Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #121: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell - Part Two (Arnis Zalkalns)3/3/2021 
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42 Castlebar Road, the former home of Arnis Zalkalns/Daksa
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund
Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund is supporting the National Foundation for Youth Music in memory of Alice who had a passion for music. It aims to provide a sustainable legacy of music-making for disadvantaged children in Alice's memory. If you want to help please do make your donation here.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE:
Today’s episode is about the hunt for the murderer of Alice Gross. With rape as a motive but no clear link to any suspect, the attack seemed almost random. And although their encounter was entirely by chance, a cruel twist of fate may have decided her death just three years before she was even born. This is Part Two of Two of The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell.
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of 42 Castlebar Road, the former home of Arbnnis Zalkalns is marked with a red cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
Here's a few videos to go with this series; 42 Castlebar Road where Arnis Zalkalns/Daksa lived at the time of the murder, the short-cut between Lock 97 and the River Brent where the attack took place, and near the location at Boston Marnor Park where Arnis Zalkalns killed himself.
I've also posted some photos to aid your knowledge of the case. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable. 
Locations involved in this case: (from top left to bottom right) the entrance to Lock 97 (from south of the canal), the entrance to the shortcut to the River Brent (where Alice was snatched), the short-cut (where the rape and murder took place). the location where her body was found, the footbridge at Brentford Lock, a densely wooded section of the area (it gets worse than this), the exit/extrance to the short-cut at Hanwell Bridge, Hanwell Bridge via Uxbridge Road, The Corner Shop and on the far right: the memorial to Alice at the location her body was found and Arnis Zalkaln's flat at 42 Castlebar Road.
SOURCES:As there is no police file or court documents currently available, this series has been written and researched using a variety of sources, as well as my own research and investigations. Including (but not exclusively):
Alice's Music- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWYbzRNASic Alice's Solo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmVa0tL01Bg UK Documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLXuAL6LPKg CCTV at Brentford Lock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlPfVgJgrN8 CCTV at Corner Shop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMg0UhdJrWE CCTV by Uxbridge Road / Hanwell Bridge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCv4E6-558 INTERVIEW WITH PARENTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkoUdnHiK0 NEWS SOURCES: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29258630 https://alice-poppymadeleine-gross.muchloved.com/Fundraising https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/04/alice-gross-inquest-finds-schoolgirl-was-unlawfully-killed https://www.wandsworthsw18.com/#!pages/shared:common:eaalice021 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/11/revealed-alice-gross-argued-against-banning-foreign-criminals-before-her https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/14/alice-gross-inquest-must-scrutinise-suspected-killer-arnis-zalkalns-uk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/mother-murdered-girl-alice-gross-lost-faith-uks-ability-protect-citizens https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/body-found-river-alice-gross-police https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/27/alice-gross-murder-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/01/alice-gross-police-find-body-river-brent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/29/alice-gross-police-dredge-london-canal-missing-schoolgirl https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/05/alice-gross-murder-forensic-tests-arnis-zalkalns https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/16/alice-gross-police-missing-latvian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/24/alice-gross-evidence-latvian-police-arrest-warrant https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/04/fears-grow-missing-teenager-alice-gross https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-29252462 https://www.theweek.co.uk/60472/alice-gross-why-did-police-not-know-about-killer-s-past https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/18/alice-gross-police-arnis-zalkalns-murder-conviction-suspect https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/13/arnis-zalkalns-inquest-opened-london-alice-gross https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/22/alice-gross-police-suspect-arnis-zalkalns https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29438682 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30997004 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2928026/Latvian-killer-Arnis-Zalkalns-charged-murder-schoolgirl-Alice-Gross-police-say.html https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Gross-2016-0488.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29340052 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29328591 https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/330905/suspect-in-missing-alice-case-is-wife-killer/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2761606/Once-tasted-blood-I-feared-strike-An-extraordinary-interview-grieving-mother-wife-Latvian-fugitive-battered-death.html MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about the hunt for the murderer of Alice Gross. With rape as a motive but no clear link to any suspect, the attack seemed almost random. And although their encounter was entirely by chance, a cruel twist of fate may have decided her death just three years before she was even born. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 121: The Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell – Part Two. Today I’m standing on Castlebar Road in Ealing, W5; four miles west of the flat shared by the killers of Vincent Patrick Keighrey, three miles north-west of the Chiswick cat ladies, one street north-west of the newsagents where the sadistic Polish child-rapist Andrzej Kunowski lured his penultimate victim, and one and a half miles south-east of the bloodbath at Gurnell Grove - coming soon to Murder Mile. Ealing is one of the borough’s seven towns including Acton, Greenford, Perivale, Northolt, Southall and (on its westerly border) is Hanwell. As a settlement since the iron age, Ealing comes from the Saxon word ‘Gilligas’ which fittingly means ’place of the people’, being a nice place to live and work. Skirting north of Ealing Broadway sits Castlebar, a B-road heading to Hanwell. As a residential street shoe-horned full of townhouses, terraces, flats and care homes, it’s the kind of place where everyone is pleasant to one-another. In passing, they may nod, wave or utter a cheery “how do you do?” Only to dart inside, pry open the curtains and lambast their partner, as after a decade of niceties, the worst crime of all would be the shame of asking their neighbour - “I’m sorry, but what is your name?” Half way up the hill, opposite a little V-shaped patch of grass called Tortoise Green sits 42 Castlebar Road; a three-storey semi-detached light-brown house with large white windows, a black iron fence and - like so many over-priced London houses – it was subdivided into several rented flats. Today, it’s a lovely home which (I’m assured) houses some thoroughly pleasant persons. But just seven years ago, the basement flat was rented out to a builder with a baby, a bride-to-be and a bicycle. And although hard-working, none of the residents knew about his deadly past or his sadistic obsession. As far as we know, its tenant never knew Alice, she never knew him and although (as he cycled home from work) the murder of a young girl might not have been on his mind, in a chance encounter, there may have been something oddly familiar about Alice which stirred his emotions and drove him to kill. As it was here, on Thursday 4th September 2014, exactly one week after her disappearance, that 41-year-old Arnis Zalkalns vanished, leaving behind his family and taking one more life. (Interstitial) Missing for four days, Rosalind made an appeal to her daughter: "We'd like to say to Alice that we miss her, we love her and that she's not in any trouble, all we want to know that she's safe". Being a grounded girl, Alice’s only vices were walks, pets and music. She avoided conflict, strangers and unsafe settings, and she didn’t keep secrets, as having opened her heart to her family about her battle with depression and anorexia, their love and support kept her strong. She had never run away, but every option had to be considered... even the unthinkable. And although her family and the people of Hanwell never lost hope - as the streets were radiated by blooms of bright yellow ribbons in a vigil to ‘find Alice’ – but as time eroded, the likelihood of finding her alive grew more distant. If someone had taken her, the question was ‘who’ and ‘why’? On day five, having found her black backpack and trainers hidden amongst a dense thicket on a remote river towpath, although it remained a missing person’s case (until the evidence suggested otherwise) it was escalated to Detective Superintendent Carl Mehta of the Met’ Police’s Serious Crime Command. Conducting one of London’s largest searches, hundreds of dogs and officers scoured ten square miles of dense impenetrable woodland –overgrown, unmapped and riddled with dank nooks and recesses - from Three Bridges to Brentford Lock, the River Brent to the Hanwell Flight, covering every conceivable spot from Trumper’s Way to Gallow’s Bridge and Boston Manor Park, as divers waded through three-and-a-half miles of unnavigable rivers, ponds and bogs, relying mostly on touch amidst its silty depths. Over the coming weeks, a jigsaw of CCTV footage would painstakingly rebuild a timeline of Alice’s last known movements as well as any eye-witnesses. And yet, it would yield few clues to her whereabouts, as – at the crucial moment between 4:23pm and 4:42pm - her digital history had a dead zone. It seemed impossible. How could a young girl with a very identifiable look, outfit and walk vanish from a moderately busy towpath on a summer’s day in broad daylight, and yet nobody saw a thing? Released on Thursday 4th September, CCTV footage showed the small, skinny but confidently strutting Alice crossing Brentford Lock at 2.23pm, 3:45pm and finally power-walking under the Trumper’s Way Bridge at 4:23pm, as five cyclists passed her, just minutes before she vanished. Three came forward and were ruled out, but two did not, possibly having not recognised themselves in the grainy footage. It proved, she wasn’t followed, distracted or fazed, she stopped once, she spoke to no-one, she made no other calls or texts, her speed and direction remained consistent and she showed no signs of fear. As a senior detective, from day one, DSI Carl Mehta had been investigating this as a potential homicide, looking for any anomalies and possible suspects. On Saturday 6th September at 5pm, a 25-year-old Ealing man was arrested but later bailed. And on Sunday 7th, after a tip-off, a 51-year-old local was arrested after “a shovel, ropes and sacks” were found in his car-boot, but he was released uncharged. Alice hadn’t vanished of her own volition, that much was clear, so somebody had to know something... ...but even before these arrests were made, DSI Mehta had a second line of inquiry and a suspect. On average, 55000 people go missing in London every year, with roughly thirty-three missing persons reported in the borough of Ealing every week, and that week was no different. Excluding Alice, to the DSI, this list was a typical mix of the borough’s most vulnerable – whether children, the elderly or the mentally distressed – many of whom would return safe and well. But one person’s details stood out. On Friday 5th September, a 41-year-old Latvian was reported missing by his girlfriend; his passport and bank accounts lay untouched, both his UK and Latvian phones were dead, CCTV had lost him one day earlier and – as a new dad with a good job and a baby daughter - he had no reason to vanish. Last seen cycling away from his basement flat at 42 Castlebar Road, his disappearance had eery similarities to Alice. Only he wasn’t the victim, but the prime suspect and his name was Arnis Zalkalns. (Interstitial) Arnis Zalkalns was born in 1973 in the Latvian capital of Riga, under his real name - Arnis Daksa. Little is known about his early years except for a few scant details and although his family would later state “he was a good man, who wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially a child”, his past would refute this. Physically, he was unremarkable, being neither hideous, handsome nor bland. As an average-looking man of five-foot ten-inches tall, slightly stocky and thirteen stone in weight, he mirrored many other welders in the dockyard; he was practical, good with his hands and had the skills to construct his own tools. With a jutting chin, piercing grey eyes and a brown ponytail, he was semi-successful in his pursuit of petite young girls, and although moderately charming, his overriding character trait was aggression. In the spring of 1994, at a Riga nightclub, Arnis met 19-year-old seamstress Rudite Zalkalns. With soft brown hair, pale-skin and a pixyish nose, there was something prepubescent about her elfin features and a doll-like figure, as if – being a little naïve – her mind and body kept remained as a ‘little girl’. And easily enchanted, she ignored her mother’s warnings, she fell madly in love and quickly fell pregnant. By December 1994, hiding her bulging belly under a pink maternity dress, Arnis & Rudite married, with their daughter (Elvira) born two months later... but life was far from bliss, as Arnis was cruel, abusive and controlling. With the cause uncertain – whether Rudite had dented his ego having begun a lesbian fling or stumbled on his alleged links to the Latvian mafia - the violence she suffered was irrefutable. In 1996, having handmade a low-calibre handgun – with his masculinity impugned - he shot her in the stomach. Surviving with a crushed bullet lodged in her spine, being too terrified to call the Police and with Arnis refusing to pay for a surgeon to remove it, she was stitched back up and there it remained. By March 1997, with his temper tightly-wound as his wife dared to go-out without him or his say-so, feeling paranoid and spurned, he callously prepared her death. Under the ruse of a gift, he lured Rudite to a remote woodland on the outskirts of Riga where his weapons lay in wait. Wielding a foot-long cosh he had fashioned from scaffolding pole, he frenziedly bludgeoned the tiny girl to unconsciousness and brandishing a handmade blade, he stabbed in the heart. Stripped naked, tied into a foetal position and stuffed into a black bin-bag, Arnis dumped her body in pre-dug three-foot grave. Discarding her clothes and trainers, he disguised the crime-scene, so that (even to the experts) it looked untouched. His planning was detailed and his execution was faultless, but his failure was his obsession. Rudite was dead and gone, but unable to sleep and being haunted by her face, all he could think about was Rudite. Reporting her missing, detectives found her diary in which she detailed the violence and her despair, and as the Police’s prime suspect, on 9th July 1997, just four months later, he confessed to her murder. So well-concealed was his wife’s body that Arnis himself had to guide the search-teams to her grave. Assessed as mentally-stable, he pleaded guilty to murder and on 18th June 1998, he was sentenced to twelve years in Riga Central Prison, on appeal this was reduced to eight, but he served only seven. Released on probation in 2005 - leaving Elvira without a father or mother - he moved to Liepaja, began a new life with a lady called Liga Rubezneice, they had two children, and keen to bury his criminal past and (maybe unable to let go), he changed his name from Daksa to Zalkalns - his dead wife’s surname. In 2007, Arnis Zalkalns (a welder with no convictions) boarded a coach to London, having never been placed on Interpol’s watchlist of violent offenders. Moving to the West Ealing suburb of Boston Manor, he worked on a building site in Isleworth, cycling his red Trex mountain bike along the Grand Union canal and starting a relationship with his new girlfriend Katerina Laiblove, they would later move into the basement flat at 42 Castlebar Road in Ealing, and together they had a daughter called Linda. He had a new life in a new world with a new family... only his old demons were never put to rest. In 2009 - triggered by either lust, rage or obsession – Arnis Zalkalns was arrested for the sexual-assault of a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Boston Manor Park; a densely overgrown woodland, by the towpath on the Hanwell Flight, just one-a-half miles south of Lock 97. And although fully-investigated, the terrified girl decided to not to proceed and the charges against him were dropped. For DSI Carl Mehta, Arnis Zalkalns was his prime suspect. With a history of violence and sexual assault against young petite girls, his description and mountain bike matched the footage from Trumper’s Bridge, he was currently missing, and his DNA matched a sample found on Alice’s backpack and trainer. On Tuesday 16th September, DSI Mehta took the unusual step of announcing Zalkaln’s as a ‘person of interest’ stating “we simply want to speak to him, as he may have information that can help our search for Alice”. The next day, Police released the CCTV footage showing Alice crossing the short black-and-white footbridge at Brentford Gauging Lock at 3:45pm on the day she disappeared. At 4pm, just fifteen minutes later, that same footage showed Arnis crossing the footbridge and cycling north up the canal. So, why did Arnis attack Alice? He didn’t know her, he had never met her, and (based on the evidence) it wasn’t a pre-meditated murder. If anything, their contact would be as fleeting as any other stranger they would pass on the towpath that day - or any other day - with Arnis as one of many anonymous cyclists who were heading home from work, and Alice as just another jogger keeping fit. So, what happened? Thursday 28th August 2014 was as unremarkable as any other day that summer. Being twenty-three degrees, sunny but not hot, and calm with a light breeze – it was the perfect weather for a long walk. At 12:50pm, with a matching outfit, a confident stride and a swinging ponytail, (“bye mum, love you”) Alice left home on a spontaneous walk via an improvised route decided by her mood and energy. Her speed was consistent as she passed the following locations. 1.02pm Hanwell Station, 1:13pm Hanwell Bridge, 1.15pm Uxbridge Road and 1.26pm she entered Windmill Lane and the Hanwell Flight. She passed Lock 97, the Syphon, Trumper’s Way Bridge, Elthorne Park, Osterley Lock, the M4 flyover and Boston Manor Park; she crossed over at Gallow’s Bridge, passed Transport Avenue, Great West Road, and at 2.23pm she entered Brentford Gauging Lock, where at 3pm she texted her dad. At no point during her walk south did Arnis see her, as from 9am that morning, he was on a building site in Isleworth, three and a half miles of her home and one mile west of Brentford Lock. He worked hard, he took a short break, his mood was good and he left work at his usual time, having completed his shift. At 3:35pm, wearing a blueish short-sleeved shirt, cream chinos and black trainers, he cycled east along London Road on his red Trex mountain bike with his black rucksack on his back, as per usual. Given how meticulously he had planned and executed the murder of his wife – with a pre-dig grave, a handmade cosh, a sharpened knife, cable ties and a roll of black bin-bags, as well as how methodically he had hidden her body and disguised the crime-scene so it looked untouched – we know his attack on Alice wasn’t pre-meditated prior to this moment, as none of the tools he would need were on his person or at the scene. At 3:45pm, Alice headed north across the black-and-white footbridge at Brentford Lock. At 4pm, taking his usual route home, Arnis cycled passed that same spot, heading up the canal, in the same direction as Alice – as many joggers, dog-walkers and at least four other cyclists would at roughly the same time. With her walking speed gauged at three-miles-per-hour and his cycling speed at about eight, based on the timings between CCTV cameras, they would have passed one-another on the narrow towpath near to Boston Manor Park - the site of his alleged sexual-assault on a 14-year-old schoolgirl. At 4:26pm, a camera captured Alice being overtaken by the last of five cyclists at Trumper’s Bridge. Her speed was steady and she showed no sense of fear, so - if Arnis had confronted her near Gallow’s Bridge - feeling afraid, she could have left the canal on this road heading to Hanwell... but she didn’t. Having cycled to Lock 97, Arnis stopped, parked up his bike and - just to the left of Lock Cottage, down a secluded and overgrown short-cut running along the River Brent - he lit-up a Lucky Strike menthol and as he lay in wait for eight minutes as Alice approached, he smoked it down to the filter. So why Alice? A girl he never knew, had never met and hadn’t a single reason to love or hate, who was just one of hundreds (if not thousands) of girls he had cycled-by, every day, on that stretch of canal. Why Alice? Well that we can never know for certain, but there is one immutable and undeniable truth. Alice was a tiny girl, with the wise head of grown-up, but the small skinny body of a child. Being pixyish and petite, with elfin-features and a doll-like frame - although she was unquestionably easy-prey for a five-foot-ten thirteen-stone man - her look bore an uncanny similarity to that of his dead wife. Seventeen years after Rudite’s murder, still haunted by the face of his long-dead lover, the motive of Arnis Zalkalns might have been decided in a fleeting glance – from behind, and on a bike – as in a cruel ironic twist, the tragic fate of Alice Gross was (maybe) set-in-motion three years before she was born? The attack was swift and brazen. It had to be. Being a bright summer’s day, he snatched Alice off the public footpath, silencing her lips with his grubby hand, as he dragged the terrified teen to the bushes, and all the while, through-out her ordeal, lines of unwitting people would pass-by just a few feet away. For Arnis, the risk of being discovered was extremely high, but there hidden amidst the dense thicket, he raped this little girl, until his eighty-three-kilo bulk crushed the last breath of air from her tiny lungs. Evidence suggests that sex was his motive, not murder, but with Alice’s limp and lifeless body slumped beside him, his new motive was her disposal. As he had with his dead-wife, he needed to hide her, so no-one would find her... ever. Only with no plan, no tools and no pre-dug grave, he risked arrest. At 5:49pm, seventy-five minutes later, and at about the same time that Alice should have returned home, a camera on Uxbridge Road caught Arnis emerging from the towpath at Hanwell Bridge. In his bag was stashed her dead iPhone, possibly some of her clothes, and having dumped her backpack along the overgrown short-cut, we know that he had entered the river as the legs of his cream Chinos were rolled-up to his knees. He headed east into Hanwell and cycled 1.9 miles to his flat at 42 Castlebar Road, to his girlfriend and baby daughter. But his stay would only be brief, as Alice wasn’t buried. At 7:30pm, he left his home. In his rucksack was a shovel, a torch, spare clothes and a roll of black bin-bags. Where he found the four house-bricks and the broken bicycle wheel is unknown, but this kind of innocent detritus could easily be found at the canal having been dumped by any lazy fly-tipper. At 7:36pm, he entered The Corner Shop at 24 The Avenue in West Ealing and purchased two cans of strong lager. The shopkeeper said “he smelled bad” and “looked out-of-it, like he was on drugs”. At 7:46pm, the Hanwell Bridge camera caught him returning to the scene where he stayed until 8:49pm. Wading chest-deep into this isolated and unnavigable bend in the River Brent, he dug a shallow trench in the dark riverbed and - having wrapped her small porcelain body in black bin-bags - behind a tree, down a slope and buried deep in three-feet of silty water, he disguised this unrecognisable black lump amongst the mud and weighed her down with bricks, sections of tree-trunk and a twenty-kilo log. So meticulously had he hidden the body of Alice Gross, she wouldn’t be found for thirty-three days. The next day, on Friday 29th August, that same camera captured him at 6:48am and 9:02pm returning to the scene, possibly to check on the body as he cycled to-and-from work, along that same towpath. With her black backpack and blue trainers found just five days later, that day his internet search history was dominated by one name - ‘Alice Gross’. He knew he would be a suspect and he knew he would be caught. But (unlike with his dead wife) he would never confess, or see a single day in prison. (END) On Thursday 4th September at 12:40am, one week after her disappearance, 41-year-old Arnis Zalkalns left his flat at Castlebar Road, and having packed a rucksack with ropes and tools, he vanished. Announced as ‘person of interest’, a forensic search found additional evidence including the bin-bags, his bike, his clothes and the cracked case to Alice’s iPhone at his home. As well as hours of CCTV footage, the cigarette butt found at the crime scene and Zalkaln’s DNA was recovered on her backpack, her canvas trainer and – protected by the waterproof binbags – his DNA remained on her skin. Police were confident of a conviction, all they had to do was find him. The problem was he knew how to hide himself and a body, having done it twice before. But after thirty-one days of being missing, Arnis Zalkalns was finally found. On Saturday 4th October at 2pm, in a remote and densely-wooded thicket in Boston Manor Park, barely a mile south of Lock 97, the badly decomposed body of Arnis Zalkalns was found hanging from a tree. So well disguised was his body and the scene, that a previous search by Police specialists had failed to find it, and with no evidence of third-party involvement, his cause of death was hanging by suicide. The culprit was found, the case was closed and an inquest was held, but having taken his own life, Arnis Zalkalns would never be convicted and the family of Alice Gross would never get justice. On 23rd October, the people of Hanwell stood in silence as a black hearse crawled across Broadway, along long lines of rolling tears and bowed heads, as the little lost girl was returned home. Illuminated by yellow ribbons, candles and flowers, as the procession was lead to Hanwell Cemetery, in the back lay a small yellow coffin, decorated with paintings and designs of everything that Alice loved; art, music, poetry, her family, her pets and a flower-strewn meadow, to reflect her love of nature. But Alice’s name was not to become synonymous with grief, but joy. In her brief life, her love of music would become her legacy, a legacy which lasts to this day and will continue to inspire a new generation of children and teenagers to – battle through their personal problems, just as Alice had - and embrace the things that they love. In her memory, Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund was established, raising donations and seeking to provide a sustainable legacy of music-making for disadvantaged children. As well as the Alice Gross Song Writing Award which inspires a new generation of young song writers. Alice will live on in our hearts, with the yellow ribbons of Hanwell once again seen a symbol of hope. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the concluding part of the Yellow Ribbons of Hanwell. If you’d like to learn a little more about this case, join me for a cup of tea after the break and to make a donation to Alice's Youth Music Memorial Fund, there is a link in the show-notes. But before that, here’s a brief promo for a true-crime podcast which may be right up your street. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, many of whom joined us a good few weeks ago, so I apologise for the delay. They are: Sally Worsley, Jonathan McLean, Shawna Ewasiuk (Ewayzee-uk), Elizabeth Whitley, George Hall, Guido Puddi, Kim Skwara, Chris Niro, Shirley Jones, Michelle Wilde-Nguyen, Megan Morris and Tee Bylo. With the Patreon competition winners from ages ago being Michael Hanrahan (who won a Murder Mile mug of goodies) and Karen Hillier and Kara Langford (who won a Murder Mile key ring), Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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