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Roland House, demolished, scene of the burglary/blackmail of Verne O'Hara which led to the shooting of DS Purdy
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 EIGHTEEN:
This is Part One of Three of Shattered Memory. On Monday 13th of July at roughly 3:45pm, in the hallway of 105 Onslow Square in Kensington, SW7, 30-year-old German national Gunther Podola shot Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy dead. Traced to a nearby hotel at 95 Queen’s Gate, CID detectives and colleagues of the dead officer charged into Gunther’s room… thirty minutes later, he was escorted out, suffering bruises, weakness and amnesia. With one officer dead and the culprit with no memory of what he was being charged with, the whole crux of the trial would be ‘who is telling the truth’, the vengeful officers or the killer with no memory.
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THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below. Defendant: PODOLA, Gunter Fritz Erwin. Charge: Capital murder
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to… erm… uh. (Same sound rewound and replayed on a loop, but more distorted). As this pale and sullen-eyed German sat in court one of the Old Bailey, even as a death sentence was dangled over his low-hung head; he couldn’t give a word of testimony as an alibi, he couldn’t provide an ounce of evidence in his defence, nor could he rip-apart any witnesses as to their own recollection. Diagnosed with amnesia, Gunther Podola had no memory of the policeman he had murdered. Tried before Justice Edmund Davies, of the eleven days spent giving evidence, nine were to decide if Gunther was fit to stand trial or give testimony. Beginning on 8th of September 1959, “Gunther Podola you are charged that you did murder Detective Sergeant Raymond William Purdy. How do you plead?”. The defence being that – owing to the brutality of those same officers whose colleague Gunther had shot dead – he had no memory of the murder, his assault, his arrest, or his hospitalisation. But also, the bulk of the life he had lived – his girlfriend, his child or his upbringing – everything was a blank. But with the killing of an officer being one of the few crimes still punishable by death in an era where executions were being abolished, with the prosecution seeing his amnesia as nothing more than a charade, as how could a jury send a guilty man to his death, if he had no memory of the murder? With one officer dead and the reputation of the police on the line, a man’s life hung in the balance... …but was his amnesia an excuse, an accident, or caused by police brutality? (loop/fade/white noise). Gunther Fritz Edwin Podola was born on 8th February 1929 in Berlin, Germany. Of course, he wouldn’t know that, as all he could recall were fragments of a life he didn’t know if they were real or imagined. As the only child to Elisabeth a housewife, and Werner a barber, Gunther was raised in the working-class sprawl of Alexanderplatz in Berlin’s inner city. Described as a solitary boy with a short fuse, few friends and a quick temper, he lacked the concentration to study and the patience to earn a living. Being restless, to occupy his time, he engaged in petty thievery, and perused gun catalogues, crime magazines and the mystery novels of Edgar Wallace, believing that one day, he would be a gangster. Only being too thin, too weak and being “an odd little thing”, Gunther had no gang to rule but himself. In flashes of lost memories, Gunther would state “I was a dead-end kid”, a ragged youth who lived by his wits amongst the blackened smoking ruins of a broken Berlin, making enough to eat by salvaging scrap metal, black-marketing and – he claimed - wartime smuggling. No-one can verify this, as he was an ‘alleinganger’, one who works alone. But was this a fact or a fantasy concocted by his injured brain? By 1939, with Germany descending into war, like all German boys of Aryan appearance (even though his family were Czech) 10-year-old Gunther was initiated into der JungVolk, being four-years too young to join the Hitler Youth. But having already disavowed God, Gunther worshipped his country’s leader and because of his doctrine, he believed that the Fuhrer was the greatest man alive, telling a friend – “my only regret was that I was too young to fight for the Fatherland and to die for Adolf Hitler”. In 1943, with his conscription still five years away, he said he trained as an aircraft draftsman at the Heinkel factory. That same year, his father was killed serving in the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front. And yet, for many citizens of this shattered city, even amongst such death, they could still find love. Just one year his junior, he had known Ruth Quandt since his childhood and later living in same block in Neue Konigstrasse, this solidly-built blonde Berliner was his first and possibly his only ever girlfriend. Ruth & Gunther made an unusual pair, a little distant and loveless, as with her describing him as “sombre and conflicted”, although he wanted to marry her, he would claim she always forbade it. So, maybe she didn’t love him, maybe she was afraid of him, or maybe she was traumatised by her past? As with the war coming to an end and Hitler having taken his life as the Red Army surrounded this blood-soaked city, across a two-week battle as Russian soldiers occupied Berlin, in the flats that they lived in, all the women were raped including Ruth who was only 14, and all of the men were shot… …only somehow Gunther escaped. The post-war years left great holes in the history of many ordinary people, but for Gunther it also left him with a hatred of authority, a need to flee, and a desperation to fight if cornered. And yet, one witness to his early life would give an incredible account of the man with almost no memory of himself. On 10th September 1959, as Gunther sat in the dock of the Old Bailey, Roland Gray, a former sergeant in the British Intelligence Corps stationed in post-war Berlin would state “I recognised Podola who is charged with the murder of Detective Sergeant Purdy and is putting forward a defence of amnesia”. In a brief statement, he gave a recollection which had uncanny parallels to Gunther’s crimes. “At the end of March 1949, as a result of an anonymous phone call to Intelligence Headquarters at Charlottenburg, West Berlin, I & Sergeant Whitehorn went to a villa” (its name redacted) “where an armed Russian civilian was alleged to be inside the house” - only the man wasn’t Russian, but German. “As we arrived, he escaped through the backdoor” being a cowardly sort of boy who was prone to fleeing at the first sight or sound of authority - “British Army! Stop! Or we’ll shoot!” – but after a very brief chase, he was swiftly apprehended, and having been searched for weapons, none were found. Held in detention for ten days, this weak-looking slip-of-a-boy with dark sullen eyes was interrogated and gave his details as Major Karanov of the NKVD (the Russian Secret Police) stationed at Karlsthorst”, which made no sense as “he was in civilian clothing and looked barely 20 years old”. It seemed like a story made up by a fantasist living the life of one of his criminal heroes in an Edgar Wallace novel. In truth, having read in the paper that the villa’s occupant was trying to find her missing husband, this deluded little boy had spun a web of lies to make her think he could spring him from a Siberian prison for 6000 Marks. But proven to be a liar, panicking as his plan fell to pieces, with a 9mm pistol (never recovered) he had threatened to shoot the woman, her friend, his own accomplice and even himself. Handed over to West German Police, with no evidence of blackmail, he was released without charge. And although he carried no ID, he said his real name was Mr Fisher - a known alias of Gunther Podola. Gunther was a delusional, selfish, money-obsessed wannabe-gangster with no morals… …even amongst those he claimed to love. According to Ruth, on the 28th of October 1951, their son Michael was born. Seeking a better life, far from the austere confines of East Berlin, on the 16th June 1952, Gunther reported to the West German authorities as a refugee. Seeking passage to Canada to work as a farm labourer, his immigration visa was approved, and having set sail on from Hamburg on 4th August, he arrived in Halifax ten days later. Hearing the good news that Gunther had made it to Montreal to find work, Ruth and her baby crossed the heavily guarded border into West Berlin, and as planned, waited for Gunther to send for them. Only it was whilst there - being cold, hungry and scared - that Ruth received a telegram. It said he had made it to safety, and his new life was good, “but I want nothing more to do with you or your child”. Months later, Ruth was able to leave the refugee camp and return to East Berlin, but being a single mother struggling to live in a post-war world, unable to cope, Michael was placed into foster care. Gunther on the other hand was living the life of a man without a care in the world… Initially he worked as a farm labourer in Huntington, only to lose his job “when he attacked a small girl who had squirted him with a water pistol”, and unable to afford the fancy lifestyle he felt he deserved being a shipper of gowns and a welder at Canadair Airlines, he supplemented his income with crime. In March 1957, having served ten days in prison for burglary, that same month, he was sentenced to two years for six counts of car theft, two of burglary and two of deception. Upon his release, Gunther was promptly deported back to Germany, but being unwelcome there, instead he moved to England. On the 21st of May 1959, 30-year-old Gunther Podola arrived at London Airport from Frankfurt. As a German citizen travelling on his own passport and seeking work as a welder, his crimes were unknown to the British authorities, and he was legally intitled to carry in a holster his black 9mm Lugar pistol. During his brief life in West London, he didn’t work, he moved between hotels, he visited many sex-workers, and – like a pretend gangster – he used the aliases of Mike Colato, Paul Camay and H R Fisher. Seven weeks later, being cornered, he would shoot a police officer dead… …and it all began with a little bit of burglary and blackmail. Malvina Joan Schiffman was a 30-year-old fashion model and actress who went by the stage name of Verne O’Hara. In fact, so guarded was she of her privacy that few people knew her real name, she kept her work and social schedule a secret, she had only moved into the top floor flat of this secure block at 84 Roland House one month earlier, and her phone number of Fremantle 0919 was ex-directory. But often safety is only an illusion, as even though her flat was five-stories off the ground, while she was at a rehearsal for the TV show ‘Double Your Money’, someone broke in and took a mink stole, a camera and jewellery worth £2500, as well as the passports for her herself, her husband and her young child, but also – most sensitively of all – a set of private letters supposedly from her “secret lover”. On 7th July, Detective Sergeant John Sandford of Chelsea CID came to the flat, had fingerprints taken, made a report and as required, logged any actions or statements pertinent to the case in his notebook. The next day, at 11:30am, having received an Express Letter addressed Mrs Malvina Joan Schiffman, a private detective known only as ‘Levine’ threatened to expose “any pictures, writings and recordings I have”, possibly to her husband, a New York shipping executive, “or I can sell them to you for $500”. Malvina was shocked and scared, but Chelsea CID were not, as they would inform her “there’s been a string of local robberies in which attempts at blackmail have been made owing to stolen documents”. Only this time, knowing this blackmailer would call back, the Police would set a trap. Sunday 12th July just before 1pm, her phone rang. “Mrs Schiffman? This is Mr Fisher acting on behalf of Mr Levine”. Having been briefed by the officers on what to say – even though her secret love affair “did not exist” – she agreed to pay him the money and she would await her blackmailer’s instructions. Keeping several steps ahead of this thief, the detectives tracked the letter to a post office on nearby Exhibition Road, and knowing that his call had come through the Fremantle telephone exchange, the second he called to ask for his money, an operator at the exchange would be able to trace the call. The call was made on Monday 13th of July at roughly 11:30am. Being on shift, it was random which officers were on duty, as right then it was Detective Sergeant John Sandford and Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy, a 43-year-old veteran Police officer and a married father of three, with three commendations for bravery in the line of duty, his last just one year prior. (Phone ringing) “Mrs Schiffman? This is Mr Fisher”, “I agree to pay the $500”, “Good. Go to the bank and I’ll call you back at 2:30pm”, which she did in case he was watching. Only when he called back, she signalled her neighbour to call CID “Detective Sergeant Sandford? She’s on the phone to him now”. DS Sandford & Purdy were perched at Chelsea police station. In the pockets of their vague grey suits were a set of handcuffs and a pair of notebooks, as these plain-clothed officers sat in a black four-door Wolseley saloon, waiting. But before the operator could trace the call, he’d hung up. The blackmailer was being cautious, so to catch him in the act, the detectives needed his mark to “keep him talking”. At 3:15pm, he called again, and the operator had him: “he’s in a phone-box on Pelham Street”, but although the plain-clothed officers had raced to the scene, by the time they’d got there, he was gone. The blackmailer was always one-step ahead and within a hairsbreadth of their grasp… …but at 3:40pm, with the same man making a call to Malvina from Knightsbridge 2355, “it’s a phone-box in South Kensington station”, they floored the engine, pulled-up in 90 seconds flat, and ran down to the entrance hall on the lower level to see a bank of five phone booths, but only one was occupied. DS Sandford would state “We got there about 3:50pm, a man was in the phone box”. Described as 25 to 35, 5 foot 10, slim build, cropped hair, wearing a light sports jacket and trousers, a white shirt, grey suede shoes and green sunglasses, although he spoke “in an American accent”, it sounded fake. And as he noisily flipped over the pages of a black notebook suspiciously close to the phone’s mouthpiece, his conversation to an unheard woman was about his money and “the evidence I am going to sell you”. Mr Fisher thought he had won, and that the money was his… …but as the sturdy frame of DS Purdy loomed large leaving this waif-like villain trapped by two burly coppers, before Gunther even knew that he was cornered, DS Purdy grabbed the phone, spoke into it “Mrs Schiffman? This is Sergeant Purdy. Please remember my name” before he hung up, as he knew that this was a crucial moment in this case of blackmail for when it would – undoubtably – go to court. Gunther had nowhere to run, and even as DS Purdy announced: “we are Police Officers, who are you, and what are you up to?”, unsure which lie to tell or alias to use, he said nothing as was his legal right. And with that, having not resisted arrest, DS Purdy stated: “we are taking you to Chelsea police station on suspicion of demanding money with menace”, at which he was cautioned but made no reply. And with insufficient evidence to arrest him, being only a suspect, he was neither searched nor handcuffed. By all accounts, it was a standard apprehension of a suspected blackmailer by two seasoned officers, and seizing the suspect’s black notebook, DS Purdy placed this vital evidence inside his jacket pocket. …or at least it should have been. As the two unarmed plain-clothed detectives left the tube station and walked the short distance to their unmarked police car on nearby Sydney Street - without warning - Gunther suddenly fled. DS Sandford later gave the statement: “we chased after him, but as DS Purdy reached the centre of the road, he fell heavily… I continued to chase the suspect along the north pavement of Onslow Square in a westerly direction… just then, Sergeant Purdy drew level with me in a taxi. I jumped on the running board, and we followed the man, who was seen to run into the hallway of 105 Onslow Square”. Being fitter, Gunther could have kept running, but instead he would make a fatal mistake, as with this five-storey Georgian terrace being split into private flats, the spacious empty hallway offered him few options; dash up the stairs into uncertainty, wait for the lift like a prize prune, exit the door and end-up bundled to the floor by two coppers weighing 16-stone each, or – childishly - hide behind a pillar. Oddly, he chose the pillar, so with a slightly bruised and rather sweaty DS Purdy collaring him – being unwilling to play this boy’s silly games – DS Purdy barked: “sit in that windowsill and behave yourself”, which Gunther did, as DS Sandford began to head out to fetch their police car. In court, DS Sandford stated “I noticed nothing peculiar about him. He was perfectly ordinary, just a sullen type of attitude”. Only both detectives had badly misjudged their suspect, as when cornered, Gunther would panic. DS Sandford would later tell the jury: “I saw the man slide off the windowsill and turn to DS Purdy who was standing very close to him. The man put his hands inside his left side of his jacket, and to Sergeant Purdy I shouted, ‘watch out, he may have a gun’”, but by then, it was too late. “No sooner were the words out of my mouth, I saw the man pull a large black automatic pistol from the inside of his jacket, point it at Sergeant Purdy’s body and fire at point blank range, as Sergeant Purdy fell gasping - ‘ah’”. Shot from just three inches away, the gunpowder scorched the left-side of the officer’s grey suit as a single 9mm bullet punctured his heart, ripping opening his aorta and filling his body cavity with blood. DS Sandford gave chase, but having lost the suspect, he returned to help his bleeding partner. But owing to his extensive injuries, Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy was pronounced dead at 4:08pm. Of the tenants staying at 105 Onslow Square that day, only two heard the shot and yet no-one saw the shooting, so the only witnesses to the killing were DS Sandford who admitted in court “at times, had my back to the suspect”, DS Purdy who had died at the scene, and the suspect - Gunther Podola… …who would have absolutely no memory of the murder. Buy why? The hunt for the killer of DS Purdy was not a complicated one, as although they didn’t know his name, they had a description; although they didn’t have his gun, they had spent bullets and casings; although they hadn’t any eyewitnesses to place him at the crime scene, they had his fingerprints in several phone boxes and on the windowsill at 105 Onslow Square; and a later search would unearth the gun, his clothes, several identical rounds of ammunition, a mink stole and Malvina’s three stolen passports. And yet, although he was dead, it was DS Purdy who would lead the detectives to Gunther Podola. Held at Fulham Mortuary, it was whilst observing his colleagues’ autopsy that DS Holford found the black notebook, taken from the suspect, which DS Purdy had placed in his jacket pocket as evidence. Only this wasn’t any ordinary notebook, as inside – as if the author was dictating his life into a mystery novel – he had listed every building he had cased, every person he had blackmailed, every call he had made, every flight he had taken (from Canada to Germany to England), as well as every alias he used, and every hotel he had stayed at since his arrival in West London… including his current hideout. Under the alias of a Swiss/Canadian photographer called Paul Camay, Gunther had laid-low in a small room at the Claremont House Hotel at 95 Queen’s Gate, barely a five-minute walk from the shooting. On Thursday 16th July at 3:30pm - having pre-warned the hotel’s managers, ushered any civilians to safety and clarified that the suspect Gunther Podola was currently in his room - eight officers from Chelsea CID ascended the stairs to the third floor, and silently held their position outside of Room 15. All armed with revolvers, they were Detective Superintendent Hislop, Chief Inspector Acott, Inspector Vibart, DS’s Chambers & Davis, DC’s Morrisey & Vaughn, with PC Collet and his police dog ‘Flame’. As inside, being three floors up and busy washing, unaware of the officers, again Gunther was cornered. The officers stated “at 3:45pm, we took up position facing the door of Room 15”. In a loud voice, DI Vibart hollered “Police, open this door” as an officer banged sharply. Only the occupant did not reply. Wisely standing to one side, as inside was the same armed assailant who had killed one of their own in cold-blood just 48 hours earlier, DI Vibart repeated “Police. Open the door”. Only no-one replied. Making the decision to force it and storm the room, DI Vibart walked to the top of the stairs to give himself a run-up, and with all of his bulk, he charged hard against the door, only it wouldn’t give way. Unable to enter this inaccessible room with possibly a gun-toting maniac hidden within, as the officers stood ready to strike and the dog barked ferociously, hearing what they would later state was “a voice inside” and a “faint metal click”, instead, the heftier 17-stone bulk of DS Chambers took a run-up… …and the door crashed open. (crash, screams, shouting, descend to loop/fade/white noise, as at start). Except for those officers, there were no witnesses to what happened inside of Room 15. Gunther could remember little of what you have just heard, of his past, the blackmail, the shooting and that moment. Tried at the Old Bailey, the jurors would spend nine days not deciding whether he had killed DS Purdy, he had, but whether his amnesia was a convenient excuse to escape a death sentence, an accident which occurred in the heat of the moment, or police brutality for the revenge of their fallen comrade? Part Two of Three of Shattered Memory continues next week. 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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