Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast

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

INTRO: Lies. We all hear lies, tell lies and deny that we lie, and yet there’s very little difference between a truth and a lie, as just like the truth, a lie is just a very subtle shift in one person’s perspective, used to protect ourselves or others from the truth. So really, one person’s truth is just another person’s lie.

But then again, there’s no such thing as the truth, it can never exist; as every single sentence, word or syllable we utter is riddled with a carefully calculated degree of emphasis, bias and belief, all of which is unconsciously rearranged and reedited to suit our own needs, goals and opinions.

Fibs, untruths and little white lies are part of our daily vocabulary. It’s the difference between a person who is dull, poetic, creative or a visionary, with a very fine line between what is fantasy and reality. Lies are harmless, fibs are fun and everything we say is spun, but the second that lying becomes second nature, and the fantasist begins to believe their own lies as the truth, those lies can become deadly.

By 1949, two bodies lay undiscovered in shallow graves in the back garden of 10 Rillington Place. On 8th November 1949, following a series of failed abortion attempts and in a fit of depression, 20 year old pregnant mother-of-one Beryl Evans committed suicide by gassing herself.

Fearing the suspicion would fall upon her abusive husband; a heavy drinker, a terrible liar and known fantasist whose fiery bust-ups with his wife had been reported to the Police, Timothy Evans destroyed any evidence, packed-up, moved-out and fled, knowing that he would be blamed for her death.

Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you. My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part four of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.

SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing outside of The Kensington Park Hotel at 139 Ladbroke Grove, directly opposite (what was) David Griffin’s Refreshment Room, and one street east of The Thorley’s family home at 112 Cambridge Gardens, Tim’s mum’s house at 11 St Mark’s Road and the final flat of Beryl & Tim Evans on the second floor of 10 Rillington Place.

Built in 1866 as a purpose built public house, the KPH is an eye-wateringly beautiful four-storey British boozer with a rich wood-panelled façade, a twin saloon door and an oil-burning lantern on the outside, with the inside thick with traditional period details, like brass fittings, ornate pillars, moulded cornices, bottle balustrades, a central bar-island, and fitted-out with a luncheon room, a billiard hall, a theatre and (as created in 1929) a “discrete ablution facility” for the ladies.

And as one of London’s oldest live music venues - where Welsh crooner Tom Jones played his first city gig, punk band The Clash hung out, notorious fascist Oswald Mosley staged his ill-fated 1958 election bid and where (it is rumoured) a small softly spoken serial-killer once served behind the bar - the KPH is a great pub where generations of legends have sat, supped pints and spouted bullshit about sport.

Sadly, it’s now boarded-up, as the £3.2 million property is about to be turned into yet another bloody gastro-pub - where bearded dickheads in dungarees swig pints the size of thimbles, smarmy gits in red trousers quaff vegan fry-ups served on a coal-miner’s shovel and tosspots in tiny hats pose for selfies in-front of their poncy din-dins, tweeting about how “amazeballs” it is, even though it’s just a piece of toast, drenched in oil, slopped with hummus and smeared in avo-f**king-cado – instead of a good honest local pub frequented by the salt-of-the-earth heroes. (Burp! “Better out than in”).

And yet, it was here, in the autumn of 1949, that – over a few pints – 24 year old Timothy Evans would regale his chums with a stream of rather fanciful stories, but having forgotten how to tell the truth, his impulse to lie would cost him his life. (Interstitial)

On Wednesday 30th November 1949 at 3:10pm, in the sleepy Welsh village of Merthyr Vale, a tired and dishevelled Timothy Evans entered the local police station stating “I want to give myself up. I have disposed of my wife”. Taken-aback, Detective Constable Gwynfryn Evans asked “do you realise what you are saying, sir?” to which Evans replied “Yes, I know what I am saying. I cannot sleep and I want to get it off my chest”. And over the next two hours, he gave the following statement.

(Tim’s voice): “October-time, my wife Beryl told me she was three months gone. I said “another won’t make any difference”. She told me she was going to get rid of it. I told her not to be silly that she’d make herself ill. Then she brought a syringe and some tablets. That didn’t work, I told her I was glad. On the Monday morning, she told me if she couldn’t get rid of the baby, she’d kill herself and our baby Geraldine. I told her she was talking silly. Then I went to work, loaded up my van and went on my way.

That morning, I pulled up at a café between Ipswich and Colchester. I can’t say exactly where. I ordered a tea and there was a man sitting opposite me. He said “you’re looking worried?” So I told him about it. He said “don’t worry, I can give you something to fix that” and he handed me a little bottle wrapped in brown paper. He said “tell your wife to take it first thing then to lay down for a few hours, and that should do the job”. He never asked any money for it. I paid my bill and went on my way.

When I got home, my wife found the bottle but I told her not to take that stuff.

The next evening, after work, I went home and noticed there was no lights on. I lit the gas and it started to go out so I went into the bedroom to get a penny and I noticed the baby in the cot. I then saw my wife lying in the bed. I shook her, but I could see she wasn’t breathing.

Between about one and two in the morning I got my wife downstairs. I opened my front door at 10 Rillington Place, and pushed her body head first into the drain. After that, I got my baby looked after. I quit my job. I sold my furniture. I told my mother that my wife and baby had gone for a holiday. Then I caught the train to Merthyr Vale and I’ve been here since. That’s the lot”.

In this statement, he would admit to aiding his wife’s death, procuring an abortion and the unlawful burial of her body. Two months later, Timothy John Evans would be charged with murder. It was a confession which would end his life… but the trouble had begun almost two decades earlier.

The life of Timothy John Evans started badly even before he was born. Abandoned by his father Daniel Evans whilst Thomasina was still pregnant, Tim was a small, pale and sickly little boy raised in a village full of burly men who hauled coal at the Merthyr Vale Colliery, who would always feel like an outcast.

Born on 20th November 1924 at 50 Mount Pleasant; a tiny two-story coal-miner’s cottage in a rural Welsh village on the banks of the River Taff, Tim’s early life was a struggle, and with Thomasina being a single-mother, times were hard. But being a strong sturdy women living in a tight-knit community with many families – like the Lynch’s, the Probert’s and the Evans’ - related by marriage or birth; she remarried, rebuilt her family and (just like at 11 St Mark’s Road) she gave her babies strength, love and stability. And yet, she would always struggle with Tim - an unruly boy who life had cursed.

Always being shorter, smaller and weaker, Tim was mercilessly bullied by the other boys, and having struggled to speak properly before the age of five, even his teachers saw him as a “backwards” child.

At school, Tim wasn’t a good scholar; as being slow-witted, hot-tempered and easily-duped by older boys, he often got into trouble. And having an abnormal IQ of just 65 and the mental age of an 11 year old, being barely literate, Tim would struggle to read and write, choosing instead to dive into comic capers like The Beano and The Dandy, wild adventures like Boys Own, or fantasy sci-fi like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. But by the age of nine, Tim’s limited education would be cut short.

Whilst bathing in the River Taff, Tim impaled his big toe on a hidden shard of broken glass; a harmless boyhood injury which is easily repaired, but having bound his bloody foot in a dirty hanky, by the time Tim hobbled his way from Mount Pleasant to the doctor in the neighbouring village of Merthyr Vale, the small cut had gone septic, and would leave him with a lifetime of sickness, absence, pain and a permanent limp.

Later contracting tuberculosis, Tim spent a whole year isolated at the Moorland Clinic for Children in Hampshire, hundreds of miles away from his family. And being a small lonely boy, with a low IQ, a bad lung, a disabled foot and a deep feeling of inferiority, being blessed with a vivid imagination, Tim began to twist the truth of his humdrum life into a fantasy world where he was rich, smart and successful, but lacking the intelligence to sustain such a bold story, even Tim’s mum branded him a “terrible liar”.

By the outbreak of World War Two, eager for excitement, Tim tried to enlist in the Armed Forces, but was rejected from National Service on medical grounds. Aged 15, Tim worked as a van-boy at Merthyr Vale Colliery, and by 17, he was a driver for the Air Ministry, having settled with his family at 11 St Mark’s Road. But being regarded as unreliable, highly strung and a fiery liar with a string of bad debts, his work history was patchy, as he drifted from jobs as a coal-haulier, car cleaner and a factory worker.

Being easily-duped, in April 1946, Tim received two criminal convictions; one for driving an unlicensed car, and one for receiving stolen goods (most notably a suitcase and a rug), both resulted in fines.

And although his exasperated mother supported her unruly son with a bed, money, meals and endless love, often being unemployed and always being broke, with no hobbies nor interests to engage him; every evening, over a few pints, as he propped-up the bar at The Kensington Park Hotel, Tim would wax lyrical and regale the locals with tall-tales and fanciful fibs of how he lived the life of a gigolo, how his absent dad was an Italian Count and how his fictional brother owned a fleet of limousines.

So with her patience wearing-thin, it must seemed like a blessing for Thomasina, when (in 1947) her boy met and married a lovely girl called Beryl Thorley who later gave birth to a beautiful baby called Geraldine. This should have been the makings of him as a grown-up and a man.

But with deceit coming as second nature; having falsely claimed his daughter was gravely ill to acquire a loan, pretended he hadn’t been sacked for whole three weeks to save on marital spats and having kept-up the pretence to his wife and lodger that he was starting a new career as a manager at de Havilland Air Lines, a job which didn’t even exist, Tim was a born liar who was incapable of the truth.

By the Monday 7th November 1949; with arguments being a daily event, debts stacking up and Beryl feeling pale, weak and depressed after several failed abortions, what the Evans’ needed was honesty. But Tim wasn’t the only liar and fantasist living at 10 Rillington Place. (Interstitial).

(Christie’s whisper) “The next day Beryl told my wife she was going to get a separation. My wife and I agreed that - if she needed us to - we would adopt the baby. It were then, at a later date that Beryl told me she were going to make an end of it. In short, she were going to commit suicide”.

After Beryl’s death and Tim’s arrest, Reg Christie (the ex-Special Constable, decorated war-hero and respected family man) made that statement to the Police… except none of it was true.

On Monday 31st October 1949, eight days before Beryl’s death, Raymond Phillips & Frederick Jones of Larter & Sons were contracted to repair a leaky bay-window and the roof of the communal washhouse. It was a simple job undertaken during the week days which shouldn’t have disturbed the tenants, but with Ethel stuck at home, Beryl feeling blue, Geraldine all restless and Reg off sick with fibrositus and bouts of diarrhea, the constant banging and hammering had left 10 Rillington Place in total disarray.

As the baby wailed the whole house down with a constant cacophony of tired tears, Beryl didn’t hear his soft plimsolls as they slowly crept up the creaking stairs and lurked on the landing, then again, she never did. But as Reg’s egg-like head peeped around the open door – having an almost comical face with over-prescribed spectacles, slipping false teeth and a softly cooing voice which soothed Geraldine - clutching two steamy mugs of tea, Reg cooed “I wondered if you fancied a cuppa, dear?” He did this most days, and with Beryl being alone, she appreciated his company, his chats and his friendship.

Reg could see Beryl wasn’t her usual self. She was always such a pretty young girl, but with her flawless brow wrinkled by a deep frown, her smooth skin all sickly and pale, her luscious red lips all cracked, her baby blue eyes red-raw from crying and her supple figure hidden by a shapeless mass of crumpled clothes, what the innocent twenty-year old needed – Reg thought - was a father’s love and protection.

Over the eight months she’d live there, Beryl & Reg had developed a good relationship. He was a very patient man, who cared and listened; and having pacified her hot-tempered husband after several of the couple’s regular rows, covered the cost of their furniture fees to keep the bailiffs at bay, snapped a much-loved family portrait of mother and baby which hung on her wall, and being medically trained, Beryl knew that Reg was experienced, trusted and (best of all) knowledgeable.

And as she opened up to him about her inner most secrets; about the arguments, the lies, the debts, her struggles with motherhood, her unexpected second pregnancy and her several failed abortions - all of which had left her sickly, thin and exhausted - with the baby’s termination being a tricky topic and Beryl & Tim often at each other’s throats, Reg agreed to speak to Tim on Beryl’s behalf. And for the first time in weeks, Beryl smiled.

(Christie’s whisper) “…it were my wide knowledge of medicine which made it possible for me to talk convincingly about sickness and disease, and she readily believed I could cure her”. (End)

That night, having finished his shift at Lancaster Food Products, as promised, Reg had a man-to-man chat with Tim in the privacy of his front-room. And being a boy whose dad had abandoned him before he was born, Tim appreciated this fatherly advice.

This was, after all, John Reginald Halliday Christie; a happily married man (Christie’s whisper) “twenty nine years to be precise” who for nine of those years had deserted his wife, a former Special Constable “commended twice” having helped arrest a man who had stolen a bicycle, and a decorated war-hero who was “awarded the British War & Victory Medal” which every serving soldier received regardless of their conduct, but then again, Tim didn’t know any of that.

So as Reg sat there, flanked by two framed medical certificates (and knowing that the barely-literate Tim wouldn’t know they were only for First Aid), as he thumbed a thick medical book (and knowing that the easily-duped Tim wouldn’t know it was only a St John’s Ambulance manual) and regaling him with tales of how his training as a doctor was “cruelly cut short by The Great War” (all of which was a lie, but then, where-as Tim lacked the intelligence to maintain a story, Reg did not), and claiming to have a wide knowledge of abortions (which – with two bodies rotting in the back garden – meant it was technically true), Reg coerced Tim into letting him perform a termination on his pretty petite wife.

All the while, laying the blame squarely on the young couple stating “if only you or your wife had come to me in the first place, I could have done it without any risk” and extending the cautious caveat that, given the procedure “one out of every seven women die”. Being physically tired, emotionally torn and with his brain thoroughly bamboozled, Tim said he would have to sleep on it. But being a young couple, unable to afford a new baby, they had only one option, and Christie knew that.

On the morning of Tuesday 8th November 1949, after a restless night, Beryl and Tim washed, dressed, fed Geraldine, and as Tim sat at the kitchen table, having a smoke, he exhaled deeply and said “tell Mr Christie everything is okay”. And although a great weight dropped from Beryl’s shoulders, in those six simple words, Tim had sealed the fate of their unborn baby and condemned them both to death.

And as he kissed his wife goodbye, little did he know that this was the last time he would see her alive.

After the chaos of the last eight days, with the bay-window finally fixed and the roof of the washhouse replaced, with only one plasterer remaining, normality had been restored to Rillington Place. As Ethel dozed by the toasty fire, Reg rummaged through a small brown suitcase. It didn’t contain much, just a few odd knickknacks; like a necklace, a hair-brush, a stocking, a handbag and a dog-eared photo of a young pretty girl holding a baby, and as he softly stroked her image - after eight months of patience and persistence - he imagined what it would be like to finally touch Beryl.

It was 10:30am, and with Ethel asleep, Reg returned the suitcase under the sofa, having retrieved four little items; a length of rope, a bottle of Friar’s Balsam, two rubber hoses and a square glass jar.

For the last time, Beryl placed her baby in the cot for a mid-morning nap, tucked the soft sheet up to her chin and kissed her rosy cheeks. As always, Beryl didn’t hear his soft Plimsolls creep up the creaky stairs, or feel his hot breath on her neck as he lurked on the second-floor landing, so initially she was startled. But seeing his reassuring smile and hearing the soft voice of a trusted friend, who whispered “I thought you might like a cup of tea”, seeing Reg, made Beryl’s beautiful smile return. And as they entered her flat, so they wouldn’t be disturbed, he locked the door.

Beryl stood there, all hopeful and nervous, dressed in a blue woollen jacket with black stitching, a blue and white spotted cotton blouse and a black shirt, as she trembled, her heart thumping fast and hard.

From her bedroom, Reg pulled a thick quilt, laid it on the kitchen floor in front of the unlit fire, and with the bedside manner of a doctor, he said “let’s get you comfortable, shall we?” As his patient, she was in his hands, and so - trusting him implicitly - at his command, she slipped off her stockings, slid off her knickers and lay on the quilt, her legs parted, her genitals exposed.

Beside her, Reg popped the square glass jar, it sloshed with a white liquid which smelled like the minty balm that she would rub on her baby’s chest whenever she was ill. This was all very strange and new to Beryl, but as he attached the long rubber hose to a copper pipe at the side of the fire, she trusted him, as Reg reassured her “nothing to worry about dear, it’s just a whiff of gas, like going to the dentist”. And as he placed the shorter hose next to her nose, at his command, Beryl breathed deeply…

…and just like Muriel Eady, as her lungs filled with lethal levels of carbon monoxide, she would willingly render herself unconscious, and soon, Beryl Evans would be his; to grope, to kiss, to fondle, to fuck.

(Knocking on door) Startled by the knocking, Reg froze. (Knocking on door) With Tim out at work, the lone plasterer by the washhouse and Ethel in the front room, it could only be one other person - her friend Joan Vincent. (Knocking) “Beryl?” But – hoping she would leave - Reg remained still and silent.

(Knocking) “Beryl??” Hearing her friend’s voice, Beryl began to stir and weakly uttered a faint mumble. In panic, Reg smothered her lips with his rough hands, muffling her words. “Beryl? Are you there?”

As her legs kicked, her arms flailed and she frantically gasped for air, before she could muster enough strength to scream, Reg punched her hard in the face, knocking her out cold. “Beryl? If you don’t want to open the door, that’s fine”. And as Joan Vincent descended the creaky stairs, with both ends of his strangling rope clutched in his hands, Reg pulled tight, and the last drop of life left Beryl’s body forever.

With no privacy to do his dirty deed and no time to have his wicked way with her, as Joan chatted to Ethel just two floors below, Reg dragged Beryl’s body into the unlit bedroom, and although her mouth and nose was bloodied, slowly forming a plan, he masked the long dark bruise around her neck with the top of the quilt, and left her, in bed, just a few feet from Geraldine. (Baby crying / End)

On Wednesday 30th November 1949 at 3:10pm, a tired and dishevelled Timothy Evans walked into Merthyr Vale Police Station and confessed to disposing of his wife’s body, by stating “between about one and two in the morning I got my wife downstairs. I opened my front door at 10 Rillington Place, and pushed her body head first into the drain. After that, I got my baby looked after. I quit my job. I sold my furniture. Then I caught the train to Merthyr Vale and I’ve been here since. That’s the lot”.

But as a regular drinker, an abusive husband and a known fantasist, who even his own mother referred to as a “terrible liar”, his heartfelt confession didn’t ring true.

And having lied to Thomasina that his wife and child were on holiday to Brighton, lied to Uncle Con & Auntie Vi that he was on a business trip to Wales; lied to a furniture dealer, a pawnbroker and a rag-trader about why he was selling all of his and his wife’s possessions, having lied to The Christie’s about why they had so unexpectedly moved out of Rillington Place and – having discovered Beryl’s body; not down the drain, but hidden in the communal washhouse, bundled in a green table cloth and tied with a length of clothesline – with the autopsy confirming that no interference had taken place which was consistent with an abortion, the Police knew that Timothy Evans had lied about his wife’s death.

As it was clear, that 20 year old Beryl Evans had died by strangulation… and so had Geraldine.

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

If you enjoyed parts one to four, part five of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for some wibbly good dribble after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Point Blank and The Ladykillers Podcast. (PLAY PROMO)

A thank you this week to Trevor Williams, who very kindly made a much-needed donation to keep the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast afloat, via the Murder Mile website. Thank you Trevor, you’re a super star. And a special thank you to everyone who recently left us a review on iTunes or your podcast app’, and anyone who has spread the good word about Murder Mile on social media, and in person, it really is very much appreciated. So I thank you.

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

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (Interstitials)
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)

• As Below by Cult With No name (main theme)
  
• True by NCTRNM
  
• Piano Piece 2 by Cult With No Name
• 49th Street Galleria by Chris Zabriskie
• Sunset by Kai Engel
• Refocussing by Parvez Decree
• Red Danube by Lee Rosevere
• Inner Mental Cage by Controlled Insanity  

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

• European Toilet Flush - https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/404329/
  
• Pipe Drag - https://freesound.org/people/dheming/sounds/177782/
• Baby Gurgling - https://freesound.org/people/gumballworld/sounds/398550/
• Pub Atmos - https://freesound.org/people/alex@vsi.tv/sounds/294425/
• 1936 Chevy Truck Horn - https://freesound.org/people/bone666138/sounds/198837/
• Quarry - https://freesound.org/people/juskiddink/sounds/66932/
• Creaking Floorboards - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/361799/
• DIY Sounds - https://freesound.org/people/oxala/sounds/369685/
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018 and iTunes Top 50. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.

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 FIFTY

Episode Fifty: On 8th November 1949, 20 year old Beryl Susanna Evans, a married mother-of-one who lived in the second floor flat at 10 Rillington Place, died following a suspected suicide attempt after a series of failed abortions, and yet, her husband Timothy Evans would be arrested for her murder. But was this a suicide, a murder, or was she the third victim of the infamous British serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. This is part three of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.

• Date: Tuesday 8th November 1949
• Location: 10 Rillington Place, Ladbroke Grove, W10
• Victims: 1 (Beryl Susanna Evans)
• Culprit: Timothy John Evans?

CLICK HERE to download the Murder Mile podcast via iTunes and to receive the latest episodes, click "subscribe". You can listen to it now by clicking the PLAY button on the embedded media player below. For transcripts of each episode? Click "Podcast Transcripts"

THE LOCATION

As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations (and I don't want to be billed £300 for copyright infringement again), to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Credits: The Murder Mile true-crime podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. ​​Additional music was written and performed by various artists, as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. A list of tracks used and the links are listed on the relevant transcript blog here.

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime  podcasts at the British podcast Awards 2018", and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast

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

INTRO: One of the most powerful words in the world is home. It’s the place we all feel safe, secure, happy and comfortable, and no matter where we end up, it’s where we all return to. Home can be anywhere; a country, a county, a town, a street, a house, a room, a bed, or simply a state of mind, where we’re surrounded by the things we like and the people we love, often called a family.

A family can be anyone; parents, siblings, offspring, friends, colleagues or neighbours, a network, a group or a single person, as family is not about blood-ties or lineage, it’s about trust. And for all of us, no matter who we are or what our life becomes, we all seek a family and a home.

By 1949, the Second World War was over; and although, it is said, that the allies won, in truth, we had all lost; with millions dead, countries in ruins, homes destroyed and families shattered. The Blitz was now a distant memory, the blackout was off and with thousands of the city’s civilians missing, although many were still mourned, some were forgotten.

Two of those missing were an Austrian refugee called Ruth Fuerst and an East London orphan called Muriel Eady. And having been strangled and raped by an unassuming little man called John Reginald Halliday Christie, their bodies lay undisturbed in two shallow graves in a small back garden in Ladbroke Grove. Their deaths weren’t deemed suspicious, murder was never mentioned, and with no witnesses, no sightings and with no-one suspecting him, his killing spree had stopped.

Reg Christie hadn’t killed in five years. It was almost as if those old strange urges had gone. But all that changed in the spring of 1949, when the second floor flat became vacant, and (in need of a good home and a loving family) his next victim walked into 10 Rillington Place. Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you.

My name is Michael. I am your tour-guide. This is Murder Mile. And I present to you; part three of the full, true and untold story of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.

SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing on St Mark’s Road in Ladbroke Grove; a street vital to our story, but after decades of haphazard redevelopment, only a few fragments of these key locations still exist. One street east is what remains of David Griffin’s Refreshment Room and the Kensington Park Hotel, but on this street alone, 11 St Mark’s Road was demolished, 133 St Mark’s Road was rebuilt and the side-street formerly known as Rillington Place has been completely eviscerated.

It’s a classic example of post-war inner-city design, where a cash-strapped council with homes to build, but no plan, money or map, dumps a jumbled mishmash of architectural monstrosities onto a grid and says “yeah, that’s do”. So with no grassland, ponds or parks, having nowhere to play, from every bedroom echoes the incessant bleep of games consoles as rows of portly pasty prepubescents enter a fantasy world where they imagine what it’s like to stand-up, to move and even to talk. Wow!

Except, once a day, as each parent pushes their unsightly waddling sprog into the street to burn-off a delightful tea of Pot Noodle, chicken dippers and blue-fizzy drink. And as the fat pasty spawn wobbles into reality, winces at the sight of natural light and wheezes because they’re upright - having been told to “get away from your bloody computer” – they stare at their bike (wondering where they plug it in), their football (searching for how they turn it on) and their legs (querying who ordered them and how they can get a refund?) Only to huff, grunt, fart and start playing on their phones; heads down, eyes open, world gone. But - to be honest - that could be a description of literally anywhere.

And although some sites are still here, like the tube-line and the A40 flyover, with 10 Rillington Place now a memorial garden, and the skyline overshadowed by the blackened shell of the Grenfell Tower where seventy-two people lost their lives, this whole street is tinged with sadness and tragedy.

And yet, it was here, in the spring of 1949, that nineteen year old Beryl Thorley believed she had found herself a good home, a loving family… and a kindly neighbour. (Interstitial)

Beryl Susanna Thorley was born on 19th Sept 1929 in Lewisham Hospital (South London), to William, a petrol pump attendant for the London General Omnibus Company and Elizabeth, a housekeeper.

Raised during The Great Depression - as the stock markets crashed, currencies devalued and the world descended into economic chaos – being a middle-aged working-class couple living a hand-to-mouth existence in a tiny rented flat, this probably wasn’t the best time to start a family. And yet, even though the Thorley’s had three children in very quick succession, they lived an unremarkable life; with no highs nor lows, no joys nor tragedies, just the ordinary struggles of a very average family.

Barely keeping their heads above water, from year-to-year the Thorley’s plodded on, moving from job-to-job, flat-to-flat and bill-to-bill, with nowhere to really call home. And lacking any real warmth, love or affection, only the tired routine of meals, baths and bed-time, they didn’t feel like a family.

As the eldest of three, although Beryl was a pretty petite girl with bright twinkling eyes, soft fair hair, a button-nose and an angelic smile; being eager to regain her rightful place as the ‘baby of the family’ - having been usurped by her baby brother Basil and swiftly shoved-aside by her little sister Patricia – Beryl’s beauty belied a stroppy temper, an awkward stubbornness and a child-like immaturity.

Having uprooted several times in as many years, from Lewisham to Clapham to Hammersmith; as war was declared, the Thorley’s moved into the top floor flat at 112 Cambridge Gardens in Ladbroke Grove, just off St Mark’s Road, and situated on the other side of the tube-line, opposite Rillington Place.

So, except for their daily disputes, sibling rivalry and the dull thud as Nazi bombs pockmarked the city, life was pretty uneventful. That is, until the late winter of 1947, when Beryl’s mother passed away.

It was a tragedy which split the fractured family even further, and with her siblings packing-up and her father moving to Brighton (where he would remain like a distant relative for the rest of her life), with no home, no family and being in the grip of grief, Beryl’s life could have collapsed…

…but a few months prior, 17 year old Beryl Thorley had met and fallen in love with 22 year old Timothy Evans; a small handsome Welshman with a thick mop of dark hair, a childish sense of fun, a very vivid imagination, a steady job as a lorry-driver and a deep desire to become a good dad.

And in a whirlwind romance - having met on a blind date in January, become engaged by March and having tied the knot in September - shortly afterwards the newly married Beryl Evans moved in with her husband Tim into his mother’s three-storey townhouse at nearby 11 St Mark’s Road.

Surrounded by a loving family - with (Thomasina) his mother treating her like a daughter, (Penry) his step-father protecting her like she was his own, being blessed with two sisters-in-law (Eleanor and Mary) and a close extended family including Uncle Cornelius & Auntie Violet in the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Vale – within the year, Beryl had a family, a husband, a home and was blissfully happy.  

(Wind) It had been a cold cruel winter, and with the snowdrops shrivelled and the daffodils struggling, Reg’s much-loved rose bush was little more than a tangle of dead vines and jagged thorns. His back garden didn’t provide much privacy or space being just twelve feet long by ten feet wide with a five foot brick wall on both sides and surrounded by two long lines of terraced houses, but as a little dot of bright colour on a drab grey landscape, this was his sanctuary.

With Judy doing some digging of her own, as Reg dug his spade into the hard soil, he winced. The 51 year old’s back was riddled by fibrisitis and with his stomach plagued by daily bouts of diarrhea, he’d given up driving for Ultra Electrics and was now a desk-bound clerk at the Post Office Savings Bank.

As he exhaled painfully, Reg pulled from the soil a milky white stick, all smooth like it had been stripped of bark, but it was oddly broken and brittle. As Ethel exited the washhouse, she mumbled “tea’s up Reg”, but he barely heard her, instead he just nodded, staring at the stick perplexed.

Something was missing from Reg’s life; he loved his garden, he liked his dog, his job was tolerable and his marriage was… fine, but nothing excited him anymore, it was as if something inside him had died.

(Echo - “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman”). As Reg stroked the bone-white stick in his hand, a flash of recollection widened his eyes. (Echo – “she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like”). Being eager to please her master, as Judy burrowed deeper into the soil, she too unearthed something pale, brittle and broken. (Echo – “so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”). But times had changed, the war was over and Reg had killed in almost five years. (End wind)

The newly-wed Mrs Beryl Evans lived at Tim’s mother’s house at 11 St Mark’s Road for one and a half years, squeezed into the second-floor back-bedroom. With it being a busy family home with a mum, a dad, two sisters, Beryl and Tim, with two tenants on the top floor, although they lived comfortably, for a lusty young lad with a blushing new bride, it lacked privacy - but for now, it was enough.

Beryl & Tim were very much kindred spirits; being small, pretty and fun, they bonded quickly. But just like Beryl, Tim’s sweetness belied a stroppy temper, a stubbornness and a child-like immaturity. And with both love-birds being tetchy and fiery - with their fights formed of feet stamped, things thrown and a few choice words, they both “gave as good as they got” - the only real friction caused as Tim’s mum would always take Beryl’s side in any dispute, branding her own son “a terrible liar”.

So by all-accounts, Beryl & Tim Evans were just a very normal couple of young kids, who were recently married, testing the waters and finding their feet, in a family which was about to expand.

On 14th October 1948, in the Queen Charlotte Hospital, Beryl gave birth to a beautiful baby girl - a tiny tot with sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks and a hot-temper, and just like her parents she was a little handful. But to Beryl & Tim she was perfect, and with their family complete, they named her Geraldine.

Being showering with gifts, love and support from an extended family, Geraldine had everything, and with two proud and doting parents to cuddle her, life was good. But as the baby grew, the small beck bedroom seemed to shrink, so needing more space, Beryl & Tim began looking for a flat of their own.

(Wind) With the sky bruised, clouds looming and the distant rumble of thunder, Reg stood in his back garden, clutching the milky-white skull of Muriel Eady. Reg was in a real quandary; for safety’s sake he knew should either bury it, smash it or burn it, and although half a length of her thigh bone neatly propped up his broken fence, that could easily be mistaken for a stick, where-as a skull’s a skull? Reg knew he had to make the right choice, and besides, he didn’t need those… urges.

And as a tube train thundered-by, seated by the window, Joan Vincent spotted an advert in a second-floor window, it simply read “flat to let”. Fortuitously, it was cheap, local and would perfectly suit her old school friend and their new baby. The flat was at 10 Rillington Place. (Interstitial)
On 24th March 1949, with their bags packed, spirits high and a new furniture set paid for by Thomasina; Beryl, Tim and Geraldine moved into their first flat on the second floor of 10 Rillington Place.

It wasn’t a great flat; as the stairs were a nightmare to navigate with the pram, it was heated and lit by gas only, and having just a bedroom and a kitchen, the only bathroom was a communal washhouse and lavatory outback. But with a rent of just twelve shillings a week, being located one minute from Thomasina, and with the other tenants being an elderly widower on the first floor called Mr Kitchener and a lovely couple on the ground-floor called Mr & Mrs Christie - (Christie’s whisper) “I prefer it if you call me Reg” - keen for their own space, Beryl snapped it up and her family home was complete.

Beryl & Tim liked the Christie’s. They were very old-fashioned. Raised with Victorian standards, they were polite, moral and kind, and keeping the house orderly with strict rules and curfews, even though they dispensed advice to newly-weds, as a couple, they rarely spoke and never kissed or hugged.

As a portly lady in her early fifties, Ethel Christie was a neat quiet homebody who lived in her husband’s shadow, and although she was clearly loving, warm and deeply maternal, with no children of her own, Ethel’s eyes only lit-up was when Beryl let he hold the baby. And with Reg having a fatherly quality, who was kind, caring and patient; having been an ex-Special Constable, an injured war-hero and with a wide knowledge of medicine, she knew that Reg was experienced, trusted and knowledgeable. For Beryl, having the Christie’s nearby was like being blessed with a second set of parents.

For the first few months, as a new mum and dad, life was a struggle; but with Thomasina just one street away, the Christie’s only two floors down and although Tim was burdened by a low IQ, a bad lung, a disabled foot and being almost totally illiterate, with money coming in, for a while, they coped.

But being kindred spirits, what brought Beryl & Tim together, also drove them apart; as having stroppy tempers, an awkward stubbornness and a child-like immaturity, with Tim being a “terrible liar” and Beryl still acting like “the baby of the house” (even though she now had a baby of her own), neither of them were grown-ups, instead they were just children trapped in an adult’s world.
On 11th July 1949, Tim started work as a delivery driver for Continental Wine House in Edgware Road, on the modest wage of £7 per week, but having falsely claimed that Geraldine was gravely ill, he asked for £3 in advance, £7 to cover a doctor’s bill and a further loan of £10, all in just two weeks, and with his employer regarding his work as “unsatisfactory”, by the 25th Tim was sacked, and didn’t tell Beryl.

Being secretly unemployed for several weeks, Tim kept up the pretence, and as the bills piled up, never once did he miss a boozy session with the boys at the Kensington Park Hotel (known as KPH), and yet, he always lost his temper if Beryl had a night-out with the girls and left him at home with the baby.

Feeling shut-in, lonely and desperate, as Beryl struggled with the demands of motherhood; the dirty dishes piled up, the meals went uncooked and the flat became squalid. And although she wasn’t a bad mum, being so depressed, although Thomasina would always baby-sit on Saturdays, it wasn’t just to give Beryl a break, but as an excuse to give Geraldine a much-needed bath and to wash her clothes.

And still, as well as the young couple were being supported by friends and family, with their lies, debts and jealousy mounting, Beryl & Tim’s arguments became more frequent, fiery and violent. The worst having occurred at the end of August 1949, just three months before Beryl’s death.

With money tight, Beryl feeling low and Tim due to start a well-paying managerial job at de Havilland’s Air Lines in Hatfield, twenty miles north of London; on Friday 19th August, they took in a lodger - 17 year old Lucy Endicott - who provided a little extra income and kept Beryl company whilst Tim was away. So, with his best suit cleaned, a fresh shirt ironed, his shoes polished and his suitcase packed, being ready to leave on the early morning train, Tim slept by the kitchen fire whilst Beryl and Lucy slept in the bedroom with Geraldine in the cot. But the next night, Tim returned.

As always, Thomasina was right and Beryl’s instincts were spot-on, Tim was a “terrible liar”. And having telephoned de Havilland’s, they quickly confirmed that there was no job, no wage and no record of a Timothy Evans. Being heartbroken, furious and unable to look him in the eye, Beryl’s anger festered.

One week later, on the evening of Sunday 28th August, having been out to the cinema, as Beryl & Lucy hopped off the bus by David Griffin’s Refreshment Room, stood outside of the KPH public house, being a few pounds poorer and a few pints heavier, they saw Tim waiting.

Their bitter screams echoed all the way down Lancaster Road, St Mark’s Road and right into Rillington Place; with every house-light turning on as Tim snapped “I’ll give you a good hiding for going to the pictures and leaving the baby”, each curtain twitching as Beryl barked “I told you I was going out” and every wireless silenced as Tim spat “that doesn’t make any difference, your place is at home, just you wait till I get you inside”, as he slammed the front door shut of 10 Rillington Place, and once again, the neighbouring streets were treated to yet another furious fight between The Evans’.  

In the proceeding trial, the following incident was reported to the police as witnessed by Mrs Hyde on Lancaster Road, Mrs Swan at 9 Rillington Place, and The Christie’s on the ground-floor.

Gone were their petty childish squabbles and their tit-for-tat tantrums, as with The Evans’ relationship irrevocably split, their silly spats had descended into physical assaults. And as Tim slapped Beryl’s face hollering “I’ll bloody do you in, I will”, Beryl grabbed a bread-knife. To protect himself, seeing how Beryl was precariously perched, Tim screamed “I’ll push you through the bloody window”, only for Lucy to trip-up hot-tempered Tim, as he threatened her, squealing “I’ll smash her up and run her over in my van”. Of course, whether the five-foot five-inch fiery liar actually would or could is debatable.

Thankfully, before anyone was badly hurt, the fight was broken-up by Thomasina; Lucy was asked to leave, Tim cooled off, Beryl calmed down, and a full statement was made to the Police.

(Christie’s whisper) “The next day Beryl told my wife she was going to get a separation. My wife and I agreed that - if she needed us to - we would adopt the baby. It were then, at a later date that Beryl told me she were going to make an end of it. In short, she were going to commit suicide”.

With their relationship straining at the seams; being riddled with debts, jealousy and lies; and devoid of love, trust or patience; the more Tim slugged back the drink, the further Beryl fell into depression. And yet, life was about to throw the struggling couple yet another curve-ball… Beryl was pregnant.

But Beryl didn’t want another baby; not now and not with Tim. Confiding in her friend (Joan Vincent) that she wanted to miscarry; with abortions being illegal, dangerous and expensive, as old-fashioned methods like punching herself in the stomach, necking neat gin and overdosing on laxatives, all failed, Beryl risked her own life even further by swallowing poisons like quinine and ergot, syringing herself with glycerine and iodine, and trying to hook the tiny foetus out using a bent coat-hanger.

And with each attempt having failed, as the unwanted baby slowly grew inside her, Beryl Evans became more sickly, pale and withdrawn, as life reached a new low.

And then, on Monday 7th November 1949…

(Christie’s whisper) “I went upstairs and found Mrs Evans in the kitchen, lying on a quilt in front of the fireplace. She had made an attempt to gas herself, from a gas-pipe on the side of the fireplace, and a piece of rubber tubing near her head. I shut it off and when I opened the window she started coming around. I do not know what she said, but a little while after she complained of a headache and I made her a cup of tea. My wife was downstairs but I did not call tell her. Mrs Evans asked me not to”. (End)

The next day, on Tuesday 8th November 1949…

(Christie’s whisper) “I went upstairs again, I think it was about lunch time. She still intended to do away with herself and begged of me to help her. She said she would do anything if I agreed. I think she was referring to letting me be intimate with her. She brought the quilt from the bedroom and put it down in front of the fireplace. I got on my knees but found I was not physically capable of having intercourse with her owing to my fibrisitus and my dicky tummy. I turned on the gas tap and as near as I can make out, I held it close to her face. When she became unconscious I turned the tap off. I was going to try and have intercourse with her but it was impossible, I couldn’t bend over”. (End)

Later that evening….

(Christie’s whisper) “Tim came home about six o’clock. It was dark. I spoke to him in the passage and told him that his wife had committed suicide, and that she had gassed herself. We went into his kitchen and he touched his wife’s hand, then picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. After Evans lay his wife on the bed, he fetched the quilt from the kitchen and put it over her. I told Evans that no doubt he would be suspected of having done it because of the rows and fights he had with his wife. He seemed to think the same. He said he would bring his van down and leave her somewhere”. (End)

Plagued with guilt; having quit his job, sold his furniture, gone into hiding and repeatedly lied to his family about his wife’s whereabouts, on 30th November 1949 Tim confessed to disposing of Beryl, and with her body being found three days later, on 13th January 1950, faced with overwhelming evidence against him, Timothy John Evans was found guilty… of murder.

Beryl was a pretty, petite but painfully immature young girl from a fractured upbringing who dreamed of nothing but a good home and a loving family. And having got everything she ever wanted, aged just 20 years old, Beryl Susanna Evans was buried in a simple coffin at Gunnersbury Cemetery.

Except, inside her coffin, Beryl wasn’t alone.

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

If you enjoyed parts one, two and three, part four of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for some dribbly bum-plop after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Murder Under the Midnight Sun and The Hidden Podcast. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new and current Patreon supporters whose kind donations have kept Murder Mile afloat, as last week, my laptop actually went kasplewey (that’s a technical term, probably caused by all the cake crumbs inside) so thanks to them, I was able to fund some emergency repairs. So Murder Mile’s new IT repair team are Dawn Smith, Heather, Kristy McGlew and Jacqueline Wright. You are (as British TV quiz-host Jim Bowen used to say “super smashing great”).

Also a special thank you to Jonny & Sara, and Kristin, who came on a Murder Mile Walk recently and spoiled me with lots of cakey goodies, so if I sound fatter, blame them. Another thank you to everyone who’s purchased Murder Mile mugs from my website (I thank you) but the biggest thank you goes out to everyone who listens to the show. Thank you for listening, it really means a lot to me.

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

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.

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:

• As Below by Cult With No name (main theme)
• Man in a Bag by Cult With No Name (interstitials)
• You Know Me Better Than I Know Myself by Cult With No Name
• The 49th Street Galleria by Chris Zabriskie
• Meakness by Kai Engel
• Like a Starlight Through A Veil by Philip Weigl
• Serenity by Parvez Decree
• Untitled by Seclorance
• Path to Jotnheim by Tri Tachyon

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

• Neutralised Long - https://freesound.org/people/cityrocker/sounds/128646/
• Atari Drums - https://freesound.org/people/zagi2/sounds/381675/
• Arcade Loop - https://freesound.org/people/zagi2/sounds/275398/]
• Arcade Game - https://freesound.org/people/RICHERlandTV/sounds/265775/
• Arcade Game 2 - https://freesound.org/people/staticpony1/sounds/342697/
• Welcome to the Game - https://freesound.org/people/shahabazkhan/sounds/240210/
• Gaming Arcade Loop - https://freesound.org/people/zagi2/sounds/339124/
• Annoying Game Noises - https://freesound.org/people/Timbre/sounds/173854/
• Game Over - https://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/182287/
• Ave Maria – https://freesound.org/people/Ramston/sounds/180258/
• Gas Stove - https://freesound.org/people/StarRock/sounds/24222/
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile wal

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.

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

Trust - a firmly-held belief that a person is reliable, truthful and honest. It can’t be faked, traded or bought, it can only be earned. And unlike any greeting, gossip or pleasantry, trust takes time, patience and tests, before we let anyone into our confidence and open up to our inner-most secrets.

Trust is reserved solely for friends, family and (in rare exceptions) strangers; like firemen, policemen, doctors, nurses, soldiers and security. But without a bloodline, a bond or a uniform, trust requires a kind face, a caring voice and a calm demeanour.

In 1942, The Blackout Ripper struck, killing four women having gained their trust; he was tall, charming and handsome, with a crisp RAF uniform, bright blue eyes and an easy smile. Where-as Reg Christie was not; he was short, scrawny, balding and bespectacled, a strange man in a crumpled old suit; with an odd little whisper, false teeth that slipped and (no longer being a Special Constable) no uniform.

But what he lacked physically, he made up with mentally, meaning that (for a whole decade) his killing spree would go undetected, all because he was kind, caring and – worst of all – patient.

In August 1943, Reg Christie murdered 21 year old Ruth Furest in a fit of spontaneous lust. One year on, with his urge unsated and his carnal desire swelling, having learned from his mistakes, this murder would be planned to perfection. And with a fresh victim in his sights, he needed to gain her trust.

Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you.

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 Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.

SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing by the A40 on Western Avenue in Perivale; a heavily industrialised part of West London, far from the seediness of Soho, but in an area absolutely vital to our story.

As a chaotic dual-carriageway connecting the capital city to the Welsh coastal town of Fishguard, you may think you don’t know the A40, but with a small stretch of it also called Oxford Street, the A40 passes-by the Denmark Place fire, Freddie Mills suicide, Jacque Tratsart’s homicide, Mary Pickwoad’s abortion, Abd al-Naif’s assassination, several locations of The Blackout Ripper, and as it exits Edgware Road to become the Paddington fly-over, the A40 overlooks what remains of 10 Rillington Place.

Situated 9.3 miles west of Soho, as one of London’s busiest roads, Western Avenue is noisy, dirty and chaotic; as with the deafening thunder of trains, the choking fumes of trucks and ear-splitting scream as jumbo-jets roar out of Heathrow, amidst a thick smog of swirling dust, nasally it’s a very confusing place, as enveloped by factories whose chimneys burp out the sweet scent of biscuits, curry and beer (mmm) often it’s interspersed by a caustic cloud of chemicals, burnt rubber and sewage  (not mmm).

Although I’m standing directly opposite the infamous Hoover Building; a stunning grade-two art-deco factory built in stark white-concrete with shimmering green glass, the exact location of the place I’m looking for is unknown, and what was left, has been entirely demolished.

Now occupied by the Greenford Premier Inn - a budget hotel where tired salesmen forgo the arduous two-hour commute (to the wife and kids) and instead, sink a few suds, scoff a steak, pay for a porn film by mistake and mysteriously book a double-room for themselves and their “daughter” who visits her “daddy” for just “58 minutes” (I’m guessing) – but originally, sat on this site was Ultra Electrics Ltd; a radio manufacturer whose war-work was so secretive, that to confuse any Nazi saboteurs, they incorrectly listed their address as being in both Acton and Park Royal, almost three miles east.

And yet, in the summer of 1944, it was here, that a shy, bright but lonely lady called Muriel Eady was lured into the confidence of a delivery driver who had secrets of his own. (Interstitial).

Muriel Amelia Eady was born on 14th October 1912 in Canning Town, East London; a dark, squalid and impoverished district on the north-side bank of the River Thames; with a skyline chockful of belching chimneys, the sooty air thick with an acrid soupy smog, the murky brown water fizzing with effluent, and surrounded by the endless cacophony of docks, cranes and iron-works.

And being one year into the stark austerity of the First World War; with food rationed, fuel in short supply and the ominous low-drone as German Zeppelins crept silently amongst the clouds, stealthfully dumping bouncing balls of burning magnesium which shattered, sparked and set the city aflame, in what would become the original (and long-forgotten) London Blitz - this was no place to raise a child.

But to Muriel this was home.

Muriel was born at 20 Baron Road; in one of thousands of identical Victorian terraced houses built to serve the dock workers in the 1850’s, and later demolished in the slum clearance. Although tiny, it was home to their mother Fanny Louisa Eady, five year old Reginald, three year old Ernest and Muriel.

To Muriel and her siblings, Fanny was everything; a doting single-mother who struggled alone on a single income with three small children. And although she was still married to William Eady - a sailor in the Merchant Navy who rarely (if reluctantly) returned home and was a father in name only - in the 1911 census, it rightfully lists Fanny as “head of the house”.

And although one of her babies was always sick, as raised amongst the sooty choking gloom of Canning Town, Muriel suffered with asthma, adenoids and catarrh which would plague her for life (SNIFF), being blessed with such a wonderful mother; Reginald, Ernest and Muriel thrived and survived.

And then, in February 1918, as one of deadliest pandemics swept across the globe killing close to one hundred million people, having been struck down with deadly influenza, a virus for which there was no treatment or cure, Fanny Louisa Eady died in Poplar Hospital. Muriel was just six years old.

Being distraught, what she wanted was a hug, what she needed was her mum, but what she got was William Eady; an unsmiling uncaring stranger, who – being gruff, rough and grumpy – only cared for the sea, and seeing these kids as nothing but a burden, he abandoned them. Three grieving children; all alone, scared and cruelly orphaned were placed into care at the Hutton Poplars Residential Home for Destitute Children in Brentwood, where they would remain for most of their childhood.

And as a shy girl, struggling for an ounce of love in a stern Victorian orphanage full of seven hundred screaming kids and crying babies, with no mother to guide her and fearing any father-figure, in the six years she remained at Hutton Hall - feeling rejected, abandoned and alone - Muriel became secretive and retreated into isolation, trusting no-one but herself.

(Christie’s whisper) “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman, but she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like, so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”. (End)

As a young girl, Muriel cut quite a sad figure as her flat-feet scraped along the care-home’s stone floor; her shoulders slumped, her back hunched and the dark brown curls of her hair hiding her heartbroken eyes. And as the days dragged on, for fear of being abandoned again, this became her shield. Muriel was a ragged little mess dressed in oversized clothes, whose chest wheezed, whose nose sniffed (SNIFF) and who rarely made a sound except to emit a timid nasal squeak.

After close to six years in care (being made to feel less like an abandoned child and more like a burden on the state) aged eleven, her father’s sister-in-law, Ethel Souhami, asked to look after Mariel.

This should have been her chance to bloom, to blossom, to put the past of her fractured family behind her and start her life afresh, by playing with some new-found pals and living in a sweet semi-detached house on a peaceful tree-lined street at 48 Creswick Road in Acton, West London. But although she liked to be called “Aunt Ethel”, she had no plans to become Muriel’s new mum.

As a fastidiously neat, supremely strict and mealy-mouthed French widow, being partially disabled, Ethel struggled to run a lodging house, which was home to five regular residents from the local Police station, all of whom needed meals cooked, beds made and uniforms ironed.

Ethel needed a shy silent servant, who would do as she was told; with her head down, mouth closed and would sleep in a box-room under the stairs; working every hour of every day, for no money, no rest and no thanks. Her servant was Muriel and this became her life for the next fifteen years.

By 1939, Muriel was twenty-seven years old; she was unmarried, uneducated and friendless, with no money, no social life, no love-life and (being unwilling to trust the local doctor) her catarrh began to plague her with headaches, Muriel had very little experience in life… and yet, it was almost over.

That April, whether as a blessing or a curse, Aunt Ethel died. And with no next of kin; the house was sold, the lodgers moved out and Muriel was left penniless, homeless and (once again) abandoned. But finally being free, for the first time in a very long while, Muriel started to live.

A few months later, she was working as a laundry assistant at Pembroke College in the historic city of Cambridge, and although war had been declared and Europe was in chaos, for once, Muriel had money, freedom and hope, and living in a shared lodging, she began to come out of her shell.

By 1940, with the Blitz still a few months away, Muriel had moved back to London and was lodging at 12 Roskell Road in Putney; a nice little terraced house in a neat little street, owned by Martha Elizabeth Hooper, her mother’s sister. But unlike dreaded old Aunt Ethel, Auntie Martha was a sweet lady with a warm smile, a big heart and all-embracing hugs, who – best of all - reminded Muriel of her mum.

By 1943, being bored of a life in domestic service, with millions of men being posted overseas to fight for King and Country, new roles had opened up for women, so being eager to ‘do her bit’, Muriel began a career as an assembler at the Integral Auxiliary Equipment Company on Power Road in Chiswick, where she learned how to build hydraulic pumps for aircraft and met her new best friend – Pat.

By 1944, relishing her independence, Muriel’s confidence began to blossom, as guided by Pat, the two pals (described as being like “two peas in a pod”) became regulars at the Half Moon Public House on Lower Richmond Road, the amusement hall by Putney Bridge and a dance-hall called the Black & White Milk Bar on Putney High Street, and as her social-life bloomed, Muriel had begun to date.

Eager to expand her horizons, Pat put her pal forward for a plum job. And being a “skilled assembler” who was regarded as “essential labour” making vital components for the war-effort, on 20th April 1944 Muriel Eady began work at a recently built factory on Western Road, it was called Ultra Electrics.

It was a good job, at a nice firm, for a steady wage and a bright future. And with her confidence at an all-time high, Muriel had begun to make a few new friends… one of whom, was a softly spoken former Special Constable who (in the months ahead) would meticulously plan her death. (Interstitial)

(Christie’s whisper) “I were medically-trained, you know, in the Army, so my knowledge of medicine made it possible for me to talk convincingly about sickness. She believed I could cure her”.

With Ultra Electrics producing over a thousand radio sets a day for civilian and military service, as well as radio equipment for one of Britain’s best war-time multi-strike aircraft - the de Havilland Mosquito - work was busy but rewarding.

In staggered shifts of fifteen minutes, a multitude of machinists, assemblers, checkers, packers and office staff descended on the factory’s canteen, mingling by the tea-urn, scrimmaging for Chelsea buns and jostling for space on the benches. Muriel was one face in a sea of fifteen hundred; all identically dressed in oily overalls, black boots and hair-nets, and yet it was here, over a nice warm cuppa, that she got chatting to a lorry driver from the despatch department called John Reginald Halliday Christie.

(Christie’s whisper) “I prefer it if you call me Reg”.

The cruelty of her lost childhood had taught Muriel never to trust anyone, so experience should have warned her to steer clear of Christie, but as a blossoming wallflower with a bright future ahead, as they chatted, she began to enjoy his company.

To Muriel, Reg was a happily married man (Christie) “twenty four years to be precise”, a former Special Constable (“commended twice”) and a decorated war-hero (“awarded the British War & Victory Medal”). With a badly crumpled suit, thick-lensed spectacles and false teeth which slipped when he smiled, he didn’t look sinister, he looked silly. So why she liked him? We may never know. But being just slightly older than Muriel and named Reginald, perhaps this harmless man reminded the lost child within her of happier times with her own big brother? And with that, he began to gain her trust.

(Christie’s whisper) “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman, but she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like, so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”. (End)

Christie would later claim that the murder of Ruth Fuerst was unplanned, a spontaneous act of lust on a desperate and (possibly) pregnant woman, he had lured to his home with a gift of ten shillings.

Where-as Muriel was independent, self-sufficient and guarded; with a good job, a solid wage, a stable home, a busy social life, a best-friend called Pat and (it is believed) a boyfriend called Ernest. Five years prior, Muriel’s life was a mess, but now, she didn’t need anything from anyone.

Christie hadn’t killed in a year and with the Police suspecting that Ruth was simply one of thousands of unidentified bodies or body-parts which littered the city’s bomb-craters having been blasted to bits by any number of aerial bombardments, the evidence of his evil crime lay undisturbed in a shallow grave in his back-garden.

But seeing Muriel, knowing Muriel and liking Muriel, as those same dark urges swelled, he knew that he wanted her, and that she would be next, but without a way in, he would need to be patient.
Over the next few months, he played the part of a trusted friend, inviting Muriel and her boyfriend to his home, to meet his wife, to chat over tea and cake, and even make up a foursome to the flicks. It made a nice change for Reg & Ethel to have company, as although they were a nice enough couple, they were rarely close, choosing to shower any affection on their dog Judy, rather than each other.

And as pleasant as the charade was, it solved one big problem, only to open up another; Muriel liked Reg, she trusted him and she was comfortable in his home… but now, he needed to get her alone.

In September 1944, tragedy struck, when a high-explosive bomb fell on a packed air-raid shelter killing everyone inside, one of whom was Pat. To Christie, the cruel death of Muriel’s best pal should have been a blessing as being so bereft, most people would seek out the sympathetic ear of a trusted friend? But as familiar feelings of abandonment rose once again, being inconsolable, even by her boyfriend, Muriel retreated into solitude and Christie was at a loss… (SNIFF)

…but then again, tears can have terrible side-effects on a person plagued with catarrh.

(Christie’s whisper) “…it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first. It were my wide knowledge of medicine which made it possible for me to talk convincingly about sickness and disease, and she readily believed I could cure her”. (End) And as promised, a few days later, for the first time in decades, Muriel Eady wouldn’t feel pain… any more.

On Saturday 7th October 1944, after a tiring shift at Ultra Electrics, made all the more gruelling as her throbbing head and painful sinuses had plagued her with weeks of fitful sleeps; Muriel dressed in a navy blue blouse, black shoes, a black artificial silk dress with a pink collar and a camel-coloured cloche coat. At four pm, she left her Auntie Martha’s home at 12 Roskell Road in Putney, saying “I shan’t be late”. She didn’t say where she was going or who she was meeting, she was never seen alive again.

At a little after five pm, having exited Ladbroke Grove tube station, guided by a small torch along the pitch-black street, Muriel took her usual route to Reg’s; the clomp of her tired feet accompanied by her chorus of coughs, wheezes and sneezes, as she passed David Griffin’s Refreshment Room, headed east along Lancaster Road, up St Mark’s Road and went left into the dark dead-end of Rillington Place.

The street was pitch-black, as with each resident sticking to the strict war-time rules of the blackout; every light was off, every curtain was closed and every door was shut, and with any sound muffled by the distant thud of bombs and tube trains which thundered by, the street was empty and eerily silent.

Knocking at number ten, as the black door crept open a crack, Muriel was greeted by the slobbering drool, whimper and occasional widdle of Reg’s brown mongrel – Judy; but sadly, although Reg was here, being up in Halifax to stay with her brother, tonight they wouldn’t have the company of Ethel.

So, lighting the gas-light and taking her coat, with a fresh pot of tea brewing on the hob, Reg led Muriel along the thin drab hallway, passed the front-room (with its loose creaky floorboards), the bedroom (with its once strangely stained sheets), and into the cosy little kitchen, barely yards from the little back garden, where Ruth’s decomposing corpse lay undiscovered, and – soon – so would Muriel’s.

Over a cuppa, the two friends chatted, with Reg perched on a small round stool in front of the alcove, as Muriel reclined in the wooden deck-chair; a grey blanket covering the five lengths of rope with a spare draped over the back, his plan to repair it. And although Reg had been off-sick with fibrositis affecting his back and his bronchitis having flared-up, his priority was to solve Muriel’s catarrh.

It was well-known that Reg had a wide knowledge of medicine; as a Special Constable “commended twice” he had trained in First Aid and was awarded two certificates which proudly hung on his wall; as a student doctor, he had read a-good many medical books before his training “was cruelly cut-short by The Great War”; and as a war-hero, “whilst serving in the Nottingham & Derbyshire Signal Corp” he was disabled in a mustard gas attack which left him with a voice little more than a whisper, Muriel knew Reg was experienced, trusted and (best of all) knowledgeable.

So as Muriel coughed, wheezed and sneezed, looking a sorry-sight who sighed with lack of sleep, Reg sympathised. As a frequent sufferer of catarrh himself, he knew that the menthol mist expectorant she’d been prescribed was “next to useless”, he knew could cure her, and Muriel knew it too.

With a reassuring smile, Reg gently placed into her hands a square glass jar, six inches deep and wide, which his wife had used a few times prior to pickle fruit. Inside (instead of the potted plums) sloshed a white liquid which smelled strongly of the reassuring whiff of Friar’s Menthol Balsam. And with two crude holes drilled into the metal lid; into the right hole ran a two-metre length of rubber hose, starting in the depths of the white bubbling liquid and disappearing off towards the curtain by the slightly open kitchen window, where-as into the left hole was the short stubby end of a rubber hose, through which Muriel would inhale.

Yes, it looked a little bit silly and home-made, but Reg reassured her, it would do the trick. 

And so, as Muriel leaned over the square glass jar, having placed a large scarf over her head to fully ensure she absorbed its medicinal goodness, Muriel breathed deeply, inhaling the minty bubbling vapours.

Within a minute, with her sinuses clearing and her pain disappearing, Muriel felt different.

But the long rubber hose wasn’t there as a steady supply of fresh air from the open window, used to purify this “special compound”. Instead, Reg had connected the hose to the gas-pipe. And with the strong eggy smell of coal gas disguised by the overpowering eucalyptus of the Friar’s Balsam, as Muriel breathed deeper, her lungs slowly filled full of carbon monoxide, an invisible deadly gas commonly known as the ‘silent killer’.

Christie wasn’t a heavy man, muscular or strong, so even the act of overpowering a small weak girl like Ruth Fuerst had been a struggle. And yet, with no force or assault, just a little bit of trust and a lot of patience, he had willingly rendered Muriel unconscious. And as she lay there, slumped in his deck-chair, silent, still and passive, Reg strangled her with a length of rope.

(Christie’s whisper) “Once again, I experienced that quiet peaceful thrill. I had no regrets”. (End)

Only this time, his sordid deed wouldn’t be disturbed by an urgent telegram, as Ethel would be away for weeks; he wouldn’t be interrupted by Mr Kitchener, the elderly deaf tenant in the flat above; and he wouldn’t receive a call from any worried friends or concerned relatives, as (of those she hadn’t lost contact with) no-one knew she was here… but Reg.

And as he dragged Muriel’s lifeless corpse along the communal hallway and into the bedroom, over the next few hours, he would savour every moment of his long-awaited prize; as he fondled her slowly cooling breasts, caressed the curves of her stiffening body and kissed her protruding purple tongue which jutted from her ruptured bloated face, as having wanted her for months, now her body was his.

And unlike in his joyless, sexless marriage to a frumpy baggy hag, for once, Reg had no problem getting or maintaining an erection, as his lustful urges descended into necrophilia. (bed springs)

The next night, her body was buried in the back garden of 10 Rillington Place, alongside Ruth Fuerst, with any identification destroyed and all possessions sold. And although a missing persons’ report was issued, hospital admissions were checked and her details were tallied with any lists of unidentified body-parts found during the aerial bombardments, Muriel became one of thousands of missing people who disappeared during war-time.

And having been cruelly abandoned by fate and a father (in name only), through strive and struggle, Muriel had finally begun to live the good life that she truly deserved, but having dropped her guard to a trusted friend – simply so he could cure her catarrh – the life of Muriel Amelia Eady was ended.

(Christie’s whisper) “I knew I wanted her, the Eady woman, but she were different from the others, you know, quiet-like, so it had to be a really clever murder, much cleverer than the first”. (End)

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

If you enjoyed parts one and two, part three of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for some mindless waffle after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Nordic True-Crime and Hoosier Homicide. (PLAY PROMO)

And don’t forget, if you’re looking for a special Christmas or birthday gift, check out the Murder Mile merchandise shop, as we have exclusive Murder Mile mugs, badges, thank you cards and bespoke gifts, but also a threadless store full of t-shirts, bags, wallets, literally everything. You could also treat a loved one, to a subscription to Murder Mile’s patreon account, and receive each episode days before everyone else. Links are in the show-notes.

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

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archive.

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:

• Above As Below by Cult With No Name (main theme)
  
• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (interstitials)
  
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)

• Piano Piece 2 by Cult With No Name
  
• Meekness by Kai Engel
• Piscoid by Andy G Cohen
• Delirium by Kai Engel
• When You Leave by Sergey Chereminisov
• Almost Home by Parvez Decree
• Dybukks White Eyes by Sergey Cheremisinov

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

• Peeling Bell - https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/43553/
  
• Kids Playing - https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/167824/
  
• Bubbling - https://freesound.org/people/MattJ99/sounds/66787/
  
• Dogs Barking - https://freesound.org/people/ivolipa/sounds/337101/
  
• Tube Train - https://freesound.org/people/arnaud%20coutancier/sounds/349842/
  
• Coughing - https://freesound.org/people/goldkelchen/sounds/371360/
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast

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

Memories are subjective. We all see the same sights, we all hear the same sounds and we all smell the same smells, but (burdened by a limited capacity) our minds only remember the smallest of fragments, all of which are distorted by time, bias, emotion and trauma.

The simplest of details may imperceptibly change; colours, shapes, sizes, names, dates, times and even locations, to the point where two people, sitting side-by-side, in the same room, at the same time, may see the same event in a radically different way as their brains edit that brief moment to suit their own perspective. Unconsciously we all do it, and yet, we all believe that our memories are real.

In 1943, just two miles west and less than one year after horror of The Blackout Ripper, a second serial sexual sadist stalked the bomb-damaged streets of London. Strangely, they both wore uniforms, they both struck during the blackout and they both appeared as kind, pleasant and caring.

But unlike The Blackout Ripper – whose insatiable lust for sex and death left four women dead and two lucky to be alive – this serial-killer was older, wiser and calmer.

Seen as an upstanding pillar of society, a happily married man and a decorated war-hero who lived locally at 10 Rillington Place, although he was known as Mr Christie, to those he liked he preferred they call him Reg. And yet, in a reign of terror which would last (not a few days but) a whole decade; eight women would disappear, one man would be executed and no-one would suspect him.

You may think you know this story, as many variations of it have been told, but with much of the evidence destroyed, there is no definitive account of what happened. Some of what follows is based on the killer’s own memories and perspective; so what part of this story is true… is up to you.
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 Other Side of 10 Rillington Place.

SCRIPT: Today, I’m standing at 110a Ladbroke Grove, W10, at the farthest fringes of London’s West End; three miles west of Soho, one mile north of Hyde Park and within spitting distance of Portabello Road, Notting Hill and that infamous blue front-door adorned by Hugh Grant but owned by the film’s writer, who subsequently (following the film’s success) sold the house for oodles of cash - clever man.

Now called The Flowered Corner, 110a Ladbroke Grove is a four-storey brown-brick Victorian terraced house nestled on the north-east corner of the crossroads of Lancaster Road and Ladbroke Grove; with the Kensington Park Hotel and North Kensington Library opposite, just as it was during war-time.

With three flats above, the ground-floor is a floristry-shop; a single bright spot on a dirty dusty street, where the sweet smell of nectar is strangled by the greasy stench of chicken shops, the soothing colours of tulips are smothered by the choking fumes of trucks, buses and tube-trains, and the harmonious tranquillity of fresh pansies was once (as witness by myself) sullied - without no hint of irony – by a rather displeased youth cussing from a beaten-up banger; with his music blaring, no lights on and no windscreen, who was smoking a spliff, wearing a “f**k da Police” t-shirt and bemoaning two straight-faced coppers by complaining “why you police always hassling me?”

Back in the 1940s, 110a Ladbroke Grove was known as David Griffin's Refreshment Room; a simple café serving standard British staples like tea, coffee, toast and fry-ups for a reasonable price in a poverty-stricken area. Inside (away from the bombs, the death and the debris) it was safe, welcoming and warm. And yet, it was here, on 21st August 1943, that a 21 year old girl called Ruth Fuerst, who had already escaped her certain death… would meet her new murderer. (Interstitial)

Ruth Margarete Christina Fuerst was born on 2nd August 1922, the second of three children to Ludwig, an Austrian landscape painter and Friederike, a Jewish housewife, with an older brother Gottfried and younger brother Gabriel.

Raised in the middle-class affluence of Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city, Ruth’s upbringing was peaceful, happy and joyous; and being a well-educated girl from a very liberal and unpolitical family, she embraced her life, her rights and her freedom.

Eager to become a nurse, although a little bit shy; Ruth was always studious, intelligent and patient. Having inherited her father’s slim awkward frame, being a few inches taller than most girls, she always stood out. And as a fastidiously neat girl, with pale (but easily flushed) skin, brown (but eternally sad) eyes and a neat bob of dark straight hair - a colouring passed down from her mother’s Hungarian ancestry - although Ruth looked typically Jewish, she wasn’t.

Plagued with minor complaints from birth; like a hereditary blood disorder (which often left her weak), buckled knees (which kept her excluded from sports) and terrible teeth (which left her in chronic pain), as a beloved girl from a well-to-do family, able to afford doctors, medicine and – fortuitously – a metal crown fitted to her upper-right molar, life could have been a lot worse.

In need of fresh air, good light and striking landscapes to paint, her father (Ludwig) moved the family to a spacious villa on the edge of a forest, at Waldandacht funfzehn, in the picturesque Austrian spa-town of Bad Voslau, famed for its lush vineyards and rolling hills, twenty-three miles south-west of his hometown of Vienna. Being surrounded by her family, Ruth was happy, safe and loved.

And although this affluent and bustling market town was home to just over nine-thousand people, by the late 1930’s, many homes would become vacant, many people would vanish and - for the first time in its history – the population of Bad Voslau would rapidly shrink.

On 15th September 1935, with the National Socialist German Worker’s Party having risen to power and its leader - Adolf Hitler – appointed as the country’s Chancellor, fuelled by rabid anti-Semitism, bigotry and a decree to “protect German blood and honour”, the Reichstag established the Nuremberg Laws. Its purpose; to create an Aryan state and to eradicate anyone who wasn’t a pure-blood, whether black, gay, Romany, disabled, or Jewish.

The Nazis classified a Jew as anyone who practiced Judaism, identified as Jewish, had married a Jew, was dating a Jew, and – regardless of whether they were (and always had been) a practicing Roman Catholic, as many German Jews had been since in 19th century – if any person had a traceable Jewish ancestry, they were subject to the Nuremberg Laws and regarded as a ‘mischlinge’ (or half-blood).

Born Friederike Altmann, with her mother being a Hungarian Jew, although Ruth was a devout Roman Catholic who was never without her silver crucifix, being classified as a ‘mischlinge’, aged fourteen, Ruth was forced to leave Volkschule Bad Voslau on 4th July 1936, ending her dreams and her education.

For the next two years, under Nazi rule, with all five members of the Fuerst family being ‘mischlinges’, they were all denied any rights, freedoms and being treated as an ‘untermensch’ (German for sub-human), Ruth and her family were forced to undertake menial and demeaning jobs. One of which included scrubbing the road surfaces with acid, which left Ruth’s palms badly scarred forever.

On 12th March 1938, as the Nazis annexed Austria, ‘Anschluss’ was enacted, therefore – by law - all Jewish owned properties were seized, all personal belongings were sold, and having been forcibly separated, the fate of the Fuerst family was unknown. Some hid, others fled and where-as the rest were rounded-up and transported to uncertain fates.

For the first time ever, Ruth was alone, homeless and scared, she was just sixteen years old.

From 1st October 1938, for eight months, Ruth hid in a basement room at nummer zwei Nestroyplatz in Nazi-controlled Vienna, never knowing if her family were alive or dead. With fate smiling upon her, aided by a Swedish Christian mission, Ruth was issued with a passport and on 8th June 1939, just three months before start of World War Two, and being hungry and exhausted, Ruth fled to England.

And yet, having escaped the horrors of the Nazi regime; a life of poverty, persecution and her certain execution, it was here, in the safety of West London, that Ruth Fuerst would end up dead (Interstitial). 

(Christie’s whisper) “She were Austrian I believe, a nice girl, plain but sad-looking. I’d met her in the summer of 43, in a café in Ladbroke Grove. Got herself in a dreadful mess she had, awful, so I gave her a few shillings – you know - to help her along. That’s all. It seemed like the right thing to do”. (End)

On 1st September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany; a brutal six-year conflict which left homes decimated, families displaced, countless casualties maimed, crippled and traumatised, and - by the end of it all - at least eleven million people would be dead. One of whom was Ruth.

Having just turned seventeen, Ruth was still a child; an impressionable young girl from a foreign land, who was scared and lost in a big strange city, with a limited grasp of English, a patchy education, weak legs, bad blood and sore teeth, with no skills, no friends and no family. And although she was thankful to be safe - missing her mother’s hug and her father’s love – she was alive… but also so alone. 

The last four years of her life were solitary and chaotic, and as much as she strived, she struggled.

Initially, she lived with her guarantor Miss Edith Bessie Willis, in a delightful white terraced cottage at 92 Oakwood Road in the very Jewish north-west London neighbourhood of Golder’s Green. But with Edith being a prim and proper lady, and Ruth being a distraught teenager with scars on her hands, an emptiness in her heart and unimaginable horrors still plaguing her mind, they never got on.

Still seeking to fulfil her dreams, being “intelligent and alert”, Ruth enrolled as a student nurse at St Gabriel’s Home in the seaside town of Westgate-on-Sea, and upon graduation, with a bright career in her sights, Ruth found work at the Santa Claus Children’s Home in Highgate… and life had hope.

And then, as an Austrian exile who had legally entered England, even though she was just a young girl, being unsure whether she was a Nazi sympathiser, Ruth’s newly adopted country had her transferred to the Hutchinson Internment Camp in Douglas; a cold, barren and inescapable prison on the remote Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea; surrounded by bare walls, locked doors and barbed-wire.

Sixth months later, having been deemed “not a threat” by the British Government, Ruth regained her freedom. But with her job gone, her reputation ruined and her life in tatters; with German bombers obliterating every city, Ruth was evacuated from London and (once again) uprooted to the windswept wilds of Elswick in Lancashire, where she knew no-one. And still, her life would only get worse.

Half a year of enforced captivity had taken its toll; and where-as once this sweet, polite and joyous girl had been replaced by a fiery moody mess with tatty clothes, sullen eyes and unwashed skin; looking like a ragged orphan - which she knew she most likely was - Ruth had become trapped in a mental fog.

With a doctor diagnosing her as “severely depressed”, although the capital wasn’t safe, for the sake of her mental wellbeing, Ruth moved back to familiarity of London.

London was a city in ruins. After eight months of sustained aerial bombardment, as a wave-after-wave of bombers rained down death from the sky, the deep ominous drone of their engines untraceable amidst the thick clouds of black smoke. And although The Blitz was over, having failed to pummel the proud populous into submission, with the Luftwaffe being unrelenting, the bombings continued.

An estimated forty-three thousand civilians would die during the air-raids, as with a daily risk of being killed by an incendiary bomb, a doodlebug or a V1 rocket, to many Londoners, death was a part of life.

Houses would vanish overnight, sometimes terraces and even whole streets.

And with its occupants being obliterated by blast-waves or incinerated by fire, the only evidence that a family ever existed, was when the Special Constables (a merge of my voice and Christie’s) “pulled bodies from the debris; sometimes alive, sometimes dead, sometimes whole, injured or disfigured, and yet sometimes all that was left was a foot, a hand or a head. Nasty business it was”.

(Christie’s whisper) “But in war-time, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to simply vanish”. (End)

Being eager to rebuild a small semblance of life and feeling like she was slowly becoming a Londoner, with the war being really just a bit of an inconvenience to her routine – as soot stained her skin, dust clogged her lungs and as she’d munch some bread, only to hear a crunch as she’d bit into grit – having endured rationing, blackouts and the limitations of her refugee status, Ruth ploughed on, hoping to truly make something of herself and (God rest them) her parents proud.

In December 1941; whilst living in a small but pleasant lodging at 141 Elgin Crescent in Maida Vale, studying for her return to nursing and working as waitress at the exclusive May Fair Hotel in Stratton Street, W1, just shy of Piccadilly Circus; although she was a shy girl who struggled to make friends, Ruth met and fell in love with a Greek Cypriot waiter called Anastasio Isiedoran.

A few months later; being rosier about the cheeks, fuller round the hips and with a noticeable bump, Ruth discovered that she was about to become a mum. And with the little miracle of a baby girl blossoming in her belly, having prayed nightly to the Lord and him (finally) hearing her cries, he blessed her with one more miracle; Friederike and Ludwig Fuerst - her mother and father - weren’t dead.

Having fled the horrors of the Nazi regime and boarded a boat; her parents were alive, well and living in the safety of East 57th Street in New York City, where – they hoped – Ruth would join them.

But being heavily pregnant, desperately broke and very recently single, in her state, Ruth knew that she couldn’t… (Christie’s whisper)…”and – as fate would have it - she wouldn’t”.

As a young girl with weak legs, bad blood, poor teeth and frequent bouts of depression, life was hard. As an unskilled and partially-educated female in the nineteen-forties, life was harder. As a war-time refugee of Austrian-Jewish heritage living in London, life was even harder. But also being an unmarried expectant mother of no fixed abode; with no job, money or immediate family, life was impossible.

So, on 9th October 1942, in the West End Lane ‘Home for Unmarried Mothers’ in Hampstead; being alone, scared and desperate, Ruth gave birth to a baby girl, who she named Christina… moments later, her baby was taken away. She never saw her again.

From the end of 1942 to the middle 1943, having moved from job-to-job, lodging-to-lodging, leaving a trail of unpaid bills, as slowly she sunk back into depression, Ruth’s life returned to chaos.

On 25th May 1943, Friederike received the last letter Ruth would ever write. Albeit brief (with all of the war-sensitive details deleted by national censor), in it, she stated she was working the night-shift in a local munitions factory, and reassured her mother that she was fine, well and she sent her love.

On 29th June 1943, Ruth quit her job as a machinist at John Bolding & Sons of 56-58 Davies Street, W1, a munitions factory at the back of Bond Street station. And although she was always tired, tardy and sickly, barely working twenty hours of her forty hour week, her co-workers believed she was pregnant.

On Saturday 21st August 1943, at a little after lunchtime, Ruth was seen by her landlady - Julie Teresa Walker – leaving her flat at 41 Oxford Gardens as she walked one road south towards Ladbroke Grove tube station wearing a distinctive fake leopard-skin coat.

That was the last confirmed sighting of Ruth Fuerst.

Believing she’d absconded without paying her rent, her landlady reported her missing ten days later. As one of many of missing refugees, her details appeared in the Police Gazette two weeks after that, but nobody searched for her. And as one of thousands of innocent civilians killed during the aerial bombardment, the mystery surrounding her death wouldn’t be investigated until a decade later.

(Christie’s whisper) “She were Austrian I believe, a nice girl, plain but sad-looking… but in war-time, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to simply vanish”. (End)

After this moment, only one person witnessed her alive; a Special Constable working out of the Harrow Road police station who’d been commended twice by the Police Commissioner and as a local man – who was moral, teetotal and charitable - was widely regarded as an upstanding pillar of society, a happily married man and a decorated war-hero. The Special Constable’s name was John Reginald Halliday Christie, known as Mr Christie, but (Christie’s whisper) “I prefer it if you call me Reg”.

It was Saturday lunchtime. As per usual, although small and snug, David Griffin’s Refreshment Room at 110a Ladbroke Grove was busy, as throngs of famished regulars glugged tea, nibbled toast and tucked into hearty British fry-ups, which – like the walls – oozed with a thick slather of pig fat.

In the corner, Ruth and Reg sat side-by-side, as they had done several times before. Ruth found it difficult to make friends, but with Reg being so approachable, kind and caring, even though he and his wife (Ethel) had no children of their own, the word which best described him was fatherly.

As a slightly built man, twice her age but the same weight and height as Ruth, Reg seemed a harmless sort. And being almost totally bald (except for a thin crown of brown hair above his ears), wearing thick-lensed horn-rimmed spectacles (which magnified his soft brown eyes), a set of false teeth (which being too big sometimes slipped as he spoke) and talking in a barely audible whisper – having been injured in a mustard gas attack whilst bravely serving his country during The Great War – although he looked a little odd, she could see that Reg was a sweet and caring man who wouldn’t harm a fly.

Ruth and Reg sat together, him having bought her a tea and toast, as he listened to her woes. His hand tenderly touching hers, but it wasn’t hard and coarse, but a little bit limp and damp.

(Christie’s whisper) “Got herself in a dreadful mess she had, awful” (End). Being ten days away from failing to pay her rent, once again, Ruth risked eviction. Being unemployed, she couldn’t afford a check-up on her weak legs, her bad blood, her chronic teeth or the new baby which was (possibly) on the way. And as a deeply moral man who “never used prostitutes myself”, during war-time he’d often turn a blind-eye to good women who’d fallen on hard-times and struggled to make ends meet.

(Christie’s whisper) “…so I gave her a few shillings – you know - to help her along. That’s all. It seemed like the right thing to do”. (End) Or so he said. And yet, the Police could find no-one in David Griffin’s Refreshment Room who remembers seeing either Reg or Ruth that day.

Having visited his home twice before and kept this Special Constable company on his beat, on Tuesday 24th August 1943, Ruth entered Rillington Place; a grey featureless dead-end lined with ten three-storey Victorian terraced houses on both sides, with no trees, plants or front gardens, and – like it was cutting the street dead in its tracks - a ten-foot high brick wall behind which tube trains thundered by.

Keen to collect those ten shillings, Ruth knocked on the black wooden door of 10 Rillington Place.
First to greet her was Judy, Reg’s over-excitable brown mongrel who widdled a little when stroked, but once again, there was no sign of his wife Ethel, who was up north visiting her family in Halifax.
The hallway was thin, drab and dark; to the left was a set of stairs which led up to other tenant’s flats, and to the right was the ground-floor flat which belonged to the Christie’s; with a front-room, a bedroom and a kitchen, with a neat little garden and a communal wash-house and lavatory outback. So with tea brewing on the hob, Reg ushered Ruth along the thin hallway into the kitchen.

Oddly, none of the residents in Rillington Place remember seeing either Reg or Ruth that day.

Having no central heating, limited electricity and illuminated by Victorian gas-lights which bathed the pokey kitchen in a flickering yellowy glow, as Reg perched awkwardly in front of the alcove on a small round stool, Ruth leaned back in his one good seat. By “good”, it was really just a wooden deck-chair draped in a grey blanket and held together by (what should have been) six lengths of rope, but as she sat there, supping a nice cuppa and getting toasty in front of the wood-burning range. Ruth was cosy.

For a while they chatted, as the older man imparted his wisdom, knowledge and fatherly advice to the inexperienced girl, keen to help her out of her difficult situation; with her rent due, bad teeth and (possibly) another baby in her belly. But it was as she stared into his soft brown eyes; longing for love and missing a man’s touch, that – being overcome with lust – Ruth started to undress.

(Christie’s whisper) “She were madly in love with me” (End). Christie was a happily married man, for twenty-three years, he didn’t do this sort of thing and was quite shy to boot, but as she slowly undid the buttons on her fake leopard-skin coat, revealing a young slim body with a full heaving bust, being a woman with strong sexual urges, Ruth led Reg into his bedroom.

(Christie’s whisper) “She were completely naked, lying on my bed, wanting me to have intercourse with her” (End). And as much as Reg reminded her he was married (Christie’s whisper) “she wanted us three to team up, to go away somewhere together. I wouldn’t do that” (End). But not wishing to offend her, (Christie’s whisper) “I got on the bed and had sex with her”.

Of the many statements he gave, all are inconsistent; sometimes he’d be pedantic about the smallest and most insignificant of details (“no it definitely wasn’t that”) and yet, he’d be impossibly vague about whole events (“I can’t be certain, it were a while ago, you know?”). But when asked where, when, how and why he murdered Ruth Fuerst, he would simply state (“I don’t recall”). Except to say: (Christie’s whisper) “it were while I was having intercourse with her, I strangled her with a piece of rope”.

As the full weight of Reg’s naked spindly body bared-down upon her, his putty-white legs pressed tightly around her skinny thighs, trapping her legs; as Ruth’s arms flailed wildly - being gripped in panic, fear and unable to breath, let alone scream - the more her trembling hands grasped at the taut rope which slowly crushed her throat, the tighter he pulled it.

As her soft youthful skin turned a mottled shade of puce as the blood vessels in her face swelled and ruptured. As the tightening ligature forced her tongue to jut-out of her mouth like it was trying to escape from her silently screaming face. As being in uncontrollable terror, her shaking body expelled its last splash of urine and faeces. And as the capillaries in the whites of her eyes began to burst so they appeared almost black, the last thing that Ruth saw - wasn’t the sweet smile of her baby daughter, the peaceful fields of her hometown of Bad Voslau, or Ludwig & Friederike Fuerst, her beloved parents – but the terrifying grimace of Reg Christie; the father-figure she liked, trusted and (he thought) loved, as in his hands he gripped both ends of the straining rope, until her life drained away.

There she lay, dead. (Christie’s whisper) “She looked more beautiful in death than in life… I remember I gazed down at the still form of my first victim and experienced a strange peaceful thrill”.

But his thrill was to be short-lived. (Loud knock at door)

Receiving a telegram that his wife would be home that evening, Reg dragged the naked corpse from the bedroom, along the communal hallway and into his front room, and under a large rug, where (with a few floorboards loose after a plumber had repaired a leaky pipe) he hid Ruth’s body.
Ethel arrived home that night and – with fresh sheets on the bed, her brother (Henry) fast asleep just a few feet away, Reg having burned the clothes in a dustbin and buried the body by the back-garden – she was none-the-wiser; of the sex, the death, the body, or her husband, the murderer.

There were four other tenants at 10 Rillington Place that day, but none of them heard a sound. And although, John Reginald Halliday Christie made several vague statements; when asked in court “Mr Christie, was this the first person you had killed”? He would reply (Christie) “I think so, I don’t recall”.

21 year old Ruth Margarete Christina Fuerst was just a girl with weak legs, bad blood and painful teeth, who (somehow) had escaped persecution, anti-Semitism and her extermination in a concentration camp at the hand of the Nazis. She had endured hardship, poverty, hunger, bombings, imprisonment, abandonment and the loss of her family, her home, her baby and – finally - her life.

But being listed only as missing, not dead and certainly not murdered, Ruth Fuerst would become just one of thousands of innocent civilians believed to have been killed in the war-time bombing raids.

(Christie’s whisper) “She were Austrian I believe, a nice girl, plain but sad-looking… but in war-time, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to simply vanish”. (End)

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

If you enjoyed part one, part two of The Other Side of 10 Rillington Place continues next Thursday. And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for more goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Unresolved and Dark Histories. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, who are literally saving my life by financially keeping Murder Mile afloat with their generous donations, which I definitely don’t spend on cake. This week’s heroes are Alex Stone and Harriet Oliver. May your world be full of Belgian buns, battenbergs and fondant fancies. For me? That’s as good as heaven.

Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with a special voice cameo by Police Constable Arsenal Guinness and with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (Interstitials)
  
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)
  

• As Below by Cult With No name (main theme)
  
• Man in a Bag by Cult With No Name (interstitials)
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (credits)
• The Scent of Cedars by Phillip Weigl
• EXillFE by Ars Sonor
• Inner Mental Cage by Controlled Insanity
• NirvanaVEVO by Chris Zabriski
• Western Shores by Phillip Weigl
• Mercy by Kai Engel
• Day I by Swelling
• Serenity by Parvez Decree
• Rise by Meyden
• Periculum by Kai Engel

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

• Neville Chamberlain speech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtJ_zbz1NyY
  
• Hitler Nuremberg Speech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjhLhHGUbc
• Hitler Zeig Heil - https://freesound.org/people/craigsmith/sounds/438436/
• Tube train approaching - https://freesound.org/people/Cooledit/sounds/440454/
• Tube train (Aldgate) - https://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/124693/
• Tube trains passing - https://freesound.org/people/arnaud%20coutancier/sounds/349842/
• Train Moor Street Station – https://freesound.org/people/keithpeter/sounds/125211/
• Shanghai Siren – https://freesound.org/people/RTB45/sounds/179606/
• Spitfire Flyby – https://freesound.org/people/Fight2FlyPhoto/sounds/142901/
• Air-raid Soundscape - https://freesound.org/people/CGEffex/sounds/93843/

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.

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

Thank you for downloading episode forty-seven of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. This is the second and final part of Who Killed Freddie Mills, so – if you haven’t - listen to episode forty-six first. But before we begin, please take a moment to listen to this important message.

(Christmas music): Ho-ho-ho, it’s not quite almost sort-of Christmas-ish, ho-ho-ho; a festive time of wildly confusing Pagan and Christian rituals, but mostly it’s about gorging on food, family arguments, watching a Bond film and spending lots of money. Ho-ho-ho. So if your house is like this…

Son: “Daddy, for Christmas, I want a Murder Mile mug”, Dad: “Oh really. And have you tidied your bedroom? No? Well, go and f**king tidy it then!”, boy cries. Wife: “Honey, for Christmas, what I really want is…” (dad whispering “please say a divorce, please say a divorce”) “…a Murder Mile card with badges and stickers”, Dad: “Ah shit”. Granny: “Son, what I want was … (dad whispering “please say it, please say it”)… a lovely one-way trip to Switzerland…”, Dad: “Yes! Hallelujah”, “…but first I want a voice cameo in a Murder Mile episode”, Dad: “you got it granny”.

…why not treat your loved ones to a Murder Mile eBook (me “it’s a good distraction as you bash them over the head”), gift vouchers to a Murder Mile Walk (me “if they’re really obnoxious, I’ll bump them off for you”), a Murder Mile ring-tone (me “if you’ve forgotten where you’ve buried the body, just call”) and a whole episode dedicated to them (me “think of it as an early obituary”). And by “loved ones”, I really mean “yourself”. Sod the family, they’re all an ungrateful bunch of bastards. Ho-ho-ho.

Legal disclaimer) Murder Mile in no way endorses the brutal death of family members, unless that murder is committed in or near Soho; that it’s grisly, shocking and amusing, and you give me exclusive rights to all of the photos, interviews and murder weapons so I can make an episode out of it.

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 London’s West End.

Today’s episode is part two about the mysterious death of Freddie Mills; was it a suicide, or a murder, involving debts, threats, depression, a bungled investigation, a secret sexuality, or was he a sadistic serial killer with a guilty conscience?

Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatisation of the real events, it may also features loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 47: Who killed Freddie Mills? Part Two

In the early hours of Sunday 25th July 1965, in the darkest corner of Goslett Yard, an eerily silent dead-end just off Charing Cross Road, Freddie Mills (the champion boxer, wholesome celebrity and beloved family man) was found dead. There were no gunshots heard, no fingerprints found, no threats on his life, no witnesses, no suspects, and exactly how, when and why he was shot is unknown.

The crime-scene was simple: Freddie had sat alone, in the left rear seat of his own silver Citreon DS19, for one and a half hours, to sleep-off a raging headache and the alcohol he had consumed. Its engine was off, its lights were out, the rear windows were open and the car was in complete darkness. And having suffered from insomnia, depression and being crippled by escalating debts, using a .22 calibre rifle, Freddie shot himself in the head. The gun was found in his car, the bullets matched the gun and with the Coroner ruling his death as a “suicide”, eight days later the case was closed.

But several elements of the case just didn’t make sense…

According to those who knew and loved him, not only was Freddie a fighter, a winner and champion, who rolled with the punches and always got-up when he was knocked down, but as a loving father and doting husband who was so full of life, fun and joy, who loved his family above everything else, if he did kill himself in a fit of depression, why was there no suicide note?

These are the elements that are in question: if he had been drinking, where was the bottle? If this was Freddie’s car, why was he sat in the left rear seat? If this was the gun which killed Freddie, where did it come from, who owned it, why was it found neatly propped against the seat in-front, and why was he shot using a fairground rifle? If he had shot himself, why was he still sitting upright with both hands flat on his lap, and why had he been shot in his right eye? And – more bafflingly – why did the Police delay investigating the crime-scene for several hours, and why was the body of Freddie Mills (and the rifle itself) removed before the Police had even arrived?

After his death, several theories started circulating suggesting that Freddie had a dark-side. Five deep secrets that (for many years) he had kept hidden from his friends, family and his legion of fans, which linked him to debts, gangsters, police corruption, a secret life as a bisexual and a sadistic past as the depraved slayer of eight women in West London, known as The Hammersmith Stripper.

What makes each theory stick is the fact that they are all plausible, so let’s look at them a little closer:

Theory One: Freddie Mills was murdered by Chinese gangsters who were trying to take over his club.

It’s true; Freddie was the co-owner of a Soho nightclub with his Chinese business partner – Andy Ho; two years prior the Freddie Mills Nitespot had been a Chinese restaurant, which was situated just one street away from Chinatown, an area ruled by the Triads, who (during that era) were rapidly expanding their criminal empire through extortion, blackmail and murder.

But with no threats on Freddie’s life, no known association with the Triads and no evidence that the actor, chef and the club’s co-owner Andy Ho (who was Freddie’s friend and business partner for more than two decades) was himself a Triad? If this was a murder used to force an unwilling businessman to part with his club; why didn’t they kill Andy Ho, why didn’t they kill Chrissie (who was also a co-owner) and why would they make - this incredibly powerful message - look like a suicide?

Theory Two: Freddie Mills committed suicide over the death of his gay lover.

It’s true; Freddie was distraught at the death of his close friend Michael Holliday, a popular singer with chart hits in the 1950’s and 60’s. And being a fragile man with drug issues, a history of mental illness and a secret sexuality, on the 29th October 1963 - having headlined at the Freddie Mills Nitespot (a cabaret situated in Soho - the homosexual capital of the West End) - Michael Holliday tragically overdosed, just two years before the mysterious death of Freddie.

But were Freddie and Michael gay lovers? No. Freddie was a big-hearted happily-married man, who loved and cared for everyone, who feared for his friend’s mental health and had tried and failed to prevent Michael’s suicide. And although the press tried to paint Freddie as a secret homosexual who – they claimed – had been arrested in a public lavatory and charged with indecency (a charge for which there is no evidence); Ronnie Kray, the openly bisexual East End gangster who knew Freddie and dated Michael Holliday, stated before he died “Freddie was a real man's man, he wasn't that way inclined”.

Theory Three: Freddie Mills was either murdered by, or his suicide was staged by the Kray twins.
It’s true; Freddie Mills knew the infamous East End gangsters Ronnie & Reggie Kray; who had a history of violence, regularly frequented his club, both had access to guns, were in London at the time of his death, and in the following years, both Ronnie & Reggie Kray were convicted of murder.

So did the Kray twins murder Freddie Mills? No. Of course they didn’t. Not only was every club in 1960’s Soho frequented by gangsters, and not only was Freddie not a threat to them, but as ex-boxers themselves, Ronnie & Reggie Kray were in awe of Freddie and considered it an honour to drink and chat with the former light-heavyweight champion of the world; a man they called their “friend”.

Two years after Freddie’s death, when his wife Chrissie asked Detective Chief Superintendent Leonard 'Nipper' Read - the man who made it his mission to bring down the Kray twins – to re-examine the case, even he had to reluctantly state that there was no evidence that the Krays were ever involved.

And besides, the idea that Freddie’s death was either a murder or a staged suicide, simply doesn’t make any sense. As why would Freddie pay someone to stage his suicide or murder? And even if they did, why would they shoot him in the eye, using a fairground rifle, and not leave a suicide note?

And yet, if you still truly believe that Freddie was murdered, by being shot, in the eye, with a fairground rifle? Ask yourself this; why would a hired assassin choose to commit a murder using fake bullets? Yes, fake bullets, which weren’t made of lead, they were made of clinker; a stony residue made from burnt coal which is designed to fragment when it hits a wooden target, just like it would, at a fun-fair.

Theory Four: the Police (deliberately) bungled the investigation into the death of Freddie Mills.

It’s true; the Police delayed a full examination of Goslett Yard for several hours and the body of Freddie Mills (and the rifle itself) was removed from the crime scene before the Police had even arrived… but the investigation wasn’t bungled.

When (the ambulance drivers) Leslie Rowe & Thomas Spalding arrived at 1:39am, the alley was so dark they had to use torches, as did the Police, who preserved the scene by sealing off the street and didn’t conduct a thorough examination of Goslett Yard or the car until after sunrise at 4:31am.

And why was Freddie’s body removed from the scene? Simple, because he wasn’t dead.

Having been shot sometime prior to 11:45pm, although Freddie was motionless, unresponsive and bleeding, having detected very faint signs of life, Rowe & Spalding (the ambulance drivers) transferred Freddie to Middlesex Hospital and they took charge of the rifle so the doctor could determine what type of gun and bullet his patient had been shot with - all of which was standard practice for a suicide.

And Theory Five: Freddie Mills was an infamous serial-killer known as The Hammersmith Stripper.
It’s true; between 1959 and 1965, in West London, eight young prostitutes were strangled by a serial sexual sadist who dumped their naked bodies in or around the River Thames, and according to Chief Superintendent John Du Rose (who headed-up the investigation) his prime suspect was a “respectable married man and an ex-boxer, in his forties, who had committed suicide in mid-1965”.

Even Michael Litchfield, reporter for tabloid newspaper The Sun confirmed that Mills had met with John Du Rose, a fellow freemason at the West End’s masonic lodge, and Freddie had confessed to the murders in return for a reduced sentence - a devastating confession which Du Rose secretly recorded.

So was Freddie Mills (the world champion boxer, the beloved film star and devout family man) secretly the brutal slayer of eight prostitutes in the 1960’s, who was known as the Hammersmith Stripper? No. Of course he wasn’t. This theory, like all of those we’ve just discussed, is complete and utter dog-shit. And here’s why:

Freddie was not a sexual sadist with a hatred for women; he was never cruel, mean or spiteful; he was a good man with a big heart, who (above everything else) loved his family.

Freddie had no criminal record; not one charge for assault, indecency, soliciting, harassment, peeping, prowling or public lewdness, all of which you would expect from a serial sexual sadist.

Of the seven thousand men who were interviewed by the Police in connection with the Hammersmith Stripper, whose cars were seen curb-crawling in the area, a silver Citreon DS19 with the licence plate DLR610 does not appear in the Police database, and Freddie Mills was never questioned.

Freddie doesn’t match the Identikit image of the Police’s primary suspect, who was a short, slim, elfin-faced youth with a long straight nose, beady little eyes and sticky-out ears.

And even if you exclude the fact that Chief Superintendent John Du Rose confirmed that Freddie Mills was never a suspect, at any point, in any part of the investigation into the Hammersmith Stripper? This taped confession which Michael Litchfield claims exists… has never been seen, has never been heard, and even in John Du Rose’s own autobiography, it is never once mentioned or referenced.

So how did this theory begin?

It began with a simple misunderstanding; Chief Superintendent John Du Rose stated that his prime suspect in the investigation was a “respectable married man and an ex-boxer, in his forties, who had committed suicide in mid-1965”. A description which perfectly fits Freddie Mills and his very public death which – across Britain - was front-page news.

Only Du Rose wasn’t talking about Freddie at all, he was talking about Mungo Ireland; a mid-forties, ex-boxer and happily married man who worked as a security guard on the Heron Trading Estate in Acton (an area synonymous with prostitution and where the body of the Hammersmith Stripper’s last victim was found) and having become the Police’s prime suspect in the murders, Mungo Ireland left a note which read "I can't stick it any longer… to save you and the police looking for me I'll be in the garage", where his dead body was found having gassed himself.

So if Freddie Mills wasn’t murdered by the Triads, if his death wasn’t staged by the Kray twins, if the police investigation wasn’t part of a masonic cover-up, and if he wasn’t a sadistic serial killer with a guilty conscience? Was he really just a former boxing idol, a fading film star and a failing businessman, who was wracked with debts and - in a booze-fuelled fit of depression - took his own life? What really happened that night?

To understand Freddie’s death, we have to go back to 1948, when he was at the peak of his success.

On 26th July 1948, Fearless Freddie fought the American boxer Gus Lesnevich in-front of a 46000 strong crowd in West London’s White City stadium. And although Freddie wasn’t a skilled fighter; with a dogged mix of pressure, persistence and an uncanny ability to take a pounding, as Lesnevich launched a brutal attack in the 12th and 13th rounds, Freddie went the distance and won on points, to become the world light-heavyweight champion, a national hero and one of Britain’s greatest boxing idols.

Freddie was at the top of his game, with nowhere to go, but down.

Two months later, Freddie was set to defend his title against Lesnevich, but the fight was cancelled, as having been diagnosed with a misaligned vertebrae at the base of the skull, Freddie was crippled with migraines and dizziness – symptoms which would plague him for the rest of his life.

In November 1948, Freddie beat Johnny Ralph in Johannesburg for the Empire heavyweight title, breaking a metacarpal in his right hand. In June 1949, Freddie fought Bruce Woodcock to retain the British, Empire and European title, but was floored four times and knocked out in the 14th round. And in January 1950, having lost three teeth and with his gums imbedded in his upper jaw, Fearless Freddie lost his world light-heavyweight title to Joey Maxim who knocked him out in the 10th round.

Once month later, Freddie Mills retired from boxing.

Making full use of his celebrity status; being blessed with a cheeky smile, twinkling eyes and a childish sense of fun, Fearless Freddie made the move into television and quickly became a family favourite. But as the fifties made way for the sixties, and his crippling migraines started affecting his memory, his speech and had developed into facial tics, acting work for Freddie Mills had begun to dry up.

Freddie was no dummy, he knew his career as a boxer and an actor was short-lived, so being eager to provide a stable future for his beloved family, Freddie had invested his winnings in several properties and businesses in and around London.

In 1946, four years before his retirement from boxing, Freddie and his friend Andy Ho opened the Freddie Mills’ Chinese Restaurant at 143 Charing Cross Road, where – having wisely used his celebrity status to pull in the punters - it remained as a profitable and popular business for almost twenty years.

And although, in the 1940’s, Chinese restaurants were a rarity, by the 1960’s they were commonplace. So being eager to regain his success, in May 1963, Freddie invested £12000 (which is a quarter of a million pounds today) and converted the premises into a cabaret and nightclub called the Freddie Mills Nitespot, which was instantly a success… for four months… and then it closed.

Faced with tough competition, spiralling overheads and with Freddie’s celebrity status almost non-existent (except amongst 1940’s boxing aficionados like the Kray twins), as the nightclub sunk deeper into debt, Freddie was forced to sell-off his other properties simply to stay afloat, and although, in September 1963, the Freddie Mills Nitespot was up for sale, no-one would buy it.
Being a born fighter with an uncanny ability to take a pounding, Freddie re-opened the Nitepot in August 1964… but again, the club struggled and Freddie was taken to court for non-payment of bills.

And then; being crippled by migraines, dizziness and bedridden with pneumonia, on Friday 23rd July 1965, just two days before his death, at Marylebone Magistrates Court, Freddie (and Andy Ho) were found guilty of keeping an illegal fruit machine and fined £68 each. With his finances laid bare before the court, it was only then that Chrissie (his wife) learned how dire their situation was – that Freddie Mills (the world champion boxer, actor, businessman, devoted father and loyal husband) was broke.

With his cheeky smile and that infamous twinkle in his eye now gone, as he secretly struggled to cope with depression, having been trained (as a boxer) never to show any weakness, Freddie fought on.

And although, never once in Freddie’s life had he ever given up, here he had reached rock-bottom.

On Tuesday 20th July 1965, Freddie drove to the home of 58 year old Mary Gladys Ronaldson, an old friend from his fledgling days as a semi-professional pugilist at Sam McEwan’s Boxing Booth, who was currently working at the nearby Battersea funfair. Under the pretence that he had been hired to open a charity fete in Esher that week and that he wanted to dress as a cowboy, he asked Mary for a gun.

The gun she offered him was an FN self-loading .22 calibre Belgian repeater rifle, the type used to shoot targets at the fun-fair. Mary had no issues loaning him the gun; she knew Freddie, she trusted him and with the unloaded rifle having been removed from the shooting gallery as it was old, faulty and “prone to misfire”, she knew it would be perfect as a prop and harmless as a lethal weapon.

With no other option – unable to confide in his friends, too ashamed to tell his family and knowing that most gangsters are gossips - Freddie accepted her offer and returned on Thursday 22nd July 1965 to collect the rifle. That day, he seemed anxious, stressed and after he had left, although the faulty rifle was unloaded, of the five bullets that her son had left on the mantelpiece… three were missing.

Exactly what happened that night, only Freddie knows, but the most logical theory is this.

On the evening of Saturday 24th July 1965, the night that Freddie was shot; being gripped with depression, a migraine, pneumonia and chronic insomnia, having kissed his beloved wife and daughters goodbye, Freddie hopped into his silver Citreon DS19 and drove to Goslett Yard.

Freddie was a champion, a fighter, a winner; who had achieved greatness and (to many) was an idol, who once had it all, but now it was gone; his fame, his health and his wealth.

Being trained to hide his weakness, Freddie sat alone, in the darkness of his car, a loaded rifle in his hands, barely a few feet from an off-licence, a pub, and the half-empty nightclub which (every second it stayed open) it bled him dry, as with just £387 to his name, within the week, he would be bankrupt. And to the family who he truly adored, with his life insured, Freddie knew he was better off dead.

Freddie was a man torn, as – having returned the gun once before, written no suicide note, and yet he had made plans to compare the cabaret and to meet Chrissie and Don - for almost an hour he sat alone; mulling over his life, with alcohol in his blood, a throbbing pain in his brain and tears in his eyes.

Having test-fired the rifle – and seeing the dense ‘clinker’ almost penetrate the steel base of the passenger’s side door - as the faulty rifle worked fine, and seeing no other way out, closing his eyes tight, Fearless Freddie put the muzzle of the rifle to his forehead.

No-one would see anything, as the car was hidden in a dark dead-end.

No-one would hear anything, as a fairground rifle wouldn’t make a bang, but a muffled pop. (POP)
And with the crime-scene being a chaotic mess of distressed relatives and friends, all concerned for Freddie who wasn’t dead, but dying, it’s clear to see how, where and why the confusion began.

So who moved Freddie and sat him upright with his hands on his lap? Well, before the ambulance men had arrived, four people clearly stated that they had moved Freddie; Robert Deacon the doorman shook him (“Mr Mills, it’s time”), Henry Grant the head-waiter shook and slapped him (“Freddie, wake up”), Chrissie had hugged and cradled him (“Freddie? Freddie?”), his blood staining her blouse, as did his step-son Don. And for at least an hour and a half after he was shot, Freddie wasn’t dead.

So who moved the rifle and where were the fingerprints? Well, according to the Police, as guns are oily, usable fingerprints are only recovered in less than 5% of all cases. And again, in their own witness statements, three people admitted to moving the gun; Leslie Rowe & Thomas Spalding (the ambulance men) and Freddie’s step-son Don who stated “I’m certain I put it back in roughly the same place”.

So why was Freddie shot in the eye? Well, it’s entirely possible that the faulty gun didn’t go off? That he only opened his eyes to wonder why he wasn’t dead, that he only moved the gun from his forehead to see what was wrong, and with the rifle being “prone to misfire”, a light thud may have dislodged the firing pin, accidentally shooting a lethal blast of clinker into his eye and into his brain?

Although, what really happened that night, only Freddie truly knows.

Freddie Mills was a good man; he wasn’t a gangster, a secret homosexual or a serial sexual sadist, he was a devoted family man with a cheeky smile, twinkling eyes and a big heart, who struggled alone, with injury, debts and depression, and – for the final time – lost a brave fight.

And although, a series of shallow self-serving cowards have fabricated a series of scandalous tales and rumours simply to make themselves a name, some cash, or to boost their ratings, Fearless Freddie did not deserve to be treated this way. So let us remember him properly; here’s to Freddie Mills, the world light-heavyweight champion boxer, film star, businessman, loving husband, doting father and legend.

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

Don’t forget to tune in next week for the start of Murder Mile’s huge eight-part series into the untold story of one of Britain’s most terrifying serial killers. Who is it? Find out next week.
And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for more extra goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Obscura and Asian Madness. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, some of whom will get to find out who my new multi-part series is about days before everyone else. Ooh. So thank you to M.J. Maccardini and Hannah Mirza. And to Thomas Wiedemann who donated to save Murder Mile from poverty. Thank you folks, you are truly amazing.

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.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archive.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (theme & Interstitials)
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)
• Merry Christmas by United States Marine Band
• Refocussing by Parvez Decree
• SCidENT (feat The Tidwell Noise Collective) by Ars Sonor
• Particles by Parvez Decree
• No More Suffering by Parvez Decree
• Operation Failed by Cult With No Name
• Night Palette by Peter Rudenko
• Closing by Peter Rudenko
• NEvrAGN by Ars Sonor

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

• Birds & Crows - https://freesound.org/people/Adrianac/sounds/266438/
• Jazz Band Warming Up - https://freesound.org/people/bsumusictech/sounds/82709/
• Car Stop & Start - https://freesound.org/people/ReyDros/sounds/327056/
• Car Stop & Start 2 - https://freesound.org/people/botha9johann/sounds/326052/
• Dogs Barking - https://freesound.org/people/ivolipa/sounds/337101/
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast

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

Thank you for downloading episode forty-six of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. Before we begin, please take a moment to listen to this important message.
“My namesh Schawn Connery, I wash Jamesh Bont, Murder Mile makesh mugsh and mugsh makesh me schmile”. Yes folks, that was the Sean Connery, and he recently visited the Murder Mile eShop to treat himself to a very exclusive Murder Mile mug (“mugsh”), as well as ebooks (“ebooksh”), badges (“badgesh”), stickers (“schtickersh”), ringtones (“ringtonesh”) and even bespoke goodies (“ah balsh to it”), as well as a whole host of other treats that Sean Connery can’t pronounce.

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(Speedy voice) Legal disclaimer: The Murder Mile eShop is not endorsed by any celebrity, of any kind, ever, even the really shit ones, and the voices you heard were piss-poor impersonations done by me, with no rehearsal or thought, and if you believe they were real, you’re an idiot.

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 London’s West End.

Today’s episode is about the death of Freddie Mills; a boxer, a celebrity and a businessman, whose untimely death in a Soho alley is shrouded in so much mystery, that parts of it have become myth.

Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatisation of the real events, it may also features loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 46: Who killed Freddie Mills? Part One

Today I’m standing in Goslett Yard; a dark, drab and gloomy dead-end street, secreted off the choking fumes of Charing Cross Road, and just a stone’s throw away from the Lyon’s Corner House tearoom where deluded dreamer Jacques Tratsart gunned-down his siblings, Denmark Place where one of Britain’s worst mass-murders occurred, and the former Meax & Co Brewery where eight people drowned in a tidal wave of one and a half million gallons of beer – coming soon to Murder Mile.

Being barely 80 feet long by 16 feet wide, but going nowhere, Goslett Yard truly no purpose; as with no houses, no shops, no cars and no people, only a backdoor to Starbucks, the bins for Borderline, a sea of swirling litter and several steamy lumps of doggy dumps, it’s almost as if Goslett Yard was made by mistake. Even the now-defunct pub called The Royal George (literally built in the middle of the street) looks like it was delivered it to the wrong address, and the postman thought “ah sod it”.  

Formerly, on the right-hand side of Goslett Yard was the former Cross & Blackwell warehouse, which loomed six-storeys high, as half a block of dark and imposing Gothic architecture left the yard in eternal shadow. And what was once merely a quiet place to park-up at the back of Freddie Mills Nitespot, has now been bulldozed and reduced to rubble, with the only sound being the drone of diggers, the tremble of trucks and the eternal grunt, fart and belch as six workmen stand around staring as one man digs a hole, with fags in their gobs, bacon sarnies on the go and one hand scratching their butt-cheeks, before they all take another well-earned tea-break - a job well done.  

And yet, it was here, on Sunday 25th July 1965, in the ominous quiet of Goslett Yard, that (boxer, actor and celebrity club owner) Freddie Mills either committed suicide… or was murdered? (Interstitial)

So who was Freddie Mills?

Frederick Percival Mills - known by everyone who loved him as Freddie – was born on 26th June 1919, as the youngest of four children to two doting parents, Thomas James Mills and Lottie Hilda Gray. As a working-class family living under the shadow of the First World War, life could have been rough, but being instilled with a solid work ethic by his scrap-dealer father, a sense of pride by house-wife mother, a love of play by his adoring siblings, and all within the fresh air of Bournemouth, a small seaside town on the English south coast, Freddie’s life was good, and at the centre of it all – always - was his family.

Gifted his first set of boxing gloves aged eleven, Freddie quickly fell in love with the sport and with his family’s encouragement and full support to fulfil his dreams, he’d regularly spar with his older brother Charlie (already a semi-professional boxer) and – whilst earning his keep as a milkman’s assistant – he was trained by the brother and boxing partner of Welsh former lightweight champion Gordon Cook.

Freddie was a good boy with a big heart, a beaming smile, a loving family and a passion for boxing. But don’t think that this is going to be a story about a poor kid raised in a slum, who used his fists to fight through the mean streets of gangs, drugs, guns and (ultimately) his death… because it isn’t.

By the tender age of sixteen, Freddie had gone professional, and having honed his skills as part of Sam McEwan’s Boxing Booth; a fairground attraction where local men could fight professional pugilists, here he learned not only how to fight, but also how to win the hearts and minds of the crowd, as Freddie became both a professional boxer and a talented showman.

Between 1936 and 1939; although he was a middleweight boxer, Freddie fought middle, light-heavy and heavyweight boxers, and across sixty-four professional fights; he drew seven, lost nine and won forty-eight, three he won by a knockout. And although he wasn’t a very skilled fighter, with a dogged mix of pressure, persistence and an uncanny ability to take a pounding, so beloved had he become among boxers, promoters and crowds, that he was blessed with the nickname of “Fearless Freddie”.

In 1939, he was the Western Area champion. In 1940, he beat the Eastern Area champion. Having enlisted in the Royal Air Force as a physical training instructor, to serve his country during World War Two; in 1942 Freddie won the British and Empire light-heavyweight titles, beating the reigning champion Jock McAvoy on points and knocking Len Harvey (dubbed the “Prince of Boxers”) right out of the ring. By 1948, at the age of 29, Fearless Freddie became the world light-heavyweight champion, a national hero and was one of Britain’s greatest boxing idols in the post-war era.

Freddie was a dedicated athlete, a charismatic entertainer, a winner, a hero and a gentleman. But don’t think that this is going to be a story about a punchy pugilist, whose fall from grace sees him used as a hired goon for an East End gangster, whose death was to be expected… because it isn’t.

Having wisely retired from boxing at the peak of his success, Freddie Mills was one of the few sporting icons to break into television. And although - with a broken nose - he had a face like a melted matinee idol; being blessed with a cheeky smile, twinkling eyes and a childish sense of fun, Freddie became a family favourite, presenting the music show Six-Five Special, being a quiz show panellist on What’s My Line and appearing in several British films such as Carry-On Constable and Carry-On Regardless.

Freddie Mills was a loveable character, a charming personality, a trusted celebrity, and he absolutely loved it. But don’t think that this is going to be a story about a famous face who smiled for the cameras, and yet, deep down, he had a dark and twisted side… because it isn’t.

Freddie was a boxer, an actor and a businessman, but – first and foremost - he was a faithful husband and a doting father. As having married Christine Marie (also known as “Chrissie”) on 30th September 1948; not only did Freddie become the proud dad of two daughters – Susan and Amanda – but he also raised Chrissie’s son Don (from a previous marriage) as his own, and all of whom he adored. For Freddie, life was perfect. And there was nothing he loved more than his family.

And yet, at a little after 1am, on Sunday 25th July 1965, in the backseat of his silver Citreon DS19, with a single bullet wound to the head, forty-six year old Freddie was found dead. (Interstitial)

But how and why?

The afternoon of Saturday 24th July 1965 was sunny and bright, as under a cloudless sky, Freddie stood in his back garden, skimming the leaves off his swimming pool and smiling with delight as his beloved daughters – Susan (aged 13) and Amanda (aged 7) – played and giggled in the garden.

He’d made a good life for his family; they were healthy, happy and wholesome; living harmoniously in a newly built two-storey detached house at 186 Denmark Hill, in a middle-class part of Brixton, South London. And as he soaked up the sun’s warmth, dressed in a pair of shorts, as a 46 year old man, he was still in good shape, and unlike many ex-boxers, he’d still got his health, his life and a livelihood.

At 4pm, having struggled to sleep properly for several weeks - being burdened by the usual worries of a businessman, still recovering from a bout of pneumonia and with his sleep-pattern having gone-to-pot since he’d opened his own Soho nightclub called Freddie Mills’ Nitespot just two years earlier - whilst Chrissie and the girls went out shopping, Freddie popped upstairs for a mid-afternoon nap.

By 7:30pm, having barely slept a wink, as an all-consuming headache he’d had (on and off) since 1948 raged in his brain, Freddie slugged back a cup of coffee, as he snugged on the sofa with his girls, giggling at the loony antics on The Morecambe & Wise Show. And as much as Chrissie pleaded with him to take the night off, he couldn’t, as being a film star, a boxing idol and a showman with a solid work ethic, Freddie had a club to run, a family to provide for and a legion of fans he would never disappoint.

At 9:40pm, as per usual; being dressed in a smart dark suit, a crisp white shirt, black polished shoes and a stylish chequered tie, Freddie kissed his girls goodbye, having made plans to meet Chrissie and his 26 year old step-son Don at the club, at around 1am, and hopped into his silver Citreon DS19.

The journey from his home at 186 Denmark Hill to his club at 143 Charing Cross Road, in Saturday night traffic, took forty-five minutes, and he arrived at roughly 10:30pm, having taken no detours.

And although, he would usually park-up outside of his club on Charing Cross Road, his car being keenly watched by Robert Deacon the doorman, that night, with his head furiously thumping, Freddie pulled off the bright lights of the busy city street, as he crept his car into the silent darkness of Goslett Yard, which he had done many times before.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

With co-owner of the club Andy Ho not arriving until 11:15pm, and Freddie being less of a manager and more of a famous figurehead, whose role was to compare the cabaret, shake hands with the fans and pose for photos, Freddie knew he wouldn’t be needed until midnight. So, suffering from a blinding headache and having asked the doorman to wake him in an hour, with his car secreted in an unlit, secluded but peaceful passage, Goslett Yard was the perfect place for a little nap.

As instructed, at 11:45pm, with the cabaret band tuning-up, Robert Deacon sauntered down Charing Cross Road and turned right into Goslett Yard, ready to wake Freddie.

With structures on all sides; a row of brown-bricked work-sheds to the left, two black-fronted garages ahead and the tall white rear of a vague office space to the right, as the night had almost no moon, and with a single street-lamp too far away, the eerily silent dead-end was plunged into blackness.

At the end, diagonally parked, with its bonnet facing the far-right corner and its boot to the street; with its engine off, lights out and being barely visible amidst the gloom was Freddie’s silver Citreon.

Being only three weeks into his job as the club’s doorman, 23 year old Robert Deacon approached the car cautiously, as although Freddie was a real gent; with him feeling unwell, being the boss and having had a few drinks to pacify his pounding head, he knew it wasn’t his place to be too pushy.  

As Robert’s feet clomped along the cobblestones, he sidled up to the passenger’s side of dark-lit silver Citreon and saw the unmistakable stocky silhouette of Freddie; sitting bolt upright, with both hands flat on his lap and his head slumped slightly forward. And yet, oddly, he wasn’t sat in the driver’s seat, but in the back behind the passenger’s seat, totally still and ominously silent.

Eager to wake his boss, with the rear window open, Robert called out “Mr Mills” as his knuckles rapped on the car door, but Freddie didn’t move. He hollered again, “Mr Mills”, but still there was no reply. Opening the left-rear door, Robert shook the big fella’s thick broad shoulder and barked “Mr Mills, it’s time”, but – unusually for a man with lightening quick reflexes - there was no reaction.

Smelling the booze on his breath, seeing his comatose state and spotting a froth of saliva form around Freddie’s mouth and nostrils, Robert thought nothing more of it, and went back inside the club.

Roughly forty minutes later, with the cabaret delayed and the crowd getting restless, the club’s 47 year old head-waiter Henry Grant entered Goslett Yard. And being familiar with his boss’s occasional need to nap, but his insistence on never missing a performance, Henry vigorously shook the ex-boxer’s left shoulder, shouting “Freddie, wake up”, as with a firm hand, he sharply slapped Freddie’s face.

But Freddie didn’t blink, wince or budge an inch.

Dashing back inside the club, Henry alerted Andy that the boss didn’t look well and tried to telephone Freddie’s wife, but with Chrissie being on-route to the nightclub, she couldn’t be reached.

At a little after 1am, Chrissie and her 26 year old son Don arrived at the club, but there no time to drink or dance, as – with a great sense of urgency - the club’s short and portly co-owner Andy Ho ushered them both outside and took Chrissie’s arm as he frog-marched them both to Goslett Yard, nervously mumbling “I think Mr Mills is very ill and his car is somewhere around the back, I’m told”.

Sidling through the yard’s dark gloom, up to the ominous silence of the silver Citreon, as she saw the familiar silhouette of her seemingly dozing husband, Chrissie gently cooed though the open rear window “Freddie? Freddie?” hoping to wake him, but – as before – he didn’t answer.

Eager to rouse him, Chrissie moved round to the rear driver’s side door and calmly sat on the backseat; a tender arm reached around Freddie’s broad shoulders, as she shook him, cooing “Freddie? Freddie?” but again, he didn’t budge. And although the yard was dark and inside the car was even darker, being seated next to Freddie, at his feet Chrissie spotted a .22 rifle (propped against the seat in front with its muzzle upright) and down his crisp white shirt she saw a slowly spreading pool of blood, which trickled down his cheek from a bullet hole in his right eye.

Clutching Freddie towards her, Chrissie cried “Andy, Freddie has shot himself, call an ambulance” as she held him close, his blood staining her blouse, but already (with help on its way) his face was cold.

The ambulance arrived at 1:39am, but on arrival at Middlesex Hospital, Freddie was pronounced dead.

So, where’s the mystery?

What we’re dealing with here is surely a suicide? A lone businessman suffering from depression and riddled with debts, who has a few drinks to quell his headache, parks his car in a dark secluded dead-end at the rear of his own nightclub, and with a .22 rifle pointed at his head, he shoots himself dead.

There was no sign of a struggle, no screams nor shouts; no suspicious characters were seen, no drugs or poisons were found in his system (just a moderate level of alcohol), only his fingerprints were found, there were no threats on his life and he had no known enemies. Even his own wife was heard to cry out “Freddie has shot himself”. And after a thorough Police investigation, on 2nd August 1965, the coroner recorded this as “death by suicide”, confirming that Freddie Mills had taken his own life.

It all seem simple enough, right? Well, not quite, you see there are elements to this case which don’t make a lot of sense. For example:

No-one saw or heard anything, not even a gun-shot.

No fingerprints were found on the gun, not even Freddie’s.

Unusually for such loving family man, there was no suicide note.

That night, he had made plans to meet his wife Chrissie and his step-son Don at the club, and had expressly asked Robert Deacon the doorman to wake him just prior to midnight, ready for the cabaret.

And finally, Freddie was shot - not in the head or the heart - but in the eye, which (based on his injuries and the lack of powder burns to his lid) suggests that his eye was open at moment he fired the shot.

All of which could easily be explainable, but there are also elements which are not. Such as:

The alcohol: Chrissie confirmed that Freddie had only drank coffee at home, we know he didn’t take a detour on his forty minute drive from his home to the club, nobody at the club served him, no bottle was found in the car, and yet, Freddie’s blood had 37 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres.

The seating position: Freddie had supposedly shot himself in the face, and yet, if he had, why was he sitting in the backseat of his own car, why was he still sitting upright, and why – if he had been holding the rifle, with the muzzle aimed at his head – were both of his hands found flat on his lap?

The timing of his death: Freddie parked in Goslett Yard at 10:30pm, Robert Deacon struggled to wake him at 11:45pm, as does Henry Grant at 12:30am, and Chrissie at a little after 1am. And yet, even though Freddie was clearly in medical need, no-one called for an ambulance for one and a half hours.

The bullet-holes: there were two; one bullet was fired from the rifle into Freddie’s right eye, and the other was fired from inside the silver Citreon into the base of passenger’s side door.

And even stranger is the weapon itself: firstly, if Freddie had shot himself, with the incline of the rifle’s muzzle aimed at his head, having pulled the trigger, surely gravity would cause it to fall towards him? But it didn’t, it fell away, and was found leaning against the driver’s seat in a very neat upright position, almost as if it had been placed there. And secondly; Freddie didn’t own a gun, no-one had ever seen him with a gun, and yet, the gun which ended his life wasn’t your average lethal weapon? It was an FN self-loading .22 calibre Belgian repeater rifle, the kind used to shoot targets at a fun-fair.

And if that’s not strange enough? Answer me this; why did the police not investigate the scene until several hours after the body was found? And why was the body of Freddie Mills (and the rifle) moved from the scene of the crime before the Police had even arrived?

Within eight days, the Police, the pathologist and the coroner had concluded that Freddie Mills had committed suicide, a verdict which his family openly disagreed with, and the case was closed.
But was this a suicide, or was it a murder? The facts just didn’t add up. And as those who knew Freddie started to talk, details started to emerge, and alternative theories began to form.

Was Freddie really just a depressed ex-boxer who was secretly struggling with crippling headaches and depression? Was he a businessman who ended it all over a series of bad debts? Was he a loving family man who made a snap-decision to kill himself, without saying goodbye to those he loved?

Or did Freddie Mills (the charming, fun-loving gentleman) have a secret dark side? Was he in debt to the Mafia? Were the Triads trying to muscle him out of his Soho club? Did he pay the infamous gangsters known the Kray Twins to end his life? Was this married man a secret homosexual who was depressed after the death of his gay lover? Was this all part of a Police cover-up to disguise a bungled investigation? Or was Freddie Mills; the light-heavyweight champion boxer, beloved film star and all-round family man, the sadistic murderer of eight prostitutes whose bodies were left ripped and naked across West London? Was Freddie Mills the infamous maniac known as The Hammersmith Stripper and is this the shameful secret he took to his grave? The only way to know is to find out who killed Freddie Mills?

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

Don’t forget to tune in next week for part two of who killed Freddie Mills? And if you’re a murky miler, stay tuned for more extra goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; which are Out of the Shadows and Dumb and Busted. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, some of whom will get to find out who killed Freddie Mills days before the whole world and who all get free ebooks of the Murder Mile scripts. Ooh. As well as more goodies coming soon. It’s like a veritable murder Christmas. These lucky people are Dena Siegert, Jessica Shannon, Tracy Armstrong, Nina Colliver, Beth Kelley and Olivia Wallis, Thank you ladies, you are all truly amazing.

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.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archives.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (theme & Interstitials)
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)
• I Will Leave You Too by Steve Combs
• Swansong Instrumental by Josh Woodward
• Western Shores by Philip Weigl
• No News by Cult With No Name
• Piano Piece Blue by Cult With No Name (unreleased)
• Untitled by Seclorance

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

• Metal Knocking - https://freesound.org/people/BenjaminNelan/sounds/410362/
• Birds & Crows - https://freesound.org/people/Adrianac/sounds/266438/
  
• Jazz Band Warming Up - https://freesound.org/people/bsumusictech/sounds/82709/
• Car Stop & Start - https://freesound.org/people/ReyDros/sounds/327056/
  
• Car Stop & Start 2 - https://freesound.org/people/botha9johann/sounds/326052/
• Dogs Barking - https://freesound.org/people/ivolipa/sounds/337101/

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile wal

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast.

Thank you for downloading episode forty-five of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast. Before we begin, please take a moment to listen to this important message.

(Copper’s voice) Evening ‘all. My name is Police Constable Arsenal Guinness of the Metropolitan plod. On behalf of Her Majesty the Queen (God bless you Ma’am) and her rather fit granddaughter-in-law, I am here to warn you about the counterfeit episodes of Murder Mile what is knocking about.

Proper episodes of the Murder Mile podcast can be easily spotted, as they contain good editing (music jumps), authentic sounds (fart noise), solid research (types “wiki-ped-dia”), mature content (“willies”), and realistic accents such as Scottish “och eye the noo”, Welsh “there’s lovely” and French “haw-he-haw-he-haw”, and according to the host, each episode is made with love (spurt, urgh) no, not that sort. To ensure what you is listening to is legit, and not bogus or duff, having been smuggled into Dover by being shoved up a Mexican’s poo-pipe, subscribe to Patreon today and get your proper episodes of Murder Mile a full three days early… unless he forgets. (beep beep) Ah shit! Which he does do.

(Speedy voice) Legal disclaimer: This message is not endorsed by the Metropolitan Police force, or any member of the rozzers. The character with the shitty accent is entirely fictional, and bares absolutely no relation to any person I have ever met, and any similarity to any Guinness-drinking Arsenal-loving copper with a Kate or Pippa Middleton fixation is purely coincidental.

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 London’s West End.

Today’s episode is about Camille Gordon; a bubbly student with a beaming smile, a big heart and a bright future, who had no enemies, only friends, and yet someone wanted her dead. But why?

Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatisation of the real events, it may also features loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 45: Who killed Camille Gordon?

Today I’m standing on Archer Street, in Soho; one road south of Brewer Street where George Pickering stabbed Rosa O’Neill to death, five doors down from The White Horse where Larry Winters shot Paddy O’Keefe, and I’m right next door to the top-floor flat where Soho’s most infamous pimp strangled his most valuable sex-worker to death with her own stocking – only available on a Murder Mile Walk.

Bookended by the bland back-end of Shaftesbury Avenue’s Apollo Theatre to the left and the infamous Windmill Theatre to the right, Archer Street is a former Victorian slum. And being a thin one-way street, barely 200 feet long, with strangely vague and oddly anonymous four and five storey buildings on either side, even on the brightest of days, Archer Street is cast in shadow.

Feeling lifeless, joyless and soulless; although Archer Street is situated smack-bang in the middle of Soho’s sex district, in stark contrast, it’s drab, dark and deathly silent; looking like the kind of dirty hovel where trucks unload, waiters smoke, drunks widdle, crack-addicts puke and a certain bald tour-guide points to scenes of grisly death, all of which happen within a few feet of a primary school. Nice.

Today (gasp, shock) Archer Street is being gentrified. And as much as I may lambast those hairy-faced hipsters who dress like a Yeti moonlighting as an Elizabethan chimney sweep, who talk like Danny Dyer quoting Pruste whilst dying of the plague, who’ve uploaded every single second of their miserable little life (even though they have all the personality of an anus) and who’ve over-complicated a simple beverage to such an extent it makes you want to scream “I just want a f**king cup of coffee”, (frothing, then calm) there is one bright spot on this whole street, and that is Gelupo at 7 Archer Street.

A joyous and brightly coloured blue and white tiled Italian ice-cream shop, full of rich soft sumptuous scoops of mouth-wateringly inventive flavours such as tropical Eton Mess, blueberry cheesecake, chocolate earl grey and Pimms and lemonade. Oh yummy. (Sigh).

And yet, beyond the sweet smell of icy treats, 7 Archer Street hides a deadly secret; as it was here, on Monday 1st March 2004, outside of an infamous Soho clip-joint called The Blue Bunny Club, that an innocent woman called Camille Gordon was stabbed to death. (Interstitial)

Why anyone would hate Camille Gordon is a mystery?

Camille loved kids, she adored them, and with her life-long dream to become a nursery school teacher, it was obvious to anyone who met her that it was a job she was perfect for. Being described by those who knew her as “beautiful, inside and out”, Camille was warm, caring and loving; a vivacious girl who was instantly likeable, easily approachable and effortlessly patient, who could illuminate a room with a smile and could make any stranger feel welcome.

And with silky smooth skin, soft gentle features, warm chestnut eyes and brown shoulder length hair, as a pretty girl with a heart of gold, Camille was the kind of person you couldn’t help but gravitate towards. So given her sweet, warm and generous nature, as a nursery school teacher, Camille would have been absolutely perfect. And yet, she ended up dead in the heart of Soho’s red-light district?

Born on the Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1981 and raised in a strong, loving and supportive family, although they struggled financially; Camille had a very normal upbringing. And even though her grades were good, by the turn of the millennium, feeling that the her homeland lacked the opportunities she needed to truly fulfil her dream, with her mother’s blessing, 21 year old Camille waved farewell to the sun-kissed tropics and headed to the bright prospects but miserable drizzle of England.

Described by a close friend as “a little bit naïve”, being a young girl in a strange land, although England was an exciting place, Camille was street-smart, and was not about to take any risks.

Staying with relatives, Camille lived for two years in the industrial city of Birmingham in the West Midlands; studying at Handsworth College by day, and working as a waitress by night, with additional hours as a nursery assistant at weekends. And although she was stuck in the classic student dilemma of either being too poor to eat, too busy to earn or too tired to learn, she remained totally focused on her goal. And so, by the summer of 2003, Camille graduated with a teaching certificate.

With her dream coming true; being eager to start her career, to pay off her student loan and to earn a modest wage (some of which she would send home to support her mother), Camille moved to the bustling city of London. But times were hard, money was tight and with nursery placements being few-and-far between, temp work being badly paid and waitressing only available at unsociable hours, seeking to supplement her meager income with a well-paying part-time job whilst she enrolled in further education, Camille struggled to make-ends-meet.

So, one night, in the bleak winter of 2003, being a pretty girl with a slim figure, a soft voice and a sweet face; dressed in six inch-heels, black stockings and a tight-fitting dress, Camille sashayed up Rupert Street into the dark heart of Soho’s red-light district. Surrounded by a sea of seedy sex-dens which bathed her silky skin in a gaudy neon haze, as Camille tottered along the puke-splattered urine-soaked street, dodging drunks and leering louts, she was enveloped by the pitch black gloom of Archer Street.

As against the dark sinister facade of number 7, in a doorway draped in a purple velvet curtain and under a flashing neon sign which simply read “girls”, Camille stood, as hostess at The Blue Bunny Club, luring horny young men near with a wink, a smile and a come-hither finger, as for just a fiver, she promised them a “good time with a pretty lady”. (Interstitial).

But this is not what you think.

This is not a story about a vulnerable young girl; who being broke, hungry and hard-up, sinks into drink, falls into drugs, is sold by a gang into the Soho sex-trade, and (in a vicious circle of abuse) is murdered simply for disobeying her pimp. Far from it.

This is a story about a bright girl with a big heart, a warm smile and a blossoming dream of becoming a nursery school teacher. And it still is. That was her goal and she was going for it. But she didn’t have a dark side, she wasn’t leading a double-life and she wasn’t starving, desperate or forced. Camille had no criminal record, she rarely drank, she didn’t do drugs and her only debt was a student loan.

And although, being a hostess in a notorious Soho clip-joint was outside of her comfort zone; as a part-time job, the hours were short, the pay was good and – with her role requiring no nudity or sex-acts, of any kind, by strict orders of the management - all she had to do was talk and smile. So as a smart, strong and ambitious young woman, the decision to become a hostess at The Blue Bunny Club was one she had made independently… and yet, just a few months later, someone would want her dead.

But Camille wasn’t unique; with clip-joints and lap-dancing clubs being on the fringes of the sex-trade, both of which are licensed by the local council; with London being the most expensive city in Europe, given a choice between waitressing for a minimum wage, stacking shelves at night, or bar-work whilst being accosted by drunken louts, many hostesses and lap-dancers aren’t trafficked women, but are actually students, nurses and young mums; all busy girls with big dreams looking for quick (and entirely legal) cash, whilst being protected by strict laws, CCTV and a barrage of burly bouncers.

As one lap-dancer said to me, “I only work one night a month; but it pays well, everyone’s very nice and I feel safe, and what I do here (let’s be honest) it’s no different than what I do at hot yoga”.  

And in the same way that outside of almost every club, bar or restaurant in almost every city, the first person you’ll see is a hostess; a beautiful young woman who is instantly likeable, easily approachable and effortlessly patient, and who can make any stranger feel welcome. So being a hostess at The Blue Bunny Club was merely a well-paying part-time job in a role that Camille was perfect for.

By Monday 1st March 2004, Camille had enrolled in further education; her rent was paid, her life was good, she was happy, well and thriving. But that night, a total stranger would be fueled by so much hatred for Camille that he would end her life forever… and yet, they had only just met. But why?

To understand the murder, you have to understand how clip-joints like The Blue Bunny Club operate. And to do that, you’ll need to come with me, on a little walk into Soho. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.

The date is Monday 1st March 2004. It’s 5pm. As you slip out of the rush-hour bustle of Shaftesbury Avenue, you slink onto Rupert Street; a short cobblestoned road strewn with swirling litter, its slight incline stretching up passed a dither of day-time drinkers, a huddle of homeless beggars and a prong of porn-perusing perverts clutching bafflingly indiscreet brown paper bags. But what draws your eye, is that in almost every doorway, on both sides of the street, stand long lines of very pretty girls; all slim, semi-clad and smouldering.

Being young, inexperienced and desperate, a smorgasbord of lovely ladies - who’d usually look right through you - beckon you nearer with sultry smiles and ‘come to bed’ eyes. And with every book-shop, brothel, strip-club, S&M store and porn-theatre screaming the word “sex”, as gaudy neon signs flash with unsubtle subliminal messages like ‘girls’, ‘nude’ and ‘triple X’, sex is why you are here. But as any farmer will tell you, just because you’re in a field of cows, it doesn’t mean you can buy a steak.

And as a nervous young lad; too shy to watch strippers, too timid to be lap-danced and too terrified to bust your cherry in a brothel; with your heart racing, your mouth dry and walking awkwardly as you struggle to stifle a burgeoning boner, not wanting to be noticed, you’re lured into the shadowy gloom of Archer Street and the dark façade of The Blue Bunny Club.

But there’s no need to be scared, it’s not menacing, it’s reassuring. As from the brightly lit doorway, bathed in a pink neon haze (that hints at hidden flesh) and amidst the heart quickening pulse of disco, a stunning young lady with silky smooth skin, soft gentle features and warm chestnut eyes lures you near with a wink, a smile and a come-hither finger. And being the type of girl who could make any stranger feel welcome, everything she says in her soft Jamaican lilt is what you want to hear.

As in a swirl of words like “girls”, “drinks” and “erotic show”, being stood next to a large sign which reads ‘£5 entrance fee’; with security cameras on the ceiling, bouncers on the door and the club’s terms and conditions fixed to the wall, thinking “wow, if she’s the lady they put on reception, imagine the bevvy of beauties that await me inside?”, you hand her your crinkled fiver, and as she slides back the purple velvet curtain leading down into the excitement of the basement, in a voice as warm and reassuring as a nursery school teacher, she says “have fun”, as you descend into The Blue Bunny Club.

With each step, your mind imagines the world within; a paradise for your swollen penis and a nirvana for your aching nads, as amidst a cavernous expanse of naked flesh, stunners sway on swings, pretty ladies slide on phallic poles and bosomy babes frolic together in a champagne fountain, as a sweaty heaving mass of young men, swarmed in a sea of jiggling boobs and butts, lie exhausted like dribbling wrecks, their bodies trashed by a life-changing orgy of carnality and debauchery.

And as you reach the bottom step, your heart racing, your mouth dry and your loins engorged, as you excitedly pull back the plush red curtain of your sexual utopia, the first thing that greets you is… disinfectant, the oddly un-erotic whiff of an anti-bacterial floor cleaner which stings your nostrils.

For a few seconds, as your eyes acclimatize to the dark, you wonder if you’ve stumbled into the broom-cupboard, but slowly, across the small gloomy room, you see a tiny wooden bar, an empty stage and several stained sofas, on which sit a handful of single and rather awkward looking men.

Realising your mistake, as your Adam’s apple bobs and your sphincter tightens, you quickly turn to leave, but behind you a beef-cake bouncer blocks your only exit, and as you nervously utter “it’s a bit quiet”, with an emotionless yet menacing look, the looming lump growls “it’s still early” (which – no matter what the hour - it always is) as the barrel-chested brute ushers you towards the bar.

Needing a stiff drink to steady your nerves, as you sidle up - your shoes struggling to rip free from the un-arousing grip of the sticky lino - you scan the poorly-lit wooden alcove for any tipple which takes your fancy, but with no draft taps, no spirit optics and no branded bottles, you quiz the rather bland-looking barmaid “do you have any beers?” Audibly huffing like she’s unsure how to inflate a balloon, as – for the fiftieth time that hour – her razor sharp talons point to the drinks menu, which has just  three options; soft drinks, low-beer and virgin cocktails, as she barks “we don’t serve alcohol”.

And it’s true, they don’t. Clip-joints don’t have liquor licenses, so legally they can’t sell booze, if they did, they’d be breaking the law. This was scrawled on the club’s Terms & Conditions, by the door, but as your swollen love-trumpet was too busy leading you downstairs, you didn’t bother to read it.

So, as you slump onto a tacky red sofa, mottled with a mishmash of dubious stains (which you deduce are most likely to be Vimto, blackcurrant cordial or Rola Cola), you daintily sup the egg-cup’s worth of watered-down fruit-juice, a steal at just £20. And as the several scared men stare expectantly at the empty stage, as the unused pole gleams brightly, you think “maybe I just missed a show” or perhaps “it’s still early” (which – no matter what the hour - it always is)? But the truth is, clip-joints don’t have an entertainment license, so legally they can’t put on a show, if they did, they’d be breaking the law. 

And as a mildly attractive yet blatantly disinterested lady sits beside you; her face caked in half an inch of make-up to mask her look of disdain, being semi-sexily dressed in black like she’s keen to cop-off with a funeral corpse and being draped in a feather boa (as nothing says sexy like an itchy scarf made of a dead bird’s plumage), as her vague pleasantries clumsily segue into you buying her a drink (which – as an employee – surely she gets for free), suddenly you realise “it’s a con”.

Nothing is going to happen between you and this lady. Nothing. Not a kiss, a hug or a how-do-you-do. This is a clip-joint, they don’t have a sex-establishment license, so even a legally acceptable sex-act like a striptease or a lap-dance cannot take place, if it did, they’d be breaking the law.

Furious that you’ve been duped into blowing £25 to sit alone for several minutes in an empty club swigging fruit cordial, you get up to leave… but beyond the suspiciously mottled red velvet curtain should be a set of dark-lit steps ascending to the club’s only exit, except it’s blocked by two tree-trunk sized apes in tuxedos, one of whose gigantic hairy fists hands you a bill.

“What? I already paid”, you mutter “a fiver on the door and twenty quid for the drink?” And as your brain scrambles to fathom how you could possibly have accrued such an extortionate bill in such a short period of time, thinking this could be a prank, their unflinching faces say otherwise.

Here, everything costs; from the privilege of talking to the hostess and the honour of buying her a drink, to the pleasure of missing a show, and with the bar having a “two drink minimum” spend and a £300 service charge on top, all of which were clearly in their Terms & Conditions and none of which you bothered to read, so – for now - you’re not going nowhere, until they get their money.
And as two oversized brutes loom over you; their colossal callused hands perched upon your trembling shoulders as their hot-breath snorts down you perspiring neck, as you fumble for your wallet, you consider calling the Police? But on what charge? They haven’t broken the law, and - besides – it’s not like you’ve been mugged, face it, you are the mug.

Many men feel so ashamed that they pay in full, some are so terrified that they hand over their wallets, some plead poverty only to be frog-marched to the nearest cash-machine, and yet, some men become so enraged that by lashing out this allows the bouncers to use physical force. And feeling humiliated, cheated and robbed, most men chalk this up as a lesson learned and make the wise decision to never go back… but one man? He wanted revenge.

On Monday 1st March 2004, at 6:20pm, a customer approached; he was mid-twenties, 5 foot 8 inches tall and dark-skinned, wearing blue jeans, white trainers, a black hat with a white stripe and dark hooded jacket emblazoned with the motif of the Cleveland Indians Major Baseball League. Greeted by Camille and having paid his fiver, he was led downstairs into The Blue Bunny Club.

Ten minutes later, being handed a bill for £370, a heated argument ensued, and having being fleeced to the tune of £90, the man was forcibly ejected by the bouncers; spewing curses as he stormed-off down Archer Street. For those at The Blue Bunny Club, this was just an ordinary day. But having been made to feel stupid, forty minutes later… the furious man returned.

Camille was standing in the doorway; smiling, chatting and earning a few more pounds to fund her dream of becoming a nursery school teacher, a job which she would have been perfect for, as being a vivacious girl who was instantly likeable, easily approachable and effortlessly patient, she could make any stranger feel welcome. Except this stranger didn’t feel welcome, he felt angry and humiliated.

But with the club’s owners elsewhere and the bouncers otherwise engaged, even though Camille was only a part-time hostess who he had briefly met barely moments before, seething with rage and being furious (not at her but) what she represented, he stabbed her once, in the heart. And after a long struggle, as she fought to stay alive, at 8:25pm, 23 year old Camille Gordon was pronounced dead.

And even though the Police have his DNA, his fingerprints, his description and clear CCTV footage of the attack and his escape as he fled into Piccadilly Circus tube station and onto a southbound Bakerloo line train, even with a £20000 reward in place, her murderer remains at large.

Camille Gordon was a beautiful young girl, with a sweet smile, a kind heart and big dreams; who had no enemies, only friends; who wasn’t hated, only loved, and yet – owing to a legal loop-hole on the fringes by Soho’s sex-trade, to which (for many decades) the council had turned a blind-eye – an innocent young woman was brutally stabbed to death by an angry man, simply because he didn’t bother to read the small print. So who killed Camille Gordon? That we may never know.

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

Don’t forget, if you’re a murky miler, to stay tuned for extra goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; Already Gone and Going Postal. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, who are so desperate to see extra videos of my big fat head that they’ve signed-up for more. So either they use it to frighten their kids, to measure melons or they’re werewolves and my balloon shaped bonce reminds them of the moon? This week’s weirdos are Sisse Skovbakke, Lisa Lebo, Vicki Joseph, Ann Stangroom, Darren James, Katrina Van Der Vliet and Jennifer Yee. Thank you guys, there are more moon-faced vids coming your way.

Also a big thank you to Marie, Tracey, Sean, Lorna and Sheryl, who booked into my Murder Mile Walk recently and thank you to Marie for the bakewell tarts… which mysteriously vanished, hence my big fat head. And… etc. But – of course – my biggest thank you is to everyone who listens to Murder Mile. Thank you to you all.

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.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using authentic sources and first-hand accounts (where possible) as there is no file at the archive, given that this is a recent and on-going police investigation.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (theme & Interstitials)
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)
• Faster Does It by Kevin MacLeod
  
• Under the Stair by Josh Woodward
• Inner Mental Cage by Controlled Insanity
• Western Shores by Philip Weigl
• Serenity by Parvuz Decree
• Something Bonus by Kai Engel

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

• School Kids - https://freesound.org/people/makosan/sounds/34716/
  
• Dogs Barking - https://freesound.org/people/ivolipa/sounds/337101/
• Keyboard Typing - https://freesound.org/people/avakas/sounds/144120/
• Police Siren - https://freesound.org/people/conleec/sounds/159745/
  

Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated Best True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2018 and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In or Acast.

Thank you for downloading episode forty-four of the Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast.

As a word of warning, this episode contains shocking acts of physical, mental and emotional cruelty inflicted by a husband on a wife, and although these upsetting events will be depicted in a dramatized way, every detail of this incident is true, and - for far too many people - this kind of life and death is a daily occurrence. So if you have been subjected to, or have inflicted abuse against a loved one, don’t forget that help is only a phone call away. Thank you for listening and stay safe.

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 London’s West End.

Today’s episode is about Susan Moir; an East End pauper who escaped poverty to become a mother to two boys and the wife of a prosperous baker, and yet, her new life was a fate worse than death. 

Murder Mile is researched using the original court documents. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatization of the real events, it may also features loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 44: Susan Moir: The Brutal Life of the Baker’s Wife.

Today I’m standing on Catherine Street, WC2; two streets east of baby-killer James Richardson Mills, two streets south of Dora Freedman (the West End prostitute supposedly slaughtered by the infamous maniac known as Soho Jack) and one street north of Waterloo Bridge where Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by the KGB, using an umbrella – coming soon to Murder Mile.

Wedged between the historic bustle of Covent Garden and the infamous theatre district of Drury Lane, being barely 800 feet long, Catherine Street is a short slightly sloped side-street which begins at the Theatre Royal, ends at The Strand and (with smog permitting) has stunning views of the Thames.

Laid out in the 1630’s, Catherine Street (originally called Brydges Street) and its surrounding area was – and still is – a vibrant hub, as being crammed-full of theatres, pubs and posh eateries, it’s here where the play’s patrons swig back a pre-show pint, quaff coffee whilst quoting comedy, guzzle down a swift gin at the show’s interval, or copiously weep over an entirely fictional character’s tragic plight, which (in an easily digestible two-hour instalment) is recreated, on a fake stage, off a script, by badly-paid actors, whilst the wobbly-lipped patron wolfs down a plate full of waffle.

Ironically, today it’s a place of happiness, laughter and joy, where loved one’s bond, where fear is a façade, and any tears are only temporary. And yet, there’s one truly heart-wrenching tragedy which played-out right underneath our feet, and it has remained untold, until today.

If you’re wondering why this section isn’t filled with my usual mix of wit, jibes and sharp barbs, that’s because – as this is a deeply tragic story about the horrors of domestic abuse - there’s nothing funny to say. And although this murder occurred almost 170 years ago, it’s a story which is just as relevant today. As it was here, at 25 Brydges Street, from Friday 22nd, Saturday 23rd, Sunday 24th to Monday 25th March 1850, that a baker’s wife called Susan Moir… was literally beaten to death. (INTERSTITIAL)

The most important moment in Susan Moir’s life was her death; as being a lower working-class woman of no historical importance living in an East London slum in the mid-1800’s, almost nothing is known about her sad and tragic life, except what happened in her final days.

Her birth name was Susan Hare. She was born sometime (although we can’t be certain) during the bleak winter months of 1811, somewhere amidst the ragged filth and festering squalor of Stepney (in East London), as one of either six, seven or eight siblings, half of which died before they could walk.

Like many off-spring raised to an East London pauper, Susan’s early life was tough, harsh and cruel.

Living a hand-to-mouth existence; some days she ate, some days she didn’t. With diseases like cholera and dysentery running rampant, medicine was only for the wealthy. With malnutritian having ravaged her immune system, even a common cold could be deadly. And a sickly child, who played amongst the rats in the faeces-splattered streets with no shoes on her feet, who drank water which lay stagnant near an open cess-pit, and – every day – breathed in the thick soupy air of the choking industrial smog which hung across the city like a looming cloud of death; with a third of all children dying before their fifth birthday, if she didn’t starve, freeze or succumb to disease, the longest that Susan could hope to live for was into her mid-to-late thirties. So her chance of survival was literally just that – chance.

And yet, for Susan, life was even worse; not just because she was poor, not just because she was lower working-class, and not just because she was sick, but because she was a woman.

Like most young girls; except for two hours a week at Sunday school, she was denied a basic education; except for unskilled peace-work, she was denied any training or trade; and with no vote, very few rights and almost no say in her own future, the best that Susan could hope for, was to escape the poverty of her own ragged family, by being married-off into another.

And so, it should have been the happiest day of her life, when in the spring of 1837, with her first baby boy on the way, 26 year old Susan Hare married a 31 year old a Scottish tradesman, with a steady income, an honest job, his own home and a prosperous bakers shop at 25 Brydges Street? He must have seemed like the answer to all of her prayers, as (with everyone needing bread) she’d never be cold, poor or hungry ever again. But her husband’s name was Alexander Moir, and when stated in his marriage vows that they’d be together “till death us do part”, he meant exactly that. (INTERSTITIAL).

By 1850, Brydges Street was on its last legs; some of the buildings had rotted away, others had been ransacked by robbers and rats, and what remained was just decades away from being demolished. And as a thick choking smoke drifted east from Bielefeld's papier-mâché works and every bankside furnace and toxic textile factory belched out great plumes of noxious fumes, being just six years before Soho’s deadly cholera outbreak and eight years before The Great Stink which (having no sewer system) saw the city main source of fresh drinking water - the River Thames - turned into a festering pile of floating turds, London was not only dangerous, it was deadly. But for Susan, it was home.

At 25 Brydges Street stood Moir’s Bakery; a rickety old two-storey building made of warped timber and crumbling stone. With the roof having caved in years earlier, only the front part of the upper floor was habitable enough to rent out to lodgers, so with the basement taken up by the bake-house ovens, and half of the ground-floor converted to a shop; the Moir family lived in the small back parlour, which comprised of a kitchen (where their children slept) and a simple bed for Alexander and Susan.

To the outside world, it looked like perfect family business, with Alexander baking, Susan selling and their sons Alexander Junior (age 13) and Jack (age 7) delivering. And as hordes of hungry punters peered in through the shop’s large sash window, to see shelves lined with golden loaves, baskets of soft buns and trays of biscuits, crumpets and hot cakes, as one of the few pleasant smells on the whole street, Moir’s Bakery must have seemed like a dream? But upon entering the bakery, that delightful image would be shattered by the sight of Susan, the sound of screaming and the smell of fear.

According to her autopsy, Susan Moir was 39 years old; she was five foot five inches tall; thin, pale and frail; with wiry brown hair, ruddy cheeks and callused hands. She walked with a stoop, but she wasn’t sick. She looked haggard, but she wasn’t old. She was always exhausted, but she never slept.

And with her sunken and bloodshot eyes ringed with dark circles, her uneven cheeks swollen with an unsightly mix of yellow, brown and purple bruises, two broken fingers, several missing teeth, her whole body covered in welts, and her jaw hung open and low so her ghostly white face looked as if it was perpetually stuck in the midst of a scream, even though – by those who knew her – she was a deeply devoted mother who would do anything to protect her boys; she was always scared, tired and broken, and – to combat this, it is said – she would drink.

And so, what follows are the last days of Susan Moir.

Friday 22nd March 1850 was bleak, wet and cold, as a bitter wind whipped down Brydges Street and washed an inch-thick torrent of rain towards the Thames. Times were hard, money was tight and sales were short, so with good bread going to waste, once again, Alexander tutted.

Having worked sixteen hours-a-day for seven days a week since Christmas, it probably never occurred to him that drink wasn’t the reason his wife swayed unsteadily on her feet, that a swollen jaw was why her speech was slurred, or that being bruised was why she moved so slow, but with business being bad, and as she ran the shop, he knew that she was to blame.

Alexander Moir was as 44 year old Scottish baker; a blunt brutish bully-boy who was short and squat like a bulldog, with an unkempt beard, unblinking eyes, a humourless grin, and – after a stint in the navy – he had arms like tree-trunks, fists like lump-hammers and a temper as short as his fuse. So why she loved him? Or whether she ever did? That we shall never know.

By all accounts it was a regular night; as – at a little after 11pm - Susan kissed goodnight to her two boys who shared a mattress made of horse-hair and straw, which was nestled beside the kitchen fire, and as she stood on the cold stone step by the sink, she washed-up the last of the bakery’s spoons, dockers and earthenware crocks, which were baked black with burned-on crumbs and crusts.

With the candles out, the shutters down and the door’s iron bolt slid tight, the shop was shut for the night, but before his bed (which – for most bakers – was just four hours a night, at best) Alexander trudged down into the dark basement. In the bake-house was 14 year old baker’s apprentice John Johnston; and with this being his first week, being eager to please his master, as well as being a little bit scared, John set about making the dough and promised to wake his employer at 3am sharp.

But that night, no-one would sleep.

It began just shy of midnight, as raised voices echoed through the thick oak beams of the bake-house ceiling; the man’s gruff bellow was furious, the woman’s timid squeak was terrified, as with repeated thumps and thuds, as furniture crashed, crockery smashed and a petrified woman was repeatedly dragged from wall-to-door-to-floor screaming "you'll kill me, you'll kill me", it was then that the man growled "I'll murder you before I am done with you". But fearing for his job, and his life, 14 year old John Johnston did nothing, as the violent beating of Susan Moir continued late into the night.

Susan hated her life, so she drank; because she drank, so her husband would beat her; and because he would beat her, so she drank. And yet, for Susan, there was no escape. As a devout Catholic, the Church had denied her any chance of a divorce. As a wife, legally she had no right to separate. As a victim, her only refuge was the dreaded workhouse. As a daughter, she was the responsibility of her spouse to feed, clothe and chastise. And as a woman, having promised before God to “love, honour and obey” her husband, being trapped in a violent marriage, Susan was stuck “till death us do part”.

By the crack of dawn, the only sound heard was the roar of the bake-house ovens, as - in a gruff silence - Alexander bundled the freshly baked bread into a wicker basket, and as John readied himself to make the morning’s deliveries, he noticed that his master’s fists were cut, scuffed and caked with blood.

Having climbed the stone stairs, the first time John saw Susan that morning was in the shop, as - in his own words - he would state in court “she looked a dreadful sight”. Being barely able to hold herself upright, a sixteen hour day ahead of her, as she unsteadily stumbled, Susan tried to prop herself up against the wooden counter, but every time she did, she would wince in pain, as her fingers, hands and forearms were black and swollen, having tried to protect her face from the onslaught of his fists.

But her face was unrecognisable; and being a mismatched puffy mess of lumps, bumps, scrapes and cuts, John could hardly to work-out where her nose stopped and her cheeks began, as with her right eye being too swollen to open, through her tears, Susan saw very little, and said even less.

By 3pm, being barely half-way through her working day, Susan’s cousin popped into the shop; and although the sight of black-eyes and the sound of screaming was a common occurrence in the bakery, for Mary Ann Bryant, this turbulent relationship had truly taken a turn for the worst.

Whether Susan staggered, stumbled and slurred her words owing to an excess of booze or a volley of beatings is unknown, as - having knocked her so insensible that she’d forgotten one-too-many bread orders that day - with Alexander being furious, as customers fled from the bakery, he pummelled the puffy swollen flesh of Susan’s ruptured face with his hard bloodied fists, and with the timid woman being too shattered to simply raise her blackened hands to shield herself, as roughly a dozen blows rained down, each fist struck her squarely in the face and back, again and again and again.  

Having demanded that his lazy feckless wife quit her dilly-dallying and refill the window display with fresh stock, Susan tried to arrange a line of two-penny loaves, but as her world spun wildly and everything went black, she lost consciousness and collapsed; there was a hard thud as she landed face first on the hard wooden floor, ripping a one inch gash across her forehead as a trickle of blood wept from her swollen right eye. Shocked by the ferocity of his violence, Mary-Ann cried “get her up, she needs help”, to which Alexander – his sole focus being to bake a fresh batch of York biscuits – snorted “Let the drunken bitch wait there till she comes to herself".

And with Mary-Ann being too slight to lift the cataleptic woman up, there Susan stayed, slumped under the buns in the shop’s window, as customers came and went, crusty loaves in hand, chattering and gorping, as a battered and barely conscious woman lay in a crumpled heap.

A short while later, Susan slowly regained consciousness, and through bloodied and malformed lips which mumbled barely intelligible words as drool spooled down her chin, she begged Mary-Ann to ask her husband to let her lie down, to rest and to recover from her injuries, but Alexander said no.

Eager to aide her semi-comatose cousin - who struggled on, in the shop, for many hours more, serving breads to bemused customers - Mary-Ann set about covering some of Susan’s chores; like washing their clothes, cleaning the parlour and cooking the family’s dinner, as she tended to Susan’s cuts and swellings, but it would all be for nothing.

At a little after 8pm, on Saturday 23rd March, as their two boys sat silently at the kitchen table, their heads staring at their laps for fear of incurring their father’s fists, Alexander slapped Susan hard, having found a half-empty bottle of gin hidden in a nook. By now, being so used to his abuse and with her face being a bulging mess of tough puffy welts, she barely felt his hand impact, as her salty sobs mixed with blood making it seem like she wept pink tears, and yet still she screamed, as - to Susan – the misery and the pain of her daily beatings were as commonplace as breathing.

Moments later, Mary-Ann served dinner; and having said Grace, the family sat down to mutton chops, potatoes, carrots, peas and gravy. The aggrieved Alexander should have been moderately happy (given the day’s many disturbances) that his dinner was on the table, on time, and that Mary-Ann was actually a good cook, but still he sat there fuming about the failures of his drunken wife.

And as Alexander scooped an overloaded fork of food into his bearded gaping mouth, he spat a volley of peas as he shouted "This is more like gravy, not the watery soup you make", but as Susan was too tired to retort (which he took as insolence), he hurled half of a hard-baked loaf at her head, as its rough edges ripped open an old wound.

Through sheer agony, with every inch of her exhausted body being bloodied, beaten and bruised, as Susan tried to stand-up, her trembling legs barely held-up by two blackened arms, Alexander slammed her back into her seat, forcing her freshly bruised backside down onto the hard wooden chair, as – with a mashed mouthful of potato – he spat "If you don't finish your meat, I will send for a rolling-pin, and will force it down your throat”.

And like a dark shadow of death which loomed over the tiny trembling woman, there he stood; staring, seething and snarling, as her numb fingers struggled to raise the shaking fork to her swollen lips, but seeing her inability to eat, not owing to her injuries but due to her drunkenness and selfish petulance, as Susan’s broken fingers dropped the fork, Alexander exploded with rage.

The assault was sustained, vicious and swift as a flurry of heavy fists and booted feet flew into Susan’s legs, back and face. And as the man who had once sworn an oath, in Church and to God that he would always “love, honour and protect her”, as his wife cowered on the hard wooden floor, curled-up like a ruptured ball, as she screamed for him to stop, he savagely beat her until her body went limp.

But Susan didn’t die, not then, not yet. As even though her pummelled face was said to be “the colour of sheep’s liver”, her swollen lids had rendered her right eye blind, and her brown wiry hair was matted thick with congealed blood, she struggled on for the sake of her boys. And all the while, as Mary-Ann washed her cousin’s cuts with cool water, Alexander sat by the fire, his feet-up, smoking a pipe.

One hour later, as Susan unsteadily slumped against the sink, desperate to complete her nightly chores for fear of upsetting her husband further, as her aching fingers scrubbed the baked-on crusts of the earthenware pots, and as an irregular gush of blood thrummed and thumped through her aching brain, suddenly everything went black and – again - she collapsed.

The heavy thud should have alerted Alexander that his wife was in trouble. Her stillness should have rang an alarm bell that all was not well. But it didn’t. As seeing his lazy useless wife, lying down like an unruly mutt, her stupid head slumped against the cold kitchen step like the silly cow was spitefully defying him by taking a little nap, he bellowed “Get up you drunken bitch”, and when she didn’t, wearing hard leather boots, he repeatedly kicked her legs, her body and her head.

Susan didn’t fight back, she didn’t scream, and she didn’t even move, as being either so bruised, unconscious or beyond caring, she just lay there. And with Alexander, once again, refusing to pick her up, Susan lay slumped in an insensible mess on the cold kitchen floor, for the next two hours,

By Sunday 24th March, with Alexander having denied her the right to rest in her own bed, as her persistent bleeding would have soiled his sheets, Susan was moved to the horsehair and straw mattress that her children slept in, nestled on the floor, next to the kitchen fire, like a dog; and there she lay, silent, still and barely breathing except in low rasps gasps.

At 8pm. Mary-Ann returned, when she asked Alexander how Susan was, he huffed that she “was in a very bad state” and that he was “astonished that ‘it’ had lasted as long as it had done”. And when asked if he had sent for a doctor, he said “no, there was no need”, but Mary-Ann insisted.

Dr Joshua Watkins of nearby Chandos Street was called for and arrived at 25 Brydges Street just after 11am on the morning of Monday 25th March 1850, by which time, 39 year old Susan Moir was dead.

On Monday 6th May 1850, at The Old Bailey, Alexander Moir pleaded not guilty to his wife’s murder. Having heard the testimony, examined the scene and viewed the body, a jury of 15 men assembled to debate the case at the Two Spies public house on Brydges Street.

The evidence was overwhelming; every inch of Susan’s skin was covered in a patchwork of lumps, cuts, bruises and breaks; some were old, some were new, but all told a tale of terrified woman fearing for her life. And having removed six ounces of coagulated blood from her brain, the surgeon confirmed that Susan been beaten to death as she lay either unconscious or dying.

In his summing-up, Mr Justice Cresswell stated that if the jury felt it was Alexander’s intention to beat his wife to death, then he must be charged with murder. But that if by beating his wife, his intention was only to cause her pain, and that as a result she died, then he must be charged with manslaughter.

After a very short deliberation, for the brutal death and the physical, mental and emotional abuse he had inflicted on Susan, over two decades, the jury found Alexander Moir guilty… of manslaughter.

Alexander Moir was sentenced to life, but he served just twelve years. And although, as an East End pauper, Susan had escaped poverty, disease and malnutritian by becoming the wife of a prosperous West End baker, being beaten black-and-blue every day of her married life, the one horror she could never escape was her violent husband. Susan Moir was buried in a pauper’s grave, somewhere in East London, but her exact whereabouts are unknown.

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

Don’t forget, if you’re a murky miler, to stay tuned for extra goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; Wine & Crime and Affirmative Murder. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, who (following my previous advert) desperately wanted to have super perky sky-pointing tits and lethally-long dongs which dragged on the floor, and those lucky people are Taya Brendle, Ladislav Eichler, Amanda-Jayne Lamb, Debbie Halliwell, Robert Lee-Floyd Williams, Jason Aberchrombie and Ashley Shannon, although they will be easy to spot. Also a big thank you to Tom who came on my Murder Mile Walk and very kindly became a cash Patreon. And a special thank-you to Stacey Conover who as a mega-patreon not only gets gravity defying boobs for life and a man-trumpet so long it’s a trip-hazard, but also she will receive a very exclusive Murder Mile mug – only one of two currently in existence. Ooh! But – of course – my biggest thank you is to everyone who listens to Murder Mile. Thank you to you all.

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.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original court documents from The Old Bailey and other sources.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (theme & Interstitials)
  
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)
  
• Piano Blue by Cult With No Name
• EXiiLFE by Ars Sonos
  
• Sopor by Kai Engel
• Mercy by Kai Engel
• Piano Piece 3 by Cult With No Name

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

• Street Organ - https://freesound.org/people/RTB45/sounds/203424/
  
• Chimney - https://freesound.org/people/markb/sounds/86977/
• Market Traders - https://freesound.org/people/deleted_user_1116756/sounds/74460/
• Columbia Flower Market - https://freesound.org/people/AlKerr/sounds/214673/
• Horse & Carriage - https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/111211/
• Horse & Carriage 2 - https://freesound.org/people/Sirderf/sounds/333679/
  

Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards 2018. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Podbean, Stitcher, Tune-In, Otto Radio or Acast.

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 Marion Lees-Smith; a single mother struggling alone to cope with the daily demands of Derek - her deaf and brain-damaged son. And as frustrated and exasperated as Marion would often be, her death would come about, not by exhaustion, but by the hand of her own son.

Murder Mile is researched using the original police investigation files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatisation of the real events, it may also features loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.

My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile.

Episode 43: Marion Lees-Smith: The Rich Mum, The Deaf Son and the Paltry Sum.

Today I’m standing on George Street, W1. And like most places on Murder Mile, it may sound familiar, because we’ve already been here before; as we’re just one road south of first failed assassination of former Iraqi Prime Minister (Abd ar-Razzaq Said al-Naif), one road north of the badly bungled abortion of Helen Mary Pickwoad, one square west of The Blackout Ripper’s first victim (Evelyn Hamilton), and three blocks south of the terrorist tube bombing at Edgware Road – coming soon to Murder Mile.

In front is Bryanston Court at 137 George Street; a seven-storey mansion-house covering half a square block; with brown brick walls, black wrought iron railings, art deco lamps and with four huge Doric columns in chalk stone on either side of a black wooden door, it looks very much like an old bank.

Like much of Marylebone, George Street is rather grand, as being named after the most infamous of Britain’s mentally-unwell monarchs - as it’s here that that (the unfairly dubbed) mad King George III ranted, raved and recuperated from the debilitating blood disorder of porphyria - although this sleepy side-street is chock full of five-star hotels, mansion houses, embassies, galleries and lines of posh cars (like a very literal willy measuring contest), oddly - for a major metropolitan city - there’s no people.

It’s lifeless, joyless and colourless; bland, dull and beige, like a potato waffle coated with caviar, like a Tory MP in a tux, or like that very white kind of 1980’s poodle poop… only sprinkled with lots of pearls.

It’s a place so false, no-one has their original name, nose, voice or spouse; and with so many nips and tucks, anybody you do see is totally unable to sit, smile, stand, talk, walk or jiggle their norks, as they look like they’re staring straight into a force 10 gale. And with many of the flats owned by bankers as a tax dodge; the only life on George Street, are those uptight twats in tweed suits who drive their Bentley’s at half the speed of a bunged-up slug’s bowel movement, and those mummified corpses in mink coats, who stink of moth balls and gin, and walk a £5000 fluffy rat on a very posh piece of string,

And although, in Bryanston Court, the three-bedroomed apartment of Wallace Simpson (the American wife of abdicated King Edward VIII) recently sold for £5.35 million, it was also here, on the night of Wednesday 30th December 1942, in flat 112, that a devoted and well-off mother called Marion Lees-Smith was murdered by her son, over a paltry sum of just £2. (INTERSTITIAL)
Life was idyllic for Marion Lees-Smith. Raised as a well-mannered, educated and a devoutly religious lady from a wealthy and upstanding family, although a native of Chicago, having married Norman (an executive for the Canadian Pacific Railway), together Marion and her husband would travel the world.

By 1920, being berthed in the bustling city of Shanghai (China); as a major international trade port and one of the east’s most important financial centres, Shanghai was in its golden age; and being bathed by bright coloured lights, stunned by the hectic buzz of the city, and knocked-out by the sweet sizzling smell of steamed crab, beggar’s chicken and shredded duck dumplings, Marion was in her element.

She lived in a stunning three-storey house on the prosperous Nanking Road; was served by a butler, a housemaid and a chef; wore tailored dresses, fine jewels and handmade shoes; and as a 40 year old globetrotter from a wealthy family, with no commitments or responsibilities just a very active social life, as money was no object, Marion could literally buy anything… except happiness.
As a hard-working but always exhausted executive, Norman was rarely home, and on the odd occasion he was, the faint cracks in their fractured relationship would show. Often they’d argue, always they’d fight, and so - with fate being so fickle – this was possibly the worst time to have a baby, but on 21st August 1922, Marion gave birth to a boy, and she named him Derek.

Derek was (and would always be) their only child; and as a happy, normal and healthy baby, raised to two loving parents in a wealthy family, although he was an accident, Derek was adored. And with his doting mother smothering her beloved son with endless toys, good food, soft sheets and a nursemaid at his beck-and-call, even as a baby, Derek had a better life than most.

But then, even in a truly idyllic setting, sometimes accidents do happen.

It was a momentary lapse in concentration, as Amah (the family’s diligent nursemaid) was distracted for little more than a few seconds. With Derek being a restless two-year old; being unable to sit still, desperate to stand and struggling to peep out of his pram, as Amah looked away, the adventurous tot crawled over the pram’s canvas side, and with no sense of distance or danger, he slipped, and fell.

The thud was heavy. The cobbles were hard. His head bled. And although motionless, as a pained wail burst from his bloodied lips which cut the chaotic Shanghai streets to silence and reassured Amah that the boy was still breathing, Derek was rushed to hospital, having landed on his head. “He was lucky”, the doctors said, as with no broken bones, only a superficial cut and a few bruises, being given a pill for the pain and a plaster, Marion took her son home and thought nothing more of it.

But Derek had been damaged.

It started with stutter; a simple tripping of the tongue over some troublesome words. Then he became unnaturally clingy, oddly silent and always cried, as if he was in pain. And as he retreated into his own little world, with his hearing slowly fading, by the age of 12, Derek was totally deaf.

With Amah sacked, Marion became Derek’s full-time carer, and with his deafness being manageable, having invested in a hearing aid and lip-reading lessons, Marion was coping. But somewhere, deep inside of Derek’s head, something else had broken. (INTERSTITIAL)

Having relocated to London, limited their social life and put their globetrotting days firmly behind them, having made their life stable for their disabled son, Derek’s demands had placed a great strain on his parent’s relationship, and although they stayed in touch, Marion and Norman had split.

Part-funded by her family, Marion moved with her son into flat 112 on the sixth floor of Bryanston Court; a modern, well-furnished, two-bedroomed apartment. And as a little family stuck together in a tiny West End flat, with no-one for company but each other, although Marion and Derek were mother and son, to those who knew them, they seemed like an odd mix.

With her globetrotting days long gone, 61 year old Marion was a pale, thin and hollow version of her former self, and although she was fastidiously neat and elegantly dressed, lacking any smile or sparkle, it seemed as if, every day, a little piece of her soul had drained away. And as a single woman, struggling alone, with a boy whose injuries she blamed on herself, Marion was the epitome of exasperation.

Where-as Derek, always seemed awkward in his own skin, like a 20 year old man trapped in a 70 year old’s body. As with a messy mop of jet black hair perched above his elongated face, a dark crumpled suit which clung to his thin weedy frame, a set of horn-rimmed glasses with lenses like coke-bottle bottoms, so thick, they magnified his tiny eyes to the size of saucers, and – as his little legs walked with oversized strides – being forced to cart-about a clunking great hearing aid with its bulky battery in a carry-case, although he was deaf, delicate and socially-awkward, he was eager for freedom.

Not a lot, just some… but with Marion always fussing, huffing and tutting, as a woman wracked with the guilt over her broken boy, believing she was being a good mum, she had encased him in a cocoon.

A cocoon that Derek would never escape, even after he had stabbed his mother to death.

In 1942, three weeks before Christmas, Marion was at her wits-end. Not from the strict rationing with the country’s food stocks in short supply, the lack of clean water as water pipes burst (limiting each flat to just two buckets a day), or the barrage of Nazi bombers which – night-after-night – rained down death from the skies, but by loving him so much, she had nothing left to give.

Every night, they’d fight; and although their little spats were never hurtful, spiteful or physical, the thin walls of their tiny flat echoed with the sharp sounds of screaming and sobbing as an exasperated mother and her frustrated son clashed.

When Derek was a little boy, although they’d argue, Marion would always win; as being a strong willed woman and – more importantly - his mother, with just a finger, a look or even a tut, she could easily override the unruly demands of a such small boy, with a slow brain and a stutter, but now, he was a man. And although he resembled a 70 year old man trapped in a 20 year old’s body with a 8 year old’s brain, with Marion being a just little lady; as he grew taller in height, heavier in weight and greater in strength, the more she became older, weaker and more exhausted.

Hence the cocoon, but she wasn’t being cruel.

Like every loving mother, Marion only wanted the very best for her little boy, and so – with a modest allowance, a good education, love, trust and a hand to hold - she gave him freedom; she wanted him to grow, to bloom and - ultimately - to be free. But as a deaf, delicate and socially awkward boy, in a big city, who was a danger to himself, with his best interests at heart, there had to be limits.

Determined that his disability should never hold him back, Derek was educated at some of Britain’s best private schools, but being described by his tutors as distant, erratic, distracted and intellectually deficient, for the third time in the last six months, Derek had dropped out of education.

With an interest in animals, Marion arranged for work experience at a farm in the fresh air (and safety) of Saffron Waldon, but – being unable to keep hold of a single thought - Derek had grown bored before the first egg hit the straw. And so it went on. He couldn’t work, he couldn’t earn, he couldn’t learn.

Being eager to do his bit for the war-effort, having sucked-up her fears (and a few tears) Marion helped her boy to enlist in the Army, but being rejected on medical grounds, with a warm hug, she reassured him he could help defeat Hitler by doing the Army’s admin, and so, he learned to type. In October 1942, Derek enrolled in a Pitman course on nearby Southampton Row, but by Christmas, he had quit.

Marion was exasperated, exhausted and alone. She had tried everything and everything had failed. Even his modest weekly allowance of 12 shillings, which - although not much - was enough to give him some independence. But where-as once, as a boy, he’d spend the lot of sweets, now, as a man, he’d blow the lot on booze, making him deaf, delicate, socially-awkward and also drunk.
To Marion - as a devout teetotaller - that was a step too far, and fearing she had lost control, she did the only thing she could do; she stopped his allowance, and – for the last time - the cocoon was shut.

And that’s how it all began? Not as a bitter battle over an inheritance. Not as a long-standing feud over love. And not owing to a slow descent into drugs and drink. And even though (it is said) that Derek had been brain-damaged; he didn’t suffer with headaches, visions and never heard voices; he was never violent, cruel or committed a crime. He was just… quiet.

It all began as a simple spat over a few pennies, between a loving mother and her slightly unruly son, as she tried to protect him from harm, as he tested the boundaries of his new-found freedom. It was an argument, which every parent, has with their child, every day. And resulted in a very normal murder.

Three days before Christmas, like a marvel to the art of multi-tasking, Marion managed to find the time to establish the St George’s Club at 62 Great Cumberland Place; a small social club for members of the armed forces, which - as a proud and patriotic woman – she did as her bit for the war-effort. And although it kept her busy, it also provided her son with a good job, a regular income and allowed her to keep him busy and close. It seemed like the perfect solution to a small problem… but it wasn’t.

Wednesday 30th December 1942 was Marion’s last day alive. And yet, like most parents, her morning had begun like any other, as being late for work, she impatiently banged on the bathroom door.

It started as a simple squabble over the usual; her son having hogged the hot water, made a mess and failed to flush, that’s all. But somewhere in their war or words, Marion hit a nerve – as having merely mentioned that the club’s nightly takings were a little light – their sparks erupted into a scuffle, and in a truly rare moment of anger (which shocked them both) Derek struck his mother and stormed out.

She wasn’t injured, cut or bruised, if anything, she was just disappointed. An hour later, he apologised.

If she’d been hit by any other employee, they’d have been sacked. If they’d been as disorganised at their duties, they’d never have been hired. But having kept her boy on the pay-roll for ulterior motives, after one week, Marion’s patience was tested, and as she chatted to the club’s barman about this possible financial error, her face said it all, her trust had been lost. Derek saw this, and stormed out.

Between 9pm and 11pm, at the New Inn public house at nearby Marble Arch, Derek sat alone, fuming, as he necked back four pints of mild ale, which was odd, as he hadn’t been paid.

At a few minutes after 11pm, with the club closed for the night, Marion returned home. With the blackout blinds drawn and every light off, the flat was inky black, and although (just hours earlier, it was here that Marion and Derek had fought) its silence was eerie, as there was no sign of her son.

As was her usual routine, Marion readied herself for bed; on the sofa she dumped her gloves, purse and shopping bags; as it was cold, she slipped on a bathrobe, a nightie, a woollen vest, a set of booties and scarf; to distract her mind, she sat at the kitchen table, her spectacles on, doing the crossword; and then, with slumber looming, she popped the kettle on the hob, and beside it, a hot-water bottle.

At 11:20pm, Derek returned. And although their tiny flat was filled with a tense trepidation; no words were said, no tuts were uttered and no looks were exchanged, so seeing that his mother was already dressed and ready for bed, Derek went straight to his bedroom and popped on his pyjamas.

On his bed lay her brown attaché case; in it were the club’s cash boxes, which she’d bring home every night. But it wasn’t what it was, what it contained, or where it had been placed which made Derek smile, but what it meant. As still being trusted to count the club’s takings, this wasn’t just her money, it was a symbol of trust, a reconciliation, and one last chance.

With his pad and a pencil, Derek set about counting the cash. It didn’t take him long, not just because he was eager to please his mum - whose pale drained face beamed with pride from the doorway - but with the club being new, the takings were only small, and amounted to the paltry sum of just £2. And yet, as she slowly sidled up, to thank her son, she smelled the stale stench of booze on his breath.

And that’s all it took; an accusatory sniff, an exasperated sigh and a withering look; the disappointed eye-roll of a frustrated mother whose trust had been lost, but it was enough to make Derek snap. 

With a vice-like grip, the loose pale skin of her wrinkled neck folded over his forefingers as both of his hands squeezed her throat tightly; his thumbs embedded into her windpipe, so deep, they cut-off her air and her screams, as standing over her, with wide staring eyes, her baby boy loomed large. And as her swollen tongue protruded from her pulsating purple face, with her blue lips agog, like her last ever words were trapped in the midst of a silent scream, as her whole world slowly went black…

…Derek let go.

Marion gasped for air, gulping down great mouthfuls of oxygen, as her pallid complexion returned.
In court, Derek described this as “a moment of temporary insanity”, he just “wanted to frighten” his mother, and frightened she was, but as he stormed out of the bedroom, he knew he’d done wrong.
Having taken the wailing kettle off the hob, as a small boy dressed in striped pyjamas, Derek stood in the kitchen; his breathing staggered, his eyes flooded with tears, as being both terrified and ashamed of the truly awful act which he’d done to his mum with his own two hands, hearing her sobs echo from the bedroom, to steady his nerves, Derek decided to fix himself a lime juice and ginger ale.

And as he opened the cutlery drawer, his quivering hand hovering near to the bottle-opener, behind him, in the bedroom, he heard the distant crinkle of notes and the faint clink of coins being counted, as his mother checked the cash-box for theft. And in that instant, Derek went from shame to rage.

With her back to the bedroom door, she didn’t hear her son return. With her head facing the bed, she couldn’t see him rush up behind her. And being so focussed on counting the club’s nightly takings, Marion did see that in the hand of her baby-boy had he held a four-inch black-handled kitchen knife.

The first thing she felt was a hard thump like she’d been punched in the back, the force having shoved her forward into the bed, and feeling a warm trickle as blood ran down her spine, as she turned, and saw her own knife (last used to slice spuds) sunk deep in her back, right up to the handle, as her left lung slowly pooled with blood, Derek retracted the blade, and stabbed his mother again.

The second stab wound sliced one inch deep into purple skin of her bruised neck, severing her larynx, and with the pleural cavity of her left lung now collapsed, being unable to breathe as she chocked on her own blood, Marion slipped into shock, frozen in fear, as slowly she began to bleed to death.

And having turned to look into the eyes of her killer, the last sight Marion saw was her own son; as with his hand held high, gripping a bloodied knife, with every ounce of hate, spite and hurt, he stabbed her once, in the face, slicing open her lower lip and chin, right down to the jawbone. And moments later, 61 year old Marion Lees-Smith - mother of Derek - was dead. (END)

At 9:15am, the next morning, Marion’s body was found by their housekeeper. The crime scene wasn’t difficult for Detective Inspector Clare to deduce; as with one dead body, an empty cash box, a locked door, her son missing, his fingerprints on the knife and his blood splattered pyjamas soaking in the sink, having being seen by the night-porter walking out of Bryanston Court barely minutes after her screams had died, with Derek as the Police’s only suspect, his description was issued to all stations.

With £2 in his pocket, Derek finally got the freedom he had dreamed of… but with those few stolen notes adding up to little more than £90 today, by 6:30pm, being broke, sober and totally distraught, he handed himself in, stating in a mumbled stutter “The only thing I can say at my trial is I am guilty”. Except, he didn’t.

On 16th March 1943 in a two-day trial at The Old Bailey; a tearful Derek pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. And with neither the defence nor the prosecution protesting the findings, with two doctors having confirmed he had a psychopathic personality disorder, an erratic heartrate and abnormal brain-waves consistent with an undiagnosed brain injury, when he fell from a pram aged two, the jury retired for just 1 hours and 40 minutes before they returned with a unanimous verdict of guilty… but insane.

In a statement (spoken by his solicitor) Derek said “I am very sorry I did this awful thing… I have done the greatest of harm by disposing of my best friend in life”.

Derek was sentenced to be detained at His Majesty’s Pleasure which he served at Broadmoor Psychiatric Prison. And although the protective cocoon of loving mother was created to shield her deaf, delicate and socially-awkward son from danger, for the sake a paltry sum, this one night of freedom left Marion dead and Derek trapped inside a very different kind of prison… forever.

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

Don’t forget, if you’re a murky miler, to stay tuned for extra goodies after the break, but before that, here’s my recommended podcasts of the week; Outlines and Unseen Podcast. (PLAY PROMO)

A huge thank you goes out to my new Patreon supporters, who are Mark Williams and Alison Lee. As a big thank you, I’m donating to both of you, one of my livers, split in two. And it’s up to you what you do with it; either you can sell it, give it to a donor, grill it, fry it, sauté it, or – given that’s it’s only 10% blood but at least 90% neat Jack Daniels – I’d drink it. Go on, treat yourself.

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

Thank you for listening and sleep well.

Sources: This episode of Murder Mile True-Crime Podcast was researched using the original declassified police investigation files from the National Archive.

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:

• Man in a Bag by Cult With No name (theme & Interstitials)
• Winsome Lose Some by Cult With No Name (end credits)
  

• Waiting by Peter Rudenko
  
• Piano Song 2 by Cult With No Name
• NEvrAGN featuring Mutate-loopool by Ars Sonor
• Ennui by Lee Rosevere
• FTmiSTK featuring The Implicit Order by Ars Sonor
• Sopor by Kai Engel

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

• Shanghai Nanjing Road - https://freesound.org/people/Unice.ys/sounds/100647/
  
• Lu Xun Weirdness - https://freesound.org/people/RTB45/sounds/192242/
• Air Raid Siren - https://freesound.org/people/RTB45/sounds/179606/
• Shanghai - https://freesound.org/people/taurindb/sounds/136051/
• Horse & Carriage - https://freesound.org/people/dobroide/sounds/111211/
• Horse & Carriage 2 - https://freesound.org/people/Sirderf/sounds/333679/
• Car Horns - https://freesound.org/people/allthingssound/sounds/424918/
• Car Horns 2 - https://freesound.org/people/toiletrolltube/sounds/175847/
• Studdebaker Start  -https://freesound.org/people/lonemonk/sounds/201988/