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Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of 300+ untold, unsolved and often long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE ELEVEN
Episode Eleven: On 23rd November 1981, 19 year old student Paul Nobbs met a man in The Golden Lion public house on Dean Street; here they drank, laughed and headed back to his place for more drink, a bite to eat, some sex and a sleep… but whether he’d ever wake-up again was not his decision, as he had just spent the night with one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers – Dennis Nilsen.
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THE LOCATION
Ep11 - Dennis Nilsen & The Sleeping Bag of Death (part one)
SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is a little bit different. As it not about a murder. Today we delve into the deeply depraved and yet strangely sad life of one of Britain’s most infamous serial-killers, and two of his would-be victims who came within inches of death, and yet survived the clutches of Dennis Nilsen. Murder Mile contains graphic depictions of death which won’t be suitable for delicate poppets, as well as realistic sounds, so no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 11: Dennis Nilsen and the sleeping bag of death. Today, I’m in my natural setting, a pub, hooray. The Golden Lion at 51 Dean Street to be precise, barely thirty feet from Shaftsbury Avenue and fifty feet from Old Compton Street, as it’s here that I always end my weekly guided walk of Soho’s most infamous murder cases, and celebrate by supping a nice cold creamy pint of Green King IPA. Ah! The Golden Lion is a quaint, cosy and often cramped little pub, dating back to 1769, which is perched on the corner of Dean Street and Romilly Street. And although the top four floors of this five-storey building are covered in startling white plaster with wood panelled and lead lined windows (a design feature which harks back to its 18th century roots – even though it was actually rebuilt in the 1920’s, but ssshhh, don’t tell anyone), the pub on the ground-floor is less easy to spot, as it’s drenched in black; with black walls, black window frames, black doors and all under a dark black awning, with its moody broody exterior only illuminated by a small former gas-light and ornate gold lettering above which openly proclaims that this is The Golden Lion. But walk in through this dark wooden door, and you’ll find a sweet, petite and surprisingly friendly Soho pub, which seats fifty and stands about the same; serves traditional home-cooked British staples (like pie & chips, fish & chips, steak & chips, and if you ask nicely, just chips), and has a fully stocked bar serving a fabulous selection of beers, ales, wines, spirits and (to those who’ve been on my walk) yes they also serve “mulled wine”. And with it being Christmas, the decorations are up, the lights are twinkling, the carols are playing, and all the staff are in a jolly festival mood. It’s a warm, welcome and friendly place to be. And yet, back in the late 1970’s, one regular frequenter of the Golden Lion public house was so friendly to any waif and stray who happened to be passing, that years later, the press would nickname him “The Kindly Killer”. (INTERSTITIAL). Often dubbed the “dirty square mile”, Soho of the 1970’s wasn’t the gay safe-haven that it is today, where proud members of the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community can happily walk hand-in-hand during the daylight hours. As back then, the dark-lit streets of the West End were awash with porn parlours, jizz-joints, mucky book-shops and sweaty backstreet brothels, stained with the eye-watering stench of sick, piss and semen. And yet sadly, after the liberated sexual openness of the 1930’s, by the 1970’s, homosexuality (which was still illegal) had once again been forced underground. Meaning that (for those in the know), there were only a handful of gay bars in the West End, including The Salisbury, The Marquis of Granby, Madame JoJo’s, The Admiral Duncan and – of course – The Golden Lion, where our story begins. The morning of Monday 23rd November 1981 was cold, fresh and crisp as the typical British winter set in, with the last of autumnal leaves being illuminated by a low glaring sun as they blew across the lightly frosted streets of Soho. It was lunchtime, and although Paul Nobbs, a 19 year old student from the nearby University of London had already skipped a morning lecture in his three year degree course in Slavonic & East European Studies; being cold, fed-up and nursing a slowly-all-consuming headache, he decided to delay his shopping trip at Foyle book shop on Charing Cross Road, and instead needed a quick pint to pacify his horrible hangover which lurked within. As a gay man who’d happily drink in any bar but preferred the safety, warmth and camp camaraderie of a gay-friendly pub, he tottered round the corner to the nearest boozer, which was the Golden Lion. But then again, you wouldn’t really know it was gay-pub, as the clientele’s secret sexuality obviously wasn’t plastered across the walls, instead it was gay with a nod and a wink; the kind of place where a heterosexual brickie could pop in for a pint, banter about sport with some burly blokes, ogle a topless model on page three of trashy tabloid The Sun, and all without knowing they were gay. And although the bar was grimy, dingy and a bit rough, it was fun, local and – best of all – the beer was cheap. So, as he entered the bar, being a slim teen with a slight frame, dark black hair and a broody yet handsome look, it wasn’t long before 19 year old Paul Nobbs was being chatted-up and brought a drink by a man, whose name was Dennis Nilsen. (INTERSTITITAL) Known locally as “Des”, although Dennis Nilsen was a regular at the Golden Lion, who could often be found perched at a table, with a pint of beer, a rum and coke chaser, and casually smoking a Marlboro, Dennis was unlike the usual unemployed rabble who knocked back the booze and drank themselves into early grave on a Monday lunchtime. Dennis was different; being a little over six feet tall he should have cut quite an imposing figure, but being slim yet strong, respectable and bespectacled, with short black hair, soft blue eyes, clean shaven with a sweet smile and a lovely warm Aberdeen brogue to his voice, Dennis was friendly, eloquent, polite, educated, approachable and totally unthreatening. As a single gay man, neatly dressed in ironed trousers and a well-pressed shirt, Dennis worked as a widely respected unionist and civil servant in the local Denmark Street job centre. And although he was almost double Paul’s age, they instantly hit it off, as they sat, drank, laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, as Dennis regaled Paul with a wealth of fascinating anecdotes about his Army service, his brief stint as a policeman, his love of poetry, his fondness for animals, and his penchant for playing the piano, as well as being an excellent cook having trained as an Army chef. Yes, it’s fair to say that anyone who met Dennis Nilsen liked him. In fact, the only reason that Dennis was drinking in the Golden Lion on a Monday lunchtime was that he taken a day off work to celebrate his 36th birthday. And so, having found a new friend, with a fondness for literature, an intellectual bent and a love of self-betterment, they headed off to Foyles to shop for books. And with the cold winter night having drawn in, both men feeling a little peckish and needing something to soak up the booze, Dennis invited Paul back to his flat for a drink, some dinner, some sex, and a maybe (Dennis hoped) a new boyfriend? Born in the remote coastal town of Fraserburgh in the north east of Scotland on the 23rd November 1945, Dennis Andrew Nilsen was the second of three children spawned by Elizabeth Whyte (a native of Fraserburgh) and Olav Magnus Moksheim (a soldier in the Norwegian Free Army, who served in Scotland during World War Two and adopted the surname Nilsen to blend in). But the early life of young Dennis was littered with loneliness, as with his father abandoning the family when Dennis was just three, his over-wrought and over-worked mother quickly remarried, burdening her shy and quiet son with four half-siblings and a very strict step-father, in what was already an unaffectionate family. Feeling isolated on the barren shores of Scotland, having very few friends except the wildlife, and drenched with a sense that he was different; young Dennis spent much of his time pining for his beloved grandfather, a sea-fisherman, who would often be gone for days at a time. Later referring to him as “a great hero” and “the only man I ever loved”, little Dennis always felt a great emptiness in his life and would wait on the shore for his grandfather to return. And then one day, when Dennis was just five, his hero didn’t return. His grandfather’s heart had failed, and as the life drained from the old man’s body, the love drained from Dennis’ life, and once again he was abandoned. As a slightly tipsy Paul Nobbs and the boozy birthday-boy Dennis Nilsen exited Highgate tube station, they staggered the 15 minute walk up Muswell Hill Road – stopping off at Sainsbury’s to pick up some pork chops, Bacardi rum and a large bottle of Coca-Cola – and at 5:45pm, they entered the leafy North London street of Cranley Gardens. A rather respectable residential neighbourhood in a middle class part of town, full of three-storey semi-detached houses, and all with tidy little front gardens. 23 Cranley Gardens was no different; it was neat, sweet and homely, and being built in an Old English style with white plastered walls and old oak beams, it had recently been converted into three small flats for working professionals. And as they stumbled up three flights of stairs to the top floor, drunkenly trying to be quiet, and failing miserably, Dennis popped his key in the front door of flat 23C. In contrast to the street, the house and even Dennis himself, this converted attic flat was dirty, dingy and squalid. With a small hallway serving as a makeshift kitchen complete with a grease covered oven; ahead was a small dirty bathroom with a tidemark-lined bath, a scum covered sink and a poo-speckled loo; with an unused lounge to the right, and beyond was his bedroom. And although it was almost winter, one window had been left wide open, giving the flat a distinctly chilly feel, and yet a strange smell still lurked. In fact, the only warmth in Dennis’ bedroom was from a two bar electric fire and the over-excited wagging and panting from Nilsen’s six year old mongrel collie-cross named ‘Bleep’. Not that Paul Nobbs knew, but this was the flat of one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. And although it was messy and unkempt, there were no bodies buried under the floorboards, no limbs wrapped in bin-bags, no flesh flushed down the toilet and no decapitated heads slowly boiling in an oversized cooking pot. But then again, Dennis Nilsen had only moved in barely a seven weeks before… and he hoped, that this time, starting again in a new flat, that it would kerb his impulse to kill. But that night, to be honest, was pretty uneventful. Paul & Dennis sat in two armchairs, eating pork chops, watching the news and getting sloshed on rum, until they both stumbled into Dennis’ floral pattern bed and drunkenly fumbled with each other’s boy-bits, but realising that neither man could muster a much-needed boner, they gave up and fell into a soporific slumber, with Bleep the dog asleep at their feet; Dennis wrapped in a thin duvet and Paul snuggled-up in a bright blue sleeping bag. Since the death of his beloved grandfather, all Dennis ever wanted was to be loved, but for as long as he had known, he had always been rejected; by his father, his mother, his siblings and his friends. Struggling with his burgeoning teenage sexuality in the rural isolation of the Scottish lowlands in the 1950’s, hiding his homosexual lusts as he served in the armed forces in the 1960’s, masking his illegal sexual status whilst training as a policeman in the 1970’s, until finally, Dennis Nilsen retrained as a civil servant and moved to the Denmark Street job centre, where finally he could be himself, barely one street away from the blossoming gay-scene of Soho. Unlike many serial-killers, Dennis Nilsen was different; he wasn’t an arsonist, a bed-wetter, a drug-abuser, a defecator, a mummy’s boy or a peeping-tom, and neither was he cruel to any animals. And as much as some trashy tabloids may print this twaddle, it’s simply not true. One morning, as Dennis walked up Denmark Street (passing the burnt-out remnants of the Denmark Place fire, the charred aftermath he’d witnessed just fifty feet from his office), he spotted an injured sparrow on the pavement, which most pedestrians would have passed thinking “that’s not my problem”. But Dennis didn’t. Dennis couldn’t. Loving animals and (ironically) being a big believer in the right to life, he scooped up the injured bird, took it into his office, make a makeshift nest for it in his drawer using shredded paper and cotton wool, and then over the next few days, to build-up its strength, he hand-fed it, using morsels of mashed-up fish, having first masticated it in his own mouth. By 1981, Dennis had worked at the Denmark Street job centre for seven years, having been promoted to the senior position of acting Executive Officer and the branch’s union rep’; and although he was often serious, slightly short-tempered and a little lacking in humour especially when it came to worker’s rights, it was always said, that if you ever had a problem, you’d want Dennis Nilsen on your side. And even though he wasn’t a natural people-pleaser, he’d often spoil his co-workers by bringing in a big pot of homemade Jamaican curry and (at Christmas) a very heady batch of mulled wine. But being plagued with loneliness and an all-encompassing fear of rejection as he entered his mid-thirties as a singleton, the sexual predilections of Dennis Nilsen had shifted from being a mildly curious gay man, to being obsessed with sex, death and sometimes both. Dennis knew he was definitely a gay man in his late-teens, as whilst stationed in Berlin he had sex with a female prostitute, but would later proclaim that sexual intercourse with a woman was "over-rated" and "depressing". But being a private in the British Army, with a lust for slim, passive and vulnerable young men, he had to keep his sexuality hidden, so often spent many nights alone, masturbating… …but not in a normal way. Two other childhood incidents (after the tragic death of his beloved grandfather) had shaped his life; the first, as young Dennis was rescued from a near-fatal drowning by a boy who’s warm lips and gentle caress had brought him back to from the brink of death. And the second, whilst sharing a bed with his older brother Olav Junior; a curious Dennis started fondling the sleeping boy’s genitals, as he lay there, as silent, passive and still as a freshly murdered corpse. So, whilst in the Army, as Nilsen pretended to be a bit of a bloke, obsessed with beer and boobs amongst his hardcore gaggle of squaddies, secretly Dennis would lie alone, in his quarters, naked on the bed, his skin slathered in an ominously putrid green make-up, his eyes hollowed by dark eye-liner, his lips blue with a disturbing shade of lipstick, and slowly, looking as dead as he could possibly be, he would masturbate, in front of the mirror. And although, you could say, he was sexually depraved, deeply disturbed and a man with some serious issues, Dennis Nilsen (the promising civil servant) went about his everyday life; meeting gay men in local pubs, chatting, drinking and ushering them back to his flat for dinner, a drink, some sex and a sleep… many of whom would never wake-up. And yet, by the mid 70’s, when he’d moved to London, Dennis Nilsen hadn’t killed anyone… ever… but all that would change the day that he met “Twinkle”. In November 1975, just a few days shy of his thirtieth birthday, Nilsen stopped off at The Champion public house in Bayswater for a much-needed rum and coke. Outside, he saw two drunkards roughing-up a slim twenty-year old man, with blonde hair, stud earrings, rouged cheeks, a hint of lipstick, and intervened using his sternest look, his gruffest voice and his full six foot one inches of height. A few moments later, Nilsen was getting cosy in a corner snug at The Champion with the man he had saved. His name was David Gallichan and he was just Nilsen’s type, he was slim, slight, gay, fey, young, fragile, pretty and vulnerable. Nilsen would later nickname him “Twinkle”. Within two days they’d moved in together to a rented ground-floor flat at 195 Melrose Avenue in Cricklewood (North London), and although it was a crummy, scummy and an depressingly unfurnished flat, in a cunning piece of foresight, Nilsen negotiated exclusive use of the large back garden, and whether he knew it or not, later on, that garden would come in very handy indeed. Having stripped, decorated and even adopted a stray cat called ‘Dee-Dee’ and a mongrel puppy called ‘Bleep’, the two men settled down like an old married couple, living in domestic bliss; with Nilsen heading off to work to bring home the bacon and “Twinkle” staying at home to do the cooking and cleaning… but sadly, it was not to be. As Nilsen slipped into the easy comfort of “coupling” by staying in, snuggling down and generally being a bit of a homebody, Twinkle’s wayward ways – of drinking, flirting and sleeping around - were only exacerbated by Nilsen’s middle-aged traits, as well as his jealousy, possessiveness and outbursts of anger. In May 1977, “Twinkle” walked out on Nilsen forever. Feeling bitter, angry and rejected, having been abandoned once again by someone he truly thought had loved him, Nilsen began to drink to the point where he’d black-out, hoping to erase his sadness with booze, his anger with sex and his loneliness by prowling the gay-bars of London to find a slim pretty boy to take Twinkle’s place. But after a further 18 months of failed relationships and affectionless rejection, Nilsen had reached rock bottom. By December 1978, Nilsen was alone, angry, drunk and celebrating New Year’s Eve by himself in The Cricklewood Arms. But as he sunk back another pint, still seething over how Twinkle had dumped him, Dennis saw a vision of beauty; a slim, slight, gay, fey, sixteen year old boy, with smooth flawless skin, curly brown hair and soft brown eyes, and being both homeless and penniless, the boy was fragile, pretty and vulnerable, and – just like Twinkle - he was Nilsen’s type. His name was Stephen Holmes. And although Dennis was more than double Stephen’s age, they sat, drank and laughed as Dennis drunkenly regaled Stephen with another anecdote about his Army service, Police stint, love of poetry, piano playing and his fondness for animals, as well as being an excellent chef. And so, being young, drunk, cold and hungry, on this bitter winter evening, 16 year old Stephen Holmes headed back to Nilsen’s flat at 195 Melrose Avenue, for more drink, a hot meal, a failed attempt at sex, and his first sleep in a long-while in a nice warm bed… wrapped-up in a bright blue sleeping bag. During the night, Nilsen awoke, but for once he wasn’t alone. As beside him, fast asleep, Stephen was sleeping; his pretty face reflected in the moonlight, his brown hair forming tight baby-curls over his eyes, and as he lay there, as silent, passive and still as a freshly murdered corpse, Nilsen couldn’t resist it, and began to caress the soft skin of the boy’s arms, legs and genitals. But with alcohol still coursing through his veins, his judgement clouded by paranoia, and his bitterness towards his father, his mother, his siblings, his friends, and everyone who had ever abandoned him or rejected him raging, after a slew of pretty young things had used and abused him, Nilsen knew that this new boy would do the same. Later Nilsen would state: “I just wanted him to stay with me for New Year’s Day, and maybe even longer”… but deep down he knew that he wouldn’t. On the floor, on top of his crumpled heap of clothes, Nilsen spotted his necktie; a garishly coloured length of tightly woven cotton. Stealthfully he reached down, trying not to wake the snoring youth, slowly slid his tie under the sleeping boy’s soft thin neck and tying it in a knot at the back, he pulled. Survival instincts kicked in as Stephen awoke with a start to see Nilsen on top of him, all sixteen stone of the man bearing down, his wild eyes glaring at him, the rage of rejection in his face, and in each clenched fist he held the taut end of the necktie, as Stephen’s throat was throttled; his air stopped, his tongue swelled and his panic raddled face was all purple, as the blood vessels in his bulging eyes ruptured, until slowly, with legs and fists flailing, the desperate boy’s struggling ceased… …as Bleep watched from the hall, her ears down, her head bowed and her tail tucked. But as she creeped forwards, and started to sniff the corpse’s legs, Dennis angrily ushered her away, banishing her to the other room, having not sensed the certain something strange that only she could… …Stephen Holmes wasn’t dead. His breathing was slight, his legs were still twitching, and as a soft moan uttered from his blue lips, it was clear he was still alive, and barely clinging onto a slim thread of life. Bending the limp body of the seemingly lifeless boy over an armchair, Nilsen hastily filled a plastic bucket full of cold water, held back the boy’s frail little arms and sunk his still breathing head deep into the bucket, the excess water splashing over the sides, as the struggling youth panicked, his last gasps of breath being liquid, his last sight being the base of a bucket, and his last words being muffled, until a few minutes later, the bubbles from his mouth had stopped. Shaking and trembling, Dennis sat on the sofa, the wet corpse of the sixteen year old boy propped upright beside him, as he drank a hot cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette to calm his nerves as his mind raced, knowing indeed that “it was the beginning of the end of my life as I had known it. I had started down the avenue of death and the possession of a new kind of flat mate”. Three years later, Dennis Nilsen had brutally murdered twelve young men and had attempted to kill numerous others. On 23rd November 1981, the evening of his thirty-sixth birthday, Dennis had picked-up the latest in a long-line of young, slim and pretty boys in the Golden Lion pub. He had taken this young man home; brought him a drink, cooked him a meal, and now, as they lay in bed together, the boy’s slender sleeping frame next to Dennis’, wrapped in a bright blue sleeping bag, he hoped the boy would love him, he hoped the boy wouldn’t reject him, and he hoped the boy would stay forever. His name was Paul Nobbs. To be continued. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to Murder Mile. The second part of Dennis Nilsen and the sleeping bag of death continues next Thursday, and I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing and researching it. Don’t forget to check out the fabulous podcasts mentioned at the start of this episode, who were They Walk Amongst Us, True-Crime Enthusiast, Nothing Rhymes With Murder, UK True Crime Podcast and Redhanded. They’re all excellent. And join us for Murder Mile live on Saturday 23rd December @ 9pm GMT, by using the hashtag #MMPodLive, and as it’s Christmas, I’ll probably be drunk, but what the hell. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode is… part two of Dennis Nilsen and the sleeping bag of death. Thank you and sleep well.
Ep12 – Dennis Nilsen and the sleeping bag of death (part two)
SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is the concluding part of the true-story of Paul Nobbs, a 19 year old student who was befriended and seduced by one of Britain’s most infamous serial-killers - Dennis Nilsen. Murder Mile contains deathly depictions which won’t be suitable for tender ears, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 12: Dennis Nilsen and the sleeping bag of death – part two. At 6am, on the morning of the 24th November 1981, Paul Nobbs… woke with a start, (deep gasp) his throat was raw, his eyes were bleary and his head was pounding - a nonstop thumping as fresh blood coursed through his veins and up to his brain – as around him was the detritus of last night’s drunken merriment; discarded beer cans, an empty Bacardi bottle and a pile of cast-off clothes topped off with a garishly coloured tie. As the small flat was chilly, with the skylight window wide open on this bitter winter morning, Paul Nobbs lay there for a little while longer, suffering possibly the worst hangover ever, and feeling sick, dizzy and sore. Needing a glass of water to quench the raging pain in his throat, he slowly undid the zip of the bright blue sleeping bag, trying not to wake Dennis who slept beside him, and crept out of bed. Dodging even more dispensed booze bottles at his feet, the bedroom seemed even messier than he had remembered, as Paul quietly slipped into the kitchen. At the foot of the bed, ‘Bleep’, Nilsen’s forever faithful but eternally timid dog, watched with curious eyes as Paul unsteadily tottered. Filling a glass full of water, Paul raised it to his lips, it should have been cold and refreshing, but instead every mouthful was sore and every gulp was painful, as if he had swallowed razors. Struggling to hold himself upright against the sink; his balance off, his feet unsteady and his legs weak, Paul had been drunk before, but never this drunk, never this dizzy and never this ill. Everything hurt; his brain was throbbing, his heart was pumping, his ears were muffled and every time he rubbed his eyes they stung. Oddly, even his tongue felt thicker. This was like no hangover that Paul had ever had before. A filament bulb flickered into life as he switched on a small light above the kitchen sink, its sickly yellow glow, although dull was instantly blinding, as it bathed his face with light. “God, you look awful” Dennis uttered from behind him; the soft lilting brogue of his voice as calm as always, and although his concern was honest, it was etched with the jokey playfulness of two men who’d boozed heavily the night before. Looking in the mirror, Nilsen was right, Paul truly looked awful as if he’d aged twenty years in one night. His youthful face was all puffy and bruised as if he’d gone ten rounds with a boxer. His once twinkly eyes were dark, sunken and sallow, their brilliant whites all bloodshot and cracked. And across his throat, was an odd red mark, the skin around it was stretched, raw and sore. “Yes, you don’t look well at all. You should definitely see a doctor” Dennis added, as he popped a kettle on the hob to make them both a cup of coffee. But Paul wouldn’t drink it, he couldn’t drink it, instead he unsteadily stumbled back to the bed, his foot accidentally kicking a plastic bucket, and scooping up his jeans, t-shirt and jacket, he dressed quickly yet calmly, as Bleep gently nuzzled his leg, her ears down, her tail between her legs, and her eyes etched with sadness. And there, the brief relationship of the two men ended, as amicably as it had begun; Nilsen guided Paul to the door, pecked him on the cheek, thanked him for a lovely night and gave him his name and number in the hope that – when Paul felt better – they would see each other again. And just like that, Nilsen waved him goodbye, shut the door, and he was gone. Somehow, Paul Nobbs survived a night with one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers - who had already murdered twelve men and would still go on to kill three others - but how, and why? Having hopped on the tube at Highgate and caught the Northern Line train to Goodge Street, as the deafening rumble and screech of the underground train rang in his ears, Paul awkwardly tottered up Tottenham Court Road, his feet tripping over each other, as he headed to University for his first lecture of the day. But sitting there, bruised, disorientated and drifting in and out of consciousness, he clearly wasn’t well, and thinking that he must have been mugged, his tutor insisted he go to the clinic at the University College Hospital on Gower Street, aided by a friend. Sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, Paul shook so badly that he spilled his coffee, and was hardly able to light (let alone hold) his cigarette. And as he was given ointment for his bloodied eyes and tranquilisers to settle his shattered nerves, it was then that he was given the news that he’d been dreading, as based on his injuries, the doctor concluded that Paul had been strangled. (INTERSTITIAL) Paul knew that the only man who could have done this was Dennis. But it didn’t make any sense. Not only did Paul have no memory of being strangled, but Dennis seemed like such a nice man; he was polite, neat, sweet, kind, loving and generous, he wasn’t violent, he wasn’t strange and he wasn’t threatening in any way, he just seemed like a lovely bloke. Maybe he had been mugged he thought? As being strangled by Dennis Nilsen was simply too unbelievable. But as we know, there were two sides to Dennis Nilsen; the intelligent, erudite and softly spoken, grandfather-loving civil servant who adopted stray cats, fed the homeless and nursed injured sparrows back to health, who loved poetry, playing the piano and cooking… …and then there was the drunken, jealous, bitter, hate-filled monster, with a penchant for young, slim and often vulnerable boys, who – having been abandoned and rejected for the very last time - just three years earlier, on New Year’s Eve 1978 – he had murdered his first victim whose name was Stephen Holmes. Nilsen sat on the sofa, staring at the dead youth beside him, Nilsen’s hands shook as he sparked up a ciggie, knowing what he’d done but not really believing it. So many mixed emotions were coursing through his brain; as back when he was five and he’d seen the lifeless body of his beloved grandfather, once again he was gripped with a deep sense of loss but also a strange sense of love for a corpse. And yet, unlike everyone else who had abandoned him, now he had, what he’d later describe as “a new kind of flat-mate”; someone who would never leave him, would never rejected him and would stay forever; a young, slim and attractive boy, who was silent, still and – best of all – passive. Nilsen quickly tidied up the dishevelled bedroom; binning the beer and Bacardi bottles, packing away the bright blue sleeping bag, emptying the water from the plastic bucket and returning his garishly coloured tie back on its hanger, ready to wear to work. Having ran a bath, Nilsen hoisted the slowly-cooling youth over his shoulder, carried it into the bathroom and laid the limp, floppy and lifeless boy into the tub, and slowly began to wash corpse’s hair, face and body, with a dab of washing-up liquid and his bare hands. Oddly, even though he was a murder virgin, many of Dennis Nilsen’s post-mortem rituals stemmed from this night, with the bathing of the corpse becoming a vital ritual, whether to wash away his sin, or to erase its old self and make way for the new, as the corpse and the killer became a couple. Having slid the slippery skinned cadaver out of the tub, Nilsen propped him on the toilet seat to towel the body dry and then laid him flat on the bed. As dead as Stephen Holmes was – with a pinkish face, blueish lips and a deep red ligature mark across his neck - Nilsen couldn’t help but marvel at how beautiful he was, which left him with a quandary; not having a car, Nilsen couldn’t dispose of the body elsewhere, but being so beautiful, he couldn’t cut it up either... even though in a brief moment of clarity, Nilsen had popped into an iron mongers to buy a large cooking pot and a carving knife. So, dressing it in a fresh pair of his own underwear (some socks, a pair of white y-fronts and a vest, purchased from Woolies), Nilsen climbed into bed and snuggled up next to the still slightly warm corpse, who was silent, still and passive, just the way he liked it. But this time, being slightly more sober and spooning a beautiful (but slowly decomposing) boy who wouldn’t say no, and (even better) couldn’t say no, Nilsen now had no problem getting an erection, and slowly he began to explore the dead youth’s body with his hands. For Nilsen, this didn’t feel strange, it was exciting, and the only reason his hands were now shaking was the thrill of having so much control over another person. Stephen Holmes was his new boyfriend; someone to come home to, to have meals with, to watch telly with, to snuggle up on the sofa with, and even have sex with, this corpse would be subservient to him, and however he wanted it dressed, shaved or bathed, that’s how it would be. And although he’d later claim he was over the relationship, when dressed, Stephen Holmes and most of Nilsen’s corpse-brides all resembled ‘Twinkle’. But this romance – like so many in Nilsen’s love life - was short-lived, as although a corpse could be the perfect partner (being both loyal and passive, but – best of all – quiet), sadly Nilsen knew that soon enough his lifeless lover would start to rot and begin to stink. So having pulled up a few floorboards in his ground-floor flat, he propped the strangely stiff youth against the wall as he waited a day till the rigour mortis had ceased and the once rigid muscles had begun to liquefy, so he could finally bend the limbs and the rest of the body into the twelve-inch crawlspace below. And then, he went to work. Occasionally, Nilsen would disinter the corpse from its chilly grave, to bathe it, chat to it, cuddle it, kiss it, or have sex with it (his erection always seeming to subside before he could enter it anally, so instead, he would fold over the thighs and would have sex with those), and seeing how beautiful the boy still looked, he couldn’t help but masturbate over the body. In total, the corpse of Stephen Holmes stayed underneath the floorboards for over seven months, but by 11th August 1979, after a long hot summer, during which time it had begun to liquefy, bubble and attract flies, Nilsen finally decided that air-fresheners, joss-sticks and an open window, simply wasn’t enough to get rid of the stench and so – wrapped in bin-bags – he burned the body of Stephen Holmes on a bonfire in his back garden; a large rubber tyre placed on top to disguise the smell of scorching flesh. And being a homeless boy from an uncaring family, Stephen Holmes was never reported missing. Over the next three years, in a series of drunken jealous rages, Nilsen would strangle twelve men; he’d bathe them, abuse them and dispose of them; sometimes killing one a year, sometimes one a month. But why, after so many murders, did he let Paul Nobbs survive? In April 1982, five months after the attempted murder of Paul Nobbs, 21 year old Carl Stotter; a drag-artist of slim build, with light brown hair, soft pale skin and a pretty face, entered the Black Cap, a gay-friendly pub on Camden High Road. Being a pretty young thing, it wasn’t long before he was being chatted-up, but being in a vulnerable state (having broken up with his boyfriend), Carl got talking to a tall bespectacled man known locally as “Des”, who was unlike the other regulars, and regaled him with tales of his army career, Police stint, his love of poetry, animals and cooking, in his soft Aberdeen brogue. And being friendly, eloquent and totally unthreatening, he invited Carl back to his flat for a drink, some dinner, some sex, and a maybe (Dennis hoped) a new boyfriend? As they entered the top floor flat of 23 Cranley Gardens, the first thing that greeted Carl Stotter (before the enthusiastic wagging of Bleep the dog, and the intense icy chill of the flat) was the over-powering odour of joss-sticks, air-freshener and bleach, which disguised the meaty smell which he thought was emanating from the big pot on the hob, as if for the last few weeks, Nilsen had been cooking stews. Nilsen had lived in the Cranley Gardens flat for six months, and still it was squalid, as although he’d hoped that this new flat would curb his impulse to kill, it hadn’t, and now it posed a bigger problem. At Melrose Avenue, where Stephen Holmes met his death was a ground-floor flat with sole access to a private garden surrounded by an eight foot fence; the perfect pad for a serial killer with twelve bodies to dispose of. But here at Cranley Gardens; it had no garden, no storage space, and being an attic flat, was not suitable for burying bodies underneath the floorboards. So, when his landlord decided to renovate the Melrose Avenue flat in the late summer of 1982, Nilsen needed to dispose of every piece of evidence of his heinous crimes, and on a big back-garden bonfire with a large rubber tyre on top, he burned every bone, limb, face and torso, racking the hot coals and stamping on the cooling ash, until his victims were just dust. For Nilsen, moving into Cranley Gardens was a fresh start, he knew he was lucky, and if he controlled his urge to kill, he may get away with it. So as Paul Nobbs, enter Nilsen’s new flat, just a few short weeks after Nilsen had moved in, he was lucky as Nilsen’s priorities had changed. In fact, in the weeks prior to Paul’s near death experience, many men had come to 23 Cranley Gardens; had drank, dined and “did the dirty” with Dennis, and so far, all had survived… but that changed in March 1982, one month before his date with Carl Stotter, as Nilsen drank and dined in his flat with John Howlett, a man who Nilsen neither liked, loved nor loathed, and in a fit of drunken anger, his overwhelming impulse to kill got the better of him. Finding the man not particularly pleasant, polite or even pleasing on the eye, Nilsen drank and dined with John Howlett, but never had sex with him, regardless of whether he was alive or dead. The disposal of Howlett’s body was entirely out of necessity; a soon-to-be rotting corpse who’s putrid stench would alert the neighbours, so having strangled him and drowned him, Nilsen set about dismembering his corpse on the kitchen floor, popping his limbs in black bin-bags, flushing his flesh down the toilet, cutting his torso up into chunks to be chucked out with the rubbish, and the soft skin, eyes and any identifiable features of his head boiled off in a large cooking pot. And although the body was mostly thrown, dumped or flushed away, weeks later, the stench in the flat still remained. For Carl and Dennis, the night was uneventful; they drank, they ate, they watched the telly, and then stumbled into bed in a drunken stupor, Dennis in a light duvet, Carl in a bright blue sleeping-bag, with neither man making any attempt at sex, as Carl had said “no” and Dennis couldn’t muster a boner, so they both went to sleep. But during the night, Carl Stotter… woke with a start (deep gasp); his throat was raw, his eyes were bleary and his head was pounding, but with his limbs tightly bound by the bright blue sleeping bag, his face firmly pressed down into the suffocating pillow, Carl felt an over-powering tightness across his throat as the sleeping bag’s zip dug deep into his bleeding neck, a heavy pressure baring down on his back, crushing his lungs and stopping his air. Moments before he lost consciousness he could clearly hear behind him, Nilsen loudly whispering “stay still, stay still”. As the limp, silent and seemingly lifeless youth lay on his bed, Nilsen knew that strangulation wasn’t enough to kill Carl (as it hadn’t with so many victims before), so needing to finish the job properly, Nilsen ran a bath. Unzipping the sleeping-bag, Dennis dragged the semi-comatose Carl to the bathroom, propped the slim naked man on the lip of the tub, and slowly lowered him in, submerging his head under the water. Shocked awake by the water’s icy coldness, Carl started to panic, his weakening arms flailing as Nilsen dunked his head again and again and again, Carl pleading “Please! No more! Please stop!” as he swallowed great gulps of water, his lungs choking, his lips turning blue, and having held his head under the water until the bubbles from his nose and mouth had ceased, Nilsen knew that Carl was dead. Having towelled his wet limp torso off, Nilsen propped Carl up in an armchair, made himself a cup of coffee and sparked up a cigarette, as he sat there looking at this beautiful fresh corpse and wondering what he wanted to do with it, whether to stow it, slice it or shag it. But it was during this odd little moment of calm, when the life and death struggle was over, and Nilsen was now contemplating another sordid descent into necrophilia, that both of their lives changed forever. Sensing that all was not as it seemed, Nilsen’s six year old dog, known as Bleep, who was as timid as she was she was scruffy, started nuzzling the corpse’s leg, and realising that it still clung to the tiniest morsel of life, she started to lick Carl’s face, causing his eyes to flutter. Carl wasn’t dead... Having already killed Carl twice before, Nilsen knew that he needed to finish the job, but with the bath still full and the garish necktie within his reach, Nilsen didn’t kill Carl. And nobody knows why; even Nilsen has no idea what stopped him. Whether he was wracked with a deep sense of guilt, was slowly sobering-up or was so overcome by the compassion at seeing this wounded animal before him? And although Carl wasn’t a stray cat, a starving sparrow, or his beloved grandfather, Nilsen saw what Bleep was sensing and acted on it. Although she’d been bought as a puppy for a fifty pence in a Kilburn Park pet-store, Bleep was with Nilsen throughout his break-up with Twinkle, all fifteen murders, and yet never rejecting him, she was (as Nilsen would later state) “my most loyal companion, the one person I loved without question” who on many occasions, such as now, would save her master’s life, barking whenever he fell asleep with a lit cigarette, and bringing him back to reality. Over the next day, Nilsen strived to return Carl Stotter back the land of the living, by covering him with warm blankets, putting both bars of the electric fire on, rubbing his frozen limbs and spoon feeding him hot soup, until slowly his colour returned. Although groggy, weak and barely able to stand, Carl Stotter stood in the kitchen, staring into the small mirror over the sink, the sickly yellow tungsten light illuminating his puffy bruised face, his sunken bloodshot eyes and his fat swollen tongue, as across his neck he saw a deep red mark, the imprint of a zip clearly visible, to which Nilsen muttered “God, you look awful”. Although struggling to talk as the pain of swallowing even saliva was simply too intense, lapsing in an out of consciousness, and suffering from a series of horrifying flashbacks, Carl asked Nilsen what had happened, as very little was making sense. In an almost matter-of-fact way, with a smug hint of the heroics, Nilsen implied that in the midst of a fitful sleep with Carl tossing, turning and babbling incoherently, that he’d had a nightmare, and had contorted his body so badly, that he’d suffocated himself on the zip of the bright blue sleeping bag. Seeing his new pal suffocating, a sleepy Nilsen had dived on top of Carl’s back to wrestle the zip open, but with his lips turning blue, his face pale and his body shaking, the deadly zip had done its worst, so going into acute shock, Nilsen placed Carl in a bath of cold water - the shock of the cool bath water reviving Carl from the horror of being strangled by the sleeping bag of death. As soon as Carl Stotter was well enough, Nilsen walked him to Highgate tube station, he hoped they’d meet again, he wished him “farewell”, waved him goodbye and Nilsen was gone. Carl Stotter never truly believed the sleeping bag story, as it seemed too unbelievable, but having spent the night in a sleepy, drunk and barely conscious state, neither could he tell which of the vivid images which haunted his dreams were real, or a nightmare. And as fantastic as the story was, the alternative was simply too implausible, that Dennis Nilsen; a sweet, kind, polite, loving, caring and generous man, who wasn’t strange or threatening in any way, with a soft lilting brogue, a love of animals, and a passion for poetry, had suddenly, for no reason at all, tried to strangle him. Both Carl Stotter and Paul Nobbs testified at Nilsen’s trial at the Old Bailey in November 1983. It was as they sat there, giving evidence, that the full horror of their near-death experiences and miraculous survival became fully apparent. And although Carl and Paul are alive and well today, they rarely discuss what happened, and both suffer from nightmares, flashbacks and PTSD. Dennis Nilsen was found guilty of six counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and was later sentenced to a whole life tariff, meaning he will never be released. Now aged 72 years old, he resides at HMP Full Sutton. Carl Stotter once wrote to Dennis Nilsen to ask him why he’d attacked him; in his reply Nilsen cryptically wrote, 'What passed between us was a thin strand of love and humanity'. Still to this day, Carl Stotter states "I've turned over what he meant until I'm blue in the face, but I can't find an answer." Between 1978 and 1983, Dennis Andrew Nilsen murdered fifteen men and had attempted to kill at least three others, and although an unknown number of men escaped the clutches of one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers, none of them were the last victim. Three days after his arrest, fearing that no-one would want her, ‘Bleep’, Dennis Nilsen’s six year old sweet-natured dog, who’d been brought for fifty pence in a Kilburn pet-shop and had saved the life of Carl Stotter, was put to sleep by the Police vet. Her only crime? Being the loyal, loving and faithful pet of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to Murder Mile. Although this was the concluding part of Dennis Nilsen and the sleeping bag of death, I shall return with an even more stories about the life, loves and deaths of Dennis Nilsen soon. Don’t forget to check out the fabulous podcasts mentioned at the start of this episode, who were True-Crime Story-Time and I Got The Hell Out. And join us for Murder Mile live on Saturday 30th December @ 9pm GMT, by using the hashtag #MMPodLive. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode is… Margaret Cooke and the Long Confession. Thank you and sleep well.
If you love true-crime? Don't forget to check out the UK true-crime podcasts mentioned at the start of this episode, which were They Walk Among Us, Nothing Rhymes with Murder, True Crime Enthusiast, UK True-Crime Podcast and Redhanded.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed by Kai Engel, Sergey Cherimisinov, Chris Zabriskie and E's Jammy Jams, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk
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36-38 Old Compton Street, with Wardour Street (left) and Charing Cross Road (right)
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of 300+ untold, unsolved and often long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE TEN
Episode Ten: Alfredo Zomparelli and the Golden Goose. On 4th September 1974, Soho gangster Alfredo Zomparelli was shot to death as he played on a pinball machine in the Golden Goose amusement arcade on Old Compton Street, by two hitmen in what was supposedly a contract killing. But who ordered him killed? And why?
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THE LOCATION
Episode 10 –Alfredo Zomparelli and The Golden Goose
INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode ten of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast. In each episode, I try to take a sympathetic look at each murder mostly from the victim’s perspective but sometimes (like in episode 3 where everyone was a victim) I also take it from the culprit’s view. Well this episode is a little bit different. It’s about “gangsters”, who are often romanticised as lovable cheeky rogues, but are actually nothing more than greedy, selfish, paranoid morons, who lack the brainpower and self-control to stop a petty childish spat turning into all-out war. And although by the end of this episode, the streets will be littered with bodies… none of them, were actually victims. This episode contains lots of names, places and dates, some of which may be confusing, but all of which are vital to the story, so I’ve popped a handy reminder list of who’s who on the Murder Mile blog, with a link in these show notes. And if you’ve got any questions, please do join us for the Murder Mile “listen live” event this Sunday, simply by using the hashtag #MMPodLive on Twitter. Thank you for listening. Enjoy the episode. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is a guided walk of the revenge attack on Alfredo Zomparelli; a minor Soho gangster, part-time pimp and brutal enforcer, gunned down by two hitmen. And yet, what started as nothing more than a minor squabble, with a handful of bruises and a few dented egos, lead to one of Britain’s deadliest and bloodiest gangland feuds. Murder Mile contains graphic descriptions of death which may not be suitable for those of a sensitive disposition, as well as very loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you’re listening to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 10: Alfredo Zomparelli and the Golden Goose Today, I’m back on Old Compton Street, a place that some keen-eared listeners of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast have already started to dub the “epicentre of death”, as standing right here, on this ridiculously tiny street, I am surrounded by murder; to my right is the bloody deathbed of the Soho prostitute “Dutch Leah” and the tragic bombing of the Admiral Duncan; to my left is where the curiosity shop killer Edwin Bush was captured, and ahead is the gutter where the last pint of blood of the notoriously cruel gangster Tony Mella spilled down the drain from his infamously empty heart. As well as curious death of Charles Baladda, the baffling death of Boleslar Pankorski, the corner where Mafia front man Albert Dimes had a knife fight with criminal king-pin Jack Spot which left Frith Street dripping with blood, and the pub where Britain’s most infamous serial killer – Dennis Nilsen – wined and dined many a young man, before using their torsos as underfloor insulation. All of which are gory stories that we shall be digging deep into, later in this series. Half way down Old Compton Street nestled between a posh winery, a poncy bakers, a plethora of over-priced coffee shops and an exclusive S&M boutique for Soho’s more discerning sexual perverts, sits 36-38 Old Compton Street. Two four-storey townhouses, one in brown-brick, one in white plaster, but both smashed together on the ground-floor to house Muriel’s Kitchen, a warm and welcoming all-day eatery full of happy families, smiling couples and chatting chums, all who are sat on cream chairs under a green and white awning, as the reassuring smell of home cooked food with a modern twist (such as poached eggs, pancakes, sausages, cereal, syrup, tea, coffee and toast) emanates from inside. But back in 1974, this was a gravely grim, sinisterly seedy and rather run-down amusement arcade known as ‘The Golden Goose’, where instead of just losing a few pounds in a pinball-machine, a notorious Soho enforcer would lose a lung, his spine, his brain and his life. (INTERSTITIAL) Pop into any amusement arcade today, and you’ll be hit by the blast of bright lights, the deafening hum of cheesy disco and the sickly sweet smell of popcorn, doughnuts and candy-floss, as you wander an electronic playground for any one of any age, full of shoot‘em-ups, dodgems, dancing games and even a mechanical rocking duck for the kids, which is usually ridden by the dads. But the Golden Goose was typical of 1970’s arcades; it was a grim grimy place for the over 18’s only, thick with the smell of stale sweat, spilled beer and tobacco smoke, where seasoned gamblers having spent the day bouncing between Old Compton Street’s many bars, bookies and brothels, would blow even more money in a series of illegally rigged slot machines and then storm out, drunk, angry and broke. And although the Golden Goose was brightly lit, full of life and easy-to-see-in owing to the ground-floor being entirely covered in full-length glass-fronted doors, amongst the drunks, druggies, gamblers and gangsters, a regular player on its pinball machine was a Soho enforcer known as Alfredo Zomparelli. (INTERSTITIAL) 36 year old Alfredo Zomparelli, who was unimaginatively nicknamed “Italian Tony” having been born in Italy, he was a five foot eight, stockily built tough-guy, with thick brown hair, a tight curved moustache, a large bulbous nose and mean scowling eyes, all sat atop of a furrowed brow. And although he always wore a suit, he never wore it well, as his crumpled shirt, crooked tie and scuffed shoes were the clothes of a moody, brooding, short-tempered man, who spoke with his fists. Being the top-enforcer to Albert Dimes (the Mafia’s go-to man in London), although Zomparelli dabbled in drugs, sex and second-hand cars, he had no brain for business, no natural flair for negotiation and being married to a stripper called Rozanna who had expensive tastes, Zomparelli was best suited to being a bully-boy and a hired goon. Although tough, his position in the Soho criminal underworld was as a seemingly meaningless pawn, who did his master’s dirty work, so why would anyone put out a contract hit on Alfredo Zomparelli? Well, that’s where our story begins, four years earlier. Tuesday 5th May 1970, two men are sat in a pub at The Angel in Islington (two miles north east of Soho), supping pints and having a bit of banter; one was William “Billy” Hickson, a street-tough bully-boy with quick fists and short fuse, who even his close friends would describe as a “total head-case”, and the other was David Knight, the youngest brother of infamous London gangster Ronnie Knight. Born in the old Victorian slums in Hoxton, one of East London’s roughest and most impoverished areas, Ronnie Knight was one of five children (Ronnie, Johnny, Jimmy, David and their sister Patsy) who were raised during the horror of the war-time Blitz, the poverty of post-war and eventually Ronnie turned to petty crime to survive, having being toughened up for a hard-life ahead by his father. Years later, Knight recalled "My father made us fight. If I got beaten, my dad took me and stood me in front of the kid and said ‘Fight him now.’ And I knew I couldn’t lose ’cos I would get whacked by my father”. Beginning his criminal career by handling stolen goods, Ronnie Knight soon progressed up the East End and West End food-chain, buying up pool halls, managing nightclubs, organising armed robberies, running extortion rackets and investing in the sordid world of prostitution and pornography (what he’d refer to as “dirties”). And although the Knight Brothers rose through the criminal underworld in the shadow of the infamous Kray Twins, they regarded each other, and never stepped on each other’s toes, as even amongst thieves, there was no deeper bond than family. By 1970, Ronnie Knight was a big-time player, who loved the high-life of champagne, caviar, Rolls-Royce’s and even marrying the star of the Carry-On films, Barbara Windsor. But with fame came danger, and as the jealous rivals of Ronnie Knight knew, if you couldn’t get to Ronnie, you could always get to his youngest brother David. So as David Knight and Billy Hickson sat in the pub, swigging back a few sherbets, a local hoodlum named Jimmy Isaacs stood over them both; his half-drunken eyes wild, his angry nostrils flared, his lips spitting venom and prodded an accusatory finger into the chest of David Knight, shouting “Your brother Johnny took a liberty with me the other day”. What this liberty was? Nobody actually knows, but being a small yet savvy man, and sensing Isaacs anger rising, David politely pacified him by saying “If John’s done you any wrong, then you go and sort it out with him. It’s nothing to do with me”. Before he could finish his sentence, the enraged Isaacs readied himself to swing a punch at David, but being half-drunk and mostly hopeless as a fighter, Billy Hickson (the “headcase” with the fast-fists, the rough knuckles and the ready reflexes to prove it) whacked Isaacs square in the nose with a swift right-hook, breaking the bridge and spraying blood across his boots, leaving a bloody imprint on the tiled floor of where he once stood. Needing back-up, as a barroom brawl ensued, Isaacs ushered forward four burly buddies to bash the living hell out of David and Billy with whatever came to hand, including bottles, ashtrays, tables and chairs. And although they both gave as good as they got, the bar was in tatters, and David was a bloody mess. Of those four men who aided Isaacs, one was a Soho club owner named Billy Stanton, and the other was Stanton’s barman, bouncer and enforcer Alfredo Zomparelli. And that is how it all began; a petty spat, over a bruised ego, which ended in a pointless pub brawl. Obviously, Ronnie Knight didn’t take this news lightly; not just because his little brother who he’d always protected had been pretty badly bashed-up, not just because this was an intended attack on his other brother Johnny, but because this wasn’t just a random spat, this was part of a long-running feud with a gang of up-and-coming hoodlums hoping to muscle in on Ronnie’s patch. And as this turf-war escalated, Knight knew it needed to be stamped out. Now, any other gangster - raised under such tough circumstances, with a family to defend, an honour to uphold and a feisty father who’d taught his kids to fight - would have seen red, tooled-up and gone in there with fists flying and battered sixty-two shades of shit out of Jimmy Isaacs and his merry band of cruising bruisers. But experience had taught him well, and in the same way that Ronnie Knight had never had a cross-word with the Kray Twins, he was also a seasoned negotiator who knew that when toes are stepped on and things are getting out of hand, it’s time to for cooler heads to prevail. A “peace conference” was arranged on Thursday 7th May 1970 in the Latin Quarter nightclub at 13-17 Wardour Street, situated just off Leicester Square, at the entrance to London’s Chinatown and barely a two minute from Old Compton Street. Being one of the West End’s best nightclubs and cabarets, the Latin Quarter was the place to be, where plebs rubbed shoulders with celebs and even the occasional East End gangster. But with it still being early when Ronnie, Johnny and David Knight descended into the bowels of this dark cavernous club - with “head-case” Billy Hickson at their side, his fists forever twitchy - even for their liking, the club was ominously quiet. Although he was a regular frequenter of the Latin Quarter, Jimmy Isaacs – the half-cut hoodlum who’d left David Knight all bruised, bandaged and bloodied - wasn’t there that night, and to be honest, as it was early on a Thursday, no-one was. The place was dead. The supposed “peace conference” was a wash-out, and so, with no-one there and nothing going on, Johnny Knight headed off for a piss. The second he was out of sight though, Billy Stanton, the owner of the Latin Quarter and one of the four men who’d given David a damn good kicking, sauntered onto the dance-floor, instantly eyeballing Ronnie and his rather battered brother David. The mood was tense as the rivals stood inches apart; the room was silent and all that could be heard was their breath. But for once Billy Stanton’s right hand wasn’t balled-up into a fist. No, this time it was outstretched and open, the hand of friendship and forgiveness was extended to Ronnie, an apologetic grimace on his face, and the look of a man who knew that things had got out of hand. Ronnie smiled and went to shake Stanton’s hand… …less than a minute later, one of the men would be dead. Hickson, who’d been with David when the boys had attacked, having splattered Isaac’s nose and now also sporting his own injuries, having been scarred across the face and chest with a broken beer bottle, Hickson wasn’t here for peace, he was here to give them a “piece of his mind” as well as half a pound of fists to boot, and when he saw Ronnie Knight and Billy Stanton about to shake hands, the “head-case” flew off the handle. “What the f**k are you doing you prat?”, Hickson screamed. And that’s all the moment took to tip it over from reconciliation to revenge; the room was a powder-keg of raw emotions and tension, and Hickson was the spark. Suddenly, everyone’s backs were up, fists were clenched, eyes were wide, and as Hickson stood nose-to-nose with Stanton, refusing to back-down and looking for a fight, from the darkness of the bar, the cabaret’s burly bouncer Alfredo Zomparelli stepped in. What happened next can only be described as a melee; tables were tipped over, chairs were flung, bottles were smashed, fists were flying and faces were pummelled, as years of frustrated hatred was unleashed by both sides, who settled old scores with their knuckles. It was then, in the midst of the dark-lit carnage in the Cabaret bar that the fiery tempered tough-guy Alfredo Zomparelli quickly slipped into the nearby kitchen, pulled opened a drawer, and dived back into the frenzy of fists and flying boots having tooled himself up with a twelve inch carving knife. Having relieved himself of a half a pint of piddle, as Johnny Knight left the loo, unaware of the powder-keg which had just exploded, he heard a right royal ruckus in the club; a mix of screaming, shouting and smashing, as the long-standing feud erupted into World War Three. As he ran along the corridor, he saw Ronnie Knight illuminated by a spot-light, wielding the full length of a metal bar-stool like a lion-tamer would to keep a ferocious lion at arm’s length, as Zomparelli, at the end of the stool stood; his eyes wild, his breathing deep, and in his hand he clutched a blood-stained knife. But the blood wasn’t Ronnie’s. As Johnny stopped on the stairs, his brain racing to catch-up to the horror that had taken place, he saw staggering towards him, with ghostly white skin and drenched in blood, was his youngest brother David. David collapsed at the foot of the stairs, having been stabbed twice in his back, with the full force of the twelve inch blade driving so deep into his body that it broke a five ribs, severed a lung and the thick steel blade impaled his heart. David stood no chance. And as he lay there, lying in an ever-increasing circle of blood as it spurted from the half-hidden but gaping hole in his chest, as Ronnie cradled his brother’s head in his arms, not realising how dire the situation was, Ronnie said “Come on Dave, get it together mate?” A few moments later, David Knight died, he was 23 years old. Ten days later, Ronnie & Johnny Knight buried their youngest brother David, and Ronnie swore that with every last breath, that he would see Zomparelli dead, stating ” with him alive, the hate in me would eventually kill me as well”. Alfredo Zomparelli was now a marked man, not only was he wanted by the police for the murder of David Knight, but also by every gangster with a name to make and a score to settle. So having dumped his bloody clothes in a locker in Leicester Square, Zomparelli boarded the night ferry to Dover and dashed back to his native Italy. But with his face plastered across every newspaper, in every country across Europe, and fearing that Knight’s cronies would find him sooner or later, Zomparelli handed himself in to the Police at Heathrow Airport, just three weeks later, and in November 1970, under armed protection, he stood trial at The Old Bailey for the murder of David Knight. Zomparelli was found guilty of manslaughter, and was sentenced to just four years… he served just two and a half. Ronnie Knight later said “It made my day when I heard he only got a smaller sentence, 'cos I was gunning for him”, and with Zomparelli released from prison, that would make him an easy hit. But did Alfredo Zomparelli go into hiding? Did he move away? Did he change his name? Did he adopt any kind of disguise at all to ensure that no-one could ever find him? No, of course he didn’t. Like an arrogant idiot with balls bigger than his brain, he set himself up as a dodgy travel agent on Frith Street, a side-street just off Old Compton Street, which was smack-bang in the middle of Soho, where he would often be seen, drinking in bars, walking the street or frittering away his ill-gotten gains on a pinball machine in an amusement arcade called the Golden Goose. On the evening of Wednesday 4th September 1974, as was his usual routine, 36 year old Alfredo Zomparelli, alias “Italian Tony”, also known as “Eyetie Tony” by those who despised him, stood at the back of the Golden Goose; his feverish fingers on the pinball’s flippers, his ears muffled by bells and whistles, his eyes blinkered by the bright lights, his brain focussed solely on getting the highest score, and as he followed the pinball pointlessly bouncing around, he stood facing the wall, with his back to the large glass-panelled doors which covered the entire front of the arcade. Watching from across the street, hidden by the shadows, their faces obscured by darkness, stood two men, who were watching, waiting, armed with .44 revolvers and ready to pounce… …but this wasn’t Ronnie & Johnny Knight. Conveniently, both brothers were elsewhere that evening, with alibis which would cement their innocence, but standing across the street was a hitman named George Bradshaw and 21 year old Nicky Gerard (the son of notorious crime-boss Alfie Gerard) who’d approached Ronnie Knight with the proposition to kill Zomparelli and keep Knight’s hands clean. With the evening drawing in and the street being busy with drinkers, but the handful of regulars in the half-empty arcade being easily distracted by the steady thunk as the slot-machines swallowed their money, Gerard and Bradshaw walked swiftly in, siddled up behind Zomparelli, and without any hesitation, fired three shots into his back, one through his head, and disappeared off into the darkness, as the Italian’s lifeless corpse slumped over the pinball machine; his blood dripping down the flippers, the glass cracked by the dead weight of his slowly cooling torso, and the scoreboard speckled with blood and sprayed with little white flecks of brain. Ronnie Knight denied ordering the hit on Alfredo Zomparelli, the man who’d killed his baby brother, instead admitting “Next thing I know, Gerard comes up, says he's done it, I give him a thousand pounds, so I said go and have a drink on me. It wasn't pre-arranged, it wasn't nothing. My satisfaction was to do it myself and I was looking for him everywhere. I wanted him. But someone beat me to it”. After a three-day murder trial at The Old Bailey, which began on 10th November 1980, in which George Bradshaw, one of those two hit-men, who had confessed to killing of Alfredo Zomparelli, had turned Queen’s Evidence and had implicated Nicky Gerard as co-murderer and accused Ronnie Knight of ordering and funding the hit on Zomparelli, George Bradshaw was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. Oddly, both Nicky Gerard and Ronnie Knight were found innocent of all charges and were later acquitted. Eight years later, Nicky Gerard was gunned down, outside his home in Canning Town, as he sat in his Oldsmobile, by two masked men who unloaded two shotguns and an automatic pistol at him. As he tried to crawl the fifty feet back to his home, one of his masked assailants smashed his skull in with the shotgun’s butt, so fiercely the gun stock shattered, and then calmly shot him three more times in the back, chest and face. His attacker was Tommy Hole, an East End villain, who was shot dead by an unknown assailant in 1999 in a contract style hit. No-one knows who ordered both hits, or why. In the late 1980’s, having served seven years in prison for his part in the 1983 Security Express armed robbery in Shoreditch, which at the time was Britain’s biggest cash heist, having stolen £7million, Ronnie & Johnny Knight retired to the Costa Del Sol in Spain (a place so synonymous as the holiday home for retired ex-cons, that it’s often dubbed the Costa Del Crime). In 2002, Ronnie Knight released his autobiography, in which he confessed to organising the hit on Alfredo Zomparelli, a crime he was found innocent of twenty years earlier. And although this confession caused the British government to rethink its double jeopardy laws (in which a person can’t be tried for the same crime twice), even though he’d admitted his guilt, Ronnie Knight was legally innocent of the crime, and as of today, aged 81, he remains in Spain, where the infamous East End gangster and self-confessed murderer is currently enjoying his freedom. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to Murder Mile. Even though next week is Christmas, have no fear, your weekly dose of grisly murder, courtesy of Soho’s deadliest Santa, will be plopping into the ears like a large bloody stool, on Thursday morning, as per usual. But this time, as a little Christmas treat… I shall be delivering you something very different. Don’t forget to join us for Murder Mile live this Sunday @ 9pm GMT, by using the hashtag #MMPodLive, as well as popping along to Murder Mile Walks, to hear even more murder stories which you won’t hear on this podcast. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode is… a secret. Ssshhhhh.Thank you and sleep well.
DOWNLOAD this episode Murder Mile Ep #10 - Alfredo Zomparelli & The Golden Goose
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Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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46 Broadwick Street, as seen from Lexington Street
Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End.
EPISODE NINE
Episode Nine: Who Killed Ginger Rae? is the concluding part of the investigation into the brutal murder of Rachel Annie Fennick alias "Ginger Rae", a sweet-natured Soho prostitute with no enemies, no debts and no drug-habit, and yet someone wanted her dead.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
As the details of the murder location was already covered in the previous blog, I've decided to include below a selection of photos which may aide your enjoyment of this episode:
And this is a photo of the Messina Brothers; Alfredo, Attilio, Carmelo, Eugenio and Salvatore; the cruel, ruthless and powerful pimps who ran a lucrative prostitution ring and protection racket in London's West End from the mid 1930's until the late 1940's. Although we only touched on who the Messina's were in this episode, I'm hoping to do a full episode about them.
Sadly, after many fruitless hours / days of searching I have been unable to track down a photo of Geoffrey Alexander Haig, but when I find one, I will add it here.
Episode 9 – Who killed Ginger Rae?
INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode nine of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast. A special thank you goes out to everyone who took part in our “listen live” event of episode eight last Sunday, and even if it didn’t answer all of your questions, hopefully it gave you a great opportunity to meet likeminded people and even chat to myself. Join us this Sunday at 9pm GMT by following the hashtag #MMPodLive on Twitter. As this is part two of The Brutal Death of Ginger Rae, if you’re a first time listener, I’d advise listening to episode eight first. For everyone else, enjoy the episode. SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. In today’s episode, we shall re-examine the myths, motives, suspects and theories surrounding to the horrific murder of “Ginger Rae”, a kind-faced and sweet-hearted Soho prostitute, whose death almost 70 years on, remains a mystery. Murder Mile contains vivid descriptions which may not be suitable for those of a sensitive disposition, as well as photos, videos and maps which accompany this series, so that no matter where you’re listening to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 9: Who killed Ginger Rae? Today, I’m not in Soho (ooh), instead I’m at the National Archives in Kew, one of Britain’s largest repositories of public records, which contains everything from maps, wills and military plans, to the Doomsday Book and even declassified government secrets. It’s an impressively ugly six-storey mishmash of concrete, steel and glass; surrounded by two pools, a fountain and with a long-metal walkway leading from its wrought iron gates to a huge glass atrium, making it look like a cross between a futuristic prison and an extravagantly posh swan sanctuary. Security here is tight; upon entry your bag is checked by an unflinching guard, you’re ushered to a transparent locker where your personal effects are decanted into a transparent bag, your pre-approved ID is scanned, a second surly guard then re-checks your see-through sack; deprives you of any liquids, snacks, hat or jacket, before your ID is checked again, you’re ushered to a numbered box where your pre-ordered files await, and you then sit in a pre-determined seat, in stony silence, as the library guards patrol; watching, waiting and ready to pounce on any dirty-Bertie who dares to dog-ear any page. But it’s worth it, as for those who love true-crime, this… is the murder nirvana. In front of me sits the original police file pertaining to the murder investigation of Rachel Annie Fennick alias “Ginger Rae”; it’s a tatty, brown, loose-leafed folder which is easily six inches deep, held together by a thin green cord and is chock-full of witness statements, autopsy reports, lab results and internal police memos, some of which are typed or neatly written but most are scribbled in an illegible scrawl. And yet, inside this file lies a few new clues, which may help us unravel the mystery of “who killed Ginger Rae?” (INTERSTITIAL) So, let’s re-examine the basic facts. On Saturday 25th of September 1948, in her second floor flat at 46 Broadwick Street, 41 year old Rachel Annie Fennick alias “Ginger Rae”, a veteran sex-worker with 84 convictions was brutally stabbed to death. In a short but violent attack, Rae sustained six deep stab wounds to her torso, defensive lacerations to her left hand (made using a 7 inch “stiletto” blade) and a strangulation bruise across her windpipe. She was discovered by “Ted” (one of her informal boyfriends); she was slumped on the floor, at the base of her bed, semi-clad and partially covered in an eiderdown; whether she’d been posed is uncertain, whether this was a robbery is debatable, no sexual violence had taken place and her time of death was recorded between 11pm and 3am. Unusually, she’d failed to meet two male friends (Dutton & Steed) at 10pm in a local pub, and although we can account for her whereabouts until just after 11pm, the last known sighting of Rae alive was between 11:15 and 11:25pm, by three fellow prostitutes, who saw Rae talking with a “Maltese man”, and their description of him is truly remarkable. And yet, no-one saw her killer, no-one heard her die and the knife has never been found. But what’s more perplexing is not “who killed Ginger Rae”, but “why kill Ginger Rae”? Rae was a sweet-natured woman with a big heart and a beaming smile, she was a widower with close family ties, three devoted men-friends and no enemies. And although she’d been a prostitute for twenty-three years, she actually embraced the lifestyle it gave her, and unlike many women in her situation, she had no drug issues, no drink problem and no debts. Why she was killed is a mystery. So based on the evidence, what can we deduce about the attack? Well, oddly it’s the details that the Police report doesn’t mention that gives us more of an insight into Rae’s last moments. With no reference to any furniture being disturbed, except the blood stained eiderdown which was used to partially obscure her body, the attack must have been located on or around her bed. With no reference to bloodstains on the mattress, she must have been attacked and died on the floor. With no reference to any injuries to her back, she must have been facing her attacker when he struck. As no knife was found, the killer must have taken it with him. With no key found in her purse, and both doors locked, the killer must have locked-up and taken the key too. And with Rae being a seasoned sex-worker who knew how to handle herself, she must have been caught off-guard. As no sex had taken place, and she was semi-clad, wearing just her stockings, a slip and a brassiere, her killer must have struck when Rae was undressing and at her most vulnerable. As the attack was short but violent, and yet nobody heard a thing, her killer’s initial attack must have been to silence her, by forcing his thumb across her windpipe, stopping her breathing and screaming, as if she’d been stabbed first, surely she would have screamed? And with no blood on the mattress, no injuries to her back and no bruises to the back of her neck? Rae must have been pinned to the floor as she was strangled, with her attacker trapping her legs by using his full bodyweight, before he stabbed her six times. And yet, the murder of Ginger Rae doesn’t seem like a spontaneous action, it seems cold, calculated and cautious. He clearly knew when, where and how to attack, choosing to strike not on a street, but inside her flat, in private and behind a locked door. So was she specifically targeted? That is unknown. Was he a punter? That is unknown. Did she know her attacker? That is unknown. Any police investigation into the murder of a prostitute is hampered by the very nature of their work; as sex work is done in secret, by two strangers, out of sight and in all exchange for untraceable cash. On average, in the United Kingdom, out of 64 million inhabitants, just under three hundred people are murdered each year, a reassuringly low figure. But if you are involved in the sex-trade, it is 42 times more likely that you will be killed, and 64% less likely that your murder will ever lead to a conviction. And although by 14th December 1948, barely two months later, the murder investigation was closed and labelled “unsolved”, with the official line being that Rae was “murdered by persons unknown”, the saving grace of this case is that – with Rae being so beloved - more than twenty sex-workers in and around Brewer Street witnessed a wealth of possible suspects, including “The Maltese Man”. At roughly 11:20pm, Thomasina Ingram, Alice Nolan and Rebecca Howland witnessed Rae politely chatting with a man in his mid-30’s; he was six foot tall, well built, with a dark complexion and dark brushed back hair, clean shaven, with a roman nose, thick lips and had uneven and unclean teeth. He was wearing a well-cut dark brown suit, a white shirt, tan shoes and was carrying a light tan raincoat. And based on the way he kept looking at Rebecca Howland’s mouth, she guessed he was possibly lip-reading, and that his accent was either “Spanish, Greek… or Maltese”. And yet, as excellent as this description is, this man was never identified and never questioned… …but who is he? Was he one of Rae’s gentleman callers, who all (supposedly) had alibis? “Ted”, born Edwin George Peggs, a British-born, 41 year old, 5 foot 10 inches tall, well-built man was sighted in Hoxton (5 miles away) on the night of the murder, and having discovered her body at 1pm the next day, prior to his pre-arranged chicken dinner with Rae, his grief and shock was obvious. So no, Ted’s alibi holds up and his description doesn’t match. Even Antonios Ioannou, the 28 year old chef who’d recently split-up with Rae, owned “stiletto” style knives, had a vague alibi and was Greek (the other nationality Rebecca Howland said the Maltese Man may have been), co-operated fully with the Police, having met Rae just two days prior on “good terms”, and his chef knives and clothing were examined by the Police laboratory and no blood was found. In fact, including Steed & Dutton, none of Rae’s men-friends had any reason to kill her, none were seen with her, and if they were, the many prostitutes who were in Rae’s social circle – and knew Ted, Ioannou, Steed & Dutton – would have mentioned it in their witness statements, which they did not. But what if Rae had another man? A new man to lavish her affections on? Hidden in a brown envelope inside the murder file was a news article from the Today newspaper, dated 28th April 1962, and written by Betty Sinclair, a close friend of Rae’s who witnessed her bloody body. Betty Sinclair wrote: “the bedroom was like a battleground, chairs and a table were overturned in her struggle to stay alive. The other room was in complete contrast; the table was laid, the cloth spotless and not a speck of dust to be seen… two places had been laid; chicken, wine and candles were on the table… she had taken a lot of trouble to please someone, and had been repaid with murder”. So who was this man? Was he the reason Rae failed to turn up to her 10pm date at the Sun & Thirteen Cantons pub with Steed & Dutton? And why had Rae prepared the chicken she’d bought for her regular Sunday lunch date with Ted? Was he the Maltese Man? Or is this… just bullshit? There’s one vital element that’s missing in Rae’s casefile, which any investigation into the murder of a sex-worker should contain, as “if Ginger Rae was a prostitute, then who was her pimp?” As it’s rare to find an independent prostitute, who’s worked for so long, in the same area, who hasn’t been coerced, conned, strong-armed and even threatened into “needing protection”, with many prostitutes being beaten, bloodied and even killed by their own pimps, and even rival pimps, for stepping out of line. Obviously, no written record exists of who Rae’s pimp was, but the most prominent pimps in Soho, from the mid 1930’s to the late 1940’s were the Messina Brothers. Born to a Scilian father and a Maltese mother, Salvatore, Carmelo, Alfredo, Eugenio and Attilio Messina were five brothers born and raised in Alexandria (Egypt) and Valetta (Malta), who ran a chain of brothels in both countries, before all five brothers decided to expand their illegal operations in England, as of July 1933. Having only semi-legally entered the UK, and being self-financed, tax-dodging and independently wealthy, the Messina’s began buying-up West End businesses (in Mayfair, Holborn and Soho), setting up a protection and prostitution rackets, all under the noses of the Metropolitan Police, having bribed key members, which gave them free-reign of the city. So powerful were the Messina’s that Attilio Messina was arrogantly quoted in the press, as saying: "We Messina’s are more powerful than the British Government… we do as we like". By the late 1940’s, during the height of their power and the year that Rae was murdered, the Messina brothers were operating at least thirty brothels in the West End, with hundreds of prostitutes under their “protection”; some having been trafficked from overseas and others being local girls, lured in by the promise of a clothes, money and even marriage to a wealthy Mediterranean businessman, before being bullied into prostitution, and all under the threat of “being carved-up”. So, could Attillo Messina (or either of the Messina Brothers) be the Maltese Man? Well, he certainly fits the description being 38 years old, five foot ten, well-built, with a Mediterranean complexion, a roman nose, clean shaven, with a taste for expensive suits and they were all of Maltese descent. But whether any of the Messina’s had bad teeth, or were deaf? That we shall never know. And yet, if any of the Messina Brothers were this infamous Maltese Man? Surely every prostitute in Soho could easily recognise such a prominent pimp, who’d ruled Soho since the mid 1930’s? Or maybe, they were too terrified to go to the Police, to testify against him, or even mention his name? But then again, by the late 1940’s, the Messina’s weren’t the only Maltese gangsters in Soho. Having muscled in on the Messina’s territory, Carmelo Vassalo and his crimial cohorts; Paul Borg, Anthony Mangion, Michael Sultana and Romeo Saliba were arrested having tailed Eugenio Messina’s Rolls Royce to his Kensington home, equipped with a hammer, a cosh and a knuckle-duster. During the trial, three prostitutes (Janine Gilson, Martha Watts and Blanche Costaki) all testified against Vassalo’s gang, exposing their prostitution and protection racket, which led to Vassalo’s gang being found guilty on 23rd April 1947 and sentenced to short custodial sentences. And yet, when Vassalo’s laywer cross-examined them, fearing they had been paid to fabricate their testimony, all three women, who were experienced Soho sex-workers, denied having ever heard of the Messina Brothers. So, was Carmelo Vassalo the Maltese Man? That is unknown. Was the murder of Ginger Rae caused by a rift between Vassalo’s gang and the Messina’s? That is unknown. Was Carmelo Vassalo the new gentleman caller who Ginger Rae was meeting that night, over a delightful chicken dinner having ditched her date with Steed & Dutton? No. That I can safely say as a fact, as Betty Sinclair’s article in the Today newspaper was bullshit. And here’s why: #1 – Sinclair states “the bedroom was like a battleground, chairs and a table were overturned in her struggle to stay alive”. None of which was corroborated by Ted who found her body, her neighbours who lived upstairs, or even by the police report itself. #2 – Sinclair states “…two places had been laid; chicken, wine and candles were on the table”. And yet, Ted clearly stated he saw the uncooked chicken and the unwashed salad in the kitchen basin. And #3 – Sinclair claims to have witnessed the murder scene of her “good friend”, and yet, not once in any witness statement is Betty Sinclair ever mentioned, except in this sordid tabloid news article, published on 28th April 1962, 14 years after the death of Ginger Rae. Sadly, like most murder cases, the more infamous they become, the more they are peppered with false leads and outright lies, and this murder is no exception. For example: On 8th November 1950, Catherine Martin stated to the Police “a china-man named J T Sang Foon took Jonny Perera to a prostitute on Broadwick Street about the same time as Ginger Rae was murdered… I want you to know what a depraved man Perera is and he might have done it”… only to top-off her statement with the line “he is a black man”. On 8th July 1949, William Connors, an inmate at Broadmoor Asylum, stated he’d received a letter claiming his brother had killed Rae in 1942, a full six years before she was even murdered. And again, in August 1962, having read Betty Sinclair’s bullshit article, George Hobson of Birmingham (118 miles away) claimed that in East London, one week before the murder, his friend loaned a knife (which doesn’t match the “stiletto” blade) to a short scrawny youth who doesn’t match any description of any man that Rae was seen with that night. This particular piece of witness testimony takes up almost a fifth of Rae’s casefile, as well as ten additional years of police work. What’s undeniable is that during this era, with crime endemic and rival gangs vying for control, violent attacks and even the murder of West End prostitutes (supposedly by their pimps) had become a regular occurrence; including Margaret Cook on 10th November 1946 just one street away in Carnaby Street; Doris Violet Green alias “Black Rita” on 8th September 1947, two streets away in Rupert Street and Helen Freedman alias “Russian Dora” on 5th September 1948 in an uncannily similar attack to “Ginger Rae”, who was murdered just three weeks later. And yet, all of these cases remain unsolved. Given how well-loved “Ginger Rae” was, both the Police and those who knew her, felt her murder was less likely to be a personal attack, and more likely to be at the hands of a maniac. And even though she was a tough cookie who had scratched previous attackers in the face with her keys, marking them with easily identifiable scars, a madman clearly got the better of her. But who? Who was this maniac? Well, let me wrap-up this case by telling you two very different stories. On the 24th July 1948, eight weeks before Rae’s murder, Soho prostitute Hermione Hindin met a man on Brewer Street and took him back to her flat at 7 Kingly Street (just two streets from Rae’s flat) for the purposes of sex; he mid-30’s, five foot 10, well built, dark brown hair, wearing a dark suit and a raincoat, he was clean shaven and had uneven and unclean teeth. As she stood by her bed and started to undress, her attacker grabbed her by the throat, and pulled from his jacket a long bladed knife. Having wrestled herself free, she screamed for the Police, the man’s mood changed and he fled supposedly shouting “I have no time for you bloody people, I’m going to do all prostitutes in”. Oddly, on the same night that Rae was killed, in a street just off Brewer Street, this same man also tried to strangle Thomasina Ingram. And although his description was circulated, he was never caught. Then… on Sunday 26th September 1948 at 1:30am, during the critical four hour window when Ginger Rae died, 39 year old Geoffrey Alexander Haig was found staggering in Piccadilly Circus (barely a three minute walk from Rae’s flat) in a drunk, angry and agitated state, his bloodied face scarred with four cuts. Haig then took a cab back to his Kilburn flat with a local prostitute named Anne Lancaster, and in her words he proceeded to maul her. The next day, when questioned by Detective Sergeant Bilyard (the first officer on the scene at Rae’s murder), Haig claimed he had no memory of the previous night, no idea how he got there and no idea what had happened, how he got the scratches on his face, how he ended up in bed with a prostitute, or how he’d got “someone else’s” blood on his blue woollen suit, and then blamed the entire incident on having run a 4 ½ mile race that day and having not eaten. All of which could be a coincidence? Geoffrey Alexander Haig was a civil servant who was knighted by the Queen in the 1946 Honours List and was made an OBE. On the bottom of many of the witness statements given by the “common prostitutes” (as they were titled) who had provided such an excellent description of the men who Rae was with in her final few hours, the Police had written that they were “liars” and “unreliable”. And yet, on Haig’s testimony, Detective Sergeant Bilyard wrote “Mr Haig is a man of substance and excellent character”, before Haig was released without charge. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to Murder Mile. But don’t worry, this is not the end of Ginger Rae’s story, as over the coming weeks we shall be investigating some of the other murders mentioned in this story, which I hope will shine new light on this tragic case. Don’t forget to join us for Murder Mile live this Sunday @ 9pm GMT, by using the hashtag #MMPodLive. And, if you’re in London, pop along to Murder Mile Walks, and these murder locations for yourself. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode is Alfredo Zomparelli and the Golden Goose. Thank you and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER ***
DOWNLOAD this episode Murder Mile Episode #9 - Who Killed Ginger Rae?
You can also listen to the podcast live, by clicking PLAY on this embedded player above.
Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible). The main musical themes was written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.
Next episode: Alfredo Zomparelli and the Golden Goose (due Thursday 14th December 2017).
Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
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