Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #120: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell - Part One (Alice Gross)24/2/2021 
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
Lock 97 on the Hanwell Flight of the Grand Union Canal
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund
Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund is supporting the National Foundation for Youth Music in memory of Alice who had a passion for music. It aims to provide a sustainable legacy of music-making for disadvantaged children in Alice's memory.
If you want to help please do make your donation here.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY:
On Thursday 28th August 2014, 14-year-old Alice Gross went for a nice long walk down the Hanwell Flight of the Grand Union Canal. It was a sunny day, on a relatively busy towpath, on a route she knew well having walked it many times before. She was witnessed several times on CCTV, but (somehow) between 4:23pm and 4:42pm, on a clear stretch of the canal... Alice Gross vanished. The question is how? This is Part One of Two of The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of Lock 97 on the Hanwell Flight of the Grand Union Canal where 14 year old Alice Gross was last seen, and where her body would ultimately be found. It is marked with a black cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
The video on the left is Lock 97 which Alice passed twice on her route (it was a sunny day and relatively busy with people (this was shot on a Sunday at 9am) and the video on the right is Brentford Gauging Lock, one of the places where CCTV captured Alice.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
This is a map of Alice's journey along the Grand Union Canal on Thursday 28th August 2014.
And photos of the locations Alice passed in both directions.
SOURCES:As there is no police file or court documents currently available, this series has been written and researched using a variety of sources, as well as my own research and investigations. Including (but not exclusively):
Alice's Music- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWYbzRNASic Alice's Solo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmVa0tL01Bg UK Documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLXuAL6LPKg CCTV at Brentford Lock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlPfVgJgrN8 CCTV at Corner Shop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMg0UhdJrWE CCTV by Uxbridge Road / Hanwell Bridge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCv4E6-558 INTERVIEW WITH PARENTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkoUdnHiK0 NEWS SOURCES: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29258630 https://alice-poppymadeleine-gross.muchloved.com/Fundraising https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/04/alice-gross-inquest-finds-schoolgirl-was-unlawfully-killed https://www.wandsworthsw18.com/#!pages/shared:common:eaalice021 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/11/revealed-alice-gross-argued-against-banning-foreign-criminals-before-her https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/14/alice-gross-inquest-must-scrutinise-suspected-killer-arnis-zalkalns-uk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/mother-murdered-girl-alice-gross-lost-faith-uks-ability-protect-citizens https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/body-found-river-alice-gross-police https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/27/alice-gross-murder-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/alice-gross-police-find-body-river-brent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/29/alice-gross-police-dredge-london-canal-missing-schoolgirl https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/05/alice-gross-murder-forensic-tests-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/16/alice-gross-police-missing-latvian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/24/alice-gross-evidence-latvian-police-arrest-warrant https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/04/fears-grow-missing-teenager-alice-gross https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29252462 https://www.theweek.co.uk/60472/alice-gross-why-did-police-not-know-about-killer-s-past https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/18/alice-gross-police-arnis-zalkalns-murder-conviction-suspect https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/13/arnis-zalkalns-inquest-opened-london-alice-gross https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/22/alice-gross-police-suspect-arnis-zalkalns https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29438682 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30997004 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2928026/Latvian-killer-Arnis-Zalkalns-charged-murder-schoolgirl-Alice-Gross-police-say.html https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Gross-2016-0488.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29340052 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29328591 https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/330905/suspect-in-missing-alice-case-is-wife-killer/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2761606/Once-tasted-blood-I-feared-strike-An-extraordinary-interview-grieving-mother-wife-Latvian-fugitive-battered-death.html MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about the disappearance of fourteen-year-old Alice Gross. A beautiful and talented young girl from a loving family, who went for a walk by the canal on a bright summer’s day. She was captured on camera and seen by eye-witnesses, and yet, in the blink of an eye, she had vanished. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 120: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell – Part One. Today I’m standing on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal; eleven miles west of the severed pieces of Paula Fields, eight miles west of the suitcase of Marta Ligman, eight miles west of the dismembered torso of Hannah Brown (whose head was found six miles east), six miles north of Thames Towpath murders, and two and a half miles east of the family of Amarjit Chohan – coming soon to Murder Mile. This is the Hanwell Flight, a series of locks on the most southerly stretch of the Grand Union giving steady passage for boats; beginning high on the hill at Southall, dropping down passed Three Bridges (Brunel’s last construction project which cleverly overlays a road, a rail-line and a canal), along the back of the old Hanwell Asylum, passed Lock Cottage, Brentford Weir, Trumper’s Bridge, Elthorne and Boston Manor parks, and ending at the basin of Brentford Gauging Lock and the River Thames beyond. Stuck at the far end of West London (but technically Middlesex), this is a popular place for dog-walkers, joggers and strollers seeking a lungful of fresh-air, as well as cyclists avoiding the trucks and buses of the surrounding roads. Being part-rural and part-industrial, it’s mostly a muddy towpath which skirts the descending canal, with bushes on both sides and a few secluded side paths every half mile or so. It may sound idyllic – being blessed with chirping coots, splashing fishes and a bright red blur as foxes dart among the thicket – but this peace is drowned-out by the roar of traffic, the chug of chimneys, the crunch of scrapyards and the panicked slip as the most cautious walker trips on broken bricks and bike parts, only to narrowly miss the stinky bin-bags bobbing in the brown water. If you ignore all of that? It’s nice. And being entirely unlit except by moonlight, it’s busy by day, but dead by night. Lock 97 on the Hanwell Flight is unremarkable. Set half way between Three Bridges and the Thames, it’s an anonymous lock with a discretely-hidden white cottage, a set of allotments behind and it acts as the junction between the canal and the River Brent; a wooded, overgrown and unnavigable tributary leading along a muddy path, to the Hanwell Bridge on the Uxbridge Road. Every day people pass by, and ignore this seemingly insignificant little spot, as the only hint of the truly abhorrent crime which took place here is a small handmade memorial to a loving girl so tragically lost. As it was here, on Thursday 28th August 2014 at roughly 4:34pm, that fourteen-year-old Alice Gross passed this spot on her walk. And yet, having passed it for a second time... she vanished. (Interstitial) On Valentine’s Day, at the turn of the new millennium, Alice Poppy Madeline Gross was born. A tiny tot with light brown hair and porcelain skin punctuated by a big beaming set of baby blue eyes. And as much as Alice would grow from a toddler to her teenage years, she would always be petite, doll-like and delicate. But as the epitome of sweetness and joy, she was always protected and encouraged by her eternally loving family; her mum Rosalind, her father Jose and her older sister Nina. Having moved to Hanwell - a small ancient town at the most westerly point of Ealing - the Gross family thrived in this tight-knit community. It’s a good place, full of family run shops, churches and schools, being surrounded by acres of parkland and rivers, and host to London’s oldest carnival. As with many young girls - for Alice - Hanwell was her home, a place she felt safe. Described as "sweet and beautiful", as she entered her early teens, Alice was smaller than most, being a mere five foot and two inches tall and weighing barely six stone. And although her youthful looks were compounded by her elfin-like features – raised well – she had a wise head on her tiny shoulders. With a solid group of friends, Alice was bubbly, well-liked and loyal with a ‘happy-go-lucky’ personality. She was never any trouble and enjoyed her independence, but was conscious of her safety. As a loving daughter, she was helpful, polite and would always text her parents to tell them where she was. At no-time in the past had she ran away from home, and she never would, as her homelife was good. Creatively, alongside her artistic sister, she was blessed with a musical gift; having learned the violin, the piano and (soon) the ukulele, having spent many-a-fond hour with her father on the guitar, and – aided by her beautiful singing voice – she wrote and performed her own songs. Outside of music, she loved nature, long walks and she adored animals, as in their family home in Hanwell, they had three cats (called Lottie, Louis and Pattie) and their dog (Peggy). Alice was a girl with a bright future ahead. As a student, two years from her GSCE’s, she attended Brentside High School on Greenford Avenue. And although her uniform of a black skirt and blazer, white blouse and tie was always neat - keen to express herself – occasionally she broke the dress-code with a splash of eye-liner, hair-dye and a stud in her ear perched a little bit higher than the school found acceptable. But find a teenager who hadn’t. Above all, she was good, conscientious and keen to do well, having excelled in all of her subjects. If anything, Alice was a classic teenager; she strived to be individual yet accepted by her peers, she was sociable yet often glued to her iPhone (as she updated her every thought on Facebook, Twitter and Ask.fm), and – with her body blossoming into womanhood – she was struggling with depression and anorexia. By her fourteenth year, weighing just forty kilos, Alice ate very little and exercised a lot, and although a difficult time, she was on-course to succeed being blessed with a loving family. Alice Gross had a good life, her future was bright and she had no secrets, enemies or fears. And then, on a summer’s day, in broad daylight, for no reason what-so-ever... Alice Gross vanished. (Interstitial) 2014 was a good summer. Being warm and dry with odd flashes of good old British drizzle, the school holidays had begun with Hanwell’s annual carnival. That day was a blinder, it was hot, sunny and fun. Broadway was packed with cheering families as the procession passed the Hanwell clocktower. There was live music, a bouncy castle, a dog show, a petting zoo, even live crocodiles, and as a multicultural area, there was Polish dancing, a kabaddi tournament and food stalls from around the world. By the end of August, the fun had tailed off. The weather was still good, but with the holidays ending and the schools due back in a week, everyone (whether parent or pupil) was stuck in a dreary malaise. For the Gross family, it was an ordinary week; Jose was at work, (as a teacher) Rosalind was preparing her paperwork, and Alice and her sister were savouring the last days of freedom before the new term. To some it was dull, to others it was pleasantly uneventful, but for Alice, it had given her time to write new songs and she was looking forward to seeing her friends. Likewise, Thursday 28th August 2014 was as unremarkable as any other. Being twenty-three degrees Celsius, sunny but not hot, and calm with a light breeze – it was the perfect weather for a long walk. Dressed in dark blue skinny jeans, a black V-neck t-shirt and white socks, Alice tightly laced up her blue canvas Vans trainers, popped on her purple-framed glasses, and into her black Vans backpack (cross-crossed with a stylish flash of purples, greens and blues which purposely matched her jogging outfit), she packed a Tupperware box of snacks, a change of knickers and her half-charged iPhone. But she wouldn’t need a map as she knew the route, stuck to safe places and never took unnecessary risks. At 12:50pm, having told her mum that she’d be back by 4pm, Alice left the family home (“bye mum, love you”) on a walk she had done many times before (door closes). Only this time was the last time. Like any town, the streets of Hanwell were half-full, as Alice crossed Church Road. Being an elfin-like dot, although short and skinny, she strode with the steady pace and the confident stance of a determined girl for whom exercise wasn’t just a pastime but part of her battle with anorexia, and as she power-walked onto Campbell Road, her shoulder-length ponytail swung pendulously behind her. At 1:02pm, Alice and her recognisable walking style was spotted on CCTV as she headed west passed Hanwell Station. She wasn’t followed, she didn’t stop and she wouldn’t make any detours. She strode up Golden Manor, along Alwyn Road and followed the River Brent passed the Wharncliffe Viaduct. At 1:13pm, a traffic camera caught Alice crossing Hanwell Bridge on the busy Uxbridge Road. Had she continued south along this craggy path beside the River Brent, this pleasant leafy short-cut would have got her to Lock 97 on the Grand Union Canal within five minutes, but Alice wanted to get the miles in. So, she headed west up the Uxbridge Road, passed Ealing Hospital and turned left onto Windmill Lane. At 1.26pm, CCTV recorded Alice entering the Hanwell Flight at Three Bridges. She was alone, her speed was solid and she showed no sense of fear or worry. She was just a girl on a walk - nothing more. And she needn’t worry, as this stretch of the towpath was evenly paved and moderately busy. It wasn’t crammed, but wherever she was, there would always be a jogger, a cyclist or a dog-walker in sight. Passing the back of the old Hanwell Asylum (now home to Ealing Hospital), Alice began her descent with the canal on the right, bushes on the left and never deviating from the path for three miles. She passed Lock Cottage at Lock 97, the Syphon (a wooden bridge over Brent weir) and with the path becoming uneven and littered with trip-hazards, her average speed dropped to three miles-per-hour At 1:45pm, a camera caught her passing under Trumper’s Way Bridge as she followed a pre-set route passed familiar sights; like Elthorne Park, Osterley Lock, the M4 flyover and Boston Manor Park. She crossed over the canal at Gallow’s Bridge, strode down passed Transport Avenue and several industrial estates, she continued under the Great West Road, the Piccadilly Line at Brentford Bridge, passed the impressive glass buildings of GlaxoSmithKline and Sky Studios, and into the basin at Brentford Lock. At 2.23pm, two cameras at Canute House and the Holiday Inn captured Alice crossing a short black and white footbridge at Brentford Gauging Lock, having walked five miles in roughly ninety minutes. At this point, either she strode east along High Street towards Kew Bridge, walked beside the Thames towpath at Brentside, or rested at Brentford Lock while watching the ducks, coots and narrowboats. What is known is that, at a little after 3pm, having changed her plans (which was not unusual for Alice) she texted her dad. Like a good girl, she told him she was extending her walk and would meet him at 6pm, when he returned home. He was planning to cook dinner, which she was looking forward to. Alice’s return journey was the mirror opposite of the route she had just walked. The day was still bright and sunny, the towpath was moderately busy, and soon it would be filled with commuters on bicycles. At 3.45pm, once again, Alice is caught on CCTV at Brentford Lock, heading north. At 3.56pm, a camera at GlaxoSmithKline spotted her passing under Great West Road. At 4.02pm, CCTV spied her opposite Transport Avenue. She passed the parks, the locks, the M4 flyover and crossed over Gallow’s Bridge. Her speed was good, her demeanour was calm, and (as before) there were no obvious signs of fear. At 4.23pm, the last of three cyclists rode under the camera at Trumper’s Way Bridge, with Alice passing three minutes later and headed north towards the junction of the Hanwell Flight and the River Brent. At that speed, she would have left the canal at Three Bridges nineteen minutes later... but she didn’t. She didn’t enter Windmill Lane. She didn’t pass Ealing Hospital. She didn’t detour into either of the parks (which were all behind her). And the traffic camera at Hanwell Bridge didn’t capture her walking east on the Uxbridge Road, or north up the Brent River from the overgrown short-cut at Lock 97. Somehow, between 4:23pm and 4:42pm, on a small clear stretch of the canal... Alice Gross vanished. (Silence) At 5pm, her phone was still active and pinging off the masts. By 6pm, she was late and missing her dad’s homecooked dinner. With her phone dead and redirecting to voicemail, her worried parents called her closest friends, but no-one had seen her. So, by 7pm, concerned, they called the Police. Contrary to belief, a child doesn’t need to be missing for 24 hours before the Police will come out. A missing child is a high priority, especially one (so punctual) who had never gone missing before. Arriving that evening; officers took a description, a photo and circulated her details to the bobbies on the look-out for Alice. As with any missing person, they checked her usual haunts, the hospitals and made house-to-house inquiries. But it all drew a blank and her social media accounts were silent. Although she had packed snacks, as a skinny frail girl who battled anorexia, it was feared she may have collapsed somewhere along her walk. Although she had left home in her usual bubbly mood, suffering with depression, it seemed unlikely but logical that Alice may have ran away, as - like many teenagers with raging hormones – she may have been secretly stressed by peer-pressure, bullying or boyfriends? None of which seemed like Alice - who was so thoughtful, loving and kind - but it had to be considered. By the morning of Monday 1st September 2014, Alice had been missing for four days... but for her family, who hadn’t seen or heard a single word from her, those were the longest days of their lives. That day, the Gross family and the Met Police launched an appeal to find Alice. Across every media, her mum addressed her daughter, pleading “You may have been going through a tough time, but we remember a lot of the happier family times that we shared together and we're really looking forward to sharing more of those. We miss you and we love you, we miss your laughter and smile, and we miss your presence in the house, and we just want you to come home and to know that you're safe". People were asked to report any sightings of Alice. Unlike many, she would be easy-to-spot, being so pale and frail, wearing a matching blue-and-black jogging outfit, with a very identifiable power-walk. Alice was beloved, and as Commander Graham McNulty would later state “You only need to walk around the streets of Hanwell to see the effect that Alice’s disappearance has had on this community”. Alongside the appeals, they set up a Find Alice Facebook group and Twitter handle, missing persons posters adorned every street across Hanwell and the wider borough of Ealing, and – symbolic of the warmth and joy this sunshine-of-a-girl brought to those who knew her – bright yellow ribbons were fixed to every possible gate-post and railing, as a daily (and even hourly) reminder to Find Alice. With every ribbon tied and poster put-up, the Gross family and the people of Hanwell had hope... ...but one clue would escalate this missing person’s case to something more serious. On Tuesday 2nd September, Alice’s black backpack was found. Out for a walk before sunset, a couple had spotted it at 8.15pm on the day she went missing, but they didn’t know its significance till now. It was dumped among the leafy undergrowth of the overgrown short-cut between Lock 97 and the Hanwell Bridge. Her purse and iPhone were missing. Her spare underpants and lunchbox were in place, but most unnervingly of all, inside were her blue canvas trainers - the pair she was wearing that day. The investigation was escalated to Detective Superintendent Carl Mehta of the Met Police’s Serious Crime Command. As there was no evidence to suggest that any harm had come to her, it would still be treated as a missing person’s case, as they were confident, they would find Alice and get her home. More than 180,000 people go missing in the UK ever year, that’s one person every ninety seconds, with several people (including children, the elderly and adults) having been reported missing in the borough of Ealing that week. The majority would come home safe, but a few would never return. DSI Carl Mehta upgraded the case to a ‘potential homicide’, but everyone still remained hopeful. By Thursday 4th September, Alice had been missing for a week, but the search went on; with more appeals, posters and ribbons. That day, the Police released CCTV of Alice confidently power-walking passed Brentford Gauging Lock, at 2.23pm and 3:45pm, hoping to jog people’s memories of this very recognisable girl with a very specific walk. Someone, somewhere had to have seen her. The search for Alice Gross would become the Met’s largest deployment of Police resources since the 7/7 bombings. Over six hundred officers and sniffer dogs (many pulled from neighbouring counties) searched ten square miles of ponds, parks and marshes from Southall to Brentford which surrounded the towpath - most of which consisted of dense woodland, tangled thickets and endless soggy bogs. Being interconnected with roads, rails and industrial estates, the search area was frequently littered with items lost by walkers (like shoes, clothes or phones), as well as bin-bags, bricks and broken bits of bike which lay deliberately hidden under old scraps of carpet or secreted among some impenetrable nettles by lazy fly-tippers, so that so-many potential pieces of evidence turned out to be nothing. Divers from the Police Marine Unit conducted a painstaking fingertip search of three and a half miles of rivers, the canal, weirs and side-ponds, with some stretches of the Grand Union being up-to fifty-feet wide and ten feet deep, with visibility so poor in the silty water, they couldn’t see their own hands. Vast swathes of overgrown vegetation were cutback to aid the search as they cleared a path from Three Bridges, Lock 97 and Hanwell Bridge, all the way down to Trumper’s Way, Gallow’s Bridge and Brentford Lock. Hundreds of tonnes of nettles and rubbish removed from head-height to the riverbed. Everywhere was checked; as helicopters scoured the skies, cadaver dogs sniffed the soil, Police cadets patrolled in packs, experts were requisitioned, metal detectors perpetually pinged, and even the Royal Air Force provided ‘aerial analysis’ to pinpoint patches of earth which had recently been disturbed. The investigation team followed 729 lines of inquiry, questioned 1067 people and a team of thirty detectives scoured more than 10000 hours of CCTV footage from 300 cameras across a six square mile area, totalling 35 terabytes worth of images. Across the weeks, they were able to piece together most of her journey, as well as identifying five cyclists on the towpath shortly before she disappeared. Alice’s mother, Rosalind would state: “Every morning, as Alice’s disappearance grows longer, it brings new agony, new anguish”. And as everybody knew, the longer the search took, the less chance they had of ever finding her alive, and the more forensic evidence would be destroyed. With the inquiry drawing a blank, on Thursday 25th September, four weeks after her disappearance, a similarly-looking Police Cadet in an identical jogging outfit and backpack helped to reconstruct Alice’s last known movements in a reconstruction shown on the BBC’s Crimewatch, as Rosalind made another emotional plea for anyone to come forward with information, no matter how small or insignificant. ...but after 4.23pm, as she passed Trumper’s Bridge, there were no more sightings of Alice. (Silence) And then... after thirty-three days of nothing... a body was found. Based on the CCTV footage, Police had narrowed the search to just north of the Trumper’s Way Bridge, south of Three Bridges and east of Hanwell Bridge, and utilising specialist search teams with more advanced equipment and greater techniques, they rechecked the areas they had checked before. On Tuesday 30th September, at around 7pm, Police cordoned-off the towpath at Lock 97 and - to the left of Lock Cottage - a secluded and overgrown short-cut leading to Hanwell Bridge, running alongside the River Brent, and barely a few hundred metres from where her black backpack had been found. With no hint of spoiled earth or disturbed vegetation, this little-known nook - barely eight feet (and always within sight) of the canal’s towpath - looked as untouched as it had just one month before. The body was so well hidden, even experienced search teams and the cadaver dogs had missed her, and London Fire Brigade with their specialist equipment had to be called in to excavate the remains. Whoever had buried her there, needed to make sure that she would never be found. Behind a tree, down a slope, under a bush and buried in three feet of silty water, the tiny pale frame of a young girl’s body had been pinned to the riverbed of the River Brent. Wrapped in black bin-bags, laying in a foetal position and stripped naked except for a single white sock, her short skinny body had been weighed down by four house-bricks tied to a bicycle wheel, and on top, this had been secured in place by a two-foot long, 20 kilo log - almost half her body weight – so that nothing would drift up. A formal identification was made the next day, where her parents confirmed it was Alice. The autopsy was conducted on Thursday 2nd October at West London Mortuary by Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl. Badly decomposed after thirty-three days in the water, initial tests proved inconclusive, but later the following were confirmed; Alice had been attacked on or near the towpath, she had died shortly after her disappearance, the motive was sexual, and her cause of death was compression asphyxia to the torso. Meaning – being a small girl of just six-stone – her tiny chest had been crushed, suffocated of all its oxygen, as a man almost twice her weight, had bared-down upon her, and raped her. (End) Commander Graham McNulty of Scotland Yard said: “Our work at this scene is crucial to ensure we capture all the evidence to identify who is responsible for this dreadful crime. This may take some time, and I ask people to remain patient and to respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time”. In a statement, Alice’s parents said: “We have been left completely devastated. It is difficult to comprehend that our sweet and beautiful daughter was the victim of a terrible crime. Why anyone would want to hurt her is something that we are struggling to come to terms with. We still don’t know who is responsible for this crime and we ask that people continue to help the police to bring the perpetrator to justice. We would like to thank all of those that have supported us in our efforts to find Alice, especially the local community; it is comforting to know that so many people care”. The locals were left devastated, many of whom had helped in the search for this missing girl, only now it had become a murder investigation. Like a little ray of sunshine, the yellow ribbons of Hanwell – which still stood proudly on every railing as a reminder of the sunshine that Alice’s warmth had brought, and as a symbol of hope that (one day) she may return home safe – only now they acted as a memorial to the dead, as a black cloud hung over Hanwell, and a child-killer stalked their midst. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. The concluding part of the Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell continues next week. If you’d like to learn a little more about this case (as well as to join me for a birthday cup of tea), we can do that after the break. But before that, here’s a brief promo for a true-crime podcast which may be right up your street. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, many of whom joined us a good few weeks ago, so I apologise for the delay. They are: Karen Hillier, Dawn Hansford, Kelly Ciesla, Donna Stevens, Lee Cullen, Bev Jones, Frankie Watt, Neil Crewe, Charlotte Lilly, Steve Perkins, Anne-Marie Cummins, Jo Rayson, Kay Fillmore, Kirsty McGinnity, Jan Hole, Laura Knight and Andrew Duncan. And as this list is pretty big, I’ll be concluding it next week, but I hope you all enjoyed your goodies and Walk With Me. Plus, a thank you to everyone who has very kindly sent a donation via Supporter or the Murder Mile eShop; they were Roland Varga, Frank Pinter, Craig Baldwin, Ruth, Poppy the Dog, Des, an anonymous American friend, JoJo and Sumema. I thank all of you, that’s very generous. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
Archives
October 2024
Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast
Categories
All
Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
|