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.
3 Bedford Place in Bloodmsbury, where Jean Stafford (Agnes Martin) 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 FORTY-FIVE:
On 18th of May 1942, 33-year-old part-time prostitute Jean Stafford welcomed a regular client into her room at 3 Bedford Place in Bloomsbury. Being shy and hating her job, she was hoping that a wealthy bachelor would sweep her off her. But later found dead, the detectives initially mistook her death for natural causes. But was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder?
THE LOCATION
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The location is marked with a blue symbol of a bin at the top right of the markers near the word 'Russell Square'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
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 on Bedford Place in Bloomsbury, WC1; one street east of Vera Crawford’s killing, one street south of where The Unfortunate Mr Johnson’s killer took a snooze, the same street as the arrest of Zakaria Bulhan, and a few houses from the feet which stunk - coming soon to Murder Mile. Built in 1805, Bedford Place consists of two rows of Georgian townhouses with white stucco walls and black iron railings on the ground floor, with brown brick and white sills on the three floors above. It’s easy to get confused, as with every house identical, the neighbour’s lives must resemble a bawdy sex farce, as several randy salesmen kiss their frumpy wives, dart next door to doink a saucy strumpet silly, only to realise he’s either boffed his wife, the vicar, a dog, or a tub of Avocado & Humus Sashimi. On the night of Monday 18th of May 1942, 33-year-old part-time prostitute Jean Stafford was waiting in her ground floor room at 3 Bedford Place for a man, someone she trusted. As a good woman in a bad situation, she hoped that this potential husband would end her struggle and take away her misery. And although this expectant guest arrived, that night he erased her pain by ending her life. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 245: Good Girl Gone. The death of Jean Stafford makes no sense when you look at her life. Her real name was Agnes Martin. Born on the 3rd of August 1909 in the village of Deepcar, a few miles north of Sheffield, although she adopted several monikers, she never lost her strong Yorkshire accent. Raised in a working-class family of coal miners and quarrymen, Agnes (who preferred to be called Jean after actress Jean Harlow) was the only stepsibling in this family of 12, so felt that she never belonged. Little is known of her upbringing but growing to be a small but sturdy girl with pale skin, blue eyes and apple blossom cheeks, her shyness endeared her to others, her quietness meant she was rarely in any trouble, and her sweetness attracted her to older men, who she liked, as she sought a father figure. As the runt of the litter, after the death of her mother when she was just 15, Jean left the family home. For 8 years, as a young solitary girl, we know nothing about her life, except her work as a cook and a housemaid in Barnsley and Harrogate, but in 1932, when aged just 23, her life had changed forever. Having moved 70 miles east to Hull, Agnes Martin had become Jean Smith, a common name it was all-too easy to confuse with others and for good reason, as being a single woman earning a dishonest crust in a city she wasn’t known in, living a life of ‘easy virtue’, she was twice cautioned for soliciting. As a sweet-faced girl with a kindly manner, she didn’t have any convictions for prostitution, she didn’t have any charges of drunkenness as she rarely drank, she had never been to prison as she didn’t steal or cheat her clients - in fact, they often came back as she was good and honest - and although a solidly built girl who many said “could easily handle herself”, she never got into fights and was rarely attacked. As a quiet, polite and pretty girl who had been selling sex for quite some time, she often went under the police radar, as being seen as no-bother-to-anyone, it was clear she was just struggling to get by. Later that year, having dyed her hair platinum blonde and dressed in a faux leopard-skin coat, Jean met 49-year-old retired sportswriter James Stafford known as ‘Jim’, a quiet unassuming sugar daddy who many described as “foolishly generous” with his £3000 inheritance (£250,000 today), who would lavish the lady he loved to posh meals, nights out and fancy clothes, treating her as a ‘kept woman’. On 7th February 1933, under the alias Jean Smith, Agnes Martin technically became Jean Stafford, the wife of a salesman, and they happily lived in the Spring Bank district of Hull… for a while at least… as although James would state “she had no sense of the value of money”, he had a gambling addiction. He later said “my wife was a strong woman… attractive, pleasant, exceedingly generous, and able to look after herself”, so having got herself a job as a housemaid at the Angell Arms pub in Brixton, South London, with no bad blood between them, the last time Jim saw her was on Valentine’s Day of 1938… …four and half years later, he identified her body on a cold slab of marble at Holborn Mortuary. It’s typical, that the next years of Jean’s life were spent working hard, being liked, causing no trouble and chasing an impossible dream of finding another man to ensure that she never needed to work. Olive Elder, landlady of the Angell Arms described Jean as “a quiet girl, very clean and hardworking, but a tremendous liar. She told me she was a widow” which she wasn’t, “a native of Hull” which belied her strong Sheffield accent, and whether this was the truth or a family lie, “she was a distant relative of John Campbell Boot”, 2nd Baron of Nottingham and the millionaire owner of Boots the Chemist. Apart from that, she was a good worker, always polite, and after a year, she left to seek a better wage. By the outbreak of the Second World War, with the city in chaos, Jean earned a tiny wage as “a tidy housemaid and a crafty cook” in several pubs across the West End, and although given a bed to sleep in, with the Argyll and the Cooper Arms both bombed, almost everything she owned was destroyed. As a single woman separated from her husband, with few close friends (being so private) and only a few sparse letters between herself, her father and her stepsiblings, life was hard. Jobs were scares, food was rationed, and with so many potential husbands called up to fight, the pickings were slim. For a while, she had been seeing William Fitzgerald, an Irish ex-dirt track rider who had lost a leg in an accident, and although they were sweet on each other, on 9th of October 1940, he was found dead lying face down in a Bloomsbury bomb crater, in what the coroner said was ‘death by misadventure’. And yet, as a strong and resilient woman, he never gave up. On Saturday 18th of October 1941, carrying the few items she owned, Jean called at 3 Bedford Place having seen a ‘Room to Let’ sign. Greeted by Joseph Lamb, a 40-year-old warehouseman who lived in the basement, his evidence proved invaluable, and although police stated “he knows more about her than anyone, but he denies being intimate with her”, it wasn’t exactly a revelation, as Joseph was gay. Having agreed to pay 30 shillings a week for a ground-floor backroom and a shared kitchenette and a bathroom with the other twelve tenants, Joseph told the Police, “she introduced a tall man, saying ‘this is my friend, he’s helping me to pay the rent’”. She never said his name, but he was described as “late 40s to 50s, dark hair, deep set eyes, swarthy and broad, with a Jewish nose and a deep voice”. For Jean, life at 3 Bedford Place was good. Owned by Mrs Horn-Heap who she rarely saw, it was managed by Edith O’Connell the housekeeper, with Joseph keeping an eye on things in the evenings and every Sunday when Edith wasn’t there. As a private person who spent most of her time alone in her room, Jean regularly received men friends, occasionally some post, and a few times a week, on the communal telephone in the hallway, a call. With the ground floor split into three rooms, Jean’s had barely enough space for a single bed, a sofa, a dressing table, a gas fire, a lamp, and with so few clothes in the wardrobe, the tenants often saw her wearing just a thin frock, or according to Joseph “I’ve seen her in her bed, sitting up, she was bare”. As a quiet girl who often sat alone knitting in front of the fire, although she only spoke in passing to the other tenants (who were always polite), she got on best with Joseph, “as hardly a day went by without her popping her head into my room” he would say, and to help each other out, as a good cook, she often made his meals which she left in the cupboard for when he returned home from work. But not every tenant in the house was as pleasant. Joseph said “Jean told me that she’d asked Mr Pollard”, an ex-Army Captain who lived in the adjoining room “to set a mouse trap” as she was terrified of the mice which scuttled from the kitchen. “Having done so, he had tried to fondle her”, as being an alcoholic who had lost his career and his family having been convicted of buggery, George Pollard was a sex pest, but there was no proof he had killed her. In the ensuing investigation, the Police examined the lives of a wealth of suspects, especially as by the Christmas of 1941, with the Tall Man having left her following a tiff, Jean had returned to selling sex. Joseph said “I didn’t know she was a prostitute”, as she kept her life private, rarely drank, shuttled her clients between the door and her room in silence and she tried to keep the sex as quiet as possible... …but detectives were able to track down several of her clients. In keeping with her good-natured way, her sex-work wasn’t sleezy and cheap, but innocent and sweet, as almost all her clients described the same warm and reliable routine she undertook with her punters. Private Ronald Ward of the Royal Montreal Regiment said “on 18th of January 1942 at 10pm, outside of the Lyon’s Corner House in Piccadilly”, where she regularly solicited, “she asked if I’d like to go home with her, I asked how much, she said £1 and 10s, and I said okay”. At roughly £100 today, she charged more than most, but being sweet, she reassured the timid ones, she cheated no-one and knowing that many men simply missed their girlfriends, instead of just sex, she gave these boys what they needed. Having walked back to 3 Bedford Place, Jean asked Ronald to be as quiet as possible as they entered the hall, and having unlocked the door to her small room, instead of undressing, she made him a meal. With it being wartime, everyone was struggling, so as part of her good nature, they sat in front of the gas fire getting warm, eating toast and jam, supping a nice cup of tea, and having a good old natter. It was part of who she was, and if she could convince him to stay over for a little bit extra, all the better. “She stripped off all of her clothes but her stockings, although she seemed very shy”, Ronald said, “we had sex twice” albeit quietly, “and then we went to sleep”. At 7am, she woke him with a cuppa, asked him to leave before her landlady arrived, and having enjoyed her company, he gave her his details. He was ruled out as a suspect, as on the day of the murder, he was at stationed at Petworth in Hampshire. Another client was 42-year-old Coleman Fellerman, who first met her in October 1941, and like many he became a friend. “I agreed to go back with Jean. She was in no hurry, in fact, had she not solicited me, I shouldn’t have thought she was a prostitute”, he said. And as she often did, she made him food, they chatted, had sex, and with him being in catering, she asked if he could get her a job as a cook. Two weeks later, he interviewed her for a job in Gosport, and although he said “let me know how you get on”, he never heard from her again. At the time of her death, he was at his lodgings in Morden. A third client - Gunner Alexander Campbell of the Canadian Artillery - regularly wrote her letters as he loved that she mothered him. First meeting on 7th March 1942, he bought her gifts and paid to stay across most of the weekends in March and April having telephoned before. He last saw her alive on 8th of May 1942, but 10 days later when she was murdered, he was stationed at Sittingbourne in Kent. And a fourth client, whose ration card was found in her room having given it to her as a gift “as I saw she had hardly any food in her cupboard” was Private Ornulf Hop, a Norwegian ski instructor, whose movements on the night of the murder were accounted for by several witnesses at the Savoy Hotel. All four were ruled out, which is not to say she only ever had four clients… …or that of the few people she spoke to that none of them were innocent. Weekly, Jean bought condoms from a vendor in Piccadilly Circus called Sydney Bloom. Six years earlier, he was quizzed by the police over the murder of Soho prostitute, Josephine Martin alias French Fifi. And although, an infamous RAF Cadet picked up women at the Lyon’s Corner House in February 1942, by that May, found guilty of murder, Gordon Frederick Cummins was already awaiting his execution. None of these men, her friends or any of her family were suspected of being her murderer… …but the police had narrowed it down to just three; the Tall Man, her Caller and ‘Johnny’. Breaking up with the Tall Man in Christmas 1941, being “roughly 50, with deep set eyes, swarthy skin and a deep voice”, he would have been easy to spot, only after that date, he was never seen again. ‘Johnny’ whose real name she never divulged was described as “a dapper-looking cove” in his mid-30s, 5 foot 5 inches tall, with fair hair and a slight paunch. And having met him six times prior, Edith the housekeeper stated “he was always polite with a nice disposition”, as just like every other suspect, he didn’t threaten Jean, as she always chose her clients carefully and didn’t associate with bad men. By the end of April 1942, having split up with ‘Johnny’ for reasons unknown, Jean was struggling. Being close to broke, she sold her few possessions – a faux-Leopard skin coat and two handbags - at Jimmy’s hairdressers on Charlotte Street, as well as the last of her best dresses leaving her room almost empty. And with her usually large appetite stymied by a recurrent headache and an earache, she wasn’t well. In fact, since the 24th of April up until the day of her death, she spent much of her time in bed. Monday 18th of May 1942 was her last day alive. Waking late, as far as we know she sat knitting for a few hours, she saw no-one (which wasn’t unusual) and with the few coins she had left, she shopped for bread and milk. At 4:30pm, while out, Edith took a phone call for her, which went; “is Miss Stafford there?”, “no, she’s out”, “will she back by six?”, “I guess”, “can you let her know I’m in the Royal Flying Corps now, I’m a nephew of her father’s brother”, and assuming that Jean knew who he was, as he didn’t give it, she didn’t take his name or number. Edith said, it was a local call (as the ring was long), it wasn’t from a phone box as she didn’t hear the coins fall, and although she would confirm “it was something like Johnny’s voice, but it was definitely not his”, being neither a deep, light nor with an accent, she didn’t think she had spoken to him before. Every nephew of her father and husband were accounted for, every absentee from the local RAF bases were questioned and ruled out, but with the caller using the term ‘Royal Flying Corps’ - an archaic term for the Royal Air Force - the police felt that either this was a red herring, or Edith had misheard. Either way, Jean read the message, and later, its charred remnants were found in the bin. The rest of that evening was as routine as any other. At 6pm, Joseph returned from work, he waved as he passed her room and said she was her usual self. In the kitchen cupboard, she had prepared a meal of roast lamb, cauliflower, carrots and potato mash, and although he returned the plate at 7pm, she’d barely eaten half of hers, having been sick for weeks. Sat in a blue and white flower-patterned dress, she said she was going out, but was waiting a call first, so to pass the time, they chatted as they always did, and with them both smelling a faint whiff of gas in her room, with Joseph unable to detect the leak, they queried if that was the cause for her sickness. At 7pm, Kitty Jones (a ground-floor tenant) saw her, stating she was wearing all the jewellery she had, being a metal ring with the stone missing and a cheap wristwatch, which were later found on her body. By 7:15pm, Joseph left to meet his friend, Mr Clermont at the Fitzroy Tavern in Fitzrovia and the York Minster in Soho, being two bars frequented by gay men. And at 9pm, Kitty heard Jean welcome a man into her room, who she didn’t see but said “they were on friendly terms”, then Kitty left until 10pm. That left, Aircraftmen Marc LeBlanc & George Hudon on the first floor listening to the radio, and on the ground floor, George Pollard was asleep, and with the partition walls so thin that the tenants could hear each other breathe, from 9pm to 10pm when her murder occurred, none of them heard a thing. The next morning, at 9am sharp, Edith the housekeeper greeted Joseph on the doorstep as he sorted out the post, and called out to Jean “love, you’ve got a letter”, which (being a late sleeper) she ignored. But by 11:40am, with her door still ajar, and Jean having not moved an inch, seeing the blankets pulled up to her nose which exposed her toes, as Joseph went to shake her awake, he felt that she was cold. Jean was dead. The room was as she had left it the night before; being neat, orderly and clean, with the drawers shut, the gas fire off, a lamp’s shade on the floor (suggesting she had been knitting), the back window open to let a light breeze in, and her knickers and stockings neatly folded on the armchair beside her bed. And with a cup of tea, half drank, and no other crockery, it looked like she’d died alone in her sleep. Told of her headache, her earache, and seeing a single spot of blood on the inside of her left ear with a corresponding stain on the pillow, Divisional Surgeon Dr Gregg assumed it was natural but ordered an autopsy to determine the cause of her death, whether a fever, or (as was common) gas poisoning. It was a scene the Police had witnessed before, an unexplained death with no sign of a burglary, no hint of a struggle, and although cyanosis had left her pale skin a slightly swollen mix of blue and red hues, beyond the decomposition, there were no cuts nor bruises, and no-one had heard her scream. But that night, although no meal was cooked nor cup of tea brewed, she’d had a client. Naked except for a pink suspender belt and black lace and silk bra, she had neatly folded the belt up to remove her knickers, the right cup had been pulled down exposing her breast, and with a recently used condom (minus any semen) found under the bedside rug, it was clear that sex had taken place. What didn’t make sense was her dress, as this blue and white flower-patterned frock was the only one she had left, and yet, unlike her underwear, it was found behind her head, scrunched up and creased. It was a scene as ordinary as any the detectives had investigated before, and yet, amongst its absence of evidence lay something strange, as on the bedside dressing table, in a dark ominous lump was a clump of pubic hair - a brown handful of curly strands, ripped out at the roots, which wasn’t Jean’s. In the room, an unidentified set of fingerprints was found, but when examined, none of them matched any of her four known clients - Ronald Ward, Alexander Campbell, Coleman Fellerman or Drnulf Hop - or any of her friends, family or the tenants at 3 Bedford Place, and neither did the clump of pubes. Described as “a generous, good-natured girl, fond of life and without any enemies”, it made no sense for anyone to hate her so much that they would kill her. She has no money, few clothes, no jewellery of any value, and anything she did have she’d either sold or shared with her clients. As a quiet women, she had rivals, no stalkers, no issues with her family, and her ex-lovers weren’t bad men with a grudge. She was careful about her clients, she stuck to a regular routine, she rarely went out, she didn’t cheat the men she solicited or dated, and she always treated them well, which is why they always liked her. No-one had any reason to murder her… and yet, they did. (End) Examined at Holborn Mortuary, an autopsy determined she had been rendered unconscious by a fist which had fractured the left of her jaw. Although strong and fiery (if needed), Jean was strangled with her own dress, and unable to fight back, it only took a small amount of pressure to end her life. On 19th of June 1942, four weeks after her death, the St Pancras Coroner Bentley Purchase concluded that Jean Stafford was ‘murdered by person or person’s unknown’, and the case was closed. Neither the Tall Man, the Caller, or ‘Johnny’ were found, and no-one was arrested on suspicion of her murder. It remains unsolved to this day… …and yet, on the 30th of May 1953, a decade after the murder, a 51-year-old man walked into a Police station at Elizabeth Bay in Sydney, Australia. His name was Joseph Lamb, a former tenant at 3 Bedford Place who Police stated “knows more about her than anyone, but he denies being intimate with her”. Interviewed, he said “I believed I was under suspicion for some time, I suffered a nervous breakdown and eventually came to Australia”, where his name was not known. And although, he’d initially denied knowing what this private woman did as a job, he’d later admit “she was a ‘high-class’ prostitute”. That day, Joseph identified a man from a photograph published in the newspaper who he said “was seen with Jean on subsequent occasions”. This was a man who regularly used prostitutes, a man who had strange sexual perversions like keeping the pubic hairs of his victims, and having murdered before, this West London serial-killer had committed at least eight murders of women from 1943 to 1953, who he had rendered unconscious with a punch, some gas, strangled and raped, but didn’t mutilate. The man he identified as the regular client of Jean Stafford… was John Reginald Christie. 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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