin Avenue, the same side as the station and the flat, at 9:10pm, “I saw him exiting the tube with a man”, but as he walked towards Albert, Norman ignored him. We don’t know why. Albert took it as a snub, he walked off in a huff, and he headed home to Brighton. As the last sighting of Norman alive, when questioned, Albert gave this description of the man he was seen with; “aged 20 to 23, 5 foot 10 to 11, broad shoulders, athletic, oval or round face, dark-brown brushed-back hair and a fresh complexion, wearing dark trousers and a grey wool gabardine raincoat”. And although eye-witnesses are notoriously unreliable, Police were able to make an Identikit from it. The next day, on Sunday the 11th of February, no-one saw or heard from Norman; not any friends nor neighbours, but then this wasn’t unusual, as he often kept to himself, and his guests were rarely seen. But a man can’t simply vanish from existence, or can he? On Monday the 12th and Tuesday the 13th, as this usually-punctual man hadn’t arrived at work, phoned in ill, or supplied a sick note, as was standard practice, an Admiralty Security Officer called at his flat. The basement flat at 264 Elgin Avenue was silent; the curtains were drawn, the door was locked, and with letters on the mat and three bottles of milk on his doorstep, the Security Officer called the police. That day, Wednesday 14th of February, a female police constable performed a ‘welfare check’ and got into the flat using the landlord’s master key. Inside, it was quiet. With all the windows secured, there were no signs of a break in. Being typically neat and clean, nothing looked as if it had been ransacked. His boots were by the door, his bed had been slept in, the lights were off, his clothes were neatly folded on a bedside chair, and as she scoured every room for him, Norman was nowhere to be seen. Clearly, he had come home, gone to bed, and (for no obvious reason) he had vanished into this air. By Monday 19th of February, having been missing for a week, two WPCs re-entered the flat looking for any documents which suggested his whereabouts; such as a passport, tickets or a hotel booking. With permission, they snapped the padlocks on his suitcases, in the kitchen they found his wallet hidden behind a cabinet and his jewellery on a ledge under the dining room table (where he’d left it one week before), and breaking the lock to the wardrobe in his bedroom, they found the biggest clue of all… …his badly decomposing body. The investigation was headed-up by Detective Superintendent Clement Hare. From the off, Norman’s death posed more questions than answers, whether an accident, a suicide or a murder, and with no signs of anyone else having been in the flat, witnesses hadn’t seen nor heard anyone arrive or leave. An in-situ post-mortem was carried out by Dr Francis Camps, the Home Office pathologist. Although impossible to accurately determine, decomposition suggested he had been dead for at least a week. With the body naked and his clothes folded nearby, it was clear that he’d willingly undressed himself. And with him gagged, bound, strangled and hanging upside down, suspended from a hook by his wrists so that his head was resting against his work shoes, with no signs of a suicide note and his friends and colleagues extolling about the good mood he was in, death by auto-erotic asphyxiation was mooted. Yet Dr Camps ruled this out, stating “death was by strangulation… but it would have been impossible for him to have tied himself in this way alone”, as although he’d been gagged using his own vest, and strangled with the cord to his own bathrobe, someone else had ripped the electric flex from the back of his radio, tied his hands behind his back, and locked him inside the wardrobe, taking the key. A forensic analysis was unable to determine if he had been sexually assaulted, but summing up the attitudes of the era, Dr Camps stated “it seems that he died during some unnatural practice”. With the coroner Dr Ian Milne reiterating “it is clear that he had gone out to solicit” and with this kind of gay sex being “a regrettable but fairly standard perversion… it will be up to the jury to decide whether his death occurred during the act, or whether there had been any intention to do injury and rob him". The press had seen it all before, describing him as a ‘degenerate’ engaged in ‘perverted’ acts with an anonymous stranger, whose lifestyle was bound with inherent dangers, and which ended in his death. In short, the risk was his. Upon closer examination, with no defensive wounds or signs of a struggle, it was clear that Norman (who the coroner’s court declared was “a known homosexual”) had invited a man back to his flat, they had engaged in sadomasochistic sex, and either he was killed for his money which was hidden, or more likely, the ‘erotic asphyxia’ was taken too far, Norman died, and in panic, his accidental killer had fled, worried that he’d be charged with murder, not death by misadventure. With no weapon or clear motive, Police weren’t looking for pre-meditated murderer, but a man who had killed possibly by mishap. In the hunt to find him, they interviewed 2000 people and took 400 statements, in his blue leather address book they questioned 24 men whose names were written, and they even developed the film from his camera containing photos of 10 men - but it lead to no suspects. His last known movements were worked out using Elphreda Weinand’s statement, and the description of the tall, slim, athletic man with brown hair and wearing a grey Gaberdine raincoat and dark trousers, as seen by Albert Day was issued as an Identikit, leading to a rogue’s gallery of violent and sadistic offenders, and although Albert attended several ID parades, he was unable to identify the man. Albert stated ”it was a pure accident that I met (Norman Rickard) that afternoon, but if he had kept the appointment with me, he would have been quite safe”. Rightly, the detectives traced Albert’s journey back to Brighton that night, and with a watertight alibi, he was ruled out as a possible suspect. Slowly, as every clue only led to dead-ends and silences, with no evidence pointing to an obvious killer, the people and the press went into overdrive, and their suspicions only derailed the case even further. As happens today, many attention-seeking tosspots came out of the woodwork to seek an opportunity for notoriety; three days after his death, a typist who was babysitting nearby claimed “a sobbing woman in a nightdress ran passed me from the direction of his flat… she was staring straight ahead, and said something like ‘Oh God’”, and although the Police searched, that woman was never found. Another girl claimed she had attended a party at Norman’s flat four days before his body was found, but crucially, three days after he’d died, only for her to later admit she made the story up for publicity. “Was he killed by Russians?” stirred the Daily Mirror, a quote they couldn’t back-up and only claimed it because the Cold War was raging, Norman worked for The Admiralty, and the Russians were the bad guys (oh how times have changed). Even though he had never been hired by MI5, MI6 or any security department, and the closest he came to espionage was ordering Tippex from a stationery catalogue. Coincidentally, also being gay, 38-years-old and a clerk in The Admiralty, the Press tried to link him to William Vassali, who in 1962 (that same year) was tried at the Old Bailey on spying for Russia, claiming he only did so as he was blackmailed, but he’d never met Norman having worked in different offices. The nearest the detectives came to a suspect was a villain known only as ‘Johnny’, a Glasgow born Irishman who was said to be violent, sadistic and was suspected of attacking a gay man in his West London flat three weeks prior; the motive was robbery, he had vanished from his lodging just days after Norman’s death, and better still, he looked similar to the Identikit of the man seen with Norman. So certain were Police that it was him, that they visited many of the gay clubs in Soho, showing regulars the Identikit and warning them “if you see this man, call us immediately, do not take him home”. But on the 27th of February, with ‘Johnny’ the Irishman having been detained, two Scotland Yard detectives questioned him, and presented with a solid and provable alibi, he was released without charge. With sex rather than robbery a more logical motive, the Police suspected that Norman’s killer was also a homosexual; as Norman had invited him back, willingly stripped, got into bed and consented to being tied up. Oddly, in Fulham, two miles south, and three weeks before Norman’s death, an unnamed man had stripped and allowed a stranger to bind his hands behind his back to aid their sexual roleplay. He said “I saw him pick up a piece of clothing”, like the vest used to gag Norman or the bathrobe cord used to asphyxiate him “and thought he was going to strangle me”. The man fought back and survived. His attacker was never found, but he was described as shorter, fatter and considerably older. With the benefits of hindsight, it’s possible we could hypothesise that maybe this was the work of one of London’s more infamous killers of gay men, but Michael ‘Wolfman’ Lupo was only 9 years old at the time of the killing, Colin Ireland was barely 8, and Dennis Nilsen was in Aldershot training to be a chef. Therefore no-one was convicted, no-one was arrested, and with no suspect, the investigation stalled. On Thursday the 24th of May 1962, at St Pancras Coroner’s Court, an eight man jury returned with a unanimous verdict – that Norman Rickard had been “murdered by person or persons unknown”. The coroner Dr Ian Milne surmised “clearly this man was indulging in an unnatural practice with another… the pleasure of strangling maybe turned into death… and at some stage during this practice he died. His body was immediately placed in the wardrobe by the person, who turned out the lights and left”. In short, with no obvious signs of robbery, it was concluded that a sex game had gone wrong… …and with Norman knowing the risks of his ‘immoral’ (and illegal) way of life, the case was closed. And yet, a second body would be found. (End) On Monday the 19th of February 1962, the same day that Norman’s body was discovered, just three and a half miles south of Maida Vale, 23-year-old Alan Vigar was found dead in remarkably similar circumstances. So similar were these ‘deaths’ that Police examined them as “potentially linked”. These two men didn’t know each other, they had never met and as far as we know, they had no mutual acquaintances, but they were both gay, both quiet, both handsome, well-dressed and slim, and Police believed that they had both met their murderers in a restaurant somewhere near to Piccadilly Circus. Having invited their killer back to their flats where they both lived alone and their neighbours barely knew them, they had both willingly undressed, placed their folded clothes on a chair, and being naked, they had allowed a stranger to tie them up with their hands behind their backs, and asphyxiate them. With no signs of a struggle, no hint of a robbery and no clear sexual assault, their killer had left quietly as if they were carried on a cold dark wind, back towards the shadows where evil lies and danger lurks. When this second body was found, again the Police found no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, no obvious motive, and (as far as we know) the victims hadn’t even screamed. It seemed more likely that this was not a sex game gone wrong, but that a killer was slaying the gay men of London, maybe for sport? Two men lay dead, and as the weeks unfolded, many more similar cases would be unearthed; across London, with one we’ve covered before, with one in Kent, two in Derbyshire, one possibly in West Germany, and even as far as Zurich, as wherever gay men solicited, the Twilight Sex Killer would strike. The Twilight Sex Killer concludes next week. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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