Nominated BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at The British Podcast Awards, 4th Best True Crime Podcast by The Week, 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.
Newbury House on the Hallfield Estate, Bayswater, where Lillian LIndemann was murdered
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 TWO HUNDRED AND TWELVE:
On Friday 7th of September 1973, just seven weeks after and one and a half miles east of the attack on Alice Parker, in Flat 6 of Newbury House, 74-year-old Lillian Lindemann known as Lily was awaiting the arrival of her loved one’s. Being a stiflingly hot day she left the front-door to her first-floor flat open. Passing by, being short on money and supposedly high on “a bunch of mescaline” taken that morning, 28-year-old David Harrison, a wanted burglar who preyed on old ladies was looking for an easy target. But unlike Alice who had survived her attack, Lily would meet her death.
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THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today I’m standing outside of Newbury House on the Hallfield Estate in Bayswater, W2; two streets east of the flaming deathbed of Maria Dos Santos, three streets east of the test-run to the Charlotte Street robbery, and a few streets north of the porter killed for just £2 - coming soon to Murder Mile. Like Kingsnorth House where Alice Parker lived, the Hallfield Estate was constructed in the early 1950s as part of the post-war housing boom. Consisting of several ten-storey blocks of flats, having recently received a Grade 2 listing owing to its modernist architecture, you can soon expect its council tenants to be turfed out for what will be dubbed “safety concerns”, only for each flat to be flogged off to self-entitled arseholes looking for a city bolthole while their second home in Oxford is being renovated. On Friday 7th of September 1973, just seven weeks after the attack on Alice Parker, in Flat 6 of Newbury House, 74-year-old Lillian Lindemann known as Lily was awaiting the arrival of her loved one’s. Being a stiflingly hot day owing to a brief heatwave, the front-door to her first-floor flat was wide open. Passing by, being short on money and supposedly high on “a bunch of mescaline” taken that morning, 28-year-old David Harrison, a wanted burglar who preyed on old ladies was looking for an easy target. But unlike Alice who had survived her attack, Lily would meet her death. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 212: The Old Lady Killer – Part Two. It didn’t take long for the £72 that David had stolen from Alice to be squandered. After a few nights in a cheapy B&B - where he slept on soft sheets, bathed in hot water, and dined on greasy fry-ups – with his stash of Phensadyl, methedrine and LSD having been gobbled up by his voracious need to get high, although his depression medication was free, the drugs he wanted so badly were as a result of theft. On the night of Thursday 30th of August 1973, David broke into a commercial premises at 56 Beethoven Street, W10, near Queen’s Park tube. As a plastics and moulding firm ran by Ronald Graham, a well-built engineer with arms like thighs and fists like sledgehammers – being a hungry, drugged coward who wouldn’t dare tackle a man - he entered when the lock-up was shut and stole three chequebooks. Using the chequebooks to buy goods which he would then sell to buy drugs, given his rancid smell and his shambolic look, the ruse didn’t always work which was why his next purchase was paid for by cash. Sometime in August 1973, roughly one month before the murder, David entered Cookes at 159 Praed Street in Paddington. Later telling the court that he bought it for protection – having supposedly been beaten up by Irish thugs, and with the papers still reeling from a homeless man’s murder in Bletchley, allegedly inspired by the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange – for 45p, David purchased a six-inch knife. In a short spree in which he would state “I didn’t intend to use it, it was just to scare them” - suggesting that there were other old ladies who had been almost terrorised to death – his weapon had escalated from a bit of wood found in the street, to a lethally sharp knife which would take a life. That life… …belonged to Lily Lindemann. As with Alice Parker, little is known about the life of Lilly Lindemann. Born on the 11th of April 1899 in the parish of St George in the Field in East London, Lilly was one of three daughters and five brothers to German immigrant William Lindemann and his Whitechapel-born wife, Caroline. Raised as a family of ten in a small terrace house at 29 Burslem Street in Stepney, their father worked hard as a cab driver, as their mother ensured this growing brood were fed and loved. Being typical of many working-class families, life was a struggle, but they all earned their way; as by 1911, Harry was a warehouseman, Albert a barman, John a music hall artiste, Minnie (known as Annie) being a baby’s bib maker and Edward as an officer boy, with Ernest, Alexandra and Lily still at school. By 1939, as an unmarried childless woman, 40-year-old Lily was living with her recently widowed sister Alexandra known as Emmie, Emmie’s 2-year-old daughter Barbara, and Lily’s sister Annie at 84 Milner Road in Brighton. As an all-female household, they all worked hard to keep the coffers coming in. They were loyal, loving and the way these sisters supported one another was typical of this family. In the late 1950s, with the construction of the Hallfield estate, Lily & Annie moved into a two-bedroomed first-floor flat at 6 Newbury House, with a fully fitted kitchen, a bathroom and neighbours on all sides. It was the perfect place for two elderly spinster sisters living in a big bustling metropolis like London. Like two little dots, Lily & Annie were often seen tottering the streets of Bayswater, shopping in hand, stopping for tea and cake in the local cafes and sitting side by side like they were joined at the hip. Together, they were each other’s company and protection, having lived together for 73 years. But with Annie having died aged 80, just the Christmas prior, Lily was left alone in a large empty flat. 1973 was a difficult year for Lily, as with no-one to talk to, every moment of her new life alone felt empty and dull, as a hollow void pervaded her life and all about her flat were memories of her sister. As kindly neighbours, they all rallied round, and as this family did, her niece (Pamela) and her husband Bob did what they knew was best for her – to give her support, but ensure she kept her independence. By the summer of 1973, Lily was doing well, and although grief still tugged at her heart, with her loving family visiting her every month without fail, it made her loneliness more bearable. By the September, with the council deciding to convert the flats to gas-heating, she needed to move out for a few days. Being an old-fashioned girl, Lily didn’t have a home phone, so with Pamela sending her a handwritten letter (accompanied with a stamped addressed envelope so Lily could reply), Lily was excited to spend a few days in Chalfont St Giles with Pamela & Bob, and in their car, they would come and pick her up. The day they chose to arrive was Friday 7th of September 1973… …it began as a day of excitement and promise, and it ended with her death. Since the attack on Alice Parker seven weeks earlier, the Police had struggled to find the culprit. Being decades before computerised databases, although David had a criminal record for burglary, theft and drugs offences, with no history of assaulting elderly ladies, he hadn’t appeared on the Police’s radar. And although Alice had provided a solid description of her assailant – as a homeless man – David was still wearing those same clothes, but being invisible to the community, he walked like he didn’t exist. Without an ounce of remorse for the attack and every penny of Alice’s life savings squandered on his hopeless addiction, as the last dregs of the drugs wheedled out of his system, David began to shake. Being broke and a coward, unable to do what he often did without drugs, he would later claim in court “that morning, I took a bunch of mescaline”. Being off-his-face, his fear of committing such a heinous crime like robbing an old vulnerable lady would vanish, but with the chance of a good trip or a bad trip being as random as a roulette ball landing on red or black, he always risked incurring ‘the horrors’. As a ‘good trip’, he would breeze through this mindless assault on an old frail lady like it was a lovely walk in the park; but as ‘bad trip’, ‘the horrors’ would heighten not only his senses, but also his fears. With three stolen chequebooks in his bag but few shops willing to cash them, having fled from the Police-swamped area around Alice Parker’s flat, he moved one and a half miles east to Bayswater. Friday 7th September 1973 was a classic British summer. In the grip of a mini-heatwave, it had been hot for the last few days, and as always; for the first day we had loved it, by the second we were grumbling, and by the third day – with the infrastructure having buckled under the intensity of the 30-degree heat – we couldn’t wait for the rains to return. Set in the sweltering heat amidst the vast glass and steel structures of the Hallfield Estate, with very few trees or cool grass patches among these blocks of flats, even the concrete was hot to the touch. At 4:30pm, being excited for a few days away with her loved one’s, Lily opened her door to the blue skies of Bayswater and headed right to Flat 5. In the months since Annie’s death, Edith had been the closest thing to a sister Lilly had, so wearing a short floral dress – being too frail to reach and usurped by her slightly arthritic hands – she asked Edith to zip her up at the back, as she couldn’t do it herself. Expecting Bob & Pamela to arrive soon, with the evening still roasting from a roaring hot day, she keep her front door open for the next few minutes, while she headed into her bedroom to finish packing. And although she wouldn’t know it, that was the last time that anyone but her murderer saw her alive. As far as we know, David didn’t know her, he had never been to her flat, and - just like Alice – it was a coincidence that she was another lone and vulnerable old lady who had fatefully left her door open. David would confess: “I walked up to Bayswater, and I see this door open in the flats. It was about 5 o’clock I think”. With no gates or fences, this communal space was designed to not feel oppressive, so access to each block was as easy as entering a shop. On the right-hand side of Newbury House, he rose the concrete stairwell to the first floor, with the first flat he came to being Lily’s. “I walked up into the flats when I saw the door open, there was a chair in the doorway and I had to move it”, which he did. Being a modern block, the door was strong, it was fitted with a Yale lock, a chain, a spyhole, and a bell, but with the door left open to allow a cool breeze to drift in, these security features were of no use. The hallway offered little in terms of things for steal to David, just a few hats, some coats, a cabinet of crockery, an iron and an old wind-up clock. Being old fashioned, Lily didn’t have a telephone, and she certainly didn’t have a television, neither did she wear fancy clothes, and – except for a cheap watch, a plastic bracelet, and two gold rings which had once belonged to her sister – she didn’t own much. And yet, the most valuable thing David would take… …would be her life. Hearing a noise in her hallway, although barely five-foot-tall and as frail as a cream cracker, being feisty and independent, Lilly came out of her bedroom, screaming ‘who are you, what do you want?’. High on mescaline, David would claim “a lady came out of the bedroom. She came at me, screaming …her face was distorted and scary”, although whether this was the truth, his fear or a mescaline trip we shall never know, but with the roulette ball inside his head bouncing from black to red, he flipped. “I lashed out to stop her coming at me”. Having purchased a six-inch cook’s knife for 45p, supposedly for his own protection, “I just raised the knife and plunged it forward”, as the unused and supremely sharp blade slid two-inches deep into wrinkled pale recess of her throat, and severing her windpipe. The look of shock at being stabbed would be etched on Lily’s face forever, as her mouth fell agape and her eyes popped wide, as her small frail body began to slip, David said “I held her before she fell”. Lying in a crumpled heap in her own hallway, with the door shut but her struggling to scream, let alone breathe, although David would state “I went into the bedroom and found a bedsheet to put under her head”, he would claim “I didn’t know she was dying” as he plundered her home for cash and trinkets. “I just ransacked the place. I took a £5 note, a £1 note and two rings, that’s all”. And perfectly summed up his rationale, “that all”, just all the money she had, a reminder of her departed sister, and her life. “I didn’t stay long in the flat. I walked out through the door”, closing it behind him so that any passing neighbour couldn’t help, as – with blood running down her mouth, to her neck, and soaking the sheet underneath her head – Lily would die, all alone and frightened, knowing that no-one would find her. Alongside his needs, his escape was all he cared about. “I bought cigarettes in the supermarket before I was sick in the Odeon toilets. I then went to Hyde Park, I sat there for a while. I walked to Notting Hill Gate and caught the 52 bus. I got off before the bridge at Ladbroke Grove, and slung the knife in the canal. From there I walked down Kensal Road, out through Golborne Road, and down to the green where the Westway is. I didn’t sleep very long”. But how could he sleep given what he had done? It became clear to Lily’s friends that something was wrong early on. At 6pm, passing to buy a paper, Edith in Flat 5 saw that Lily’s door was shut. “This was odd”, she would state “as in this weather she usually had her door open, so I thought Bob had arrived”. Returning minutes later, she was expecting Lily to give her the key for the gasmen, but it looked like she was out. The sun had set at 7:53pm, so by 8:40pm when Bob & Pamela parked up, with her bedroom window shut and the kitchen window at the front slightly ajar, with the lights off, the flat was in total darkness. Knocking on the door, they got no reply. Concerned, they knocked on Edith’s door who thought that Lily had already left with them. So borrowing a set of stepladders, Bob climbed in and found her body. (heard) “Pamela, she’s lying in the hall”. Called at 8:51pm, the ambulance arrived at 9pm precisely to the report of “an old lady collapsed”, but when Ronald Hills the ambulanceman knelt down and touched her wrist - seeing that her body was cool, the flat was ransacked, and she had a wound to her throat - he alerted CID, who came promptly. At 9:56pm, Dr John Shanahan pronounced the life of 73-year-old Lillian Lindemann as extinct. To say that David had no remorse for the killing or even the attack on Lily would be an understatement. The next day “I woke up early, it was still darkish. I went to Portobello Road and had dinner in one of the cafes there. I then went to the ABC Pictures on Edgware Road. I think I saw Shaft in Africa”, as while he entertained himself, Bob was identifying Lily’s dead body on a slab at Westminster Mortuary. “I went to the National Watch Company at 55 Praed Street and sold the ring”. Thinking it was a diamond ring he tried to sell it for £23, but finding out it was only an imitation, he sold it for £8. That money wouldn’t last him the day, but as a ring which meant so much to Lily, and as the last reminder of Lily & Annie, it would have been a treasured keepsake for Pamela of both of her aunts, now dead. The next day, as 6 Newbury House was boarded-up, he would claim “I went to All Saints Church and prayed for the old lady. I started crying and I came out because I didn’t want anyone to see me”. He didn’t know if she was alive or dead, hence he expressed remorse, but – if he did - it was short-lived. As later that day, “I went to see a friend to score some acid, and I sat in the park until about 8 o’clock”, off his tits on LSD and drifting into a fantasy which didn’t involve a frail old lady being stabbed to death. And with his grief having passed, “I went to see the James Bond film”, originally titled Live and Let Die, “and then I went back to Hyde Park, and slept until 10am the next morning”, as killing can be tiring. The murder of Lily Lindemann was in all the local and some of the national papers, but David said he didn’t read them, instead “I dropped two tabs of acid, I then went to the Praed Street Classic to see Cabaret…” and loving it so much, having sold the second ring in Fulham, “I saw James Bond again”. His cycle of ‘steal, flee, get high, go broke and repeat’ was almost complete, as having squandered the £11 (roughly £170 today) he had made off both rings. “I dropped more acid, slept, ate, I can’t recall Tuesday, but I know I walked up Holland Park and tried to break into a house”. But with the owner coming home, like a coward “I made a run for it” and he drifted about looking for new things to steal. The crime-scene at 6 Newbury House was self-explanatory to Detective Sergeant Lancheet. With no signs of forced entry, no sexual assault and no evidence of a personal grudge, the culprit was most likely an opportunist thief, as all that was stolen was cash and items which were easy to sell. As before, with fingerprints found on the front door, a bedside cupboard, a white metal cigarette box and a small wardrobe – with this case being overseen by the same detective who had investigated the attack on Alice Parker - a fingerprint expert confirmed “I am in no doubt these are the fingerprints of David John Harrison”. But having gone missing from his last address, how do you find a missing man? Oddly, it was the drugs which would be his downfall, only this time, it wouldn’t be the LSD. On Wednesday 12th of September, a description of David Harrison was posted in the local papers. The next day, Robert Yearwood, a pharmacist at Fish Chemist’s at 274 Portabello Road dispensed David his supply of Tryptizole (the medication he was on for his depression) and called the Police. With Detectives scouring the streets, barely an hour later, DS Landcheet saw him walking along St Marks Road and collared him in Cambridge Gardens. On his possession, he had his driving licence, three stolen chequebooks in the name of R B Moulds from the business he had broken into in August, and - although he had sold everything he had stolen from Alice Parker and Lily Lindemann – he was still wearing the same tatty brown jacket, trouser and pullover, which had faint traces of Lily’s blood. At Paddington Green Police Station, when he realised he was to be questioned by DCI Feeney”, David said “Detective Chief Inspector? You only investigate serious things?”, the DCI replied “yes”, David said “how serious?”, the DCI said “You tell me”, and with David replying “Murder? The old lady?”, replying “yes. Would you like to tell me all about it?”, with that, David Harrison gave a full statement and was formally charged with the murder of Lillian Lindeman and the attempted murder of Alice Parker. (End) That day, detectives drove him to the shop where he bought the knife, the pawnbroker where he sold the rings, and – although never found – the stretch of the canal where he said he dumped the knife. Tried at the Old Bailey from the 11th to the 13th of February 1974, in his defence, he would plead ‘guilty’ to the lesser charges of wounding, GBH with intent and aggravated burglary. But for the more serious charges of the murder of Lily Lindeman and the attempted murder of Alice Parker, he would plead ‘not guilty’, by claiming he was in the grip of an LSD trip and was feeling the fear of ‘the horror’. It was a ploy which may have worked, only having given the Police a detailed account of his actions -although supposedly high on drugs - “he recalled the events, up to and during the murder with clarity”. Seeking to use this drug-abuser as an example “particularly to the young people with whom he has associated, that if they used violence and caused death to escape the consequences of a burglary, that the penalty would be much greater than if they had surrendered for burglary”, being found guilty of GBH, aggravated burglary and murder, Mr Justice Thesiger sentenced him to four life sentences. But with the law making all four sentences run concurrently, he was eligible for parole in 1993. Where he is now and what he is doing is unknown. Whether the drugs made him do it, or it was a ploy is unclear. And although some people may suggest that there’s no proof that a legal drug is merely a slippery slope down to the harder drugs, consider this. His decline had begun with his need to take cough syrup and vodka to stay awake, and it ended with the drug-fuelled haze of an Old Lady Killer. 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.
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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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