Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 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.
7 Nowell Road in Barnes (as seen in 2019), Copyright @GoogleMaps Sept 2019
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN:
Sunday the 1st of December 2019 was the last time 53-year-old William Algar, a talented jazz trumpeter was seen alive. One month later, parts of his dismembered body were found in his flat at 7 Nowell Road in Barnes, having been the victim of cuckooing by a drugs gang. But who had murdered him?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a yellow symbol of a bin near the words 'Chiswick Reach' near tyhe lip of the Thames. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: (some, not all)
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Nowell Road in Barnes, SW13; five minutes west of the killing of George Heath, four minutes south of where Hectorina MacLennan met Reg Christie, six minutes east of the cat ladies, and a short walk from the slaughtered nudes of Hammersmith - coming soon to Murder Mile. Just shy of the River Thames sits Nowell Road, a residential tree-lined street full of two-storey semi-detached houses from 1920s and 30s. As a working-class area, some are pristine and neatly manicured being owned by old timers who lament the days before the ‘scum’ moved in, and the newbies whose garden resembles a tribute to scrapyards, a museum of dog turds, art shaped like a deflated paddling pool and a complete history of every broken fridge, microwave, foot-spa and telly they’ve ever owned. At the top of the road sits a terrace of three houses with No7 on the left. Across the 2010s, this ground-floor council flat was the home of William Algar, a talented trumpeter who was no bother to anyone, and as a kind man who struggled with his mental health, all he wanted was to get back on his feet. Classified as vulnerable, what he needed was help and support, but being isolated and neglected, what he got was a criminal gang who took over his flat, his mind, and who would end up taking his life. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 277: The Cuckoo. William Hugh Blaise Algar, known as Willy or Blaise, was born on the 10th of August 1966 in the district of Hounslow, where he was raised and lived for the rest of his life. Coming from a good family and being a semi-regular churchgoer, it may seem a cliché, but everyone who knew him said he was lovely, gentle, polite and sweet, with even the trial judge stating “he did not have a harmful bone in his body”. As a child, whereas some struggle to find their place, William’s talent for music shone through, and although basically educated at Chiswick Comprehensive from 1977 to 1984, dedicating his life to being a jazz trumpeter, he later stated he was a professional aged 16. In 1984, he said he graduated from the London College of Music and later studied jazz improvisation at the University of Roehampton. Still only in his teens, having played in a reggae group, in the early 1980s, William had become friendly with the punk (and later gothic rock) band The Damned who were seeking to regain their fame; with Dave Vanian on vocals, Brian James on guitar, Captain Sensible on bass, and Rat Scabies on the drums. Rat Scabies later said “Willy was the trumpet soloist on Grimly Fiendish, what he played was originally the demo, but it was so good that we kept most of it for the single”. He was a 19-year-old professional musician recording with a famous British band, and he appeared with them on the Channel 4 TV show ‘The Tube’, “when we were trying to re-establish The Damned and he helped us to do exactly that”. Released as a single on the 18th of March 1985, Grimly fiendish was the bands biggest hit since 1979, it reached No21 in the UK single charts in April, as well as featuring on the album Phantasmagoria, and on the sleeve, it credits ‘Willy Algar on trumpet’. Yet, those six months were just a brief burst of fame. His talent had peaked as his mental health declined. William later wrote in an online post “I suffered from schizoaffective disorder from Friday night, on the 25th of September 1985”, shortly after it ended, although – as a psychiatric condition with symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, depression and mania – a single event may have triggered an attack, but it’s likely that it had always been with him. The next twenty years of William’s life are as sketchy as his own recollections, as being sectioned and voluntarily treated across the decades in psychiatric hospitals, his mental health was exacerbated by heroin and cocaine. As a dark side of the music scene, drug abuse is too often normalised, having been the muse of the jazz legends he idolised like Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Chet Baker & Miles Davis. In May 1995, he married Marguerite Bidmead, but that didn’t last. Being lost and hopeless in an opium poppy haze, two decades of his life vanished in a puff of smoke, and it took until 2005 to get clean, with William later stating “It's 14 years since I stopped gunning the Skag", having also dealt drugs. Being broke, he tried regular jobs – as a kitchen salesman and acting in a Swiss TV Commercial – but his mental health left him unable to cope. Registered as disabled, he was issued a DLA (a disability living allowance) and in 2010, he moved into a ground floor council flat at 7 Nowell Road in Barnes. This support provided help for this vulnerable man in a time of crisis… …but it also made him a valuable target for scum of pure evil. His flat was small but practical, with a living room, a bedroom, a kitchenette and a bathroom, but said to be “messy and cluttered”, it was typical of a single man who lived a solitary existence. Hidden by an oversized hedge, it gave him privacy and shelter, but it also meant that no-one could ever see in. Being unemployed, over the years, he lost contact with many friends. Many moons ago, he proposed to a girl called Gemma, but marriage never materialised. And on the 31st of March 2015, his life took another spiral into dark depression, when a girlfriend died – leaving him forever saddened and single. To fill the emptiness of his days, he was into spiritual healing, he loved reading poetry like TS Elliot, he backed campaigns to rewild hares on the common, but his one true love was music. Saxophonist Bukky Leo said “music was his life. He was a phenomenal player… it’s very rare to find someone with his kind of drive for music” and as a well-respected trumpeter on the London jazz scene, he played jam sessions at the St Moritz club in Soho, the King’s Head in Crouch End and the Silver Bullet in Finsbury Park. His music kept him alive, and it gave him a reason to live, even when his mental health was declining. In 2018, William posted online that he’d had “168 psychiatric ward terms last year”, and although he had listed himself as the Chief Creative at Luckey Records and planned to record and release his own album, again his schizoaffective disorder had left him even more isolated and broke and vulnerable. Retreating online more and more, his Facebook statuses give us a glimpse at the last year of his life. 13th March 2019, he wrote "found out the news my ex-wife died two or three weeks ago", and with him and Marguerite having lost contact, another tragedy was it took a friend to tell him she was dead. 14th March, in capitals, he wrote "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. I. DON'T. GIVE. A. FUCK. ANY. MORE", all while being sectioned in a psychiatric ward and although on the 19th he wrote “feeling blue as a boy can be”, on the 22nd he was released, and always being kind "I spent £50 on pizza for the boys on the ward”. That year, a friend tried to get him job as lead trumpeter in the West End hit 'Book of Mormon', but it never happened. The sale of his online artwork titled ‘Bubble Wrap Dark Lord’ only got 6 views. He began missing church and drinking “Jack Daniels for breakfast”. And although on the 2nd of April he wrote "bills, bills, bills. Just can't pay", having posted a plea “I am a musician… who has suffered from a schizoaffective disorder. I need support to avoid going through the NHS for over the 50th time, as they don't adequately support my needs”, of the £2000 he needed, his fundraiser raised nothing. But still he played on, at the King’s Head with Lou Salvoni, at The Jazz in N8 with “my good man, Bukky Leo", sometimes a solo on Putney Common playing ‘On Green Dolphin Street’ by Miles Davis, and on 12th of May, “I made £2 from two thoroughly decent old ladies who said that my sound was good". And then, there was four months of silence… …but why? What happened? On the 21st of September 2019, he wrote that his DLA (disability living allowance) was being taken away “which I cannot do without”. Two days later, he posted about Felix, the cat he was looking after for his friend Amber. That same day, the 23rd, he wished everyone a “Happy Equinox! Only another six months and summer will begin”, never knowing he wouldn’t live to see it. He grumbled “the thing I hate about where I live is that everyone has a nice ride, but as soon as you get one, somebody steals it!” but was this a cry for help? And the last thing he ever posted was “Wil B Algar is feeling… happy”. Only he wasn’t. Being broke, although he’d celebrated 14 years clean, William had begun using cocaine and morphine, and just like in the bad old days – to make some easy money – again, he’d begun dealing Class A drugs. Only it’s far from easy. Dealers deal with other dealers, bad people with no morals who refuse to play by the rules, who use violence to enforce it, and by exploiting a weakness, they take what they want. As a 53-year-old unemployed addict who was thin, frail and registered disabled, he was no match for Emeka Kabiru Dawuda-Wodu, a 19-year-old drug dealer who dubbed himself ‘the devil’, and described as cruel, angry and ‘borderline psychopathic’, he was said to be fascinated by very dangerous knives. As a ‘county lines’ gang, Wodu used children as drug runners, and to make it impossible for the police to find them, dealers often cuckoo themselves into the home of a vulnerable victim – his was William. Being an anonymous little ground-floor flat on an unassuming residential street which was hidden by an oversized hedge, 7 Nowell Road had become a trap house, where Wodu and his gang would deal drugs, and fearing for his life, across autumn 2019, there was nothing William could do about it. He was a prisoner in his own home, as day and night, this vicious gang used and abused him for their own gain and amusement, and as a dealer himself, he couldn’t go to the police or ask friends for help. William had nothing left, and he owed Wodu money. But according to eyewitness Philip Ross, the real flashpoint came near the end of November 2019, when it was said that William spoke 'disrespectfully' to Wodu, who retorted “I'm not your bitch... if you keep talking to me this way, I will kill your cat”. It may seem petty, but that’s how these wannabe gangsters are; pathetic, spiteful and cruel, with no rules nor sense of loyalty, they’d steal from each other, lie to save their own skins, and having picked on a disabled man and the cat he was caring for, it was said they “sadistically tortured” it out of spite. Only, for Wodu and his gang, this little beef with William was far from over. Sunday the 1st of December 2019 was a typically English winters day, being bright but cold. Sometime in the mid-afternoon, he was seen cycling along Castlenau, a busy road two streets from his home, and at the Esso garage, CCTV captured him withdrawing cash from an ATM. He was alone. That was the last time he was seen alive. What’s known about his final hours can only be guessed by the evidence. Toxicology showed that cocaine and morphine were in his bloodstream. Wearing the same clothes, with no defensive wounds and blood spattered up the walls of the living room, he was attacked while asleep or unconscious on the sofa. With no signs of a break in, the killer had a key. An 8cm stab wound to the heart had killed him, but there were 20 more stabs wounds, some of which were post-mortem. And yet, hypostasis (the accumulation of blood after death in the lower parts of the body) showed that he was face down when he died, and that he’d been left in that position for days, or even weeks. Of course, the Police could only assume that, as all that was found was his torso and his head. With no witnesses, it’s impossible to tell who murdered William Algar – a man or a gang, as although they lacked the courage to admit to their crimes, the grisly disposal of his body was a different matter. Two weeks later, on the 17th of December, Wodu, 40-year-old Simon Emmons and 19-year-old Janayo Lucima convened what they moronically called a ‘council of war’. In cold winter months, the corpse shouldn’t have decomposed as fast, but having left the heating on, flies were swarming, maggots were festering, flesh had begun to bubble, and soon the upstairs neighbour would be alerted to the smell. Being not particularly bright and the kind of kids who would have benefitted from staying in school, that day, Emmons used his phone to research ‘Can acid dissolve a body?’. In court, when asked, if he’d been inspired by TV series Breaking Bad, especially a scene there they dissolve a body in Hydrofluoric acid, he said ‘no’. And yet, ten minutes later, it was proven he’d typed ‘hydrofluoric acid Breaking Bad’. He also claimed he was ‘pressured’ into visiting the crime scene and thought “I’ll just be cleaning up”. That same day, Lucima went to Tesco’s in Hammersmith Broadway and was caught on CCTV buying bottles of bleach, washing-up liquid, jay-cloths and black bin bags, paid for using William’s bank card. Across the 17th & 18th of December, as the residents of Nowell Road put up their Christmas lights and engaged in festive hymns, Wodu, Emmons and (possibly) Lucima dragged William’s body to the bath. With the taps on, they hacked off his arms, his legs and his head with a Rambo-style combat knife. Again, in court they’d blame each other. Wodu said “I didn’t know he was dead until Emmons told me and said to help get rid of the body. I thought he was joking”. He said, “the sight made me sick. He was cutting him. Blaise was lying on the floor of the bathroom… Simon was severing his legs. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I vomited a couple of times”, which Simon Emmons completely denied. With the limbs wrapped in binbags and bundled into two backpacks and a suitcase, Wodu & Emmons unsubtly struggled to carry the 41-kilos of remains from the flat, down Nowell Road to Lonsdale Road. Having ordered a taxi (using their names) and wrestled it into the boot, the unsuspecting driver was guided by 45-year-old Marc Harding, 40 minutes south-west to Simpson Road off Hounslow Heath. As a dead-end, off the A314 Hanworth Road, with high-rise flats to the left and the empty dark expanse of the common to the right, Simpson Road isn’t the kind of place you stumble across by mistake. You have to know it’s there, and having pre-dug some holes, William’s limbs were buried in shallow graves. Oddly, it was on heaths like this where William loved playing his trumpet… …only now he was part of it, or at least parts of him were. By Thursday 19th, three weeks after his murder, with his head and his torso wrapped in bedsheets and yet to be disposed of, it was as they cleaned the flat of any evidence, that a call came in from a cohort. 33-year-old Zimele Dube, a street dealer in heroin and crack cocaine was angry, as his enemy, 35-year-old Ebrima Cham nicknamed the ‘Brim Reaper’, who had a reputation for robbing others, was bragging about how he had stolen from Dube four times. Described as 'a maniac who carried a gun', Emmons, Dube & Wodu hopped in a car and sped to the flat Cham was cuckooing in at Grove Road in Hounslow. Cham had wronged Dube, but what did they expect from common thugs with no moral code? On route, they WhatsApp’d him, pretending to be addicts looking for score a fix, but they got no reply. At 11:15am, they knocked on his door, but (like William) with Cham being either asleep or unconscious by taking the drugs he peddled, left partially paralysed, he was unable to fight off his attackers as they broke down the door to unleash what was described as a "frenzied attack" and “an orgy of violence”. Stabbed 11 times in the back, arms and chest using a ‘pirate’s knife’ and (possibly) a second weapon, although paramedics were unable to save his life as a deep wound to the chest proved fatal, with Wodu having stabbed an eyewitness who survived the attack, as well as CCTV footage, traffic cameras and fingerprints found at the scene, the witness was able to give a full description, but not their names. In court, Dube & Wodu blamed Emmons for Cham’s murder, and likewise, he blamed them. It was a pointless killing, over a pathetic little beef, which distracted these hapless wannabe gangsters in their clumsy attempt to clean-up the crime scene of 7 Nowell Road. Still being fired-up on fury and high, they forgot to go back, they left it bloodied, and in the living room with William’s head and torso wrapped only in a blanket, it continued to decompose. Their attempt at disposal was entirely fruitless. But although William had been isolated and alone, he was still missed by those who loved him. By Christmas Day, it seemed strange that with William being so thoughtful and caring that wouldn’t call on his 93-year-old mother Mary, he didn’t send any cards, do any gigs or answer his door or phone. With New Year having gone and still no contact, having asked the Police to perform a welfare check, on Thursday 2nd of January 2020, a month after his murder, officers broke in, and through a fug of flies and an unmistakable smell, they discovered his head and torso wrapped in binbags and a bedsheet knotted twice, with his limbs missing, as well as his genitals and his anus – which were never found. With no witnesses to William’s murder and a semi-competent clean-up, the gang might have got away with murder, but with the car used to drive them to Ebrima Cham’s murder spotted on CCTV, that gave the Police enough pieces of evidence and they started to connect one murder to the other. Headed up by Detective Inspector William White of the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, by tracking down the unsuspecting taxi-driver, on Saturday the 11th of January 2020, forensics carried out a search on Simpson Road and Edgar Road, and police dogs identified two shallow graves on Hounslow Heath. Anyone with half a braincell would have laid low having murdered two men, but on Christmas Day, Wodu and the three others cuckooed another flat, they joked about Cham’s killing, they boasted about cutting up William’s body, and on the 3rd of January, Wodu atacked 20-year-old Charlie Hirshman in a petty spate over a cigarette. Repeatedly stabbed, Charlie survived and described his assailant, but was left with “life-altering injuries including breathing difficulties and the inability to ever laugh or smile”. With two other suspects questioned and bailed pending further investigation, Harding was arrested on January 27th, Wodu on February 4th, Emmons two days later, followed by Dube & Lucima. And although, like petty little boys fighting over a toy, they blamed each other, although warned that his phone calls from prison were being taped, Wodu asked his mother to move his Rambo knife from his wardrobe, and he considered pretending to be mad as a defence, stating “I get so mad… it was like something was saying 'Just do it, just do it’''. Only no sane juror would fall for those lies. (end) Across an 11-week trial beginning in May 2021, both murders were tried concurrently at the Old Bailey before Judge Wendy Joseph QC. Deliberating for 34 hours, on Tuesday 15th of August, Emeka Dawuda-Wodu, Simon Emmons & Zimele Dube were found guilty of the murder of Ebrima Cham. In the murder of William Algar, all were convicted of perverting the course of justice, but unable to prove who had killed William, Wodu, Emmons & Dube were found ‘not guilty’ of his murder or his manslaughter. In Scottish courts, the result would be ‘not proven’, which implies no innocence, as these attacks were said to be “extraordinarily vicious beyond anger” and “of borderline psychopathic proportions”. Sentenced on Thursday 17th of August, Marc Harding was given 3 years and 3 months for digging the holes, likewise for Janayo Lucima who was sent to a Young Offenders Institution owing to his age, Zimele Dube to life with a minimum of 28 years and Simon Emmons & Emeka Dawuda-Wodu to life with a minimum of 31 years, plus 11 years and 3 months for Wodu’s attack on Charlie Hirshman. Had it not been for Cham’s murder, they may have walked free or served a ridiculously short sentence. But sometimes life issues its own justice. Just weeks after his release, in what was said to be a spat with a rival, Janayo Lucima was shot and killed on Comeragh Road, two miles from 7 Nowell Road. And who knows how long the others will survive in prison given their bad attitudes and their lack of respect. With no-one held accountable for William’s murder, the case remains opens, and subject to review. As would have been his wishes, William Algar was cremated at Charlton Park Crematorium, it was said his ashes were scattered in a place he loved best, a fund was set up to raise to money for Youth Music, and on 29th January 2020 at The Silver Bullet Jazz Jam, The Bukky Leo Quartet and many of his friends, family and fans paid a “special tribute to Blaise Algar”. He may be gone, but he lives on in his music. 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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Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
9 Goring Way (today) Copyright @GoogleMaps Sept2022
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX:
In the evening of Tuesday 20th of May 1941, 28-year-old single-mother Phyllis Crocker and her 18-month-old daughter Eileen went to bed, as usual. Being 3 months pregnant, Phyllis drank a cup of cocoa to help her sleep, as made by her husband. But little did she know it would make her sleep for an eternity.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a yellow symbol of a bin near the words 'Greenford' in the west. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Goring Way in Greenford, West London, UB6; two streets south of the fleeing of the bloody butler, two streets west of where Reg Christie met Muriel Eady, and three streets north of the wood where the happy campers befriended a naked satanist - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 9 Goring Way currently sits a two-storey white-washed terraced-house on a quiet residential street. Built in the 1920s as part of the West Ridge Estate, the double-door shows that it’s still split into two small flats as it always was, with one above and one on the ground floor, where tragedy once struck. In the back garden stands a patio where (in the years since) someone’s mum has probably given herself a lobster tan while high on Lambrini, someone’s dad possibly burned the sausages till they’re blacker and more charcoal covered than a coal miner’s winkle, and where someone’s kids certainly squealed that ear-splitting screech which makes every dog shudder and even each deaf people pray for mercy. Back in 1941, as the Second World War raged on, this too was a family home, having been rented to 28-year-old single-mother Phyllis Crocker and her 18-month-old daughter Eileen. At the height of the blitz, it was a deadly place to live, and although every day she risked being skewered by shrapnel or blown to smithereens, this lovely little family would be killed by something much closer to home. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 276: Killing for Victory. Phyllis knew that life was hard, so to survive, she fought even harder. Bad luck plagued her life from the start, as Phyllis Elizabeth Crocker was born just six months before the brutal ravages of the First World War, which ripped apart her life before she was even at school. Raised in Ilford, East London to two loving parents, Harry & Sarah Crocker, Phyllis’ childhood was blessed with everything a young girl could need; happiness, health, hope, and her future looked rosy. But in a cruel symmetry to her own demise, tragedy struck her life a little after the first full year of the war when she was the same tender age as her daughter-to-be, as aged 18 months old, her dad died. Killed in a car crash at Godstone in Surrey, as the family’s breadwinner, Harry’s sudden demise not only left Phyllis’ mum widowed with a young toddler, but also impacted on her mental state. Wracked with crippling anxiety and depression, life was hard, but being desperate to feed her daughter as the war raged on, Sarah knuckled down and worked her guts out as a nurse, a housekeeper and a landlady. So perhaps, as a role model, that was where Phyllis got her strength and resilience in the face of fear? On the 3rd of September 1939, when the Second World War was declared and millions were terrified by their uncertain fate, 25-year-old Phyllis Crocker was unmarried and nine-months pregnant. With no money and being a decade before the National Health Service, she gave birth to Eileen thanks to a charity, yet with the father being a married man, the name on the birth certificate was left blank. Seen as sinful, many women may have buckled under the pressure to marry any man no matter how dire her situation, but Phyllis had courage and determination. Said to be “bright, jolly and exceptionally nice”, although this was a terrible time to be an unmarried mother - as with few rights, the law was against her - she fought on to ensure that her baby daughter received the best that she could afford. In January 1940, when she wasn’t wrestling with sleepless nights and nursing her 3-month-old at all hours, Phyllis worked on the assembly line of the Hoover factory in Perivale. Seen as a modern vacuum cleaner with a two-speed motor, bag indicators and a lightweight Bakelite hood, it was made using noxious chemicals like phenol and formaldehyde, as well as deadly poisons like potassium cyanide. Life was hard, but she had work, money and a place to live. Then on the 7th of September 1940 at 4am, the Luftwaffe unleashed an 8-month bombing campaign, and alongside the millions of citizens who fled the cities fearing for their lives, the persistent bombing – day and night, with many never knowing if they’d live to see the dawn – this exacerbated her mother’s already fragile mental state, and in a fit of abject despair, she drowned herself in the River Thames, leaving Phyllis alone, and also homeless. With her young life pockmarked by tragedy, even the hardiest of men may have crumbled… …but for the sake of her child, against all odds, Phyllis strived to succeed. By the bleak Christmas of 1940, when not a single light shone upon this city bathed in blackout, Phyllis moved into the ground floor flat at 9 Goring Way in Greenford. Being cheap and with factories nearby, she knew the risks, she wasn’t unsettled by the bombs, and the flat was small but a lovely little home. Every day, she had a cup of tea with her upstairs neighbour Lillian, a local bakery delivered bread, and in her small back garden she soaked up the sun and let her baby sleep, as enemy bombers refuelled. With fresh food in short supply as Hitler tried to starve Britain into submission, as part of the ‘Digging for Victory’ campaign, in her own back garden, Phyllis grew vegetables to feed herself and her beloved little baby, using a rather sturdy wood-handled spade which she stored in a 3-foot-wide coal box. She did everything to protect herself and her child, only death wouldn’t come from the skies. At the factory, Phyllis fell in love with Lionel Watson, a 30-year-old dark-haired well-built man who said he was a recently divorced father of four. When in truth, he was the epitome of selfish and cruel. Lionel Rupert Nathan Watson was born on the 30th of November 1910 in Woolwich, South London, as the second eldest of 7 children to Oscar, a wharf labourer and Ellenor, a housewife. On the surface, it may have seemed as if Lionel was a man who dreamed of being the daddy to a big family, as having married Alice Vera Langley on the 17th of October 1931, by 1936, they had four children of their own. According to Alice, “it wasn’t a satisfactory marriage” for many reasons. Firstly, he wasn’t a man who could commit to work, often being described as “lazy”, “a liar” or “sick”. Secondly, with a history of mental illness in the family, he was admitted to Warkworth House, an asylum in Isleworth in 1934. And again, as stated by Alice, “on account of him going with girls”, he regularly cheated on his wife. Rightly having had enough, Alice said “we separated three times, as granted by Ealing Petty Sessions on the grounds of his persistent cruelty”. As philandering wasn’t his only crime, so was violence. “He used to punch me with his fists, twice I’ve had the doctor out, and I’ve also lost the sight in one eye”. Against any woman he no longer loved, or wanted, Lionel was scum; nasty cruel selfish scum who only thought about himself. Refusing to pay a penny in child support and leaving them to survive on meagre benefits, on the 1st of January 1940, Alice left him, and with the children being evacuated, even his mother said “I found the children in a verminous condition”, being ragged, filthy and malnourished. For now, they were safe from this vile little man… …only one woman had already fallen for his charms. Released from prison in December 1939 having served 18 months for theft, as part of his probation, he started working at the Hoover factory in Perivale, where he met and fell in love with Phyllis. When he wanted to, he could be sweet, coming across as a good man who, claiming to be “divorced”, said he still cared for his ex-wife and missed his children terribly, as in his wallet, he kept their photos. Only what she didn’t know was that Lionel was a liar who gave a selective account of his past, and was only separated, as he refused to let Alice remarry, making her life without him even more of a struggle. As the two dated and Lionel moved into 9 Goring Way, even Lillian, her neighbour referred to them as ‘Mr & Mrs Watson’, and with Phyllis believing that he’d be a good husband to her and a kind father to Eileen, on the 18th of January 1941 at Ealing Registry Office, they married, even though it was a sham. For the first few months, they lived like a happy family, until December 1940, when Phyllis found out that she was pregnant. For many couples, this news would have been a delight, but it wasn’t for Lionel. With four children of his own (not that he saw them), being a (so called) stepfather to hers and with a sixth on the way, he pestered her to have an illegal backstreet abortion and as many did, it went septic. Having miscarried a three-month foetus, on 22nd December 1940, she was rushed to hospital suffering a fever, chills and vomiting, an abdominal pain which crippled her, and vaginal bleeding so severe, she needed a transfusion, and the discharge was so rancid and sulphurous, it was as if her insides were rotting. With her condition critical, diagnosed as ‘sepsis of the uterus’, although a year before antibiotics were in use, having flushed out her womb with saline and alcohol, after two weeks, she was on the mend. To the Police, Lionel would later deny any involvement in the abortion, claiming “she told me she was pregnant. She said she took something and was very ill. She was never the same afterwards though”. But was that a lie, or his alibi? By the March of 1941, Lionel’s love for Phylis (the wife he had bigamously married) had cooled. Like many before her, she was now a woman he no longer loved or even wanted; as having caught a glance, liked what he saw, and started flirting with her at the Hoover factory, a new girl had taken his fancy. 17-year-old Joan Filby was a filer in the machine shop. Said to be sweet and naïve, this child lived with her parents, and although she’d been friendly with Phyllis, having moved onto another job, she wasn’t to know that she’d been fed a lie - that Lionel wasn’t recently divorced, or no longer seeing Phyllis. Homelife at Goring Way was mundane, they didn’t argue, but it was clear that the love was lost. Often, he made excuses that he was working late, out with the lads, or off to see his kids who’d been moved to Eastbourne, when in truth, this 30-year-old wannabe lothario was taking Joan to the cinema. And while still having sex with Phyllis - as being unwed, Joan had refused - a side effect of sex is pregnancy. On the 21st of April 1941, four weeks before her death, Phyllis saw her GP, Dr Stewart, having exhibited some familiar symptoms; a fever, chills, vomiting and crippling abdominal pain. Dr Stewart discretely asked her “have you taken anything for it”, as he suspected an impending septic abortion, but insisting “no” and with there being no bleeding nor sulphurous discharge, it was put down to a stomach bug. Across the month of May, her sickness was oddly intermittent, as sometimes she felt achy and weak, nauseous with headaches and breathlessness, and other times she felt fine - even though she wasn’t. Unaware, many of the symptoms she put down to her pregnancy and her old sceptic miscarriage… …only, for many months, Lionel had been plotting to kill her. In late January 1941 – one month after the abortion and two weeks after their bigamous marriage – Lionel ‘acquired’ from the case hardening department in the factory a small lump of the deadly poison, Potassium Cyanide. To three people he gave three different reasons, all legal, why he needed it: being to destroy ants in his garden, to kill an unwanted dog, and even to clean a bath. In that era, it raised no suspicions, yet its real purpose was one he’d hide from everyone, especially his wife and her child. Tuesday 20th of May 1941 was an ordinary day for Phyllis. In the morning, as usual, she had a cup of tea with Lillian, she dug a strip of soil to grow beetroots and carrots, at 2pm she went shopping (buying some butcher’s bones for the dog of Lillian’s brother who temporarily lived in her garden), at 4pm she did some washing, and at 5pm, Mrs Burgess saw Phyllis & Lionel hang a blanket on the line, as the baby gurgled in her cot enjoying the last rays of sunshine. Being three months pregnant and with it too risky for Phyllis to have another illegal abortion, it looked as if a new baby was on the way whether Lionel liked it or not. And yet, with him seeing someone else, he had already prepared a concoction to cause her to miscarry, and solve all his other little problems. While she was undressing, using a hacksaw and a file, he ground the cyanide down to a fine powder. While she was wrapping her baby in a nightdress and blanket, and bedding her down for her sleep, he was boiling a pan of hot milk, as into one mug, he scraped the clear powder which swiftly dissolved. And while Phyllis kissed her little daughter who lay in the cot beside her, Lionel walked in, grinning like a husband having done a good deed, as he handed the wife he once loved, a steaming mug of cocoa. Dressed in a vest and petticoat, she got in beside him, and (probably supping a tea so he didn’t confuse the cups) they lay listening to the radio, as without any force, she drank the last drink she’d drink. Its slightly bitter taste of almonds masked by an extra sugar and a wee nip of whiskey to help her sleep. Having been sick for months, she often suffered with headaches, nausea and dizziness, so as her heart raced and her breathing became erratic, she didn’t know that she was dying, she didn’t know he’d poisoned her, and as she drifted from woozy to unconsciousness, within a minute, Phyllis was dead. With her skin unblemished and with no marks of violence, no vomiting nor blood, if a doctor enquired, the symptoms would mirror her botched illegal abortion, as no-one would suspect she was poisoned. Barely a day before he murdered her, Lionel spoke to Mr Odell the baker and told him “we don’t need any more bread, she’s going away”, and having paid off the final bill, no-one would suspect a thing. Only his dirty work wasn’t finished. As Phyllis lay there, silent and slowly cooling, in his eyes, one unloved and unwanted woman was out of the way, yet he wouldn’t be free until he had murdered the other, and being an innocent little child with no knowledge of the dangers in the world and the bad men who stalked its streets, she eagerly supped from the same mug her mother had, as the man she saw as a dad sent her to an eternal sleep. And with both dead, Lionel was free. The next day, while his wife and her child lay cold and stiff on his bed, in the factory’s machine shop, Lionel slipped Joan a note which read “well dear, I expect you wonder why I preferred you out of all girls. I have begun to love you”, and asking her out to the cinema, at which he would gift her with a dress and a pair of shoes which belonged to his wife, he ended the letter “with love and kisses”. Joan had no idea who he truly was, and how little he thought of her, as when asked about his feelings towards her, he later said “I just took her out after my wife died to kill time and because I was lonely”. Like his real wife, his bigamous wife, and the girl he said he was seeing, he used women until he needed them no more then he disposed of them. Only the bodies of Phyllis & Eileen would be a real problem. With the dog in the back garden, Lionel couldn’t bury them. Although at the start of the war millions of pets were euthanised, he’d used all the cyanide and it was too suspicious to steal more. And with no car nor any way to move them elsewhere, he hid them under his bed, as their bodies began to rot. It barely took a day before Lillian, the upstairs neighbour, started asking questions why Phyllis hadn’t joined her for her morning cup of tea, asking “Where’s Phyllis? I haven’t seen her today?”. At which she said he turned pale and stammered, “she’s gone away to see her aunt in Scotland”, (Lillian) “it’s funny she left without saying goodbye’, (Lionel) “yeah, well, she went very early, she was in a hurry”. On the 24th, four days later, masked by distant bombers as flames licked the skyline, having wrapped Phyllis & Eileen in bedsheets, Lionel hid their bodies in the coal box. It wasn’t his nosey neighbour or the rancid smell which made him move them, it was a date with Joan and he was hoping to get lucky. Selling off the jewellery, he took Joan to the cinema, and convincing her to come back to the flat, he showed her a photo of what was said to be “his baby” and he gave her some of his dead wife’s dresses. By the 26th, with the dog having gone, Lillian saw Lionel digging under the flagstones in front of the coal box. She called down, “hello, what are you doing, digging for victory?”, chuckling at her little joke, he brushed it off with a brusk “just burying some cabbage leaves”. As by day, he dug a very large hole, and by night, he buried their bodies, scattered it with quick lime, and replaced the heavy flagstones. Every day, he scrubbed them with disinfectant to disguise the smell, and then he got on with his life. But he wasn’t the richest, ust like he wasn’t the smartest, and knowing that an attractive young girl is an expensive hobby to keep, with Phyllis having £43 in her Post Office account (about £2700 today), he tried to bleed it dry, but he got scared when he realised he didn’t know how to forge her signature. By the 15th of June, more than three weeks after the murder, having run out of money, he tried to give Joan more gifts (like his dead wife’s fur coats, a bracelet and a gold ring), but she’d rejected them. She wasn’t suspicious, but she had been warned by the girls at the factory that he’d got a bad reputation. And with the relationship now over, all that remained was a hole, two corpses and a very bad smell. On the 29th of June, Lionel was witnessed again washing the flagstones down with disinfectant, as with the bombs leaving body parts on every street, every resident knew the familiar smell of rotting bodies. It was as familiar as fresh coffee, and although he blamed the drains, their terrible suspicions rose. On Monday 30th of June 1941, while Lionel was at work, Lillian pried up the foul-smelling flagstones with an axe, and digging into a layer of earth and quicklime, “I reached down and felt something soft”. Alerting the Police, Phyllis’ body was found with her baby wrapped in her arms. (End) Detecting traces on the saw and a witness who saw him steal a lump of Cyanide, even after six weeks of burial, so high was the dose, that the pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury confirmed it was Cyanide. Arrested at the Hoover factory on Tuesday 1st July, he pleaded his innocence, and using her abortion as a shield, he claimed Phyllis had killed her baby, then herself, and getting scared, he buried them. Tried at the Old Bailey on the 15th of September 1941 before Justice Cassels, he stuck to his story about his mentally ill wife being so sick that she committed suicide and then murdered her own child. But as he stood there, in the witness box, giving his side of the story for three hours, at no point did he act like a grief-stricken widow but as a cold callous man whose every waking thought was selfish and cruel. Witness after witness told of how he emptied her bank account, sold off her possessions, dug the hole where the bodies were found, and just one day after her death, he sent a love letter to his girlfriend. And with Mr Hall, an employee of the Hoover factory confirming “I saw him take the Cyanide, he said he needed it to clean his bath”, with his defence having crumbled to dust, he was as good as dead. On the 18th of September 1941, after a four-day trial, having retired for just 20 minutes, Lionel Watson was found guilty of two counts of murder and was sentenced to death. And although he appealed his case, being rejected, on 12th November 1941 he was hung at Pentonville Prison by Thomas Pierrepoint. His cremated remains were scattered inside the prison, whereas Phyllis & Eileen were given a full burial in Greenford Park Cemetery. Arrogant to the core, in a last letter, Lionel claimed “I'm not afraid to die. I would have gone with Phyllis had not been for my four little children. God bless them all". 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.
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE:
On Sunday 5th of November 1978, at a little after 5:30pm, two women stood at a bus stop on Sydney Place in Kensington, SW7, waiting for the rush hour bus. Having been close friends for decades, there seemed to be an odd friction between them, and although their issue was of a personal nature, within minutes, one would be a wanted criminal on the run, and the other would be shot dead. But why did Alvada Kooken murder Margaret Philbin?
THE LOCATION:
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SOURCES: (a selection)
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Sydney Place in South Kensington, SW7; five streets north of the Devil’s Child’s home invasion, three streets east of the killing of Countess Lubienska, the epicentre of Guenther Podola’s brutal amnesia, and the same street as the drippy dangler - coming soon to Murder Mile. On the corner of Sydney Place and Onslow Square is a bus stop, Stand HY to be exact. Bus passengers are an odd breed of human (if indeed they are), as bus stops are spots where only cretins with coughs congregate and the lonely stand in the hope someone will talk to them, alongside teens with tinny speakers, drunks with greasy kebabs, brats with gobs as big as their mother’s backside, and an miserly old bag who chastises the driver for his lateness, only to waste more minutes rooting for her bus pass. If only this was a one-way trip to Switzerland, as these are the kind of people the world wouldn’t miss. And yet, a massacre of some of life’s most incompetent wouldn’t be the first murder to occur here. On Sunday 5th of November 1978, at a little after 5:30pm, two women stood at this stop along with a throng of other passengers waiting for the rush hour bus. Having been close friends for decades, there seemed to be an odd friction between them, and although their issue was of a personal nature, within minutes, one would be a wanted criminal on the run, and the other would be shot dead. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 275: Stolen Womanhood. Some people don’t feel whole unless they marry, some don’t feel complete until they’ve had children, others feel empty when they’re bereaved, yet many are content in themselves. Everyone is different. But how does it feel when you’re no longer physically whole, with a ‘real’ piece of yourself missing? Alvada Ruth Kooken was born on the 5th of November 1923 as one of two siblings to Alva & Gertrude Kooken, alongside her brother Marvin. As a smart and forward-thinking family, they gave her a good start in life, and being educated at Downingtown High School in Pennsylvania, later moving from Kansas City in Kansas to neighbouring Kansas City in Missouri, this gave Alvada a taste for travel. Raised during the Great Depression - in the 1930s, when a woman’s role was solely as a homemaker - she came into adulthood during World War Two, and with millions of men fighting overseas, women like Alvada became vital part of industry, experiencing jobs and freedom like they never had before. When the war was over, some women went back to their old lives and old ways, but for others, it lit a fire under their backsides to live their own lives, rather than as a man’s appendage. They wanted their own money, their own home and - as a new breed of career women - to make their own decisions. Getting work as a secretary in the US Navy, the fallout of the war and the subsequent conflicts of the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam led Alvada to see the world. With much of her work classified, we can only get a hint at her exciting life from her movements; in 1947, she boarded the ‘Willard A Holbrook’, a US ship transporting refugees from Bremerhaven to New York, in 1948 she lived in Paris, in 1949 she was back in Kansas City to see her beloved family, and in 1956 she caught a Pan-Am flight to London where she continued working as a senior secretary at the US Naval Headquarters in Mayfair. As a government employee with a long illustrious service, Alvada was respected and earning £8000 a year - in an era when the average UK male earned barely half of that - she had achieved her goals and was living in her own flat in Basildon Court at 25 Devonshire Street in an exclusive part of Marylebone. But for every success, she was forced to make a sacrifice. Said to be 5 foot and 5 inches high, Alvada was a good-looking lady who was always neat, well-dressed and elegant. With collar length blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, startling blue eyes, and a pleasant face, which – devoid of wrinkles - always made her look younger than her true age, she was softly spoken with an accent which hid her past but accentuated her love of history, culture and travel. Everyone who met her said she was “likable, but a bit intense at times”, especially as she watched her friends get married and have babies - whereas for her, it was not to be. It was never said why, maybe it didn’t fit her grand plan, maybe she didn’t meet her Mr Right, or maybe it just didn’t happen? But for the rest of her life she would be cruelly defined as a spinster, as if being single was somehow a sin. In May 1963, when Alvada was 40, her mother died. As expected, it hurt her heart, it ached her soul and it left her with a sense that something in her life was missing. Whether a coincidence or not, that year, she started seeing a psychiatrist (one who came highly regarded from a slew of professionals on nearby Harley Street) and she would continue seeing him when she got low for the rest of her life. Thankfully, although miles from home and often feeling alone, when she needed a shoulder to cry on, the ones she trusted most with her secrets were her closest friends; Betty Stuckey & Margaret Philbin. Born on the 1st of September 1933 in Romford, Essex, Margaret Helen Philbin known as Peggy was the daughter of a housewife and a retired civil servant, with her brother a bank clerk. Like Alvada, she was raised with an ambition to succeed and having met while working for the US Government in Paris, said to be inseparable, Margaret and Alvada would become best friends for more than twenty years. It was a perfect friendship, and as two single women, they balanced each other out. They ate together, holidayed together, sometimes they double-dated, and were like a couple - only without the bad sex, the silent loathing and the arguments over who put the bins out – they always remained close. As a woman of routine, the porter at her apartment said “Margaret was quiet, a perfect tenant”, and a bubbly lady who enjoyed her life, never got upset and made the most of every moment. Said to be ‘pretty and popular’, into her mid-40s, although Margaret was childless, for her for it wasn’t an issue. Her loyal friendship kept Alvada happy and stable… until a medical incident changed everything. In May 1976, in her Marylebone flat at Basildon Court, Alvada hosted a dinner party for her boss and his wife. It was a small but elegant affair for a few senior dignitaries, with fine food, soft lighting and smooth music. Knowing how important it was for her career, as a good friend, Margaret helped out. By all accounts the party was a great success, but during the meal, Alvada was taken ill. With her face profusely sweaty and pale, and with her vomiting, it was believed to be food poisoning. But with her gripped by abdominal swelling and an intense pain in her gut, it was later suspected to be appendicitis. Rushed to The London Clinic, two streets away on Devonshire Place, Alvada could afford to go private, and therefore the doctor she paid for was the best. And when I say ‘the best’, I mean ‘the very best’. Her doctor was the distinguished consultant gynaecologist and internationally respected obstetrician, Dr George Pinker, Sir George Pinker to be precise; who for decades had been a consultant at St Mary's, the Middlesex, Bolingbroke, Battersea, Radcliffe, the Soho Hospital and the Samaritan Hospitals for Women, he assisted in the first Caesarean birth under epidural, he was president of the British Fertility Society and supported the research (three years later) which led to the birth of the first test-tube baby. Considered an expert, he pioneered many practices seen as standard today, and as the gynaecologist to Queen Elizabeth II, Sir George delivered nine royal babies – breaking with tradition by insisting they be born in a hospital – they included Peter & Zara Phillips and Prince William & Prince Harry. Said to be kindly, charming and courteous, for his services he was made a Knight of the Royal Victorian Order. If Alvada was to trust her body to anyone, it was to be Sir George Pinker, and that’s who she got. Assessed as an abdominal infection, although she’d had no prior sickness nor diseases in her family, it should have been cleared-up with antibiotics, but the swelling and bleeding persisted and it got worse. Consulting another surgeon, it was determined that emergency surgery was essential, Alvada was told of the risks, informed that – given the spread of the infection – that sick and healthy organs may need to be removed, and she signed the paperwork. Everything was done in accordance with the guidelines. In surgery, with the infected organ identified, “as a possible source of later infection if it was left in”, with the patient’s prior consent, he removed her appendix, uterus, fallopian tubes and her ovaries. It potentially saved her life and prevented further abdominal infections, and as a 53-year-old singleton who was already menopausal, she hadn’t planned to have a baby, and it wasn’t biologically possible. When she awoke, she felt sore, yet with the antibiotics working now the infected organ was out, her swelling was down, she didn’t feel sick, and being on the mend, she would be sent home to recuperate. For the first time in a month, Alvada felt bright and hopeful… …but at her bedside, told that her womb had been removed, her world came crashing down. She said “I didn’t want a hysterectomy. I know it sounds foolish for someone of my age to feel that way, but women do have children in their 50s. I knew he had taken out something that was healthy and normal, and I told him ‘you’ve made a mistake’. He tried to impress me with jargon so I got up and left”. Audrey Whiting, a friend who lived in her block said “she couldn’t think or talk about anything else”, as - in her eyes - a vital piece of her body had been ripped out and her womanhood had been stolen. Biology had been against her, she didn’t have a man to impregnate her, and now with her last chance at being a mother gone forever. Alvada later told the court “I had no feeling. I was dead inside”. Whereas once she was driven, the judge later described her as “a lady of impeccable background who worked throughout… only to become utterly and quite suddenly changed”, as whereas once she was whole, now she had a hole, a gap where her womb once was and – she felt - her future should be. By day, through misty eyes, she watched the women whose bumps she envied, but by night, as she clutched her pillow, she cried herself to sleep to the ghostly wails of the baby who could have been. In one swift slice – at least to her – her body was rendered empty, and hollow, and useless, a husk. Descending into insomnia and despair, although she’d put on weight prior, it was only now that she felt disgust when she looked in the mirror. Once she was young and feminine, and yet with her youth having abandoned her, what looked back at her was an old, bloated and sexless mess. But only to her. Audrey said “she blamed the dinner party, and with Margaret” – her younger, prettier, more popular and fertile friend - “having helped her, this led her to believe she was to blame for the whole thing”. It seems preposterous and it was, but maybe it’s no coincidence that Alvada’s father had died the year before, and with both parents’ dead, unable to face the truth, her mind sought someone to blame? In her head, Alvada believed it began with a clandestine call, in which “her friend had connived with a surgeon to have her ovaries unnecessarily removed”, even though Margaret wasn’t her next-of-kin. Nothing her friend said would convince her of the truth, as all Alvada could think of was the surgeon who stolen her womb and the woman who (she said) had arranged it, maybe out of spite? And with the two falling out, and never speaking again, even though Margaret moved to a new job as a secretary with a shipping company, this was not something that Alvada would ever forget… or even forgive. In August 1978, two years later, Margaret was sent a long and rambling letter in Alvada’s handwriting containing a list of thirty people involved in this conspiracy against her, who she believed had poisoned her at the party and plotted to rip out her womb. The list included nurses, doctors, friends, family and associates, but at the very top of the list was Betty Stuckey, Sir George Pinker and Margaret Philbin. It was a threat, but unsure if it was an idle threat, as Alvada became increasingly unhinged, that month, Margaret moved to a new flat in Pelham Court at 145 Fulham Road, a short walk from Sydney Place. For weeks, an eerie silence grew between them, only that threat wasn’t idle. In April, six months prior, Alvada had concocted a deadly plan. Having acted as if nothing was wrong as she wrote memos for the US Navy, across several evenings, she sidled into a series of seedy East End pubs and socialised with unseemly types, making it clear she was looking for a gun. She offered one man £1000 saying it was a present for her father. To another, she said it was only “to frighten two friends”, but neither wanted anything to do with it. And although they gave statements to the US Embassy, with Alvada having purchased a .38 revolver and 50 bullets, that all came too late. Sunday the 5th of November 1978. Guy Fawkes night, an annual celebration of the terrorist plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and either burn, maim or kill as many politicians as possible with a naked flame and barrels of gunpowder. At her flat at Pelham Court, in an ironic twist, Margaret was hosting a dinner party with fine food, soft lighting and smooth music. Only this time, no-one would fall sick, and no-one’s womb would be stolen. At around 5:30pm, with her guests having left, Margaret got herself ready for a night out at a fireworks display (and maybe to meet the man of her dreams who would become a lover, a husband and a father to her many children). Wearing a grey suede skirt, a red and yellow blouse and a brown fur coat, she descended the lift, exited the double doors of 145 Fulham Road, and headed to the nearest bus stop. As always, the night was bitterly cold as a biting frost gripped the air, a low fog clung to every surface, and with a frisson of excitement and reckless stupidity, it was as thrilling as it was annoying. From any and every corner, catherine wheels whizzed, shooting stars popped, and rockets banged, as with her ears echoing to the cacophony of booms, pops and flashes, the streets were also wreathed in smoke. It was the perfect night for fun… but also a murder. Nearby, for several hours, Alvada had lain in wait for her former friend, watching the double doors. Whether a coincidence or not, that day was Alvada’s 55th birthday, and although she was only a year older, maybe it was a reminder that she was still unmarried and forever childless, or a treat to herself? Dressed in a long grey coat and a headscarf, Alvada kept her distance as she followed Margaret across Fulham Road into Sydney Place. She later said “I didn’t intend to kill her. I wanted to hurt her because I knew she was the instigator of the whole thing. I knew I couldn’t sue her for what she had done”. The street was bustling with kids, couples and families on their way to a bonfire. Margaret had no idea she was being followed, until suddenly she felt eyes burning into her like red hot coals. “I saw her. She saw me. I knew she was frightened because she quickly crossed over”, then she stood at the bus stop. They hadn’t spoken in two years. They hadn’t seen each other since. “I followed her along a street and stopped behind her as she paused under a streetlamp”. To everyone else they were just two faces in a crowd, waiting for a bus, with one of them - Alvada - clutching a white and blue plastic Pan Am bag. Alvada said “she did not speak and I did not speak to her. I was waiting for something to happen”. It was something which – in a rational mind – would never happen, but - in an irrational mind – must at all costs. “If she had said ‘I am sorry’, I couldn’t have done it”, Alvada had said, “but she didn’t”. At that point, “two Spanish women passed. I know it made her bold enough to turn and look at me”, and as she did, Alvada pulled from her bag the revolver, and from inches away “I shot her in the head”. Having slipped the gun into her bag and slunk away into the crowd who’d mistaken that smoke-filled flash and bang for the one of thousands of others that night, with 1 down and 29 to go on her Kill List, next up was to be Margaret’s co-conspirator Betty Stukey and Dr Pinker in his Harley Street clinic. And with that, Alvada had vanished into thin air. Passengers on the No14 bus to Putney saw nothing as it pulled up to the stop. Some got on, but one woman didn’t, and with her being slumped on the cold wet and increasingly sticky floor, it was as she was illuminated by a streetlight, that they saw blood flowing from her mouth, her nose and her eyes as it pooled underneath her, as from the back of her head, the right side of her skull was missing. A passing Police Sergeant gave her mouth-to-mouth for several minutes before a doctor took over. Raced to St Stephen’s hospital, armed detectives stayed by her bed in the hope she could a statement, but she remained unconscious. For hours, doctors fought to save her life, but suffering chronic blood loss, a brain haemorrhage, and with her heart constantly stopping, at a little after 8pm, she died. Her killing was described as “calculating and chilling”. Hunting a “mystery woman in a long grey coat and a headscarf”, her photofit was issued to all police and identifying the victim, the motive wasn’t initially clear. But as the detectives searched Margaret’s flat, finding a rambling letter from Alvada complete with 30 names, one of whom she had shot dead, they realised that this wasn’t an empty threat, but a deadly mission. That night, the next two victims in this so-called conspiracy, Dr Pinker and Betty Stuckey, were placed under armed Police guard, the other 27 persons were advised to go into hiding, and Alvada was declared as “armed and dangerous”. Announcing her name and description at a press conference, Police stated “we need to catch her now, before she kills again”, as she had a history of mental illness, a belly full of hatred, and 49 more bullets. Every place she had lived or worked was checked. Every station and seaport was alerted. Security was tightened at Stanstead, Heathrow and Gatwick. And with a possible sighting at a bus stop on Gallows Corner near Romford, it was thought she may be heading to RAF Lakenheath, where she had friends. Police swarmed the area hoping to arrest her before she shot somebody else … …the problem was that wasn’t her. On the night of the murder, Alvada had planned to kill Dr George Pinker in his Harley Street clinic and Betty Stuckey at her home in Putney, but with the shooting having snarled traffic to a standstill, the No30 bus she needed never arrived, and fearing the Police would catch her, he caught the tube home. Packing a bag, she never went on the run. Instead, having withdrawn enough money, she booked into the Royal Garden Hotel on Kensington High Street, barely one mile north of the crime scene, and hid. On Wednesday 8th of November, while Police were searching airbases in Essex & Suffolk, James Hazan spotted the woman whose face he’d seen in the newspaper exiting the hotel, “I got hold of her arms, shouted for a policeman and made a citizen’s arrest”. And with that, the manhunt was over. (Out) Tried at the Old Bailey, beginning on Monday 9th of July 1979, before Mr Justice Cantley, the jury were asked if this was a coldblooded murder, or manslaughter by provocation. Evidence proved there was no conspiracy, nor any hint, between the respected surgeon and any of the 30 names on her kill list. With Alvada said to be “suffering delusions of persecution and a degree of schizophrenia”, she refused to allow her defence to put forward a plea of ‘diminished responsibility’ owing to her mental state, and with a defence of provocation (caused by her belief that her womb had been stolen by a jealous friend) dismissed by the jury, 55-year-old Alvada Kooken was sentenced to life for wilful murder. Transferred to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital for assessment, under Section 72 of the Mental Health Act of 1959, she was given a Hospital Order meaning she could only be released when she was deemed mentally well, and although she appealed her sentence, this was later dismissed. Seven years later, she was still at Broadmoor, while on a supervised day trip to Southsea with other patients, she escaped, hopped on a train and headed to London. Armed guards were posted to Dr Pinker’s home and his clinic, and although again the Police warned “this woman is dangerous. Do not go near her”, she was later found in a meeting room at St Ermins’s Hotel in Westminster, fast asleep. She didn’t rant about killing, and having fled, maybe for a brief moment she just wanted to feel free? On 8th of January 1995, Alvada died of natural causes in Broadmoor, aged 71. Shipped back to Kansas City, she was buried beside her parents in Forest Hill cemetery. Across her life, she’d achieved so much, but with a key piece of her life missing, till her dying day, she blamed it on her stolen womanhood. 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. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #274: Immoral Earnings (Mary McCormack & Alfred Nathan Bain)6/11/2024
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOUR:
1st August 1970, 20-year-old Mary McCormack of Limerick was found strangled in her ground floor flat at 85 Talgarth Road in Baron’s Court, W14. With no signs of a break-in, the police suspected it was either a client who she let in, or a tenant with a key. But did the Police convict the right man?
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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Talgarth Road in Baron’s Court, W14; four streets from the coldblooded couple, five streets from little Sonia’s killer nanny, a short walk from the bubbling drum of John George Haigh, and the same house as a killing possibly connected to Charles Manson - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 85 Talgarth Road, currently stands a four-storey Victorian terrace house. With steps up to the floors above, it’s still split into flats and bedsits, and looks as rough and dirty as it always did. Situated off the A4 Flyover, its bricks are thick with pollution, and it’s the kind of sordid place you’d expect to see a paedo hunched over his laptop, or a van of immigrants manhandled inside for sex-work and slavery. It has a squalid and unsettling feeling, and for good reason. In the early hours of Saturday 1st August 1970, in the front facing ground-floor flat of 85 Talgarth Road, a 20-year-old prostitute called Mary McCormack was found strangled. With no obvious break-in, her killer was either a punter who she let in, or her alleged pimp with his own key. But what was the truth? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 274: Immoral Earnings. What follows is based on the declassified court records and eyewitness testimony. According to the police, their prime suspect in the killing of Mary McCormack was Alfred Nathan Bain. Born on the West Indian island of Grenada on the 19th of June 1941, he was raised in ‘a sun-kissed paradise’, but according to Alfred, his childhood was “unsettled” as his parents “were always fighting”. With Grenada being Crown Colony, and later, an Associate State of the British Commonwealth, seeking a better wage, like many, in April 1960, 19-year-old Alfred Bain swapped the sun, sea and assurance of his homeland for a better wage in England. Only it was hardly the ‘utopia’ he’d been promised, as it was always raining and cold, the food was bland and unpalatable, the streets were ravaged by race riots, and many flats or B&B’s still had signs in their windows which read ‘no blacks, no dogs, no Irish’. Later stating “I drifted”, training as a mechanic, he said that in 1961 he was a greaser at Metropolis garages in Barnes, in 1964 at Blue Star in Fulham and in 1965 at HR Owens on the Old Brompton Road, although this couldn’t be verified as they hired staff on a cash-only basis. He said he was also a window cleaner and managed a record shop, again unverified, and from August 1968 onwards, he worked as a taxi-driver using in his black Wolseley saloon (registration 5832MG) which was prone to breakdowns. Police suspected the history he gave was lie and although he only had one previous criminal conviction for receiving stolen goods –a handbag - on the 1st of January 1969 he was fined £8 10s and as a first offence was given a conditional discharge, but the Police believed he was a pimp, which he denied. 1970s Britain was an era when some police officers were unashamedly racist and openly corrupt, and with Alfred being black, it’s likely he would have been seen as a criminal, even if he wasn’t, and an easy target to convict with a predominantly white jury – but this isn’t to say he was innocent or guilty. Just as, when a brothel was raided, those women wouldn’t be seen as exploited sex slaves in need of help but punished for being a prostitute - but that isn’t to say the Police were innocent or guilty. This is a complicated case marred by bias on both sides, and too often the victims are forgotten, so the testimony you’ll hear will be the words of the women who accused him of selling them for sex. Linda Chinnery was 15 years old, when in July 1968 she got a job at Dollis on Oxford Street. Stealing a purse, she was given two years’ probation, but as a typical teen, she hated reporting to her probation officer and having been sent to an approved school, she absconded, and hitched a lift to London. At a pub in Fulham, this homeless child was introduced to Alfred Bain and the two became acquainted. Linda testified “a white man came… Alfie took the man aside, when he had left, Alfie told me he had arranged that I was to have sex with the man. I was a bit ashamed, but thought I’d get some money”. As a child prostitute charging £10 a time, “I kept £5 and bought a dress”, and other times, “Alfie said he’d save the £5 for me” - this being a trick many pimps used to keep their girls under their control - “and suggested it would be an easy way to make money”. Being unaware of the consequences, soon this vulnerable young girl was being violated by between 3 to 10 drunk and strange men every day. In 1971, Alfred was convicted of “procuring Linda Chinnery to become a prostitute and also knowingly living wholly or partly off her earnings” between the 15th of September and the 30th of October 1969. But his (alleged) control of these girls was said to be more than just manipulation and coercion. Susan Collette who also testified said, “Alfie put Linda on the streets. He threatened her the first time, but after that, she went out with Alfie without an argument”, as for many prostitutes, the fear of the ramifications if they didn’t do as they were told was more terrifying than the consequences itself. Given a blonde wig and the street name of ‘Karen’, at 79 Shirland Road in Maida Vale – a four-storey terraced house which Alfred denied owning but said he sublet it into flats for the landlord - Linda saw “lots of men, mainly white, coming to the house”. Adverts were placed in phone boxes advertising a ‘model’, with details of her age, her hair colour, her size and that she offered ‘personal services’, as well as a phone number which led directly to the front ground-floor bedroom at 85 Talgarth Road. Alfred also denied owning that building, even though he had a room on the ground floor, which Linda said was so he “could keep an eye on them”. By the autumn of 1969, Linda was the tenant of what was said to be a brothel and where she contracted Trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted infection. When questioned, Alfred denied that he ever beat the girls, only Linda’s testimony contradicted this. Linda said “after one man left, I found that £5 was missing. I panicked. I was frightened, because of Alfie’s reaction. He told me if this sort of thing happened, there would be trouble for me”. And fearing his anger – which Susan Collette witnessed stating “Bain was angry that Linda had double crossed him” - she packed her bags in the dead of night and fled. It is uncertain if she went to the police, or not. Linda was safe, but with a loss of income to the man who used women as a commodity… …her disappearance (it was suggested) lead to the murder of Mary McCormack. In court, Alfred Bain denied he knew that Mary was a prostitute, with his defence counsel Sir Dingle Foot QC stating “there was no evidence that she had been forced to act as a prostitute. This is not a picture of wicked exploitation”, even though he was convicted of “procuring prostitutes” and the one woman he either coerced or forced into prostitution (according to her own testimony)… was his wife. Carmel Keane was from the crime-ridden Southill estate of Limerick in Ireland. Having met Alfred at a party, they moved to London, married in 1965, and with one daughter (Mandy) back in Ireland, at first they were said to be happy and together they had another daughter, Elsina. But with their relationship turning sour – possibly owing to what happened next - Elsina was put into care aged just 3 months. Carmel said “Alfie suggested I should earn some money. He told me that his girlfriend before gave him enough money and that if I wanted to keep him, I’d better do this. He suggested I go on the streets”. This was his wife, the woman he supposedly loved, and yet (she says) he forced her into prostitution. “He nagged me about it and knocked me about, because I didn’t want to do it”. But later convicted of selling his wife for sex between June 1967 and November 1969, she said “I was working in Hyde Park”. Picking up at least 3 men a day, he’d drop her off in his unreliable black Wolseley saloon, he'd park up nearby to protect her (as she was his income), and she earned £50 a day “none of which I ever saw”. Upon his arrest, when assessed by the prison psychiatrist to see if he was fit to stand trial, it was said “he has an inflated view of himself as a lover”, he admitted he is “possessive in his attitude to women”, and “was proud that the women he married was willing to” in his words “sell herself to men for him”. By Christmas 1969, just two months after Linda had fled, Carmel walked out and returned to Ireland. It’s plain to see why the Police saw Alfred as the most likely suspect in Mary’s murder, as even before we get to the evidence of the case, he openly abused woman as a commodity to make himself money. A friend of Linda’s was Valerie Kemp who said that Alfred had suggested to Keith Appleton (Valerie’s boyfriend) that she become a prostitute and that he’d “benefit financially if she did”. In February 1969, realising she was pregnant - perhaps out of kindness, although it’s unlikely - Alfred arranged an illegal abortion using a man of questionable experience called Cosmo Ashley. Cosmo had a bag of surgical tools (a specular, a dilator, some rubber tubing, and a medical book), but being a part-time engineering student and just a hospital porter with no medical qualifications, he had only a rough idea what to do. Nicknamed ‘Dr Lee’, Cosmo stated that Alfred paid him £15 for the abortion, even though it wasn’t his girlfriend who was pregnant, and Valerie said that “Alfie told me to tell Dr Lee that I was sixteen. I was fifteen at the time and Alfie knew this”. But unless she was one of his ‘girls’, why would he do that? According to a later conviction, one of the prostitutes Alfred “wholly or partly knowingly lived off” between at least 4th April and 31st July 1969 was Mary McCormack, even though he would deny this. Like Linda, Mary came from Limerick, and having met her in a bar, after Linda had fled, Mary moved into the ground floor room at 85 Talgarth Road, with adverts plastered in phone boxes advertising a ‘model, 18, 4 foot 11, slim’, with a phone by her bed, and coincidentally Alfred in the room next door. He had known her for six months, later telling the police, “I liked her. I offered her that room. She used to bring men home three times a week. If she did not bring a man home, she would come to me. I had no money from her except rent. She only gave me sex”, denying any involvement in prostituting her. When arrested, hidden in his Wolseley’s floor, Police found two bank books showing that from May to July, he had paid in £475 (£9200), in an era when the average weekly wage was £32 a week, and yet, although he claimed to be a part-time taxi-driver, he refused to say where the money came from. The front room of 85 Talgarth Road was a tragic little place, with pornography on the walls to get men hard, and signs that read ‘smile’ so the girls didn’t forget to act like they weren’t always miserable. So it didn’t look like a semen-coated hell, it had some home comforts like a radio, a TV, a fire and a drinks cabinet, but with those only there to make the male punters feel comfortable, it wasn’t a place to live. Five months into her life as a hole for drunk perverts to pump, this petite leggy brunette was discretely looking to get out, knowing that – like many girls before - this isn’t the kind of job you could just quit. Fearing her pimp’s fury, Rosalind Wright QC said “it is believed Mary was planning to start a new life”, she had hidden £250 (£3700 today) under the carpet, “and she’d enquired about returning to a job at a gin distillery two weeks before her death”. Like Linda, she would vanish in the dead of night, and – unbeknownst to her - with the police keeping surveillance on the flat, she had some protection. But on Thursday 30th July, one day before her murder, with the police stating of Alfred “he came out and looked at us, we thought we’d been rumbled”, the surveillance was stopped, leaving Mary alone. The Police suspected Alfred owing to the holes in his alibi. Alfred said that on Friday 31st of July 1970, “I left at 9:45am. I saw Mary, I said ‘see you later sexy’. I never saw her alive again”, as he didn’t return until 1:30am. He said she was wearing a pink nightie (which cannot be verified), but when her body was found, she was in a black negligee, a peephole bra, knickers, with her hair and make-up done, and her shoes were on the floor as if she’d taken them off. Outside, with his unreliable Wolseley playing up, Alfred said “the starter broke, a man helped me push it to Edith Road”, two streets away, “and I drove it to 131 Percy Street, where it was parked all day”. From 12pm for 15 minutes, he tried making calls to his daughter in Limerick, but couldn’t get through, and being an era of bad telephone communications, it’s likely, but there was no record of the calls. At 2:27pm, he placed a bet as proved by a betting slip, and although he said he did this at 4:30pm, this could have been an honest mistake, and he later agreed with the time when confronted by the proof. At 3:50pm, unable to call his daughter, he sent a telegram from Shepherd’s Bush post office, with the staff refuting this, saying the customer was “a coloured woman, not a man”, but mistakes do happen. From 4pm to 5:30pm, he said he tried booking a flight to Limerick via Aer Lingus, a call there was no proof of, but then, it was the 1970s. And between 6pm and 6:30pm, he said he arrived at Continental Garage on Gayford Road in Hammersmith where his other car - a Simca saloon - was having work done on the body and gearbox, and he stayed there till 10:20pm, which his friends at the garage verified. That day, witnesses saw the following at 85 Talgarth Road. In the morning, a stocky man in a tweed jacket, possibly a pre-arranged punter. Around lunchtime, a late 40s craggy-faced man with grey hair (who was known as a regular client). And an Indian, late 40s, 5ft 8in, with grey hair and a suede jacket who rang her doorbell between 3 and 6pm - none of which resembled Alfred. But a witness said they saw “a black Wolseley outside of 85 Talgarth Road at 6:20pm”. He said his was at Percy Road, 2 miles north-east of the flat and barely a few streets from the garage. But did the witness make a mistake? The witness didn’t get the licence plate, and when asked if this was his car, Alfred stated “no”. At 10:30pm, having bought some off-sale beers, Alfred Bain, his friend Albert Bertrand, and his cousin Clunis Cato, returned to the flat at 131 Percy Road, and tried to get the car’s starter working. Clunis said he saw Alfred several times that day, and said of each occasion, “he was as normal as ever”. This is where the truth deviates, but then, if he was innocent, this confusion could be owing to trauma? Alfred said, with the Wolseley broken, he asked his friend to drive him to 85 Talgart Road. Only Albert denied this, stating “I drove him to 131 Percy Road at midnight”, then he drove himself home. When given this statement, Alfred changed his story, stating he drove alone in his Simca, its gearbox fixed. In his own words, Alfred said “I arrived at 1:15am. I opened (the door) with my key”, as seen by Rene Willoughby who lived upstairs. “I went straight to my room”, right next door, “I saw my television”, which was broken “and I messed with it for five minutes. I then decided to leave it until the morning”. There are no witnesses to what happened next, but Alfred said, “Mary’s radio was playing louder than usual. I peeped into her room. I didn’t notice her”, later stating, “I thought Mary was hiding from me”, possibly for fun, although this was never fully explained. “I went to her room and the telephone was in its usual place, on the floor. I thought it funny that she should go out leaving the receiver off”, which was odd as she was clearly in as her shoes and stockings had been removed and were beside the bed. “I noticed her bag on the floor… I saw a black stocking and that made me more anxious to look for her. I knelt down to look under the bed”, which again is an odd thing to do, unless you accept that she was either playing hide and seek, was caught in the act of something risky, or she was truly afraid of him? Alfred then claimed “I noticed her foot sticking out from under the bed, I grabbed it round the ankle. I shouted ‘Mary’. I quickly moved the bed over to the left. She was on her face and I grabbed her shoulder. I shouted ‘Mary, Mary’, I shook her and turned her over. I knew there was no life in her”. Alfred shouted for his neighbour, Rene, to come down, and at 2:20am, they called the Police… …almost an hour after Alfred said he had entered the flat. With Police securing the scene at 2:25am, the investigation was headed up by Chief Inspector Sayers. What was clear from the outset was that, with no signs of a break-in and the house secure, the culprit was either someone Mary invited in, or a resident with a key. And with her intercom broken, someone may have disabled it to stop anyone being alerted to her punters buzzing in, and then getting no reply. Pathologist Dr David Bowen stated “the body had been on its back for most of the time after death”, as its hypostasis confirmed this, “but then someone had turned her over” as Alfred had reported. Taking swabs from her mouth, anus and vagina, it was determined there was no sexual assault. Taking hair, blood and urine samples, she wasn’t drunk, on drugs, or poisoned. And with no skin scrapings of a suspect under the nails, she hadn’t been scared of her attacker and she didn’t fight for her life. But there was a good reason why? Bruising to the lower lip showed she’d been punched, possibly knocking her out. Rolled onto her front, her killer used his weight to pin this tiny woman down, and with her immobile and helpless, from behind he strangled her. Killed not out of panic but a furious anger, he crushed her larynx, and left a deep bloody groove in her neck, having held the ligature tight until he was certain that she was dead. When the room was searched, her wallet containing £250 to be used for her escape was missing, only with it hidden behind the bar and under the carpet, it was unlikely a stranger had stumbled upon it. Detectives said the murder weapon, which was never found, was likely to be a strip of plastic edging which came off a hi-fi speaker in her room, having belonged to Alfred several months prior. It seemed an odd choice as a ligature, especially if a stranger had chosen to strangle her in the heat of passion. With no witnesses, the evidence was circumstantial. Friends said Alfred was “disturbed and broken hearted” when he spoke of her death, And with Mary’s murder occurring between 12:30pm and 1:45pm, if that is correct, there is an inconvenient gap in Alfred’s timeline when he was seen by no-one; being 15 minutes after he struggled to call his daughter, and 30 minutes before he placed a bet. Arrested that night, detectives were so sure that Alfred was the culprit (rather than one of her clients) it could be said that they were blindsided by the need to prove his guilt. Asked “did you kill Mary?”, he said “no, I’m innocent… the power of truth is in me and I want to help you”. At which, the Sergeant said “you’re a pretty good actor but you sometimes overdo it. Why did you kill her?”. He denied he did. Giving several statements and repeatedly questioned, initially he gave a false testimony, he refused to comment, his shifting story was full of holes, and (against all evidence) he denied knowing Linda Chinnery or Valerie Kemp, he denied procuring an abortion, he denied being a pimp, he denied living off immoral earnings, he denied 85 Talgarth Road was a brothel, or that he prostituted his wife. (end) On the 6th of January 1971, Alfred Bain was tried at the Old Bailey charged with murder and living of the proceeds of prostitution, as well as conspiring to procure an abortion with Cosmo Kumah Ashley. Pleading ‘not guilty’, the prosecution stated he had tried to establish an alibi with lies and inconsistent actions, but with “no conclusive evidence to prove he had killed her”, on the 22nd of January, after five hours, the jury found him guilty of living of immoral earnings, and he was jailed for two years in prison. Unable to prove that he murdered Mary McCormack, a retrial of the charge was ordered, and on the 25th of February 1971, this time using the same evidence, he was found guilty and sentenced to life. Appealing his conviction in June 1972, the judge stated that “the evidence met the legal standard of guilt”, and with Alfred released on licence, he died in May 2001, with his daughter pursuing his appeal. If he was guilty, what couldn’t be agreed on was why he had killed Mary. The Prosecution suggested three motives; that he suspected her of ratting him out to the police (hence the surveillance), that he wanted her money (even though, in his bank, he had vastly more than her), or that, having planned to start a new life, he had strangled Mary in a fit of rage, as he saw women as a disposable commodity. Whether we believe he was guilty or innocent is irrelevant, as the conviction should be based on hard evidence and not opinion or bias, otherwise what is the point of the law. The truth is lost to the midst of time, and what happened in that room only Mary knows, and possibly Alfred, both of whom are dead. 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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