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58 Charteris Road in Kilburn, as it looks today
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR:
Today’s episode is part one of two about 19-year-old Michael Douglas Dowdall. Described as a pathetic little mummy’s boy, his early crimes didn’t just set out to prove his bullies wrong, they also became the first faltering steps of - potentially - a fledgling serial-killer.
THE LOCATION
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The location of the murder is located with a black cross at the top left by Kilburn. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
SOURCES: As this case was researched using the sources below.
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 part one of two about 19-year-old Michael Douglas Dowdall. Described as a pathetic little mummy’s boy, his early crimes didn’t just set out to prove his bullies wrong, they also became the first faltering steps of - potentially - a fledgling serial-killer. 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 154: The Sadistic Little Drummer Boy – Part One. Today I’m standing on Charteris Road in Kilburn, NW6; right in the middle of the St John’s Wood home of Teddy Sieff where Carlos the Jackal botched his first assassination, the Harlesden house where 8-year-old Peter Buckingham took his last gasp, the Cricklewood Arms pub where Stephen Holmes met the ‘Kindly Killer’, and an unsolved attack by another potential ‘Ripper’ - coming soon to Murder Mile. Charteris Road is lovely little residential street comprising of two long-lines of two storey terraces from the 1920’s and 30’s. It’s very quiet and very orderly, with a smattering of silver birch trees, the road carefully marked with white lines to denote who parks where and when, with a covered bicycle rack which is almost certainly chock full of Brompton’s. There’s no noise, no kids, no smells and no mess. The worst crimes you could imagine happening on this street might be a yappy little rat incessantly yipping for its millionth morsel that minute of roast-chicken tit-bits, a 90-inch TV briefly blurting too loudly and risking the neighbours knowing that they watch trashy shite like Love Island, something plastic being put in the glass recycling bin, or – scandalously - an Acado delivery replacing their beloved avocadoes with tins of baked beans. And not the good ones but the cheapo own brand. Oh, the shame. But every street has its dark secrets, and this street is no different. At 58 Charteris Road sits a nice two-storey terraced-house; with cream brick walls, white window sills, a thin front garden reserved for three bins, and a UPVC entrance door to the right. It’s currently someone’s home, but back in 1958, this was a lodging house. On the first floor was a bed-sitting room occupied by a new tenant named Veronica Murray, but being new to the area, almost no-one knew her name, her occupation, her history, or anything else about her life. She was a mystery. And yet, her death would become almost as mysterious as her life itself. As it was here, on Friday 19th December 1958 that her body was found. And although it asked more questions than it answered, it also marked the fledgling steps of a potential serial-killer. (Interstitial) (Michael) “My mates think I’m queer, I’ve tried to show them they’re wrong about me, I really have... but they always make me feel like I’m a nobody, a nothing. Well, I’ll show them, won’t I?”. It’s hard to tell what made Michael into a sadistic little monster; maybe it was the bullying, maybe it was the trauma, perhaps his appearance, possibly a crossed-wire in his genetic make-up, or maybe it was a mixture of them all? This is not to excuse his actions, as everybody’s life has challenges, but it’s how we choose to embrace these trials, which either shapes us for the better or for the worse. Michael Douglas Dowdall, known as ‘Mick’ was born on the 12th December 1940; fifteen months into the Second World War and three months into an eight-month-long blitz, a time of trauma and death. Gestated in the terrified womb of a lone woman whose husband was a British Army captain serving overseas, Michael entered this world to the persistent bang of bombs, as the hospital violently shook. Right into his adulthood, Michael would always look like a baby. With a stick-thin body perched above an oversized head, a mop of Charlie Brown hair, a set of sticky out ears and his skin the hue of stale porridge, although for some this youthfulness would be a blessing, for Michael, it was a curse. Raised as the youngest of two sons to a struggling-mother, Michael never knew his father and he never would, as Captain Dowdall was killed-in-action when the boy was barely one. With no memory of the man whose loss made his mother weep, it left a void in his life, but one he could never explain. Uprooted from a nice cottage in Uckfield (Sussex) to a lodging house in Paddington in West London, he was desperate to be the hero his father once was, but Michael was no military man. Being small, weak and prone to outbursts of tears, the little boy spent his early years clinging to his mummy’s leg. Without a father-figure to guide him, to admonish him or to rain him in, although his mother did her very best by herself; he resented his school, his teachers, and – being persistently bullied for looking and acting like a ‘baby’ – by the age of six-and-a-half, he was referred to a child care officer, owing to his volatile outbursts, his hysterical moods, his cruelty to animals and his uncontrollable violence. Mocked for being a mummy’s boy, he always felt he had to prove himself to the bigger boys. And yet, barely held together by a single speck of stability, that was about to vanish forever. In 1948, when he was only eight, his mother died. With both parents’ dead, once again he was uprooted from the big city of London to his aunt’s house in the remote mining village of Llanhilleth, near Abertillery in Wales. Michael was now a foreigner in his own family; surrounded by relatives he barely knew, in a place he had never lived, hearing a language he didn’t understand, and again, at school, this fragile little boy was mercilessly bullied for being an outcast and a nobody. And after a vicious fight where the length of his nose was slashed with a knife, he would forever be given the nickname of ‘Scarface Mick’. But no matter how hard his Aunt Alice tried, it was like Michael was driven to bring misery and pain. During his turbulent teenage years, twice he had tried to burn his aunt’s house to the ground. He often drank himself insensible going drink-for-drink with the men, like he had something to prove. Like a little magpie, he persistently stole anything which wasn’t nailed down, not because he needed it, but because he wanted it. And as his hormones raged – feeling sexually inferior, as a late-bloomer who the girls rightly avoided – as his sexual aggression grew, his desperation led him to pay for sex. In his eyes, a man was defined by how much he drank, fought and fucked... ...but no matter what, Michael would always be a baby. Not just because of his boyish body and a cherubic face, but because of his actions. Always bragging about his conquests, if anyone dared not to believe him? Tears welled, lips quivered, a tantrum sparked and a hate-fuelled violence erupted. In 1955, having left school, 15-year-old Michael Dowdall joined the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of Welsh Guards; based out of Pirbrlght in Surrey, and later at the Chelsea Barracks in West London. Having enlisted in the military (as his late father had) this should have been the making of him. Earning an honest wage, learning new skills and being mentored by a flank of disciplined father-figures, this wild little boy could easily have been modelled into a good little man... only the rot had already set in. Being a drummer boy - a role far from the fight of his heroic father and one of the lowest ranks in the battalion’s band - being surrounded by bigger boys, this only increased his anxieties. His commanding officer Lt Col Mansell Miller described him in court as “a bit odd... the boy had delusions of grandeur despite being small and weak”. Few knew him, even less liked him, and because of that, he was bullied. The torment would be so merciless, that in 1956, aged 16, he tried to hang himself in the guardroom. During the three years he spent in the Welsh Guards, he often went AWOL, disappearing from his duty to visit sex-workers in the West End. On his 18th birthday, he convinced three other guardsmen to join him for a few celebratory drinks at a hotel in Guildford, and although they only sunk a few beers to be polite - unable to reign-in his desperation - he sank three pints of gin and had to be carried home. Michael: “my Army mates think I’m queer. So, I have a drink, and then I feel better and more important. Once I started the heavy drinking, I liked it and kept it up. When I was drunk, very drunk, I would try anything. I wasn’t fussy about what I did, or what woman I went with. It made me feel... different”. Routinely mocked by squaddies for being a baby-faced mummy’s boy, he began paying the others to wash his shirts and to clean his boots. No-one knew where he was getting the money from, but seeing him less as a target and more of an extra income, the bullying stopped and it made him feel superior. For Michael, he had finally found a way to prove his masculinity... ...but what the soldiers didn’t know was that they had helped sow the seeds of a potential serial-killer. It’s unlikely that Michael knew much about his first victim, as very few people did. Veronica Murray was born in the Northern Irish town of Londonderry in or about 1927; she was raised a devout Catholic and she was educated at a convent, but – for whatever reason – she didn’t stay. Why she left, we shall never know; maybe she was fleeing an abusive father, maybe she was kicked-out having had sex out of wedlock, or maybe this was an act of rebellion against her strict upbringing? It’s hard to pin down exactly who Veronica was, as she changed her age to suit her needs, and although vivacious and chatty, many people knew her, but not well. She was personable but kept a professional distance, she rarely spoke about her private life, and she was mostly known as Ronnie or Monica. On an unspecified date in 1958, 31-year-old Veronica moved to London, seeking work in West End clubs. Being a fashionable lady with a neatly-coiffured brunette bob, Paris eyebrows and a thick set of red lips - she had a hint of the Hollywood star about her. So, it’s not surprising that she found work as night-club hostess... and yet, she also worked as a sex-worker. Police would later confirm that she had a criminal record for soliciting, but she didn’t turn to prostitution owing to desperation or addiction. Sex-work was a conscious choice; she chose the hours, the places and the punters. She was financially astute enough to spend and save her money well, hence she was always immaculately dressed. But also, she had the foresight to be able to afford her own rented flat at 58 Charteris Road in Kilburn. It was only small, but this first-floor front-facing bedsit was perfect. Perched on a residential street, it was the perfect space for such a private person, but it also afforded her the privacy to her bring clients back home, which is why neither her landlord nor any of the other lodgers knew very much about her. Being far from a shrinking wallflower, life in the big city didn’t scare Veronica, as she had street-smarts, she was savvy and she was cautious. She was chatty enough to make even the most nervous of men feel calm, but also, she had the confidence to stand her own ground when they got rough with her. Veronica was in a dangerous world where she knew how the handle herself... ...but then again, everybody makes mistakes. It was the bitterly cold winter’s night of Monday 15th December 1958. There was no snow, but typically it was cold and wet, as Veronica stood to the side of Trafalgar Square. This was a regular pick-up point for horny punters being conveniently situated near pubs, hotels, a train station and several theatres. Nearby, a Salvation Army band made merry music, the bells of St Martin’s rang, chestnuts (of dubious origin) slowly roasted in an old steel drum as (allegedly) mulled-wine was hocked from a cask, and the city was blessed with a Christmassy feel now that all of the war-time rationing was well-and-truly over. At an unspecified hour, in or near to midnight, Veronica was approached by a punter. He was just a boy, no bigger than Veronica but easily a few stones lighter. With a weak little body and a babyish face, he was barely out of his teen; but was desperate to act like a Billy Big Bollocks bragging about all of his sexual conquests... and yet, experience had told her, it was most likely his first time, Dressed in civvies, although he claimed to be in the Welsh Guards, with his dark suit and starched shirt hanging-off his weasily little frame like a sack of spuds, the best he could be was as a drummer boy. (Michael) “I had been drinking in the West End and I got very drunk”, he would later state. To Veronica, this would have been obvious given his slurred speech and staggering limbs, so perhaps she didn’t see this tipsy little boy with a boner as a threat? Maybe, he was easy money? She had been with pathetic little man-babies many times before, so it’s highly likely – having paid his £1 – he would struggle to raise his pointless little pecker, or as a two-pumps-and-a-squirt-merchant, he’d fart and fall asleep. “I picked up a prostitute in Trafalgar Square. She called a taxi and I remember she gave an address as somewhere in Kilburn”. The journey took 30 minutes, as the cab rode past Hyde Park and up Edgware Road. In his nasal Welsh drone, maybe Michael tried to impress her with a few bullshit tales, at which - being professional - she smiled. But so unmemorable was the journey, that during the investigation it was almost impossible for the Police to track down the driver, as to him, it was just a regular fare. Sometime after midnight, the cab pulled up at 58 Charteris Road. He paid the agreed amount, they entered the house, and both Michael and Veronica were quiet, as neither of the other tenants nor the landlord on the ground-floor heard them. “We got to her house and climbed the stairs to her room”. It was a small clean room with a floral double-bed, a wardrobe brimming with fashionable clothes, a neat dresser covered with curling tongs, brushes and a fine array of cosmetics, with a coin-operated meter for both the lights and the gas-heater, and on the mantelpiece for a fire which no longer existed lay a few personal possessions – some photos, a postcard, a trinket, and a pair of pink ornamental dumb-bells weighing 6lbs each. What they meant to her isn’t known but clearly, they held importance. According to his statement, “I had sex with her and went to sleep”, and that was that. But how much of that was true? When questioned, Michael Dowdall would state “when she woke me up, we had a row over something and she called me a ‘filthy little Welsh bastard’”. Only nobody heard a fight. “I threw a vase at her. I believe it smashed”. Which was true, but no-one knows how it smashed or when. “She came at me and hit me with something on the back of the neck and head, and scratched my nose and eyes”, but by the time he was interviewed, no marks or scars could be seen. So already, his statement had gaps. “I rushed at her, and I knocked her down and then grabbed an ornament off the mantlepiece and hit her on her head or face. I think she was half-getting up, I pulled her onto the bed and I remember chucking some clothes over her. I took a bottle of whiskey and then I left the place”. But why? Did she mock his tiny manhood, did he struggle to sexually perform, was this simply a bungled robbery, or did this man-baby erupt into an uncontrollably violent tantrum, because he couldn’t get his own way? “I went back to the Union Jack Club and went to sleep”. His stay at the serviceman’s hostel at Waterloo Station was proven, although this would suggest he was sober enough to travel back from a place he never knew, and begs the question, how he could have slept having inflicted such a level of violence. “When I woke up, I found blood on my hands, my shirt and suit. I chucked the shirt away in the dustbin having tried to wash it, and I sent the suit to the cleaners. A day or two afterwards, I read in the newspapers that a prostitute had been found murdered in Kilburn, and I knew I had killed the woman”. It seems likely, so perhaps this was an accident? Or maybe - for the most immature reason imaginable – his tears welled, his lips quivered, a tantrum sparked and his hate-fuelled violence erupted... ...marking this as one of the first-fledgling steps of a potential serial-killer? By Friday 19th December 1958, a girl-friend of Veronica’s had grown concerned, as no-one had seen or heard from her for five days, neither at the nightclubs she worked at nor on the Soho sex scene. At 6pm, she phoned the Turkish landlord of 58 Charteris Road – a man named Ratomir Tasic. He assumed that he wasn’t in; as the lights were off, the room was cold and the door was locked from the outside. But using his master key to gain entry, the inside of her room told a very different story. Drawers were opened, contents were scattered, and although the room was in disarray, nothing of any real value had been taken, except maybe a bottle of whiskey, to either be drank, sold or traded? On the bed, partially obscured by sheets lay a woman’s body, all silent and still. Her skin was sickly pale yet mottled with patches of purple, as the excitable buzz of flies and wriggle of maggots formed amidst the sheets caked with blood, and within the impacted recess of her very obvious wounds. Veronica had been dead for five days maybe six, but exactly what time she died - whether as she was going to bed, or just getting up - was impossible to tell, owing to her clothes. Sprawled across the bed, with both legs splayed, she lay naked except for her brown pullover, which had been partially pulled up over her head, as if her killer no-longer wanted to see into the black haemorrhages of her bloodshot eyes, but instead, he dreamed of doing something unimaginable to her body, which was now all his. What the pullover hid was what ultimately ended her life. From the mantlepiece, he had grabbed one of the pair of pink ornamental dumb-bells, made from heavy cast iron and weighing 6lbs a piece. One had remained untouched and clean, but the other lay on the floor, matted with her hair and dripping with her blood, as with the uncontrolled force of a petulant anger, he had bludgeoned her senseless, inflicting six wounds to her forehead and multiple fractures to her cracked and crushed skull. “I knocked her down and hit her on her head or face. She was half-getting up and then I left the place”. As her face swelled, fluid constricted her skull and the pressure forced her eyes to protrude from their sockets, a brain haemorrhage would have taken several agonising minutes for Veronica to die. But had her killer been so panicked at his actions, if this had been merely an accident? He wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to switch off the lights, to lock the door, and do what he did to her next. For this, he was calm, steady and in a state or either arousal or enjoyment. With steady hands, he had inflicted a most unusual wound. Around her thighs and abdomen were three identical marks, a set of circular abrasions on her skin, which formed an intricate v-shape. What it meant? We don’t know. What he had used? That was missing, but noted pathologist Dr Donald Teare concluded that they were not bite marks, but made by “a manufactured item with a flat end”. They made no sense, but one detail was certain. As each mark had occurred post-mortem, her killer hadn’t fled in panic. Instead, he had waited in that room with her body; and calmly inflicted each wound, either after her death, or as she lay dying, as the terrified woman helplessly lay there; her body bleeding, her eyes fixed and unable to breathe or scream – the mark of a true sadist. (End) The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Evan Davies of Scotland Yard. The room was preserved for evidence and a set of fingerprints (other than Veronica’s) had been found; one on a teacup suggesting she had invited her killer in, and one on a bloodied coat-hanger, which was never conclusively proven, but he may have inserted it inside her. The fingerprints were examined, but they did not prove to be match to anyone with a criminal record, and neither did the MO of this murder. With no witnesses to the crime, being a sex-worker who kept herself-to-herself and a Northern Irish woman who was new to the area, Police contacted her friends and family but drew a blank. In the Christmas Eve edition of the Daily Mirror, Police posted her picture on the front-page pleading “did you see this woman?”, but with no witnesses, this produced no suspects and the investigation went cold. 19-year-old Michael Douglas Dowdall was an unlikely suspect, being small, weak and baby-faced. With no prior convictions, this nobody had never come to the attention of the Police, therefore he was not on their radar; not even for theft or assault. But within this little boy lurked the heart of a sadist. (Michael) “My mates think I’m queer, I’ve tried to show them they’re wrong about me, I really have... but they always make me feel like I’m a nobody, a nothing. Well, I’ll show them, won’t I?”. Veronica Murray was his first, but more victims would feel the wrath of the sadistic little drummer boy. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. As always, for those of you who love hearing cake-crumbs fall from a fat man’s mush, while he waffles on about stuff n things, join me after the break for a little quiz and some extra details in Extra Mile. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters, who are Barbara Anderson, Zoe Taylor and Julian Barnes. I thank you all for supporting the show and I hope you’ve received your goodies. With a special thank you to Bernadette H and an anonymous friend for your kind donation via the Supporter link. 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, totalling 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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