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INTRO: One year into the Second World War, German chancellor Adolf Hitler and the Nazi high-command sought to deplete, destroy and demoralise Britain with a series of devastating bombing raids, beginning with what the Luftwaffe called ‘Unternahmen Seeschlange’ (or Operation Sea-snake); a terrifying attack from the clouds, so fast and so deadly, that the British people referred to it by the German word for “lightening”, they called it ‘The Blitz’.

Between 7th September 1940 and 11th May 1941, over 57 days and nights, German bombers rained down over 41000 tonnes of high explosives, incendiary devices and parachute mines, as well as deadly V1 (and later V2) rockets onto Britain’s industrial cities, their terrifying tactics designed to frighten the people into submission and bring Britain to its knees. 

By 1942, Britain had suffered its worst defeat, as the allied troops retreated to Dunkirk as Nazi troops had taken France, all that stood between Britain and surrender was the English Channel. The people were hungry, the people were tired, and the people were scared.

But amidst the smoky bombed-out inferno of London’s West End, with a blackout in-force which plunged the soot-covered city into a perpetual darkness, as the petrified populous scoured the skies for German mass-murderers who loomed above… a person of pure evil stalked the city streets.

In the early hours of Monday 9th February 1942, Evelyn Hamilton; a shy and timid pharmacist who had celebrated her 41st birthday alone, was found strangled in an air-raid shelter in Montagu Place. With her handbag and £20 missing, was this a robbery which had gone wrong? With slashes on her breasts and genitals but no semen in her vagina, was this a failed attempted rape? With her corpse looking as if it had been posed, was this the grisly calling-card of a sexual sadist? The Police were perplexed.

And with no fingerprints, no witnesses and no suspects of any kind, and a confusing mix of mismatched evidence including a pack of Master’s safety matches, fragments of brick mortar and a broken metal torch, all the Police knew of her killer was that he was left-handed.

Initially the Police thought this was just a one-off attack, a crime of passion, but little did they know that they had a serial sexual sadist and spree-killer in their midst… and his killings had only just begun.

Over five days, six unrelated women across different parts of London’s West End would be brutally attacked with escalating levels of sadism, torture and violence. It started with Evelyn Hamilton, but with his bloodlust unquenched, just one day later, he would go in search of his next victim.

My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part two of the full, true and untold story of The Blackout Ripper.

SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing on Wardour Street, back in the heart of Soho; one road east of Broadwick Street, one road west of Old Compton Street, and barely a one minute walk from the murder sites of deadly dentist Isador Zeifert, shadowy sex-worker Margaret Cook, sweet-faced fanny-seller Ginger Rae, crazy cock-chopper William Stoltzer and chronic Canadian willy-fiddler Richard Rhodes Henley.

Sadly, this unsightly side of Wardour Street has been stripped of its soul and replaced by nosh-shops for numpties, takeaways for twits and wanky eateries for the anally retentive; which somehow survive by selling one type of food (whether ham, fish or humus), by avoiding one type of food (whether meat, wheat or milk), by rebranding buffets as street food, salads as main meals, sandwiches as a some kind of luxury, and where cigar-shops flog-off thirty quids worth of old rolled leaves to non-smokers who light-up, lean back and aim to act cool, slick and aloof, but instead look green, sick and queasy.

And although, by the 1940’s, this side of Soho was full of drafty bombed-out hardly habitable terraces, only suitable as homes for the less fortunate, many of which have since been demolished, it was here at 153 Wardour Street, that an ambitious woman called Evelyn Oatley came to London to seek her fame and fortune, but instead found infamy… as the second victim of The Blackout Ripper. (Interstitial)

Born Evelyn Judd on 5th April 1907 in Earby in Lancashire; a small rural town hidden in the barren wilds of the former West Yorkshire dales, its chief occupations being lead-mining and farming, with a population of roughly 70 families and six times as many cows, sheep and pigs. Raised by her beloved mother (Rosina), busy father and one brother, although her childhood was poor but pleasant, for young Evelyn, Earby was an industrial eyesore in dull rural setting where the air hung with soot and the strong stench of manure, a far cry the bright lights of London’s West End.

Desperate to escape, to act, to sing, to dance and blossom into Shaftesbury Avenue’s latest sensation, selling out theatres every night and surrounded by adoring fans, lackeys and lovers, Evelyn’s hopes were dashed early, as with Earby not blessed with a single playhouse, drama school and no theatre producers driving-by eager for a new blonde ingénue to headline his latest West End show, and maybe later Broadway and even Hollywood too, Evelyn left school aged 14, with no skills nor qualifications and drifted into a series of dead-end jobs, trapped by isolation and circumstance.

Still dreaming of being famous and adored, aged 15, unmarried Evelyn gained local notoriety by becoming pregnant by an unknown man, a big scandal in early 1920’s, so unable to support the child alone, Evelyn’s daughter was put up for adoption, later living her life somewhere in Canada.

In 1932, 25 year old Evelyn Judd met Harold Mollinson Oatley; a kind, loving and sweet-natured poultry farmer who could provide her with a good life, full of love, money and a sweet little bungalow on Rover Road in the larger (but equally isolated) town of Thornton, Lancashire. But Evelyn didn’t want to be a chicken-farmer’s wife, she wanted to be an actress, so being too timid to dissuade her of the dangers of big-city life and hoping that she’d eventually see sense, get the acting bug out of her system and come back to marry him, Harold financed Evelyn’s trip to London to fulfil her dreams.

In late 1934, 27 year old Evelyn Judd, moved into a cheap and tiny lodging on Great Portland Street (at the back of Oxford Circus) and having adopted the stage-name of Lita Ward, she eked-out a meagre living as a nightclub hostess, a dancer in disreputable theatres and even at Soho’s infamous Windmill Theatre, where every night topless girls jiggled their tits and swung their tassels to crowds of drunk drooling deadbeats. To most people, Evelyn’s new lifestyle may have seemed cheap, tacky and low-rent, but as a country-girl from a remote northern town whose ambitions had been crushed for 27 long years, now she was embracing every ounce of big city life, and finally, her dream had come true.

But by March 1936, after 16 months in the bright lights of the West End; fame hadn’t come calling (for this almost 30 year old topless dancer), work had dried up (as younger legs and prettier faces scored all the best roles) and with her money having ran-out, Evelyn returned to the poultry-farm, where just a few months later on 25th June 1936, she married Harold, and became Mrs Evelyn Oatley.

As predicted, married-life wasn’t for Evelyn; she found no joy staying-in every night playing Scrabble with her homebody husband, no peace being tucked-up in bed with a book by 9pm and no reward cleaning crap out of the chicken coops, as having tasted the excitement of the big city, she knew she wanted more. Trapped in a dull life of squawking birds, in local hotels under an assumed name, Evelyn started clandestine affairs with married men and continued to live and work in London, all under the nose of Harold who was too ineffectual to stop her and too dull to offer her an alternative.

One year later; with money tight, tensions fraught and his poultry-farm having gone out of business, even though he’d been forced to move into his Aunt’s house in nearby Cleveleys (in Lancashire), as desperate as Harold was to please his wayward wife, although they remained married and stayed in-touch, Evelyn returned to London, knowing she would never be a big star, but loving the nightlife.

By February 1939, with Britain on the brink of World War Two, Evelyn Oatley had moved into a tiny one-roomed flat on the first-floor of 153 Wardour Street; a simple four-storey terrace house with the ground-floor of five houses converted into a motorcar showroom called Shaw & Kilburn.

And although she shared a kitchen and a bathroom with five other flats and her small room was simply furnished with a double-divan bed, a sofa, an armchair, a table, a wash-stand, a wireless radio and a gas fire (with a coin-slot metre), even though she kept some plates and cutlery in her wardrobe, mostly she’d eat out, spending her nights drinking, dancing and attracting the attention of men.

With her dancing roles having dried-up, and the adulation and applause of audiences over, Evelyn wanted a gentleman admirer to sweep her off her feet; a moneyed man who would lavish her with gifts, flowers, love and trinkets. And having a lust for “real men”, who were tall and toned, with easy smiles, kind blue eyes and neatly dressed in a military uniforms - whilst still married - Evelyn had several boyfriends, all of whom Harold knew about, and none of whom looked like him.

As World War Two broke, a blackout was enforced and British and Canadian servicemen flooded the West End with money to spend, drinks to be drunk and girls to be chased, Evelyn should have had the pick of the crop, but too often, having got her heart broken by these heartless heroes, every time this would happen Harold would always be there as a shoulder to cry on and to pick up the pieces.

And as much as they remained close, with Harold travelling the 12 hour round-trip from Lancashire to London, every few weeks, he naively believed that his beloved wife worked as a nightclub hostess and a dancer in the West End theatres, but for the last six years, ever since they had been married, Evelyn Oatley (known locally as Lita Ward) had earned herself a living as a Soho prostitute.

Being 5 foot 1 inches tall, 7 stone in weight, with dark blonde curly hair, blue eyes and a cheeky smile; Evelyn was well regarded amongst Soho’s sex-workers as fun, honest and generous. And as a confident woman, Evelyn had no qualms about picking-up punters and bringing them back to her flat for drinks and sex, but being flirtatious and charming, she was also adept at luring any potential sugar-daddies to not just spend the night, but also the day after, with free meals, expensive gifts and shopping trips.

And as much as Evelyn was a woman of morals; who never stole from a customer, never worked on Sundays and only picked-up punters on her patch; she was also a heavy drinker of Scotch, not picky about which men she picked up, and (according to a close-friend) she was a desperately lonely lady who craved attention, feared solitude and longed to be loved.

The last time Harold saw Evelyn was on Tuesday 3rd February 1942 at Euston Station, as from the train which took him back to Lancashire he waved his beloved wife “goodbye”; hoping one day that she would come back to him and never realising that the next time he would see her… she would be dead.

Six days later, on the morning of Monday 9th February 1942, in an air-raid shelter on Montagu Place (barely one mile from Wardour Street), the strangled and mutilated body of Evelyn Hamilton would be found. Police thought it was a one-off, but with his sadism still unsated, that evening, The Blackout Ripper would stalk the West End looking for his next victim… her name was Evelyn Oatley. (Interstitial)

The evening of Monday 9th February 1942 was bitterly cold as an icy wind blew from the east, swirling the freshly settled snow down the half empty streets of the West End. On her regular patch - a stretch of pavement from Lawley’s fine-bone china shop on Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus – Evelyn paced back-and-forth to keep herself warm, the piping hot bowl of vegetable stew and a quick shot of Scotch that she’d just polished off in The Leicester Arms pub, straining to keep out the cold.

Dressed fashionably in a bright red jumper, a tweet two-piece jacket and skirt, black boots, a black leather handbag and a black woollen hat, her top decorated with three brooches; one yellow, one red and one in white metal, her style was impossible to see as with the night being so infernally cold, Evelyn had her knee-length black coat buttoned-up to her neck.

And with business being bad and boredom creeping in, amidst the miserable darkness of the blackout (as switched-off for the full duration of the war were the famous lights of Piccadilly Circus), Evelyn stood in the doorway of Lawley’s, illuminated by the red-hot tip of her cigarette, which was taken from her stylish white metal cigarette case, etched with her initials ‘LW’ (short for Lita Ward, a sole reminder of her lost acting ambition) and inside, a photo of her beloved mother “Rosina”.

Feeling cold and lonely, Evelyn wouldn’t be choosey about who she picked-up, as all money was good and she just wanted to head home, pop on the fire and hop into bed. But soon she would be cold for a very different reason, and what follows would be the last known sightings of Evelyn Oatley.

At 10:15pm, on the corner of Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus; two Soho prostitutes and close pals of Evelyn - one a blonde called Laura Denmark and a brunette called Molly Desantos Alves - waved to their friend as she stood outside of Lawley’s smoking. With both Laura and Molly having been chatted-up by two tall, slim and handsome (if slightly sozzled) RAF servicemen from the Royal Air Force Reception Centre in Regent’s Park, they took the men back to their flats; Molly headed to Denham Street with the red-headed Corporal and Laura headed to Frith Street with the fair-haired Aircraftman.

At 11:00pm, outside by Monico’s (a reputable late-night restaurant once used as a pick-up place for sex-workers and servicemen) on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus; a part-time waitress and prostitute called Ann Carew saw Evelyn, who she knew as Lita Ward, chatting to a Canadian soldier dressed in a khaki battledress. Although cold, she seemed chatty and only a little bit tipsy, and seeing Ann, she waved, wished her a “goodnight” and guided the military man towards her flat through the dark-lit streets of Soho, guided solely by the dim light of her six inch metal torch.

At a little after 11:20pm, Icy Cecilia Poole, a fun-fair attendant and Evelyn’s neighbour who lived in the adjoining flat on the first floor of 153 Wardour Street saw Evelyn escorting a man up the wooden staircase. But he wasn’t Canadian or in khaki battledress, but a young tall and pasty civilian in a brown suit with horn-rimmed glasses. And although he wasn’t Evelyn’s type; as the night was cold, money was money, and – with most men’s sexual prowess being less like a stud-muffin and more like a “two pumps and squirt merchant” – she knew he’d only need a few minutes until he was done, before she would head-out again and pick-up another punter.

As Evelyn closed the wooden door marked with a metal plate which read “Lita Ward”, Ivy heard Evelyn and the young man chat, as with their penny-pinching landlord having split one large room in half with two folding doors to create two small flats, the walls were wafer-thin and Ivy could hear everything.

Sharing such a small space, Evelyn was always so considerate of noise, but that night she wasn’t. Instead, switching her bedside radio from news to music, she turned up the volume until the recognisable sounds of the couple’s mumbling, fumbling and groaning was drowned-out, and eager to sleep, Ivy popped in her earplugs, placed her pillow over her head and nodded off around midnight

That was the last time that 34 year old Evelyn Oatley was heard, or seen alive, ever again.

The next morning, on Tuesday 10th February 1942 at 8:20am, with her room all dark and silent, Ivy had slept so soundly over the last eight hours that she barely heard a loud banging on her door. Alerted to the noise by her startled cat, Ivy groggily unlocked the door to see the familiar face of Charles Victor Fleming of the Central London Electricity Company, who – along with his assistant George Kenny Carter - were here to read each flat’s electricity metres and collect this month’s shillings from the coin-slot. It was just an ordinary day, for three ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives.

As with Ivy (who was still sporting her bathrobe and slippers), George knocked loudly on Evelyn’s door, but with it barely being an hour after dusk, he got no reply. Knocking louder, George noticed the door was ajar, but as a timid young man who was too polite to simply barge into a strange lady’s boudoir uninvited and risk seeing things a young man should never see like frilly things and her ladies monthly unmentionables, George continued to knock.

Sensing the shy youth’s frustration and sporting some awful bed-hair, Ivy tapped loudly enquiring “are you there, dear?” as she pushed open the door. With the windows blacked-out, the lights off, the fire out and the last shilling in the electricity metre having been spent, as much as Ivy flicked the light switches, the flat remained in pitch black. But as they entered the flat and their eyes adjusted to the dark, it was clear that they weren’t alone; someone was there, lying on the bed, all silent and still. And as George Carter flicked on his torch to see who it was, as the dull light illuminated the shape on the bed, he stopped, blinked and gasped, having seen a sight which no-one should ever see.

First on the scene at 8:35am was Inspector John Hennessey of West End Central Police Station, having spent the night at the Police section house on Broadwick Street (one street behind), who secured the scene to ensure nothing was touched, followed by Detective Inspector Clarence Jeffrey and Divisional Surgeon Dr Alexander Baldie at 8:50am, and Divisional Detective Inspector Charles Gray at 9:15am.

With no windows open, no fire on and the female victim – a five foot one inch mid-thirties blonde – in the early stages of rigour-mortis, Dr Baldie recorded that she’d been dead for at least 4 hours. And although the name on the door read ‘Lita Ward’, she was quickly identified as Evelyn Oatley,
What startled the Police (beyond the sickening extent of her horrific injuries) was how tidy the room was; nothing was tipped over, very little was broken and there didn’t seem to have been a struggle. In fact, almost everything seemed to be just as Evelyn had left it just a few hours before. It was almost as if she had welcomed her attacker in; had known him, liked him, or simply felt comfortable with him, and yet this shocking attack had come out of the blue.

On the mantelpiece, where she always kept them, Evelyn had placed the keys to her flat. On the sofa were her clothes, neatly placed and ready to be re-worn; a bright red jumper, a black hat and a tweet two-piece jacket and skirt. On an armchair she’d placed her black boots, a slip, a brassiere and a pair of black stockings by the fire, drying after a long cold night. And in the right-hand side of her wardrobe (where she always put it) was her black knee-length coat, along with her black leather handbag.

Oddly, the only damage in the whole room was the wardrobe’s lock, which (although the key was still in it) had been violently broken off; Evelyn’s handbag had been removed, the zip fastener opened and the contents strewn over the sofa. And whoever her attacker was, he’d ignored her bank books and ration coupons, and only stole two items; roughly £20 (£600 today) from her brown leather purse and her white metal cigarette case, etched with her initials ‘LW’ and a photo of her mother inside.

Was this a robbery? Was this a burglary? Was this a rape? The Police were perplexed. But whoever it was who had attacked her, had a deep-rooted hatred for either prostitutes, women or Evelyn Oatley, as not only was her attack brutal and sickening, but her torture was prolonged and humiliating.

In the centre of the room, with the headboard against the wall, between two blacked-out windows, was her double divan bed. Lying face-up and sprawled diagonally across her freshly made sheets was the cold corpse of Evelyn Oatley, her body splayed and posed, with her thin cotton vest and a silk nightdress rolled up, exposing her legs, genitals, lower torso and breasts.

With no-one having heard her scream and the bruised outlines of a thumb and four fingers across her throat and neck, Evelyn was initially strangled by hand in an unprovoked attack, which trapped her windpipe, crushed her vocal chords and made her more pliable, as although she drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few minutes, what happened next, was done whilst she was still alive.

With her head slumped backward, hanging over the side of the bed, using the 2 inch blade of an Ever-Ready razor, a five and a half inch wound was cut, from her right ear to her voice-box, so deep it exposed her throat, split open her jugular vein and left a six foot trail of blood to the door.

As Evelyn clutched onto her last few moments alive, being immobile as her body was drained of blood, her bare legs were splayed wide. And (as with Evelyn Hamilton) although there was no semen found in her vagina, in and around her genitals were a series of twelve unusual wounds; some less than half an inch long, one more than three and a half inches long, but all were rough jagged tears, made using an old-style kitchen can-opener with a sharp hooked claw.

But his sadism hadn’t stopped there, as having placed the metal can-opener next to her left knee, and posed the blood-soaked razorblade next to Evelyn’s ghostly white face, as well as an ominous set of blood-stained curling tongs, her sadistic killer – not content with her torture and humiliation – had inserted, four inches deep, her six inch metal torch into her open and exposed vagina.

The autopsy of Evelyn Oatley was conducted that day by Sir Bernard Spilsbury, home office pathologist (and father of forensic science), who just 24 hours earlier had examined the body of Evelyn Hamilton and although there were differences between both attacks; their ages, hair colour, occupations and the location of their deaths (with one in public and the other at home), the similarities were striking.

Both women were lonely and alone. Both women were in the West End. Both women had been robbed of roughly £20. Neither woman had been raped. Both had been posed, both had been exposed, both had unusual cuts to their genitals, and non-specific internal injuries to their vaginas, one made using a six inch metal torch, and the other within sight of an eight inch metal torch. And although both women were called Evelyn, the Police put this down as possibly just a coincidence. But in each case, although the Police wouldn’t know this yet, their murderer had taken a souvenir.
Was this the same man, or merely chance? Was this a spree-killer, or a strikingly similar attack? With Evelyn Oatley’s long fingernails being unbroken, they knew her attacker was swift. With bruise marks on their necks, Police knew they’d both been strangled by a left-hander. And although, Superintendant Frederick Cherrill of Scotland Yard’s Print Bureau had found a left thumb print on Evelyn Oatley’s compact mirror (touched as her killer rifled her handbag for money) and a left little finger print on the metal can-opener he had used to mutilate his latest victim, none of his prints were on file.

If the same man had murdered both women, the Police wouldn’t have time to even contemplate the horror of a spree-killer in their midst; as with his violence escalating, his bloodlust pumping and his sadism unsated, he was only two days into his five day killing spree, and as darkness fell over London, once again, he headed into Soho, as The Blackout Ripper went in search of his next victim.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.

Don’t forget to join us next week for the third part of the true story of The Blackout Ripper.

This week’s recommended podcast of the week is True-Crime Enthusiast, hosted by Paul, True-Crime Enthusiast is a fantastic dive into the UK’s most twisted, deranged and disturbing murderers, presented with a disarmingly charming style, Paul lures you in with his jovial friendly banter, only to bludgeon you over the head with truly disturbing and utterly baffling true-crime tales from the lesser known annals of UK murder, all of which will make you gasp, grin, guffaw and maybe even gag. Check out True-Crime Enthusiast. (Play Promo)

A big thank you goes to my brand new Patreon supporters who get exclusive access to original Murder Mile content, including crime-scene photos, murder location videos and Patron-only Extra Mile episodes for the first 20 cases. What lucky people! They are the fabulous Hannah Mirza (who has been a dream on social media, so thank you Hannah), the wonderful Elizabeth Nazaralli (who loves murder so much, she’s willing to pay $3 a month to see more) and someone called Helene Buchanan-Dunne (who loves Murder Mile so much, she’s stolen my surname and some of my DNA – I think – either that or she’s my sister). To join the Murder Mile Patreon group, click the link in the show-notes.

And a quick shout-out to two truly excellent true-crime podcasts that I heartily recommend; first is Asian Madness Podcast, hosted by Melissa, the Asian Madness Podcast unearths some truly unsettling mysteries, madness, weirdness and worrying weirdos from right across Asia. And second is Southern Fried True-Crime, hosted by Erika, Southern Fried True-Crime explores some truly fascinating true-crime tales from America’s Deep South; the states where banjos play, whiskey flows and the homespun charm is alluring, but underneath it all, murderers lurk. Check them both out on iTunes and all podcast platforms.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode… is part three of our series into The Blackout Ripper.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: Murder MIle's series on The Blackout Ripper was taken entirely from all of the original declassified police investigation files which are held by the National Archives at Kew, and too almost eight months to intensively research, so everything you hear is original and true.

Music: Additional music was used (in the case of Cult With No Name) with their kind permission and all other artists under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive.
A full track listing follows:

• -7 by Cult With No Name (theme music)
• The Way You’re Looking At Me by Cult With No Name
• Acid Jazz by Kevin MacLeod
• Operation Failed by Cult With No Name
• Remedy for Melancholy by Kai Engel
  
• Faster Does It by Kevin MacLeod
• True by NCTRNM
  
• July by Kai Engel

Sounds: With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution).

• Cockerill - https://freesound.org/people/cclaretc/sounds/164064/
• Bed springs - https://freesound.org/people/StinkhornAdrian/sounds/390515/

• Steam train - https://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/125211/

• Old car - https://freesound.org/people/juskiddink/sounds/77096/
• Old car horn - https://freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/43801/

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile on iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

INTRO: Ripper; noun, the origins of the word “Ripper” are uncertain, as although its first recorded use was in the year 1615 to describe a primitive cutting tool used by tanners, curriers and leather workers to rip and tear apart cow-hide, as well as later termed by slate-workers, corn threshers and to define the hook-like drill which breaks-up rock and ore as used to extract oil and gas, by the early 1800’s, when having gas-lighting in your home was a sign of affluence, “Ripper” had entered the public vocabulary as a slang term to describe anything which is “good, excellent or splendid”

But by the late 1880’s, in London’s East End, the word “Ripper” had re-entered the modern parlance with a much darker and deadlier meaning, denoting a murderer who takes great pleasure in the slashing and tearing of his victim’s flesh, whether pre-or-post mortem to satisfy their sexual sadism, as around the impoverished streets of Whitechapel, a maniac stalked the city’s sex-workers.

And as gripping as the story of Jack the Ripper is; even today, no-one knows his name, his face, his age, his address, his description, his motivation, his method, the exact span of his killings, which victims he killed, which of the current 106 suspects he really is, or even, if he actually existed at all.

Since then, the term “Ripper” has only been adopted by the press to describe three British serial killers and spree-killers during their reign of terror; they were Jack the Ripper, the Yorkshire Ripper and a maniac so terrifying, so fascinating and yet so unassuming, that during the dark of the blitz of World War Two, across London’s West End, and over just five days, he would brutally attack six women, with escalating levels of sadism and violence… and yet his killing spree had only just begun. 

With much of the evidence supressed by the government and the press for fear of unsettling a weak morale in London during the fear of the early 1940’s, the true story of the West End’s very own ripper has long been lost, rehashed, fudged and retold in a rambling mix of confusingly short fragments.

But after eight months of intensive research, experimentation and investigation, using all the original declassified police investigation files, military records and court transcripts of the case, the puzzle is complete and what follows over the next few weeks is a definitive history of one of Britain’s deadliest, strangest and long-forgotten spree-killers. And as always, these episodes will contain graphic details which may offend, realistic sounds which may startle, and is not suitable for the easily flustered.

My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part one of the full, true and untold story of The Blackout Ripper.

SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing on Montagu Place in Marylebone, W1; a picturesque upper-class enclave hidden from the hustle and bustle of city-life; just three streets north of Oxford Street, four streets south of Baker Street, one street east of Edgware Road, and with Soho two tube-stops to the west.

Surrounded by a rich mix of four to six storey townhouses from the Regency period to the Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian era; being calm, quiet and clean, Montagu Place (which borders the ultra-affluent Montagu Square, whose perfectly manicured private garden is alarmed, patrolled and protected by ornate wrought iron gates, with a key you can only acquire if were schooled at Eton, holidayed at Monty, bunked with a boy called Jolyon, or your uncle’s a QC don’t you know) this area aims to keep the hoity-toity in and the hoi polloi out.

And with no beggars, no buskers and no boozers pebble-dashing its pristine paths with steamy great clumps of working-class puke; what you’re left with are rows of half-empty houses full of cocks with cooks, burkes with butlers, drips with drivers, fannies with nannies and posh-pricks protected by private security who are less likely to be robbed and more likely to be slapped, as they’re manhandled back to man-child mansions; being too posh to scream, too British to cry, and incapable of cacking their pants having been born with a fine selection of silver cutlery poking out of their poo-pipes.

And even though, during the sixties, they actually let some scousers (called John Lennon and Ringo Starr) move in; being brightly-lit, super-clean and regularly patrolled by the Police, here in Montagu Place, under the shade of the Swiss and the Swedish Embassies, you will always feel safe and secure.

But appearances can be deceptive. As it was here, in calm of Montagu Place, on the cold winter night of Sunday 8th February 1942 that a lone woman called Evelyn Hamilton was murdered. No-one heard her scream, no-one saw her struggle and no-one came to help. London’s West End was about to be gripped by five nights of absolute terror, where no woman was safe, as a serial sexual sadist stalked the city streets with murderous intent… and he was known as The Blackout Ripper. (Interstitial)

Born on 8th February 1901, Evelyn Margaret Hamilton was one of four sisters born to Lucy, a recent widow whose deceased husband’s insurance had ensured his family’s finances after his untimely death, giving them stability and security as the economic depression of World War One loomed large.

Raised in the idyllic tranquillity of the semi-rural village of Ryton in Tyne & Wear in the North East of England, far from the industrial sprawl and smog of the Newcastle mills and the Sunderland shipyards, Evelyn’s upbringing was the epitome of picture perfect; surrounded by fresh fruit, clean air, long walks and no crime. And being a progressive woman in an era where the best a young girl could aspire to be was as a machinist, a maid or married-off, Lucy enrolled her four daughters in the best schools.

Having studied at Skerry’s College in Newcastle and the prestigious medical school at the University of Edinburgh, by 1923, 22 year old Evelyn graduated with a diploma in chemistry and pharmacology. Having qualified as a chemist and a druggist, over the next 18 years, she focussed on sharpening her skills, climbing the career ladder and seeing more of the country, as she moved from job-to-job in Loughborough, Leicestershire, Surrey, London and later in Essex.

By November 1941, with the economic ravages of World War Two having started to bite and rationing in full-swing, Evelyn had secured herself a position as manager and pharmacist in the respected high-street store of Yardley’s Chemists at 9 Market Parade in the market town on Romford (Essex). And as qualified as she was for the job, three months later, she would be gone.
On the surface, Evelyn Hamilton seemed unremarkable and easily forgettable; as being just five foot 3 ½ inches in height and a slender seven stone in weight, who wore very little make-up nor perfume, never smiled nor spoke-up, and always dressed-down and looked dour, as exceptionally bright as she was, she never wanted to be noticed and blended into the background.

Being fastidiously neat, unfashionably dressed and wrapped in a thick excess of shapeless woollen layers (being thin-skinned, shivery and prone to goose-bumps) even on the warmest of days; with short brown hair, a furrowed brow and droopy brown eyes which hung with the air of sadness of a lonely woman who never felt loved, was never told she was beautiful, and never once had a best-friend nor boyfriend in her 41 years, she had become a shadow of her former self.

Evelyn was a very private person, who was quiet, uptight and troubled. Described by her employer – Mr Bernard Gray - as agitated, eccentric and that she often looked as if she was frightened, being prone to bouts of insomnia and depression, she never found peace within herself and regularly returned to her mother’s home in Ryton for long periods of rest and recuperation. But Romford was not for Evelyn, and as a book-worm surrounded by sheep-farmers, here she felt mentally, physically and emotionally starved, and what she needed was some fun, love and excitement.

Friday 6th February 1942 started like any other day. Being a creature of habit, Evelyn rose at 7:30 sharp; washed in the hand-basin, nibbled at a breakfast apple and dressed in her practical clothes she’d laid-out the night before (a thick woollen jumper, a thick woollen skirt, stockings, a bra, a white vest and two pairs of under-garments to keep out the cold). With the February snow being thick under foot and the icy winter wind howling, she wrapped-up warm in her full-length camel hair coat, an orange and pea-green woollen scarf, a green woollen “turban style” hat and black leather gloves.

And having applied a thin coat of pink lipstick (hardly a shade darker than her own lips), draped over her shoulder a beige canvas gas-mask (standard issue during World War Two) and clutching her dark brown leather handbag (which looked less like a fashion accessory and more like a wrapped parcel), she gave a polite smile to Mrs Eva Lever, her landlady of her middle-class lodging called The Haven on Link Way in Hornchurch, and headed towards the bus stop.

As always, she walked to the bus stop alone, stood at the bus stop alone and opened the shop alone, not realising that (as much as she hated her new routine) that she would never do it, ever again.

Being a tall four-storey brick and sandstone building right in the heart of Romford’s busiest market, Yardley’s Chemist shop at 9 Market Place should have been a profitable business, but with times hard, tensions high and the economy in disarray as Britain entered its third year in a six year war, 16 months after the Dunkirk evacuation and 16 months before the D-Day Landings, as the invading forces took France and loomed nearer the English coast, it began to look like Germany would win.

So sadly, both Evelyn Hamilton and her 14 year old assistant Miss Bettina Grace Gray were given their notice, and being paid a wage of £5 per week (roughly £250 today), Evelyn was given one month’s pay and the doors of Yardley’s Chemist’s closed forever. Two days later, she would be dead. (Interstitial)

On the morning of Sunday 8th February 1942, Evelyn rose at 7:30 sharp, lying alone in a single bed in a drab little rented room, another heavy cloud of depression hung over her. And although she hated where she lived, where she worked and being unemployed, being so qualified, she quickly found work as a pharmacist in the port-town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire; a place where she had no family, no friends and would (once again) be a single woman, in a lonely bed, in an empty room.

Having written a letter to her mother (Lucy), which she did every week without fail, using the green and black pencil she’d loaned of her assistant Bettina and forgot to give back, Evelyn added a few pounds of her £20 severance pay to help her doting mother in her old age, and proceeded to pack.

Into a large brown trunk, wrapped in protective newspaper, she placed her treasured possessions; family photos of her mother and her three sisters, a stack of books (mostly chemistry textbooks, a history of women’s suffrage and political literature as she was an ardent socialist), and her practical clothes, all of which were neatly washed, ironed and etched with the laundry mark - E2474.

Into a medium-sized overnight case, she placed a toothbrush, hairbrush, book and a change of clothes. Perched next to that sat her dark brown leather handbag, containing a white metal lighter, a veneer cigarette case, a metal compact, a pink lipstick, a set of handkerchiefs etched with an E2474 laundry mark, her purse containing what remained of her £20 severance pay (roughly £1000 today), next to which she’d laid out her coat, hat, scarf, gloves and gas-mask. And having settled her account in full with Mrs Eva Lever, landlady of ‘The Haven’, politely declined a spot of tea and left instructions for a railway man to arrive on Monday morning, collect her trunk and send it to Grimsby, Evelyn sat alone on her single bed, smoked a cigarette and opened four brightly coloured cards from her family.

As not only was this her 41st birthday, it was also her last day alive.

What follows are the last known movements of 41 year old Evelyn Margaret Hamilton: On Sunday 8th February 1942 at 7:20pm, dressed in her camel-hair coat, brown velvet under jacket, white vest, green jumper, brown skirt, brown stockings, black shoes and her usual two pairs of under-garments, with a pea green and orange scarf and a green woollen hat, Evelyn arrived at Hornchurch station clutching her medium sized suitcase, a brown leather handbag and purchased a one-way ticket to London.

Arriving at Aldgate East at 9:40pm, four hours after dusk, the city was in pitch-black as the wartime blackout was inforce; and with all street-lamps dimmed, doors closed, curtains shut and vehicle headlights reduced to mere slits to obscure the urban sprawl from the German bombers above, using her trusty 8 inch metal torch, Evelyn joined a sea of people with dull bobbing lights as she took a Hammersmith & City line train nine stops west to Baker Street station.

With heavy winter snow crunching under foot and an icy wind blowing in from Siberia, although she had barely a 1/5 mile further to go, Evelyn hailed a black-cab and was driven by Abraham Israel Ash to The Three Arts Club at 76 Gloucester Place; a hotel she had stayed many times before, and always felt safe, warm and comfortable, before catching the early train to Grimsby and her new life up north.

The time was 10:15pm, and so far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened; her trains were on time, her cab-driver was pleasant; she hadn’t been short-changed, swindled, followed, accosted or abused, and like any other ordinary people living in a sprawling metropolis like London, with no debts, drink or drug issues, and no enemies what-so-ever, she was an entirely unlikely person to ever be murdered. Evelyn was just a shy nervous lady going about her business and not being a bother to anyone,

With half a crown covering the taxi-fare and Abraham’s tip for carrying her suitcase up The Three Arts Club’s stairs, Evelyn checked into a single room for one night and didn’t unpack, instead – feeling a little peckish having politely declined her former landlady’s kind offer of a spot of tea – Evelyn asked Ms Kathleen Rosser Jones (manageress of The Three Arts Club) if food was still being served, but with the kitchens now closed, Evelyn set out into the dark streets of Marylebone in search of sustenance.

The time was 10:50pm. And with the street being cold, her stomach having rumbled too many times and the batteries of her torch slowly dying as the dim bulb began to fade; Evelyn hopped in a black-cab and headed half a mile south to the one place that was always open and never stopped serving. This was her last taxi-ride, to her final meal, which passed a little side-street behind her hotel called Montagu Place, where just a few hours later, Evelyn Hamilton would be found dead.

The cab ride should have taken little more than five minutes, but Evelyn’s whereabouts over the next hour are unknown. Where she went? Nobody knows. Who she saw? Nobody knows. What she did? Nobody knows. But it’s unlikely that anything suspicious or untoward happened, it’s just an odd gap in the last known movements of a shy quiet lady with very few friends, a fondness for solitude, and a deep desire to be anonymous, blend into the crowd and never be noticed.

Just before of midnight, at the junction of Oxford Street and Great Cumberland Place (now the site of the Cumberland Hotel which overlooks the prestigious addresses of Marble Arch, Park Lane and Hyde Park), Evelyn entered Maison Lyonese; a well-respected five-storey corner-house tearoom, one of five in London, which was famed for its speedy service, 24 hour restaurants, live entertainment and food-hall packed full of delicatessens, chocolatiers, florists and hair-salons.

Witnessed by waitress Betty Witcover walking into the brasserie, although she was neither seated nor served by Betty, she felt a sympathetic pang for Evelyn, a lonely women sitting by herself amongst a sea of raucous friends, kissing couples and boozy servicemen, as she raised a single solitary toast to herself, on this her 41st birthday.

According to her autopsy, her final meal was one small glass of white wine, two slices of wholemeal bread and a main-course mostly consisting of beetroot. After that, Evelyn Hamilton disappeared; no-one saw her talk to anyone, no-one saw her leave, and she was never seen alive again.

On the following morning of Monday 9th February 1942, at 8:40am, local Paddington plumber Harold Batchelor and his mate William Baldwin were walking to their first job of the day; the cold air caused their cheeks to flush, the biting wind made their noses sniffle and under their boots they crunched a fresh layer of pristine white snow, as they crossed over Gloucester Place and into Montagu Place.

On the left hand side of Montagu Place; positioned half on the pavement, half on the road and built in a neat little line, were three surface air-raid shelters, one of thousands which dotted the city. Being 7 ½ foot high, 7 ½ foot wide, with a 23 foot middle shelter and two half its size either side; although these three oblong blocks made of 14 inch brick, 1 foot thick reinforced concrete roofs and covered with 20 kilo sandbags wouldn’t protect its terrified occupants from a direct-hit; one year earlier, it had saved 100 residents from certain death, having shielded them from the blast-wave, shrapnel and falling debris of a Nazi bomb, so in Montagu Place, these air-raid shelters were a place of safety.

Last night though, there wasn’t an air-raid, no German bombers had flown by and no bombs were dropped, so apart from an occasional homeless man or kissing couple, the shelters would be empty.

But as Harold and William walked by the larger middle shelter, on the snow speckled pavement they spotted the broken top of an 8 inch metal torch, a lady’s green woollen “turban style” hat, and poking out of the brick entrance was a woman’s left leg lying prostrate on the floor, wearing brown stockings and practical black shoes. Reeling from the shock, Harold barked “Will? Fetch the Police”.

The crime-scene was promptly secured by PC John Mills, ready for the arrival of Divisional Detective Inspector Leonard Clare at 8:55am and the Divisional Surgeon Alexander Baldie at 9:10am.

With her handbag missing, Police were uncertain who this woman was; all they knew was that she was in her early forties, 5 foot 3 ½ inches tall, 7 stone in weight, wearing a full-length camel coat, a pea green and orange woollen scarf, a pale shade of pink lipstick and that she had been murdered.

Being a fastidiously neat women whose unfashionable clothes were professionally cleaned, pressed and etched with the laundry mark – E2474 – now she lay dumped in the wet gutter of the road which ran through the centre of damp dark shelter; her clothes all dirty, torn and in disarray.

With her left leg poking out of the entrance, her right leg remained within, raised and resting on the shelter’s brickwork, her practical black shoes badly scraped and scuffed. Under her brown stockings lay fragments of brick mortar which had broken away from the wall, as in a desperate fight for her life, she had fought back, as a violent struggle took place. Denying her any hint of modesty, her calf-length brown skirt had been pulled up to her hips, her torn bloomers and ripped knickers pulled down to her knees, her legs spread wide, and the genitals of a deeply private woman exposed for all to see.

What hatred he’d had for this small timid woman, to humiliate her in such a way, nobody would know. But with her camel-hair coat splayed open under her cold corpse, her white vest torn, deliberately exposing her right breast, Police felt that not only had she been posed, but that her punishment wasn’t just a violent and sickening death, but also her humiliation. And although her pea green and orange woollen scarf slightly masked her bruised cheeks and bloodied lips, peeping out from above, her eyes were etched with terror.

Three days later, 41 year old Evelyn Margaret Hamilton was identified at Paddington Mortuary by Ms Kathleen Rosser Jones (manageress of The Three Arts Club), her former employer Mr Bernard Grey of Yardley’s Chemists in Romford, and her sister Kathleen Hamilton.

At 3pm that afternoon, an autopsy was held at Paddington Mortuary by the Home Office pathologist (and father of forensic science) Sir Bernard Spilsbury in the presence of Divisional Detective Inspector Leonard Clare, but the evidence presented before them was perplexing. .

With her handbag, purse, money and all forms of ID missing, Police considered a possible motive of robbery, but were confused as to why her attacker had left an expensive gold watch on her left wrist. With no sperm found in her vagina, Police ruled out rape as sexual intercourse had not taken place, but they couldn’t account for the a small amount of blood found in and around her vagina. And with abrasions to her legs, scalp and back, with a 1 inch cut on her left eyebrow, a 2 inch bruise on her right cheek, a 3 inch abrasion on the back of her neck, and an odd series of small cuts on her right breast, was this a physical assault, or the work of a sexual sadist?

What they knew for certain was that (owing to her body’s temperature and state of decomposition) Evelyn Hamilton’s time of death was roughly 1am, barely one hour after waitress Betty Witcover had seen her in Maison Lyonese, a time which was corroborate by her broken gold watch. And that, with her bloodshot eyes, her dilated pupils, her flushed swollen face, her fractured larynx, her engorged lips, fingers and swollen tongue which jutted from the white froth of her open mouth, with a clear bruised outline of a thumb over her throat and four fingers pressed into the mottled flesh at the back of her neck, Police were certain that she had been throttled to death by a left-handed strangler.

But sadly, that’s where the investigation into the murder of Evelyn Hamilton stalled; as with no motive, no witnesses and no fingerprints what-so-ever; very little physical evidence beyond her torn clothes, her broken torch, some scuffed shoes, a few fragments of brick mortar, and a tin of Ovaltine tablets and a pack of Masters safety matches (which no-one knew who they belonged to); as well as the fresh snow having masked any footprints and the last hour of Evelyn’s life being a complete mystery.

Her shocking murder on Montagu Place asked more questions than it answered, such as; if she took a cab from the hotel to the restaurant, why didn’t she take one back? If she walked back, why would she do so, alone, in the cold, with a broken torch? And with Montagu Place barely a 10 second walk from her hotel, why would she go inside of an air-raid shelter on a night when there were no air-raids?

Was Evelyn followed? Did Evelyn have a dark-side? Had Evelyn a secret enemy? Or was 41 year old Evelyn Hamilton; a bookish women who was too shy to talk, too timid to dress-up and too reticent for red lipstick, who hide in the background of life and had no experience of love, was this painfully lonely women approached by a man, flattered by his attention, brought a birthday drink and then lured to her death by the first man ever to tell her she was beautiful? That, we shall never know.

Her murder would have remained unsolved… but during that terrifying week in February 1942, across the dark-lit bombed-out streets of London’s West End, as the petrified people scurried in the darkness for fear of being murdered by the German bombers which loomed above, a sexual sadist stalked the streets. Evelyn Hamilton was the first, but she wouldn’t be the last victim of The Blackout Ripper.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.

This week’s recommended podcast of the week is Murder Was The Case; presented criminologist Lee Mellor and host Vanessa Vanelli, Murder Was The Case is a fascinating in-depth analysis of murder, by an expert, explain the difference between homicide and murder; serial-killer and mass-murderers, genocide, patricide, matricide, infanticide and every detail about murder that you’ve ever wanted to know. So if you’ve got a curious mind eager for facts, check out Murder Was The Case. (Play Promo)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook, or even better, for extra exclusive content, subscribe to the Murder Mile Patreon group. .

A quick thank you this week to the fabulous people who have left five-star reviews of Murder Mile and have been truly fabulous on social media, they include; Dennaz Broacha-Jones, Rhomany, Summer Sabateur, Poor Little Nell, Janine Madden and English Expat.

And a big thank you to my very first Patreon supporter, so eager was this man to get access to exclusive Murder Mile content, that he signed up to our Patreon account before I’d even launched it, so a huge thank you goes out to Terrence Scannel, Patreon #1. And just before I started recorded Cam Roberts pledged $3 too, a big thank you to Cam Roberts.

And a quick shout-out goes to two truly excellent true-crime podcasts that I heartily recommend; first is Canadian True-Crime; hosted by Kristi, Canadian True-Crime is a well-researched and well-presented deep-dive into the twisted lives of some truly warped Canadians, such as Robert Pickton, Tori Stafford, the Ken & Barbie Killers. And second is Killafornia Dreaming, hosted by Rosanna, Killafornia Dreaming brings you terrifying true-crime stories from the Golden State of California, which statistically has the highest proportion of serial killers in America. Both are excellent podcasts and will truly put you off going to Canada or California.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode… is part two of our series into The Blackout Ripper.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: The Blackout Ripper series for Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using all of the original declassified police investigation files form the National Archive.

With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution), and additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by various artists.

• -7 by Cult With No Name (theme tune)
  
• When You Leave by Sergey Chereminisnov
• Heir of the Dog by Cult With No Name
• Your Mother’s Daughter by Chris Zabriski
  
• Fly in the Ointment by Cult With No Name
• Piano Piece 2 by Cult With No Name
• Delirium by kai Engel
• Sopor by kai Engel
• Imminence by Kai Engel

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Love true-crime podcasts? Subscribe to Murder Mile on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio, Spotify or Libsyn

Welcome to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within one square mile of the West End. 

• A weekly true-crime podcast - EVERY THURSDAY
• 300+ infamous, untold or often forgotten true murders
• Based on Soho's FIVE STAR rated Murder Mile Walks
• Research collected from original and first-hand sources
• Authentic sounds recorded from the location itself
• An audio guided walk... all from the comfort of your home

To accompany your audio guided walk, what follows is a series of photos, videos and maps, so that no matter where you are listening to this podcast, you'll feel like you're actually there. ​​​

EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR

Episode Twenty-Four: PART 2 OF 2: On 19th February 2001, ten dismembered body-parts of an unidentified woman were found submerged in the Regent's Canal, in a sickening attacked which matched that of a headless torso found in a Rotterdam Canal a decade earlier. But who were they? And what connected them?

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode twenty four of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

If you’re new to Murder Mile, please note that  this episode is the concluding part of a two-part special into canal-killer John Patrick Sweeney, so I would strongly advise you  download any other episode. For regular listeners, thank you for listening, for sharing, for reviewing, for spotting the secret thing (that only a select few have found, one of whom did so whilst picking up dog-poo) and to those who’ve signed up to the exclusive content on the Murder Mile Patreon account, I thank you.Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s recommended podcast of the week, this time it’s the murderously good Wining about Crime.Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one of three square miles. Ooh.Today’s episode is the conclusion to the story of John Sweeney; an abusive, violent and dangerously disturbed man whose drug-fuelled paranoia and insane jealousy of his girlfriends, led to a bloody trail of body-parts across Europe, the full-extent of his brutality remains a mystery even today.Murder Mile contains graphic details of abuse, torture and death which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.Episode 24: Canal Killers – John Sweeney Part 2 (Paula Fields & Melissa Halstead)

Today I’m not within one square mile of Soho, Paddington, King’s Cross, or even the Regent’s Canal; I’m 256 miles away in Holland’s beautiful capital city of Amsterdam; a coastal city crammed full of architectural marvels from the medieval times to the modern age; cross-crossed by laid-back cycle-ways, stunning bridges, and interconnected by an intricate canal system… which isn’t full of moany stoners in hi-viz vests, who’ve draped their leaky plastic cruiser in a huge blue tarpaulin, as if looking like an Ikea bag is the height of chic. (out of shot) “Ah get shagged!”

Unlike stuffy old London, Amsterdam is so liberal; not only is it chock-full of history and high-art, but it also has three museums dedicated to prostitution, procreation and penises, and also (I’m guessing) a kid’s cannabis crèche, a dildo recycling service, six streets named after syphilitic sailors, a free orgasm vending-machine; a shop which sell willy-warmers woven from old pubes, and an publically funded institute promoting the complete history of the anus.

And as I sit outside of a snowy café; chomping on pancakes, supping on wheat-beers and toking on an entirely legal spliff; although I’m nowhere near Battlebridge Basin - where on 19th February 2001, ten dismembered body parts of John Sweeney’s ex-girlfriend were found submerged in the Regent’s Canal - this is where the last episode ended and where this new episode begins.

On Monday 27th March 1989, having served just half of a twelve month sentence for violently attacking his girlfriend with a half-kilo foot-long claw-hammer on the stairwell of her Austrian flat - an horrific attack which left her riddled with pain, plagued by flashbacks and crippled with anxiety – 34 year old John Patrick Sweeney walked free from JustIzastalt-Wien-erdberg prison in Vienna.

Having spent two weeks in hospital, his terrified victim – Melissa Halstead; whose bruises had heeled but whose skull was still fractured and required a daily dose of pain-killers to dull her constant headaches – was safe from his anger, jealously and violence. And to protect her from any further danger, the judge had also issued Sweeney with a 10 year deportation order, which not only ensured he stayed away from Melissa, but also banned him from returning to Austria for the next decade.

And as Sweeney breathed in that fresh Austrian air, the cool mountain wind tickling his bright red beard, a stunningly beautiful blonde lady kissed him on the lips. Quite what she saw in him, nobody knows? But this bright, bubbly, American ex-fashion model who had believed his cries and his lies that he was a changed man, and had personally pleaded the judge for her boyfriend’s early release, Melissa Halstead picked Sweeney up from prison, her car packed with their bags, and (outside of the protection of the deportation order) they headed off to Holland, ready to begin a new life together.

But those six months of incarceration and solitude had done nothing to cure him of his addiction to drink, his hunger for drugs, his jealous streak, his paranoia and his obsession with torture and violence.

Sweeney was a sick man. And as much as Melissa believed that he loved her, really he was controlling her. As much as she insisted that he was protecting her, really he was assaulting her. And as laidback as their new home-city was; with its late-night bars, legalised drugs and liberal attitudes to sex, Amsterdam was the worst place for a jealous, paranoid, sex-obsessed alcoholic and heavy cannabis user, who also dabbled in LSD and was hopelessly addicted to heroin.

Although he did a few odd-jobs as a carpenter, most of which funded his habit, Melissa’s career as a photographer and make-up artist paid for the rent, the food, everything. And as the months went on, so did the beatings, all of which Melissa covered over with weak excuses and heavy mascara.

As a minor blessing, Melissa’s occupation was perfectly suited to her free-spirited nature, which gave her ample opportunity to see the world and meet new people, in an unpredictable and unscheduled routine which meant she would often be away and out-of-contact for days, weeks and even months. But the longer she was gone; the more Sweeney drank, the blacker his moods got, and the more his jealousy festered.

During the last week of April 1990 - with Europe still in a state of celebration, five months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War – Melissa Halstead returned home to Kromme Waal in the centre of Amsterdam, and the basement flat she shared with violent and controlling boyfriend; her plan (once again) to try and leave Sweeney forever.

On Thursday 3rd May 1990, 50 miles from Amsterdam, in the Dutch coastal city of Rotterdam, a green army surplus kit-bag was found partially submerged and floating down the Westersingel canal. Seeing the thirty inch canvas bag bobbing up-and-down, two keen-eyed Police constables assumed it was either stolen luggage or dumped rubbish, but as both men huffed and heaved the heavy hessian sack onto the stony towpath, as gallons of canal water drained out, still the bag was a dead-weight.

In an unnervingly similar incident to one which would take place at Battlebridge Basin on the Regent’s Canal, almost a decade later, as the Police unzipped the bag, they witnessed what would become the grisly calling-card of a maniac.

Inside, the naked torso of a mid-thirties female had been hacked-up, folded in half and forced into the tight duffle-bag; across her ankles and neck were rough jagged tears where (using what carpenter’s refer to as a Rip Carcass Saw), he had sawn through the tibia and fibula of both lower legs and the cervical curve of her neck, severing her spine and decapitating her hands and head. And although her body had been bound with a tough braided sisal rope (the kind used on building sites), having been submerged in water for a little over a week, with decomposition in an advanced state, already her pale discoloured skin had slipped free of its binds.

The Police were at a loss as who this woman was, as whoever had murdered her, had made a conscious effort to destroy any evidence of who she was. And with no clothes, no bag, no ID, no hands, no head, and almost all of the DNA evidence having washed away into the canal, all Police had was a torso with no name, no face, no eyes, no teeth, no birth-marks, no operation scars and no fingerprints. And having no head, Police couldn’t even identify her by that tell-tale skull fracture, having recently been attacked by her boyfriend using a carpenter’s claw-hammer. With no missing person’s report fitting her limited description, and her hands and head having never been found, Melissa Halstead was marked as a Jane Doe and buried in an unmarked grave in a Rotterdam cemetery.

Exactly how and where Melissa died, we shall never know, as being so hard-working and free-spirited, her family in Ohio only realised she was missing when on 2nd November 1990 she failed to call her mother to wish her a happy birthday, and hired a local lawyer to investigate her disappearance. But by then, it was too late; her basement flat was totally empty, meticulously clean and its former occupants were gone. Melissa had vanished, Sweeney had returned to England and (once again) he went looking for love, and her name was Delia Balmer. (INTERSTITIAL)

Having met Sweeney in a kooky Camden pub in early 1991, although Delia was instantly smitten with this cheeky-faced Liverpudlian who was artistic, well-travelled and lived an almost idyllic bohemian lifestyle, together they truly seemed like an odd-couple; as she was a petite timid blonde who worked as a nurse saving lives but had an irrational fear of all electronic devices, and he was a tall red bearded psychopath with one murder and one attempted murder in his past, and one murder still to come.

Being honest, sweet and trusting, it wasn’t long before Delia let Sweeney move into her home; a ground-floor flat in Leighton Grove (Camden), which was situated just one mile from Regent’s Canal, and barely one and a half miles from Battlebridge Basin where the body-parts would later be found. 

And as bizarre as their flat was; with Delia having covered every phone, radio and television in cushions for fear that they caused cancer, the epitome of disturbing was how Sweeney decorated the flat; not only with beer cans, spent spliffs and crack-pipes, but also a pet tarantula, a large stash of horror magazines and a wall packed full of morbid self-drawn art-work depicting axes, blood, torture, body-parts and headless female corpses.

As with Melissa and Anne, it wasn’t long before her life was being dominated by his paranoid deluded jealousy, as Sweeney controlled every aspect of Delia’s life, whether she was there or not, and what started with a never-ending succession of emotional blackmail, mental abuse and physical assaults over a four year period, soon descended into an incident of unimaginable horror. 

In November 1994, with Delia having attempted to leave her psychopathic partner after a series of violent beatings which left her bruised, bloodied and fearing for her life - as punishment - Sweeney tied the tiny helpless woman to the frame of her bed, using the same kind of tough braided sisal rope he had bound Melissa’s lifeless body with, and in a sickening ordeal which lasted 48 hours, Delia was repeatedly raped, strangled, beaten and tortured, as Sweeney held a gun to her head, threatening to cut out her tongue with a kitchen knife if she screamed.

Delia later stated, “I could see the dark, empty, evil look coming into his eyes and his hands started to shake”. And with the cold steel of the handgun pressed firmly against her head, Sweeney pulled the trigger till the hammer went click, his empty threat made all-the-more real as he loaded the gun before her eyes and boasted about how the last ex-girlfriend who tried to leave him was found floating in a Rotterdam canal, her head and hands hacked-off using the Rip Carcass saw he kept in his bag.

But just like his ex-wife Anne Bramley, he didn’t kill Delia Balmer; he couldn’t, he wouldn’t and no-one knows why except Sweeney. Instead, having left her bruised, bloodied, terrified and tied to the bed, Sweeney fled to Germany. But with the Police now aware of his details, description and aliases, he was arrested a few days later, deported back to the UK and held on remand at Pentonville Prison. A Category B prison on the Caledonian Road, just a ten minute walk from Battlebridge Basin.

Traumatised by her horrific ordeal, Delia confided her fears to a friend. And in an odd premonition of what was to come, she said “He will do something. He will cut me to bits. Just like he had Melissa”.

On Thursday 22nd December 1994, three days before Christmas, John Patrick Sweeney was released on bail from Pentonville Prison, just one mile from Delia’s home in Leighton Grove, and “The moment I discovered he was out, I was on edge. I knew he would be coming for me”.

A few hours later, with the winter sun having set, a cold wind blowing and the first few flakes of snow settling, having finished her shift as a nurse, Delia cautiously cycled into Leighton Grove; lined on both sides with three-storey townhouses, the dark-lit street was empty, only illuminated by the flicker of TV sets, the twinkle of Christmas lights and the dull orange glow of a handful of street-lights.

Swinging open the iron-gate, Delia pushed her bicycle along the cold stone path, up to the concrete step at the foot of the front door to her ground-floor flat; everything was quiet, calm and safe. Or so it seemed. As Delia nervously fumbled her keys into the lock, from the shadows, Sweeney pounced.

With his arms flailing, his eyes wild and his teeth gritted; Sweeney began slashing and hacking at the tiny helpless woman, her trembling hands held defensively up to her screaming face, as gripped in both fists he held a kitchen knife and a two kilo axe. Delia later recalled “I saw my finger fly through the air, and I thought: ‘That’s it. I don’t want to live anymore”.

In a sustained, sickening and frenzied attack, on the doorstep of her own home, Delia Balmer (the five foot three inch nurse, who was as timid as she was tiny) suffered multiple lacerations to her hands, arms, legs, face and chest; as well as two broken arms, deep stab wounds to her thighs and breast, an axe-wound to the head, a punctured lung, and the little finger of her left hand entirely severed. And lying in a puddle of her own blood, struggling to breathe as Sweeney stood over her, hacking away at the petrified woman, Delia could have died, but didn’t.

Hearing her screams, her neighbour Jiles Allen dashed out of his house and armed with a baseball bat, Jiles chased Delia’s attacker down the street, as the five-foot ten-inch frame of Sweeney vanished into the shadows, being the kind of coward who’s too scared to pick on someone his own size.

Believing she had breathed her last breath, Delia later said “I died that day” and thought that she had finally escaped her violent boyfriend forever, but when she awoke in the intensive care unit of the Royal Free Hospital (where she worked), Delia’s first thought was “Oh no, I am alive. Now what, hell?”

Although physically, emotionally and psychologically scarred, for the six years that Sweeney was on the run from the Police, friends would caution her to watch her back, knowing that the demented red-head had unfinished business and would come looking for her. But for Delia, she didn’t care, her life was over, she’d reply “it’s too late. I am not scared anymore because I am not me anymore”.

When interviewed by the Police, Delia told them everything; about the abuse, the torture, the rapes, about Sweeney and his confession that he’d murdered Melissa Halstead in Holland. And as the Police examined Sweeney’s belongings in Delia’s Leighton Grove flat, they saw not only his deeply disturbing collection of self-drawn art-work of footless, handless and headless women, drenched in a pool of blood, whose limbs had been hacked off, but also a green army surplus duffle-bag which contained a groundsheet, bin-bags, sisal ropes, gaffer tape, a claw-hammer and a rip carcass saw – a psychopath’s tool-kit to dispose of a human body and ensure that no-one would ever identify it.

By Christmas 1994, four and a half years after the grisly discovery of an unidentified woman’s torso which was found floating in Holland’s Westersingel canal, even though the family of Melissa Halstead had hired an investigator and reported her missing; no-one knew where she was, what had happened to her, or that the headless body buried in an unmarked grave in a Rotterdam cemetery was her.

And although, six years later, the ten dismembered body-parts found wrapped in six separate bags at Battlebridge Basin in the Regent’s Canal bore an uncanny similarity to the disposal of Melissa Halstead; the body in the canal was not Delia Balmer. That woman was still alive, for now, as she was yet to become a future ex-girlfriend of John Sweeney.

On the run and desperate to keep his head down, Sweeney bunked in the Kentish Town flat of his old friend, Kevin Pratt, during which he bragged about his horrific attack on Delia, he confessed that he’d killed Melissa Halstead, and lied that there was a £10,000 reward for his capture.

Needing to move on, he headed north to Northampton to pay an uninvited visit to his ex-wife Anne and his kids Michael and Tracey in their new home. Staying the night, Sweeney proceeded to drink and get stoned, as he told Anne that he had “done something really bad, which would make your hair stand on end”, but this time he confessed to the murder of Melissa Halstead and two others.

Hitching a lift to his home-city of Liverpool to visit his mum, Sweeney used this downtime to taunt the detectives who were desperately searching for him. And on Monday 2nd January 1995, just eleven days after the terrifying attack on Delia Balmer in which he left her for dead, Sweeney sent a letter to the Police at Scotland Yard; bragging about his crimes, boasting how they’d never catch him and (in a cruel play-on-words) describing his assault on Delia as “an AXEident”, spelling the first part of the word AXE.

Having run out of options, and being an easy-to-spot red-headed Liverpudlian carpenter, Sweeney fled the UK and headed into Europe where he’d spent the bulk of his life, learning to stay under the radar by living in hostels, working cash-in-hand jobs, and using an assumed name like Joe Johnson, Joe Carol and Michael Fawcett. And even though he needed to stay near drug-dealers to feed his habit of LSD, cannabis and heroin, in the circles he moved in, this wasn’t difficult. And so, for the next six years, John Patrick Sweeney disappeared.

What happened during these years; where he went, what he did, and who he saw? Nobody knows. But by the turn of the last Millennium, in early 2000, John Sweeney had returned to England and (once again) he went looking for love, and her name was Paula Fields. (INTERSTITIAL)

As the youngest of eleven children, born into a lower working-class family, in one of the most deprived areas of Liverpool, at the end of the 1970’s, life for Paula Fields and her siblings was tough. After the closure of the shipyards; mass unemployment and poverty followed as a badly underfunded council struggled to provide even the most basic of necessities such as heat, warmth, food and housing for thousands of struggling families, and yet her troubles had only begun.

Aged just nine years old, Paula’s mother died, leaving herself and her ten older siblings to be split-up, with some farmed off to different relatives and others were placed into care. And growing up in an era dominated by demolition, tension, closures and the Toxteth race-riots, with no education or qualifications, Paula was desperate to become a good mum, so after the birth of her three children, in 1998 Paula made the brave step and moved to London, to seek a better life for her boys. But life down south wasn’t any better, and it would only get worse.

As a single mum, who struggled to look after two of her three boys (both under five), she worked shifts in a local laundrette to scrape together enough money to fund a single-room in a local flea-pit hotel and half-way house called the Highbury Hotel, but within just two years; being broke, hungry and desperate, Paula had turned to prostitution, was hopelessly addicted to crack cocaine, and both of her boys had been taken into care.

So, by the autumn of 2000, as a homeless penniless sex-worker and drug-addict with a chaotic lifestyle, a criminal record and absolutely zero chance of ever getting her kids back, Paula truly was at her lowest ebb when – in the Kilburn flat of his brother Tony - she first met and fell in love with a bushy bearded, red-headed carpenter who went by the nickname of “Scouse Joe”.

And being instantly smitten with this cheeky-faced Liverpudlian who had a semi-regular income, easy access to drugs and a rented flat in Digby Crescent in Holloway, Paula moved into her new boyfriend’s flat; spending her days and nights off-her-face, surrounded by his pet tarantula, a bizarre collection of violent art, and his green canvas duffle-bag full of ropes, hammers and saws. 

As with Anne, Melissa and Delia; it wasn’t long before her life was being dominated by his paranoid deluded jealousy, as Sweeney controlled every aspect of her life, and what started with a never-ending succession of emotional blackmail, mental abuse and physical assaults, soon descended into death.

At 9:30am, on Friday 15th December 2000, with the walls of the cramped one-bedroomed flat echoing to the regular sounds of shouting, swearing and domestic assaults, Paula Fields was last seen walking into Sweeney’s flat at Digby Road in Holloway; just two days after (it is believed) she had discovered his true identity, and two days before Sweeney moved out. Paula was never seen alive again.

On the morning of Monday 19th February 2001, during the half-term holidays, two schoolboys were fishing along the banks of Battlebridge Basin at the back of King’s Cross when their hook snagged on something partially submerged and reeled in a heavy black bin-bag, which reeked of rotting flesh.

Only this time, with Sweeney having cut up his victim into ten separate chunks, hacked through her wrists, elbows, knees, ankles and neck with the jagged tearing of his rip carcass saw, wrapped each piece in bin-bags and weighing them down with bricks, to stop her body-parts from bobbing on the surface of the canal as Melissa had, Sweeney meticulously cleaned the bath in his Digby Crescent flat, burned all Paula’s belongings and moved out.

And with no clothes, no bag, no ID, no hands, no feet, no head, and almost all of the DNA evidence having washed away over the two months they’d spent festering in the water, all the Police had was a torso with no name, no face, no eyes, no teeth, no birth-marks, no operation scars, no fingerprints and no missing person’s report matching her description. Just like Melissa, Paula would be just another unclaimed body buried in an unmarked grave, as once again, Sweeney had got away with murder.

Or he would have done, if he hadn’t made a big mistake… he left one victim alive.

Following recent sightings of John Sweeney in London, Police issued all constables with the description of a red-headed Liverpudlian carpenter, who lived under various aliases, and was wanted for the rape, imprisonment, assault and the attempted murder of an Australian nurse called Delia Balmer.

On Friday 23rd March 2001, a red-headed carpenter who went by the name of Joe Johnson was spotted working on a building site in Shoe Lane, Holborn. Knowing Sweeney’s history of violence and being wanted for firearms offenses, the Police took no chances, armed officers were called in and Sweeney was arrested. He had a seven-inch knife in his waistband and a loaded 9mm Luger pistol in his locker.

Searching his new flat at Charteris Road in Finsbury Park, Police found two loaded sawn-off shotguns, a makeshift machete, a homemade garrotte wire, a large stash of bullets, a baseball bat, an axe, bin-bags, cable-ties, a groundsheet, a green canvas duffle-bag full of ropes, hammers and saws, and over two hundred deeply disturbing self-drawn paintings and poems depicting the violent rape, torture, dismemberment and death of various women.

On one painting, Sweeney had written a poem which read “Poor old Melissa, chopped her up in bits, food to feed the fish, Amsterdam was the pits". Another was a drawing of a gravestone, which read “RIP Melissa Halstead, born 12th December 1956”. But many made reference to Delia and Anne; their bodies naked, their limbs bound and their heads hacked-off.

For the attempted murder of Delia Balmer, John Patrick Sweeney was sentenced to a ten year term behind bars at Gartree Prison in Leicestershire. And as much as Sweeney had bragged to the Police about the many murders he had committed over the last twenty years, including; a devoted mid-30’s church-goer called Sue who Sweeney pursued to Switzerland, a mid-40’s Brazilian called Irani who lived in North London, and a late 30’s Columbian called Maria, all of whom were his ex-girlfriends and have never been seen since, as well as supposedly two German men who he had caught having sex with Melissa, with very little evidence, Police couldn’t arrest him.

But then, another victim of John Sweeney would provide a vital clue, which would put Sweeney away forever, and she would do so, from beyond the grave.

On 12th June 2007, following advances in genetic technology and coinciding with a review of unsolved murder cases, Dutch Police uploaded the DNA profile of an unidentified female whose decapitated body had been found, eighteen years earlier, floating in a Rotterdam canal… and they got a match. In a joint task force between Scotland Yard and the Dutch authorities, Police not only identified the bodies of Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields, but were able to connect their method of deaths, disposals and identify their killer.

Of his known victims; Anne Bramley died of cancer in 2001 and Delia Balmer has since retired from nursing and released a book about her experiences entitled ‘Living with a Serial Killer’. And although the remains of Paula Field and Melissa Halstead were returned to their families (with Melissa’s ashes interned in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio), neither their hands, feet nor heads were ever found.

On Monday 4th April 2011, 54 year old John Patrick Sweeney was found guilty of the murders of Melissa Halstead, Paula Fields and the attempted murder of Delia Balmer, and was given a whole-life-sentence, meaning that he will never be released.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.As mentioned before, if you are the victim of domestic abuse, or you have inflicted violence against a loved one, n ever be afraid to speak out, as professional help is only a phone-call away.

This week’s recommended podcast of the week is Wining about Crime, hosted by Bonnie, Wining About Crime dives into the lives, habits and the disturbing psychology of some truly baffling serial-killers, spree-killers and murderers, always asking the big question; who they are, where they come from, and why they kill. Check out the promo for Wining About Crime. (Play Promo)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook.

A quick thank you this week to the fabulous people who have left five-star reviews of Murder Mile and have been truly fabulous on social media, they include; Des O’Connor, Natalie Prince Sanders, Carylynn Flannery, Simon Lupton, Robomanjay997, Terri Revvis Swann, Angizoink (I agree, more podcasts should have the word “arse” in it), Neil Marjorum and Alvaro Scorza.

And of course a quick shout-out goes to two very different and equally excellent podcasts that I heartily recommend you check out; first is True-Crime Island, hosted by Cambo, who – like a hard-boiled Aussie news anchor – unearths the latest murder stories from around the world, so you don’t have to. Fuckalunga. And second is The Cleaning of John Doe; hosted by Vanessa, who each week takes you into the grisly, bloody and shocking world of her day=job as a crime-scene cleaner. Yes, you heard that correctly.

Murder Mile was researched, written & p erformed by myself, with the main musica l themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.Next week’s episode… is the first of a four part series on The Blackout Ripper.Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: 

• http://courtnewsuk.co.uk/john-sweeney/
• https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-lived-serial-killer-3-11327042
• https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/crime--law/model-from-oakwood-killed-dismembered-carpenter-police-say/kwwp14YnSuUUV8CIogJtaM/
• http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sweeney-john.htm
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12636449
• https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/apr/05/canal-murderer-john-sweeney-life-sentence
• https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1113780/living-with-a-serial-killer/

Sadly, the National Archive files on the case are locked away for the next 100 years, so I probably won't get a chance to read them... unless I live a very long time. 

Sounds: 

• Breakfast in Ghent - https://freesound.org/people/klankschap/sounds/54506/
• Amsterdam - https://freesound.org/people/zeshoog/sounds/60404/
• Bike bell - https://freesound.org/people/pallen33/sounds/405627/
• Bike Bell 2 - https://freesound.org/people/plivesey/sounds/78957/
• Bike Bell 3 - https://freesound.org/people/Yin_Yang_Jake007/sounds/415298/

With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution), and additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by...

Music:

• Walter & Wally & Cult With No Name
• Day by Swelling
• Monkey & Moulage by Rozkol
• Untitled by Seclorance
• Piano Blue by Cult With No Name
• True by NCTRM
• Seeker by Kai Engel
• Tumult by Kai Engel
• Sopor by Kai Engel
• Now You Are Here by Sergey Cherimisonov
• July by Kai Engel
• Not Stranger by Cult With No Name
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile on iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script. 

You can DOWNLOAD episode #23 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the green play button on the media player below.

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode twenty three of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

If you enjoy Murder Mile? You’ll be delighted to hear that I’ve set-up a secret hidey-hole where I shall stash some truly fantastic treats relating to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast; including behind-the-scene videos, crime-scene photos, biographies, case-notes, transcripts and exclusive monthly episodes which delve deep into the lives of Soho’s most colourful criminal characters as featured in the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. And with a tiny donation of just $3 per month (or £2 in real money), you will also ensure the future of Murder Mile for years to come. To check out our Patron page, please go to www.patreon.com/murdermile or click on the link in the show-notes.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s recommended podcast of the week, this time it’s the fabulous Based on a True-Crime.
Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about John Sweeney; a deeply deranged, dangerous and violent alcoholic, whose jealousy, rage and hatred of women left to a bloody trail of body-parts across Europe. Murder Mile contains graphic descriptions of death which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 23: Canal Killers – John Sweeney Part 1 (Paula Fields & Melissa Halstead)

Today I’m chugging along the Regent’s Canal, passing a recently renovated part of King’s Cross called Battlebridge Basin; a former Victorian wharf in which vast blocks of arctic ice were once stored in stone cellars providing the city with a steady supply of cold drinks, fresh fruit and ice-cream, back in the days before fridges. Ooh, a historical tit-bit, how fascinating.

Now, Battlebridge Basin is perched in the typical kind of former crack-hovel and whore-haven which property developers cram full of empty art-galleries, wanky wine-bars, offices for arseholes and hardly used shag-pads, having conned a couple of hipster half-wits to stump-up a big wodge of cash for a drafty shithole in an “up and coming area”, which (we all know) is code for “rough as fuck”.

And perched opposite that is an uneven stony tow-path, lined with a cavalcade of canal-boaters, all batting away an endless barrage of baffling questions from nosey nincompoops such as “do you live on a boat?”, “yes I live on a boat”, “oh, well where do you sleep?”, “I sleep in my bed”, “oh, and how do you wash?”, “in my shower”, “and you cook?”, “in my kitchen”, “drink?”, “from a glass”, “stay warm?”, “by the fire”, all which is topped-off by a bonkers pile of dribbly mouth-plop such as “so, what do you eat”, only for the frustrated boater to want to reply ““food, I eat food”, only to realise that Dipshit McThickTwit won’t piddle off until he’s received the answer he’d hoped you’d say like “I catch fish with my teeth, I forage in bins, I blow otters for tobacco cash and I grow my own mung-beans using an old mix of ear-wax, toe-chud and belly-button fluff”. It’s sad because it’s true.

And if this area sounds slightly familiar to you, that’s because it’s just one hundred metres from the flat of drug-dealer Michael Walsh, three hundred metres from Caledonian Road and six hundred metres from the West Portal of the Islington Tunnel where devoted father, Italian tour-guide and heroin-addict Sebastiano Magnanini was found hog-tied to a shopping trolley and dumped in the Regent’s Canal. And it was here, at Battlebridge Basin, on Monday 19th February 2001, that in six separate bags, weighed down with various house-bricks, that ten dismembered body-parts of a woman were fished out of the canal; these hastily hacked-up remains having belonged to the ex-girlfriend of a jealous, drunk and vengeful sadist, whose name was John Sweeney. (INTERSTITIAL).

Born John Patrick Sweeney on Saturday 13th October 1956; Sweeney was raised in Kirkdale, a working-class district of Liverpool that borders the towns of Bootle, Walton and Everton, in an era when this prosperous city had shifted from being one of Britain’s busiest shipping ports, only to slide into economic decline and endemic poverty, and end up full of crumbling Victorian terraces, pockmarked with the bomb craters of the World War Two blitz.

Sweeney’s upbringing was unremarkable and uneventful, as although the family were poor, Jack and Catherine (his parents) instilled into their son an Irish Catholic sense of morality, pride, hard-work and family values. And although life was tough, money was tight and the future looked bleak, in 1950’s Liverpool; a city packed full of working-class Irish families, Sweeney’s childhood was normal. And as a bright boy, from a good family, with no qualifications, although he spoke with a stutter for which the young boy was mercilessly bullied, Sweeney set about learning a trade, earning a wage, and seeing the world as a jobbing carpenter.

For five years, Sweeney crossed the Continent, working on various construction sites in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Holland; with a kitbag full of tools; a wallet full of cash and an eye for the ladies. But it was here, during this blank spot in his history, that Sweeney’s personality changed forever; something had shifted, something had snapped and something had broken, and what returned to England a few years later, was a bitter, angry and jealous man whose life was consumed by a passion for drink, a hunger for drugs and a thirst for extreme violence.

Aged twenty, having returned to Liverpool, John Sweeney still looked like the boy who’d left a few years earlier, with his curly red hair, dark blue eyes, a cheeky grin and arched (clown-like) eyebrows, but now his hair was thinning, his eyes were bloodshot, his nose was bulbous, his cheeks were rosy like those of a rampant alcoholic, and his almost angelic face which always seemed to be smiling, cheery and kind, belied a vicious temper and sadistic rage which bubbled beneath. Sweeney had come home, to see his family, to settle down and to find himself a wife. But this road to love would ultimately lead Sweeney down the path of violence, torture, dismemberment and death. (INTERSTITIAL)

Having found himself a good woman with a warm heart, a kind smile and strong family values, in 1976 John Patrick Sweeney married Anne Bramley and moved into their matrimonial home in Skelmersdale in Lancashire (14 miles from his home-town of Kirkdale), which was quickly followed by the births of their two children, Michael and Tracey. But this was not the home of a happy family.

With Sweeney’s binge-drinking and excessive use of cannabis; two very different drugs, known to cause and also exacerbate a user’s sense of aggression, hostility, depression, anxiety and paranoia; not only had Sweeney started using aliases – like Joe Johnson, Joe Carole and often being referred to as “Scouse Joe” - to cover his increasing criminal convictions for drunkenness, drug-possession, theft and assault, but as a father and a husband he was often absent, distant and violent.

In 1979, three years into their turbulent marriage, with the safety of her two toddlers to consider, as well as her own life, and having reported Sweeney to the Police on numerous occasions for assault and battery, Anne made a brave decision and divorced her violent and abusive husband. 
But just two years later; having apologised and promised Anne that he was a changed man, with the drink and drugs behind him and a bright future ahead, Anne gave Sweeney one last chance, and in 1981, they remarried. But Sweeney hadn’t changed; he was still drunk, drugged and dangerous, and with Anne having left him once before, her rejection had lit a fire in Sweeney’s belly, and there was no way that she was ever going to leave him again. Their second marriage would last barely a year.

Becoming more paranoid, hostile and violent; having thrown bricks at her window, bashed in the family turtles and repeatedly threatened Anne’s life; verbally, physically and artistically - with Sweeney having handed his son a gruesome pencil sketch depicting his mother, dead and lying in a coffin, scrawled on the gravestone the words “Rest in Peace Anne” - once again, fearing for her family’s life, Anne made a midnight run to the safety of her family home in Northampton. But no matter how far she ran or how well she hid, Sweeney would always find her.

In November 1982, having moved herself and her two young children into a small cottage in Ormskirk; a small market town in West Lancashire, just 14 miles north of Liverpool, Anne thought she had found sanctuary, but her peace was shattered, as she had been followed here by Sweeney.

That evening, as a cold wintery wind whipped over the hills, the moon shadowed by thick clouds and a cold sharp frost crunching under foot, Sweeney crept towards the family home. Through a crack in the curtains, he spied a single light on inside, but hearing no voices, no sounds and no movement, he broke the lock on the backdoor, knowing no-one was home.

Inside lay the detritus of the family life he felt had been denied by Anne; with food in the cupboards, toys on the floor and photos on the mantelpiece, Sweeney slunk into the darkness of Anne’s bedroom,  opened the wardrobe, crept inside and hid. And as he stood there, surrounded by the familiar sight of her clothes and the scent of her perfume, all of which reminded him of how she had rejected him, Sweeney lay in wait for his wife to return, a pick-axe in one hand, a claw-hammer in the other.

But he didn’t have to wait long, as just a few minutes later, from inside his wife’s wardrobe, Sweeney heard the jangle of her house-keys, her front-door unlock and her house-lights slowly illuminate each room as footsteps calmly walked into her bedroom. With his knuckles white with anticipation as he tightly gripped the pick-axe and claw-hammer in both fists, having readied himself for a vicious and frenzied attack on his soon-to-be ex-wife, Sweeney burst out of the wardrobe, his wild eyes fixed…
…on two policemen; both big, ready and packing handcuffs; as Sweeney dropped his weapons, his stutter went into overdrive as he unleashed a volley of excuses about who he was, why he was there and what on earth he was doing in the wardrobe with a pick-axe and a claw-hammer.
Thankfully, Anne and the kids, having spent a pleasant evening at their neighbour’s house, and heard the sounds of an intruder breaking in, assumed it was a burglar, called the Police and John Sweeney was arrested. But he wasn’t charged with attempted murder or attempted manslaughter. As with no assault committed, malicious intent being hard to prove and the incident having occurred in what was (technically) his own house, so the law was at a loss with what to do with him, but owing to his long-history of threats and violence against Anne, John Sweeney was “bound-over to keep the peace” by Ormskirk Magistrates Court, meaning that – as a condition of his bail – he had to stay away from Anne.

That same year, Sweeney started afresh and moved to London, where he remained for decades, only returning to Liverpool to see his mum. And although he and Anne crossed paths, for the sake of the kids they remained on civil terms, until her death in 2001, when she lost a long battle with cancer.

The same year that ten dismembered body-parts (consisting of two arms, two legs and a woman’s torso), wrapped in six separate bags and weighted down with house-bricks were found submerged at Battlebridge Basin in the Regent’s Canal. But the body in the canal was not Anne.
Sweeney never made an attempt on Anne’s life again. Maybe he never had the chance? Maybe he still loved her? Or maybe he knew it was wrong to deprive his kids of a loving mother? But with so much jealousy in his eyes, so much hatred in his heart and so much anger in his bones, Sweeney (once again) went looking for love, and her name was Melissa Halstead.

Born in Oakwood (Ohio), the middle child to Margaret & Jack Halstead, a middle-class couple with a dentist’s surgery in Dayton; Melissa Halstead was bright, bubbly and bold, whose free-spirited nature was matched only by her kindness, warmth and compassion. And being a beautiful woman, with sparkling eyes, excellent pose and a stunning bone structure, Melissa was quickly scooped up by New York’s famous Ford Modelling Agency, where he career as a fashion model began, touring across America, Europe and Asia.

Described by her brother Jack Junior as “egocentric” and “magnanimous”, Melissa always saw the best in people, never the worst, and although she was slow to trust a stranger “once you were her friend, you were her friend for life”. By 1986, having retrained as a fashion photographer and make-up artist, Melissa had settled down in London and a new chapter in her life was about to begin... and end.

Melissa told her family very little about her new boyfriend, who was known as “Scouse Joe”, and quite what she saw in this ruddy-cheeked, red-headed, moody, drunken, twice-divorced handyman with a lengthy criminal past and a long history of violence, was anybody’s guess? Nut whatever it was, it wasn’t worth it.

Described by Sweeney as a “love-hate” relationship, with Melissa being hopelessly besotted by her drunken abusive beau and him being a short-fused and quick-fisted alcoholic, often he’d explode in a jealous rage, as he pummelled and scarred her strikingly beautiful face with a never-ending series of black eyes, bloody lips and swollen cheeks.

The warning signs were there. And on three separate occasions, having tried to leave him, Sweeney was arrested and charged with (ABH) Actual Bodily Harm for having violently assaulted Mellissa during their brief and tempestuous liaison. In September 1987, he smashed her in the face with a stool. In December 1987, he beat her so badly (as she lay cowering on the floor) that he fractured her legs. On one occasion he was heard to scream “Who do you think you are? I’m the one who says what you can and can’t do”, and yet, for both offences, he served no prison time and was fined just £5. And in April 1988, having threatened Melissa with a knife, scaring her so badly that – in a haunting premonition of her grisly death, she remarked to her sister that “if I go missing, it’s John Sweeney who would have killed me” - this time, Sweeney was “bound over” by the courts, as had happened with his ex-wife Anne, the condition being that he had to stay away from Melissa forever.

In October 1988, in a mixed blessing by the British Government, with Melissa living having worked using an expired permit, she was deported from the United Kingdom and restarted her life again in Austria, France, Germany, Belgium and Holland, hundreds of miles away from Sweeney.
But no matter how far she travelled, how well she hid and how carefully she covered her tracks, each time she moved, Sweeney would find her; his anger fuelled by drink, his paranoia stoked by spliffs, his jealousy fired-up by her rejection, and the court’s bail conditions invalid outside of the UK.  

Having stalked his supposedly deceitful girlfriend across six different European countries, on Tuesday 1st November 1988, Sweeney tracked Melissa to her new flat in the Austrian city of Vienna. Being drunk, drugged and deluded; having found it impossible to believe that the relationship’s failure was his fault and obsessed with the idea that Melissa had cheated on him, Sweeney broke in via the back-door, bound and gagged her friend and ransacked her flat, as he trashed every cupboard, drawer and box-file for any evidence of her obvious infidelity.

Experience of his violent jealous rages had taught Melissa well; she knew not to rile him, confront him or even answer back, instead sensing that he needed to cool off, she purchased him a ticket to Amsterdam where he could smoke weed, drink beer and chill. Whether this was a kind gesture to quell his agitated mental state, a cunning ploy to distract this dangerous man long enough to escape, or an honest promise to rekindle their relationship in the next city on her itinerary, is unknown? Regardless, the ruse worked, Sweeney took the ticket and left.

But a few days of getting boozed-up and stoned-out had done little to quell the fiery Scouser’s temper, and sensing that this ticket was a simply scam, to either pacify him, bribe him, or shrug him off, just as every bloody woman had done in his shitty little life; having rejected his love, his kindness and his loyalty. Oh yes, those lying cheating bitches had conspired against him, and he would make them pay.

Melissa was to blame; she had rejected, just like Anne; she had abandoned him, just like Anne; and she had destroyed him, just like Anne. Sweeney’s anger had come full-circle and now it was time to complete what he had begun, and to get his revenge.

On Friday 4th November 1988, just four days later, and almost exactly six years after his failed attack on Anne from inside her bedroom wardrobe, Sweeney approached Melissa’s flat.

Unlike that night at Anne’s cottage, Melissa was home. Unlike that night, he didn’t break-in, he knocked. Unlike that night, as Melissa saw her stalker return and a heated argument ensued. But just like that night, six years earlier at Anne’s cottage, Sweeney was ready, as grasped in his right hand, his knuckles white with anticipation, he clutched a claw-hammer.

As Melissa led Sweeney up the stairs to her first-floor flat, facing forward with her back turned, she felt a heavy thud, heard a dull crack and her vision went black, as straddling her – his teeth gritted, his eyes wild, his arm swung high - Sweeney struck the soft skull of a petite woman who was half his weight, his foot-long hammer raining blows down upon her with over half a kilo of steel.

Somehow, Melissa survived. From her hospital bed, having escaped with her life and suffered nothing more than severe bruising and a fractured skull, Melissa later stated “I only ever wanted to help him, but now I know he must have really hated me”. Later that day, John Sweeney was arrested

For the unprovoked attack on Melissa Halstead, which left the ex-model traumatised, in pain and disfigured; after four months in custody, having claimed that it wasn’t a premeditated attack, but an emotional act between two lovers in the heat of a passionate debate, Austrian authorities were unable to charge Sweeney with attempted murder or even attempted manslaughter, and (once again) Sweeney was found guilty of the lesser charge of aggravated assault, he was sentenced to a 10 year deportation order and just 12 months in prison. His short sentence and early release having been assured after an impassioned plea to the judge by the one person that he had almost killed - Melissa.

Incredulous at her sister’s forgiveness from her hospital bed of the man who had attempted to murder her, Chance O’Hara asked her sister if she had lost her frigging mind, but – being a kind, warm and caring soul, who only saw only the good, even in those who were bad through and through – Melissa had believed his cries, tears, begging and his promise to leave her alone, if she would get him out.

In March 1989, having accepted his apology and his promise that he was a changed man, with the drink and drugs behind him and a bright future ahead, and (just like Anne), Melissa gave Sweeney one last chance, and – having served just six months in prison – they rekindled their relationship.

Barely a few months later; the footless, handless and headless corpse of 33 year old Melissa Halstead would be found, hidden in a duffle bag, floating in a canal having brutally died at the hands of her evil sadistic and jealous boyfriend. But Melissa was not the body which had been found at Battlebridge Basin in the Regent’s Canal. That woman was still alive, for now, as she was yet to become a future ex-girlfriend of John Sweeney. To be continued.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. And don’t forget, if you are the victim of domestic abuse, or you have inflicted violence against a loved one, never be afraid to speak out, as professional help is only a phone-call away.

As a treat to you all, this week’s recommended podcast of the week is called ‘Based on a True-Crime’, and if (like me) you’re both a film-buff and a true-crime nut, Chelsea & David who host this awesome podcast, not only do they dive into some truly classic films (such Amityville Horror, The Exorcist and my personal favourite 10 Rillington Place) but they also analyse the crime which inspired the film, debunking any myths, mistakes and narrative additions for dramatic licence. Check out their promo.

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook. A quick thank you this week to the fabulous people who have left five-star reviews of Murder Mile and have been truly fabulous on social media, they include; Suzie Brace, Mandi Collins, Ian Flintham, Kazzerlicious, Ferris the Frog, Nala Llabnrut, Janine Maddon, Clairelet, Stuart who left a fabulous comment on the Murder Mile blog about the Denmark Place Fire and to Gearoid Curley, who h=not only listens to the Murder Mile podcast, but came all the way for Cork to come on the Murder Mile Walk, I thank you. And Kaz Every.

And of course a quick shout-out goes to my good friend, Barry at the Extraordinary Stories Podcast; if you fancy shaking up your true-crime playlist, and adding in a big dose of myths, murders, theories and conspiracies, all of which is well-told and truly mind-bending stuff, wrap your head around the Extraordinary Stories Podcast. Available on all podcast platforms.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode… is the concluding part of Canal Killer – John Sweeney. Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources:https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-lived-serial-killer-3-11327042
https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/crime--law/model-from-oakwood-killed-dismembered-carpenter-police-say/kwwp14YnSuUUV8CIogJtaM/
http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sweeney-john.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12636449
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/apr/05/canal-murderer-john-sweeney-life-sentence

Sadly, as the Police investigation is still fresh, the original file won't be declassified for at least the next 50, 75 or 100 years, so this episode was based on news articles, local knowledge, first hand accounts and my own particular style of investigation, like dragging a loaded shopping trolley from Wharfdale Road to the Islington Tunnel to replicated Walsh & William's journey, pushing the trolley loaded with Sebastiano's body (I used bricks I had found), to see how long it would take and how difficult it was. And yes, it was bloody difficult.

Sounds: 
* House Keys - https://freesound.org/people/sijam11/sounds/204851/
* Unlocking Door - https://freesound.org/people/Lightnessko/sounds/390328/
* Door Open / Close - https://freesound.org/people/amholma/sounds/344360/
* Light Buzz - https://freesound.org/people/ST303/sounds/201788/
* Florescent Light On - https://freesound.org/people/duckboy80/sounds/42141/
* Sliding Doors - https://freesound.org/people/ondrosik/sounds/182722/
* Walking on Snow - https://freesound.org/people/uiti/sounds/380299/
* Window Breaking - https://freesound.org/people/m1a2t3z4/sounds/112213/
* Quiet Forrest - https://freesound.org/people/erpe/sounds/127317/
* Scream - https://freesound.org/people/esmayorga/sounds/356313/
With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution), and additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by various artists.

* Night II by Swelling
* A Vital Piece of Music for All by Steve Combs
* Found by NCTRNM
* Comatose by Kai Engel
* Dark Waves by Xenojam

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode twenty two of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

Last week we were in the East of the West End, today we’re in the West of the West End, and soon we’ll be returning back to our familiar home, right in the middle of the West End. If you’re wondering why, what I’m doing is setting up new Murder Miles; four square miles of murder covering Soho & Covent Garden, King’s Cross & Euston, Paddington & Bayswater and one area as yet undecided.

That way, we can cover the full-story of many of the West End’s long-forgotten murderers, serial-killers and spree-killers as they slaughter their way from Soho to the surrounding boroughs, kicking off with an upcoming four-part special on the true-story of The Blackout Ripper. Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s recommended podcast of the week, this time it’s the amazing Dark Divide. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about Marta Ligman; a caring daughter, loyal friend and devoted girlfriend, who dreamed of being a mother, but died at the hands of her jealous, controlling and abusive boyfriend. Murder Mile contains descriptions of abuse, distress and death which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 22: Canal Killers Part 2: Marta Ligman.

Today I’m on my little boat, chugging along the final stretch of the Grand Union Canal, in an area known as Little Venice; with a cuppa tea in one hand, a Belgian bun in the other, and the ship’s tiller being steered by my big round butt-cheeks. “Ah, Little Venice” I hear you sigh “it sounds so romantic”.

And it is… sort of. But unlike the real Venice; with its myriad of art galleries, theatres, museums, cafes, restaurants and architectural marvels, all spread across a labyrinthian canal system of interconnecting waterways; Little Venice has only one canal, one ornate bridge, one towpath, two good pubs, one fine restaurant, one okay-ish café, and no gondoliers at all. You can’t even buy a Cornetto here.

Little Venice is so short that when tourists arrive, after just a two minute walk – having mistakenly headed towards the horror of Westbourne Park, instinctively tucked their purses into their pockets, cash in their socks and credit-cards wherever they have a slot, as locals wave them off shouting “go back, go back, the muggers are awake, they can smell money” – they stop, and say “oh, is that it?”.

Little Venice is a mishmash of millionaire’s shag-pads and council flats, dumped at the arse-end of the choking fumes of Paddington Station; with the skies full of cranes, the grass verges strewn with dog-shit and the towpaths splashed with piddle and plop as a slew of boaters decant stinking cassettes of faecal matter from their loos into a vast feted pit of willy-waste, vaggie-splash and steamy bum-lumps.

Oh yes, this is exactly like Venice. Then again, romance is vital to sustain any relationship, it’s the fuel that keeps that spark alive, along with large doses of love, honesty, compassion and (above all) trust.

But on the afternoon of Sunday 10th May 2015, in the very heart of Little Venice; life stood still and the romance died, as floating in the water, something heavy thunked again the steel hull of a canal-boat; marking a violent end to a deadly relationship, and the death of Marta Ligman. (INTERSTITIAL)

In 1993, just three years after the fall of Communism in the former soviet blocs of Eastern Europe, Martusia Ligman (known as Marta) was born in a small village of Trzeciewiec in north central Poland. Raised by her beloved mother, doting father and older brother Lukasz, in a modern seven-bedroomed house, Marta had a joyous upbringing full of good health, humour, happiness and – best of all – a loving family.

Being a small rural village of just 520 people, surrounded by thousands of acres of farm-land, fields and forest, whose most notable feature was a 320 metre tall soviet-era radio mast which dominated the flat skyline, although Trzeciewiec was a nice place to raise a traditional Polish family, to a modern Polish girl like Marta (who shunned Communism and embraced Capitalism) being more than 200 miles from the capital city of Warsaw, her home-town felt like a vast empty wilderness.

On the 1st May 2004, along with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia, and later Bulgaria and Romania, Poland (having become one of the wealthiest and most progressive countries in Eastern Europe) joined the European Union, which allowed the free and unrestricted movement of all European citizens, to and from all countries, including the UK.

Described by those who knew her as “the most beautiful girl, so popular, so kind, always laughing and joking”, as well as “petite, calm and always polite”, Marta dreamed of moving to London, having a good job, a nice home and starting a family with a loving husband.

In 2008, aged just 16 years old, Marta met a handsome man in an internet chatroom, who although he was eleven years her senior, he had a steady job, a beaming smile and romanced her with sweet-talk, heart-shaped emoji’s and tales of his new life living in London. In 2012, having packed a large black suitcase, Marta excitedly hopped on a two-hour flight to Heathrow to join her beloved boyfriend; her dreams were coming true. But three years later, she would be dead (INTERSTITIAL).

Marta started her new life in Harlesden (north-west London); a lower-working class enclave which although fiscally poor is a culturally rich former village, complete with a diverse mix of Somali butchers, Eritrean cafés, Russian bakers and Irish pubs, as well as the Delicja Polish Delicatessen on the High Street, where she worked as a cashier six days a week. With bright red hair, a warm smile and a cheeky face, Marta was not only popular, but she was also a little ray of light who easy-to-spot…
…but sometimes, her lovely smile would slip, her playful laugh was muffled and her beautiful face would be marked with cuts, scrapes and swelling, as her bright blue eyes were hidden by dark black bruises. Her dream had turned into a living nightmare, and his name was Tomasz Kocik.

Being tall, handsome and toned, with bright blue eyes, funky spiked hair and a smooth yet rugged look, Marta was instantly smitten with Tomasz Kocik. And as their love blossomed, finances grew and he held down a steady job as a forklift truck driver for a construction company, Marta & Kocik moved in to the ground-floor flat of no5 Buckingham Road (just of Harlesden High Street), with the talk of wedding bells and babies.

But after three years of living together, the relationship had soured; not just because of Tomasz’s addiction to amphetamines (the effects of which included sleeplessness, anxiety, paranoia, hostility and aggression); not just because of Tomasz’s ever-increasing sexual appetite which had gone from pornography, bondage and sex-games, to trying to coerce his unwilling girlfriend into group-sex; but by spying on her, stalking her, searching her social media for evidence of infidelity and demanding to see the deli’s CCTV to prove where she had been that day; as Tomasz became more possessive, controlling and jealous, his violence towards Marta increased.

Shortly before her death, Marta had changed her status on Facebook from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated”. On the Monday 27th April 2015, her boss received a text which read “I am so sorry, I have to go to Poland, my mum is sick”, which was uncharacteristic of her, as being so polite, honest and living only a few houses away, she would either call-up or pop in see her boss face-to-face. On the evening of Tuesday 28th April 2015, Marta called her mother (Ewa) in Poland, which she would do every day without fail. But as her bruises got blacker, as her face grew more swollen and her fresh cuts struggled to heal, so Marta put on an ever-increasingly braver face to protect those she loved from the truth. That was the last time that Marta Ligman was heard from, or seen alive.

At 2:30pm on Sunday 10th May 2015, almost two weeks after Marta’s disappearance, just a few yards shy of the Lord Hill footbridge in Little Venice, something heavy thunked against the hull of a moored-up canal-boat. Expecting either litter, a log or a canoe, the startled owners peeped over the bow of their boat to spot a large black suitcase, totally submerged and floating in the water - a sight which is not unusual to see - expect sprouting out of the zip was a shock of bright red hair. 

With no purse, no ID and no obvious birth marks, Police were puzzled as to who this woman was; all they knew was that she was a white European woman, in her early 20’s, 5 foot 2 inches tall, roughly 8 stone in weight, with bright red dyed hair, but there was no missing person’s report which matched that description. And with her petite frame being in a severe state of decomposition, whoever had tucked her tiny corpse into the foetal position, wrapped her in a white curtain, a set of black bin-bags, and had dumped her body in the Grand Union Canal, they had done-so seven to ten days prior.  

On Monday 11th May 2015, 24 hours after her young woman’s body had been discovered, and with her death splashed all over the news, Tomasz Kocik reported to the Police that his girlfriend Marta Ligman was missing, a positive identification was made, and Tomasz confessed to unlawfully dumping her body in the canal.

In the subsequent inquiry, in his defence, Tomasz would later state that on the evening of Wednesday 29th April 2015, having finished his shift as fork-lift truck driver, Tomasz had returned to their ground-floor flat at 5 Buckingham Road in Harlesden, to find Marta, lying on the sofa, pale and unresponsive. Fearing the worst, Tomasz laid her limp body on the floor and fought to resuscitate her; pumping her heart with his hands and fighting to breathe the life back into the lifeless lungs of his beloved girlfriend, but by then, she was already dead. Owing shock and panic, Tomasz didn’t call the Police.

He couldn’t. Her death was partially his fault, as with both Marta and Tomasz leading a very active and varied sex-life, which included role-play, bondage and sadomasochism, as well as spankings, beatings and mild-torture, all of which was mutually-agreed physical violence between two consenting adults, as well as the recreational use of stimulants to increase their stamina and sexual libido, after a four day sex session between the 24th and 28th April, having taken large quantities of amphetamines, Marta Ligman (who was just 5 foot 2 inch tall, 8 stone in weight, and suffered from various health problems) had suffered a sudden heart attack and died.

That night, being wracked with guilt at not having stopped her, terrified that he would get the blame for her accidental death and that (having purchased the amphetamines) that he would be charged with her manslaughter, Tomasz pulled from the loft a large black suitcase, unfurled a white curtain, a reel of black bin-bags and set about disposing of his beloved girlfriend’s body.

Of course, that was his version of the story, but the evidence, the autopsy, the CCTV footage and the wealth of witness testimony would tell an entirely different story. This is what happened to Marta Ligman, and – I warn you now – it is not easy to listen to.

Sometime between the evening of Wednesday 29th April and the morning of Friday 1st May 2015, 23 year old Marta; a petite woman with a sweet-smile and a kind heart was beaten unconscious by the man who supposedly loved her – Tomasz. In a sustained assault, lasting anywhere between a few minutes, a few hours or even a few days, in a rage fuelled by a lethal mix of amphetamines and jealousy, his repeatedly pounded his cowardly fists into the bruised, terrified and swollen face of a woman who was almost a foot shorter than him and half his weight, until she was unrecognisable, having inflicted multiple fractures to her face, hands and ribs.

It was a brutal attack which should have killed her, but didn’t. Believing she was dead, Tomasz pulled from the loft her large black suitcase, wrapped her body in curtains and bin-bags, folded her limbs and torso into the foetal position (her legs pressed tight to her chest, her head tucked into her knees and her arms pushed down to her feet) and stuffed her into the canvas suitcase, zipping it shut, a sprig of her bright red hair peeping out of the top.

How long she remained inside that suitcase? Nobody knows. And after the brutality of the initial assault, being confined in such a constricted airless space may have proved fatal, but what her autopsy couldn’t confirm was (whilst inside the suitcase) whether Marta was dead, dying or unconscious.

In the early hours of Friday 1st May 2015, at 6:30am, Tomasz wheeled the three-foot high and two-foot wide, black canvas suitcase, out of his front-door at no 5 Buckingham Road, along the residential street (full of families, postmen and eager commuters) almost an hour after sunrise, and dragged it left towards Nightingale Road and right onto Scrubs Lane, its plastic wheels buckling under the weight.

Amazingly, he wasn’t stopped, spotted or arrested. But then again, what’s so unusual about a man frantically dragging a weighty suitcase towards Willseden tube station? Nothing. Nothing at all. And so, as he lugged the over-loaded luggage more than half a mile down Scrubs Lane, passed passing motorists and CCTV camera, as he reached the top of Old Oak Bridge, he hauled the heavy baggage, down onto the towpath, out of view, and into the quiet and seclusion of the Grand Union Canal.

Unlike Little Venice, this stretch of the canal doesn’t attract the tourists, boats or even people; it’s an ugly eye-sore in an industrial part of town, and with his evil actions disguised by the dark shadows of the Old Oak Bridge, as well as the buzz of traffic, the rumble of trains and the drone of a nearby waste recycling facility, Tomasz was unseen and undisturbed as he sunk the suitcase into the canal.

As before, having been beaten, trapped and dragged over half a mile in an almost airless suitcase, once again, the autopsy couldn’t confirm whether – as the suitcase was submerged into the water – if Marta was dead, dying or unconscious. But having brought along a long stick, just in case, Tomasz proceeded to prod the large dark suitcase, causing air-bubbles to rise to the surface, as the body of his girlfriend sunk further under the water into the inky blackness. 

Having destroyed her bank cards and Polish ID, by cutting them up and burning the tatty fragments on the towpath; with his trousers being soaking wet, Tomasz returned home to 5 Buckingham Road, got changed into a clean set of clothes, and then headed off to work, as if nothing had happened.

People disappear all the time. So I guess he thought that no-one would notice. I guess he thought he had covered his tracks. And I guess he was arrogant enough to think he could bluff his way out. But what he hadn’t counted on was – with red-headed Marta being so friendly, popular and easily recognisable – that the moment she wasn’t there, people noticed.

Using her mobile, Tomasz updated her Facebook profile, concocted a story for her friends and family that Marta had left him, packed-up and returned to Poland, having added the unlikely coda that he wasn’t going to follow her, as “he wanted to give her some space”. Even going so far as to text Marta’s boss at the Polish deli, using Marta’s phone and identity, and (in an entirely contradictory story) to say ”I'm sorry, I have to go back to Poland, my mum is sick”, which he had done, before she was dead. But her mother (Ewa) wasn’t sick.

On Thursday 30th April 2015, having not received her daily phone call from her daughter for two days, Ewa was worried, and getting no reply from either of Marta’s phones, she called Tomasz. Blatantly lying to her distraught and desperate mother, Tomasz (playing the part of the love-sick boyfriend) told her that he had kissed Marta goodbye, she went to work, and when he returned home, she had gone. He didn’t know why. He texted her, but she didn’t reply. And all of which he said to Ewa as lying beside him was her dead, dying or unconscious daughter folded-up in a large black suitcase.

With Tomasz being unwilling to look for Marta, having claimed that she needed space, time to think and that she would come back when she was ready, Ewa contacted Madga & Andrzej Ligman, her cousins who lived in the UK, who fruitlessly searched everywhere they thought Marta could be.

And as Magda & Andrzej desperately combed the city streets, eager to find missing Marta, Tomasz couldn’t help but be the cold, callous and self-absorbed bastard that he always was, as using his dead girlfriend’s phone and her identity, he pestered Anna Modrezejewska (Modrey-eve-ska) (who was Marta’s closest friend) with an uncharacteristic volley of texts, which not only suggested that Marta was alive, but that the 22 year old attractive brunette should join them for some “hot fun” in a three-way sex session. Being creeped out and uncomfortable, Anna ignored the messages, but the texts kept on coming.

On Monday 11th May 2015, a full day after the discovery of Marta’s unidentified body in the Grand Union Canal in Little Venice, following pressure from her distraught family, Tomasz Kocik finally reported his girlfriend missing, almost two weeks after she was last seen alive. And naturally, Tomasz was the Police’s prime suspect.

That same day, 34 year old Tomasz Kocik of 5 Buckingham Road (Harlesden) was arrested and charged with the murder of 23 year old Marta Ligman, with all of the evidence pointing to him being a man who was jealous, controlling and abusive. And yet, throughout these years of systematic emotional, mental, sexual and physical abuse, at the hands of an unloving, uncaring and drug-fuelled sadist, Marta never spoke up, she never sought help, she never told her family and she never got out.

Marta had a dream, it began three years earlier back in the small village of Trzeciewiec in north central Poland, as she her packed her worldly possessions into a large black suitcase.

At the inquest held at the Old Bailey, Pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary concluded that, because bruising can only occur when a person’s heart is beating and their blood is circulating, as Marta’s body showed signs of hypothermia having been subjected to the cold for an extended period of time, and as her death was caused by "a blunt trauma to her torso and limbs”, that this injury may have been sustained in the initial frenzied attack by Tomasz, being beaten whilst in the suitcase, being dropped as the case was dragged half a mile, or (having been submerged) that her body was hit and driven-over by a canal-boat… suggesting that throughout the entire ordeal, that she may have been alive.

Having given his testimony that Marta had died of an accidental overdose after a four-day drug-fuelled bondage sex-session, an event which may have led to Marta’s death being recorded as “death by misadventure” and Tomasz being sentenced to the lesser charge of “the unlawful disposal of a body”, but the jury didn’t believe his lies, and having deliberated for less than a day, Tomasz Kocik – an obsessively jealous and controlling boyfriend with a long history of violence - was found guilty of murder on 27th November 2015. He was sentenced to serve a minimum of 18 and a half years.

On Tuesday 8th March 2016, to mark International Women’s Day, Labour MP Jess Phillips paid tribute in Parliament to the Counting Dead Women Project; an organisation set up to share the harrowing stories of murdered women. She stated “In 2015 a woman was murdered in the UK every three days. Women murdered by men that they should have been able to trust. Commonly women are murdered by their partners, husbands and boyfriends – but also in some cases by their fathers, their sons, their brothers. We wish to give voice to honour the women who died”. (PLAY AUDIO) One of the 120 women she named… was Marta Ligman.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.

If you are the victim of domestic abuse (whether a man, a woman or a child), if you know someone who is in an abusive relationship, or you have inflicted violence against a loved one, never be afraid to speak out, as professional help is only a phone-call away.

Normally at this point in the podcast, I draw your attention my recommended true-crime podcast of the week, but having heard such a harrowing and heart-breaking story, the last thing you want to hear is about a show where they sink back a few beers, say “dude” and “bro” every six seconds and take the piss as they recant some scant details about a victim’s misfortune. Well, thankfully that’s exactly what we don’t have. This week, I highly recommend a true-crime podcast called Dark Divide; hosted by Krista, not only is it well researched, well-written and wonderfully told, but these are incredibly personal pieces of storytelling, told from the victim’s perspective, with a sense of warmth, compassion and heart. And here’s the promo for Dark Divide. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook.

A quick thank you this week to some fabulous people who have left reviews of Murder Mile and have been truly fabulous on social media, they include; Andy Chidlow Parish, Mike Featherstone, Erikka Pappas, Mykeff, MidnightListener, VanessaH, PhoebeSophie and D1611984. With loads of fabulous five star ratings from listeners in the UK, USA and Australia, but (oddly) no iTunes reviews from anyone in Canada> Hmm. This wasn’t because of episode 16 (about Richard Rhodes Henley) was it? I’m not implying you’re all chronic masturbators. Just… a few.

And of course a quick shout-out to our good friends at True-Crime Story-Time, you’ve heard me mention this podcast before, and rightly so, check them out, it’s a fabulous true-crime podcast which just keeps bettering better and better.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode… is part three of our canal killing series, this time featuring the mysterious death, disappearance and disposal of Paula Fields. Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: 

• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/27/man-jailed-murder-girlfriend-suitcase-canal-marta-ligman
  
• http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/crime-court/harlesden-murder-trial-marta-ligman-may-have-been-hit-by-a-boat-while-alive-in-suitcase-dumped-in-canal-1-4305069
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34944837
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3300271/Boyfriend-woman-body-suitcase-London-canal-goes-trial.html#ixzz58UbeNnYD
• http://www.pomorska.pl/wiadomosci/bydgoszcz/art/6481600,marta-z-trzeciewca-zostala-zabita-w-londynie-serce-matki-przeczuwalo,id,t.html
• http://www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/polska/zabojca-marty-ligman-stanal-przed-sadem-w-londynie/90kexv9
  

Sadly, the National Archive files on the case are locked away for the next 100 years, so I probably won't get a chance to read them... unless I live a very long time. 

Sounds: 

• Suitcase Wheels - https://freesound.org/people/primisteka/sounds/251602/
  
• Construction - https://freesound.org/people/sarcasticbracket/sounds/192176/
  

With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution), and additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by Kai Engel.

• All Who Are Weary by Hyson
  
• Soli by Kai Engel
• Harbour by Kai Engel
• Exile by Seclorance
• True by NCTRNM
• Fog by Sergey Cherimisinov
• Aspirato by Kai Engel
  

If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile on iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

As part of the Murder Mile Podcast - a true-crime podcast of 300+ untold, unsolved and often forgotten murders, all set within on square mile of London's West End - I have uploaded the full unedited transcript of each episode, containing all of the information, histories and backstories which I was unable to provide in the podcast episode owing to time-constraints or last-minute changes to the script. 

You can DOWNLOAD episode #21 of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast via iTunes, or you can listen to it now, by clicking the green play button on the media player below

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode twenty one of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.
We’re back; same music, same intro, same host, but no waffle, no wittering and no dyslexic stutter (courtesy of some rather nifty editing), after weeks bent double with my mouth-agog and eyes wide like saucepan lids, researching like buggery on a bum-numbing seat in the National Archives, to bring you a brand new slew of rarely told murder cases from London’s West End.

Right now, I’m knee deep in autopsy reports, crime-scene photos and witness statements using the original declassified police investigation files to prepare for you an original four-part special on the London’s little known spree-killer - The Blackout Ripper; a sadistic homicidal maniac who stalked the dark-lit streets of Soho; slashing, ripping and slaughtering his terrified victims, and yet, the true-story of the Blackout Ripper remains largely untold. Expect it in your ear-holes soon.

Before that, we’re opening with the first of our new four-part specials, and focussing on a place north of Soho, on the fringes of the West End; it’s the place where I live, write and record the Murder Mile true-crime podcast, and a place that many Londoners don’t even know exists… the canal.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s recommended podcast of the week, this time it’s the fabulous Texas-based true-crime podcast - All Crime, No Cattle. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about Sebastiano Magnanini; a lovable, fun-loving and colourful character who died in mysterious circumstances, but whose life and death left the police scratching their heads. Murder Mile contains grisly details which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 21: Canal Killers Part 1: Sebastiano Magnanini.

Today I’m on my canal-boat; a lovely red & green fifty-foot steel vessel, which is my office by day, my bed by night and my cosy little home since I flicked the v’s to corporate slavery and embraced creative freedom. Right now, I’m chugging along at a brisk three miles-per-hour; the sun dappling the water, the soothing waves tickling the towpath, as perched at the stern is me, with the ship’s tiller in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, and the wind lightly ruffling my few remaining hair follicles, as the soft growl of the engine merrily jiggles my gut, butt and man-boobs. Ah, life is good.

And as I chug along the Regent’s Canal, at the back of King’s Cross Station, I pass a line of moored-up boats; with log-fires burning, a stew on the stove, and a reclining on his plastic pleasure craft amusingly adorned with pirate flags is beardy man in a hi-viz vest smoking a giant spliff. I call to him, “Hello my boaty brethren” (man replies “ah, get f**ked”). Ah yes, this is the life (and “wanker”).

Okay, there may be the odd smattering of crime; the occasional weekly stabbing, daily mugging and the sporadic hourly break-in, with the dark-lit towpath littered with zonked out druggies, lip-wiping rent-boys and gangs of strutting rude-boys grabbing the crotch of their grey terry-towelling tracksuits (like they’ve just ram-raided a branch of Mothercare and forgot to nab a lotion for their nappy-rash)

But on the water itself? It’s fine. The worst that will happen is your boat’s bottom may scrape against a myriad of dumped bits and bobs, such as; builder’s rubble, car-parts, stolen bikes, shopping trolleys, bank safes, WW2 bombs, handguns and grenades, and sometimes clunk against the decomposing corpse of a dead cat, a dead dog, a dead fox, and – occasionally - a dead man. On Thursday 24th September 2015, I heard such a clunk; but little did I know what it was, or even who. (INTERTSTITIAL).

46 year old Italian Sebastiano Magnanini, known by his friends as “Seb”, was a gregarious, fun-loving and free-spirited man, with an infectious smile and an honest charm, who walked without a care in the world, and had lived the kind of life that most people can only dream of.

Being fluent in Italian, English, Spanish and even Khmer (the official language of Cambodia), as the oldest of two boys born to Italian parents in Cannaregio, the northern district of Venice, young Seb was a restless boy who was eager to see the world, meet new people and seek out adventure.

After a faltering start as he struggled to find his feet, Seb found work as a tour guide in Cambodia, where he was described by his employer as one of the best and the most studious. Being multi-lingual, he taught English in Colombia, Cambodia and Thailand. And as a budding song-writer and guitarist, Seb’s passion for music and uncanny knack at carpentry led to him developing a second-string to his bow rigging sets for theatres and concert venues, including Prince’s gigs at Koko in Camden.

Many people dream of seeing the world, but Seb had been there, he’d done that and (unsurprisingly) he’d got all the t-shirts. But by 2015, being an unmarried man in his mid-forties, with no savings, no pension and no assets, Seb felt it was time to grow-up, settle down and provide a stable home for his beloved daughter. In August 2015, having led a colourful life (including a brief criminal past for which he served his time, paid the price and dedicated the next twenty years to turning over a new leaf and finding inner peace), Seb returned to London to embark on a fledgling career in journalism, as here was a man with responsibilities and a wealth of fascinating stories to tell.

And as upbeat, joyous and caring as Seb was, he also had a dark-side; as he was a man wracked with an all-consuming addiction which he had attempted to distract with adventure. But now, back in London, living a life a little less exciting, in a city surrounded by sin, Seb succumbed to his demons, as he set off in search of his next fix… of heroin.

On the afternoon of Tuesday 22nd September 2015, Sebastiano Magnanini waved goodbye to his work colleagues in South-West London, and as always, being in good spirits, with a spring in his step and whistling a little ditty on his ever-smiling lips, Seb hopped on the Northern Line train, arrived at Euston by 4:50pm, his every movement captured on security cameras, as he headed towards King’s Cross.

It made perfect sense that Seb would come here; as a kind and giving man with a big personality, an even bigger heart, and his generosity was well known amongst the homeless community. But on this night, he wasn’t here to help the homeless, he was here to feed his habit, and as he approached Caledonian Road, a busy city street just off the Regent’s Canal, he stepped into the darkness and out of view of the cameras forever.

Just three years earlier, whilst staying at Camden’s Arlington House homeless hostel, Seb overdosed on heroin. He almost died. He was lucky to survive. And this should have been the wake-up call he needed to rid himself of his deadly addiction, but Seb would always be haunted by the lure of drugs.

It was Seb’s secret life that he kept well hidden; never smoking it at home for fear of being discovered, never injecting it on the street for fear of arrest, and having burned too many bridges with friend’s who he’d assured he had quit, seeing no other option, Seb would shoot-up in a stranger’s house.

That evening, as Seb walked along Caledonian Road; a street rife with robbery, burglary, gang violence and shootings and stabbings having taken the lives of the guilty and the innocent, Seb’s addiction saw no fear, only a hunger for heroin, and this stretch of road was a notorious pick-up point for Camden’s drug-pushers. As Luke Allen, his close friend would later state “That’s the lowest rung. He shouldn’t have been there”. But it was there, on that night, that Sebastiano Magnanini would meet a drug-dealer who would end his addiction forever. His name was Michael Walsh (INTERSTITIAL).

Strolling down the brightly lit gloom of Caledonian Road, over the smoky hue of the Regent’s Canal where just five hundred feet and two days later Seb’s decomposing corpse would be found, the two men walked, looking as dissimilar as two heroin addicts could.

46 year old Seb; a tanned and toned Italian with a trimmed beard, a joyous smile, a sense of style and a characterful face etched with lifetime of fun, love and laughter. And 41 year old Michael Walsh; with bloodshot eyes, a hollow joyless face and the putty-white doughy complexion of a hard-core junkie, whose life has been spent cooking-up, shooting-up and zonking-out.

After just a five minute walk, both men turned right onto Wharfdale Road and entered Walsh’s flat. The following details of what happened that night are based on unreliable, spurious and drug-addled sources, so exactly what happened may never be known.

Sat in Michael Walsh’s dingy flat, in an unnamed house on an unspecified part of Wharfdale Road (whether in an ex-council flat, or in the old Victorian slum houses, once set to be demolished, only to be saved, meaning some are dilapidated and full of destitutes, where-as others now sell for just shy of £1 ½ million, as King’s Cross is renovated and rebranded as a trendy place to live), Seb began to feed his overpowering addiction with a deadly cocktail of alcohol, cannabis, heroin and crack cocaine.

Four drugs, in one body, with four very different effects; the alcohol being a stimulant which increased his heart-rate, blood flow and sense of wellbeing but decreased his balance, his moral code and his sense of danger; the cannabis being an anti-depressant, filled him with feelings of warmth, love and relaxation (as he sat in this stranger’s flat), but slowly drained him of his energy, his memory and his ability to stay awake; the heroine being a Class A stimulant sent an instant rush of pleasure to his brain’s opioid receptors, flushing his skin in a warm tingly bath (like he was being cocooned in a soft sleeping-bag of marshmallow), leaving Seb feeling that nothing could touch him, nothing could harm him. And with his pleasure heightened, his emotions Increased and his pain sensors blocked, with his heart was heavy, his breathing was slow and his limbs like lead weights, the effects on the first three drugs were off-set by a fourth; crack cocaine, another class A stimulant, with an intense high and a rapid low, which sunk Seb into an extreme depression, followed by bouts of paranoia, aggression, hostility, muscle spasms and convulsions, the effects of which could only be remedied by another hit.

Four drugs, in one body, all fighting against each other; with extreme highs and lows of love and anger, calm and chaos, euphoria and depression. But these were the minor effects of this lethal chemical concoction which can also cause nausea, vomiting, itching, confusion, paranoia and hallucinations, dropping the user’s heart rate and breathing to such a life-threatening level, that they risk heart attacks, stroke, seizures, coma, brain damage and even death.

Of course, as Seb was a seasoned drug-user, his 46 year old body was used to this chemical abuse, and having overdosed before, he wouldn’t make the same mistake again, not now he was older, wiser and was a man with grown-up responsibilities; a job, a home and a daughter. So cocooned in heroin sleeping bag, his addiction sated, Seb’ fell asleep on the sofa and drifted far away to dreamland.

But the comfort of his dream-like state was in stark contrast to the reality that Seb was in. As being immobile, unaware and unconscious, trapped in the dank, dark and dingy flat of a desperate drug-abuser, whose habit was only momentarily subdued by those quick hits of crack cocaine and heroin, and now – itching, shaking and angry - Michael Walsh needed more.

In court, Walsh would later state that the ever-generous Seb’ had given this stranger his wallet, his money and his credit cards, and (in his intoxicated and comatose state) had asked Walsh his new found-friend to nip to the bank, withdraw some cash and score them both some more drugs. Of course, whether that is true, only two people actually know… and one of those would soon be dead.

Paranoid at the risk of this theft being discovered, Walsh roped in 22 year old Daniel Hastie; an autistic friend and a rough-sleeper, who on many occasions had slept in Euston Station and knew of Seb’s warmth, kindness and generosity amongst London’s homeless, but being hungry, cold and easily led by an older man, Daniel was lured in with the promise of money, food, warmth and a new tracksuit and trainers. Over the next 18 hours, having forged his signature, Walsh & Hastie withdrew £1,690 (almost the entire contents of Seb’s account) as he slept solidly and soundly.

Giddy with their good fortune and weighed down with their new purchases of food, drink, drugs and fancy footwear, a little after lunchtime on Wednesday 23rd September 2015, Walsh & Hastie returned to the Wharfdale Road flat, to slip Seb’s much-lighter wallet back into his pocket, as if nothing had happened. But sometime during the night, something had happened.
Seb’ was still lying on the sofa; he was still, he was silent and he was cold.

His tanned olive complexion was ominously pale. His lips had a blue-ish hue, as around his gaping mouth, on the sofa and floor, puddles of concealed vomit had pooled. His once-twinkling brown eyes were wide open, the pupils fixed like tiny pin-points of darkness. And his lifeless body was contorted into an agonising shape of convulsions, as stroke, seizures and heart-failure had taken his life.

As 46 year old Sebastiano Magnanini lay there, dead, on the sofa of a known drug-dealer, with a long history of theft to fund his all-consuming habit, Walsh began to panic. Seb was dead, and Walsh had no idea what to do.

Not having a garden or spades, he couldn’t bury him. Not having a car, he couldn’t drive him to a morgue. And not wanting the Police involved, he couldn’t call for an ambulance. So taking another quick hit of crack to calm his nerves, which quickly caused his paranoia to spiral, Walsh roped in 64 year old Paul Williams, another homeless friend with the promise of money, food and Class A drugs.

They needed to dump the body; somewhere near, somewhere quick and somewhere accessible. In a sprawling metropolis like London, they had just one option - the canal.

Stealing a shopping trolley from the local branch of Tesco Metro, Walsh & Williams loaded Seb’s fifteen stone corpse into its silver-wired frame; secured his wrists, ankles and neck with duct-tape, squeezed his contorted body into the foetal position (his arms, legs and head, tucked tightly into his chest), and having weighed down the trolley with dumb-bells to ensure that it would sink; they covered the corpse with a simple bed-sheet, and waited for the right moment to leave.

At roughly 4:45am, on Thursday 24th September 2015; Walsh & Williams exited the flat on Wharfdale Road, turned left and pushed the overloaded trolley towards Caledonian Road; a brightly-lit city-street which (even at this ungodly hour) is regularly patrolled by the Police and screened by CCTV.

But then again, in an area such as King’s Cross; which is synonymous with drugs, theft and poverty, what’s so suspicious about two homeless looking men pushing a shopping trolley full of bedding? Nothing. Nothing at all.

And yet, the disposal of the corpse of Sabastiano Magnanini wouldn’t be as simple as a quick trip to the canal, as with the overloaded trolley having a wonky wheel, the streets full of inclines, the paths full of broken paving stones, very few kerbs having ramps and with nearest stretch of the canal often filled with long lines of narrowboats, full of sleeping but easily awoken occupants, Walsh & Williams needed a place which was dark, shadowy and secluded, and had to wheel this trolley of death left up Caledonian Road, right onto Wynford Road and left along to Islington Bridge, a full half a mile along brightly-lit roads full of residential houses, a perilous journey which took at least 30 minutes.

At 5:15am, having unsteadily wheeled the wonky trolley down a sharply declining slope towards the unlit towpath of the Regent’s Canal, Walsh & Williams stopped at the entrance to the West Portal of the Islington Tunnel; a dead-end shrouded in trees and shadows, and a dark gaping hole out of the sight of prying eyes.

And with no prayers, no grace and no care given; the body of Sebastiano Magnanini was dumped into a watery grave, cast into the canal like a stolen bike, as Walsh & Williams fled; his friends unaware of his death, his family unaware he was missing, and his few remaining savings used to feed the drug-habit of a desperate junkie. A sad burial for a good man who had lost a long battle with his evil demons.

At 8am, a few hours later, eager to chug from Islington to Little Venice in a 3 hour trip consisting of three and a half miles, four locks and six cups of tea (well, I am British), I set off into the cold, dank and dark gloom of the East Portal of the Islington Tunnel; a tight mile-long tube of stone illuminated by a single headlight and a tiny pin-point of daylight way in the distance.
After thirty minutes of shadows, solitude and a steady drip from above, as I approached the entrance to the West Portal of the Islington Tunnel, something scraped along the underside of my boat, slowly creeping near the rear where I stood, and looking down into the inky water to spy the origin of the rough metallic scraping underneath, as my eyes adjusted to the light…
…I sneezed, “atchoo”…
…both eyes shut, blinded by the morning sun, distracted by an urgent need for tissues, and with the canal being a thick murky soup of mud and silt from two days of rain and speckled with a light drizzle, the scraping had stopped, I saw nothing and carried on; unaware, unfazed and oblivious.
I guess I was lucky. As seeing something that horrific, that shocking, in such a tranquil setting could scar a person for life. But barely an hour later, with the drizzle having stopped and the low sun hitting the water at a sharp angle, whilst taking his morning walk along the towpath, an Australian tourist and his seven year old daughter saw the metallic glint of a shopping trolley, the bed-sheet having slipped.

Having roped off the scene, questioned the residents and erected a bright yellow tent for forensics, Detectives from New Scotland Yard fished-out from the canal the bloated and decaying body of an unknown man; with no name, no ID and no wallet. But with his body being as colourful as his life, Police issued a description of his distinctive tattoos; a carp on his torso, a lizard on his shoulder and a few small tattoos on his fingers. That day, Sebastiano Magnanini was claimed by his distraught family.

Naturally, the press smelling the stench of the salacious story of a mysterious man who’d been hogtied to a trolley and dumped in the canal was too good to miss, but the second that Chief Inspector Rebecca Reeves stated “His past in Italy has been taken into consideration, since we are at the initial stage of the investigation…”, the press started to froth at the mouth, their feverish brains going into theory overdrive, and entirely ignored Chief Inspector Reeve’s caveat that “…but at present we do not believe that the crime can be traced back to organized crime". No! There was dirt to be dug, and the press started digging.

What they found was this: On the 14th December 1993, 23 year old Seb’, along with two cash-strapped chums stole an 18th-century painting, The Education of the Virgin by the Rococo master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo from the church of Santa Maria della Fava in his hometown of Venice. Having badly bungled the job by bringing the wrong tools, the hapless trio necked back a few beers, toked on a few joints, and returned to the church. Eventually stealing the 2bn lire painting (worth about £1m), but unsure who to sell it to, or how to hide the three metre by two metre canvas? They stashed it in a farmhouse and they were later arrested, with Seb’ serving 18 months for theft.

Obviously being Italian, even those British bastions of supposedly quality journalism (the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph) drooled over these delicious details and emblazoned every article with the revelation that this may be a either revenge killing, an underworld connection, or a possible mafia hit. But the autopsy proved otherwise.
Sebastiano Magnanini had died of the acute toxic effects of heroin, cocaine, cannabis and alcohol in his system. In January 2016, after CCTV showed Walsh & Walliams pushing the weighty trolley along Caledonian Road, and Walsh & Hastie withdrawing money from the bank; Walsh, Williams and Hastie were arrested and plead guilty. But not to murder, manslaughter, or even 2nd degree manslaughter?

On the 5th February 2016, 41 year old Michael Walsh and 64 year old Paul Williams were charged with the lesser charge of “preventing the unlawful burial of a body”, and were sentenced to serve four years and two years a piece, with 22 year old Daniel Hastie serving twelve months for “conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation”.

And having concluded that the death of Sebastiano Magnanini was an "accidental overdose", with most of the evidence having washed away, the DNA traces unusable and his body badly decomposed, many details of this case are a mystery. And yet, one detail in particular remains unresolved; if Seb’s death was an accident, why was he found with a broken nose and a “blunt force trauma” to the head? Did he fall over whilst intoxicated? Was he dropped whilst his body was being disposed of? Or was this sweet-natured man with £1900 in the bank, violently assaulted by a desperate drug-addict with an addiction to feed? That… we shall never know.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile.
If you’re looking for a new podcast, this week is the absolutely brilliant and also one of my personal favourites, the Texas based true-Crime podcast called All Crime, No Cattle; hosted Shae and Erin, All Crime, No Cattle deep-dives into the murky world of the Lone Star State’s darkest killers, with each episode packed to the brim with juicy details, solid research and is neatly balanced by an honest compassion for the victims, a heartfelt sympathy for their situation and a fantastic chemistry between both hosts. It really is a treat, so check it All Crime, No Cattle. Yeehaw! (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook.

A quick thank you this week to some fabulous people who have left reviews of Murder Mile and have been truly fabulous on social media, they include; Erin Nichols, Elizabeth Lowdell, Erin Fleming, Beth MacKenzie, Jennifer Sievers, Dale Pennycuick, Hannah Mirza, Stephanie Kunz, Niesha Kennedy Robinson, Kelly Palmer, Venessa Chapa Humfield, Esther Amrandarizx Ludlow, Shaw Maloney, Paula Coll, Ronnie Ball, Charlie Worroll, Robin Warder, Jennifer O’Dell, Kathryn Spenser Cook, Skunz18, LaurieK1 and Zimbellina13.

If I’ve missed you, I apologise, feel free to buzz me saying “Oi!”, and if you’ve reviewed me recently, these podcast are recorded two weeks before they’re released, so your thank you may take a while to filter through. But to everyone who listens, thank you. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode… is part two of our canal killing series, this time featuring the mysterious death, disappearance and disposal of Marta Ligman. Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: 

• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/07/extraordinary-life-italian-man-body-found-london-regents-canal-sebastiano-magnanini
• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/08/trio-jailed-dumping-body-of-former-italian-art-thief-london-canal-sebastiano-magnanini
  
• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/05/three-men-admit-involvement-in-case-of-body-found-in-canal
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/sebastiano-magnanini-body-dumped-in-river-revealed-to-be-failed-italian-art-thief-a6920116.html
  
• http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2016/01/07/sebastiano-magnanini-vita-italiano-ucciso-londra_n_8931892.html
  
• http://www.veneziatoday.it/cronaca/sentenza-sebastiano-magnanini-morto-overdose.html
  
• http://www.veneziatoday.it/cronaca/veneziano-ucciso-londra-sebastiano-magnanini.html
  
• http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/crime-court/sebastiano-magnanini-three-men-jailed-for-shopping-trolley-burial-in-regent-s-canal-1-4448445
• http://www.independent.co.uk/crime/sebastiano-magnanini-body-dumped-in-river-revealed-to-be-failed-italian-art-thief
  
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-35755564
  

Sadly, as the Police investigation is still fresh, the original file won't be declassified for at least the next 50, 75 or 100 years, so this episode was based on news articles, local knowledge, first hand accounts and my own particular style of investigation, like dragging a loaded shopping trolley from Wharfdale Road to the Islington Tunnel to replicated Walsh & William's journey, pushing the trolley loaded with Sebastiano's body (I used bricks I had found), to see how long it would take and how difficult it was. And yes, it was bloody difficult.

Sounds: 

• Metal Scraping - https://freesound.org/people/humanoide7000/sounds/328526/
  

With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution), and additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by Kai Engel.

• Whispers by Hyson
• Corporate Smoking Room by Seclorance
• Concern by NCTRNM
• Remember Trees by Chris Zabriski
• Untitled by Seclorance
• Comatose by Kai Engel
• Denouement by Kai Engel

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile on iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode twenty of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

Wow! Twenty episodes. Or as I like to call it, six hundred and fifty minutes of non-stop story-telling, just shy of eleven hours of true-crime podcasting, or over one hundred and forty thousand grisly words, which is the equivalent to two half-descent horror novels, or fifty thousand articles in trashy tabloids like The Sun and the Daily Mail, if you remove their most frequently used words like “immigrants”, “scroungers” and “tits”.

And with each episode taking fifty hours a week to write and research, and on average a month to research each story, it can be a pretty exhausting and (although us solo podcasters rarely admit it), quite a lonely experience too. But your kind words, constant support, insightful questions and your five-star reviews, really have kept me going. So to everyone, I thank you.

I’ve already mapped out episodes 21 to 50, with thoughts on what the next 50 episodes will be, so have no fear dear listeners, Murder Mile will be here for many years to come… unless I get brutally murdered. Oh God, how hollow that would sounds if I did die, and you’re listening back at this? Brrrrr.

Anyway, over the next two weeks I shall be spending every day in the National Archives, knee-deep in the original declassified police investigation files to unearth many more of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murder cases, including poisoners, arsonists, terrorists, sexual sadists, bombers, burglars, bungling abortionists, mad-executioners, mass murderers and maniacs, as well as more untold stories about the personal life of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen, and – something I’m really excited about –a five-part series on one of Britain’s lesser known spree-killers; a maniac so seemingly mild-mannered yet brutally shocking, he makes Jack the Ripper look like a wimpy cape-wearing wuss who couldn’t peel a potato with cutting his finger, blubbing big rolly tears and running to mummy.

Therefore, whilst I’m away researching, I won’t leave you without an episode, instead these next two episodes will be something really different, which – if you enjoy it – will become a regular feature to accompany every future episode of Murder Mile. What is it? Find out next week.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s podcast of the week, this time it’s the Mysteries and Urban Legends podcast, also known as MAUL. Thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about the bungled assassination attempts of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, whose truly incompetent murderers left a deadly trail of lethal poison all across London’s West End. Murder Mile contains grisly details which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 20: The Bungled Assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko.

Today I’m on Shaftesbury Avenue; not the shit bit of Shaftesbury Avenue, but the really tacky bit wedged between Soho and Chinatown, just shy of Piccadilly Circus; where every day you’ll see a slew of easily duped tourists who have either forked-out a hundred quid each to sit for six hours on a rainy open-top bus to take blurry photos of Buckingham Palace as they whizz by at 40 miles-an-hour; sightseers in transparent ponchos with eight cameras around their necks and a bum-bag full of cash who struggle with an over-sized map and might as well be holding a sign which says “mug me”; and flocks of feckless overseas students with matching backpacks and no money who simply take up space, talk too loud and (let’s be honest) shoplift, as well as idiots with self-sticks, halfwits with Harrods bags and morons who give money to a motionless man in a Yoda mask, all who’ve come to London, only to avoid all of the truly amazing traditional British pubs, cafes and restaurants, and end up eating the same shit that they do back home, in an identical branch of Planet Hollywood, McDonalds or Pizza-Hut. (exhales) Of course, if you’re visiting our lovely city, thank you for coming to London, and we hope you enjoy your stay. Oh, and come on a Murder Mile Walk, it really is excellent.

Right now, I’m standing outside of The Piccadilly Hotel at 65-73 Shaftesbury Avenue, formerly called The Shaftesbury; a four star hotel with a red-brick, gold trimmed and black glass-fronted façade, which the new owners, current staff and any future customers may be delighted to know that this was not the murder location. And yet, this is where our story begins; a true-story about espionage, Russian spies, British agents, foreign defectors and nuclear weapons, which happened under the very noses of the British secret service, and yet it wasn’t set in 1946, 1956 or even 1966, but in 2006. Fourteen years after the end of the Cold War, and yet, it began with the arrival of two of Russia’s most incompetent assassins named Andrey Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun. (INTERSTITIAL).

On the bright crisp morning of Monday 16th October 2006, at a little after 7am, a routine flight for the Russian airline Transaero departed Moscow’s Vnukovo International airport on a four hour and twenty minute flight to London Gatwick. With the Boeing 747 being sparsely filled with just a smattering of suited businessmen and eager holiday-makers, the stewardesses began serving coffee, entirely unaware that two of their passengers had hidden about their bodies something so rare that it can’t be bought, something so small that it could be hidden in an eye-dropper, something so deadly it could kill everyone on the plane and no-one would know how, when or why.

But they weren’t smugglers, thieves or terrorists, they were just two men casually dressed in jeans, t-shirts and jackets, who sat, chatted and raised no suspicions. And yet both men had dark histories.

Born on 19th September 1966, Andrey Konstantinovich Lugovoy was a 40 year former commander for the KGB’s 9th directorate proving defensive, tactical and combat training for the Kremlin’s top soldiers, agents and assassins; later promoted to a Commander in the FBS (Russia’s secret police), Lugavoy now headed-up his own security firm known as the Ninth Wave. And yet, he didn’t look like a killer, instead - being 5 foot 9 inches tall, 13 stone in weight, with blue eyes, fair hair slightly combed over to disguise a slight bald-patch and a sneering face onto which a smile seemed unnatural – he looked more like a ragged Daniel Craig portraying a stereotypical Russian in a badly directed 1980’s spy thriller.

And although his partner on the flight - Dmitri Vladimirovich Kovtun – had a similar upbringing, being childhood friends who rose together through the ranks of the KGB, 41 year old Kovtun was moody, surly, antisocial and rude, who had very few morals or rules, and would often state “I don’t care about anything in life, only money”. And yet, he didn’t look like a killer either – as being a lightly toned man, with a tanned complexion, brown eyes, dark brown hair speckled with flecks of salt & pepper colouring and a smooth unwrinkled face having never cracked a smile – Kovtun looked more like a bad tribute act to the Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho.

And although they travelled under the guise of businessmen coming to the UK for a regular meeting, really they were here to kill, having been instructed (by the highest order in the Kremlin) to assassinate a Russian defector, staunch critic of Vladimir Putin, MI6 agent and investigative journalist into Russian organised crime, who neither man had any debts with, hatred for, and who was even Andrey Lugavoy’s friend, colleague and business partner. Their target’s name was Alexander Litvinenko (INTERSTITIAL).

At a little before 11:30am, the Boeing 747 from Moscow landed at Gatwick’s North Terminal and travelling light with flight cases and suit-bags, the hired assassins disembarked hiding one of the world’s deadliest murder weapons. Lugovoy & Kovtun were briefly questioned by customs agents whose instincts were finely tuned to detect anything suspicious, and as both men gave short evasive answers, had official passports, IDs and no criminal record, having had baggage checked, none of which contained alcohol, drugs, guns, knives or explosives, they legally entered Britain.

At exactly 11:49am, Lugavoy phoned Alexander Litvinenko, his business partner and intended target to confirm a pre-arranged meeting in Mayfair that afternoon; Alexander was in, the plan was on, and his death was just hours away. It was a murder that no-one knew was coming, all but a few people were expecting, and using a silent and effective weapon which was almost completely untraceable – if successful – his killers would be out of the country before anyone even knew what had happened. It was the perfect murder. Or it would have been, if Lugavoy & Kovtun hadn’t been so laughably inept.

Having ridden the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station, at roughly 1pm, Lugavoy & Kovtun checked into The Shaftesbury Hotel. With the tiring seven hour journey behind them, they both unpacked, washed and changed into their chosen disguises, adopting the look, style and demeanour of two highly respectable businessmen… if those businessmen were colour-blind, had dressed in the dark and their attire was entirely inspired by a cheesy mob-villain from 1980’s TV series Miami Vice.

Rather than adopting anonymous black suits to help them blend seamlessly into the city, Lugovoy opted for a loud brown chequered suit, Kovtun wore the tackiest silvery metallic suit imaginable, made of finest polyester, and with both men accentuating their look with brightly coloured shirts, garish ties, day-glo socks and a wrist-jangling assortment of chunky gold chains, bracelets and sovereign rings, their unsubtle attire was so shocking and eye-wateringly gaudy, that it caused the hotel staff to chuckle, with the hotel’s manager (Goran Krgo) later commenting “The colours didn’t match, the suits were either too big or too small. They just didn’t look like people who were used to wearing suits. They looked like – I think the expression is - like a donkey with a saddle”. But feeling like they looked a million Robles, Lugavoy & Kovtun headed out to commit the perfect murder.

At 3pm, as planned, with Lugavoy dressed like Burberry’s biggest fan and Kovtun shimmering like a budget disco ball, they confidently sashayed into the London office of Erinys; a security consultancy based at 25 Grosvenor Street and the chosen spot for Litvinenko’s murder, which happened to be just five hundred metres from the heavily guarded American Embassy, that also housed a CIA surveillance substation. And yet, Lugavoy & Kovtun sat down for a meeting in the fourth-floor boardroom of Erinys, with the company’s head Tim Reilly, and Lugavoy’s business partner Alexander Litvinenko.

Born Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko on 4th December 1962, 44 year old Litvinenko (who went under the pseudonym of Edwin Redwald Carter, but was known by his friends as Sacha) was a former KGB and FSB officer who defected to the UK in 2000 with his wife (Marina) and son (Anatoly), having become a fervent critic of corruption in the Kremlin, the systematic assassination of any dissenting voices and having accused former head of the FSB Vladimir Putin of orchestrating a series of bombings of civilian apartment blocks which killed 293 people, injured over 1000, and - having blamed it on the Chechen rebels - it boosted Putin’s electoral popularity in his bid to be President of the Russian Federation. Although slightly shy, spend-thrift and religiously teetotal (having converted from Christianity to Islam), with reddish brown hair, pale skin and blue-eyes, his weapon of choice was the pen, which he used with devastating effect as a journalist, author and an expert in Russian organised crime, who now worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service – MI6.

In the Erinys boardroom, on the fourth-floor of 25 Grosvenor Street, the meeting began with the customary polite chatter and pleasantries; Litvinenko had his back to the bay windows, Tim sat to his right and Lugavoy & Kovtun seated opposite (dressed like a pair of cartoon pimps), but every time Tim tried to steer the talk to business, Kovtun huffed, hardly uttering a single word and Lugavoy seemed desperate for his comrades to have a drink, as placed between, in the centre of the circular wooden table covered in a green fabric table cloth was four white cups and a freshly brewed pot of tea.

Tim Reilly would later state that Lugovoy was oddly persistent in his need to ensure that everyone was hydrated, “he kept on saying to me – don’t you want any [tea], won’t you have any?”, to the point where so exasperated had Tim become, even though he didn’t like tea and never drank tea, he poured three cups of green tea for his three guests; Lugavoy, Kovtun and Litvinenko.

And there they sat, everyone except Kovtun talking, with the murder weapon perched just inches from the left hand of its intended target, disguised as a humble cup of tea, inside of which was a poison; so discrete it had almost no taste, so deadly they only needed a few drops, so lethal there was no cure, and it took effect so slowly, that hours from now when their victim would start dying, his killers would long gone. All they needed was for Litvinenko to take a drink.

But it wasn’t arsenic, mercury or even cyanide; three readily available poisons which are easy to buy, administer, dispose of and disguise. No, their poison of choice was the ridiculously rare and impossibly expensive Polonium-210; a radioactive isotope made in a nuclear reactor, which although invisible, undetectable and (when swallowed) is one hundred billion times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide, and yet every batch of Polonium 210 has a unique chemical signature which identifies its precise location of origin - with this batch coming from a supposedly secret FSB laboratory in Sarov, Russia.

Of course, Lugavoy & Kovtun can’t really be blamed for choosing such a ludicrous poison, as access to nuclear chemicals clearly happened well above their miniscule pay-grade, and had either man been informed what they had secreted in an eye-dropper - instead of dressing like a Laura Ashley table-cloth and an extra-long roll of tin-foil - maybe having purchased rubber gloves, gas-masks, wellington boots and a set of Hazmat suits, they may have been a tad more careful with how they smuggled, handled, and eventually disposed of one of the world’s deadliest radioactive poisons.

Weeks later, when nuclear scientists examined the Erinys fourth-floor boardroom with their Geiger Counters, it was heaving with radioactive contamination. To put this into context; the safe level of radiation that the average person absorbs (through sunlight) every 207 days is roughly 100 Clicks Per Minute, a standard Geiger counter is set to record up to a maximum of 500 Clicks Per Minute, and yet, almost every piece of furniture in that room caused a “full-scale deflection” – readings so high, they were off the scale.
But with a large uneven patch of the green fabric table cloth, where Litvinenko had been sitting, spiking at a 160 times higher than the safe radiation level, it indicated that (at some point before the meeting had ended) Alexander Litvinenko had spilled his tea… and left, having not drank a single drop.
Later that evening, with his skin having been exposed to high levels of Polonium 210, when Litvinenko arrived back at his Muswell Hill home, he began to feel unwell, and as his body was struck down with radiation sickness, he started to vomit. But by the morning, he was fine, and thinking he had eaten some bad Sushi during his post-meeting debrief with Lugavoy & Kovtun, he put his queasiness down to a mild case of food poisoning, got dressed, had breakfast and continued with his day.

The assassination was a total disaster; not just because their victim was still alive, well and unharmed, but because (having spilled the poisoned tea) everywhere that Litvinenko’s bungling assassins went and on everything they touched, they left a very distinctive radioactive trail, all across the West End, from Erinys at 25 Grosvenor Street to Itsu (the Sushi restaurant) at 167 Piccadilly.

And instead of commiserating their abject failure as the Kremlin’s most incompetent assassins ever, Lugavoy & Kovtun spent the night dressed and acting like two low-rent hoods who’d just conned four hundred quid out of a blind old lady by selling her a cut & shut Nissan Micra. Having first gorged themselves silly on £214’s worth of Italian seafood and pizzas at Pescatori on Charlotte Street, they then smoked a £9 shisha pipe on the terrace of the Dar Marrakesh in the Trocadero centre, hired a rickshaw for an hour-long midnight ride around the West End, taking in a few of its seediest bars, and feeling slightly affronted by the heavy homosexual vibe of Soho, these two very manly men (wearing brightly coloured shirts and an excess of jewellery) were so desperate to “meet some girls”, that they ended the night by partying it up at Helvo in Jermyn Street, a private member’s club styled like a Russian brothel, complete with frilly pink cubicles, mirrored walls, the dancefloor dominated by a large bronze cock, and a bordello style bathroom which spurted hot water from penis-shaped taps.

Later, in Room 107 of The Shaftesbury Hotel, being a little worse-for-wear having quaffed an ungodly excess of pink champagne, with Lugavoy being a highly trained assassin who knew not only how to kill but also how to cover his tracks, he took the remainder of the Polonium 210, and tipped it down the sink, contaminating the bathroom, the pipework and the hotel, as this highly radioactive isotope sat in the sink’s u-bend emitting 30 times the safe level of radiation for weeks to come.

And even though they’d paid in advance for two nights at The Shaftesbury hotel, Lugavoy & Kovtun promptly checked-out early the next morning, hopped in a cab and booked into the Parkes Hotel at Beaufort Gardens, Knightsbridge, whinging to the staff about the condition of the rooms, when it is safe to say that the real reason they left wasn’t a deep-seated desire to sleep on firmer beds, softer sheets and fluffier pillows, they just wanted to get as far away as possible from the nuclear disaster they’d unleashed in a Soho bathroom.

The following morning, on Wednesday 18th October 2006, having packed away their pimp costumes (perhaps feeling a little fed-up with resembling an all-white tribute act to the Blaxploitation film Shaft), Lugavoy & Kovtun hopped on the next Transaero flight from Heathrow to Moscow, and having left traces of Polonium 210 in seats 26E and 26F, they ensured that (with the British authorities desperate to test both planes) that neither Boeing 747 returned to British airspace ever again.

Sadly, the same could not be said for Andrey Lugavoy, the poor man’s Daniel Craig, as having had his hand slapped, his knuckles rapped and his bottom smacked by his bosses in the FSB, they ordered him to return to London to do it properly. Only this time he left behind his partner-in-crime, Dimitri Kovtun, a man with a bafflingly long career in one of the most secretive organisations ever – the KGB, and yet, days before his failed attempt to kill Litvinenko, he had confided to a friend “I’ve got a very expensive poison, I’ve got to put it in their food or drink, do you know any chefs or waiters who could help me?”

One week later, on Wednesday 25th October 2006, having packed a less-embarrassing suit and making full use of the FSB’s liberal expenses policy for hired assassins, Lugavoy flew from Moscow to Heathrow on British Airways flight 875, sitting in seat 6k of business class, with a fresh batch of Polonium 210 safely ensconced in his bag, and checked himself into the five-star Sheraton Park Hotel on Piccadilly, just by The Ritz, occupying Room 848 on the eighth floor, which had lovely views over Green Park.

That afternoon, in the hotel’s art-deco tea-room called Palm Court, Lugavoy and Litvinenko met once again, and this time, Lugavoy’s intended target sat there, in front of him, his left hand rising and falling as he repeatedly put the tea-cup to his lips, thirstily supping great glugs of green tea from a silver teapot, and never once spilling a single drop, until every last drop of tea was drank.
But he didn’t die, he didn’t even feel ill, in fact Litvinenko found it quite refreshing, and was very grateful for the free tea, not just because he was a skinflint who hated wasting good money on over-priced items, but – as a defected Russian dissident - it was nice to have a drink paid for by FSB.

A short while later, the meeting ended, they shook hands and parted ways. And for reasons which aren’t fully understood, inside Lugavoy’s bag was an unopened vile of Polonium 210.

Later, in Room 848 of The Sheraton Park Hotel, being a little tipsy having quaffed three large glasses of red wine and puffed away on a king-sized Cuban cigar, with Lugavoy being a highly trained assassin who knew not only how to kill but also how to cover his tracks, he took the unused bottle of Polonium 210, opened it, and poured it down the sink, once again contaminating the bathroom, the pipework and the hotel, as well as a small white peddle-bin next to the loo where he had casually discarded the radioactive eye-dropper, and several white hand-towels, having used them to mop-up the lethal nuclear poison which he had spilled all over the floor.

So bad was this spill, that weeks later, when two nuclear scientists from Aldermaston’s Atomic Weapons Establishment examined Room 848, not only had Lugavoy done an awful job of cleaning-up the mess, having splashed Polonium on the floor, walls, door, the bath, the sink and the loo, but with their Geiger counters recording ”full-scale deflections” which were 500 times higher than safe levels, the bathroom was so radioactive, that even whilst wearing breathing apparatus and Hazmat suits, the nuclear scientists asked to withdraw to a safe distance and the room was sealed until further notice.

Once again, Lugavoy returned to Russia, received another slapped wrist, rapped knuckles and smacked bottom, only to be ordered to return to the UK, so that – this time – he could kill Litvinenko properly.

So, one week later, once again, Lugavoy flew back to Britain, packing a third bottle of radioactive Polonium 210, only this time he was aided by his trusty partner-in-crime, Dimitri Kovtun, the sulky Jose Mourinho look-a-like, because clearly they had worked so well together the first time.

On Tuesday 31st October 2006, at 8:30pm, into the five star Millennium Hotel at 44 Grosvenor Square, just three hundred feet from their first ill-fated assassination attempt at Erinys offices, and just two hundred feet from the US Embassy and its CIA surveillance substation, Lugavoy entered. This time his disguise was simple and effective, as dressed in blue jeans, a black leather jacket and a mustard yellow jumper, he looked like a regular family man, as that’s what he was, as on this trip, he was accompanied by his wife Svetlana, their three daughters, a family friend and his eight year old son Igor.

Being in a jubilant mood, surrounded by his loved ones and excited to watch his beloved football team, CSKA Moscow who were due to play against Arsenal the next evening, everyone was in high spirits, unaware of the real ulterior motive for this hastily arranged holiday.

On Wednesday 1st November 2006, at just after 2pm, 44 year old Alexander Litvinenko left his home in Muswell Hill (North London), dressed in a blue denim jacket and dark jeans, and being conscious of the exorbitant cost of travel in the capital city, especially as his consultancy work for MI6 wasn’t full-time and didn’t pay all that well, using his pre-paid Oyster card, he hopped on the W7 bus, riding ten stops to Finsbury Park, then headed nine stops south on the Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus.

At 3pm, for a pre-arranged lunch at Itsu (the heavily contaminated sushi restaurant where two weeks earlier he had a meeting debrief with his bungling cack-handed assassins), Litvinenko met with Mario Scaramella, an ex-FSB agent, security consultant, lawyer and (ironically) an expert in nuclear weapons.

And yet, their lunch would only be brief; as with Lugavoy & Kovtun eager to finally do a good job, not be proved to be total imbeciles, to ensure the swift and successful death of Alexander Litvinenko, and all without missing the 7pm kick-off between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal, Lugavoy repeatedly called his target, badgering him to “hurry up”. 

With their careers and lives on the line, nerves had clearly got the better of them, as they paced back and forth, double-checked their watches and dashed into the loo every few minutes (leaving a trail of radiation on everything they touched, including the sink, the taps, the dryer, and – almost certainly - their genitals). And although they’d only been waiting in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel for thirty minutes, Lugavoy & Kovtun had clocked up a bill of £70.60, for three gin and tonics, one champagne cocktail, one Romeo y Julieta cigar, one neat Gordon’s gin, and a pot of green tea with three cups.

At 3:59pm, Litvinenko arrived in the Millennium Hotel lobby, phoned Lugavoy and was ushered into the Pine Bar where Kovtun was seated. Both men seemed uptight and jumpy; with Kovtun even more moody and depressed than usual, as he sat there, saying very little, perpetually scowling like a man who (once again) was staring failure in the face. And although they had little time to spare, as much as Litvinenko diligently steered the conversation to their upcoming meeting with private security firm Global Risk, once again, Lugavoy steered the chat back to whether his guest would like a drink.

But all that was left on the table were a few empty gin & tonic bottles, a dribble of champagne cocktail, a bent cigar stub and – having got bored of waiting – before they’d added the Polonium, Lugavoy & Kovtun had drank most of the tea, meaning all that remained in the teapot was half a cup of cold green tea, with an unusually bitter taste, which was one hundred billion times deadlier than cyanide.

Being the Pine Bar’s ever dutiful waiter, Norberto Andrade asked Litvinenko “would you like to have anything to drink?”, which Lugavoy repeated, his pestering having become insufferable, but once again, not wanting to waste his own money, Litvinenko said “no”. And for the third time in two weeks, a simple assassination attempt had been thwarted by a teetotal man who wasn’t very thirsty.

But as the conversation progressed, Lugavoy became more persistent, pressuring Litvinenko that “if you would like something, order something for yourself, but we’re going to be leaving soon”, pointing to the white ceramic teapot and adding “If you want some tea, then there is some left here, you can have some of this?”

At approximately 4:20pm, the meeting was over, handshakes were given and a small dribble of highly radioactive cold green tea remained in Litvinenko’s cup, having poured what was left out of politeness.

Impatient to get to the football match at Arsenal’s north London stadium, Lugavoy’s wife Svetlana arrived in the hotel foyer, eagerly waved at her husband and mouthed the words “let’s go, let’s go”. And as the Lugavoy family mingled in the bar, with the ever-moody Kovtun declaring “I’m very tired, I want to sleep” and bailing on the hotly-anticipated match, Lugovoi – in a truly strange act of arrogance and perhaps self-sabotage - introduced his eight-year-old son Igor to Litvinenko, saying “This is Uncle Sasha, shake his hand”, which the boy dutifully did, not knowing that – just minutes earlier – Alexander Litvinenko had used that same hand to grasp the white ceramic handle, to raise the radioactive cup to his lips and to sup three small sips of cold green tea. Shortly afterwards, both parties parted ways, a few small drops of Polonium 210 in Litvinenko’s system.

Nuclear scientists dressed in boots, masks and hazmat suits would later examine the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square and detected radioactive traces on the table, the chairs, most door-handles, an ashtray, numerous glasses, cups, spoons, saucers, a milk jug and a sugar bowl, with the largest “full-scale deflection” reading coming off the white ceramic teapot, which the staff had unwittingly placed in the dishwasher, reused it with subsequent guests and spreading the radioactive isotope to the walls, the floor, the till, an ice-cream scoop, a chopping board and even a piano stool.

That evening, in Room 382 of The Millennium Hotel, being a little tipsy having quaffed two gin & tonics and a champagne cocktail, with Kovtun being a highly trained assassin who knew not only how to kill but also how to cover his tracks… yes, you’ve guessed it… he poured what remained of the Polonium 210 down the sink, contaminating another bathroom, another set of pipework and another hotel.

Travelling his usual route home, Litvinenko rode the Piccadilly Line to Finsbury Park, hopped on the W7 bus to Muswell Hill and – by the time Lugavoy and his family were getting seated to watch an uneventful goalless match between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal – he was back home, feeling fine, and ready to enjoy a celebratory dinner with his beloved wife (Marina) and young son (Anatoly), as today was the sixth anniversary of their arrival in Britain, having sought the safety, asylum and sanctuary of London, and fled the fear, the corruption and the threats of assassination in their native Russia.

At a little after midnight, feeling a little drowsy after a hearty dinner, Litvinenko was lying in bed when his head started to ache, which was to be expected after an exhausting day. With his energy drained and his brain throbbing, he noticed that his dry pale skin had become unusually sweaty, itchy and pockmarked with red inflamed patches, which could easily be attributed to an allergy. And suddenly feeling dizzy, hot and nauseous, he started to vomit, again and again and again, but this wasn’t food-poisoning, and as the night progressed, his condition got worse.

Litvinenko was transferred to the Critical Care Unit of University College Hospital, just off Tottenham Court Road, under his British pseudonym Edwin Redwald Carter, where – for 23 days – doctors struggled to save his life, witnessing a range of symptoms they’d never seen before, or since, as each of his limb’s went numb, his bone marrow dried up and every organ in his body slowly failed, not realising there was no treatment, no cure and no hope of his survival. And as Marina stroked her husband’s head, his reddish-brown hair came out in great clumps in her hand.

As he lay, in bed, his gaunt pale skin looking ghostly against his green surgical gown, with his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken and numerous catheters, drips and tubes connecting his failing body to an endless series of life-saving machines, Litvinenko – who’s head and body was now completely bald – resembled a terminal cancer patient who was dying at an exponentially rapid speed.

Over three days, mustering every ounce of energy his body could summon, Litvinenko gave eighteen interviews to the Police, during which he identified Andrey Lugavoy and Dimitri Kovtun as his assassins, and yet – in a signed statement, read out to the assembled press by his friend Alex Goldfarb – he laid his assassination squarely at one man, stating “You may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life”.

On 23rd November 2006 at 3pm, shocked scientists at Aldermaston Nuclear Weapons Establishment confirmed that the poison used was Polonium 210. But – that same day - having suffered his third heart attack in 24 hours, medics struggled to revive his weakened body, and by the time his beloved wife Marina and their young son Anatoly had rushed to be by his side, at 9:21pm 44 year old Alexander Litvinenko was pronounced dead. He was laid to rest in a lead-lined casket at Highgate cemetery.

To this day, Russian authorities refuse to accept the findings of the British inquiry, Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the evidence as false, and both the FSB and KGB have suggested that the death of Alexander Litvinenko was either an accident, a suicide, or that he had attempted to assassinate Lugavoy & Kovtun, with Russian authorities refusing to extradite the men for questioning.

Andrey Lugavoy & Dimitri Kovtun were hospitalised having been exposed to deadly doses of Polonium 210, they both made a full recovery; today Dimitri Kovtun is a moody security specialist in Moscow, and Andrey Lugavoy is a prominent Russian politician, deputy of Russian Parliament’s lower house, and he has also carved out a niche as a TV presenter on a factual series about Russian spies who defect to the UK, with an episode about the ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. The series is called ‘Traitors’.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you’re looking for a new podcast, this week’s treat is MAUL. The Mysteries and Urban Legends podcast, which delves into – not just true-crime – but also ghosts, myths, murder, mayhem, so if you like chat with charm, horror with humour, and scary tales with surprises, then this may be the podcast for you. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode… will be something different.
Thank you and sleep well. 

Sources: 

• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1535121/Spy-poisoned-by-radiation.html
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litvinenko-and-the-most-radioactive-towel-in-history
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/11/litvinenko-killers-radiation-trail-london-inquiry
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/alexander-litvinenko-the-man-who-solved-his-own-murder
• ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqcFaJEnh8
• https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/december-2006-online/itsu-shaken-but-not-stirred-by-litvinenko-incident/

Sadly, the National Archive files on the case are locked away for the next 100 years, so I probably won't get a chance to read them... unless I live a very long time. 

Sounds: 

• Airplane taking off - https://freesound.org/people/Ramston/sounds/255211/
• Airplane interior - https://freesound.org/people/hanstimm/sounds/41490/
• Traffic noise - https://freesound.org/people/Carlvus/sounds/178710/
• Baggage Claim - https://freesound.org/people/robkubicki/sounds/337664/

With additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution), and additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by Kai Engel.

• Plague by Kai Engel

• Whispers by Hyson
• Cold War Echo by Kai Engel
• Global Warming by Kai Engel
• Oneiri by Kai Engel
• Sunray by Kai Engel
• Imminence by Kai Engel​

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Love true-crime podcasts? Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Spotify, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode nineteen of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

If you’re a new listener? Hello, thank you, welcome and I hope you enjoy the show. Just to let you know that this episode is the concluding part of the murder of Norah Upchurch, so I would strongly advise downloading episode eighteen first. To my regular listeners, thank you so much for your continued support, for the fabulous feedback, for sharing this podcast with your friends and especially for your lovely five star reviews, which truly does warm my cockles (that’s not a sexual thing).

Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s podcast of the week, this time it’s the brilliant True-Crime Finland; thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is the concluding part of the murder of Norah Upchurch; a West End prostitute who was found strangled in a locked and empty shop by Frederick Field, a local handy-man whose detailed description of her supposed killer ultimately lead the Police to their chief suspect – himself. Murder Mile contains grisly details which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 19: Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop Part Two.

On Tuesday 25th July 1933 at 12:30pm, in Shoe Lane; a tightly cobble-stoned road just off Fleet Street, (which is the supposed workplace of the bloody barber Sweeney Todd, but is more famously the home of many of Britain’s worst tabloid hacks who’d happily slit their own mother’s throat, spill their grannie’s guts and package up the entrails into a steamy festering pie, simply to lure their easily-duped readers into swallowing great mouthfuls of unfettered bullshit) a man paced nervously back and forth, his black scuffed boots almost wearing a hole in the pavement, the rough callused fingers of his trembling hand shaking as he chain-smoked another cigarette.

And although he didn’t look like a journalist - being just five-foot seven inches tall, ten stone in weight, with odd little elfin-like ears, hollow brown eyes, a large bulbous nose, ruffled brown hair and dressed in a tatty dark suit, he looked out of place amongst the throng of typists, scribblers and finger-smiths, and more at home on a building site, a factory or renovating an empty shop - the deep dark secret he had held onto for almost two years would be front page news for weeks to come.

With a deep breath and a determined nod, the man stubbed out his cigarette, turned on his heels and – having made a life-changing decision which would lead to his grisly death – he walked into the London offices of right-wing tabloid newspaper, the Daily Sketch, and asked for Mister Leaver, a senior reporter he had met just two years before, when the man was the principle witness in the unresolved murder trial of a 20 year old West End prostitute who died in the dark passage of an empty shop,

Tentatively greeting the nervous man with a vague smile and a distant handshake, senior reporter Mr Leaver enquired “So, tell me, what’s this is all about?” To which the man gulped, his saliva unable to swallow back the words which for so long had been stuck in his throat, and muttered “well… I did it”. Mister Leaver’s eyes widened, an eye-brow raised, with a nervous grin which crinkled the sides of his mouth, and casually asked “you mean… you killed Norah Upchurch?” The man replied “yes”. His name… was Frederick Field, and three years later, he would be dead. (INTERSTITIAL)

Born on the 16th April 1904, in Acton (West London, just three miles from the childhood home of Norah Upchurch), although poor, Frederick Herbert Charles Field was a spoilt brat and a habitual liar who was born to a strict disciplinarian father who ruled his brood with an iron rod, a drunken fist and an ever thrashing leather belt, and a molly-coddling mother whose son (in her eyes) was a blameless angel. With mixed-signals dominating his young life, Field grew-up courting trouble, openly lying and always believing that (no matter how bad he was) he would always be protected.
Being disinterested and distracted, Field left school aged fourteen with few qualifications, he drifted in and out of various menial jobs, until 1926, when aged 22, his father forced his listless son to enlist as an Aircraftsman in the Royal Air Force, which he did, for three whole years. But on 7th April 1929, having married his sweetheart Bessie Matilda, Field was discharged from the Air Force for an “unspecified” offence, and once again drifted between jobs, pubs, pawn-shops, bookies and brothels.

By 1931, the year that Norah Upchurch was murdered, with Field now being the father of new born baby daughter and finally holding down a semi-steady job as a sign-fixer at Hilder & Co in Soho, money was tight, tempers were frayed and their marital-bed was icy cold. Not because of the baby, but because of the very simple reason that at the Inquest into the murder of Norah Upchurch, Frederick Field wasn’t just their star witness, he was also… a suspect. (INTERSTITIAL).

On Friday 20th July 1933, five days prior to his confession, Field had lost his employment with Hilder & Co, and he was hungry, desperate and broke. But it wasn’t the shame, the guilt or even the horror at having strangled Norah to death and deprived her three year old daughter of a mother which drove him to confess, it was money and fame. Before he would talk, Field demanded full payment upfront, his family’s safety assured, a front page spread with his photo, and the Daily Sketch to fully fund his legal defence. When Mr Leaver said no, he wanted to hear the story first, after a whole second of thought, Field cracked and began to spill every sordid detail.

At 10:30pm that evening, at the Marlborough Street Police Station, Frederick Field made a full confession to Superintendent George Cornish. It went roughly like this: On Tuesday 29th September 1931, at exactly 1:40pm, Field left Hilder & Co at 23 Great Pulteney Street to remove the ‘To Let’ signs from 173/177 Shaftesbury Avenue, having collected the keys off Miss Keenan at Perry & Ball first. We know this as a fact. At 2pm, Field handed the only set of keys to the premises to an unidentified man in a Plus Fours suit, having been duped by a false work-order and lured by the offer of future employment, they agreed to meet later that evening. Only Field can verify if this as fact, as neither the Plus Fours man nor the keys were ever seen again.

At 5pm, that evening, Field headed home to 148 Clensham Lane (in Sutton, South London); his squalid basement flat which he shared with his wife, baby daughter, brother-in-law and mother, arriving at roughly 6:30pm. With little time to spare, Field ate his dinner, washed, and dressed in his best suit.

Leaving home at 7:30pm, Field arrived at Piccadilly Circus tube station by 9pm for his ill-fated meeting with the Plus Fours man who oddly had forgotten his keys to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue and although he promised to return in just “ten minutes”, having handed Field £2 (which is roughly £140 in today’s money) for materials to start the job, Field waited for him in the St James’ Tavern on the corner of Great Windmill Street and Denham Street, but he never returned.

Now, whether we choose to believe Field’s story about the Plus Fours man is irrelevant. And even if every word of his confession, so far, is complete and utter lies, it is all vital to excavating the truth, as it is right here, from this point onwards, that Field takes us closer to what may have actually happened that night, and later, he is undone by his own web of lies. So take a deep breath… and let’s begin.

Dressed in his best suit for a meeting which didn’t happen, and at a loose end, Field dawdled around the West End for an hour, until 10:25pm as he was strolling down Bear Street, a side street off Leicester Square, he was beckoned forth by a petite pretty brunette with bobbed hair who was soliciting for sex, she wore a green two-piece outfit, black gloves, stockings and shoes, a black leather handbag, a green felt hat and a green felt belt. They’d never met before, and he never asked her name, but this was Norah Upchurch. Having procured sex-worker’s services many times prior, Field bartered briefly with Norah outside of 7 Bear Street, and invited her back to “his place” at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue.

Unlocking the glass-fronted dark wooden door with his keys, Field escorted Norah along the dark unlit passageway, passed the partition wall, and turned right into the backroom of the empty shop. Being almost pitch-black and barely illuminated by the street-lights outside; with no bed, sofa, sheets or soft furnishings of any kind, Field asked her to lay down on the cold stone floor.

Rightly, not wishing to ruin her pretty green dress, dirty her hair or scuff her black heeled shoes, Norah said “no”, which left them at a bit of a sexual impasse. Field enquired “well what are you going to do?”, to which Norah, not wanting to pass-up a few pounds and thinking on her feet, placed a few scattered pages of newspaper on the floor, and dropping to her knees, in her best East End slang she said “I’m gonna gam you”, and she proceeded to felate his floppy penis.

According to Field’s own confession, he didn’t ask for a blowjob and he didn’t want a blowjob, in fact he didn’t want sex with Norah at all, but during the sex-act, with the frustrated Field standing upright and Norah on her knees, her green felt hat bobbing back-and-forth like a circus seal performing for fish, Field states that Norah (whether accidentally, sexually or maliciously) bit his penis; sinking her teeth into his wrinkled gnarly knob, scraping his fleshy shaft and drawing blood. Of course, by the time of this confession, a full month later, the teeth-marks on his bloodied manhood had healed.

But that evening, in the pitch-black backroom of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, as he stood over Norah, Field saw red; not just on her lips, not just on his penis, but in his eyes. And as his rage grew, in his right hand he gripped Norah around the throat, squeezing tightly, trapping her airway, until a few seconds later, never once speaking or screaming, her body went limp and slumped to the floor.

In Field’s own words he would state “I knew that something was seriously wrong when she fell back, I lost control of myself and I cannot remember exactly what happened afterwards”. But then again, the crime-scene evidence tells us exactly what happened next; as lying unconscious on the floor, Field clawed at Norah’s vests, shredding the slight material from her breast to her naval, and ripping apart her white silk jumper he rolled it into a ball and forced the makeshift gag into her mouth, suffocating her as he gripped both ends of her green felt belt, strangling her, until her body had stopped struggling, her legs had stopped twitching, her lungs had stopped breathing, and Norah Upchurch was dead.

Before locking-up and leaving her body lying in the cold empty shop for three days, Field states he took Norah’s black leather handbag, which contained four £1 notes, a set of keys, a small ring and a packet of French letters (which is slang for condoms). At Leicester Square tube station, he boarded the Northern Line train taking it to the end of the line at Morden, hopped on a bus to the Rose Hill Estate and into a dark hedge by the Sutton bypass, he threw Norah’s black handbag and the keys to the shop. Field arrived home at 11:45pm, as witnessed by his wife.

Over the next two days, Field returned to his regular work duties as if nothing had happened, with no mention of the missing keys, the Plus Fours man, or the strangled body of Norah Upchurch.

But on Thursday 1st October, a plumber at Hilder & Co called William Thomas Finlay who was assigned to fix a leaky pipe at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue was struggling to find the keys; they weren’t at Hilder & Co, they hadn’t been returned to Perry & Ball, and just two days before, both keys were signed for by Frederick Field and were currently missing. Which brings us right back where this story began.

As on Friday 2nd October 1931 at roughly 10am, having been chastised by Miss Keenan of Perry & Ball for handing over the only set of keys to a mysterious man in a Plus Four suit who was holding a clearly falsified work-order, Douglas W L Bartram and his shamed workmate Frederick Field, using an iron hammer and a chisel, forced entry at the rear of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, planning to remove the ‘To Let’ signs, to fix a leaky pipe and to await the arrival of a locksmith to secure the property. And it is, at that moment, that Field (shaking, trembling and frightened) discovers the body of Norah Upchurch.

That was the confession of Frederick Field, as made on Tuesday 25th July 1933 at 12:30pm to Mr Leaver of the Daily Sketch, and later that evening, to Superintendent George Cornish of the Marlborough Street Police Station, where he was promptly cautioned and arrested.

With his wife and baby-daughter safely ensconced at her parent’s home in Cardiff (South Wales), a full page spread and photo of himself in almost every newspaper, the Daily Sketch covering his full legal defence, instructing Mr Henry Flint as his solicitor and having given a full confession detailing his crime, Frederick Herbert Charles Field was tried on the 20th September 1933, at the Old Bailey, for the murder of 20 year old Annie Louise Norah Upchurch. (Silence / long pause). 

But… can Frederick Field’s confession to the Daily Sketch, or even the Police, be trusted?

At the original inquest into the murder of Norah Upchurch on Thursday 19th November 1931, at which Field was both the star witness and a prime suspect, Coroner Mr Ingleby Oddie, upon hearing Field’s baffling statement about the missing keys, the Plus Fours man and his shocking discovery of Norah’s body, Mr Oddie made it clear to the jury that they were entitled to either accept his evidence as fact, or not, stating “You might express your disbelief in his story, but at the same time you might well record a verdict against some person or person unknown”. And presented with no concrete evidence, the jury did what they were told to do, which is why they declared her murder unsolved.

Hidden behind his eye-witness accounts, court testimony, Police statements and even a confession, which was a heady mix of provable facts, half-truths and outright lies, was the arrogance of a man who – since his birth – believed he could do as he pleased and could get away with it; whether spinning an elaborate lie, leading the police across London on a wild goose-chase as he thumbed through the Police Crime Index and pointed the finger of guilt at Peter Webb, an innocent man wrongly arrested at Richmond Police Station, and all the while – at the inquest into Norah’s tragic death – feeling that he was the smartest man in the room, later stating “I was pitting my brains against the Coroner and the Police and I won”. As with arrogant relish, he added “One thing that annoyed me all the time is my realisation that, although I committed the murder and got away with it, the people I wanted to prove this to do not know it… but they will now”. Never once showing an ounce of remorse for the murder, for Norah, or her orphaned child – Marjorie.

The Metropolitan Police first suspected Field on the day that Norah’s body was found, as so rare is this occurrence that anyone who finds a corpse is instantly the prime suspect. But also because (having met this mysterious Plus Fours man for just ten minutes) three days later, after the emotional shock of having discovered a dead body, Field gave the Police a remarkably detailed description of this man, stating he was “aged about 30, 6 feet 1 inches tall, tanned complexion, mousey hair cropped short at the back and sides, with a mousey coloured thin moustache with a gap in the middle, a gold tooth in his right upper jaw, he was of medium build, with square shoulders, was well-spoken and was dressed in a biscuit or beige coloured plus four suit with a two inch square pattern, he wore a gingery brown tweed cap and a gold watch on a leather strap on his left wrist, and he looked like a well-to-do man who was a native of London”. And yet, just days later, when Field was volunteering his time to patrol the West End with the Police to find this mad-man, his description had been refined to “aged 22, 6ft 3in, medium complexion, greyish blue eyes, light brown hair, rather long face, broad shoulders, and he was dressed dark grey lounge suit with a double breasted waistcoat”. An almost entirely different man, with no reference to his gold tooth, gold watch, gingery cap, and no plus fours suit.

But then again, the inconsistencies in the first two statements made by Frederick Field to the Police pale into insignificance when you unravel the truth and lies hidden within Field’s own confession. If you’re ready? Let’s attack them in chronological order:

On Tuesday 29th September 1931, the day of Norah’s murder, Field was assigned by Hilder & Co to remove the ‘To Let’ signs from the exterior of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue. And yet, why is it that three days later, on the day Norah’s body was discovered, clearly visible on the Police crime-scene photos, on the outside of the empty shop were the ‘To Let’ signs, a simple job he attempted to do… twice?

That day, having met the mysterious Plus Fours man inside 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, in broad daylight, during which they briefly discussed the lighting layout for the shop, why would Field (who was a trained electrician) choose to meet a prospective client, at night, in a dark building, with no lights?

And why, at 9:20pm, having waited twenty minutes for the forgetful Plus Fours man, did Field over the next hour during which he was at a loose end, why did he not go back to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue where he knew the Plus Fours man had gone to get the keys for, and would eventually arrive?

Given that the Plus Fours man was Field’s alibi for the missing keys, and that these keys were the only way that Norah’s killer could have entered and exited the empty shop, why is his alibi so full of holes? Is he merely misremembering these details, or is this a desperate lie he’s making up on the spot? Which brings us onto the night of the murder.

At 10:25pm, Field states he met Norah Upchurch on Bear Street, just off Leicester Square, and having procured her services for sex, he invited her back to (what he referred to as) “his place”. And yet, on the first floor of 7 Bear Street, right where they had met, Norah had rented flat which she used to entertain her customers, so why would she go with him to Shaftesbury Avenue?

Upon entering the empty shop at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, Field states that he and Norah walked through the passageway and into a dark and dusty backroom, where supposedly the sex-act and her strangulation took place. But if the evidence shows us that they shared a cigarette by the doorway, and having strangled her in front of the glass-fronted door, Field then dragged her unconscious body, by the legs, ten feet up the passageway? Why would he make such as arbitrary change the location of the murder, when there was no evidence of anyone, or any assault, in the backroom, at all?

Field states that his impulse to kill was provoked when she had bitten his penis - a bizarre claim which is impossible to prove or refute as by the time he’d made his confession, these marks had supposedly healed – but more importantly, why would a professional prostitute who has performed oral sex hundreds if not thousands of times, deliberately or accidentally injure his penis and draw blood?

Having lashed out in anger, Fields claims he strangled Norah with his right hand until she passed out. But why would he admit this when the autopsy would clearly confirm that she was brutally garrotted using her own green felt belt, and there were no finger marks found on or around her throat?

And yet, having given a full confession to Mr Leaver of the Daily Sketch - stating that unlike his Police statements before, that this time he was telling the truth - whilst he claims that the murder of Norah Upchurch was a crime-of-passion, Field (in the same confession) would claim his motive was to attempt to pull-off the “perfect murder”; to kill a stranger (like Norah Upchurch), have someone else blamed for the crime (like Peter Webb) and to get away with it?

Ignoring the fact that a “perfect murder” is only committed if you don’t confess to it, even if we accept his assertion that her murder was pre-meditated, why didn’t Field bring a weapon with him (such as a rope, a knife, or a cosh), rather than using Norah’s own belt? And why, rather than relying on the bizarre story of the Plus Fours man as his alibi, a man who was never identified (and probably never existed) why didn’t Field simply return the keys to Perry & Ball, having first made a copy for himself?

Not to mention the fact that neither the Daily Sketch nor the Police could find Norah’s handbag or the keys in the bushes by the Sutton bypass where Field claims he’d thrown them? Why is it that the day after the murder, Bessie Field’s wife had seen Field place on the bedside dressed £2 in notes and a few coins in silvers, even he had told her he was broke and wouldn’t be paid till the Saturday?

Which brings us to the two most important inconsistences in Field’s confession: if Fields gave the Plus Fours man the only set of keys to the empty shop, how did both he and Norah Upchurch unlock the glass-fronted door and enter 177 Shaftesbury Avenue?

And, that evening, at 8pm, with Norah Upchurch having paid the rent to her first floor flat at 7 Bear Street and purchased a four-pack of condoms, leaving her with four £1 notes? How is it that Field knows the exact contents of her black leather handbag, which (just like the keys) were never found?

Armed with Field’s confession, on Wednesday 29th September 1933, Frederick Herbert Charles Field was tried at the Old Bailey on the capital charge of murdering Annie Louisa Norah Upchurch in an empty shop on the 29th September 1931, a crime which (if found guilty of both charges of murder and theft, and having been declared sane by a medical profession) would warrant a death sentence.

Having fully confessed to his crimes, signed this statement, and having sworn on the Bible to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, with the Judge, the Police prosecution and his own defence funded by the Daily Sketch, all of whom readied themselves for his “guilty” plea, making the trial a mere formality, which would be done and dusted before lunch, when Mister Justice Swift asked how the accused pleaded to the charge of murder, with a wry smile, Field replied…“not guilty”.

As gasps and shocked silences gripped the room, it was clear that had Field admitted his guilt that the evidence would be irrelevant, but having pleaded “not guilty”, the burden of proof was placed upon the Police. Their evidence of which was wholly circumstantial and based almost entirely on the confession of Field himself, in a signed statement which (even he admitted was a fabrication), none of which could either be proved or disproved, and that, having been accused of Norah’s murder at the original inquest, Field said he had falsified his confession in order to establish his innocence.

With Mr Justice Swift readily admitting to Field that this “is a peculiar way of proving your innocence by saying you are guilty”, Field replied “it was the only way”. And after a farcical trial during which very little evidence was given, on the charge of murdering Norah Upchurch, Mr Justice Swift found Frederick Herbert Charles Field “not guilty”. He was acquitted of all charges, and – that same day – he walked free, stating to the assembled press “I am satisfied now that I have cleared my name, my future plans are indefinite but I hope to start my life again without the finger of suspicion pointing at me”.

Field’s wife Bessie remained in Cardiff with her daughter, she divorced Field a few years later. Unable to gain regular work from his old employer HIlder & Co, Field re-enlisted in the Royal Air Force, but after a short stint, Field absconded from Hendon Aerodrome having stolen four cheques.

Two weeks later, on 4th April 1936, at 8 Elmhurst Gardens in Clapham (South London), a 48 year old prostitute named Beatrice Vilna Sutton was robbed and found strangled in her bed. When arrested, although he fully confessed to the crime, in a series of events unnervingly similar to the murder of Norah Upchurch, the culprit later retracted his statement and pleaded “not guilty”. Only this time, having disclosed a little too much information, which only the Police would have known, or her killer, the accused was found guilty of her murder, and on 30th June 1936, he was executed by hanging at Wandsworth Prison. His name… was Frederick Field.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you’re looking for a new true-crime podcast, this week’s treat is the fantastic True-Crime Finland, in which our amazing host Minna, takes us on a grisly tour of land of the midnight sun, Finland, a country as strange, dark and sinister as the serial killers and murderers it has produced.  Check it out. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget to check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode is…. The Bungling Assassins of Alexander Litvinenko. Thank you and sleep well. 

Sources:

• Original Police Investigation into the murder of Norah Upchurch - link​

As well as British Newspaper Archive and Ancestry.com  The original files and photos of the National Archives have been used with thier kind permission under a Government License 3.0.  With additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by.

1. We Were Never Meant to Live Here by Chris Zabriski
2. Labyrinth by Sergey Cheremisinov
3. As well as the soundtrack to the Cabinet of Dr Calligari by Cult With No Name
4. Nothing Bonus Track by Kai Engel
5. Visum by Kai Engel
6. Sopor by Kai Engel
7. Behind Your Window by Kai Engel
   

With additional sounds used under the Freesound.Org Creative Commons agreement, provided by various artists, their details and links available below:

• Steam train - https://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/125211/
• Old car - https://freesound.org/people/juskiddink/sounds/77096/
• Old car horn - https://freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/43801/
• Rolls Royce – https://freesound.org/people/firefreak/sounds/56495/
• Horse Street - https://freesound.org/people/Owl/sounds/191741/
• Horse Winney - https://freesound.org/people/foxen10/sounds/149024/
• Typewriter - https://freesound.org/people/170134/sounds/407709/
• Typewriter pullback - https://freesound.org/people/tjandrasounds/sounds/201591

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.

If you love true-crime podcasts, subscribe to the Murder Mile on iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode eighteen of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

Since the beginning, my mission on Murder Mile has always been to focus on a small area of a city, to show that there truly is murder on every street and to draw attention to those little known murder cases which are often overlooked by newspapers, forgotten by history and lost to the mists of time.

And rather than rehashing tired old cases using woefully unreliable newspapers, I always try to use first-hand accounts, eyewitness testimony and the original declassified police investigation files. As by trawling through the witness statements, fingerprints, autopsy reports, crime scene photos and court transcripts, I hope I’ve introduced you to long-forgotten cases you’ve never heard before, but also reinvigorated the evidence by giving it a fresh spin, and - more importantly – given the victims a voice.

And today’s case is no exception, as she was a young woman with hopes and dreams, whose life was cruelly ended by an unnamed maniac who only had thoughts for his own greed and evil needs. Don’t forget to stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s podcast of the week, this time it’s the fascinating Occultea Veritas; thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about Norah Upchurch; a kind, caring, trustworthy and well-loved West End prostitute whose unsolved murder shocked the city’s streets, and yet – by carefully re-examining the original evidence – it’s clear that, all the while, Norah’s killer was hiding in plain sight. Murder Mile contains graphic descriptions of death which may offend, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 18: Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop. Today, I’m standing on Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2. Not the nice bit of Shaftesbury Avenue near Piccadilly Circus, by Soho, Chinatown and most of the West End theatres, but by the pug-ugly nasty bit near the arse-end of Covent Garden; an angry inner-city highway known as the A401, which runs thick with the choking fumes of trucks, the snarling engines of buses, the honking horns of cars and belching exhausts of black cabs whose swirling fare-meters move faster than their wheels ever do. And surrounded by bland office space, gloomy gothic buildings, a chef’s shop, a builder’s merchants and an infamous sci-fi toy-shop for fat middle-aged twats who are desperate to look either like they’re massively nerdy, mentally defective or a predatory paedophile. Oh yes, this is the part of Shaftesbury Avenue where you would only end up if you were lost, bored, desperate or depressed.

Having been blasted to smithereens by a Nazi bombing raid on 11th May 1941 at 3.47am, the original buildings in and surrounding 173 to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue were later demolished, rebuilt and oddly renumbered, starting from left with number 151, which then jumps to 177, only to double-back on itself at 175, leaps back to 167 and 169, double-backs on itself again by becoming 184 and finishing on the far right of these buildings with number 179, with 177 and 179 now being over three hundred feet apart, even though, back in 1931, they were side-by-side. It’s almost as if the city planners were desperate to erase this horrifying moment in history.

And yet, in a haunting and ominous parallel to those tragic events, outside of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, now renamed Mayfield House, which is once again an empty office space, now hangs an estate agent’s sign simply marked with the words “To Let”. It’s almost like a discrete memorial to memory of Norah Upchurch, as it’s right here where she was last seen alive, and where she would die (INTERSTITIAL).

On Friday 2nd October 1931 at 10am, Douglas W L Bartram, the foreman and manager of Hilder & Co, and one of his loyal workmen, Frederick Field (known by his friends as “Fred”) left their workplace at 23 Great Pultney Street in Soho. As handymen who managed vacant properties on behalf of Perry & Ball, a branch of local estate agents, Bartram and Field were assigned to check a leak in the water pipes and remove the “To Let” sign of the empty shop’s exterior at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue.

At 10:50am, with the only set of keys having vanished, and concerned that this dark and empty space may have become a hostel for hobos, a drug-den for deadbeats or a shag-palace for sex-perverts, the ever conscientious Mr Bartram checked every window and door. Assured there was no signs of a break-in, vandalism or theft, armed with a hammer and a chisel, Bartram forced entry by jemmying a wooden door which had been nailed over a broken window at the rear of the property (on New Compton Street) and entered the shop, with his workmate Frederick Field a few paces behind.

Although cold and dark, except for a broken office chair, an abandoned cabinet and a few scattered files, the shop was empty, so Bartram and Field set about seeking out this leaky pipe and awaited the arrival of a locksmith to secure the vacant property.

But as Field passed the thin dark-lit passageway leading to the front door of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, partially obscured by a white partition wall and lying on the cold and dusty floor, he saw what looked like a pair of legs. “What’s that?” Field nervously asked his foreman, pointing towards the splayed ladies lower-half complete with black stockings and high-heeled shoes, “Ah, it’s just one of them wax models” Bartram reassured him. But neither man was buying this, as with its crumpled clothes and unusual pose, it looked too realistic to be a dummy, and so being unsure and keeping his distance, Bartram poked it with his umbrella. What he expected was the hard hollow thud of a shop mannequin, what heard was nothing, as his umbrella tip sunk into the soft spongey skin of the corpse’s flesh.

Gulping hard, Bartram turned to his petrified colleague and stuttered “Fred? Get to Police”, as they were not alone. As inside this empty locked shop lay the body of Norah Upchurch. (INTERSTITIAL).

Born Annie Louise Norah Upchurch on 15th August 1911 in a working class area of Wembley; to Walter, a railway engineer and Louise, a housewife, Norah’s childhood was typical of those born in and around inner-city London of World War One. As being hungry, broke and malnourished, Norah and her siblings lived in constant fear as (unlike the Second World War when the buzz of German bombers alerted the city as death approached) over Norah’s London loomed a silent terror, as monstrous Zeppelin airships loaded with a barrage of bombs blitzed the city night-after-night.

Being a free-spirited young girl, Norah was always in trouble, often running away from her violent and unloving home and eagerly vying for the attention of boys. Proving too troublesome, aged just 14 years old, Norah was placed in the care of the Salvation Army at St Cuthbert's Hospital (in South Norwood), and having left school with no education, she worked briefly as a domestic servant. But as a young girl in the late 1920’s, the best that Norah could hope for was to get married or to work as a chambermaid, and yet Norah wanted so much more out of life, so aged just 16, Norah left for the bright lights of London’s West End, where she worked as a prostitute.

Although she had a difficult upbringing, according to everyone who knew her, Norah was a good person; fun-loving, sweet, likeable, trust-worthy and loyal, a professional sex-worker who didn’t drink or do drugs, she had very few debts and – as an independent single woman who saw prostitution as a temporary solution – she never had a pimp. She was her own boss, with a rented flat in Pimlico, a rented room in Bear Street (just off Leicester Square) and – having given birth a few years earlier to her beloved baby girl who she’d named Marjorie – Norah would only work from two pm to eight pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, striving to ensure that her three year old daughter would want for nothing, and got everything that Norah never had; food, warmth, toys, and the love of a devoted mother.

And yet, aged just 20 years old, being so full of hope, dreams and with a baby daughter back home, on the evening of Tuesday 29th September 1931, Norah would meet a mysterious man, who would offer her money for sex, but instead he would end up taking her life (INTERSTITIAL).
Shaking and trembling, 27 year old Frederick Field dashed to Bloomsbury Police Station and promptly returned with Sergeant Arthur Ferridge, Constable Lashmar and ten minutes later, the divisional police surgeon, Dr William Fairlie, who entered through the front door of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue.

Beyond the black wooden door with the frosted glass, the narrow passageway was dark and dusty, running twenty feet long, three feet wide and twelve feet high, with grey plaster brickwork to the left and a wooden partition wall to the right. Immediately beyond the door, on the black stone floor were two matches and a single half-smoked cigarette, which wasn’t Norah’s brand and yet it was stained with a crimson lipstick, suggesting that it was here that Norah and an unknown associate stood, chatted and smoked, as they ironed out the details of this cash-for-sex exchange in a cordial conversation between two strangers.

Close-by was sat a fashionable green felt hat and a paste diamond brooch, which looked out of place on the dusty stone floor of such a drab and gloomy hall, but it was here, just beyond the door, that Norah’s attacker had struck, brutally strangling her, squeezing every breath of air and ounce of life out of her struggling body, and all within earshot of the busy street and visible through the frosted glass.

Although a slim petite and pretty brunette with bobbed hair, a slight frame and an eye for fashion, in her last moments alive, Norah had fought like hell, as by the door, just 18 inches off the floor were multiple scuff marks on the grey plaster wall made with a black shoe as she had kicked and clawed to stay alive, as her attacker tightly throttled her throat, until her last waking breath was expelled.

Having collapsed in a barely conscious heap; unable to see as the whites of her eyes had ruptured and filled with blood, and unable to breathe or even scream as her airway had been squeezed by his vice-like grip, either Norah’s attacker had realised his mistake having eagerly struck too early, or had lashed out in an unprovoked attack which took them both by surprise, as having strangled her too close to the bustling city street beyond the glass-fronted door, he then dragged Norah, ten feet along the dark-lit passageway to where Douglas Bartram and Frederick Field would later find her.

Having dragged her by the feet along the dusty stone floor, her left arm lay outstretched above her head, Norah’s clothes had bunched up under her back and neck, and yet, although her lower-body was partially exposed; her shoes, stockings and even knickers remained in place, suggesting her attacker’s motive was not sexual. This was the awful sight that had shocked both Bartram and Field, but hidden by the partition wall, out of views, was a sight even more disturbing… and confusing.

Once he had torn away her green skirt, entirely splitting the side seam, Norah’s attacker had tightly rolled the material and carefully placed it under her neck, as if to make her more comfortable. Then tearing at the two white vests she was wearing to keep out the cold, he had ripped these thin garments, snapping the thin rubber straps and cruelly exposing her torso from her left breast to her naval, none of which were bruised or mutilated. And yet, having ripped off her white silk jumper, he then tore off a thick strip of the fabric and forcibly stuffed it deep into her mouth, the white gag was thick with a bloodied froth of saliva and mucus, as around her throat, taken from the two-piece outfit she was wearing, he strangled Norah with her own green belt, pulling the two lengths of the felt belt tighter, strangling her for three long, slow and agonising minutes.

Where-as once she was pretty, with a sweet smile, twinkling eyes and a pixie-like nose, now Norah’s face was a contorted mess, all purple and swollen, the pupils of her beautiful brown eyes were fixed and dilated, rigour mortis had set in, and (having been dumped and left undiscovered for three days) her slender body had already began to decompose.

With her attacker having left, Norah Upchurch was left alone in the dark drab passageway of the empty shop, as the silhouettes of strangers on Shaftesbury Avenue passed by the frosted glass before her, as unable to scream or even breathe, her life ebbed away, and she died alone and terrified. Her last thought? Possibly being that of her three year old daughter, fast asleep in her cot, safe and warm as Norah had left her, who – now with no mother, no father and no grandparents to protect her - would be put into a care-home (as Norah had), the once happy childhood of an innocent destroyed by a maniac with an overpowering impulse to kill.

The autopsy of Norah Upchurch was conducted that evening by Dr William Fairlie and the Home Office Pathologist Dr Bernard Spilsbury at Westminster Mortuary in Horseferry Road. The cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation using only a green felt belt, as no finger-marks were found around her throat. Except a few bloodspots on her ripped vest, which were believed to be menstrual discharge, there was no sign of sexual assault. There was also no evidence that the murder was premeditated, no fingerprints found at the scene (as it was too dusty), no witnesses who saw Norah and her assailant enter or exit the shop, and only a slight possibility that the motive was robbery was owing to her handbag being missing. In fact, excluding the cigarette butt, along with a green felt hat, a pair of black gloves, a paste diamond brooch and a heart-shaped pendant, all of which belonged to Norah, the only other item found at the scene was Norah’s white metal wrist watch with a black band, which remained on her left wrist throughout the attack, and was smashed, stopping the time at precisely 8:20pm.

And as much as both doctors disagreed whether Norah Upchurch had been dead for 24 hours, 36 hour or 48 hours, there was no denying the fact that her watch had stopped at 8:20pm, and that after the evening of Tuesday 29th September 1931, Norah was never seen alive again.

But with very little evidence, no fingerprints nor witnesses to the crime, the chance of catching Norah’s killer was at best slim, and at worst impossible. And yet, little did the Police know, but Frederick Fields, the man who (along with Douglas Bartram) discovered the body of Norah Upchurch, would also become the investigation’s most valuable witness and would lead the Police to their chief suspect. As with no sign of a break-in at 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, what they did know for certain was that whoever murdered Norah Upchurch must have had a set of keys?

At approximately 1:40pm, on the afternoon of Tuesday 29th September 1931, the day of Norah’s death, Frederick Field the sign-fixer employed by Hilder & Co at 23 Great Pulteney Street in Soho, left the office, took a brisk five minute walk down Brewer Street, Rupert Street and stopped off at Perry & Ball, the estate agent’s at 40 Shaftesbury Avenue, having been contracted to remove the ‘To Let’ signs from the windows and on the first floor exterior of 177 Shaftesbury Avenue, and received one mortice key and one Yale key from Miss Kennan, both of which he signed for and headed on his way.

At 2pm that afternoon, Field entered via the front door where Norah’s body would later be found, but this time, the passageway was empty, as was the shop, and he went about his duties. But having left the glass-fronted door open so he could load his barrow with the discarded signage, after roughly five minutes of work, he noticed a tall man standing in the doorway. And although their conversation was brief, and they never exchanged names, Field’s description of the man is truly remarkable.

Field stated to the Police, that the man was “aged about 30, 6 feet 1 inches tall, tanned complexion, mousey hair cropped short at the back and sides, with a mousey coloured thin moustache with a gap in the middle, a gold tooth in his right upper jaw, he was of medium build, with square shoulders, was well-spoken and was dressed in a biscuit or beige coloured plus four suit with a two inch square pattern, he wore a gingery brown tweed cap and a gold watch on a leather strap on his left wrist, and he looked like a well-to-do man who was a native of London”.

Asking Field for the keys, the mysterious man dressed in the plus-fours suit reassured him this was all above board and handed Field a handwritten work-order stating “please hand the bearer of this note the keys to 173/177 Shaftesbury Avenue”, which was signed by the secretary of Perry & Ball, the estate agents. With the work order looking official and the Plus-Fours man clearly being senior to him, Field did as he was told.

And although they only spoke briefly, the Plus-Fours man implied he was an established leather goods retailer and the prospective owner of the premises who was looking to revamp the lighting, and with Field being a qualified electrician, they agreed to meet later to discuss the layout, with the Plus Fours man promising to return to key (once he’d finished) to Perry & Ball. But that very evening, by Piccadilly tube station, at roughly 9pm (forty minutes after Norah’s watch had stopped), as Field stood wearing his best suit, desperate to impress his future employer, the Plus Fours man confessed that he had forgotten the keys to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue and with both men being unable to enter the shop, the Plus Fours man left, promising to return, but he was never seen again… and neither were the keys.

Armed with nothing but a stunningly detailed description of the Plus Four man, during the afternoon of Friday 2nd October 1931, Field assisted the Police by laboriously trawling through the Police Crime Index at Scotland Yard, which contained the photos, details and rap-sheets of all known felons in the London area, and although some fitted the description, they didn’t find a match. Desperate to catch this maniac before he struck again, Field volunteered his free-time by patrolling the West End with the Police, having refined his description, but once again, Norah’s killer evaded arrest.

And yet, sometimes coincidence smiles on the desperate, as just four days after the discovery of Norah’s body, Police at Richmond Police Station arrested a known felon on a fraud charge; he was the right height, the right size, the right shape, with a pencil thin moustache, tightly clippered hair and (as was the fashion of the day) he also wore a brown plus fours suit. His name was Peter Webb.

At the station, Field was asked to identify Webb’s brown Plus Fours suit which was neatly laid on a table, and although it matched the description given, Field was certain that this was not the suit worn by the Plus Fours man. It was a shattering blow to the case…

…but believing they had their man, the Police wanted to make sure, so whilst Peter Webb was being interviewed on the unrelated charge of cheque fraud, Frederick Field was ushered into the room, and looking Webb squarely in the face, the following conversation took place. Field said (Cockney) “Hello, you know me”, Webb replied (Richmond) “I don’t know you”, Field “Yes you do, I handed you the keys of the shop at Shaftesbury Avenue last Tuesday”, Webb “Not to me”, Field “Yes I did”, Webb “What had I got on?”, Field “Your plus fours”, Webb “What hat did I have, the colour?”, Field “Brown, I recognise you”, Webb “I’ve never seen you before”, Field “You had a cap”, Webb “I’ve never had a cap”, Field “Do you think I’m daft?”, Webb “You must be”, Field “I spoke to you in Shaftesbury Avenue and next in Piccadilly”, Webb “I have never seen you before or talked to you ever”, Field “You can't prove different. I take my oath I saw you”, and Webb replied “I am positive you're wrong”. After which, Frederick Field confirmed to the Police Sergeant “That’s the man I handed the keys to”.

Peter Webb was arrested for the murder of Norah Upchurch. And as a career criminal and a habitual liar, who was later sentenced to twelve months hard labour for cheque fraud, when Webb was questioned, he staunchly denied any knowledge of Norah, her murder, the shop, meeting Field, or ever being given the set of keys. But after an exhaustive investigation, during which Peter Webb’s movements that night were thoroughly checked and verified, he provided the police with an iron clad alibi, proving he was not the Plus Fours man or Norah’s killer and Webb was released without charge.

On Thursday 19th November 1931, at Westminster Coroner’s Court, the case into the murder of Annie Louisa Norah Upchurch was heard before a jury. And with no suspects on trial, all of the evidence presented, and featuring the witness testimony of both Douglas Bartam and Frederick Field, the coroner Mr Ingleby Oddie concluded that with insufficient evidence to convict anyone for her murder, that Norah Upchurch was “wilfully murdered by a person or persons unknown”.

With very little money, an uncaring family and no husband, Norah was buried in a pauper’s grave, her few remaining possessions were sold to cover the cost of her meagre funeral, and the fate of her three year old daughter Marjorie remains unknown. And like so many West End prostitutes (such as Ginger Rae, Dutch Leah, Margaret Cook, Dora Freedman and Rita Green) who were murdered at the hands of a homicidal maniac, each of their killers evades the police, escaped justice and walked free, maybe to kill again? And yet, a full eighty-seven years later, the murder of Norah Upchurch remains unsolved, and may never be solved.

But then again… much of the evidence given is only as strong as Frederick Field’s witness testimony. And given that after Field picked up the door keys from Miss Kennan at Perry & Ball on Tuesday 29th September 1931 at 1:45pm, right up to the moment when he supposedly discovered the body of Norah Upchurch on Friday 2nd October 1931 at 10:50am having forced a window to gain entry to 177 Shaftesbury Avenue? No-one can actually corroborate any of the details in any of Frederick Field’s statements during this period; no-one knows who the Plus Fours man is, where are the keys, where Norah’s handbag is, or how Norah Upchurch ended up dead inside a locked and empty shop?

It may have remained as the ultimate locked-room mystery? But almost two years after her death, burial and the trail at Westminster Coroner’s Court where it was concluded that Norah Upchurch had been “murdered by a person or persons unknown”, a 27 year old man walked into the West End offices of tabloid newspaper, the Daily Sketch; he was tired, nervous, worried and desperate to get something off his chest, a secret he had held onto for over eighteen months. And it was here that he confessed to the brutal murder of Norah Upchurch. His name… was Frederick Fields.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you’re looking for a new true-crime podcast, this week’s treat is the amazing Occultae Veritas; hosted by Ood, Sage and Leon, Occultae Veritas delves into the dark heart of some of the world’s most baffling true-crime cases, curiosities and conspiracy theories, with each show packed with in-depth discussions, a high attention to detail and lashing of humour. Check them out. (PLAY PROMO)

Don’t forget, if you want to know more about the murder of Norah Upchurch, or any other cases, please do check out the Murder Mile website at murdermiletours.com, find us on Twitter or Instagram, or join the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast discussion group on Facebook. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Next week’s episode is… part two of Norah Upchurch and her Lonely Death in the Empty Shop. Thank you and sleep well.

Sources: 

• Original investigation into the murder of Annie Louise Norah Upchurch
• A list of British Executions

As well as extracts from the British Newspaper Archive and Ancestry.com. Extracts and photos are used with the kind permission of the National Archives under Government License 3.0. With additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by Kai Engel.

• July by Kai Engel

And additional sounds courtesy of the Free Sound Project, used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution):

• Car horn 1 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/179868/
  
• Car horn 2 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/179867/
• Car horn 3 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/179866/
• Harley Davidson - https://freesound.org/people/jp2012/sounds/151451/
• Rubbish Truck - https://freesound.org/people/acclivity/sounds/31057/
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Love true-crime podcasts? Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Spotify, Podbean, Pocketcast, Stitcher, Acast, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Libsyn

INTRO: Thank you for downloading episode seventeen of the Murder Mile true-crime podcast.

When I started Murder Mile, I wanted to show the world that murders aren’t simply something which happens to other people, living in other towns or cities, but that there truly is murder on every street and in every house, and to find the truth (if you’ll pardon the pun) you just need to dig deep enough.

I started with London’s West End; a place I’ve worked in for over two decades, and although I know the streets well, I didn’t know a single murder in and around Soho. And even though on Murder Mile we delve into the often untold and unsolved murders within one square mile, so far we’ve barely even covered a fifth of a mile, and on just these few streets we’ve unearthed serial killers, mass murderers, gangsters, evil pimps, dead prostitutes and mafia hits, and we’ve barely even scratched the surface.

If these stories surprise you? Trust me, each week as I uncover a new case which surprises me too. But today’s episode is not only surprising, it’s also hard to explain, so I’ll just let the story tell itself. Once again, stay tuned to the end of this episode to hear more about Murder Mile’s podcast of the week, this time it’s the awesome True-Crime Sweden; thank you for listening and enjoy the episode.

SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within one square mile of the West End. Today’s episode is about David Martin, the gun-loving, sticky-fingered, cross-dressing transgender burglar whose bungled arrest led to one of the Metropolitan Police’s worst miscarriages of justice. Murder Mile contains graphic descriptions of violence which may upset those who are easily offended, as well as realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 17: David Martin and the baffling case of the Transgender Houdini

Today, I’m on Great Marlborough Street, in Soho, W1; a mid-sized road which runs parallel with Beak Street (where mad shoemaker and wannabe cock-chopper William Stoltzer was arrested), Broadwick Street (where big-hearted Ginger Rae was brutally murdered) and intersects with Carnaby Street (where the mysterious Margaret Cook was gunned down).

Often called Marlborough Street owing to a clerical error made on the original Monopoly board, a mistake which remains today, Great Marlborough Street was named after John Churchill, the First Duke of Marlborough. And although Great Marlborough Street was the former home of evolutionist Charles Darwin, the current home of the mock-Tudor splendour of the Liberties store and the inspiration for the Marlboro cigarettes as it’s here where in 1881 tobacco baron Phillip Morris’ opened his first cigarette factory, it really is a street which doesn’t warrant the prefix of Great, as today it’s little more than a coffee-shop filled cut-through for honking taxi-drivers and impatient delivery trucks.  

But for fans of true-crime, this street has one redeeming feature, as 19-21 Great Marlborough Street was once the home of the Marlborough Street Police Station and Magistrates Court; where Oscar Wilde’s infamous libel trial was held, where the Rolling Stones stood trial for drug and firearms offences, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono were tried for obscenity, where Richard Rhodes Henley (the randy Canadian sailor with a deadly wanking fixation) was arrested and it was here, in 1982, that a baffling chain of events which led to the near-execution of an innocent man which all began with the arrest of a transgender burglar called David Martin. (INTERSTITIAL).

A word of warning before we proceed any further; as insane, deranged and bat-shit crazy as the details in this episode may seem, although the story reads like a trashy tabloid journalist has eaten his own sleazy newspaper and shat out onto the page a runny bum-lump of words, it is entirely real, totally true and very unpredictable, so strap yourselves in folks we’re in for a bumpy ride.

The childhood of David Ralph Martin was truly unremarkable; he was an only child to a doting mother and a hard-working father, raised in a lower-middle class house in the shadow of post-war London. And although rationing was still inforce; he didn’t starve, he wasn’t beaten and he wasn’t broke. Being an incredibly bright, driven and talented child who could truly turn his hand to anything, David should have excelled at school, but as an easily bored child who was often distracted, dissatisfied and desperate for toys, love and attention, David’s overriding traits were greed, frustration and impatience, and it would drive him into a life of crime.

Aged just 14, David stole a car; not that he needed a car, not that he wanted a car, but because it was there and he felt it belonged to him. And yet, being arrested didn’t bother him, being told off by his parents, nor was it the brief stint in borstal which lit a fire under David’s arse, but that having returned the car to its rightful owner, David felt a great hatred towards the Police (which would remain to the bitter end) as in his eyes, they had stolen what he felt was his.

During his teenage years, having progressed up the criminal ladder to burglary, David applied his sharp brain, dextrous hands and photographic memory to a new set of skills; and just as his training as a motor mechanic had made him a swifter car-thief, having learned by bypass any building’s alarm system and developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of door locks, this had made him into a master burglar, who only needed the briefest of looks at a key to memorise the shape of the barrel and to fashion himself a lock-pick using whatever object came to hand.

Before his twenty-sixth birthday, David Martin had been arrested and convicted on more than fifty counts of theft, burglary and fraud, resulting in minor custodial sentences in borstal, young offender’s institutions and later adult prison, until 1973, when David was convicted of the greater charge of cheque-fraud and was sentenced to nine years in Brixton Prison.

Having grown-up under the strict rules of a domineering father; and being so driven, free-spirited and independent, with a deep-seated hatred for authority; prison-life should have been hell for David as a closet bisexual who (although he enjoyed being a man), he always felt that his long legs, petite frame and feminine features were better suited to women’s clothes, and by wearing a dress, high-heels and stockings, they always made him feel more comfortable.

Although initially self-conscious; inside prison, David slowly became the man he wanted to be, and as a transgender bisexual (whose feminine look bridged the gap for sex-starved heterosexual convicts), it was here that he fully explored the homosexual side of his bisexuality, later entering into a loving relationship with Britain’s most infamous serial killer Dennis Nilsen, and letting his cross-dressing very much became not only an important part of his life and his identity, but also his criminal career.

Prison had reinforced David’s self-confidence and upon his release in 1981, David Martin ditched his jeans, jacket, trainers and t-shirt, and – feeling a need to always look fabulous, even whilst committing a crime – he’d often dress in a leather skirt, halter-top, stockings, suspenders and designer sling-backs, with his hair dyed, his nails painted, his make-up done, and – like a feisty femme fatale in a 1940’s pulp novel – always packing a fully-loaded revolver in his handbag, which was not only his identity, but it was also a disguise,
David’s duel-identity was an invaluable part of his criminal career, as initially he’d case a building dressed in a blouse, skirt and a fur-coat – the genius part of his plan being that no-one would suspect him as a thief, as when was the last time you ever heard of a burglar wearing high-heels – and then at a much later date, he’d break in wearing the more practical attire of jeans, t-shirt and trainers.

Being skilled but broke, and with a greater need for designer clothes, David progressed to armed robbery, later holding up an armoured car dressed in a leather skirt, six-inch heels and fish-net tights. And although, in July 1982, he’d steal 24 handguns and over 1000 rounds of ammunition from Thomas Bland & Sons, a gun-dealer on New Road in Covent Garden? He didn’t need the guns and he didn’t want the guns, and (although some he sold) he kept most, believing that they belonged to him.

In February 1982, having ventured into the lucrative market of video piracy, David used his burglary skills to break into Colour Film Services; a film laboratory and private cinema at 22 Portman Close, at the back of Oxford Street, to assess which video recorders and master copies of the latest Hollywood blockbusters he would eventually steal. When disturbed by Albert Seaman who was working the nightshift, and asked what he was doing there, instead of fleeing, with supreme self- confidence, dressed in a blonde wig, mink coat, tapered trousers, Cuban heeled shoes and carrying a clutch-bag, David simply replied in his manly voice “It’s okay mate, I’m security”, then flashed a fake ID badge, and casually walked out, testing the doors he left. So implausible was this story that, even though Albert reported it to his superiors and eventually the Police, no further action was taken.

On Thursday 5th August 1982, at a little before midnight, David returned to Colour Film Service at 22 Portman Close dressed in dark jeans, boots, a black leather jacket, a lot of eye-liner (well this was the 1980’s) and picked the lock using the key he’d fashioned a few months earlier out of a screwdriver. Once again, having been spotted by a security guard, David bluffed his way out, but not believing the story of a man dressed entirely in black, the security guard called the police.
Moment later, PC Nick Carr and PC Jerry Fretter entered the premises.

Unfazed by their arrival, David was polite but officious, adopting the believable persona of an anxious employee with a tight deadline to keep, and when asked who he was, he handed an ID card in the name of David Demain, that he’d stolen just a few days before. His story was good and the ID checked out, but when the dubious PC’s requested that David empty his pockets, he refused and tried to flee. With PC Fretter having rugby-tackled the dark-dressed suspect to the floor and holding him in a tight headlock as PC Carr went for his handcuffs, David’s hatred towards the boys in blue came bubbling up once again. Seeing red, from his jacket pocket, he pulled a Colt Mustang semi-automatic pistol and fired three .38 calibre bullets, hitting PC Carr in the leg and severing a vital artery.

PC Nick Carr was rushed into hospital, where – although he lost six pits of blood – he survived, made a full recovery, and both he and PC Fretter were later awarded a Police Commendation for Bravery. But having fled the dark-lit building, leaving the police with a limited description of the assailant who was using a stolen ID, David Martin should have been impossible to trace…

…but with numerous robberies over the last few months having been committed by a skilled burglar and locksmith, with long blonde hair, a slim feminine body, heavy use of make-up and a very distinctive Roman nose, who often carried a black .38 Colt Mustang, so small it easily fits into a lady’s clutch-bag? Police knew his face, they knew his MO, now they just needed a name.
In need of some quick cash after the bungled burglary at the film laboratory, David attempted to sell the firearms he’d stolen from the Covent Garden gun-dealer to another dealer in Ladbroke Grove. Being suspicious, the dealer discretely notified the Police and handed them the contact details that David had left. Except this time, he didn’t use a fake ID, or a stolen identity, he used his real name, and also supplied the gun-dealer with his home address of Flat (16?) 1 Crawford Place, Marylebone.

Knowing he was armed and dangerous, Detective Constable Peter Finch and Detective Constable Guy Van Dee of the Metropolitan Police kept surveillance on David’s Crawford Street flat for several weeks, keeping their distance, but never once seeing him, only his dark-haired girlfriend – Sue Stephens – and a slim blonde-haired lady who accompanied her to the wholefood shop and yoga practice… the lady of which had large feet, an Adam’s apple and a distinctive Roman nose.

Having made a positive ID of their suspect, on Wednesday 15th September 1982 just before 10pm, as David pulled up outside his flat in a stolen VW Golf wearing a wide-brimmed hat, leather skirt and jacket and black stockings, he entered 1 Crawford Place, not knowing that the Police were lying in wait. But being edgy, angry and paranoid after six weeks on the run, the second he exited the 7th floor lift, Detective Constables Finch and Van Guy pounced, but David had already drawn his black .38 calibre Colt Mustang from his handbag.

Fearing for his life, their guns not drawn, Finch wrestled David to the floor, knocking the firearm free of his hands, and as he flipped David over to handcuff his disarmed assailant, with his free-hand, David reached between his legs and pulled from his stocking top, a small but deadly silver Smith & Wesson .22 calibre pistol and – in a truly-terrifying moment in which his life flashed before his eyes – as a volatile man with wild hair, black eyeliner and blood-red lipstick smeared across his face, the unstable David screamed “I will blow you away” as he pointed the loaded gun directly at Finch’s head.

Desperate to protect his partner from a dangerous man with a death-wish, Detective Constable Guy Van Dee shot David Martin in the neck, disabling his suspect and cuffing the bleeding suspect, all the while with David frothing like a rabid dog, screaming “I could have killed the lot of you, I could have had you all, why don’t you just finish me off?” goading them to end his life, there and then.

Just like PC Carr, the police constable who he’d shot, although he’d lost a lot of blood, David survived, had the bullet removed from his neck under armed guard at Charing Cross Hospital, and was later sent to Brixton Prison, where he awaited his trail.

And although David was arrested and imprisoned, and both officers received a Police Commendation for their bravery, Detective Constable Peter Finch would never forget David Martin for bringing him this close to death, and neither would he forgive him. As although the due process of law had to be carried out, bad blood remained between them. (FAKE CWNN OUTRO)

On Christmas Eve 1982, 36 year old David Ralph Martin was charged at the Marlborough Street Magistrates Court on twelve counts including armed robbery, theft, fraud and the attempted murder of PC Nick Carr, where he pleaded “not guilty” to all charges… (RECORD SCRATCH) Of course, in any normal story, this would be the end… but it wasn’t, this is just the beginning.

After his initial hearing, David was returned to the cells in the bowels of Marlborough Street Police Station; a standard single cell measuring six foot wide by six foot deep, surrounded by four cold grey walls of solid brick, a small high window covered in thick iron bars, with a basic bed, a simple toilet and the only way in or out being a eight inch thick steel door, which was locked. Here the prisoner would sit and wait, as the endless hours and minutes ticked by, trapped in a grey drab cell.

But then again; being so driven, bright and easily distracted, with people to see, things to do and an all-consuming contempt for the law, David was never very patient man, and so, by 4pm that afternoon, when the Police opened his cell-door to transfer his back to Brixton Prison…. David was gone.

Nicknamed by his former Police captors as “Houdini”, after the infamous magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, David wasn’t just a genius at breaking into the buildings, he was just as skilled at breaking out. Claiming to his friends, “there’s no prison which can hold me”, David had first escaped from borstal in 1968 by picking the lock. In 1972, he twice escaped from the prison-van on his way to court; one through the skylight, the other by picking the lock and springing his cell mate’s doors open too. In 1973, David and twenty other prisoners rammed the prison gates having hijacked a rubbish truck, but was caught hailing a cab on Brixton Hill. In 1974, he almost escaped from Parkhurst maximum security prison having handcrafted a set of seven keys to the prison doors. And in 1975, at HMP Gartree, another maximum security prison, having cut away the metal grill in his window and bypassed the alarm system he almost escaped, but was caught, having injured his leg.

But this time, in his cell at Marlborough Street Police Station, David didn’t have the luxury of time, so he made-do with what he had… which was an encyclopedic knowledge of locks, a photographic memory and a lock-pick hidden in his thick blonde hair for emergencies. And having viewed the shape of the key in the warder’s hand for literally a split second, David fashioned the pick to match the barrel of the lock, inserted the makeshift key, turned it, and barely a minute later, his cell door was open.

Scurrying along the prison corridor, David darted up to the top floor, popped open a skylight, climbed onto the prison roof, jumped onto the Palladium Theatre, waltzed into the theatre’s foyer, mingled with the patrons, exited the front doors, and disappeared into the throng of Christmas shoppers on Oxford Street. By the time the warders had opened his cell door, David was long gone.

David had literally vanished into this air; and although the Police kept surveillance on his usual haunts; his Crawford Place flat, his parent’s home, his favourite bars, yoga clubs and wholefood shops, David had completely disappeared. But everyone has their weaknesses… and David’s was a woman. Described by David as “the only woman I would ever love”, Sue Stephens was a 26 year old glamour model who David was so besotted with that the Police knew he’d break cover to contact his girlfriend.

On the evening of Friday 14th January 1983, having received a tip-off that David and Sue were due to meet to hand-over a stash of cash, stolen IDs and guns which David had stored in a safe-deposit box in Selfridges, Detective Constable Peter Finch spotted a bright yellow Mini pull up outside of Sue’s flat. As the petite dark-haired figure of Sue got into the backseat of the cramped little car, although Finch didn’t recognise the driver – Lester Purdy, a friend of Sue’s – the man in the passenger’s seat seemed very familiar, with his dark leather jacket, slim frame, long blonde hair and a very distinguished nose.

DC Finch radioed in a possible sighting of David Martin, and with two teams of armed Police officers keeping a safe distance until a positive ID could be made, they followed the yellow Mini, all the while with DC Finch desperate to put an end to David Martin’s criminal career once and for all, as the bad blood between them had already been spilled.

As the rush-hour traffic around Earls Court became hopelessly congested and the yellow Mini came to a dead stop on Pembroke Road, DC Finch – as the only officer on the team who had physically seen David Martin in the flesh – was sent forward to make a positive ID. Fearing for his life and knowing that the David was volatile, dangerous and heavily armed, not wanting to make the same mistake twice, as he ran along the pavement towards the bright yellow Mini, this time Finch’s gun was drawn.

Sidling up to the Mini, armed with a standard Police issue Glock-17, DC Finch glanced in through the darkness of the passenger’s side window and saw the familiar features of David Martin; a flash of fear in his eyes at seeing the armed officer, and as the blonde-haired passenger reached his hand around into the backseat, in a split second decision between life and death, DC Finch opened fire.

Providing tactical back–up for his partner, Detective Constable John Jardine fired five shots through the Mini’s rear window, missing Sue Stephens who cowered in the backseat and hitting the passenger as a volley of shots ripped through his from different angles. Fearing for his life, the car’s driver Lester Purdy scrambled from the blood-splattered Mini and as his wounded friend attempted to flee through the driver’s side door, DC Jardine shot the injured man two more times, as he slumped on the driver’s seat. With his heart racing and his blood pumping, as DC Finch reached the driver’s side door, firing once more, he realised he was out of ammunition, so unarmed and angry, he dragged the bloodied man from the Mini and pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness. David Martin’s criminal career had finally come to an end.

No longer being a danger to anyone, having handcuffed the unconscious passenger, they rolled him over to formally arrest him, but as his blonde hair which was matted with blood was moved away from his face, DC Finch realised he had made a deadly mistake, the man he had shot… was not David Martin.

The Mini’s blonde-haired passenger was Stephen Waldorf, a 26 year old freelance film editor, who was a friend of Sue’s who had never met David Martin, and yet tragically they looked remarkably similar. The police had shot an innocent man; pistol whipping him, handcuffing him, shooting him five times, hitting him in the arm, the stomach and the head, and leaving him bleeding on the pavement. (FAKE CWNN OUTRO)

Although riddled with bullets, having gone into cardia arrest and lost a lot of blood, Stephen Waldorf remained in intensive care at St Stephen’s hospital (Fulham) for many weeks and went on to make a steady recovery, He received a full apology from the Metropolitan Police, was awarded £120000 compensation (roughly £300000 today) and Detective Constables Finch and Jardine were charged at the Old Bailey for the attempted murder of Stephen Waldorf. (RECORD SCRATCH) Of course, in any normal story, this would be the end… but it wasn’t.

On 19th October 1983, even though the ambush on the yellow Mini was conducted amidst busy traffic, posing a serious threat to public safety, openly flouted the strict rules which governed the Police’s use of firearms and an innocent man was severely wounded, Detective Constables John Jardine and Peter Finch were found not guilty of all charges and acquitted of the attempted murder of Stephen Waldorf, and although both men were relieved of firearms duties, they remained on the force.

And yet, throughout, the police’s hunt to find David Martin continued unabated. Still traumatised and shocked after the bloody attack on the yellow Mini and terrified that her association with David Martin had risked her life and almost killed her friend, Sue Stephen’s agreed to have the Met’ Police use her as bait to lure him out of hiding.

Having covertly agreed to meet “in the last place we met”, on Thursday 28th January 1983 at 8pm, a beige stolen Ford Sierra pulled up on Heath Street in Hampstead (North London); inside sat a furtive looking man in his mid-thirties wearing blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket, with short dark recently dyed hair and a distinctive Roman nose. And although he wore no make-up, no skirts and no heels, there was no denying that this was David Martin.

As David nervously sidled up to the Milk Churn; the small family run-restaurant where he’d agreed to meet his beloved Sue, his instincts told him that something didn’t seem right, and with no sign of Sue in the half-full restaurant and too many single men aimlessly milling about the street, sensing that this was a set-up, David fled on foot, with the Police in hot pursuit.

Having hidden in the Nag’s Head pub, armed officers flooded the street, blocking David’s access to his stolen getaway car, and seeing no other way out, he sprinted into Hampstead underground station, leaping over the barriers, bouncing down the spiral stairs, onto the northbound Northern Line platform, where he ran the full length of the stationary tube train, burst through the driver’s cab, out onto the tracks, and - narrowly avoiding the power line which carries a deadly charge of twenty-five thousand volts – he vanished into the inky blackness of the tunnel.

Once again, David Martin – the “transgender Houdini” – had disappeared into thin air. But having lost him before, there was no way that the Police were going to lose him this time. Having switched off the deadly current, armed officers swarmed the Northern Line tunnels in both direction, entering from both Golder’s Green (one stop to the north) and Belsize Park (one stop to the south). At 8:43pm, on the southbound line of the Northern Line at Belsize Park, having double-backed on himself using a service door to fool his pursuers, hearing footsteps in the tunnel, the officer’s torches illuminated the dusty, dirty and choking silhouette of David Martin, who – with armed officers on all sides – was out of breath and options gave up without a fight.

Taking no chances with the volatile, violent and heavily armed man, the officers searched David in the tunnel and although he didn’t have a gun, he was packing two knives and a can of ammonia spray. But before this infamous Houdini who had bragged that “there’s no prison which can hold me” was put in his prison cell, the Police (very wisely) subjected David to a very thorough body cavity search, upon which they discovered several lock-picks and a razor blade in his hair, and a stuck to the roof of his mouth using a piece of chewing gun, a tiny pen-knife filed to the shape of a lock. To which, naked and unashamed, David gave the officers a wry smile and joked “well, you can’t blame me for trying”.

David Ralph Martin was tried in Court Two of the Old Bailey on 27th September 1983 and was charged with fifteen offences including robbery, fraud, resisting arrest and the attempted murder of PC Nick Carr, and although the wealth of evidence against him – with his customary brand of contempt for the law – he pleaded “not guilty” to all charges.

After a 14 day trial, on 11th October 1983, David Martin was found guilty of all charges, and even though he was sentenced to twenty-nine years in Parkhurst maximum security prison, where he had already escaped before, he vowed there and then that he would escape again.

Prison life was no great shakes for David having spent much of his adult life behind bars, and as a cross-dressing bisexual who filled the gap for horny heterosexual inmates and (having been sentenced at the same time as him) David rekindled his relationship with the infamous British serial-killer Dennis Nilsen. But life inside was not the same, and it would never be again.

Described by David as “the only woman I would ever love”, Sue Stephens, his 26 year old girlfriend whose life had been risked in the bungled attacked on the yellow Mini, had broken up with him, refusing to write, visit or see him ever again. Left in a fragile, vulnerable and emotional state, with his drive gone, his ambition quashed and his heart broken. And with no reason to escape or even live, on 13th March 1983 at 6pm, prison officers found David hanging in his cell from a ventilation grill, having used a bootlace as a noose.

David Ralph Martin, the infamous burglar, robber, trickster and criminal escapologist made his final escape from Parkhurst maximum security prison, but this time he didn’t ram the gates, burst through the skylight or pick the door’s lock, instead the heartbroken man exited his cell, this world and the life he despised so much, for the final time, lying face-up in a simple pine box… and in the final indignity to this “transgender Houdini”, he was dressed as a man.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to Murder Mile. If you love true-crime podcasts, this week’s treat is the amazing True-crime Sweden. I know! Sweden! It’s hard to believe that in the beautiful home of Ikea, Nokia and ABBA that evil people could even exist, but they do. In True-crime Sweden, our fabulous host Pernilla provides you with a real eye-opener into the dark and dirty side of Sweden’s most infamous killers. (PLAY PROMO)

If you fancy chatting to me or discussing any of the cases, I’ve set-up a discussion group on Facebook, simply called the Murder Mile true-crime podcast discussion group and there’s a link in the show-notes. Or join us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Next week’s episode is… The unsolved murder of Nora Upchurch Thank you and sleep well.

Sources:
Sadly, the original police on David Martin and (especially) the attempted murder of Stephen Waldorf by DC Finch and Van Dee is held in the National Archives until at least 2062, so in order to retell this story, I've had to use newspapers, which aren't the most factually reliable sources, so if any details are incorrect, I apologise but I had very limited sources.

With additional music used under a Creative Commons License 4.0 (Attribution) via Free Music Archive, with all additional tracks written & performed by.
#1 - Daedalus by Kai Engel
#2 - Warm of a Mechanical Heart by Kai Engel
#3 - Wake Up by Kai Engel
#4 - Chance by Kai Engel

With additional sounds used under the Freesound.Org Creative Commons agreement, provided by various artists, their details and links available below:

• Car horn 1 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/179868/
• Car horn 2 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/179867/
• Car horn 3 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/179866/
• Film Projector - https://freesound.org/people/Rollo145/sounds/220348/
• Door Closed - https://freesound.org/people/TheRealMattix/sounds/364920/
• Pistol Shot - https://freesound.org/people/acidsnowflake/sounds/402789/
• Record Scratch - https://freesound.org/people/Halleck/sounds/29938/
• Car Driving - https://freesound.org/people/meisterleise/sounds/395543/
• Pistol Cocked - https://freesound.org/people/nebulasnails/sounds/405538/
• Rifle Shooting - https://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/238916/
• Colt 45 - https://freesound.org/people/Carmelomike/sounds/255216/​

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.