Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #121: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell - Part Two (Arnis Zalkalns)3/3/2021 
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42 Castlebar Road, the former home of Arnis Zalkalns/Daksa
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund
Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund is supporting the National Foundation for Youth Music in memory of Alice who had a passion for music. It aims to provide a sustainable legacy of music-making for disadvantaged children in Alice's memory. If you want to help please do make your donation here.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE:
Today’s episode is about the hunt for the murderer of Alice Gross. With rape as a motive but no clear link to any suspect, the attack seemed almost random. And although their encounter was entirely by chance, a cruel twist of fate may have decided her death just three years before she was even born. This is Part Two of Two of The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of 42 Castlebar Road, the former home of Arbnnis Zalkalns is marked with a red cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
Here's a few videos to go with this series; 42 Castlebar Road where Arnis Zalkalns/Daksa lived at the time of the murder, the short-cut between Lock 97 and the River Brent where the attack took place, and near the location at Boston Marnor Park where Arnis Zalkalns killed himself.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable. 
Locations involved in this case: (from top left to bottom right) the entrance to Lock 97 (from south of the canal), the entrance to the shortcut to the River Brent (where Alice was snatched), the short-cut (where the rape and murder took place). the location where her body was found, the footbridge at Brentford Lock, a densely wooded section of the area (it gets worse than this), the exit/extrance to the short-cut at Hanwell Bridge, Hanwell Bridge via Uxbridge Road, The Corner Shop and on the far right: the memorial to Alice at the location her body was found and Arnis Zalkaln's flat at 42 Castlebar Road.
SOURCES:As there is no police file or court documents currently available, this series has been written and researched using a variety of sources, as well as my own research and investigations. Including (but not exclusively):
Alice's Music- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWYbzRNASic Alice's Solo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmVa0tL01Bg UK Documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLXuAL6LPKg CCTV at Brentford Lock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlPfVgJgrN8 CCTV at Corner Shop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMg0UhdJrWE CCTV by Uxbridge Road / Hanwell Bridge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCv4E6-558 INTERVIEW WITH PARENTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkoUdnHiK0 NEWS SOURCES: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29258630 https://alice-poppymadeleine-gross.muchloved.com/Fundraising https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/04/alice-gross-inquest-finds-schoolgirl-was-unlawfully-killed https://www.wandsworthsw18.com/#!pages/shared:common:eaalice021 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/11/revealed-alice-gross-argued-against-banning-foreign-criminals-before-her https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/14/alice-gross-inquest-must-scrutinise-suspected-killer-arnis-zalkalns-uk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/mother-murdered-girl-alice-gross-lost-faith-uks-ability-protect-citizens https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/body-found-river-alice-gross-police https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/27/alice-gross-murder-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/alice-gross-police-find-body-river-brent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/29/alice-gross-police-dredge-london-canal-missing-schoolgirl https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/05/alice-gross-murder-forensic-tests-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/16/alice-gross-police-missing-latvian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/24/alice-gross-evidence-latvian-police-arrest-warrant https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/04/fears-grow-missing-teenager-alice-gross https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29252462 https://www.theweek.co.uk/60472/alice-gross-why-did-police-not-know-about-killer-s-past https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/18/alice-gross-police-arnis-zalkalns-murder-conviction-suspect https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/13/arnis-zalkalns-inquest-opened-london-alice-gross https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/22/alice-gross-police-suspect-arnis-zalkalns https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29438682 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30997004 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2928026/Latvian-killer-Arnis-Zalkalns-charged-murder-schoolgirl-Alice-Gross-police-say.html https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Gross-2016-0488.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29340052 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29328591 https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/330905/suspect-in-missing-alice-case-is-wife-killer/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2761606/Once-tasted-blood-I-feared-strike-An-extraordinary-interview-grieving-mother-wife-Latvian-fugitive-battered-death.html MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about the hunt for the murderer of Alice Gross. With rape as a motive but no clear link to any suspect, the attack seemed almost random. And although their encounter was entirely by chance, a cruel twist of fate may have decided her death just three years before she was even born. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 121: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell – Part Two. Today I’m standing on Castlebar Road in Ealing, W5; four miles west of the flat shared by the killers of Vincent Patrick Keighrey, three miles north-west of the Chiswick cat ladies, one street north-west of the newsagents where the sadistic Polish child-rapist Andrzej Kunowski lured his penultimate victim, and one and a half miles south-east of the bloodbath at Gurnell Grove - coming soon to Murder Mile. Ealing is one of the borough’s seven towns including Acton, Greenford, Perivale, Northolt, Southall and (on its westerly border) is Hanwell. As a settlement since the iron age, Ealing comes from the Saxon word ‘Gilligas’ which fittingly means ’place of the people’, being a nice place to live and work. Skirting north of Ealing Broadway sits Castlebar, a B-road heading to Hanwell. As a residential street shoe-horned full of townhouses, terraces, flats and care homes, it’s the kind of place where everyone is pleasant to one-another. In passing, they may nod, wave or utter a cheery “how do you do?” Only to dart inside, pry open the curtains and lambast their partner, as after a decade of niceties, the worst crime of all would be the shame of asking their neighbour - “I’m sorry, but what is your name?” Half way up the hill, opposite a little V-shaped patch of grass called Tortoise Green sits 42 Castlebar Road; a three-storey semi-detached light-brown house with large white windows, a black iron fence and - like so many over-priced London houses – it was subdivided into several rented flats. Today, it’s a lovely home which (I’m assured) houses some thoroughly pleasant persons. But just seven years ago, the basement flat was rented out to a builder with a baby, a bride-to-be and a bicycle. And although hard-working, none of the residents knew about his deadly past or his sadistic obsession. As far as we know, its tenant never knew Alice, she never knew him and although (as he cycled home from work) the murder of a young girl might not have been on his mind, in a chance encounter, there may have been something oddly familiar about Alice which stirred his emotions and drove him to kill. As it was here, on Thursday 4th September 2014, exactly one week after her disappearance, that 41-year-old Arnis Zalkalns vanished, leaving behind his family and taking one more life. (Interstitial) Missing for four days, Rosalind made an appeal to her daughter: "We'd like to say to Alice that we miss her, we love her and that she's not in any trouble, all we want to know that she's safe". Being a grounded girl, Alice’s only vices were walks, pets and music. She avoided conflict, strangers and unsafe settings, and she didn’t keep secrets, as having opened her heart to her family about her battle with depression and anorexia, their love and support kept her strong. She had never run away, but every option had to be considered... even the unthinkable. And although her family and the people of Hanwell never lost hope - as the streets were radiated by blooms of bright yellow ribbons in a vigil to ‘find Alice’ – but as time eroded, the likelihood of finding her alive grew more distant. If someone had taken her, the question was ‘who’ and ‘why’? On day five, having found her black backpack and trainers hidden amongst a dense thicket on a remote river towpath, although it remained a missing person’s case (until the evidence suggested otherwise) it was escalated to Detective Superintendent Carl Mehta of the Met’ Police’s Serious Crime Command. Conducting one of London’s largest searches, hundreds of dogs and officers scoured ten square miles of dense impenetrable woodland –overgrown, unmapped and riddled with dank nooks and recesses - from Three Bridges to Brentford Lock, the River Brent to the Hanwell Flight, covering every conceivable spot from Trumper’s Way to Gallow’s Bridge and Boston Manor Park, as divers waded through three-and-a-half miles of unnavigable rivers, ponds and bogs, relying mostly on touch amidst its silty depths. Over the coming weeks, a jigsaw of CCTV footage would painstakingly rebuild a timeline of Alice’s last known movements as well as any eye-witnesses. And yet, it would yield few clues to her whereabouts, as – at the crucial moment between 4:23pm and 4:42pm - her digital history had a dead zone. It seemed impossible. How could a young girl with a very identifiable look, outfit and walk vanish from a moderately busy towpath on a summer’s day in broad daylight, and yet nobody saw a thing? Released on Thursday 4th September, CCTV footage showed the small, skinny but confidently strutting Alice crossing Brentford Lock at 2.23pm, 3:45pm and finally power-walking under the Trumper’s Way Bridge at 4:23pm, as five cyclists passed her, just minutes before she vanished. Three came forward and were ruled out, but two did not, possibly having not recognised themselves in the grainy footage. It proved, she wasn’t followed, distracted or fazed, she stopped once, she spoke to no-one, she made no other calls or texts, her speed and direction remained consistent and she showed no signs of fear. As a senior detective, from day one, DSI Carl Mehta had been investigating this as a potential homicide, looking for any anomalies and possible suspects. On Saturday 6th September at 5pm, a 25-year-old Ealing man was arrested but later bailed. And on Sunday 7th, after a tip-off, a 51-year-old local was arrested after “a shovel, ropes and sacks” were found in his car-boot, but he was released uncharged. Alice hadn’t vanished of her own volition, that much was clear, so somebody had to know something... ...but even before these arrests were made, DSI Mehta had a second line of inquiry and a suspect. On average, 55000 people go missing in London every year, with roughly thirty-three missing persons reported in the borough of Ealing every week, and that week was no different. Excluding Alice, to the DSI, this list was a typical mix of the borough’s most vulnerable – whether children, the elderly or the mentally distressed – many of whom would return safe and well. But one person’s details stood out. On Friday 5th September, a 41-year-old Latvian was reported missing by his girlfriend; his passport and bank accounts lay untouched, both his UK and Latvian phones were dead, CCTV had lost him one day earlier and – as a new dad with a good job and a baby daughter - he had no reason to vanish. Last seen cycling away from his basement flat at 42 Castlebar Road, his disappearance had eery similarities to Alice. Only he wasn’t the victim, but the prime suspect and his name was Arnis Zalkalns. (Interstitial) Arnis Zalkalns was born in 1973 in the Latvian capital of Riga, under his real name - Arnis Daksa. Little is known about his early years except for a few scant details and although his family would later state “he was a good man, who wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially a child”, his past would refute this. Physically, he was unremarkable, being neither hideous, handsome nor bland. As an average-looking man of five-foot ten-inches tall, slightly stocky and thirteen stone in weight, he mirrored many other welders in the dockyard; he was practical, good with his hands and had the skills to construct his own tools. With a jutting chin, piercing grey eyes and a brown ponytail, he was semi-successful in his pursuit of petite young girls, and although moderately charming, his overriding character trait was aggression. In the spring of 1994, at a Riga nightclub, Arnis met 19-year-old seamstress Rudite Zalkalns. With soft brown hair, pale-skin and a pixyish nose, there was something prepubescent about her elfin features and a doll-like figure, as if – being a little naïve – her mind and body kept remained as a ‘little girl’. And easily enchanted, she ignored her mother’s warnings, she fell madly in love and quickly fell pregnant. By December 1994, hiding her bulging belly under a pink maternity dress, Arnis & Rudite married, with their daughter (Elvira) born two months later... but life was far from bliss, as Arnis was cruel, abusive and controlling. With the cause uncertain – whether Rudite had dented his ego having begun a lesbian fling or stumbled on his alleged links to the Latvian mafia - the violence she suffered was irrefutable. In 1996, having handmade a low-calibre handgun – with his masculinity impugned - he shot her in the stomach. Surviving with a crushed bullet lodged in her spine, being too terrified to call the Police and with Arnis refusing to pay for a surgeon to remove it, she was stitched back up and there it remained. By March 1997, with his temper tightly-wound as his wife dared to go-out without him or his say-so, feeling paranoid and spurned, he callously prepared her death. Under the ruse of a gift, he lured Rudite to a remote woodland on the outskirts of Riga where his weapons lay in wait. Wielding a foot-long cosh he had fashioned from scaffolding pole, he frenziedly bludgeoned the tiny girl to unconsciousness and brandishing a handmade blade, he stabbed in the heart. Stripped naked, tied into a foetal position and stuffed into a black bin-bag, Arnis dumped her body in pre-dug three-foot grave. Discarding her clothes and trainers, he disguised the crime-scene, so that (even to the experts) it looked untouched. His planning was detailed and his execution was faultless, but his failure was his obsession. Rudite was dead and gone, but unable to sleep and being haunted by her face, all he could think about was Rudite. Reporting her missing, detectives found her diary in which she detailed the violence and her despair, and as the Police’s prime suspect, on 9th July 1997, just four months later, he confessed to her murder. So well-concealed was his wife’s body that Arnis himself had to guide the search-teams to her grave. Assessed as mentally-stable, he pleaded guilty to murder and on 18th June 1998, he was sentenced to twelve years in Riga Central Prison, on appeal this was reduced to eight, but he served only seven. Released on probation in 2005 - leaving Elvira without a father or mother - he moved to Liepaja, began a new life with a lady called Liga Rubezneice, they had two children, and keen to bury his criminal past and (maybe unable to let go), he changed his name from Daksa to Zalkalns - his dead wife’s surname. In 2007, Arnis Zalkalns (a welder with no convictions) boarded a coach to London, having never been placed on Interpol’s watchlist of violent offenders. Moving to the West Ealing suburb of Boston Manor, he worked on a building site in Isleworth, cycling his red Trex mountain bike along the Grand Union canal and starting a relationship with his new girlfriend Katerina Laiblove, they would later move into the basement flat at 42 Castlebar Road in Ealing, and together they had a daughter called Linda. He had a new life in a new world with a new family... only his old demons were never put to rest. In 2009 - triggered by either lust, rage or obsession – Arnis Zalkalns was arrested for the sexual-assault of a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Boston Manor Park; a densely overgrown woodland, by the towpath on the Hanwell Flight, just one-a-half miles south of Lock 97. And although fully-investigated, the terrified girl decided to not to proceed and the charges against him were dropped. For DSI Carl Mehta, Arnis Zalkalns was his prime suspect. With a history of violence and sexual assault against young petite girls, his description and mountain bike matched the footage from Trumper’s Bridge, he was currently missing, and his DNA matched a sample found on Alice’s backpack and trainer. On Tuesday 16th September, DSI Mehta took the unusual step of announcing Zalkaln’s as a ‘person of interest’ stating “we simply want to speak to him, as he may have information that can help our search for Alice”. The next day, Police released the CCTV footage showing Alice crossing the short black-and-white footbridge at Brentford Gauging Lock at 3:45pm on the day she disappeared. At 4pm, just fifteen minutes later, that same footage showed Arnis crossing the footbridge and cycling north up the canal. So, why did Arnis attack Alice? He didn’t know her, he had never met her, and (based on the evidence) it wasn’t a pre-meditated murder. If anything, their contact would be as fleeting as any other stranger they would pass on the towpath that day - or any other day - with Arnis as one of many anonymous cyclists who were heading home from work, and Alice as just another jogger keeping fit. So, what happened? Thursday 28th August 2014 was as unremarkable as any other day that summer. Being twenty-three degrees, sunny but not hot, and calm with a light breeze – it was the perfect weather for a long walk. At 12:50pm, with a matching outfit, a confident stride and a swinging ponytail, (“bye mum, love you”) Alice left home on a spontaneous walk via an improvised route decided by her mood and energy. Her speed was consistent as she passed the following locations. 1.02pm Hanwell Station, 1:13pm Hanwell Bridge, 1.15pm Uxbridge Road and 1.26pm she entered Windmill Lane and the Hanwell Flight. She passed Lock 97, the Syphon, Trumper’s Way Bridge, Elthorne Park, Osterley Lock, the M4 flyover and Boston Manor Park; she crossed over at Gallow’s Bridge, passed Transport Avenue, Great West Road, and at 2.23pm she entered Brentford Gauging Lock, where at 3pm she texted her dad. At no point during her walk south did Arnis see her, as from 9am that morning, he was on a building site in Isleworth, three and a half miles of her home and one mile west of Brentford Lock. He worked hard, he took a short break, his mood was good and he left work at his usual time, having completed his shift. At 3:35pm, wearing a blueish short-sleeved shirt, cream chinos and black trainers, he cycled east along London Road on his red Trex mountain bike with his black rucksack on his back, as per usual. Given how meticulously he had planned and executed the murder of his wife – with a pre-dig grave, a handmade cosh, a sharpened knife, cable ties and a roll of black bin-bags, as well as how methodically he had hidden her body and disguised the crime-scene so it looked untouched – we know his attack on Alice wasn’t pre-meditated prior to this moment, as none of the tools he would need were on his person or at the scene. At 3:45pm, Alice headed north across the black-and-white footbridge at Brentford Lock. At 4pm, taking his usual route home, Arnis cycled passed that same spot, heading up the canal, in the same direction as Alice – as many joggers, dog-walkers and at least four other cyclists would at roughly the same time. With her walking speed gauged at three-miles-per-hour and his cycling speed at about eight, based on the timings between CCTV cameras, they would have passed one-another on the narrow towpath near to Boston Manor Park - the site of his alleged sexual-assault on a 14-year-old schoolgirl. At 4:26pm, a camera captured Alice being overtaken by the last of five cyclists at Trumper’s Bridge. Her speed was steady and she showed no sense of fear, so - if Arnis had confronted her near Gallow’s Bridge - feeling afraid, she could have left the canal on this road heading to Hanwell... but she didn’t. Having cycled to Lock 97, Arnis stopped, parked up his bike and - just to the left of Lock Cottage, down a secluded and overgrown short-cut running along the River Brent - he lit-up a Lucky Strike menthol and as he lay in wait for eight minutes as Alice approached, he smoked it down to the filter. So why Alice? A girl he never knew, had never met and hadn’t a single reason to love or hate, who was just one of hundreds (if not thousands) of girls he had cycled-by, every day, on that stretch of canal. Why Alice? Well that we can never know for certain, but there is one immutable and undeniable truth. Alice was a tiny girl, with the wise head of grown-up, but the small skinny body of a child. Being pixyish and petite, with elfin-features and a doll-like frame - although she was unquestionably easy-prey for a five-foot-ten thirteen-stone man - her look bore an uncanny similarity to that of his dead wife. Seventeen years after Rudite’s murder, still haunted by the face of his long-dead lover, the motive of Arnis Zalkalns might have been decided in a fleeting glance – from behind, and on a bike – as in a cruel ironic twist, the tragic fate of Alice Gross was (maybe) set-in-motion three years before she was born? The attack was swift and brazen. It had to be. Being a bright summer’s day, he snatched Alice off the public footpath, silencing her lips with his grubby hand, as he dragged the terrified teen to the bushes, and all the while, through-out her ordeal, lines of unwitting people would pass-by just a few feet away. For Arnis, the risk of being discovered was extremely high, but there hidden amidst the dense thicket, he raped this little girl, until his eighty-three-kilo bulk crushed the last breath of air from her tiny lungs. Evidence suggests that sex was his motive, not murder, but with Alice’s limp and lifeless body slumped beside him, his new motive was her disposal. As he had with his dead-wife, he needed to hide her, so no-one would find her... ever. Only with no plan, no tools and no pre-dug grave, he risked arrest. At 5:49pm, seventy-five minutes later, and at about the same time that Alice should have returned home, a camera on Uxbridge Road caught Arnis emerging from the towpath at Hanwell Bridge. In his bag was stashed her dead iPhone, possibly some of her clothes, and having dumped her backpack along the overgrown short-cut, we know that he had entered the river as the legs of his cream Chinos were rolled-up to his knees. He headed east into Hanwell and cycled 1.9 miles to his flat at 42 Castlebar Road, to his girlfriend and baby daughter. But his stay would only be brief, as Alice wasn’t buried. At 7:30pm, he left his home. In his rucksack was a shovel, a torch, spare clothes and a roll of black bin-bags. Where he found the four house-bricks and the broken bicycle wheel is unknown, but this kind of innocent detritus could easily be found at the canal having been dumped by any lazy fly-tipper. At 7:36pm, he entered The Corner Shop at 24 The Avenue in West Ealing and purchased two cans of strong lager. The shopkeeper said “he smelled bad” and “looked out-of-it, like he was on drugs”. At 7:46pm, the Hanwell Bridge camera caught him returning to the scene where he stayed until 8:49pm. Wading chest-deep into this isolated and unnavigable bend in the River Brent, he dug a shallow trench in the dark riverbed and - having wrapped her small porcelain body in black bin-bags - behind a tree, down a slope and buried deep in three-feet of silty water, he disguised this unrecognisable black lump amongst the mud and weighed her down with bricks, sections of tree-trunk and a twenty-kilo log. So meticulously had he hidden the body of Alice Gross, she wouldn’t be found for thirty-three days. The next day, on Friday 29th August, that same camera captured him at 6:48am and 9:02pm returning to the scene, possibly to check on the body as he cycled to-and-from work, along that same towpath. With her black backpack and blue trainers found just five days later, that day his internet search history was dominated by one name - ‘Alice Gross’. He knew he would be a suspect and he knew he would be caught. But (unlike with his dead wife) he would never confess, or see a single day in prison. (END) On Thursday 4th September at 12:40am, one week after her disappearance, 41-year-old Arnis Zalkalns left his flat at Castlebar Road, and having packed a rucksack with ropes and tools, he vanished. Announced as ‘person of interest’, a forensic search found additional evidence including the bin-bags, his bike, his clothes and the cracked case to Alice’s iPhone at his home. As well as hours of CCTV footage, the cigarette butt found at the crime scene and Zalkaln’s DNA was recovered on her backpack, her canvas trainer and – protected by the waterproof binbags – his DNA remained on her skin. Police were confident of a conviction, all they had to do was find him. The problem was he knew how to hide himself and a body, having done it twice before. But after thirty-one days of being missing, Arnis Zalkalns was finally found. On Saturday 4th October at 2pm, in a remote and densely-wooded thicket in Boston Manor Park, barely a mile south of Lock 97, the badly decomposed body of Arnis Zalkalns was found hanging from a tree. So well disguised was his body and the scene, that a previous search by Police specialists had failed to find it, and with no evidence of third-party involvement, his cause of death was hanging by suicide. The culprit was found, the case was closed and an inquest was held, but having taken his own life, Arnis Zalkalns would never be convicted and the family of Alice Gross would never get justice. On 23rd October, the people of Hanwell stood in silence as a black hearse crawled across Broadway, along long lines of rolling tears and bowed heads, as the little lost girl was returned home. Illuminated by yellow ribbons, candles and flowers, as the procession was lead to Hanwell Cemetery, in the back lay a small yellow coffin, decorated with paintings and designs of everything that Alice loved; art, music, poetry, her family, her pets and a flower-strewn meadow, to reflect her love of nature. But Alice’s name was not to become synonymous with grief, but joy. In her brief life, her love of music would become her legacy, a legacy which lasts to this day and will continue to inspire a new generation of children and teenagers to – battle through their personal problems, just as Alice had - and embrace the things that they love. In her memory, Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund was established, raising donations and seeking to provide a sustainable legacy of music-making for disadvantaged children. As well as the Alice Gross Song Writing Award which inspires a new generation of young song writers. Alice will live on in our hearts, with the yellow ribbons of Hanwell once again seen a symbol of hope. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the concluding part of the Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell. If you’d like to learn a little more about this case, join me for a cup of tea after the break and to make a donation to Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund, there is a link in the show-notes. But before that, here’s a brief promo for a true-crime podcast which may be right up your street. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, many of whom joined us a good few weeks ago, so I apologise for the delay. They are: Sally Worsley, Jonathan McLean, Shawna Ewasiuk (Ewayzee-uk), Elizabeth Whitley, George Hall, Guido Puddi, Kim Skwara, Chris Niro, Shirley Jones, Michelle Wilde-Nguyen, Megan Morris and Tee Bylo. With the Patreon competition winners from ages ago being Michael Hanrahan (who won a Murder Mile mug of goodies) and Karen Hillier and Kara Langford (who won a Murder Mile key ring), Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #120: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell - Part One (Alice Gross)24/2/2021
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
Lock 97 on the Hanwell Flight of the Grand Union Canal
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund
Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund is supporting the National Foundation for Youth Music in memory of Alice who had a passion for music. It aims to provide a sustainable legacy of music-making for disadvantaged children in Alice's memory.
If you want to help please do make your donation here.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY:
On Thursday 28th August 2014, 14-year-old Alice Gross went for a nice long walk down the Hanwell Flight of the Grand Union Canal. It was a sunny day, on a relatively busy towpath, on a route she knew well having walked it many times before. She was witnessed several times on CCTV, but (somehow) between 4:23pm and 4:42pm, on a clear stretch of the canal... Alice Gross vanished. The question is how? This is Part One of Two of The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of Lock 97 on the Hanwell Flight of the Grand Union Canal where 14 year old Alice Gross was last seen, and where her body would ultimately be found. It is marked with a black cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
The video on the left is Lock 97 which Alice passed twice on her route (it was a sunny day and relatively busy with people (this was shot on a Sunday at 9am) and the video on the right is Brentford Gauging Lock, one of the places where CCTV captured Alice.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
This is a map of Alice's journey along the Grand Union Canal on Thursday 28th August 2014.
And photos of the locations Alice passed in both directions.
SOURCES:As there is no police file or court documents currently available, this series has been written and researched using a variety of sources, as well as my own research and investigations. Including (but not exclusively):
Alice's Music- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWYbzRNASic Alice's Solo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmVa0tL01Bg UK Documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLXuAL6LPKg CCTV at Brentford Lock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlPfVgJgrN8 CCTV at Corner Shop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMg0UhdJrWE CCTV by Uxbridge Road / Hanwell Bridge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCv4E6-558 INTERVIEW WITH PARENTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkoUdnHiK0 NEWS SOURCES: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29258630 https://alice-poppymadeleine-gross.muchloved.com/Fundraising https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/04/alice-gross-inquest-finds-schoolgirl-was-unlawfully-killed https://www.wandsworthsw18.com/#!pages/shared:common:eaalice021 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/11/revealed-alice-gross-argued-against-banning-foreign-criminals-before-her https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/14/alice-gross-inquest-must-scrutinise-suspected-killer-arnis-zalkalns-uk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/mother-murdered-girl-alice-gross-lost-faith-uks-ability-protect-citizens https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/body-found-river-alice-gross-police https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/27/alice-gross-murder-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/alice-gross-police-find-body-river-brent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/29/alice-gross-police-dredge-london-canal-missing-schoolgirl https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/05/alice-gross-murder-forensic-tests-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/16/alice-gross-police-missing-latvian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/24/alice-gross-evidence-latvian-police-arrest-warrant https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/04/fears-grow-missing-teenager-alice-gross https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29252462 https://www.theweek.co.uk/60472/alice-gross-why-did-police-not-know-about-killer-s-past https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/18/alice-gross-police-arnis-zalkalns-murder-conviction-suspect https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/13/arnis-zalkalns-inquest-opened-london-alice-gross https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/22/alice-gross-police-suspect-arnis-zalkalns https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29438682 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30997004 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2928026/Latvian-killer-Arnis-Zalkalns-charged-murder-schoolgirl-Alice-Gross-police-say.html https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Gross-2016-0488.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29340052 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29328591 https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/330905/suspect-in-missing-alice-case-is-wife-killer/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2761606/Once-tasted-blood-I-feared-strike-An-extraordinary-interview-grieving-mother-wife-Latvian-fugitive-battered-death.html MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about the disappearance of fourteen-year-old Alice Gross. A beautiful and talented young girl from a loving family, who went for a walk by the canal on a bright summer’s day. She was captured on camera and seen by eye-witnesses, and yet, in the blink of an eye, she had vanished. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 120: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell – Part One. Today I’m standing on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal; eleven miles west of the severed pieces of Paula Fields, eight miles west of the suitcase of Marta Ligman, eight miles west of the dismembered torso of Hannah Brown (whose head was found six miles east), six miles north of Thames Towpath murders, and two and a half miles east of the family of Amarjit Chohan – coming soon to Murder Mile. This is the Hanwell Flight, a series of locks on the most southerly stretch of the Grand Union giving steady passage for boats; beginning high on the hill at Southall, dropping down passed Three Bridges (Brunel’s last construction project which cleverly overlays a road, a rail-line and a canal), along the back of the old Hanwell Asylum, passed Lock Cottage, Brentford Weir, Trumper’s Bridge, Elthorne and Boston Manor parks, and ending at the basin of Brentford Gauging Lock and the River Thames beyond. Stuck at the far end of West London (but technically Middlesex), this is a popular place for dog-walkers, joggers and strollers seeking a lungful of fresh-air, as well as cyclists avoiding the trucks and buses of the surrounding roads. Being part-rural and part-industrial, it’s mostly a muddy towpath which skirts the descending canal, with bushes on both sides and a few secluded side paths every half mile or so. It may sound idyllic – being blessed with chirping coots, splashing fishes and a bright red blur as foxes dart among the thicket – but this peace is drowned-out by the roar of traffic, the chug of chimneys, the crunch of scrapyards and the panicked slip as the most cautious walker trips on broken bricks and bike parts, only to narrowly miss the stinky bin-bags bobbing in the brown water. If you ignore all of that? It’s nice. And being entirely unlit except by moonlight, it’s busy by day, but dead by night. Lock 97 on the Hanwell Flight is unremarkable. Set half way between Three Bridges and the Thames, it’s an anonymous lock with a discretely-hidden white cottage, a set of allotments behind and it acts as the junction between the canal and the River Brent; a wooded, overgrown and unnavigable tributary leading along a muddy path, to the Hanwell Bridge on the Uxbridge Road. Every day people pass by, and ignore this seemingly insignificant little spot, as the only hint of the truly abhorrent crime which took place here is a small handmade memorial to a loving girl so tragically lost. As it was here, on Thursday 28th August 2014 at roughly 4:34pm, that fourteen-year-old Alice Gross passed this spot on her walk. And yet, having passed it for a second time... she vanished. (Interstitial) On Valentine’s Day, at the turn of the new millennium, Alice Poppy Madeline Gross was born. A tiny tot with light brown hair and porcelain skin punctuated by a big beaming set of baby blue eyes. And as much as Alice would grow from a toddler to her teenage years, she would always be petite, doll-like and delicate. But as the epitome of sweetness and joy, she was always protected and encouraged by her eternally loving family; her mum Rosalind, her father Jose and her older sister Nina. Having moved to Hanwell - a small ancient town at the most westerly point of Ealing - the Gross family thrived in this tight-knit community. It’s a good place, full of family run shops, churches and schools, being surrounded by acres of parkland and rivers, and host to London’s oldest carnival. As with many young girls - for Alice - Hanwell was her home, a place she felt safe. Described as "sweet and beautiful", as she entered her early teens, Alice was smaller than most, being a mere five foot and two inches tall and weighing barely six stone. And although her youthful looks were compounded by her elfin-like features – raised well – she had a wise head on her tiny shoulders. With a solid group of friends, Alice was bubbly, well-liked and loyal with a ‘happy-go-lucky’ personality. She was never any trouble and enjoyed her independence, but was conscious of her safety. As a loving daughter, she was helpful, polite and would always text her parents to tell them where she was. At no-time in the past had she ran away from home, and she never would, as her homelife was good. Creatively, alongside her artistic sister, she was blessed with a musical gift; having learned the violin, the piano and (soon) the ukulele, having spent many-a-fond hour with her father on the guitar, and – aided by her beautiful singing voice – she wrote and performed her own songs. Outside of music, she loved nature, long walks and she adored animals, as in their family home in Hanwell, they had three cats (called Lottie, Louis and Pattie) and their dog (Peggy). Alice was a girl with a bright future ahead. As a student, two years from her GSCE’s, she attended Brentside High School on Greenford Avenue. And although her uniform of a black skirt and blazer, white blouse and tie was always neat - keen to express herself – occasionally she broke the dress-code with a splash of eye-liner, hair-dye and a stud in her ear perched a little bit higher than the school found acceptable. But find a teenager who hadn’t. Above all, she was good, conscientious and keen to do well, having excelled in all of her subjects. If anything, Alice was a classic teenager; she strived to be individual yet accepted by her peers, she was sociable yet often glued to her iPhone (as she updated her every thought on Facebook, Twitter and Ask.fm), and – with her body blossoming into womanhood – she was struggling with depression and anorexia. By her fourteenth year, weighing just forty kilos, Alice ate very little and exercised a lot, and although a difficult time, she was on-course to succeed being blessed with a loving family. Alice Gross had a good life, her future was bright and she had no secrets, enemies or fears. And then, on a summer’s day, in broad daylight, for no reason what-so-ever... Alice Gross vanished. (Interstitial) 2014 was a good summer. Being warm and dry with odd flashes of good old British drizzle, the school holidays had begun with Hanwell’s annual carnival. That day was a blinder, it was hot, sunny and fun. Broadway was packed with cheering families as the procession passed the Hanwell clocktower. There was live music, a bouncy castle, a dog show, a petting zoo, even live crocodiles, and as a multicultural area, there was Polish dancing, a kabaddi tournament and food stalls from around the world. By the end of August, the fun had tailed off. The weather was still good, but with the holidays ending and the schools due back in a week, everyone (whether parent or pupil) was stuck in a dreary malaise. For the Gross family, it was an ordinary week; Jose was at work, (as a teacher) Rosalind was preparing her paperwork, and Alice and her sister were savouring the last days of freedom before the new term. To some it was dull, to others it was pleasantly uneventful, but for Alice, it had given her time to write new songs and she was looking forward to seeing her friends. Likewise, Thursday 28th August 2014 was as unremarkable as any other. Being twenty-three degrees Celsius, sunny but not hot, and calm with a light breeze – it was the perfect weather for a long walk. Dressed in dark blue skinny jeans, a black V-neck t-shirt and white socks, Alice tightly laced up her blue canvas Vans trainers, popped on her purple-framed glasses, and into her black Vans backpack (cross-crossed with a stylish flash of purples, greens and blues which purposely matched her jogging outfit), she packed a Tupperware box of snacks, a change of knickers and her half-charged iPhone. But she wouldn’t need a map as she knew the route, stuck to safe places and never took unnecessary risks. At 12:50pm, having told her mum that she’d be back by 4pm, Alice left the family home (“bye mum, love you”) on a walk she had done many times before (door closes). Only this time was the last time. Like any town, the streets of Hanwell were half-full, as Alice crossed Church Road. Being an elfin-like dot, although short and skinny, she strode with the steady pace and the confident stance of a determined girl for whom exercise wasn’t just a pastime but part of her battle with anorexia, and as she power-walked onto Campbell Road, her shoulder-length ponytail swung pendulously behind her. At 1:02pm, Alice and her recognisable walking style was spotted on CCTV as she headed west passed Hanwell Station. She wasn’t followed, she didn’t stop and she wouldn’t make any detours. She strode up Golden Manor, along Alwyn Road and followed the River Brent passed the Wharncliffe Viaduct. At 1:13pm, a traffic camera caught Alice crossing Hanwell Bridge on the busy Uxbridge Road. Had she continued south along this craggy path beside the River Brent, this pleasant leafy short-cut would have got her to Lock 97 on the Grand Union Canal within five minutes, but Alice wanted to get the miles in. So, she headed west up the Uxbridge Road, passed Ealing Hospital and turned left onto Windmill Lane. At 1.26pm, CCTV recorded Alice entering the Hanwell Flight at Three Bridges. She was alone, her speed was solid and she showed no sense of fear or worry. She was just a girl on a walk - nothing more. And she needn’t worry, as this stretch of the towpath was evenly paved and moderately busy. It wasn’t crammed, but wherever she was, there would always be a jogger, a cyclist or a dog-walker in sight. Passing the back of the old Hanwell Asylum (now home to Ealing Hospital), Alice began her descent with the canal on the right, bushes on the left and never deviating from the path for three miles. She passed Lock Cottage at Lock 97, the Syphon (a wooden bridge over Brent weir) and with the path becoming uneven and littered with trip-hazards, her average speed dropped to three miles-per-hour At 1:45pm, a camera caught her passing under Trumper’s Way Bridge as she followed a pre-set route passed familiar sights; like Elthorne Park, Osterley Lock, the M4 flyover and Boston Manor Park. She crossed over the canal at Gallow’s Bridge, strode down passed Transport Avenue and several industrial estates, she continued under the Great West Road, the Piccadilly Line at Brentford Bridge, passed the impressive glass buildings of GlaxoSmithKline and Sky Studios, and into the basin at Brentford Lock. At 2.23pm, two cameras at Canute House and the Holiday Inn captured Alice crossing a short black and white footbridge at Brentford Gauging Lock, having walked five miles in roughly ninety minutes. At this point, either she strode east along High Street towards Kew Bridge, walked beside the Thames towpath at Brentside, or rested at Brentford Lock while watching the ducks, coots and narrowboats. What is known is that, at a little after 3pm, having changed her plans (which was not unusual for Alice) she texted her dad. Like a good girl, she told him she was extending her walk and would meet him at 6pm, when he returned home. He was planning to cook dinner, which she was looking forward to. Alice’s return journey was the mirror opposite of the route she had just walked. The day was still bright and sunny, the towpath was moderately busy, and soon it would be filled with commuters on bicycles. At 3.45pm, once again, Alice is caught on CCTV at Brentford Lock, heading north. At 3.56pm, a camera at GlaxoSmithKline spotted her passing under Great West Road. At 4.02pm, CCTV spied her opposite Transport Avenue. She passed the parks, the locks, the M4 flyover and crossed over Gallow’s Bridge. Her speed was good, her demeanour was calm, and (as before) there were no obvious signs of fear. At 4.23pm, the last of three cyclists rode under the camera at Trumper’s Way Bridge, with Alice passing three minutes later and headed north towards the junction of the Hanwell Flight and the River Brent. At that speed, she would have left the canal at Three Bridges nineteen minutes later... but she didn’t. She didn’t enter Windmill Lane. She didn’t pass Ealing Hospital. She didn’t detour into either of the parks (which were all behind her). And the traffic camera at Hanwell Bridge didn’t capture her walking east on the Uxbridge Road, or north up the Brent River from the overgrown short-cut at Lock 97. Somehow, between 4:23pm and 4:42pm, on a small clear stretch of the canal... Alice Gross vanished. (Silence) At 5pm, her phone was still active and pinging off the masts. By 6pm, she was late and missing her dad’s homecooked dinner. With her phone dead and redirecting to voicemail, her worried parents called her closest friends, but no-one had seen her. So, by 7pm, concerned, they called the Police. Contrary to belief, a child doesn’t need to be missing for 24 hours before the Police will come out. A missing child is a high priority, especially one (so punctual) who had never gone missing before. Arriving that evening; officers took a description, a photo and circulated her details to the bobbies on the look-out for Alice. As with any missing person, they checked her usual haunts, the hospitals and made house-to-house inquiries. But it all drew a blank and her social media accounts were silent. Although she had packed snacks, as a skinny frail girl who battled anorexia, it was feared she may have collapsed somewhere along her walk. Although she had left home in her usual bubbly mood, suffering with depression, it seemed unlikely but logical that Alice may have ran away, as - like many teenagers with raging hormones – she may have been secretly stressed by peer-pressure, bullying or boyfriends? None of which seemed like Alice - who was so thoughtful, loving and kind - but it had to be considered. By the morning of Monday 1st September 2014, Alice had been missing for four days... but for her family, who hadn’t seen or heard a single word from her, those were the longest days of their lives. That day, the Gross family and the Met Police launched an appeal to find Alice. Across every media, her mum addressed her daughter, pleading “You may have been going through a tough time, but we remember a lot of the happier family times that we shared together and we're really looking forward to sharing more of those. We miss you and we love you, we miss your laughter and smile, and we miss your presence in the house, and we just want you to come home and to know that you're safe". People were asked to report any sightings of Alice. Unlike many, she would be easy-to-spot, being so pale and frail, wearing a matching blue-and-black jogging outfit, with a very identifiable power-walk. Alice was beloved, and as Commander Graham McNulty would later state “You only need to walk around the streets of Hanwell to see the effect that Alice’s disappearance has had on this community”. Alongside the appeals, they set up a Find Alice Facebook group and Twitter handle, missing persons posters adorned every street across Hanwell and the wider borough of Ealing, and – symbolic of the warmth and joy this sunshine-of-a-girl brought to those who knew her – bright yellow ribbons were fixed to every possible gate-post and railing, as a daily (and even hourly) reminder to Find Alice. With every ribbon tied and poster put-up, the Gross family and the people of Hanwell had hope... ...but one clue would escalate this missing person’s case to something more serious. On Tuesday 2nd September, Alice’s black backpack was found. Out for a walk before sunset, a couple had spotted it at 8.15pm on the day she went missing, but they didn’t know its significance till now. It was dumped among the leafy undergrowth of the overgrown short-cut between Lock 97 and the Hanwell Bridge. Her purse and iPhone were missing. Her spare underpants and lunchbox were in place, but most unnervingly of all, inside were her blue canvas trainers - the pair she was wearing that day. The investigation was escalated to Detective Superintendent Carl Mehta of the Met Police’s Serious Crime Command. As there was no evidence to suggest that any harm had come to her, it would still be treated as a missing person’s case, as they were confident, they would find Alice and get her home. More than 180,000 people go missing in the UK ever year, that’s one person every ninety seconds, with several people (including children, the elderly and adults) having been reported missing in the borough of Ealing that week. The majority would come home safe, but a few would never return. DSI Carl Mehta upgraded the case to a ‘potential homicide’, but everyone still remained hopeful. By Thursday 4th September, Alice had been missing for a week, but the search went on; with more appeals, posters and ribbons. That day, the Police released CCTV of Alice confidently power-walking passed Brentford Gauging Lock, at 2.23pm and 3:45pm, hoping to jog people’s memories of this very recognisable girl with a very specific walk. Someone, somewhere had to have seen her. The search for Alice Gross would become the Met’s largest deployment of Police resources since the 7/7 bombings. Over six hundred officers and sniffer dogs (many pulled from neighbouring counties) searched ten square miles of ponds, parks and marshes from Southall to Brentford which surrounded the towpath - most of which consisted of dense woodland, tangled thickets and endless soggy bogs. Being interconnected with roads, rails and industrial estates, the search area was frequently littered with items lost by walkers (like shoes, clothes or phones), as well as bin-bags, bricks and broken bits of bike which lay deliberately hidden under old scraps of carpet or secreted among some impenetrable nettles by lazy fly-tippers, so that so-many potential pieces of evidence turned out to be nothing. Divers from the Police Marine Unit conducted a painstaking fingertip search of three and a half miles of rivers, the canal, weirs and side-ponds, with some stretches of the Grand Union being up-to fifty-feet wide and ten feet deep, with visibility so poor in the silty water, they couldn’t see their own hands. Vast swathes of overgrown vegetation were cutback to aid the search as they cleared a path from Three Bridges, Lock 97 and Hanwell Bridge, all the way down to Trumper’s Way, Gallow’s Bridge and Brentford Lock. Hundreds of tonnes of nettles and rubbish removed from head-height to the riverbed. Everywhere was checked; as helicopters scoured the skies, cadaver dogs sniffed the soil, Police cadets patrolled in packs, experts were requisitioned, metal detectors perpetually pinged, and even the Royal Air Force provided ‘aerial analysis’ to pinpoint patches of earth which had recently been disturbed. The investigation team followed 729 lines of inquiry, questioned 1067 people and a team of thirty detectives scoured more than 10000 hours of CCTV footage from 300 cameras across a six square mile area, totalling 35 terabytes worth of images. Across the weeks, they were able to piece together most of her journey, as well as identifying five cyclists on the towpath shortly before she disappeared. Alice’s mother, Rosalind would state: “Every morning, as Alice’s disappearance grows longer, it brings new agony, new anguish”. And as everybody knew, the longer the search took, the less chance they had of ever finding her alive, and the more forensic evidence would be destroyed. With the inquiry drawing a blank, on Thursday 25th September, four weeks after her disappearance, a similarly-looking Police Cadet in an identical jogging outfit and backpack helped to reconstruct Alice’s last known movements in a reconstruction shown on the BBC’s Crimewatch, as Rosalind made another emotional plea for anyone to come forward with information, no matter how small or insignificant. ...but after 4.23pm, as she passed Trumper’s Bridge, there were no more sightings of Alice. (Silence) And then... after thirty-three days of nothing... a body was found. Based on the CCTV footage, Police had narrowed the search to just north of the Trumper’s Way Bridge, south of Three Bridges and east of Hanwell Bridge, and utilising specialist search teams with more advanced equipment and greater techniques, they rechecked the areas they had checked before. On Tuesday 30th September, at around 7pm, Police cordoned-off the towpath at Lock 97 and - to the left of Lock Cottage - a secluded and overgrown short-cut leading to Hanwell Bridge, running alongside the River Brent, and barely a few hundred metres from where her black backpack had been found. With no hint of spoiled earth or disturbed vegetation, this little-known nook - barely eight feet (and always within sight) of the canal’s towpath - looked as untouched as it had just one month before. The body was so well hidden, even experienced search teams and the cadaver dogs had missed her, and London Fire Brigade with their specialist equipment had to be called in to excavate the remains. Whoever had buried her there, needed to make sure that she would never be found. Behind a tree, down a slope, under a bush and buried in three feet of silty water, the tiny pale frame of a young girl’s body had been pinned to the riverbed of the River Brent. Wrapped in black bin-bags, laying in a foetal position and stripped naked except for a single white sock, her short skinny body had been weighed down by four house-bricks tied to a bicycle wheel, and on top, this had been secured in place by a two-foot long, 20 kilo log - almost half her body weight – so that nothing would drift up. A formal identification was made the next day, where her parents confirmed it was Alice. The autopsy was conducted on Thursday 2nd October at West London Mortuary by Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl. Badly decomposed after thirty-three days in the water, initial tests proved inconclusive, but later the following were confirmed; Alice had been attacked on or near the towpath, she had died shortly after her disappearance, the motive was sexual, and her cause of death was compression asphyxia to the torso. Meaning – being a small girl of just six-stone – her tiny chest had been crushed, suffocated of all its oxygen, as a man almost twice her weight, had bared-down upon her, and raped her. (End) Commander Graham McNulty of Scotland Yard said: “Our work at this scene is crucial to ensure we capture all the evidence to identify who is responsible for this dreadful crime. This may take some time, and I ask people to remain patient and to respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time”. In a statement, Alice’s parents said: “We have been left completely devastated. It is difficult to comprehend that our sweet and beautiful daughter was the victim of a terrible crime. Why anyone would want to hurt her is something that we are struggling to come to terms with. We still don’t know who is responsible for this crime and we ask that people continue to help the police to bring the perpetrator to justice. We would like to thank all of those that have supported us in our efforts to find Alice, especially the local community; it is comforting to know that so many people care”. The locals were left devastated, many of whom had helped in the search for this missing girl, only now it had become a murder investigation. Like a little ray of sunshine, the yellow ribbons of Hanwell – which still stood proudly on every railing as a reminder of the sunshine that Alice’s warmth had brought, and as a symbol of hope that (one day) she may return home safe – only now they acted as a memorial to the dead, as a black cloud hung over Hanwell, and a child-killer stalked their midst. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. The concluding part of the Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell continues next week. If you’d like to learn a little more about this case (as well as to join me for a birthday cup of tea), we can do that after the break. But before that, here’s a brief promo for a true-crime podcast which may be right up your street. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, many of whom joined us a good few weeks ago, so I apologise for the delay. They are: Karen Hillier, Dawn Hansford, Kelly Ciesla, Donna Stevens, Lee Cullen, Bev Jones, Frankie Watt, Neil Crewe, Charlotte Lilly, Steve Perkins, Anne-Marie Cummins, Jo Rayson, Kay Fillmore, Kirsty McGinnity, Jan Hole, Laura Knight and Andrew Duncan. And as this list is pretty big, I’ll be concluding it next week, but I hope you all enjoyed your goodies and Walk With Me. Plus, a thank you to everyone who has very kindly sent a donation via Supporter or the Murder Mile eShop; they were Roland Varga, Frank Pinter, Craig Baldwin, Ruth, Poppy the Dog, Des, an anonymous American friend, JoJo and Sumema. I thank all of you, that’s very generous. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk. 
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
Great Omrond Street Hospital, as it looks today, Tony would have entered via the old entrance to the left
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN
This is Part Four of a four-part series into The Camden Ripper. The truth about may never be known, as it’s hard to understand who he is, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. By viewing this story from his perspective, it is clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part Four – Tony the Maniac.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of Great Ormond Street Hospital where Anthony Hardy was arrested is marked with a mustard colouiuired triangle. The other three locations, his flat at 4 Hartland and the two bins (one at the rear of the College Arms pub and one on Plender Street) where the body parts were found are marked with purple, black and green triangles. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
Here's a few photos to go with Part Four of The Four Faces of The camden Ripper.
SOURCES: The main source was the Independent Review into the treatment and care of Anthony Hardy by Camden Council, which also includes detail about the murder investigation, as seen in this PDF. http://nomsintranet.org.uk/roh/official-documents/IndependentReview_AnthonyHardy.pdf MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (Tony) “I hear they’ve given me a name. They’re calling me... The Ripper”. Within the space of a single year, Anthony John Hardy had murdered his first victim, evaded a lengthy custodial sentence, manipulated his detention in a psychiatric unit and being declared “not a danger to himself or others”, he was released back into the community and to his flat at 4 Hartland. Six weeks later, two more women would be dead with their dismembered bodies scattered across Camden. Once, he was nothing but an anonymous homeless drunk who was ignored, avoided and abandoned, but now, his dark ambition to become a serial-killer was complete. Only, unlike his eponymous East End hero whose moniker is known the world over, Tony’s place in infamy was yet to be cemented. He was a nobody who wanted to be a somebody... but to achieve it, the next step was out of his control. So, who was Anthony Hardy? Was he a depressed alcoholic who was prone to manic episodes? Was his mental health real, imaginary, impossible to diagnose or entirely fabricated to suit his needs? Was he a chancer who grabbed at opportunities, or a cunning manipulator with a long-term goal? Did his addictions make a monster, did his isolation craft a killer, or was sadism always part of his personality? The truth about The Camden Ripper may never be known, even to himself, as he became a different person to different people at different times. But only by viewing this story from his perspective is it possible to see the four sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part Four – Tony the Maniac. Detective Chief Inspector Ken Bell, later said “it was one of the most disturbing cases I have ever been involved with. It has always been the belief of the investigating team that a man in full possession of his mental faculties committed these murders. Hardy is a dangerous, devious and manipulative man”. In the eyes of the Met’ Police, Anthony Hardy was a sadistic murderer, plain and simple. Following the discovery of the naked and posed body of Sally Rose White in his locked spare-room, there was enough evidence of assault, pre-meditation, an attempt to conceal the body, to clean-up the crime scene, and his convenient loss of memory owing to an alcoholic blackout was without merit. Hardy was guilty. But with the murder investigation usurped by the bungling of a Home Office Pathologist, their case collapsed and their only suspect was released... but soon enough, the Police would be proved right. Mid-afternoon on Thursday 2nd January 2003, Tony was sat in an oak-panelled smoking room at Great Ormond Street Hospital, a few streets from King’s Cross Station. Sprawled across a stiff wooden bench, wearing his shin-length coat, black NY cap, loud shirt and amusing socks, Tony smoked a ciggie as he perused the paper. His beard was gone, shaved to a ragged stubble, and although it was bitterly cold outside with a persistently biting drizzle, inside the radiators were reassuringly warm and comforting. One of London’s largest ever man-hunts was underway, the Police were patrolling the streets, his flat was crawling with forensics and Tony’s face was splashed across every tabloid. The papers would state that this “mentally disturbed” and “highly dangerous man” had been “on-the-run” for three days... ...when in truth, he wasn’t running, he was in no rush at all, as all he had to do now... was wait. Seven days earlier, on Friday 27th December 2002, Elizabeth Valad and Brigette MacLennan had served their purpose. Their bodies were rotting, flies were swarming and purge fluid was slowly leaking from their bloated corpses as their internal organs putrefied in the heat of his squalid little flat at 4 Hartland. A total of forty-four sickeningly lurid photos were taken of both ladies; posed on the bed, laying naked with all holes gaping as they fulfilled every facet of his sick disturbing fantasy. Only, with red-headed Brigette three-days dead and her porcelain skin mottled with a livid hue of reds and blues, and Liz’s once slender frame malformed by the warmth of decay into a purple bloated mess with slipping skin, for Tony it was time to dispose of the evidence. Only this wasn’t a race to cut and flush as much human meat as possible before the police burst in, this was slow and methodical for a very specific reason. In an advanced state of decomposition, both bodies were limp and easy-to-handle as he dragged them from the spare-room into the white windowless bathroom. With the cold tap on and the plug out, the fluids were slowly drained and nothing was flushed down the toilet owing to a risk of blockage. The bulk of the Friday he spent dismembering the bodies with a small white hacksaw and three kitchen knives with differing blades; some sharp for skin, some tough for bone, some jagged for sinew. But no bones were snapped in haste, as each cut was clean as if performed by a professional butcher. To become a serial-killer, all it takes is three or more bodies and a gap of at least a month, which any fool with an ounce of self-control or a hectic schedule can attain. But for Tony, this wasn’t only about a sadistic gratification or the full physical control of a woman, here he was creating a myth. There are thousands of serial killers in history; some are famous, some are forgotten, but very few are infamous. Having left these sixteen bits of limbs, torsos and heads to drain in the bath, at 8:04pm, he re-entered Sainsbury’s on Camden Road to buy more bin-bags; where he aroused no suspicion, he didn’t disguise his face from the CCTV and having made a purchase he remembered to collect his Nectar Card points. The next day, with a roll of bin-bags, a set of red handled scissors and a reel of duct tape, each part was bagged and sealed in his more spacious spare-room. He cleaned the bathroom so it was white once again. And then he showered, scrubbed his nails and popped on some fresh clothes. The flat was cold having opened the windows, but it was free of flies and the only smell was bleach and incense. Next-up: disposal. Conveniently the bin-store at Hartland was in-front of his own front door, only this wasn’t about speed, as where and how the bodies were dumped was a key part of his myth-making. At 2:08pm, on the busy corner of Plender Street and Camden Road, Tony dumped a large black bag filled with an upper torso, a right arm, a left arm and a foot into the bin, having stopped, turned and grinned up towards the CCTV camera directly overhead, and calmly walked away. One street up from his home, he slung a second bag bulging with a pair of ladies’ legs. On the floor of his spare-room, he left Liz’s headless and limbless torso, all parcelled-up, having locked the door and blocked up the gap below with her grey tracksuit bottoms. And then, somewhere nearby - maybe in a bush, down a drain or in the nearby Regent’s Canal - he disposed of the rest; three feet, two arms and both heads. On the morning of 30th December 2002, with a large police presence at the back of the College Arms pub, he shaved off his beard, packed-up a small bag, and calmly, he left his flat at 4 Hartland forever. With three women dead, their bodies scattered and his myth-making finally complete, as his infamy could never guaranteed, Tony would have to wait, as the final piece of his legend was yet to be written. So, where did the Camden Ripper begin? Well, his homicidal sadism didn’t start with Sally Rose White, Elizabeth Selina Valad or Brigette Cathy MacLennan. It actually began with his first victim... his wife. Anthony John Hardy was born on 31st May 1951 in Winshill, a coal-mining parish east of Burton-upon-Trent in Staffordshire, to Kathleen a housewife and Cyril a welder at the Swadlincote Colliery. As the fourth youngest alongside Barry, Terry, Christine and Brian, it’s unsurprising that (like most bullies) Tony would unwittingly model himself those he feared the most; as his father was a large stout man with a short fuse, a furious temper and a thirst for drink and women. Raised a Christian, as a boy, the seeds of this serial-killer were sewn, as Tony was quiet, bright and charming, but lacked any empathy. From 1956 to 1970, Tony was schooled at Abbott Beyne Grammar in Winshill, where he fostered a love of girls, a passion for mechanics and a deep desire to flee his working-class roots. And although he could be chatty and pleasant to his fellow pupils, he despised his teachers, often dismissing their questions with a vacant look, very few words and a need to feel superior over these authority figures. Gifted with practical hands and a methodical mind, from 1970-to-73, Tony studied engineering at Imperial College in Kensington, West London, where Tony met and fell in love with 22-year-old Judith Dwight. To Judith – having fallen for a tall, well-built man, who was described as a perfect gentleman – in the spring of 1972, they married at Westminster Registry Office. In 1975, they moved to Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk where Tony worked as a factory engineer for British Sugar, Judith as a secretary, and their four children (Sam, Ben, Emma and Tom) soon followed, with the Hardy’s seen as nothing more than a typical middle-class family living a good life in a nice home. In 1978, with Tony offered a great opportunity, the family uprooted to Hobart in Tasmania. This should have been a stepping-stone to an even brighter future, but struggling to cope with the stresses of life, he smoked, he drank, he womanised and the sadistic seeds of a fledgling serial-killer began to spawn. Described as “like a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde”, for Judith, it was like living with two different husbands. As swinging wildly from high manias to low depressions, violent outbursts to utter blankness, Tony’s mood was unpredictable. To curb it, he drank heavier, had many affairs, used sex-workers and (yet to be diagnosed with onset diabetes) his unruly erections required harder sex to maintain his large libido. Losing his job, for the sake and safety of their marriage and children, Judith got Tony to see a doctor, but as his anger and mania grew, misdiagnosed, he was incorrectly prescribed with anti-depressants. It was then that – being neither drunk, low or elated - Tony would plan and execute his first murder. On 5th April 1982, at 6:30am, as the family slept, Tony opened the fridge. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty, as all he could think about was his wife’s impending death. In his eyes, he had planned it to perfection, as with no murder weapon found, he knew he would evade justice. Having read in a true-crime novel about an assassin’s dagger made of ice, he adapted the idea and froze a plastic water bottle used as a cooler for picnics. After the attack, it would defrost and be indistinguishable from any other rubbish. As he swung the two-litre bottle, almost two kilos of hardened ice smashed Judith repeatedly over the head as she slept, it shot intense pains down her body and rendered her stunned and semi-conscious. Dragging her limp body to the bath, filling it, Tony thrust his wife’s head under the water in an attempt to drown her, but as she fought back; she kicked, she punched and struggled to yank out the plug. The attack abruptly stopped when their six-year-old son Sam saw his dad attacking his mum and screamed. Judith was taken to hospital with cuts, bruises and shock... but thankfully, she survived. The murder had failed, the weapon was found, the victim recovered and the attack had a witness. So, whether Tony’s failure informed his further attacks is unknown. Did the sound of his neighbour’s bath at Hartland trigger a manic flashback? Were his last three victims – Sally, Liz and Brigette – simply him enacting what he wanted to happen to his wife? And was his manipulation of their bodies (in life and death) an act of revenge because he couldn’t obtain hers? That is unknown, but many key elements which shaped the Camden murders and his evasion of justice would stem from this very moment. Upon his arrest, Tony stated “no comment” to the Police’s questions, and only spoke to flag-up his alcoholic blackouts, his depression and his need for psychiatric help, knowing that if he was sectioned, he would be declared “not responsible for his own actions” and would avoid a long custodial sentence. On 6th April 1982, Tony was sectioned at Brisbane’s Park Centre Psychiatric Unit. Like his admission to the Mornington Unit, once inside, with the charges dropped, his suicidal urges ceased and as a model patient, he was declared “not a danger to himself or others” and discharged after just ten days. Tony walked free with a great sense of superiority having beaten the system. But as would happen in the Cardigan Ward, he wasn’t diagnosed with depression or bipolar, but suffering from a cyclothymic reaction, meaning his violent moods weren’t owing to mental illness, but were part of his personality. Two weeks later, in another unprovoked attack, Tony held his wife hostage in a hotel room, but having asked him to let her go for the sake of their kids, she filed divorce papers and moved back to England. And although the Decri-Nisi was served... his violence towards his soon-to-be ex-wife didn’t stop there. In August 1985, as they still lived together owing to their dwindling finances, Tony tortured Judith with his petty torments; he soaked her bed with water, he broke her secretarial typewriter, he stole all her money and for the last three nights before she left, he turned the radio up full so she couldn’t sleep. In November 1986, on the grounds of domestic assault, the divorce was issued and a Restraining Order was put in place meaning that Tony could not contact his ex-wife and children in any way. He broke the terms, served two months in prison and (losing his job) he focussed on making her life a living hell. (Montage). 8th December 1986, he harassed Judith with phone-calls, day and night. 11th December, while the Police were installing alarms in her home, they found microphones hidden in the vents. 14th December, he made more abusive calls. 2nd January 1987, he followed his wife’s car to London. 3rd January, he removed a pane of glass from her front door. 5th to 11th January, more abusive calls. 12th January, within five hours of changing her ex-directory number, more menacing calls. 19th January, she got a postcard, it read “Is there a chink in your armour, I wonder? Tony”. 27th January, he slashed her friend’s car tyres. 28th January, he left a voicemail saying “if you persist in refusing to talk to me, you’ll be sorry”. March to May he called ten times. 8th June, he bricked her window and slashed her tyres. 9th July, he broke into her home at night, leaving a cigarette stub and her tyres slashed. 13th July, another window bricked and a note attached stating “This brick was chosen with care. I hope you like it. T.”. The same day, five cars on the street had their tyres slashed and she received another note stating “To the stars or to hell? The choice is yours”. And on 21st July 1987, he broke in to her home, boarded up the garage, jammed the front door, stole her friend’s car, changed the number plates and used it for a spot of illegal mini-cabbing and to harass and stalk his ex-wife as he tried to live her life. On 16th September 1987, he was sentenced to one year in prison for contempt of court having ignored the Restraining Order. While on remand in Norwich Prison for car-theft, a psychiatrist from the Norvic Clinic assessed Tony and found “no evidence of major mental illness” and that his violence towards his ex-wife resulted from as “intractable personality trait”. He wasn’t mentally ill, this was who he was. Having served his sentence, on 2nd January 1989, he stole the car of his ex-wife’s boyfriend, and while high on alcohol and cannabis, he organised a belated New Year’s Eve party for a group of sex-workers, which ended in a high-speed police chase down the A134 and crashed into a road-block at Thetford. Upon his arrest, he refused to give a specimen, repeatedly stated “no comment”, he caused criminal damage to the cell and was sentenced to a further six-months in prison. (Sounds from Part One). (Tony) “Hello. My name is Tony and I am an alcoholic”. And this was where we began, in the Summer of 1989 as a Tony drove a battered Ford Sierra through the back streets of the King’s Cross. Within a year, he was unemployed, homeless and diabetic. Losing contact with his ex-wife and kids, over the next thirteen years, he was arrested, evicted and sectioned on countless occasions. The few pounds he scraped together fuelled his addictions of drink, drugs and sex. And having nothing of his own, he had learned to manipulate the system to get what he wanted, whether a bed, a meal, an income, a flat, or the freedom to walk free having got away with murder. With three women dead, their bodies scattered and his myth-making finally complete, as his infamy could never guaranteed, Tony would have to wait, as the final piece of his legend was yet to be written. On Monday 30th December 2002, just shy of 3am, as the urban foxes prowled behind the College Arms pub - hungry and shunned, seen as vermin by an uncaring society - another nameless scavenger foraged in the council bins for food. Only what he found shocked him to the core. “I thought they were two big fish, like two big salmon, I opened a bag and there they were, a pair of woman’s legs”. The press would later claim that Tony was only caught because the rubbish collection was a day late, but as anyone who lives in Britain knows, every Christmas it’s late. This discovery wasn’t a mistake, it was deliberate, as how could Tony become an infamous serial-killer if no-one knew about his killings? At 9am, the man carried the reeking bin-bag to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases on Capper Street. At 9:45am, Detective Chief Inspector Ken Ball was alerted to reports of “suspected human remains”. At 10am, the rear of the pub was sealed off. And seeing the commotion from the comfort of his own flat; Tony calmly packed a bag, grabbed his pills, shaved off his beard and left Hartland forever. There was no rush, no panic, no fear, and knowing his moment had come, he probably even stopped to watch. At 11am, at St Pancras Mortuary, an autopsy by Dr Freddy Patel confirmed their worst fears; the legs were human, female, recently dismembered and more than likely belonged to more than one woman. A murder investigation was set-up, the estate was cordoned off, bins were emptied, residents were questioned and rubbish collections were stopped, although tonnes had already been taken to landfill. No other body parts were initially found, but when the neighbours were asked, the same name kept cropping up; “it’s Tony”, “flat 4”, “he’s weird”, “a loner”, “strange man”, “you know about Sally, right?” When the Police arrived, it was as if he had been expecting them, as the front door was open and the hall light was on, but Tony was nowhere to be found. Initially it looked like a false lead, as although clean but cluttered, it resembled the flat of a depressed alcoholic who was blamed for everything. To experienced detectives, these seemingly innocent items rankled their nerves; like the rubber Devil’s mask, the occult symbols, the stack of sickening porn, the creepy childish daubings with hints at other victims, a scattering of scrawled letters written to sex-workers, escorts and S&M magazines alluding to his depraved cravings, and a painted glass jar immortalising that first murder of Sally Rose White. But most of all – beyond the bleach and incense – they were hit by the recognisable and unforgettable festering reek of decaying flesh, so pungent it permeated the grey tracksuit bottoms which blocked the gap and lingered in their nostrils. And once you have smelled death, the stench never leaves you. Having forced the door, the spare-room was as Tony had left it, a treasure trove of irrefutable evidence connecting him to the crime to the victim; on the table were spare bin-bags, a roll of duct-tape, some scissors, a pair of Marigold gloves and carefully positioned on the red rug - neatly wrapped, sealed and with the tools of her dissection placed on top - lay the headless and limbless torso of Elizabeth Valad. The hacksaw held jagged nicks of flesh, the knives were still bloodstained, luminol confirmed the areas of death, dismemberment and disposal and the only fingerprints found were the victims and Tony’s. The next day, the search expanded to the canal, landfill and the neighbouring estate, where in a green council bin on Plender Street, an upper torso, a right arm, a left arm and a foot was found. Brigette MacLennan was identified by her DNA and Elizabeth Valad by the serial-numbers of her breast implants. And although an exhaustive search was conducted, their hands of heads remained missing. Tony was the Police’s prime suspect. With one of London’s largest man-hunts set-up, the newspapers were given his photo and a description, and – knowing his reliance on medication for his depression and diabetes – St Pancras and St Luke’s hospitals were alerted, but they had already missed him. Tony was gone. Having lived for a decade as an invisible vagrant on London’s streets, it wasn’t difficult for him to vanish without trace. He slept rough, ate hot meals in charity-run kitchens, had those forty-four lurid photos of Liz and Brigette’s corpses developed in a local lab, and having shaved off his beard - less to evade the Police and more to avoid a public lynching – his days were spent reading the trashy tabloids who slathered over the grisly details of his murders, dubbing him with a series of luridly salacious names, whether the King’s Cross Killer, the Camden Slasher or the “Bin Bag Maniac”. Tony knew his moment of infamy was soon, very soon... but until then, he would wait. In the mid-afternoon of Thursday 2nd January 2003, Mike Burrowes, an off-duty policeman was sitting with his son in the wood-panelled smoking room at Great Ormond Street hospital, when he spotted a large stout man in a shin-length coat, a black NY cap, a loud shirt and a set of amusing socks, smoking and reading the newspaper. Mike whispered “You see him? Doesn’t that look like the bin-bag man?”. And that was it. Security was alerted, the Police arrived and upon his arrest (although many articles falsely claimed that he fought his way out, with one constable losing an eye and another stabbed, in truth) he was calm and polite. The wait was over, his moment had come and as the officers led him away, Tony grinned and said “I hear they’ve given me a name. They’re calling me... The Ripper”. (End) Taken to Colindale Police Station and questioned by DS Alan Bostock and DCI Ken Ball, their evidence against him was irrefutable but their focus was more humane. When the DCI asked “I want to recover the heads, not for me, for the families. What can you do for me Tony?” Being a sadist with a hatred of authority and a need to furnish his myth, as he did with every question, Tony replied “no comment”. On Tuesday 25th November 2003, at The Old Bailey, 52-year-old Anthony John Hardy pleaded guilty to the brutal murders of Sally Rose White, Elizabeth Selina Valad and Bridgette Cathy MacLennan, and was sentenced to three life sentences. In May 2010, this was extended to a whole life tariff. No-one knows why Tony pleaded guilty. It’s unlikely he did it to spare the families the agony of hearing the evidence. More likely, is that with an insatiable press perched in the gallery, he knew the little they heard, the more a mystique would surround this infamous British serial-killer known as The Camden Ripper, as he entered the notorious pantheon of sickening sadists alongside his own eponymous hero. Very little has been written about his case, a public inquiry requested by Liz’s family was dismissed by the Home Office, and although the supposedly “accidental death” of Sally Rose White was overruled and the pathologist Dr Freddy Patel was dismissed, the most conclusive public review of this case was into the treatment of Anthony Hardy, as a mental health patient under the care of Camden Council. Held at Broadmoor Psychiatric Prison and later transferred to HMP Frankland, he sought a biographer to write his story, he asked Christie’s to auction his macabre souvenirs and he even requested (in the belief that a chilling waxwork of himself would be made) that his clothes should to be sent to Madame Tussauds so his effigy could stand in the Chamber of Horrors, next to Dr Crippen and Reg’ Christie. On 26th November 2020, Anthony John Hardy died of sepsis in prison. His face is hardly known, his crimes are rarely discussed, there are very few biographies or documentaries in his name, and (having died two weeks earlier) his demise was usurped by a vastly more infamous serial-killer, The Yorkshire Ripper. So, as much as he craved infamy, alive or dead, The Camden Ripper has been almost forgotten. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the final part of this four-part series into The Camden Ripper and the final episode of Murder Mile for 2020. Across the next eight to ten weeks I shall be researching the new season and I hope to return at the end of February 2021. But if you’d like to know more about this case, stay tuned for some extra tit-bits, as well as a quiz, a biccie and a final cup of tea with me. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Nick Ashworth, Dawn Ackrill and Natasha Terner-Swift, I thank you very much, I hope you liked your goodies and that you’ll enjoy the new goodies which all Patreon subscribers will be receiving in January and February. Ooh. Plus a thank you to Lucy Barr and Darren De Rosa for your very kind donations via the Murder Mile eShop, I thank you, I have spent in on booze. And a hello to my boaty neighbour Heather who I bumped into the other day. Only you know where I am currently moored-up for Christmas, so keep it a secret. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The rear of the former College Arms pub on Royal College Street where Anthony Hardy disposed of vaious pieces of his victims
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN
This is Part Three of a four-part series into The Camden Ripper. The truth about may never be known, as it’s hard to understand who he is, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. By viewing this story from his perspective, it is clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part Three – Tony the Sadist.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
There are two locations here. The lime green triangle is the back of the former College Arms pub and the purple triangle is the corner of Camden Road and Plender Street, there are the locations of the green bins where the body parts were dumped. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two locations to go with the episode. Left is the corner of Plender Street and Camden Street in the exact location where Anthony John Hardy (The Camden Ripper) dumped the dismembered body parts of Brigette Cathy MacLennan and Elizabeth Selina Valad in the council's green metal bins. The bins have since been relocation but the security camera which captured the footage of Hardy disposing of the bags is still in place. Right is the rear of the former College Arms pub at 1 Royal College Street where some of the body parts of Brigette MacLennan and Elizabeth Valad were dumped by Anthony John Hardy, the Camden Ripper.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable
SOURCES: The main source was the Independent Review into the treatment and care of Anthony Hardy by Camden Council, which also includes detail about the murder investigation, as seen in this PDF. http://nomsintranet.org.uk/roh/official-documents/IndependentReview_AnthonyHardy.pdf
MUSIC:
SOUNDS Salvation Army - https://freesound.org/people/Walter_Odington/sounds/32366/ Café Noise - https://freesound.org/people/alistair.i.macdonald/sounds/156909/ UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (Tony) “I feel like I’ve wasted the last few years, I’ve wasted my whole life and I’ve achieved nothing”. To the world around him, by the winter of 2002, 51-year-old Anthony John Hardy was little more than a sexually-defunct diabetic with bipolar disorder. He eked out a living on a disability allowance, he had been bounced from hostels to hospitals to prisons, he was dependent on a cocktail of medications, drink and drugs, and the only relationships he maintained was with a series of anonymous sex workers. As a clinically-depressed alcoholic, at best, his life would be an endless circle of therapy sessions, drug tests and relapses. At worst, he would sink into a pit of depression, arrests, sections and homelessness. He was a nameless nobody who had achieved nothing, and would be ignored and avoided by others. Only, deep down in his sadistic little soul, Tony harboured a dark ambition. Feeling a supreme sense of superiority over the system he had manipulated and the experts he had duped, having murdered his first victim, he had evaded justice and a lengthy prison sentence receiving only a few months in hospital. With his second lying dead in his space-room, his evil obsession was just days away from completion, and seeking a third victim, soon he would be as infamous as his hero. The truth about The Camden Ripper may never be known, as his memory and details were deliberately vague and his many illnesses masked a sadistic truth. He was a different person to different people at different times for a very specific reason. And only by viewing this story from his perspective is it possible to see the four sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part Three – Tony the Sadist. (Tony) “The last five years, I could have spent in a job or training at college. Instead I spent it drinking tea in day-centres and alcohol on the streets. Don’t get me wrong, the therapy, the alcohol sessions and the counselling has helped, but with no fixed address, it’s impossible to achieve any real goals”. With phrases such as this, Tony had secured himself the tools he needed to fulfil his life’s ambition; everything from a secluded flat, to the funds to pay for his sex-workers, to the freedom to walk the streets and (left to his own devices) he could satisfy his sadistic obsession... and become a serial-killer. Tuesday 24th December 2002. Christmas Eve. Not a flake of snow fell on the soggy litter-strewn streets of Camden, instead a cold wet drizzle wafted the cheesy chirp of festive hits as it drifted on the breeze. From the window of his brightly-coloured living-room, the big bearded figure of Tony stared out onto Royal College Street, like a demented Santa Claus in a garish Hawaiian shirt and a set of Mr Men socks. With his tree up, his baubles dandling and his greeting cards hanging on a string, there was a real sense of excitement. For everyone, it was about Christmas. But for Tony, it was about infamy. Chosen by Camden Council simply because it was available and suited a single man, it’s ironic that the flat they chose at 4 Hartland would be so perfect for the sickening whims of a prospective serial-killer. From the outside, being situated on the ground-floor corner of a council block, flat 4 had no immediate neighbours. Fully surrounded by a street, two stairwells and a passageway, it sat by itself; with a few frosted windows in the communal areas, a thick front-door facing no others and the four windows to his living-room, bathroom and spare-room were all set six-feet off-the-ground. Above, his neighbour with the leaky-tap still lived, but the matter was resolved and since then, they hadn’t talked. The path was used by residents, the road was thirty feet away and this was not a place for tourists or shoppers. On the ground-floor was a thin grey stairwell, illuminated by a single bulb which infrequently worked, and as it led to nowhere but the other flats, unless you lived there, you had no reason to be there. As the only entrance or exit, opening the black front door which had no glass pane, just a spy-hole and a clumsily chalked ‘four’, should anyone peep inside, they would see nothing but a thin vague hallway. There were no carpets or furniture, just a few childish daubings and the flat fronts of four closed doors. To the left was a white windowless bathroom with a bath, sink and toilet, and nothing but a nailbrush, a mop, the name Sara in red paint and two self-shot snaps of semi-clad ladies sunning it up in the park. Second right was a small messy kitchen with a fridge, a hob and some unwashed plates, which (like all the other rooms) resembled the flat of a depressed alcoholic. So, should the council inspect it, to the uninitiated it needed a good clean and a paint-job, but there would be nothing of concern to report. In the brightly-coloured living-room, besides the cheap Christmas tree and the string of greeting cards, you’d see a stack of books on Jack the Ripper, not an odd fixation with deaths. You’d see three tellies, not a shrine to hard-core porn. A line of blank VHS tapes, not hours of simulated and real rapes. And an assortment of sticky spillages from a clumsy alcoholic, and not the mopped-up bloodstains of his last victim. Perhaps having rejected his generous offer of a spare-room, with sex as payment for rent? Of course, the spare-room was a perfect trap to lure in any vulnerable female lodger, as it was warm, dry and almost free. With a double-bed, a locked door and a single window which opened a few inches, although silenced by brick-walls on all sides, the neighbours were used to the sounds of seedy sex-acts coming from this room, and besides, the lodger wouldn’t be left alone, as Tony had a spare key. Only now, the offer would be off-the-table, as although he had masked the ominous stench of putrid decay with an endless supply of incense and her grey tracksuit bottoms blocked the base of the door, Liz’s body remained. Five days dead and slowly decomposing, she was his to do with as he pleased. A passive woman who would never say no, would never flee and would never mock his unruly erections. On the surface, this was not the home of a crazed psychopath, this was just a stepping stone for one of the council’s most in-need residents. Oddly, although it was filled with art, the walls featured not a single image of nudity, sex, bondage or death. There was no cruelty, no blood and nothing unnerving. But under this childish veneer of fishes, rainbows and smiling faces, everything he had painted was born out of a deeply personal frustration or a dark sadistic secret. Some were spiritual and religious symbols, such as moons, stars and Celtic crosses. Some were aspirational, such as a doodle of a waving Tony cooing “hey little lady”. Many were names like ‘Sara’, ‘Sandra’, ‘Jayne’ or ‘Tracy’. Others were only initials. But others were specific, as beside his bank of tellies was a painting of lady’s face; her nose replaced with a capital A, a single red tear pouring from her eye, and her look unmistakably Sally. His flat was not only his home, it was perfect place to undertake his sadistic crimes in absolute privacy. But should it be taken away and he be forced back into hostels, his dream of infamy would collapse. Released on 14th November 2002, Tony played the part of a typical (if flawed) out-patient perfectly; he attended his therapy sessions but missed a few as many alcoholics do, he was an active and well-behaved participant at the Diorama art group, and (as requested) he enrolled in a photography and IT course at the Milton Skills Centre, with his plan to one day get himself a regular job. ...or so he would say. Barely a month before Sally’s death, Tony had taken a precautionary measure to ensure that no-one would unearth his dark ambition. In an unusual step, he requested that his weekly meetings with his care co-ordinator occur in a café around the corner, rather than in his flat, and given the fact that she was female and he had a history of violent sexual assaults, it seemed a sensible measure for her safety. As seen during his sectioning, his sadism could bubble to the surface at any point without warning. In 1992, Tony was once again evicted from the Arlington House hostel in Camden. Only then, it wasn’t for drunkenness but a particularly savage trick he had a cruel fondness for, which earned him the eery nickname of ‘The Bone Crusher’. Creeping-up behind a resident, he would trap them in a bear-hug and squeeze them tight till they passed out, causing bruises, fractures and asphyxiation. Even back then it was said “he got a kick out of stopping someone breathing”. Every serial-killer has to start somewhere, for some, it’s fire or animal cruelty. For Tony, it was crush asphyxiation. If indeed, this was the start? Tony’s sexual sadism stemmed back into the 1970’s with his increased need for sex-workers. The more he used, the less his addiction was satisfied and the rougher the sex that he craved, all of which led to strangulation, manipulation and the full physical and psychological control of another human-being. Wary of his sadistic desires, many girls refused to see him again no matter how desperate they were, but many later stated that he would brag “you mark my words, one day, I’m going to be famous”. His sense of superiority over authority figures also stemmed back to that same era, after his first brush with death and detention in Australia, only this thrill of controlling others wasn’t sexual but mental. It excited him to cripple the Police investigation with his vagueness “I’d drunk till I could drink no more. I don’t know how much I drank. I blacked out”. To manipulate the courts “Mr Hardy appears downcast, depressed and suffering with suicidal thoughts” which miraculously vanished. To project a sense of grief without ever admitting his guilt, by telling his psychiatrist “thinking of Sally is like waking up in a nightmare... if I did believe I was responsible, I would kill myself”. And even showing a false gratitude to those in charge “I want to thank you for the work you’ve done for me over the years”, having set him up in his own flat and giving him the last piece of the puzzle to complete his perverted purpose. Tony had played everyone, and he had played them well... ...so, it seems strange that (although he was a highly volatile man prone to manic episodes, whose whole plan was almost scuppered owing a leaky tap) that he’d told no-one of his plan. And he hadn’t. The nearest anyone got to the truth was in the casual chats in a café with his old pal Maureen Reeves. Friends for ten years, there was no love or longing, they were just two likeminded people who enjoyed each other’s company and regularly chatted over a cuppa. To Maureen, Tony was charming and smart, with no hint of anger or violence. If anything, he was a gentleman with a big heart and a kind soul. But then, Tony was a different man to different people at different times, like a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde. She enjoyed their chats, but with no knowledge of his past, she was unaware that (being comfortable in her presence) he was unwittingly laying out his plan before her. Being obsessed with the East End serial-killer ‘Jack the Ripper’, Tony could talk for hours about ‘Jack’; about his skills, his methods, his motives, his infamy and his legend. To some, it may seem odd, but everybody has a pastime and many have an obsession with true-crime. Besides, it distracted him from drinking and getting depressed. Only Tony’s plan wasn’t without its mistakes and the biggest wasn’t a body, but his upstairs neighbour. On the night that Sally’s corpse was discovered in his spare-room, sweating and shaking, Tony’s arrest wasn’t the main reason for his nervousness, but that his plan had stalled before it had even begun. In a moment of uncontrolled mania, in which previously he had slashed his neighbour’s tyres, bent her wipers and posted her an abusive note, having attacked her door with spray-paint and acid, a key-issue concerning his discharge from hospital was the risk Tony posed to his neighbour and the other residents at Hartland. Rightfully fearful of their safety, Camden Council started the eviction process. On 4th July 2002, as an in-patient at the Cardigan Ward, Tony received a Notice of Possession informing him of his imminent eviction. Incarcerated and helpless, his model behaviour was not only vital to get himself discharged but also to rally the doctors in his fight to save his flat. When asked, Tony would state “I feel like I’ve wasted the last few years. Don’t get me wrong, the therapy has helped, but with no fixed address, it’s impossible to achieve any real goals”. To allay their fears, he said of his neighbour “I have no ill-feelings towards her. It wasn’t her. It was the drink”. With their permission, he returned to 4 Hartland three times and there was no incident. With the eviction delayed, the doctors stood up for their patient, rightly declaring “Mr Hardy’s accommodation causes great concern... there is nothing at present to convince us that detention in hospital continues to be necessary. He has a natural human right to be treated in the surroundings which encourage and support his own efforts”. Hostels were considered, but it was clear that “Mr Hardy’s stability by living independently cannot be overstated”. With his eviction caught in a legal dispute, on 14th November 2002, Tony returned to his home at 4 Hartland – it was a perfect little flat for a prospective serial-killer – but his future there was uncertain. Whether the threat of homelessness ignited a fire in his belly is unknown. Whether his hospitalisation caused his bottled-up urges to burst is uncertain. Or whether his urgency was owing to a sick sense of unfinished business, a macabre anniversary or as a Christmas gift to himself, no one will ever know... ...but two innocent women would die in the space of a week, with his third of particular significance. On 6th December 2002, from a stall in Camden Market, Tony purchased a set of Mr Men socks featuring the grinning yellow face of Mr Happy. Either this was Christmas shopping, or it was pre-meditation? On 14th at 6:34pm in the Sainsbury’s on Camden Road, he bought a large black roll of heavy-duty bin-bags, the kind used for house-clearances or gardening, only Tony wasn’t moving and he didn’t own a garden. On 18th, he severed his ties with the Alcohol Advisory Service by writing them a Christmas card in which he scrawled “I don’t need you any more, thanks for all your help”. And on the 19th December, at an unspecified time by King’s Cross station, he met Elizabeth Selina Valad... and murdered her. Bludgeoned, strangled, posed and photographed – as no-one had seen, heard or reported her missing – her murder was as perfect as possible. Being on his best behaviour, there was less chance of the police disturbing his sadistic desires. And as if, having cunningly evaded a lengthy custodial sentence, Tony was back exactly where he had been eleven months earlier; in the same room, on the same bed, with the same plan, only – this time - she was his to do with as he pleased... for as long as he pleased. On Friday 20th, the next day, sensing a moment of mania rising inside him and (as before) fearing that it could all be ruined by an angry outburst over something as trivial as a leaky tap, Tony went to church. Telling the Rector that he was at an “emotional rock bottom”, the cleric prayed for his immortal soul and noticed (but never questioned) that around his neck Tony hung a key to a locked room in his flat. Later, he returned to the Cardigan Ward to collect his medication, the mania passed and as he walked among the Christmas shoppers, he headed home to his tree, his cards and his corpse. All the while mulling-over who would be next. It didn’t matter who she was, what was significant was her number. Brigette Cathy MacLennan was born on 31st August 1968, as the youngest of five children to Roderick, a civil servant and their mother, a housewife. Born in the tranquil peace of New Zealand, aged five, the family uprooted to the smoggy rain-sodden streets of London. Cut from hearty Irish stock, Brigette was a flame-haired, pale-skinned and cheeky-faced young girl who loved to laugh and to dance, and being a real beacon of brightness and warmth, she illuminated even the gloomiest of rooms. Only just like her lovely smile, it masked a short life which would be tinged with struggles and sadness. Barely out of her teens, she met a man, she fell in love and together they gave life to a little baby boy, but with deep frictions in their box-fresh relationship, it fell apart and the father left. In 1992, aged 24, she met a Moroccan decorator called Salil Abdel Amzil; one year later they married and two years later another baby boy was born, but by 1998, the marriage had collapsed and Salil had moved out. Gripped with depression and living on benefits with two boys to raise alone, Brigette struggled. To lift her mood, she was prescribed anti-depressants, but when that failed, illicit drugs followed. For a while, she was coping, with friends describing her as lovely, great fun and a really good mum, but infrequent drug-use quickly consumed her life, and being addicted to crack, she sold sex to feed her habit. By the winter of 2002, being evicted from her fifth-floor council-flat in Camden following a drugs-raid by the Police, hopelessly addicted to crack and with convictions as a King’s Cross sex-worker, she had no home, no life and her two little boys had been taken into care. The bright bubbly Brigette was gone. In her place stood a gaunt hollow shell, all rough and ragged, like a faint ghost with a painted-on smile. On the night of Tuesday 24th December 2002, as the world wrapped their presents, Brigette was seen by King’s Cross station. It was Christmas Eve, but to this sullen shivering lady, who was 34 but looked nearer 50, it was another night in need of a fix, with another sex-obsessed stranger, another squalid flat, another thirty quid for an uncomfortable fuck on a grimy bed, and in another doorway she would cook-up those caustic little rocks to forget her sadness and dull her pain... for a short while at least. How they met is unknown, but just like the others, no-one saw or heard her as she entered 4 Hartland. Inside Tony’s flat, the radiators warmth would have been reassuring, as was his Santa-like beard, his twinkling tree and his offerings of mulled-wine and a mince-pie. In the air hung an overpowering smell of incense, which masked the unholy stench of decay, but then the cinnamon suited this festive theme. The oddly obsessive ‘girl-based’ art on the walls, the discarded pair of women’s grey tracksuit bottoms blocking the base of the locked spare-room and even the putrid whiff of Liz’s slowly decomposing body after five days in a warm flat couldn’t have unsettled her, as there were no screams, no signs of struggle and at 8:45pm, a neighbour said they heard the rhythmic sounds of sex... and then nothing. That night, like a sick twisted Christmas treat to himself, Tony fulfilled his sadistic fantasy, as (perhaps with his hefty bulk crushing her tiny chest, at the point of his climax) he strangled Brigette to death. Her name meant nothing to him, unlike her number, as being his third victim, Tony had achieved his grisly goal by graduating from the forgettable level of a ‘murderer’ to the infamous and exclusive rank of a ‘serial-killer’. Only with infamy never guaranteed, he knew that his dark ambition was incomplete. On Christmas Day, within the sweaty recesses of his spare-room, Tony played in his own little toy-box, as on his bed lay two life-size dolls, both stark naked and spread-eagled. One was a pale-skinned red-head with fuller hips, natural boobs, a ligature mark on her neck and a black NY cap to disguise her reddening and irrelevant face. The other was once an olive-skinned beauty with short dark hair, a stunning smile and an expensive boob job, only now her blue mottled legs were topped-off with a set of Mr Men socks and her purple bloated head was hidden behind the red rubber of a devil’s mask. Brigette and Liz were his to do with as he pleased. To dress, to undress, to kiss and to violate. And as Boxing Day passed, he posed both ladies with their heads cocked coyly towards him, snapping his camera to capture a sick souvenir to be tugged-over, as the two luscious but anonymous lesbians now lured their sexual saviour to bed. And once those 44 photos were taken, their purpose was served... ...but his infamy was yet to be cemented. With no hint of mania, on Friday 27th December, Tony collected his meds from the Cardigan Ward, where his mood was described as calm and stable. At 8:04pm, that same night, back at the Sainsbury’s on Camden Road he purchased another large black roll of heavy-duty bin-bags. And returning to the quiet of his Hartland flat, he began the slow and methodical disposal of their bodies. Detective Chief inspector Ken Bell later said “Hardy dismembered his last two victims with considerable skill, whether this was part of his gratification or an attempt to hide his crime, we will never know”. (End) Wearing a pair of yellow Marigold gloves, one-by-one, Tony dragged their bodies into the small white sparseness of his bathroom. With the cold tap running, he used only what was lying around – three kitchen knives and an old rusty hacksaw – as he severed their limbs at the weakest point - the joints. Each cut was clean and unrushed, with no rips, tears or slashes. As if he was filleting a fish, he took his time, slicing through each ball, socket and vertebrae, so when these neat orderly pieces of dissected women were stacked together, it was hard to tell which part belonged to who. With two dismembered heads, four feet, four hands, four arms, eight bits of four legs and two torsos cleanly cut into halves across the rib-cage, in neatly wrapped bundles (like the grisly little gifts of a crazed Santa) Tony placed each part in a black bin-bag and sealed it tight with duct-tape. On Sunday 29th December, wearing his usual long black coat, gaudy shirt and that same black NY cap, acting as casual as anyone else putting out their rubbish over the festive break, in broad daylight, Tony disposed of the lumpy black bin-bags in the council’s green metal dumpsters for public waste. On the corner of Camden Road and Plender Street, just one street from his flat, at 14:08pm, an upper torso, a right arm, a left arm and a foot was dropped in amongst the rat-infested mess of food waste and empty bottles. Shortly afterwards, in a similar dumpster he slung a pair of legs at the back of the College Arms pub, just a few doors down from his home and directly opposite the Mornington Unit. He was once a nameless nobody who had achieved nothing, but now, Anthony Hardy’s dark ambition was finally complete, as with three sex-workers dead and their body-parts scattered about the London streets, just like his hero, he was officially a ‘serial-killer’. But to achieve the true infamy he desired, this next step was beyond his control, and – worse still – to get it, he would need to wait. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. The final part of this four-part series into The Camden Ripper continues next week. But to know more about this case, stay tuned till after the break. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who Ruth Scannell, Kristen Parrish, Darren Scott, Tom Davies, Donna DeBrino and Erin Howe, I thank you all very much and I hope you enjoyed the special photos and videos which go with this series. Plus a thank you to Selina Dean and Mette Kongsted for your kind donations via the Murder Mile e-Shop. My belly is now full of custard tarts. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein and Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The xterior of 4 Hartland, Anthony Hardy's former flat
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
This is Part Two of a four-part series into The Camden Ripper. The truth about may never be known, as it’s hard to understand who he is, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. By viewing this story from his perspective, it is clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part Two – Tony the Addict.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of 4 Hartland where Anthony Hardy lived is marked with a black triangle. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two little videos of 4 Hartland, taken from different angles, where Anthony Hardy lived in Camden and where his three vcitims were murdered. This video is a link to youtube, so it won't eat up your data.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
Some of the handmade artwork as seen inside Anthony Hardy's flat, almost everything had a connection to a woman who he either liked, met, raped or murdered
Various photos of Anthony Hardy's former flat at 4 Hartland, as taken by myself
SOURCES: The main source was the Independent Review into the treatment and care of Anthony Hardy by Camden Council, which also includes detail about the murder investigation, as seen in this PDF. http://nomsintranet.org.uk/roh/official-documents/IndependentReview_AnthonyHardy.pdf
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (Tony) “I don’t remember much, I blacked out. We had sex, some bondage, some rough stuff, but with me on top of her, being big, she must have suffocated under my weight. I’ve got nothing else to say”. On Sunday 20th January 2002, the body of 38-year-old sex-worker Sally Rose White was discovered in the locked bedroom of Anthony Hardy’s flat. Found naked with her legs splayed, this petite lady had engaged in rough sex with this nineteen stone man, which some light bruising, a bite mark and a wound to her head had proven. Deemed “a natural death” and “an accident”, a qualified pathologist confirmed that Sally had died of heart failure and thus Tony not “not responsible for her death”. With no witnesses, no murder weapon and no motive, as the Police’s prime suspect had no memory of that night owing to an alcoholic blackout, as was his legal right he would state “no comment” to every question and with a second autopsy returning the same conclusion, the murder case collapsed. Charged only with the criminal damage to his neighbour’s door, being assessed by several doctors as “highly distressed” and “a suicide risk”, as a long-term alcoholic with severe psychological needs, once again Tony was sectioned under the Mental Health Act for fear that he was “a danger to himself”. Only alcohol wasn’t his main addiction and one year later, the press would brand him The Camden Ripper. The truth about The Camden Ripper may never be known, as memories were vague, details were absent and even the evidence by medical experts couldn’t secure a conviction. And besides, it’s hard to understand who he was, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. But by viewing this story from his perspective, it is clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part Two – Tony the Addict. (Tony) “That night, I’d been drinking a lot as I was low. My neighbour’s leaky tap had upset me, but I have no ill-feelings towards her now. It wasn’t her. It was the drink. It makes the world a better place, people are friendly, it’s worth being alive... only I drink too much and I black-out”. But when asked by the psychiatrist about Sally’s death, Tony would only reply “I don’t recall” and “no comment”. Had he been found guilty of murder; he could have faced twenty-years in prison. Had he been declared a ‘danger to the public’, he might have been locked-up in a psychiatric unit for life. But being found innocent by a noted pathologist - and sectioned four times before – Tony knew that his hospitalisation was dependant on his recovery, meaning that he could be held for either days, months or years. On 8th April 2002, Tony was returned to the Mornington Unit at the Huntley Centre: an intensive care psychiatric facility within St Pancras Hospital, behind King’s Cross station and a few doors from his flat. Set within an old Victorian hospital, from the outside this secure unit had all the essentials to keep the in-patients within; like cameras, alarms, key-cards, locks and every exit secured by a series of thick metal doors. But inside, with soft lighting, bright walls, soft sofas and a large telly, like a budget hotel, it was a far cry from the old asylums, with its aim to reflect a more positive and happier mental state. Held under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act, a court order made following his criminal conviction for the damage to his neighbour’s front door, this meant that (unlike a prison sentence) the length of his stay and the date of his discharge wasn’t decided by a judge, but by the hospital itself. Being so close to his home, his frustration was evident as he sat on his hospital bed seeing his old life below; the off-licence on Plender Street, the College Arms pub opposite, the café on Crowndale Road where he’d meet Maureen for a brew and a chat about crime, and the train station where sex-workers were within his grasp, as well as his flat, his bed, his bath, his tellies and his stack of porn videos. He was in, but wanted out, and the only way was to be calm, co-operative and to combat his addiction. Previously deemed a suicide risk by a panel of experts, upon his release from Pentonville Prison to the Mornington Unit, Tony said he was “feeling fine and had no thoughts of self-harm or harm to others”. The staff were right to be wary of this six-foot-one nineteen-stone hulk with a history of assault, abuse, sexual deviance and drunkenness, having been arrested twice prior on that very ward. Only he seemed like a different man now, with the psychiatrist later noting “Mr Hardy remained stable throughout his admission with no evidence of mental illness. He was granted escorted leave and spent a lot of time in bed and watching television”. He was a model patient. On his discharge summary, it even recorded that “Mr Hardy’s suicidal thoughts had stopped when he knew he was moving to hospital”. Listed as “not an immediate risk to himself”, on 29th April 2002, he was transferred to the Cardigan Ward, an acute mental-illness ward at St Luke’s Hospital in Muswell Hill, with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder exacerbated by alcohol. On his first day, given that his illness and addiction were treatable, he appealed his Section Order, asking that he be discharged from hospital, but his request was denied. Fully accepting their decision, once again Tony became a model patient. His mood was lucid and calm, he had no delusions or mania, his mood swings were treated with Lithium, his daily dosage of chlorpromazine (an antipsychotic medication) was reduced, and had a good understanding of bipolar disorder. He was quiet, polite and attended his therapy sessions and alcohol recovery programme. As a long-term alcoholic who abused booze when his mood was low, he had at least thirteen relapses during his stay at St Luke’s. Granted unescorted leave owing to good behaviour, this gave him a few hours to attend his appointments with the Alcohol Advisory Service, to shop for essentials and to visit his flat at 4 Hartland, as the Police had returned the items removed pending the ill-fated murder trial. Like many alcoholics, given a bit of freedom from this strict regime; he lied about his movements, he hid alcohol in his room and sometimes he returned to the ward still drunk. When he was bad, his leave was stopped and when he was good, it was reinstated. Apart from that, he showed no signs of mania or psychosis. He had a treatable mental illness, his problem was alcohol, but he wasn’t an addict. Even Tony admitted “Over the last decade or so, I’ve been prone to binge-drinking, although I wouldn’t really call myself an addict. It’s a crutch I use for when I’m low”. And the hospital agreed. Except for a few slips, Tony was focussed on controlling his usage and he had only one incident when he was abusive to another patient, but overall, he came across as pleasant, settled and compliant. Only Tony’s little show had left many people with an uneasy feeling. A social worker stated “I had the impression that Mr Hardy would tell me what he thought I wanted to hear, that he would give me the information about his drinking that would improve his chances of being released from his section”. Doctors at the Mornington Unit had also expressed their concerns prior to his transfer saying “When talking to him about the events surrounding his arrest, there was a severe lack of empathy and a strong sense that he was not telling the truth, but more than that, he knew we knew he was not telling the truth. I don’t say necessarily he was enjoying it, or that he was manipulating us, but that is unusual”. Some staff even reported that they found him to be “a creep, with a vague sense of evil”. Also, his failure to recall a single detail of Sally’s death was itself questionable. Throughout his life he had blamed his violent outbursts on alcoholic blackouts - “I’d drunk till I could drink no more. I blacked out. All I remember is being in a police cell” – only the officers confirmed that when Tony was arrested “he smelled of drink but wasn’t drunk” and the psychiatrists were equally sceptical. The acid and paint used to deface his neighbour’s door showed pre-meditation, as did the bucket of warm soapy water, the key he had hidden and the posing of Sally’s body. A psychiatrist stated “When I think of it, every time he did something bad, he had an alcoholic blackout and could never remember doing anything”. On 20th June 2002, six months after his arrest, a meeting was held to discuss his section discharge. It was denied, as the doctors felt his mental illness still required treatment and the community services were not fully in place to help him cope with his alcohol problem. In short “the risk of relapse, leading to failure to take the medication is too great in terms of risk to himself and others, given his history”. After three months of hospitalisation, Anthony Hardy could legally be held for another three months. Only the more he relapsed, the more those treating him were convinced that alcohol was the problem, when fact he was hiding the truth. His real addiction which was never diagnosed or treated... was sex. Since the 1970’s, as with alcohol, sex was vital to keep his mood in check, but in 1992, being diagnosed with diabetes, this disorder had left him with severe erectile dysfunction. A psychiatrist later stated “his distress, anger and frustration at his diminished sexual prowess was expressed in sadistic sexual activity, his intoxication with alcohol and his rage at his sexual dysfunction induced by diabetes”. Whilst held at the Cardigan Ward at St Luke’s, he fought to keep his sexual impulses under wraps, but sometimes they came out. In an arts therapy workshop, a female facilitator touched the glass jar he had painted with the words ‘Sally Rose White – R.I.P’, she apologised for leaving fingerprints on his artwork, at which he grinned and said “it’s okay, when I’m in the bath, it will remind me of you”. During his decade as a homeless man, Tony was evicted from countless hostels. Not only owing to his drunkenness, theft and assaults, but when he was manic, he became sexually aroused and uninhibited, often stripping naked, groping residents or staff, and suggesting they make a porno together. All of which he would deny had ever took place, blaming the incidents on high-jinx and alcoholic blackouts. On 24th April 1998, at King’s Cross station, he was arrested on suspicion of rape. Accompanying an 18-year-old sex-worker back to his flat at King’s Terrace, there they got drunk, stoned and whilst she was intoxicated, he inserted his fingers inside her. Unable to disprove her consent, he pled guilty to the lesser charge of indecent assault, but his police file shows that he was a suspect in three more rapes. Having coerced his care-workers into believing that independence was the key to his mental stability, given his own flat at 4 Hartland, in the privacy of his spare-room, Tony indulged his sick sexual cravings; whether domination, bondage, strangulation, or posing semi-conscious girls on the bed and shooting obscene images with his black Chinon camera, like a little treat to himself to masturbate over later. Only Tony wasn’t just a sex-addict, he was also a sexual sadist. In December 2002, having met a masseuse through a contact ad’, at her home, he raped her, taking a sadistic satisfaction in crushing her with his nineteen-stone bulk. She later stated “I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe… it was like he was pushing me down into the bed… his face was pressed to mine, his chest was up to my neck and my head was forced back. He got a kick knowing I couldn’t breathe”. Pathologists call this Homicidal Asphyxiation, as it stops the blood circulating; causing dizziness, a lack of consciousness and finally death, which could easily be mistaken for a heart-attack during rough sex. (Tony) “I don’t remember much, I blacked out. We had sex, some bondage, some rough stuff, but with me on top of her, being big, she must have suffocated under my weight. I’ve got nothing else to say”. Unaware of his supressed sexual sadism, seeking to remedy his bipolar and alcoholism, as the sodium valproate was causing him impotence, the doctors prescribed Apomorphine - a precursor to Viagra. On 14th November 2002, a meeting was held by his psychiatrist, the ward doctor, a care-worker, a social-worker and Camden housing department, as well as Tony’s lawyers, to discuss his section order. Described as being calm and cooperative, they decided to treat Tony as an out-patient, as he “seemed to be dealing with his alcohol problem”. The next day, he packed-up and was discharged from hospital. A report by three psychiatrists with the North London Forensic Service was sent ahead of the meeting, but being misplaced in the mailroom, it arrived two days too late. In it, they expressed their concerns stating; “Mr Hardy poses a risk of violent behaviour even when his illness is controlled and when not intoxicated with alcohol” and “he should not return to his previous address owing to the extremely suspicious circumstances surrounding his arrest”. A doctor at St Luke’s also gave six warnings that Anthony Hardy should not be released, stating “he was vulnerable to relapse and he is a danger to women”. The report concluded “Mr Hardy has an untreatable personality disorder, there is strong risk of reoffending and he is likely to cause serious physical or psychological harm to others”. The report was right. Whilst on day-release for good behaviour, distracted by his alcoholic relapses, the hospital was unaware that he had taken a train out of London, raped a sex-worker and he was back in the Cardigan Ward before his curfew was up. He was breathalysed, but it showed he was sober. On 15th November 2002, Tony returned to his flat at 4 Hartland. Sat within sight of the Mornington Unit where just seven months earlier he had watched as his life slipped by... now he was free. As a stipulation of his discharge, he attended his therapy sessions, alcohol programme and collected his medication, he kept himself-to-himself and had no further incidents with his upstairs neighbour. With his life back to normal, he bought booze from the off-licence on Plender Street, had a few pints at the College Arms pub, picked-up sex-workers at King’s Cross station and chatted with Maureen about how skilfully the Whitechapel murderer had evaded justice. Only to head back to his flat, his bed, his bath, his tellies, his stack of hard-core porn and his coffee table, on which he had placed a new piece of homemade art - a painted glass jar on which he had written ‘Sally Rose White – R.I.P’. Released back into the community and being supervised from a distance, several agencies oversaw his return, but no-one was wholly responsible for his day-to-day living, but Tony. With the stroke of a pen, he had gone from thick walls, locked doors, alarms, cameras, breathalysers and a round-the-clock suicide-watch (if needed), and now, he had become a bullet-point, a scribbled note and a checklist tick. As long as he turned up to therapy sessions and didn’t look drunk, he was left to his own devises. Going from a model in-patient to a model out-patient, Tony took his cocktail of seven different pills for his diabetes, his mobility, his bipolar and he was still self-medicating with large quantities of alcohol and cannabis, but he was on no-form of prescribed medication to control his rampant sexual urges. In fact, it was the exact opposite... Prescribed Apomorphine to combat his erectile dysfunction, having collected his carefully managed dose every Friday from St Luke’s, he secretly secured a second supply from University College Hospital. His libido was in overload having been bottled-up inside a prison and two psychiatric wards for almost a year, but now being free to roam at will and aided by a double-dose of pills to stiffen his stuttering prick, Tony’s sexual desires ran rampant as he trawled the back-streets of Camden looking for ladies. Easily blowing his disability allowance in brothels, for cheap thrills, he snapped covert photos of sexy girls walking alone and he was spotted licking the sofa in a local bar and cooing “I like the leather”. At home, luring back sex-workers with the promise of money and drugs, his perverted sexual needs got ever rougher, harder and riskier, as on his telly, he played sickening porn of simulated and real rapes. In mid-December, he travelled to the Midlands to see a masseuse called ‘Sara’. As before, he raped her. She later said “he was crushing me, stopping me breathing, his chest was pushing down on me, he was getting off on the fact that he was trying to kill me. And at the point of ejaculation, his eyes were like something I cannot describe. I knew that if I didn’t move that second I would be dead”. As if to relive this sick moment every time he bathed or showered, above his bathroom sink, in a childishly bright and cheerily orange daubing with blood red writing, he had immortalised her name – ‘Sara’. And, once again, he had returned to his original plan from one year ago, with his bed in the living room of his small sparse flat, he advertised in a local-newsagent - “spare room for rent, female lodger only”. On Thursday 19th December 2002, eleven months to the day after he had led Sally Rose White from King’s Cross back to his flat at Hartland, Tony would meet another sex-worker... and her name was Liz. Elizabeth Selina Valad, known as Liz, was born on 28th May 1973, to Hassan, an Iranian professor living in America and her English-born mother Jackie. Sadly, their marriage was not-to-be and after only two years, Jackie & Liz returned home to the market-town of Arnold in Nottinghamshire. With a working parent, a nice little home and her mum seeing a new partner called Peter, Liz had a good start in life. But she was as beautiful and talented as she was fiery and volatile. Whereas once she was a little girl who dreamed of living the high life in London’s glittering West End - marrying a rich man, staying in a penthouse and attending posh parties dressed in silks, gems and furs - as a teenager, her rebellious streak had led her to hang-out with a bad crowd, all of which ended in truancy, trouble and theft. Aged 16 and unqualified, Liz left school and headed to London, telling her mother that she was working as a secretary. In truth, she was a hostess in a massage parlour-cum-sauna selling sex for £30 a go. Two years later, Liz met her ‘meal ticket’; a multi-millionaire sugar-daddy in his seventies who plucked her out of this seedy hell-hole, and set her up in an exclusive Chelsea flat, with a Mercedes, a clothing allowance, a tab at designer stores, dinner at The Ritz and even a boob-job. Her dream had come true. Learning the truth and fearing the worst, Jackie pleaded with her daughter to come home, but Liz was living the life she wanted to live, and across the 1990’s, she believed she would always be happy. What happened to her sugar-daddy is unknown? Maybe he got bored, died or ended-up broke? But by the end of 2001 – with no skills, home, job or savings – as her glamourous life turned from disaster to disaster, being booted out of a steady job in a Peter Street brothel, by the bitter winter of 2002, 29-year-old Elizabeth Selina Valad was addicted to crack and feeding her addiction with sex-work. On the night of Thursday 19th December 2002, beside King’s Cross station, feeling thirsty, Liz told her boyfriend Neville that she was popping to the newsagents to buy herself a drink. She never got to the shop, she never bought a drink, she never returned to Neville and she was never seen alive again. At an unspecified hour - just as Sally had - like a sinister rerun to mark this macabre little anniversary, Liz entered the flat of her own accord at 4 Hartland, and as with both girls, neither were seen or heard. Coming in from the bitterly cold drizzle and biting wind, the warmth of the radiators must have felt soothing, and although his flat must have seemed a little odd, they had probably been to worse places. Besides, decorated with his childlike art, a Wombles poster and with a Christmas tree up, as this funny man with a bushy beard, a loud gaudy shirt and a set of amusing socks exuded a fatherly air, there was no reason for fear, as he offered Liz a drink, a smoke, some dope and some quick cash for a good fuck. As before, Tony & Liz were just two addicts fuelling their needs, so for both, it was a win-win situation. Only, with Sally being a simple girl who was naïve and easily-led, where-as she had willingly followed Tony into the spare-room for consensual sex, Liz did not. We will never know why. Maybe the money wasn’t enough? Maybe bondage wasn’t her thing? Maybe the rape porn made her nervous? Or maybe – having knocked Sally unconscious during rough-sex, rendering her perfectly submissive to his whims – this time, Tony didn’t plan to make the same mistakes with such a fierce and fiery woman as Liz? Owing to the blood spatter, it’s clear that Tony had smashed Liz hard across the head with a heavy blunt object. Slumping onto his sofa, he gripped her thin throat with his hands and strangled her until almost every ounce of life was lost. Almost... but not quite. Dragging her limp body into his spare-room, on that same double bed where Sally had died, Liz was his to do with as he pleased. Binding her wrists and ankles tight, he climbed on top of this small slim lady, as this nineteen stone hulk crushed her under his bulk, trapping her blood and slowing her heart as he brutally raped her, again and again. At some point during the assault, she died. But he didn’t care, as to him, she meant nothing. (End) (Tony) “I don’t remember much, I blacked out. We had sex, some bondage, some rough stuff, but with me on top of her, being big, she must have suffocated under my weight. I’ve got nothing else to say”. Eleven months earlier, owing to his own impulsive fury over his neighbour’s leaky tap, unwittingly the Police had disturbed his sick and twisted sex-act with Sally’s still-warm corpse, but having blacked-out he had claimed he couldn’t recall. Only now, being free - thanks to a bit of luck, a bungling pathologist and the manipulation of those there to protect him – Tony was free to finish what he had begun. Popping his black Chinon stills-camera on a sturdy tripod, Tony manoeuvred the lifeless limbs of Liz’s naked body in a series of lewd and disturbing poses. With her legs splayed wide and topped with a set of his ‘Mr Men’ socks on her feet - ironically the beaming yellow grin of ‘Mr Happy’ - inside her gaping vagina a six-inch Rampant Rabbit vibrator had been thrust. Angling her neck with a pillow, so her head was cocked coyly towards his snapping camera as if (from the grave) she was lovingly enticing her lover into bed, although she was a beautiful woman, he covered her face with his black NY baseball cap and (in some photos) a devil’s mask. To Tony, Liz was a nobody, a nothing, it didn’t matter who she was, as with her identity disguised, when he masturbated to the photos, this wantonly submissive woman who fulfilled his every fantasy could literally be anyone. Anyone... or even maybe you? Instead of being in prison, every day that Tony was free to roam, he passed the Mornington Unit, the Police Station and the Coroner’s Court where so many mistakes had been made. And yet, with only one body in his flat, unlike his infamously sadistic hero, this rapist and a murderer wasn’t a real serial-killer yet... but within days, Anthony John Hardy would earn his nickname as The Camden Ripper. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Part three of this four-part series into The Camden Ripper continues next week. But to know more about this case, stay tuned till after the break (which last week featured an advert for vaginal lube – lovely) for some extra details, as well as a little quiz, a big biscuit, no cake, but a nice cuppa. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Farideh Hartman and Andi Browning, I thank you very much, I hope you are enjoying all the extra crime-scene photos and videos to go with this series, as well as lots of secret goodies from more than one hundred previous episodes. Plus, a thank you to Mike Hughes for your kind donation via Supporter, cakes have been purchased and scoffed. And a well done to the winners of the very exclusive key ring competition via Patreon, who were; Gemma Archer, Selina Dean and Fiona McCulloch. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein and Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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The Manna Society of Melior St where Sally Rose White was last seen
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN
This is Part One of a four-part series into The Camden Ripper. The truth about may never be known, as it’s hard to understand who he is, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. By viewing this story from his perspective, it is clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part One – Tony the Alcoholic.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of The Manna Society at 12 Melior Street in Bermondsey where Sally Rose White was last seen alive is on the far right and is marked with a red triangle. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two additional videos to go with the series; to the left is St Pancras Coroner's Court where the coroner's trial of Sally Rose White took place and to the right is the former homeless hostel in Argyll Square where Anthony Hardy had his first recorded psychotic episode.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
These are all photos taken this week of the exterior of Hartland where Anthony Hardy lived and 4 Hartland, his former flat... and his front door. Yes, it felt weird.
The Manna Centre (where Sally was last seen), King's Terrace (Hardy's former residence), King's Cross station and St Pancras Coronor's Court.
SOURCES: The main source was the Independent Review into the treatment and care of Anthony Hardy by Camden Council, which also includes detail about the murder investigation, as seen in this PDF. http://nomsintranet.org.uk/roh/official-documents/IndependentReview_AnthonyHardy.pdf
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (Tony) “Hello. My name is Tony and I am an alcoholic” (appreciative voices and a very light applause). On Tuesday 25th November 2003, at The Old Bailey, 52-year-old Anthony John Hardy pleaded guilty to the brutal murders of Sally Rose White, Elizabeth Selina Valad and Bridgette Cathy MacLennan; three sex-workers whose only connection was the money they needed for the drugs which they used. The barbaric nature of their deaths, the disposal of their bodies and the sadistic callousness with which he abused their corpses shocked a nation to its very core, and (in an instant) this anonymous nobody gained infamy, being dubbed The Camden Ripper. But as fast as he became famous, he was forgotten. It seems strange that so little is written about him, but then again very little is known, as although he craved the cruel limelight which his infamous hero once courted, he could be as cheery and chatty as any civilised member of society one minute, and a blank expressionless wall of nothingness the next, giving nothing to the Police “no comment”, the lawyers “no comment” or psychiatrists “no comment”. The truth about The Camden Ripper may never be known, as the details are vague, the timings may be sketchy and even the most solid pieces of evidence only led to best guesses by experts. So, it’s hard to understand who he is, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. Was he a killer? Was he a victim? Was he mentally ill? Or was he a manipulator? There are very few answers, only questions. But by viewing this story from his perspective, it is clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. These are the Four Faces of The Camden Ripper. Part One – Tony the Alcoholic. (Tony) “Over the last decade or so, I’ve been prone to binge-drinking - cider, wine, vodka, you name it - although I wouldn’t really call myself an addict. It’s a crutch I use for when I’m low. That night, I’d drunk till I could drink no more. I’d filled the fridge beforehand to make sure it was properly stocked, but I don’t know how much I drank. I blacked out. All I remember after that is being in a police cell”. (Hubbub) Saturday 19th January 2002. The date is correct, the time is unspecified but it’s definitely late and Anthony Hardy (known as Tony) is standing in the borough of Camden, near King’s Cross station; a ceaseless cess-pool of sin bathed in the sickening neon glow of takeaways, taxi ranks, arcades, bars, B&B’s and the dull red glow of sleazy brothels. It’s a transient place where the sensible get out as quick as they get in, but the desperate get stuck, as the lost are lured by the promise of sex, drugs and drink. To some it’s terrifying, but for Tony, each and every street has been his home for the last twelve years, whether under a roof, a doorway or a cardboard box. But now he’s doing okay, not great, just okay. Standing an impressive six-foot and one inch tall and nineteen stone, although larger than most, he is often mistaken for being bigger than he actually is owing to his bold persona, his big bushy grey beard and the mass of thick dark layers which he wears to keep out the incessant drizzle and biting winter wind. Dressed from head-to-toe in black, from his NY baseball cap to his shin-length coat, the only flashes of colour are his white smile, his gaudy Hawaiian shirt and a set of amusing cartoon socks. And although he stands out, he also blends in, as formerly being a man of no-fixed-abode, he’s used to being a nobody to the average person, who only ever converses with the Police and social services. Far from being the man he used to be – educated, married, skilled and employed - over the last two years he’s tried to turn his life around, even going so far as to get his own council flat just a few roads away, but every day has been a daily struggle and being only six days out of detox, he’s relapsed again. He isn’t staggering or slurring as being intoxicated is his normal, so clutching a bag of booze and being single, like most nights, he’s in the seedy recesses of King’s Cross looking for sex. He knows all of the street girls, but he doesn’t have a type and their names to him mean nothing. Just like his drink, an alcoholic doesn’t care what species of apple is pressed to make his cider, as long as it gives him his fix. Tony’s story is a tragically familiar one for many of the lost souls living on the London’s streets. And that night, like any other, he’d be unable to think of anything else... but the fuelling of his addictions. Summer 1989. Just shy of forty, a thinner less-grey Tony drove a slightly battered Ford Sierra through the back streets of the city. Just out of a Norwich prison on his second stint for reckless driving, criminal damage and drunk and disorderly, although disqualified, he used Illegal mini-cabbing to pay his way. Over the last decade, the life of this husband, father-of-four and middle-class engineer had collapsed. Being little more than a washed-up ex-con who lived alone in a cheap squalid bedsit, being divorced, depressed and separated from his teenage kids, he drank heavily and lost what little he still had. His first twenty-five years started well enough, but growing increasingly restless, agitated and angry, Tony was hospitalised for ten days in April 1982 at The Park Centre, a psychiatric facility in Brisbane, where he was diagnosed with depression marked by violent outbursts and exacerbated by drinking. From that day onwards, Tony became a familiar face in London’s detox clinics, help groups, homeless hostels and psychiatric wards, where he was diagnosed with manic depression, a debilitating condition for which he was prescribed Lithium (the first of seven drugs he would take) but he also self-medicated with alcoholic binges and cannabis. Drinking up-to six litres of Frosty Jacks cider a day, being a big man, sometimes the booze just dulled the edges of his anxiety, and other times he drank till he blacked out. In 1992, given his size and alcohol intake, Tony was diagnosed with diabetes; his mobility worsened, his weight increased and it drastically lessened his sexual function, but not his libido. That same year, his younger brother Barry took his own life and Tony hit rock bottom. He was always an angry quick-tempered man, but now he had become more frustrated, isolated and paranoid, and his life got worse. Evicted from a series of hostels for assaults on its residents and staff, and having been booted out of the Arlington House hostel by a court of law, Tony found a bed at the Ferndale Hotel, a homeless refuge at 41 Argyle Square in King’s Cross. But by then, his mental health had severely deteriorated. On 30th April 1995, gripped by the delusion that he was a wanted killer and seeing a Police van parked up outside his window, Tony dived into the back and insisted on being arrested for his crimes; he was rambling, sweating and distressed. Seen by the duty psychiatrist at University College Hospital, he said he was hearing voices, and a urine test concluded he was in the midst of a drug-induced psychosis. It was a major psychotic episode, but his mental collapse would get him the help that he badly needed. From 2nd to 5th May 1995, Tony was a voluntary in-patient at the Huntley Centre at St Pancras Hospital, where he was assessed, diagnosed, medicated and assigned a care-worker from the Focus Team, who helped him register with a GP, find support groups and assisted with temporary accommodation, so his life could return to some kind of normality. But the next four years would be even tougher. Evicted from the Ferndale Hotel, on 30th August 1995 Tony took an overdose and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. On 3rd October, being arrested for public indecency, Tony was sectioned again and re-admitted to the Huntley Centre, this time for three months, spent on the Mornington Unit. During his hospitalisation, he was arrested twice for drunkenness and criminal damage to the ward. During Tony’s stay, a psychiatrist with the North London Forensic Service wrote two reports about his alcohol abuse, stating “Tony uses alcohol when feeling depressed and to cope with life’s stresses. It does not always indicate early signs of a manic episode”. Only Tony had many outlets for his anger; one was alcohol, one was cannabis and the other was sex, having used pornography and prostitutes since the mid-1970’s and many girls of whom he knew from his time as a cabbie in King’s Cross. Diagnosed as Bipolar in January 1996, Tony was given a long-term bed at Argyle Walk, a hostel for the homeless with mental health needs where he stayed until May 1997, when the Focus Team secured him a supported living space at 34 King’s Terrace. Unlike a hostel, King’s Terrace was a self-contained flat which offered him better support but greater independence, and having stability, he flourished. His care-worker stated “there have been no episodes of psychosis or hospitalisation; his mood has remained fairly constant, if somewhat subdued; he’s doing his own shopping, cooking and is keeping himself active to minimise isolation. Mr Hardy’s stability at Argyle Walk cannot be overstated”. But his alcoholism and mental health would always be a struggle, and still feeling that his life lacked independence, on 10th May 1998 he was arrested for assault, sectioned and on 6th August that same year, he was sectioned again and hospitalised in the Cardigan Ward at St Luke’s Psychiatric Hospital. It was a blip in his recovery, but with a renewed focus to get a home of his own, across the next year he fought to turn his life around. On 3rd June 1999, Camden Council offered him a flat and on 20th January 2000, Tony Hardy became the legal tenant of 4 Hartland on Royal College Street in Camden. To Anthony Hardy this was his home... but to his three victims, it would become a house of horrors. Hartland was a brown-brick and white-walled four-storey council block on the College Place Estate, bordered by College Place, Plender Street and a short walk from the canal and King’s Cross. Cheaply constructed in pre-assembled concrete shells and connected by several stairwells, they’re simple, affordable and to the left of the ground-floor stairwell, behind a black front door sat flat number four. Kept in an orderly state of disarray, it was neither filthy nor stylish, as everything was basic, practical and had its place. Upfront was a multi-coloured living-room dominated by a blue sofa, three tellies, a pile of true-crime books, a coffee table with a neat stack of VHS tapes, and (a few feet behind) sat his double bed. He had a small grubby kitchen, a grimy little bathroom and a spare-room filled with some furniture should he have a friend over to stay, as well as his photographic equipment and his junk. Decorated using a misjudged mix of garish paints and marker pens, almost every wall, ceiling and door was covered in an ad-hoc array of indecipherable art by Tony, but they weren’t the intricate designs of a skilled engineer, but the doodles of a child-like mind. As if to keep his bad thoughts at bay, the walls were a brightly coloured mural of love, happiness and spirituality, consisting of everything from fishes, pets, faces, names, seas and stars to Celtic crosses. It was like a daily reminder to be happy. On 7th August 2001, a full assessment was undertaken and although alcohol was his main risk, he had joined an art class, a support group, he had cut his drinking down to two pints a day, he had maintained a ten-year relationship with his good friend Maureen Reeves who he would regularly meet for a cup of tea (as she listened to his fascinating theories about infamous serial-killer Jack the Ripper) and by September, his care-worker had stated that he was “being effectively managed in the community”. Within his bubble he was blossoming, but out on the estate he was struggling. Seen as a bit of a weirdo, who dressed in black, spoke to no-one, muttered to himself and only socialised with sex-workers, after a decade living on the streets, he was unused to dealing with the simple everyday problems of life. In November 2001, with his neighbour’s bath in the upstairs flat leaking into his, unable to even discuss it with her; he got anxious, depressed and proceeded to binge-drink, and although he couldn’t recall his actions owing to an alcoholic blackout, he bent her car’s windscreen wipers and slashed her tyres. The problem was finally resolved and the leak was fixed, but for the weeks afterwards, he seethed. On 7th January 2002, Tony voluntarily entered Rugby House, an alcohol detox clinic in Bermondsey by London Bridge station, but unable to quit his main addiction, he discharged himself just six days later. (Hubbub) By Saturday 19th January, just shy of midnight, he was standing in King’s Cross. (Tony) “That night, I’d drunk till I could drink no more. I’d filled the fridge beforehand, but I don’t know how much I drank. I blacked out. All I remember after that is being in a police cell”. With a bag of booze in his hand and his flat a few streets away, focussed only on fuelling his addictions, Tony needed sex... ...and the girl he chose was Sally. Born on 23rd September 1963, Sally Rose White was the youngest daughter of Arthur & Muriel, a loving couple who strived to give her all the support she needed, having been born with brain damage. Educated at a special needs school, although a struggle, Sally had an idyllic upbringing, being raised by The Quay in the coastal town of Poole in Dorset, where she thrived and got a job as a shop assistant. But as she entered her twenties, being little more than a child in an adult’s body whose independence was limited to protect her, she became aggressive, repeatedly ran away from home and slept rough. In 1991, aged 28, Sally gave birth to a daughter called Louise, but unable to care for her baby, she was given up for adoption. Relenting to her request to live her life as she wanted, Sally moved to London, as her worried parents supported from a distance, but having refused their help, she began to struggle. She lost her job, her flat and becoming homeless, she funded her crack addiction with sex-work. As a sweet, naïve and easily-led girl, she had no idea how vulnerable she was, being just an innocent little fish who swam in a dark turbulent sea of hungry sharks. In her final months, her father often scoured the many homeless hostels of London seeking to bring his baby home, but Sally always refused. On the cold wet morning of Saturday 19th January 2002 - being a little dot with a sweet smile, twinkly brown eyes and jet-black hair, wearing blue jeans, a blue jacket and a grey hoodie - 38-year-old Sally was last seen at the Manna Society on Melior Street in Bermondsey; a charity by London Bridge station which provides food, beds and support for the city’s most vulnerable. Like so many, Sally was familiar face... as was Tony, who just six days earlier had discharged himself from detox, just one street away. Whether he knew her from the hostels, whether they had first met that day, or whether he had picked her up in King’s Cross (as one of hundreds of sex-workers he had procured across his life) is unknown. All we know is that they were both vulnerable, needy and desperate. For both, this seemed like a win-win situation, as she was sweet and petite, and he was charming and fatherly. So, just shy of midnight and clutching a bag of booze, they both walked back to his warm cosy flat to feed their addictions. It was an ordinary night, as inside the brightly-coloured living-room at 4 Hartland, Sally sat alongside Tony on his blue sofa; where they supped cheap wine, chatted about true-crime, got warm, ate and had a bit of a giggle. Later, as his diabetes made sex a little unpredictable, Tony popped a porno in his VHS player and when that familiar feeling stirred in his loins, he led Sally to bed. Not his bed behind the sofa, as this was his private space and he hated messing-up his neat blue bedsheets, his stack of medications and his space invaders t-shirt drying on the radiator, so instead they used the spare room. Having folded her jacket and jeans neatly on the floor, dressed in a bra, pants and hoodie, Sally lay on the bed. Baring down on top of this small nine-stone girl was the towering naked bulk of a nineteen stone man; with six litres of cider inside him, a temperamental erection and a thirst for rough-sex. At 4am, a neighbour later stated that they had heard a scream, but that could have been anything. (Tony) “That night, I’d drunk till I could drink no more. I don’t know how much I drank. I blacked out”. (DCI) “So, what happened next Tony, what happened?” (Tony pauses) “No comment”. The next morning, although the little issue of his neighbour’s leaky bath had been resolved back in December, Tony was still fuming. Having previously snapped her wipers, slashed her tyres and sent her an abusive letter after she had found him rummaging through her bins - none of which he could recall – being openly hostile and unable to confront her, as she slept, he vandalised her front door. At 6:40am on Sunday 20th January 2002, alerted by the neighbour, Sergeant Nick Spinks arrived at her first-floor flat at 10 Hartland. The damage was obvious. With a plastic cider bottle, a litre of sulphuric acid from an abandoned car battery had been poured through her letterbox, across the white door in black paint was sprayed the words “fuck you slut, you’re a cunt” and – as if there was no denying who had done this cowardly petulant deed - the culprit had signed it with the letter ‘T’ and as the bubbling acid pooled at the base of the door, the prints from his size eleven trainers led from her door to his. Tony was not happy to see the officers, and although he smelled of drink, not being intoxicated, he fully admitted to the charge of criminal damage and asked to be escorted to the Police station. Finding his enthusiasm to be detained elsewhere a little suspicious, with Tony’s consent they searched his flat. Directed by him, they found the cider bottle, the funnel and the can of black spray-paint. Every room was checked except for the spare-room, which Tony stated “was sublet to a lady, I don’t have the key”. So, with him being calm and fully compliant, he was arrested for the minor offence of criminal damage. Before being led outside into the freezing cold morning, sensibly Tony asked if he could pop on a coat, they agreed, and removing the anorak which hung on the back of his door, the officer searched it first. In the lining he found a key. The key fitted the locked door. And suddenly, Tony began to sweat. With the window locked from the inside, the Police knew that no-one had entered or exited that room since they had arrived. To the side of the wardrobe, a set of folded clothes had been stashed, on the floor lay a grey hoodie and tossed onto the red rug, a pair of bra and pants had been cut into pieces. The room was messy and cluttered but no more than the rest of the flat, and nothing looked damaged or broken. Above the pillow, a circle of blood marked the point where a head had impacted with the white wall and leading down to the bed, a dark-haired lady silently lay. Being naked and spread-eagle, with her legs splayed wide, she was still warm to the touch, and although a blue towel masked her face; with her skin pale, her cheeks mottled and her lips a blueish hue, it was clear that Sally was dead. Inside her grey hoodie, a red sticky mess matched the mass of matted hair on her head’s bloody crown, and besides a few small bruises, her only other injury was a bitemark to the inside of her right thigh, which matched Tony’s teeth. By the bed, he had placed a bucket of warm soapy water and a sponge, as being disturbed by the Police, perhaps out of panic, Tony had tried to cover-up this accident? Trembling and pale, Tony was arrested for criminal damage, suspicion of murder and taken to Kentish Town police station. As was his right, he replied “no comment” to every question, had no recollection of the incident and he made the officers aware of his alcoholism, diabetes and mental health issues. That night, Arthur & Muriel White were notified that their daughter Sally had died. For the detectives, it seemed like a pretty solid case of murder or manslaughter with Tony as the only suspect. He had concealed the body, lied about the key, attempted a clean-up and the only DNA or fingerprints (other than hers) found at the scene was his. He had a history of alcoholism, psychosis, delusions and violence, and all of his neighbours described him as a ‘nutter’, a ‘weirdo’ and a ‘loner’. On 22nd January 2002, while on remand pending his trial for murder, Tony was found guilty of criminal damage and assessed by the Psychiatric Diversion Team at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court. Being described as “downcast, depressed and on the verge of tears”, they confirmed he was fit to stand trial but stated “Mr Hardy currently presents in a fragile state, he’s still suffering from alcohol withdrawal with depressive and suicidal thoughts consequent to the situation in which he finds himself in”. Transferred to Pentonville Prison and put on suicide watch, on 12th March 2002, in the interest of his wellbeing and safety, Tony was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and re-admitted to the Mornington Psychiatric Unit at the Huntley Centre, where he couldn’t be a danger to himself or others. But for the Police, having completed a thorough investigation, this murder case was a done-deal. (End) Or at least, it should have been. On 15th April 2002 at St Pancras Coroner’s Court, held before the Coroner Dr Stephen Chan, the Home Office pathologist Dr Freddy Patel gave his findings. The autopsy had found no evidence of poisoning or assault. The bite-mark, bruising and abrasions to her skin were not regarded as “marks of violence”. And although her head wound was consistent with a single blunt impact with broad hard surface like a wall, having possibly occurred owing to a stumble or collapse, the wound had not caused her death. Born with a defective heart, Dr Patel stated that her “cardiovascular system showed a severe coronary atheroma with a 40-60% occlusion in proximal anterior branch”. In short, she had died of heart failure during rough sex. Listed as “death by natural causes”, the coroner concluded that “the Police have conducted an investigation and although it is obvious that Mr Hardy is in need of psychiatric treatment, there is no evidence to suggest that he was responsible for the death of Sally Rose White”. The trial took less than fifteen minutes, the Police were not asked to give evidence, and although they took the very rare step of requesting a second autopsy be conducted, Dr Freddy Patel returned with the same conclusion – “heart failure”. The murder case collapsed, the charges were dropped and although he had been committed to a psychiatric unit, Anthony John Hardy was cleared of murder. As stated, the truth about The Camden Ripper may never be known, as the details are vague, some evidence only led to the best guesses of experts, and it’s hard to understand who he is, as he appeared to be a different person to different people at different times. There were very few answers, only questions. But by viewing this story from his perspective, it was clear that there were four distinct sides to the personality of Anthony Hardy; the alcoholic, the addict, the sadist and the maniac. (Tony) “Hello. My name is Tony and I am an alcoholic” (appreciative voices and a very light applause). OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Part two of this four-part series into The Camden Ripper continues next week. But if you’d like to know more about this case, stay tuned for some extra tit-bits, as well as a quiz, a biccie and cuppa with me. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporter who is Kate Wakefield, I thank you very much, and a thank you to Simon Monks and Mel for your very kind donations via the Supporter link in the show-notes. Shares in McVities and Mr Kipling have gone through the roof as I plunder the shelves and stock up for Christmas. Not that they’ll last till Christmas. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury (Courtesy of WikiCommons)
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN
Sir Bernard Spilsbury was an acclaimed pathologist and the father of forensic science whose most celebrated case made his name and changed the face of murder investigations forever. In Room 15 of Albion House at 55-57 New Oxford Street that a ghastly murder was supposedly concocted. But how solid was his evidence, and did it lead to an innocent man being executed?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of Albion House at 55-57 New Oxford Street, where Dr H H Crippen met his mistress, supposedly planned his wife's murder and (a few doors away) purchased the poison which would end his wife's life, is marked with a quail green triangle. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
SOURCES: To name a few...
Old Bailey Court Transcript - https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t19101011-74 As well as the British Newspaper Ardhive. MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about Sir Bernard Spilsbury; the acclaimed pathologist and father of forensic science whose most celebrated case made his name and changed the face of murder investigations forever. But how solid was his evidence, and did it lead to an innocent man being executed? Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 115: The Lethal Evidence of Sir Bernard Spilsbury. Today I’m standing on New Oxford Street, WC1; two roads north of the St Giles’ workhouse where Charlie Chirgwin’s life was ended by an officious little jobsworth, two roads south of Zakaria Bulhan’s delirious rampage in Russell Square, a few doors down from the deadly tidal wave at the Meux & Co brewery, and one street east of the bloody conclusion to the mummy’s boy’s killing spree - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated just shy of Tottenham Court Road tube station, unlike Oxford Street, New Oxford Street is a vague part of Bloomsbury where a multitude of people pass through every day, but no-one stops, as there’s no real shops. There are the usual branded things like a coffee place, a sushi place and a burger place, as well as a pub chain, a church and a pointlessly tacky tourist shop which sells stereotypically British crap covered in Union Jacks, all of which were made in China... but there’s no reason to head there or even to stay. At 55-57 New Oxford Street on the junction of Bloomsbury Street sits Albion House; a nine-storey glass-fronted eyesore on a small square block which rents out offices to an odd mishmash off small businesses, such as a dentist, an estate agent, an energy consultant, a radio engineer and even a darts-themed pub. More than a century ago, before its demolition, the original Albion House was a four-storey building with an identical purpose. In Room 15 was a small independent druggist called Munyon’s Remedies, a patent medicine company churning out a plethora of potions to put-pay to all kinds of ailments in an unregulated era, back when any old quack could concoct a wonder cure, regardless of whether it worked or not. During the January of 1910, being sat alone to brood, it was in that building that a small bespectacled man met his mistress, formed his deadly plan and a few doors away he purchased the poison to end his wife’s life. The trial made Sir Bernard Spilsbury a celebrity, his medical testimony became bulletproof, it changed the face of forensic science and it would become one of the world’s most infamous murder cases ever. And yet, it was here, in Room 15 of Albion House, that a ghastly murder was supposedly concocted. But how accurate was Sir Bernard’s evidence, and did his ego send an innocent man to his death? (interstitial) The characteristics of a successful serial-killer are an unquestionable self-belief, a supreme confidence to convince others and an unshakable arrogance in the face of conflicting opinion, as well as a hunger, a drive, a power, an ego and a selfishness to destroy other people’s lives in the pursuit of their own goals. Given his troubled background, his abandonment by his parents, his dubious education and his isolation throughout his life, it could be said that Sir Bernard Spilsbury had all necessary characteristics to become a highly respected pathologist, as well as a middle-class murderer, or maybe... he would become both? Bernard Henry Spilsbury was born on 16th May 1877, above his father’s chemist shop at 2 Regent Place in Leamington Spa, a spa-town in Warwickshire. Stemming from a long-line of working-class inn-keepers, his father James sought a loftier existence for his eldest son and pushed him to live his dream he never could. As the first-born son of James Spilsbury Jnr, being a young boy, Bernard adopted his father’s passion for science and his fascination for crime, as well as his ambition, his work-ethic and a need to be respected, but he also absorbed his father’s coldness, his arrogance and his lack of empathy. Educated privately at home – with no-one to interact with but his siblings, his tutor and the housemaids - Bernard made no friends, especially when (aged nine) his parents abandoned him to a boarding school for three years, a new world he was ill-equipped to deal with. Being quiet; he kept to himself, he resented others and – hearing only his own opinions - he became fixated by his own success, beliefs and superiority. But as his father expanded his business further, the family were often uprooted. In 1889, aged 12, they moved to Salford in Manchester. In 1890, aged 13, they moved to Crouch End in London, with Bernard briefly educated at University College School. And in 1892, aged 15, his father enrolled Bernard at Owen’s College in Manchester to study chemistry, physics and biology, as his family stayed behind in London. He had no friends, no family, no interest and no drive – and feeling isolated – he spent his time walking alone. In 1895, aged 18, James Jnr sent Bernard to study Natural Science at Magdalen College in Oxford to fulfil his father’s dream of becoming a doctor. Described as lazy, argumentative and ill-prepared, Bernard’s tutors said he was a moderate student who disliked being proved wrong, refused to read the texts properly and was unlikely to get even a third-class degree. In 1898, he passed with a second, but only just. It’s baffling to think that the future Home Office Pathologist and father of forensic science whose damning evidence would hang people’s lives on his every word was - at best - a ‘D-grade’ student... but he was. In September 1899, aged 23, having failed to get a scholarship at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, Bernard enrolled as a medical student at St Mary’s, with no plans, no interests, no medical speciality and no career. Compared to the other students, Spilsbury was unremarkable. Being an impressive man of six-foot two-inches tall, he stood out, but being cold and unassuming, he was later described by Professor Sir Sydney Smith as “very brilliant, but fallible and very very obstinate”. Although a dogged workaholic, being crippled by back pain, Bernard frequently abused painkillers. By his late twenties, he had lost his sense of smell (an invaluable tool for a medical professional). As a fifty-a-day smoker he developed circulatory problems. And having severed the tip of his right index finger, to remain useful, he had to retrain his hands to be ambidextrous, but a successful career in medicine looked unlikely. Later, in 1908, he married Edith (the daughter of a dentist), they had four children together and they lived in a nice house in Harrow-on-the Hill. In short, Bernard could have become just another doctor... ...and yet, it was at St Mary’s that he would meet Augustus Pepper and his life changed forever. August Joseph Pepper was the senior surgeon at St Mary’s who pushed the envelope of medical science and – as a noted Pathologist to the Home Office – was witness for the Director of Public Prosecutions. With pathology and forensic science still in its infancy and regarded by the medical establishment as ‘the beastly science’, as one of the few trusted experts, Pepper was in high demand at London’s murder trials. Being fascinated by Pepper, Bernard became his assistant, a menial role in which he prepared the bodies for autopsy, but every day was a revelation and he loved learning from his father figure. After two years, Bernard was appointed as surgical dresser to Pepper and side-by-side the two prepared evidence for trial. In November 1904, at Thames Police Court, Bernard made his first court appearance as expert witness to the prosecution in the murder of Emily Farmer; a shop assistant who (the Police surgeon stated) had died of suffocation having been gagged by robbers – a crime that warranted the lesser charge of manslaughter. Oddly - for such a solitary, arrogant and obstinate man like Bernard – in court, he found his true voice. By dressing smartly, speaking well and - never using fancy words to show-off his intellect - he impressed both the lawyers and the jurors by delivering a well-explained analysis of the medical facts in layman’s terms, defending the cross examination in a quiet convincing way and demolishing the Police surgeon’s theory. In a short trial, Bernard’s evidence was so lethal, that the robbers (Conrad Donovan & Charles Wade) were found guilty - not of robbery nor manslaughter - but of murder, and both were sentenced to death. Over the next few years, Bernard developed his experience, his knowledge and his techniques, he passed his second medical degree and became the resident Assistant Pathologist at St Mary’s, alongside Pepper. In July 1909, as August Pepper retired from St Mary’s and as the Pathologist to the Home Office, at the tender age of just thirty-three-years-old, Bernard Spilsbury became his successor. His first notable case as pathologist occurred on 12th July 1909, in the hair salon of Harrod’s, when twenty-year-old Horn Dalrymple ordered a dry shampoo from experienced hairstylist called Beatrice Clarke. Using a highly toxic but entirely legal mix of carbon tetrachloride and carbon bisulphate, a potion stronger than chloroform, although it had been safely used for the six years prior, it resulted in the young girl’s death. At Kensington Coroner’s Court, Bernard proved to the jury that the shampoo was fatal and Beatrice Clarke and the salon’s manager (William Eardley) were charged with manslaughter. Bernard was a lethal witness; his knowledge was exhaustive, his evidence was trusted, his testimony was infallible and the jurors hung on his every word, like it was the word of God. But the biggest case of his life was yet to come... ...and it would change forensic science forever. Prior to Spilsbury, forensics was an afterthought in a murder investigation as the Police relied exclusively on witnesses, statements, evidence and a copper’s instinct, but science was just wishy-washy nonsense. Being barely out of the Victorian era - where a constable was more of a moral guardian than a detective - it was not uncommon for the Police to re-arrange a dead body to preserve its dignity, to wash away any bloodstains for fear of offending any passers-by, or to send a victim’s clothes to the cleaners before being examined by a pathologist. Crime scenes were rarely secure; evidence was lost, nothing was preserved, and even in court, many pathologist’s theories would be debunked as lazy, inaccurate and arrogant. Bernard Spilsbury would change all of that... and he would make his name in one infamous case. Born in Coldwater (Michigan) on 11th September 1862, Hawley Harvey Crippen was a small meek man of just five foot three inches tall and a slender seven stone in weight; with bookish spectacles, a neat mop of thinning ginger hair on his head and a Walrus-like moustache which was too big for his tiny round face. As a softly spoken and old-fashioned doctor, he specialised in ‘ears, noses and throats’ and was a qualified dentist, but being easily bored, he often flitted between different career paths when boredom struck. In 1894, Crippen met and married Corrine Henrietta Turner, known as ‘Cora’; a striking music-hall singer who went by the stage-name of ‘Belle Elmore’. Being taller and sturdier than her tiny besotted beau, the two were an ill-matched couple from the start; as whereas she always strode, he hid in her shadow, and being little more than her henpecked husband, she had many affairs and her true love was back in Chicago. In 1897, they moved to 34 Store Street in Bloomsbury (London), but with Crippen not sufficiently qualified to practice as an English doctor, he earned a modest living concocting homeopathic remedies for a patent medicine company called Munyon’s Remedies, based in Albion House at 55-57 New Oxford Street. The building was fortuitous, as being a multi-occupancy premises for small anonymous businesses, as he sat alone in Room 15 devising a range of supposed remedies for common complaints like nausea, colds and nerves – by mixing natural and synthetic ingredients like willow, eucalyptus, cocaine and morphine with a large dollop of sugar – it gave Crippen the opportunity to keep a jealous eye on Cora and her affairs. As Albion House was also the home of the Music Hall Ladies Guild (where they were treasurers), Droeut’s Institute for the Deaf (with Crippen was the patron) and here he also “managed” his wife’s singing career. In 1905, they moved into 39 Hilldrop Crescent in Camden (North London). With their eleven-year marriage in tatters, but unwilling to divorce owing to Crippen’s traditional values and religious beliefs, the shameful lies of their illicit liaisons struggled on for another five years, and as Cora started another affair in their home with one of their lodgers, Crippen began an affair with the Deaf Institute’s typist - Ethel Le Neve. What happened next is mysterious and incredulous, but it would slip the noose around Crippen’s neck. On 19th January 1910, at a chemists called Lewis & Burrows at 108 New Oxford Street directly opposite Albion House, as a herbalist who had visited there many times before, Crippen purchased five grains of hydrobromide of hyoscine; an entirely legal drug (which is still used today) for nausea, travel sickness and as a cough suppressant, which may cause euphoria and – like many drugs - in larger doses it can be fatal. On 31st January 1910, after a party at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, at which neither of their moods were described as “friendly”, Cora disappeared, leaving behind many of her personal belongings. On 2nd February, Crippen wrote a letter in Cora’s handwriting resigning her position as treasurer, stating she had gone to California to nurse a sick relative. On 20th February, Crippen’s mistress – Ethel Le Neve – moved into 39 Hilldrop Crescent and (at a function for the Music Hall Ladies Benevolent Fund) she was seen wearing Cora’s furs and jewellery. With Cora’s loved one’s growing concerned, on 24th March 1910, Crippen sent a telegram stating that she had died in Los Angeles, and as no-one could find her, her friends notified Scotland Yard. Believing this to be nothing but a domestic and bowing to the pressure of the Press who asked how a woman could go missing for six months without the Police lifting a single finger, Crippen was interviewed on 8th July 1910 by Chief Inspector Walter Dew, a perfunctory search of the house was conducted and Crippen admitted that he had fabricated the letter and made up the story of Cora’s death, as he was deeply ashamed that she had left him, having gone back to Chicago to be with ‘true love’ - Bruce Miller. With the press picking holes in this sensational story, on 11th July, Inspector Dew went to Albion House only to discover that Crippen & Le Neve had fled to Antwerp and boarded a boat to Canada. That day, under public scrutiny, the Police conducted a thorough search of the house including the coal-cellar, but they found nothing. Two days later, under that same brick floor of the coal-cellar, they discovered a set of hair curlers, a tuft of bleached hair and the lower half of a torso wrapped in Crippen’s pyjama jacket. Initially inconclusive whether it was animal or human, although its decayed internal organs were found in situ, the body was missing its head, limbs, bones and sex-organs. The only identifiable part was a six-by-seven-inch piece of flesh (possibly from the upper thigh and lower buttock), but the victim’s age, height, weight, gender and identity were impossible to establish from such a small specimen. On 31st July 1910, Crippen & Le Neve were arrested onboard a liner, and returned to London to face trial for murder. The murderous case of Dr Crippen was front-page news across the world. With the press and the public voracious for details but critical of the Police’s early ineptitude, so needing a conviction, Inspector Dew sent the torso to the Home Office Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury and out of retirement Mr August Pepper. The Police only had very circumstantial evidence; the torso was human, the pyjama top was Crippen’s, the hair-strands matched Cora’s natural colour and Crippen had admitted to fabricating two letters and telegram, having fled to Canada with his mistress. It was very suspicious, but did not constitute evidence. All they had was a small piece of skin with a very small scar... but forensic science would save the day. The five-day trial began at the Old Bailey on Tuesday 18th October 1910, with August Pepper rebuffing the defence’s assertions that the skin - which showed few signs of decay having been buried in a waterlogged soil for six months - had been preserved in an excellent state owing to quick lime in the clay. On Thursday 20th, William Willcox the Home Office’s Senior Scientific Analyst confirmed a lethal dose of hydrobromide of hyoscine in the torso’s liver, as purchased by Crippen. And that same day, being elegantly dressed and eloquently spoken, Spilsbury put the final nail in Crippen’s coffin, by matching the scar to an identical scar that Cora’s younger sister (Teresa Hunn) had seen across Cora’s abdomen, having had an ovariotomy. The cross-examination of the defence was terrible, Ethel Le Neve blamed Crippen and with this creepy-little man unwisely giving evidence – as the medical experts had proven a date, a place, a method and an identity with just a single piece of skin - after only twenty-seven minutes of deliberation - Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was found guilty and sentenced to death. With his appeal rejected by the Home Secretary Winston Churchill, on 23rd November 1910, Crippen was executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison. Wearing a top-hat, spats and striped trousers, as the media darling of the trial, Bernard became the first Honorary Pathologist to the Home Office, an honorary Member of the CID, a celebrity, a household name and – knighted in 1923 - Sir Bernard Spilsbury was highly respected in the law courts and his evidence was hailed “as lethal as it was bulletproof”. In 1923, he created the ‘murder bag’ which revolutionised police investigations and forensic science. And across his fifty-year career he would conduct more than twenty thousand autopsies, providing key pieces of evidence and resulting in hundreds of convictions in some of Britain’s most infamous murder cases. Sir Bernard Spilsbury was hailed as brilliant and his testimony was untouchable, as even if it was doubted by other experts, to every jury, his word became gospel. But as a cold and arrogant prima-donna who believed that he was truly infallible, some of those convictions are still being disputed today. Infamous cases like Thompson & Bywaters, Frederick Seddon, John George Smith, John Robinson, David Greenwood, Sydney Fox, Herbert Armstrong, Jeannie Baxter and Albert Dearnley, to name but a few, at whose trials; suicides were disproved, bruises vanished, evidence was omitted and the presence of arsenic would magically materialise (when other medical experts had failed to find a single trace). Even in the case of Emily Beilby Kaye, he implied she had died by a blow to the head, only her head was never found. Sir Bernard Spilsbury was also the pathologist on cases we’ve covered before, like Dutch Leah, Louis Voisin, the Charlotte Street robbery, the Blackout Ripper, and – of course – Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. Several issues came up at the trial, but all were expertly defended by Willcox, Pepper and Spilsbury. Firstly; William Willcox admitted he’d only found that fatal dose of hyoscine in the liver after he was told that Crippen had purchased five grains of the drug from Lewis & Burrows, and its bottle was never found. Secondly; August Pepper stated he didn’t find the scar until two months after the autopsy and only after he had heard about Cora’s ovariotomy. And thirdly; Spilsbury refuted any claim that it wasn’t an operation scar on her abdomen, even though the skin has no belly-button, pubic hairs or sebaceous glands. Experts for the defence stated it was a skin-fold or a stretch mark, but there was no evidence of cutting or healing. So, did the Police, aided by Pepper & Spilsbury manipulate the facts to bring about a successful conviction in a publicly scrutinised and sensational case, which was based on circumstantial evidence? Consider this... Crippen was an unlikely suspect; small, meek and hen-pecked with no convictions or history of violence. The poison was an odd choice, given that he had regular access to cocaine and morphine. The torso was only found by the Police on the third search of the house, with a sample of her hair and his pyjama jacket. But if this mild-mannered man had hacked-up his wife’s body and successfully disposed of her head, limbs and bones elsewhere (none of which have never been found) and expertly removed any clue as to her age, sex or weight, why did he bury half a torso under in his own cellar? Why was the only clue to her identity a supposed ovarian scar? And – if Crippen was right about Cora leaving him for her true-love - if the torso wasn’t Cora, then where did it come from? Perhaps a grave, a hospital, or maybe a mortuary? And then consider this. In October 2007, Dr David Foran of Michigan State University subjected the scar tissue to DNA testing and compared it to the mitochondrial DNA of three of Cora’s surviving great-nieces. The DNA proved that the torso was not Cora Crippen... in fact, it wasn’t even a woman, but a man. (End) The 1940’s would prove to be a difficult decade for Sir Bernard. Addicted to painkillers, crippled by two strokes and chronically depressed - owing to the collapse of his marriage, the death of his sister and both of his sons - his mental health was in sharp decline, as his work became all he had left. Having humiliated so many experts, he had very few friends, and now, aged seventy, he was making mistakes in his autopsies. On the evening of 17th December 1947 at 7:30pm, Sir Bernard entered his small bleak laboratory on the second floor of University College Hospital. He hung up his hat, tidied up his bench, destroyed a few files and a photo of himself and his wife, and – being sat on a cheap wooden chair - he turned on a gas tap. At 8:10pm, smelling gas, a laboratory technician found Bernard collapsed and unconscious, but with his pulse faint he was declared dead at 9:10pm. Many options were considered as to why he had died; natural causes owing to heart disease or accidental death as he had no sense of smell, but with his friend - Sir Bentley Purchase – conducting the autopsy, at the inquest, it was declared that Sir Bernard Spilsbury had died by “suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed”. He was cremated at Golder’s Green on 22nd December 1947 with only twenty-two mourners in attendance. With both men dead, the truth about Crippen’s guilt goes to their graves. But if Sir Bernard Spilsbury did fabricate evidence for his own needs, let us ask two last questions; can we really trust his findings in any of these cases, and – if we can’t - how many innocents were executed at the hands of his lethal evidence? OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. After an advert for something you’ve probably never considered buying, we have lots of fascinating details about the case, plus a little quiz, some ranting and rambling by me over something pointless, some obsessing about Eva (obviously) and then I shall press stop. Good riddance! Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who is Jessica Peters, I thank you, your goodies are in the post and should be with you soon. Feel free to make all of your friends jealous. Plus a thank you to you and you and you and you and you and you and you.... but not you, cos you’re... urrrggghhh! Joke! Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #114: The Incompetence of John Carragher (Frederick Ernest Monk)18/11/2020
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The white building on the left is 17-19 whitcomb Street, WC2. The first floor window to the right was the office of Frederick Monk, where he was murdered
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN:
On Friday 29th March 1968 at roughly 4:20pm, 56-year-old wages clerk Frederick Monk was murdered in his locked first-floor office at 17-19 Whitcomb Street, WC2, For the police, the death of Frederick Monk was a baffling mystery; it was either a robbery only with nothing stolen, a brutal attack only with no motive, or the hate-filled killing of a totally innocent man? But which was it?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of F Cope & Co at 17-19 Whitcomb Street, WC2 where Frederick Monk was killed is located where the fusia triangle is, near Charing Cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government Licence 3.0, where applicable.
Crime scene photos taken of the exterior of 17 Whitcomb Street and F Cope & Co, with two comparison photos taken recently by myself
Crime scene photos taken inside 17 Whitcomb Street; the ground floor entrance and stairs, the landing showing two office doors (to the left is Frederick Monk's) and two layouts of the ground and first floor created by the police for the trial
Left: John's rented lodging at 25 St George Square SW1. Top middle: The Queen's Arms pub in Warwick Way (Pimlico). Bottom Middle: The Brittania Dwellings in Hoxton where Frederick was born. Middle Right (top): The guest house Frederick lived at 32 Tooting Bec Gardens in Streatham. Middle Right (bottom): Duchess of Clarence Public House on 171 Vauxhall Bridge Road.
Several crime-scene photos showing the cashier's office, the body in situ and autopsy photos showing Frederick's injuries
Credits: The Murder Mile UK 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 as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0.
SOURCES: This case was researched using the original declassified police investigationj files, held at teh National Archives as well as many reliable sources.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about Frederick Monk; an inoffensive wages clerk at a small decorating firm who was bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant inside of a locked office. The attack was brutal, but nothing was stolen. So, was this a robbery, a murder, or something else? Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 114: The Incompetence of John Carragher. Today I’m standing in Whitcomb Street, WC2; one street south of the Chinatown nightclub where David Knight’s death sparked a gangland hit, two streets south-east of a back-alley in Piccadilly where the Blackout Ripper’s killing spree was cut short, one street west of the attack on Desmond O’Beirne, and a few doors east of the murder at the Royal Automobile Club – coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated within the shadow of the National Gallery, Whitcomb Street is an anonymous little side-street within a few seconds walk of Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square, which is rightly avoided by tourists and is only used by the locals and the cab-drivers as a cut-through from Wardour Street to Pall Mall. Like many parts of the West End, Whitcomb Street wasn’t designed, it evolved in an ad-hoc way, hence this gloomy one-way-road consists of a monstrous mess of new builds for big businesses like Pay Pal and Thistle Hotels, but also some little family-run shops such as a newsagents, a sandwich bar and (of course) a massage parlour, all hidden behind a line of four storey flat-fronted houses from late 1800’s. Being within sight of the horrible chimes of the Swiss Centre glockenspiel, the squeal of over-sugared sprogs wailing into M&M World and the perpetual chin-scratch as anyone over 40 thinks “wasn’t that Pret, the former sandwich shop owned by glam-rock pop star and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter?”, (yes, it was), Whitcomb Street is the place that London forgot. But then again, it always has been, as people often forget that it’s the little businesses that need to exist to keep the West End running. Having changed little since 1968, behind the white walls of 17-19 Whitcomb Street stood a decorator’s firm called F Cope & Co, a busy and respected employer of local tradesmen; with a handy Do It Yourself shop on the left of the ground floor, the entrance to Hobhouse Court on the right (leading to a timber yard, a plumber’s merchant and an ironmongers behind) and between both was a street-door leading up to the four offices on the first floor for the managing directors, the secretary and the wages clerk. With a steady passage of workmen heading off to jobs, although there was a constant cacophony of noise owing to the friendly banter, the movement of building materials and the bashing of hammers, it was a pretty uneventful place. Except, on Friday afternoons between 4pm and 5pm, when all of the labourers would receive their weekly wages. And what started as just a regular day, ended in tragedy. As it was here, on Friday 29th March 1968 at roughly 4:10pm, that a mild-mannered wages-clerk called Frederick Monk was murdered. But who would want his dead, and why? (Interstitial) For the police, the death of Frederick Monk was a baffling mystery; it was either a robbery only with nothing stolen, a brutal attack only with no motive, or the hate-filled killing of an innocent man? Frederick Ernest Monks known as Freddie was born in 1911 in Hoxton, East London, as the eldest son of Frederick Snr (a druggist) and Ada (a teacher) with one older sister also called Ada. Wisely waiting until their mid/late-thirties to raise a family when their incomes and homelife had a greater stability, Freddie’s childhood was happy, loving and - although working class - they never needed to struggle. Having passed his school certificate with flying colours, with a passion for maths Freddie was a bright and meticulous young man who was widely regarded by his pals as honest, reliable and trustworthy. As the epitome of his parents, always being sweet and polite, Freddie was described by everyone who knew him as one of the nicest people you could hope to meet - a gentleman who wouldn’t harm a fly. Raised to appreciate the simple things in life, such as; a hearty bowl of porridge for breakfast, a cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch and a homecooked meal for tea, he was never a man of extravagance. Renting a single bed in a Streatham guest-house, he wore practical suits (which were always clean and pressed with matching socks, ties and hankies), the short crescent of hair around his ears was neatly trimmed each week by his girlfriend of several years, and he rarely went out. Instead he enjoyed the solitude of reading a good book, supping a nice ale and listening to classical music on the wireless. Being barely five foot three and as little as he was portly, having broken his left leg many moons ago, although he had a very obvious limp, he never let it get him down, as wherever he walked, he whistled. As a 56-year-old bachelor of modest means, for the last nine years he had worked as wages clerk at F Cope & Co. He was dependable, precise, friendly and (as a scrupulous man whose work ran like a well-oiled machine) his employers and the tradesmen respected him and all knew what to expect. Friday 29th March 1968 was a very regular day. It was pay-day for the firm’s labourers, so as twenty-five men in paint and plaster-splattered overalls milled about in the timber yard, Freddie prepared the wage packets. At 2pm, as per usual, he entered William Deacon’s Bank at nearby 9 Waterloo Place, withdrew £639 (£11,000 today), evenly spread the bundles between the seven pockets of his brown pressed suit so they didn’t bulge, and (with his weak leg dragging behind), at 2:35pm, he entered F Cope & Co via the street door on Whitcomb Street. He wasn’t followed, harassed or unnerved. At 4pm, Terence Bacon (the company’s co-director) passed Freddie on the stairs, where he stated “I’m just going off to the Post Office Mr Bacon, I shan’t be long”. With the St Martin’s Street branch one road away, Freddie returned at 4:10pm, as witnessed by Harold Payne (the co-director) and overheard by Alexandra Hilgert (the typist), all who had adjoining offices on the first floor. In his pockets were six sheets of postage stamps worth £5 and a £25 float in assorted change. Again, he wasn’t followed. Behind a plain door marked ‘Private’, Freddie’s office was a small eight-foot-square room with a single locked window, a door with a Yale lock (so when it closed, it locked itself) and there was no entry from the offices on either side. As expected, it was neat and organised, with a set of cabinets, a typewriter, a safe and by the window (where the light was good) a desk with a set of drawers underneath. The pay-day routine ran like clockwork. At 4:20pm, with the supervisors and foremen taking priority over the charge-hands and the labourers, one-by-one (never in groups) each tradesman knocked on the locked door, they identified themselves through the frosted glass panel (as although F Cope & Co always re-hired familiar faces, as a growing business with so many jobs to fulfil, new workmen were needed) they waited to be greeted and to be let in by Freddie. At his desk, by the window, he ticked their name off on a spreadsheet and handed each man a pre-sealed wage-packet from his drawer. Every Friday was the exactly same... except for that Friday. At 4:20pm, Raymond McShee (the painting supervisor) who ran a paint-store outback, knocked on the door, but got no reply, so he returned to the timber yard and waited, as more workmen congregated. By 4:45pm, as a small group formed on the first-floor, knocking louder but to no avail, with no sign of Freddie, Terence tracked-down a spare set of keys to his wage clerk’s office to pay the worker’s wages. At 4:50pm, Terence unlocked the door. At 4:51pm, Raymond called the Police. At 4:56pm, PC Albert Wright arrived at Whitcomb Street and sealed off the crime scene. And although an ambulance was called, at 7:45pm, Dr Geoffrey Dymond of West End Central certified that Frederick Monk was dead. Inside his locked office, the door showed no signs of forced entry, the window was shut from within, the cabinets hadn’t been ransacked and the safe was unlocked. But nothing was stolen; not the £639 in the safe, the £800’s worth of wage-packets in the drawer, the £25 float, or the £5 sheets of stamps. His spreadsheet and pen were just how he had left it; neat and organised on the desk by the window. Only, Freddie wasn’t been missing. He had been right there, in his office, all along. Slumped in a crumpled heap, with his legs all twisted, Freddie was found lying face down on the floor. Scattered about his buckled body were several sheets of stamps, his open pocket-book and a few strewn coins, as his killer had pulled each of his pockets inside-out, leaving the white material exposed. Freddie’s death was brutal and sadistic. Whoever had murdered Freddie had caught him off guard and had attacked him from behind, as with no defensive wounds, a swift blow from a heavy blunt tool had fractured his right shoulder. Disoriented, as this semi-disabled man staggered unsteadily to his feet, his killer swung (what was believed to be) a carpenter’s hammer hard across his head, which impacted behind his left ear and splintered his skull. And as the barely conscious man collapsed onto the floor, lying prone, immobile and helpless – with the inch-wide steel ball of the hammer – his killer had caved in the top of his skull two times more, as a steady stream of blood pooled about his head and torso. His death was slow and lonely, as trapped inside the secure walls of his office, being paralysed and barely-conscious, Freddie was unable to cry, scream or even to call for help. His last moments alive were spent in a terrifying solitude, so by the time the door was opened, Freddie was already dead. No fingerprints were found except Freddie’s. Nothing was stolen. No-one suspicious was seen entering or exiting the premises and there was no sign of a break in. Of the twenty-three staff and tradesmen in the yard and offices at the time of the murder, every known person was accounted for and they all had a corroborated alibi. Nobody heard a struggle; nobody saw his attacker and no weapon was found. The Police were baffled by this violent attack with no obvious motive. Was it a murder made to look like a robbery, a robbery made to look like a murder, or was it personal, business, or something else? Whoever had done this was angry, desperate and would have been bloodied. But then, who would want to murder such a lovely man as Frederick Monk, a true gentleman who wouldn’t harm a fly? His name was John Carragher... ...he knew the location, the victim and his routines. With his plan in place, he would enter the premises without a key, he would attack without a sound, leave no fingerprints, weapons or clues, and would escape a locked room without being seen by anyone, leaving the detectives baffled as to his motive. And yet, although he may seem like a criminal mastermind? In truth, he was truly incompetent. John Carragher was born in Dublin on 24th January 1944 but was raised in the town of Castleblaney on the border of Northern Ireland. Described as a badly behaved boy with jittery limbs, grinding teeth and wide staring eyes, his criminal career began aged 10 when he stole from his family’s farm. Educated at Castleblaney School, he hated his teachers, was often truant and unable to focus, he quit with no qualifications. Later, it was found that he had an IQ of just 84, half way between average and retarded. Aged 13, he ran away from home. Aged 14, he enlisted in the Boy’s Brigade of the Inniskilling Fusiliers until he was discharged on medical grounds. And aged 16, as his own parents had testified in court that he was “beyond control”, he was sent to Borstal and he never saw his family ever again. As a restless, semi-literate boy who’s right leg had been broken and set so often that (just like Frederick Monk) it had left him with a limp – burdened by an unruly uncouth attitude – he survived on a series of low-paid short-term jobs as a painter and labourer, all interspersed with frequent stints in prison. 16th April 1960, aged 16, he was bound-over for one-year at Liverpool Magistrates Court for stealing wallets. 9th May, charged with four counts of theft, he was sent to St Patrick’s Borstal in Londonderry, but having been unsuccessfully “retrained” and found guilty of two further counts of theft, on 21st July 1960 he was sent to prison for sixteen weeks. That’s three convictions in just four months. Moving to England in February 1962, although he planned to start a new life under several aliases such as John Callaghan and John Cash, he struggled to hold down a part-time job and - as a hopelessly inept thief who was easily caught owing bad planning and a violent temper – he often returned to prison. 1st March 1962, he stole a handbag from Crewe Station and was fined £15. 11th March 1962, charged with burglary, he was sent back to borstal for ten months. Five weeks after his release, charged with shop-breaking and larceny in Balham, he was sentenced to four more months in prison. Three months later, charged again with burglary, he served thirty months. And three weeks later, he served a further thirteen months for burglary, and whilst in Wandsworth Prison, he attacked an inmate with a hammer. Released from prison on 21st December 1967, as a 24-year-old drifter with no money, no family and without the skills to hold down a career, the guidance to be good, or the intelligence to execute and plan a flawless robbery, John Carragher made a conscious decision to lead a normal productive life. On 1st January 1968, he was hired as a decorator at F Cope & Co. Sadly the job wouldn’t last, as having turned up six hours late and with his work described as only “satisfactory”, he was kept on as Raymond McShee was one man short, but by the end of the month, he had been handed his cards and laid off. Over the next three months, he flitted between jobs, wearing his usual blue cardigan, blue trousers, black shirt and black shoes, all of which were flecked with paint, and (as the tools of his trade) he carried a navy-blue tool-bag full of brushes, spanners, hacksaws and a sixteen-inch steel hammer. During the twenty-five days that he had worked for F Cope & Co, he met Frederick Monk five times; once on the day he was hired, thrice on subsequent Fridays to receive his wage, and once on the day he left, to be handed his final pay. They never met socially, they had no prior connections and as Freddie wasn’t involved in the hiring or firing of the tradesman, John had no reason to hate him. And yet, on Friday 29th March 1968, John Carragher would brutally batter Frederick Monk to death. But why? If this was robbery, then why did John leave £639 in the safe, £800 in wage slips, a £25 float and £5 in stamps? If this was a murder, why attack him during the day, in his office, at a place they both were known, when Frederick lived alone? And why did John empty all of Freddie’s pockets? What was he after? What did he take? An what was so important it drove him to kill for the very first time? John Carragher wasn’t never a man with a plan; he was an angry, restless and impatient boy with very little intelligence, very few morals and an inability to not get caught owing to his own incompetence. On Sunday 17th March, two weeks prior, in the Queen’s Arms pub in Pimlico, John spilled his whole plan to George Copp, a painter and ex-con he had met the night before. George wasn’t interested and the two men fell out when John’s sexual advances were rejected by George’s girlfriend (Jeanette), at which John shouted “even if I have to wait a few months, I’ll get you when you’re by yourself, and nobody will know what happened to you”, all of which was overheard by an off-duty Policeman. On the morning of Friday 29th March, the day of Frederick’s death, carrying his navy-blue tool-bag and wearing his usual painter’s scrubs, John left his small rented lodging in Mary Sexton’s boarding house at 25 St George’s Street in Pimlico. His rent of £3 and 10 shillings was due the next day, and although he had the money to pay for it, he told the landlady he planned to go to Ireland for a little holiday first. Miraculously still employed, even though his attendance was poor and his work was only satisfactory, having been hired by Woodman’s (a rival firm) to paint the walls of 214 Oxford Street by Oxford Circus, at 12:45pm that day, John Carragher said to a colleague “it’s a beautiful day, I think I’m going to have some fun”. And with that, he walked out, leaving behind his final day’s pay and his tool-kit... ...but tucked into the waist-band of his trousers, he had stashed a sixteen-inch hammer. And although its heavy rounded head was sticky with spots of wet paint, soon it would be spattered with blood. Where he went? We don’t know. What he did? We don’t know. But we do know what he didn’t do. Had he planned this robbery carefully, he’d have known that Freddie’s pay-day routine always ran like well-oiled machine, it’s what made him so respected and trusted as the wages clerk for F Cope & Co. At 2pm, every Friday, Freddie would collect about £600 from William Deacon’s Bank in Waterloo Place, he’d evenly spread the notes between the pockets of his brown pressed suit and (with his crippled leg dragging behind) it would take him ten minutes to limp back to Whitcomb Street. With a disguise, a surprise and a few choice words, right there and then, John could have stolen the lot... but he didn’t. At 4pm, as per usual, Freddie headed off to the Post Office in St Martin’s Street to collect six sheets of stamps and a £25 float in assorted change. It was only one road away from F Cope & Co and the side streets were dark and secluded. So, again, there and then, he could have stolen the lot... but he didn’t. It wasn’t for a brilliant reason, or owing to a personal beef, he just didn’t think of it. John Carragher wasn’t caught because he was too clever, he only got away with it owing to pure luck and coincidence. At 4:10pm, as expected, Freddie returned to F Cope & Co and entered via the street door, as followed by John. The staff were in their offices, the tradesmen were in the yard, no-one was on the first-floor landing and John was just another paint-spattered workman milling around and waiting for his wages. So, how did John get into Freddie’s locked office? Simple. He knocked. (Knocking) Why did Freddie open the door? Easy. He knew him. (John – “Hi Freddie, it’s John Carragher”) But why did Freddie he let John in when he didn’t work there anymore? Well, Freddie wouldn’t know that as he didn’t do the hiring and firing, so as the crews changed every week and mistakes got made, the only way to check it was on his spreadsheet. (John – “Ah, that’s strange. I should be on the sheet”). And as both Freddie and John entered the locked office, as the door closed, the Yale lock clicked shut. With the door marked as ‘Private’, the landing empty, the other office doors closed, and the workmen patently waiting in the yard till Freddie was ready, no-one would disturb them for at least five minutes. John didn’t hate Freddie, he barely knew him, but he needed money and Freddie was in the way. Keen to get to the root of the problem and to work out why John (whose name he recognised) wasn’t on his list, as Freddie leaned over his spreadsheet, from behind, John attacked him with the hammer. The first strike struck Freddie’s right shoulder sending him slumping onto the desk with an unexpected and confusing pain. Struggling to steady himself with the wasted muscles of his crippled left leg, before Freddie could even stand or scream, John struck again, smashing the half-kilo hammer across the back of his head, splitting his skull from right ear to eye, so as the brute force of the blow spun his body 180 degrees, as his legs buckled under him, Freddie collapsed in a crumpled messy heap. Freddie meant nothing to John, he didn’t know him and he didn’t care, so to ensure that this only witness would never identify him, with two fast hard blows, John struck Freddie over the back of head with the heavy curved ball of the hammer. So hard were the strikes that his skull split open, his blood pooled, his brain swelled and – lying face down on the floor – it smashed his nose and eye-socket. With blood in his throat, Freddie lived for a few more minutes but lay paralysed as John pulled his pockets inside-out and searched for the one thing he wanted – the key to the safe. He was so fixated on finding it, he missed the wage-packets, the float and the stamps. Had he looked, he would have seen that the key was in the lock, the money was in the safe and the safe was open... but he didn’t. At 4:20pm, Raymond McShee knocked on the door to get the wages for his crew, but got no reply. Inside, hunched over Freddie, John panicked, he waited till Raymond had left and fled empty-handed. His escape was simple, as leaving via the quiet street-door rather than busy back-yard, no-one noticed another tradesman exiting this well-known painting and decorating firm, spattered with stains and holding a hammer, on pay-day. So, by the time that Freddie was found, he was already dead... ...but it was John’s lack of planning which became his downfall (End) With no witnesses, fingerprints, weapon or obvious motive, the police took a logical approach to the case and interviewed every current and former employee of F Cope & Co. Everyone was accounted for... except one. Searching his lodging, they found his clothes, shoes and a towel, all smeared in blood. The next day, John had fled to Belfast; did a little shopping, watched Cool Hand Luke, flew back on 2nd April and was arrested one week later, as he sat having a pint at the Duchess of Clarence pub. When asked why he’d fled the country, he said; “I didn’t, I went to Ireland because it was a nice weekend” and although he bragged to the police that he had spent £150, we know that nothing was stolen. The decorator, George Copp (who – two weeks prior - had already informed the police that a man had propositioned him regarding a robbery at F Cope & Co) positively identified John. During his interview, not being the sharpest of tools, John said “I didn’t kill Freddie Monk at Copes”, even though the Police hadn’t mentioned either the victim’s name or the location. And although no weapon was found, John Carragher was tried at the Old Bailey on the 24th June 1968. He pleaded ‘not guilty’ to both robbery and murder, charges of which – just three years earlier – may have resulted in a death sentence, but with capital punishment having been abolished, on 9th July 1968 he was sentenced to life in prison. He served his time, his whereabouts are unknown and whether he has adopted a new alias is uncertain. All we do know is that for the sake of a few pounds and a little holiday, a good man called Frederick Monk was murdered. He was sweet, polite and respected. The only reason he was died was because of where he worked and the only reason he died was because of the incompetence of John Carragher. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Up next, we have lots of extra details about this case, we have a quiz, a chat about team, possibly a moment when I shall grumble about a person or boat going by, and this shall all be consumed over a nice cuppa tea and a little biccie or two. Probably two. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Kimberlee Anderson and Lisa Morgan, I thank you both, with an extra thank you to Mugworr who donated to the Murder Mile cake and coot fund via Supporter app in the show-notes. I thank you all. Plus a welcome to all new listeners and a thank you to all long-term listeners. You’re sadists! All of you! Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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To the left is the curved stone wall in Trafalgar Square where Lukas & Luis were standing prior to the attack and to the right is the stone bollard where Desmond fell having been knocked unconscious
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN
On Saturday 3rd June 2017 at 12:24am, in London's bustling Trafalgar Square, as 50-year-old Desmond O’Beirne was heading home after a night out in the West End, he made a very innocent and simple request from a total stranger... 37 seconds later, his life was over.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of the norther terrace of Trafalgar Square where Lukas Atunes & Luis Abella punched and kicked 50-year-old Desmond O'Beirne and where he collapsed is marked with a lime green triangle. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
SOURCES: To name but a few.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-47170452 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/harrods-homeless-man-killed-trafalgar-square-desmond-obeirne-trial-old-bailey-a8769216.html https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-london-43896510/cctv-shows-desmond-o-beirne-killing-in-trafalgar-square https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/spaniard-admits-taking-part-in-death-beating/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47170452?intlink_from_url=& https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/desmond-obeirne-murder-appeal-trafalgar-square-london_uk_5acb7330e4b09d0a1195ce1f https://www.irishpost.com/news/man-guilty-manslaughter-irishman-desmond-obeirne-central-london-assault-162714 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/21/harrods-workers-admit-attacking-homeless-man-who-died https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6682865/Harrods-worker-22-knocked-father-51-one-punch-jailed-three-years.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8_ATDSIRi0 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about a good decent man who was no bother to anyone when made a very innocent request from a stranger in a public place. It’s something which happens every day in every town and city, but from the moment he spoke that first word, his life was over within seconds. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 113: The Last 37 Seconds of Desmond O’Beirne. Today I’m standing in Trafalgar Square, WC2; one street south-west of the Baby Batterer of Bedfordbury, one street south of the identikit killing at the old curiosity shop, one street west of the hotel where James Forbes McCallum spent his last night of freedom before his bungled robbery of the Coach & Horses pub, and just one road west of the “justifiable homicide” of Ali Fahmy Bey - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated between Covent Garden, The Strand and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square is a grand public square commemorating the Battle of Trafalgar, which (like most British places) glorifies our victories and vilifies those with titles, but ignores our defeats, the true heroes or the lessons we have yet to learn. Made famous as the site of Nelson’s Column, as well as two fountains to Admirals Jellycoe and Beatty and three plinths to a King, a General and a Major-General (whose accolades are largely forgotten having not featured recently in a Netflix series), most visitors are ignorant of its history as this is a place to pop, perch or protest. It’s where bored tourists scoff that great British delicacy – the McDonalds, grown adults climb on the London Lions like over-sugared babies, angry idiots pointlessly scream at the Police (rather than at the Politicians who are miles away in their tax-payer-funded country-retreats) and a gaggle of baffled Star Wars nerds who are shocked to see that ‘The Great Master Yoda’ floating before them wears Nike, smokes Marlboro, speaks Albanian and often engages in fist-fights with a Wookie, a Spiderman and a Harry Potter. At the north end of Trafalgar Square is the National Gallery; a grand stone-columned Grade I listed building with a knee-high wall and a strip of grass out-front, where visitors often relax and - as a public place - they can sit in safety with their space and privacy respected. Occasionally a stranger may interact - whether to smile, apologise or to ask for a few coins - but their approach is often harmless and brief. For one man, all he asked for was a spare cigarette... nothing more... but seconds later, his life was stubbed out. As it was here, on Saturday 3rd June 2017, that Desmond O’Beirne made a very innocent request, but while the whole world was distracted by terrorists, we forgot about the real evil which lurks within. (Interstitial) Desmond O’Beirne was a good man, decent and kind... Born on 27th August 1966 from solid Irish stock, Desmond grew-up in Edgware; an industrial town in the urban borough of Barnet on the outskirts of north west London, with his parents and his sister Vivienne. As a sprawling city where a mix of wealth, class and race rub shoulders, although it is said that a person’s fame or misfortune can be decided by something as trivial as what side of which street they lived on, Desmond was blessed with a nice home, a loving family and a great start in life. Praised as a ‘first rate student’, Desmond attended St James’ Catholic School in nearby Colindale, a school founded by Dominican sisters in 1934, and being awarded as ‘Best in his Year’ at college, he had the skills, patience and intelligence to succeed, but also the humility to not let this kind of accolade go to his head. Described as a ‘gentle giant’, in truth he wasn’t a physically imposing man, as being just shy of six-foot-tall and only a little bit chubby (as many men are), it was his personality which made him appear larger than life. With a round sad face, sparkly blue eyes and a cheeky little grin, Desmond was harmless, peaceful and (although a little intimidating to those who didn’t know him) he was unthreatening and polite. Raised well, he was generous with his time, money and love, so much so that his many friends saw him as the big brother they never had. But the sweet serenity of his ruddy face couldn’t hide the sadness within. For several decades Desmond earned an honest living as an engineer, where he specialised in steel fixing, a highly skilled profession in which he fitted rebars and steel-mesh to concrete structures in and across London’s skyline. He was married, they had a son and he lived in a small flat in Pimlico, south-west London. To be honest, there is not a lot I can tell you about 50-year-old Desmond O’Beirne, as like so many of us who live our lives, do our jobs, love our families and never aim to stand-out, shrink-down or to ruffle any feathers, he was just an ordinary man living an ordinary life who made the best of what he had... ...and (as with everyone) life could often could be unfair and cruel, so sometimes he struggled. During the economic recession of the late 2000’s, as work dried-up and money became tight, his marriage suffered and (it is said) that he had begun to live an itinerant lifestyle. Life was difficult, but being a good, kind and polite man; he kept himself-to-himself, he was never a bother to anyone and his spirits were buoyed by one of the simple pleasures in life which he could still afford... his cigarettes. Friday 2nd June 2017 was a warm summer evening; the night was cosy, the weather was dry and the West End was as busy as on any Friday night. With Big Ben striking midnight, Desmond merrily sauntered into the wide pedestrianised piazza of Trafalgar Square and lay on the low wall in front of the National Gallery. Dressed in a red t-shirt, black trousers and black shoes - being a little bit tipsy - he rested for a short while on the wall. And with his home just two tube stops away, in his right hand he held a white plastic bag of fast-food to savour later. The area was busy, brightly-lit and covered by cameras and police patrols. As a sweet gentle-giant, who was as pleasant when he was drunk as he was when he was sober, Desmond had no enemies or secrets. He never caused trouble, he didn’t pick fights, he hadn’t met anyone strange that night and he had nothing of any value. As the pubs emptied, the clubs opened and hundreds of people passed-by, all they saw was a tipsy man, snoozing on a wall, after a good night out on the bevvies. At 12:24am, feeling that familiar urge to fill his belly, Desmond got to his feet and (with his bag of food in hand) he had begun to head home for the night, only to realise that he had ran out of cigarettes... ... 37 seconds later, the life of Desmond O’Beirne would end. Desmond’s murder occurred within a few feet of several witnesses in a well-lit public place, the suspects were easily seen and the CCTV footage of those tragic few seconds were so upsetting that they caused an outrage. And yet, Desmond’s killers wouldn’t be brought to justice for more than a year. But why? As with every cowardly criminal; they hid, they lied, they fled and they were protected by their loved ones, but more importantly the attention of the press and the people were focussed elsewhere when Desmond was murdered, which made the case next-to-impossible to solve with the speed that his family deserved. In the years, months and weeks leading up to his murder, Britain was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks by home-grown fanatics, which had raised the UK Threat Level from ‘Substantial’ to ‘Severe’;
Every incident was a tragic loss of life, but with Desmond’s attack having only just hit the newspapers, when the detectives and Desmond’s family urgently needed the help of the public to identify the suspects seen on CCTV, our attention was focussed on London Bridge, two and half miles east of Trafalgar Square. In that instance, during those first 24-hours and the most crucial stage of the investigation, almost no-one cared about a fifty-year-old man who the papers said had been “drinking” and was cruelly described – not as a husband, a father or even an engineer – but as a ‘vagrant’ and a ‘tramp’. It was as if his life was worth less than any of the others... and in the blink of an eye, Desmond was forgotten and his killers vanished. Only, his death wasn’t at the hands of a deluded terrorist, an escaped maniac or a vengeful rival, but from something a lot closer-to-home... and he wouldn’t meet his killers until seconds before his tragic end. We often forgot that evil can appear in many forms, sometimes as the epitome of rage, hate or vengeance, and other times it can appear as arrogance, innocence and stupidity. Lukas Antunes & Luis Abella were two young men living their ordinary lives in London. Unlike so many of London’s lost wastrels - who are demonised as ‘feral youths’ spawned in an uncaring home to a bankrupt culture who are obsessed with knives, respect and status - these two you could happily pass in the street without a glance or gulp. As they weren’t ruffians, thugs or troublemakers, they were just two clean-cut young men with regular jobs, a disposable income and no responsibilities, except to enjoy their social life. Aged 22, Lukas Antunes was a Brazilian national on an Italian passport who had previously lived in North America (hence his accent). Described as a little bit cocky and vain, as a stocky but well-built lad who loved to work-out at the gym, Lukas believed that he was a real lady’s man. Always being immaculately groomed with flawless skin, a tidy stubble and an arrogant swagger, Lukas would post pictures of his shirtless torso online as he flexed like a young Adonis. To some, he was nothing but a brash bullshitter with a fiery temper (all of which hid his insecurities), but to others, he exuded a confidence which reigns supreme in today’s media obsessed age. So, although he strived to be unique, he was no different to many other young men. And whereas Lukas would lead, Luis would follow. Also aged 22, Luis Abella was more like a baby-faced version of Lukas who lived with mum in a Stockwell flat. Similarly described as fashion-conscious, well-groomed and clean-cut, Luis was smaller and thinner, with a quieter voice, a stylish ice-cream swirl of dark black hair on his head and a boyish hint at a moustache as if he had coloured it in with a pencil – hence (it was said) he lived in his best pal’s shadow. They may not sound like a pack of callous killers and that’s because they weren’t. Regardless of their flaws (which all of us have), they were just two ordinary young men living their ordinary little lives in a big city. Hired by an agency called Buzz Retail, Lukas & Luis were a key-part of a high-energy group of young men and women who – all day - would confidently demonstrate the latest gadgets - hailed as “the most exciting toys in the world” - in London’s most prestigious toy-stores such as Hamley’s, Selfridges and Harrods. During the warm summer’s day of Friday 2nd June 2017 - which was a day no different to any other, except for a heightened security on the streets and a fear that anyone of us could be the next victim of terrorists - as Lukas & Luis skilfully played and proudly boasted the merits of each toy in the Harrods toy department – whether a puzzle, a mini-drone, a remote-controlled car, or (the ‘must have toy of 2017’ – the fidget spinner) – having finished their shift at 7pm; they dressed, styled and sauntered out into the West End. In a small group of friends, colleagues and cousins, they caught the Piccadilly Line from Knightsbridge to Leicester Square and blended in with the night-time revellers. There they drank, smoked and chatted, just like everyone else who was waving goodbye to the working week and seeing in the weekend in style. Later, identified by the Police only as Male #1, in the CCTV footage Lukas was seen wearing a red t-shirt, black jeans and white trainers. With Luis, identified only as Male #2, in dark jeans, white trainers and a black jacket with a large white F on the back. They weren’t disguised in any way, as anyone who had planned to commit a murder would, and that’s because the thought had never crossed their minds. At 12:24am, as the pubs emptied, the clubs opened and hundreds of people passed-by, fifty-feet away a tipsy man lay snoozing on a wall after a good night out on the bevvies.... but they didn’t see, speak or even acknowledge him – and why should they – as their sole priority that night was which venue to go to next. Luis was chatting to his pals, Lukas was on his phone, and – with a plastic bag of fast-food in his hand and his stomach growling - Desmond O’Beirne slowly stirred from his slumber on that warm summer night. Lukas and Luis had never met Desmond before, and as the merry man rose to his feet and begun to head home after a nice night out, it was then that Desmond realised that he had ran out of cigarettes... ...37 seconds later, the life of Desmond O’Beirne would end at the hands of Lukas & Luis. Feeling a little rumbly about his belly and a touch rosier around his cheeks, as Desmond staggered to his feet, he knew that – after a few pints – his body craved that last hit of nicotine before his bedtime. Sadly, his packet was empty as his pockets, and as the good old days were long gone when even a kid could buy a ciggie for 10p from a newsagent, a common practice among many smokers is simply to ask a stranger. They might say no, but if you’re polite enough, they usually say yes. And Desmond was always polite. (Ticking) 12:24am and 1 second. Desmond sees a clean-cut group of young men and women standing fifty feet away at the back of the George IV statue, they’re laughing, chatting and one of them is smoking. The Square is moderately busy, but at that moment, this group are the nearest and they seem nice enough. (Ticking) 12:24am and 5 seconds. Focussed only on getting one last smoke to see himself home, Desmond collected his things as a Police patrol headed north to yet another urinating, puking or abusive idiot who couldn’t hold their drink, but right then, Desmond wasn’t worried, as this was his city where he felt safe. (Ticking) 12:24am and 10 seconds. Seeing the group standing at the lip of the curved wall - knowing that as a ‘gentle giant’ he may appear a little intimidating to those who didn’t know him - Desmond pacified any fears with his cheeky smile, his twinkling blue eyes and a walk which (if a little unsteady) was calm and slow so as not to spook the group, as he passed two concrete bollards and an old fashioned lamppost. (Ticking) 12:24am and 22 seconds. As he neared the group, Desmond made a bee-line passed two girls and four men including Luis, and headed straight to Lukas who was on his phone and smoking a cigarette. As always, Desmond was the epitome of sweet, kind and polite... but what Lukas saw was a ruddy-faced stumbling drunk, who smelt of drink, was begging for ciggies and was rudely interrupting his call. In court, Lukas & Luis claimed that Desmond had threatened to “shank them”, to stab them, a piece of prison slang this sweet man never used and his demeanour in the footage showed no aggression at all. (Ticking) 12:24am and 30 seconds. Just eight seconds later, that’s barely enough time for Desmond say “hello” to this stranger, to ask for a cigarette and to be told “no” by Lukas, but as what was said was never recorded and both men were outside of the security camera’s frame, what happened next is unknown. Seven seconds later, the life of Desmond O’Beirne would end. (Ticking) 12:24am and 32 seconds. Startled by something or someone, fearing for his safety, Desmond quickly turns his back on Lukas and (with his bag in his hand) he briskly walks away towards the bollards. (Ticking) 12:24am and 33 seconds. Terrified that the thing which had startled him had escalated, without saying a word or making a gesture in retaliation, Desmond began to run as if his life depended on it. (Ticking) 12:24am and 34 seconds. Being fifty, overweight and drunk, Desmond had only managed to run a few feet before the younger, fitter and more powerfully-built Lukas had started to chase him down. (Ticking) 12:24am and 35 seconds. Sprinting from behind, as he swung his right arm far behind his back to maximise the power of his attack, Lukas swung his thick hard fist fast into the side of his victim’s head, and in a swift single punch, he knocked Desmond out cold. Being unconscious and unable to break his own fall, the fifteen-stone father-of-one hit the concrete slabs hard with his head and chest, as the speed of his run caused his limp body to briefly slid across the stone and come to rest by a concrete bollard. Only, even as Desmond lay silent and motionless on the hard-cold stone, the attack didn’t stop there. (Ticking) 12:24am and 37 seconds. Never questioning the reason for this viscous attack, Luis was already in pursuit, so by the time that Desmond had been floored by a fast fist – with a flying kick - Luis savagely booted the limp man’s body with a ferocity so hard that Desmond’s whole body bucked with the force. And then, as Desmond lay silent and helpless, both Lukas and Luis strutted away with a cocky swagger. Not for a single second did they stop to see if he was okay, or even to call for an ambulance. And although one of their party was seen staring in disbelief at this unconscious man who was profusely bleeding from his head, Lukas barked at his pals to “come on” and - with that - they all disappear into the night. Passers-by stopped to film the collapsed man with their phones (and possibly they captured his attackers too) but no-one shared the footage with the Police and only one person called for an ambulance. Paramedics arrived at the scene a few minutes later, but he was unresponsive having suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as nine fractured ribs. Being listed as ‘critical’, he underwent an emergency operation at St Thomas’ Hospital with screws fitted to hold his skull in place, but his injuries had left him in a coma. That night, as London Bridge was attacked by terrorists, the press turned away, the public lost interest, Desmond was forgotten, eye-witnesses walked away and Lukas & Luis vanished. Transferred to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, Desmond’s sister Vivienne later said “I couldn’t recognise my brother and unfortunately he couldn’t recognise me, there was no communication skills, he was in a vegetative state”. 51-year-old Desmond O’Beirne, the married father-of-one lay in a coma for six months, but having contracted pneumonia, he died on 20th December 2017. Vivienne: “my brother was hard-working and larger than life. He was on a night out in Trafalgar Square when he was brutally and viscously attacked by two cowards who then calmly walked away and left him for dead”. (End) Aided by a grainy piece of footage, statements from a few (but not all of the) witnesses and a Red Bull can with the fingerprints of two unknown suspects, the police were at a loss who his attackers were, but were unwilling to bring the case to a close until justice had been done for Desmond. On 10th April 2018, at a press conference, DCI Noel McHugh of the Met Police made this appeal; “you may have been part of the group and did not realise how seriously Desmond was hurt and that he has now died. That may pray on your mind. You can contact us and help us get justice”. It was a long shot which could have resulted in nothing, but sometimes a good person in a difficult situation can do the right thing. An unidentified cousin later stated that Lukas had “bragged about how he had taken him out with a single punch, he seemed proud of it, but after a few days he stopped talking about it and asked us to do likewise”. As Lukas had fled to America, with the assistance of the US Marshalls, the Met Police conducted a joint arrest on 15th August 2018. Luis charged that day, but having gone into hiding, Lukas was later arrested in Alabama and extradited to the UK. Tried separately at the Old Bailey on the 14th and 21st of December 2018 - as first-time offenders who were found guilty of the lesser charges of manslaughter and actual bodily harm - Lukas Antunes was sentenced to just three years and nine months in prison with Luis’ three-years suspended for two. In all likelihood – given good behaviour – they may already have been released. Desmond O’Beirne was a good man, who wasn’t being a bother to anyone when he made a very simple and innocent request of a stranger. 37 seconds later, his life ended and all because he asked for a cigarette. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Up next, we have some extra details about this case, as well as some waffle about biscuits and tea. So, if this is your thing, pop on a brew right now and join me for a slightly one-sided chinwag Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporter who is Karen Ann Chalupnik, I thank you very much, as well as a thank you to all the new lovely reviews you lovely people have been posting. I really do read them all and they are very much appreciated. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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23 Old Compton Street today, where Bar Soho stands, but back in 1943 this was the Helvetia public house. On the pavement outside, Savvaas Demitriades was stabbed to death
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE:
On Monday 25th October 1943, at roughly 3:30pm, a businessman called Savvas Demetriades was murdered in broad daylight on a public pavement outside of the Helvetia pub at 23 Old Compton Street. The Police's investigation should have collapsed owing to the code of silence in Soho’s Greek-Cypriot community. But this would collapse owing to how petty the murder was.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of teh patch of pavement where Savvas was murdered is located where the rum & raisen triangle is. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
Credits: The Murder Mile UK 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 as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0.
SOURCES: This case was researched using the original court documents and the declassified police investigation files from the National Archives, as well as many other sources. MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF 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 and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about a beef, a bust-up, a bit of bad blood between two hot-headed Greek Cypriots over little more than a few coins, which led to a brutal murder in broad daylight. Those who knew the two men claimed that they had seen nothing, but their strict code of silence was about to break. Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 112: Savvas Demetriades and the Code of Silence. Today I’m standing on Old Compton Street, in Soho, W1; one street south of the bungled porn heist by rabid willy-fiddler Richard Rhodes Henley, a few shops east of the arcade where Alfredo Zomparelli got popped playing pinball, and right next door to the Union Club where Charles Berthier gunned-down a rival over an innocent little comment about his “big arms” - coming soon to Murder Mile. Based at its edges, Old Compton Street is the cultural heart of Soho; a single street thankfully absent of the same high-street stores. Instead, we are blessed with something unique, diverse and authentic. Sadly, like so many places, Soho is sprinkled with attention-seeking tools with their silly beards, trilbies and motorised scooters - all of which screams “look at me, I have no personality” - as they dodge a dance troop shooting the next YouTube hit, a scrawny hipster reading ‘Trendy Allergies’ magazine and a dullard with a thimble-sized laptop who claims to be a ‘writer’ (they even have a website so it must be true) but the only thing that they’ve ever written is a Twitter post stating “I’m writing my novel”. Setting aside the awful gentrification which has ripped the guts out of Soho, what makes Old Compton Street so special is that it’s a place where many nationalities have settled down, set-up shop and served-up a little slice of their old life in with their new. It wasn’t planned, it just evolved, but it has spawned into a marvellous melting pot of styles, sights and smells, with little enclaves of culture on every street corner; whether delicatessens, patisseries, coffee shops or pizza parlours. In 1943, Savvas Demetriades & Christos Georghiou, two Greek-Cypriots who owned a café in the welsh city of Cardiff were frequent visitors to Soho for a coffee, a game of cards and some good conversation with their fellow countrymen. As with so many immigrants, the Cypriots kept-to-themselves, sorted out any problems within and (if needed) they protected their own with a refusal to trust the Police. But their loyalty would be sorely tested, when - in broad daylight, on the bustling pavement, outside of the busy Helvetia pub at 23 Old Compton Street - these best-buddies and recent rivals ended a very bitter feud… and the eye-witnesses to their crime felt obliged to claim that they had seen nothing. As it was here, on Monday 25th October 1943, that the very public stabbing of Savvas would prove to be so petty, that the code of silence in Soho’s Greek-Cypriot community would collapse. (interstitial) Some people kill for love, country, revenge or survival. It’s frowned upon, but to many such motives are understandable. And yet, others kill for causes so trivial, it makes you wonder why they bothered. Savvas and Christos were as close to being brothers as any brothers could be without being brothers. Born two years apart on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus; growing up in the capital city of Nicosia in the years preceding the First World War, daily life was hard owing to its isolated position, economic collapse, religious infighting and made worse by this former Greek colony being under the British boot. To the British, Cyprus was nothing but a strategic naval outpost overlooking the Suez Canal; its people were invisible, their lives were worthless and the land was traded as a little trinket between the Greeks and the Turks. Systematically plundered by larger nations, the tiny island of Cyprus and its people have endured tyranny for centuries in a divided population split between the Turkish-Cypriots and the Greek-Cypriots, many of whom fought during both World Wars for and against the British. As little boys raised during the First World War, the childhoods of Savvas and Christos were short; food was scarce, clothes were ragged and death was frequent. Being gripped by rationing, even law-abiding citizens would dabble in the depths of small-time criminality simply to survive by buying even the most basic of necessities on the black-market. Regarded as petty-thieves by their British occupiers, their daily lives were ruled - not by the military, or even their own police - but by the British Police, therefore it’s unsurprising that many Cypriots developed a mistrust and a strict code of silence was formed. Raised in abject poverty, Savvas & Christos naturally had a thirst for wealth, fine foods and sharp suits. To them, every penny was precious and - as in every family - the two boys squabbled over increasingly trivial matters, but always stuck together through thick-and-thin; like a big brother and a little. Savvas Christos Demetriades was born in 1909, two years after Christos. As the youngest of the two, Savvas was blessed with the patience and wisdom of an older man. He was frugal, astute and (although he loved the thrill of gambling on cards, dogs, horses and dice) he was a sensible spender who would happily blow a bundle on a long-shot in the hope of a big pay-off, but he always knew his limits. In relationships, Savvas was as a calm and loving man for whom family was an unbreakable bond. And being short but muscular man who was handsome in his own way, he had no problem with the ladies. By 1927, as Cyprus had become a British colony, being granted his citizenship and keen to seek a better life overseas, Savvas joined the Merchant Navy alongside his best-friend Christos. Being three inches shorter, four stone heavier and two years older, Christos Georghiou was more akin to a baby brother, both physically and mentally, who often envied the style and savvy that Savvas had, and (lacking the business acumen) he clung onto the younger man’s coat-tails. Like mirror opposites, Christos aspired to be bigger and better than his best-buddy - by petulantly being dressed in sharper suits, slicker hats and with his thin moustache Brilliantine’d into razor sharp slivers - but instead of trying to forge his own path, he would remain stuck in the shadow of Savvas. As a businessman, he disliked hard-work but loved money. As a gambler, he took big risks which rarely paid off. As a lover, he dated many of Savvas’ ex’s and flirted with any potential squeeze. And whereas Savvas had several bank accounts (for his legitimate purchases) and a strongbox under the floorboards (for those which weren’t), Christos never saved a penny. Instead he would seek out his next potential investment in the sports pages of his local rag. And although both men were hot-headed Cypriots prone to fiery outbursts, where-as Savvas would fume then forgive, Christos would bubble and erupt. Savvas would always take Christos under his wing, as although they weren’t related, family was family. For several years, the two men served side-by-side as cooks on several ships in the Merchant Navy. In the early 1930’s, as naturalised British citizens, they moved to Southampton, London and then to the Welsh city of Cardiff, all of which had a large Cypriot community and this became their new home. In 1939, Savvas & Christos decided to go into business together. They invested £150 each, put their skills to good use and – by infusing the standard English fare of cups of tea and fry-ups with a slice of their Cypriot upbringing – they opened the ‘British & Continental Café’ at 19 Caroline Street in Cardiff. It was popular and profitable among the Welsh and Cypriot locals alike. During the day it was a cheap eatery to feed families, but by night - with the blinds down and the doors locked – it was a gambling den for card-sharks like Christos. It was illegal, but through silence, it was kept off-the-Police’s radar. Being as different as they were similar, with two hot-headed men working side-by-side, all day, every day, in the heat of a scorching kitchen, naturally their tempers flared. So, for a while, although their little café proved to be a minor success, trivial little things had already caused it to start to slide. Seeing the café less as a business and more as a place for any pal of Christos to hang-out, Savvas rightly resented these bums who ponced his free food and ate up his profits, so as it tumbled from being a charming family café to doss-hole for deadbeats, very quickly the regular customers stopped coming. Desperate to beat his best-friend who was also his bitter rival, in the den, Christos used loaded dice, a rigged deck and every underhanded trick to win, and so, a deep mistrust began to creep in. It all seems so obvious where the problems lay, but being so hot-headed, both men struggled to simply say “I’m sorry” and (even over such trivial matters) they both harboured a grudge, especially when Savvas had started to date a young lady known only as ‘Peggy’, and Christos would flirt with her too. As best-friends who were as close as any brothers, their relationship fractured, their café bled money and as even the smallest of issues spiralled into petty violence, three incidents would split them apart. On the evening of 23rd March 1943, feeling rightly cheated having lost a sizable sum owing to Christos’ marked cards and wonky dice, an unidentified gambler cursed Christos as a “dirty Greek rat” and sliced open his nose with a flung cup. Seething, bloodied and unwilling to back-down from a petty slight - pulling a stiletto blade from his boot - Christos slashed back, and as the den erupted into all out war, tables were tipped, bottles were hurled and the white walls were re-decorated with splashes of red. And during the melee, as the level-headed Savvas tried to hold back his rabid partner, Christos bit him, which left a trail of blood to the sink and his right hand with a very visible scar for the rest of his life. Within minutes, the Police had a wealth of evidence, but with every witness held by a code of silence, no-one was convicted. All were released, but it lit a bright spotlight on the café, Christos and Savvas. On 12th April 1943, three weeks later, Christos was at it again. The place was a rival gambling den called the Anchor in Hayes Bridge, his targets were a croupier called Chris and a gambler known only as ‘Australian Joe’, the reason was petty, and armed with a broken table leg, he left six men bleeding and one man hospitalised for a week. Twelve arrests were made, but with the witnesses silent, no-one was convicted. And again, Christos was bailed out by Savvas… …but this wasn’t the proverbial straw which broke the camel’s back. In late April 1943, roughly two weeks later, Christos – who would rarely pull his weight, who had let his pals pitch the café into debt and who had frequently been bailed out by Savvas (whose personal savings had often propped up the business) – said that he had seen Savvas pocket some money from the café’s till. Savvas denied it, Christos was adamant, but by May their partnership was dissolved. Unable to find a common ground, or to simply apologise, the two former best-friends split-up, refused to talk and went their separate ways, but with both men being Greek-Cypriots with the same pals and past-times - as the bad blood festered - the chance of them bumping into each other again was high. Six months later, Savvas Demetriades was dead over matter of just £1 and 15 shillings... ...but for Christos Georghiou, it was a matter of pride. On Sunday 24th October 1943, one day before his death, Savvas caught the 10:30am train from Cardiff to Paddington and hopped in a cab to Soho. As a familiar face in its betting shops, patisseries and coffee bars, who had lived in a Cypriot enclave on nearby New Compton Street only a few years earlier, to Savvas, Soho was like a second home and his visits here were frequent and welcome. Since their partnership had dissolved, for an astute investor like Savvas, business had been good. The café was in profit, the gambling den was civilised, the police surveillance had ceased and he was here to collect a £200 winning from a £1 bet. That’s roughly £6000 he’d won off a dog he hadn’t even seen. Looking sharp in his black tailored suit, mirror-shined shoes and starched white shirt - although he carried a bank-book with a balance (in today’s money) of £40,000, with £11,500 in his bag, £10,000 in a cash box, two gold lighters in his pockets and a 24-carat gold ring on his finger with a diamond big enough to cause blindness – he knew no-one would mug him, as he was connected and respected. But being a cultural melting pot, as not everyone in Soho was Cypriot, Savvas left the bulk of his cash with Kristacos Dichomides; an old pal known as ‘Kiki’ who owned the Blue Water Café at 18 St Giles High Street, who – being like a brother – he knew he could trust him with his money and his life. At 5pm he left. At 7pm he met a cousin called Harry at the College Café on Gower Street, where they drank tea and discussed dog-racing. And at 8pm, they met a buddy called Nicola Costas, headed to a Greek tavern on Rathbone Place and ate heartily from the foods of their homeland. It was an ordinary evening for the party of four. So, needing a strong coffee and a few games of cards to see them through to the wee small hours, they headed to a friendly little café called Nico’s at 42 Dean Street... ...just a few doors down the pavement outside of 23 Old Compton Street, where barely sixteen hours later, Savvas Demetriades would be stabbed to death. As he casually strolled in, suddenly it was as if all of the air had been sucked out, as the room fell silent and cold. Like the British and Continental Café, Nico’s was a legal family eatery by day but an illicit den by night, where cards were played, items were fenced, money was made and no questions were asked. Full of Europe’s more hot-tempered patrons, tempers flared and fights were frequent as no-one liked to lose face. Only now, everyone’s eyes were fixed on two men, stood just a few feet apart, who hadn’t uttered a single word to each other in the last six months and now they were standing eye-to-eye. As a tight-knit community, everyone knew about the rift, the break-up and the café, they even knew about the £1 and 15 shillings which Savvas had supposedly stolen from the till, according to Christos. That was what the beef was about, £1 and 15 shillings, which today doesn’t even add up to fifty quid... ...but for the short, dumpy and moustachioed Christos, whose puffy pale face was profusely sweating and whose trembling hand was creeping nearer the blade in his boot, it was a matter of pride... ...only for Savvas it wasn’t. He was a businessman, a family man and a loyal friend, not a two-bit hood. So bellowing (Savvas) “Christos, my brother” across the room, scooping up his old pal in his big arms, wrapping him in a bear-hug and kissing both cheeks, for Savvas, family was family and all was forgiven. That night, the two men laughed like they did in the old good days. With the cards out, Christos on the beer and Savvas supping a lemonade (as he liked to keep sharp when money was at stake), the two men chatted about their ex-girlfriend ‘Peggy’ and mutually agreed to split the cost to bail her out of prison. And as this calm and pleasant night rolled on, at 4am, they all headed home to their beds. At 10am, the next day, Savvas, Harry and Nicola met at Nico’s café, but Christos didn’t show. Each man put in £300, but - with Christos missing - the pile was short, so (as always) Savvas covered his debt. He wasn’t angry or upset, he was just disappointed, but he knew that Christos couldn’t be trusted. Which was true... ...Christos stumbled out of bed just shy of noon, too late to be any use, too hungover to care and with his wallet suspiciously light, Christos headed out to a pub to grumble about his misfortune... but mostly to fume about Savvas. (Christos) “Savvas and his suits”. “Savvas and his gold”. “Savvas and his money”. Spitting venomous curses like “he take from me”, “he cheat me”, “we like brothers”, and never once hearing the irony in his paranoid fuming, as he angrily shuffled into a pub to sink a few pints and having got so staggeringly drunk he could hardly stand-up straight, at 3:20pm, as the seething wreck shuffled out of the Coach & Horses on Greek Street - still furious over the £1 and 15 shillings that “I know he stole” – Christos headed north up Dean Street towards Old Compton Street with a blade in his boot. The paths were bustling, the shops were buzzing and it was broad daylight when Savvas Demetriades and his friend Christos Costas headed south down Dean Street and entered Old Compton Street. In short, this should have been a simple case for the Police to solve, but with every investigation being reliant on eye-witnesses and with a deep mistrust of the British authorities among the Greek-Cypriots, as the strict code of silence crept in... suddenly the eye-witnesses turned blind, deaf and mute. The murder itself was self-explanatory... ... as outside of the Helvetia pub at 23 Old Compton Street, seeing Savvas, Christos punched his bitter rival in the back, a scuffle ensued with fists and feet flying, pulling his blade Christos stabbed Savvas once in chest, both men fell and Savvas was stabbed two more times. And as the blood-spattered man stumbled east towards Charing Cross Road, at the busy intersection, he hailed a taxi and fled... ...and that was it, but very few eye-witnesses could recall even those simple details. Within minutes PC George Newman had arrived on scene, where he saw a large crowd congregated around Dr Calvin Lambert (a passing doctor) who was attending to the profusely bleeding man. As a lone constable awaiting back-up, he tried to make sense of it all and to preserve the crime-scene as best he could, but he was just one man. Many witnesses walked away, many were unsure what they’d seen and many stated “I don’t recall”, “I didn’t see” or gave a vague description. Even Christos Costas (who had dined with both men the night before) claimed “I never seen that man before” and even as Savvas lay dying – with a punctured stomach, three broken ribs, a collapsed right lung and his left lung failing – he used one of his last breaths to protect his fellow Cypriot, his brother and his friend. Savvas Demetriades was rushed to Charing Cross Hospital, but owing to blood loss, he died on arrival. The investigation struggled to find the assailant, as although the Police had secured several witnesses to the attack, their memories would prove to be flaky, vague or mysteriously absent. Especially for those who had families, homes, livelihoods and a selfish desire to keep breathing. A US solider called Private Hoornastra saw Savvas but not his attacker. Martha Zurrer, a waitress at Brown’s Hotel saw most of it, but only from behind. Ellen Bennett, a receptionist at The Queensbury saw everything, except she was three stories up. And a milkman called Alwyn Childs who saw the whole incident (from soup-to-nuts) and gave a full and detailed description of the murder and the culprit, even down to the fact that the attacker was so drunk he had stabbed himself in the left leg. But when they were called in to attend a Police identification parade with Christos in the line-up; the soldier was absent, the waitress’s testimony was dismissed, the receptionist couldn’t identify the man at all, and the milkman (who served many of the Green-Cypriot businesses in and around Soho) flatly refused to walk down the line of suspects, nervously stating “he’s definitely not here”. As for evidence, the knife was lost, the taxi was never found and the blood stains on the street were washed away. And there, the murder investigation came to a close... (End) ...or, at least, it should have done. But a code of silence in a tight-knit community requires a level of honour for those to respect it. Being a businessman (even though his earnings weren’t always legitimate), Savvas was a good, decent and loyal man who treated every Greek-Cypriot as his own, as to him - family was family. Whereas Christos was a reckless gambler and an angry drunk who left debts all over town and had spilled blood on a public street over the paltry sum of just £1 and 15 shillings... which wouldn’t feed him for one day. All it took was one person to say his name and the whole code collapsed. A cousin of Savvas called Joannis Mina spotted Christos in the shop of a Mrs Christina Douglas on New Cavendish Street and (after a brief bit of surveillance) he was arrested the next morning at her home at 26 Marlborough Hill in Wealdstone. He was pale, hungover, agitated and had a fresh stab wound to his left leg. And although the Police had no viable witnesses, it became a moot point, as Christos gave a full confession. Christos Georghiou was tried at the Old Bailey on 10th December 1943, at which he pleaded ‘not guilty’. But having deliberated for 55 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of ‘guilty’ and he was sentence to death. As Christos left the dock, the 36-year-old gambler wept (as he did during his confession) stating of Savvas (Christos) “I don’t know why I did it, he was so good to me, my friend, my brother”. On 2nd February 1944 at 9am, with his appeal dismissed, he was executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison and in his final days alive, not one single friend from his close-knit community paid him a visit. So many people attended the funeral for Savvas that the service was standing-room only, but having shamefully killed in broad daylight for a few coins, the friends of Christos Georghiou refused to take the short trip to see him in prison, as - to them – his life wasn’t even worth the price of a bus ticket. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Up next, we have some extra info about this murder case, there’s a little quiz and a chat about tea and cake, as well as the usual pointless waffle. It’s not compulsory, so feel free to switch off now. If not, pop on the kettle and join me for a cuppa. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporter who is Kevin Price, I thank you very much, as well as a thank you to two very kind people who have donated to keep Murder Mile alive, they are Tracy The Cat Lady (who donated via Supporter) and Anne-Marie Griffin (via Murder Mile eShop). I thank both of you hugely. As well as a thank you to everyone who continues to listen to the show. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster & tour guide of Murder Mile Walks, hailed as one of the best "quirky curious & unusual things to do in London". 
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