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Image: @Google2024 - Flat 80, Third Floor, Benson Close
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 FIFTY-ONE: Monday 11th of April 1994, 23-year-old Milton Wheeler entered Flat 80 of Benson Close in Hounslow and brutally murdered elderly couple Mr & Mrs Ambasna, and then, abducted and raped two teenage girls in the same flat, metres away from the dead bodies. His father was a career criminal and a convicted murderer - so was this a case of nature or nurture?
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 on Benson Close in Hounslow, TW3; three miles south of the last sighting of Alice Gross, two miles north of the Thames Towpath killer, one mile south of the Chohan family murders, and just a few streets from the wannabe gangster’s last words - coming soon to Murder Mile. Benson Close is a cul-de-sac comprising of redbrick apartments and an 11-storey high-rise block of flats which looms a large shadow over the street. As council homes built with a ‘whack it up, make it cheap and cram them in’ mentality, the only sense of community is the nearby chip shop which serves what every racist would dub “the best of British cuisine”, like shish kebabs, pizzas, kung-po chicken, a curry sauce of indeterminate origin, mushy peas so gooey you could use it as cement, and welks. Yuck. For scores of families, this is home. But for decades, many complained that it was used as a dumping ground for a local psychiatric unit and Feltham Young Offenders institute. The same was true in 1993, when a boy (said to have been born) of pure evil came to Benson Close, and with everything within walking distance of his flat, Milton Wheeler planned his spree of torture, rape and murder. But was he evil from birth, a product of a bad upbringing, or merely copying of his cruel father? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 251: Like Father, Like Son. Milton’s mother Doreen would state “I knew he was no angel, but when I found out what he had done, I couldn’t believe it. I am not condoning what Milton did. They are saying he is a psychopath, and he probably is… just like his dad”. But who was the real Milton Wheeler - a loving son or a psychopath? Two years before Milton was even conceived, his father was already a career criminal whose selfish crimes were frequently tinged with a sadistic streak, and a frightening lack of empathy for his victims, In March 1969, in the town of Accrington, Lancashire in the north-west of England, 21-year-old Russell Gainford, Milton’s father, was found with a friend, 17-year-old Stephen Paul Daly, “huddled together behind an outhouse at the yard of a home, in possession of articles for use in connection with theft”. Pleading guilty at Accrington Magistrates Court, Gainford admitted “I knew the house cos I’d broken into it before. We were going to break in and get some stuff I knew was in there”, such as the furniture, irreplaceable jewellery, family heirlooms, personal essentials, and even the coins inside the gas meter. Collared by PC's Bromilow & Adderly, the two selfish hoodlums didn’t care that this was the home of an elderly widow who (being fast asleep) they could have frightened to death… or worse, as Gainford already had three prior convictions, with one being for an indecent assault of an elderly woman. Russell Gainford was a thief, a burglar and a sexual predator… …who would soon graduate to murder. By 1969, the year of his burglary conviction in Accrington for which he would serve just three months; Russell had recently married Doreen, his first son Ian was only three months old, and on 13th February 1971 at Rough Lee Maternity Home in Accrington, their second son, Milton Duncan Gainford was born. Raised in Oswaldtwistle, a sweet little town in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, having attended Green Haworth and Hillings Vale Primary schools, he should have had a decent but unremarkable upbringing among the rolling hills and swooping dales. But how can a boy grow up normal, when the one male role model in his life was a criminal, a sadist, a violent brute, and - some said - a psychopath? In 1977, when Milton was just six, his father worked as a coalman delivering logs, kindling and bags of coal across Oswaldtwistle, Bedlam and Accrington. It was a responsible job for a responsible husband and father, but being a habitual thief, he used his route to scope out the homes of the most vulnerable. One such home was a little bungalow on Moorhouse Avenue, where 78-year-old widow Gladys Bryant lived alone, being no bother to anyone. Like many working-class pensioners, she didn’t have much beyond her tiny pension and possibly her late husband’s watch, but all those items Russell coveted. Little is known about what happened, whether it was a failed burglary or a grudge attack, but in what was described as “an apparently motiveless killing”, he slit her throat and then stabbed her to death. Russell Gainford was sentenced to life in prison. With the family split, it wasn’t long afterwards that Milton and his brother were taken into care, and with Milton said to be “a product of violence and degradation who hasn’t met decency in his life”, this conviction had a profound effect on both boys. Like Milton, his older brother Ian had taken the brunt of the abuse from his violent controlling father, and although deep-down he despised him – either through a bad moral upbringing, learned behaviour, a wilful decision or a genetic mistake - Ian had become a carbon copy of the man he hated so much. Educated in all-boy detention centres, and “unable to communicate with women, with warnings that he was ‘at risk emotionally and socially’”, even Mr Gozen (his defence lawyer) would state “it seems that the predictions have come to fruition”. Aged just 17, Ian was tried at Burnley Crown Court of stealing a girdle, a brassiere and the indecent assault of females. He already had 15 similar counts including public exposure to his name and nine years later he was also sentenced to ten years for rape. Ian was emotionally disturbed and uncontrollable, a sexual predator who lacked empathy with other humans, and although he had returned to live with his broken family, he found even that difficult. And not just because, like his father, he had regularly sexually abused his younger brother, Milton. Doreen, Milton’s mother said “his father was a big influence on him… even after he went to jail, he would write to Milton… it used to upset him”. Whether he did this as part of his controlling nature or to be deliberately cruel to his son or wife is uncertain? But “he’d always get into trouble after hearing from his father… every time his father contacted him it brought out the worst in him. Even to this day we don’t know what made him flip. We think he may have heard from his father a few days before”. Which again, begs the question, if he despised his father so much… …why are there so many similarities between Russell’s crimes and Milton’s? On the 3rd of June 1988, aged 17, Milton Duncan Gainford of Albert Street in Oswaldtwistle was tried at Burnley Crown Court, charged with burglary, and intent to commit wounding, GBH and rape. Like a coward, his victim was a young woman living alone in her own home, which he had broken into. Seized from behind, “he thrust an eight-inch knife to her throat”, and with his strange sexual desires taking hold, “he ordered her to get into a swimsuit because he wanted her body”. Fearing for her life, she put up a fight, and although “he plunged the knife into her thigh and then throttled her with a pyjama cord until she partially blacked out”, as he tried to tie her up, she continued to fend him off. Meeting further resistance, as she attacked back, “they rolled around on the floor as he tried to fondle her breasts and unzip her jeans”, until finally he gave up, exhausted. But it wasn’t the terror he had inflicted, or the fact that he had strangled, burned and tried to rape her which caused him the most consternation. But having drawn blood, he wanted the bleeding to stop and let her go to the hospital. Stephen Hesford, his defence lawyer, stated “Gainford was an inadequate person who had never had a girlfriend, and saw the entry into his victim’s home as a way of getting experience”. Sentenced to four years in prison for attempted rape, he was told to undergo psychiatric assessment and treatment. Doctors would state “he showed signs of significant sexual sadism, coldness and a callous detachment; a complete absence of sympathy, remorse and empathy for his victims and a desire to dominate those around him” - not unlike his father. And although he attended some psychological rehabilitation… …after his release from prison, “he defaulted from treatment”. By this time, the damage had been done, and he was living among the community. Two years after Russell’s incarceration, keen to make a better life for herself and her boys, Doreen remarried. Giving Milton a more stable family life with “three half brothers and sisters who think the world of him and worship the ground he walks on” and a positive male role model in his stepfather Paul, Milton took the surname Wheeler “and he seemed to change and become more responsible. He was a good kid”, and as his stepfather would state “I would have stood by him through thick and thin”. Milton was on the first steps of a long road to recovery, as having been unable to receive a letter from his convict father owing to prison regulations, many said, he had improved… at least for a while. In 1993, 23-year-old Milton Wheeler moved 200 miles south to a small first-floor flat at 15 Cromwell Road in Hounslow. Being a stranger with no known past, and a sickly pale boy with dark neck-length hair, sticking out ears and a slightly horse-like face, he didn’t look like a danger to the community. But with an uninterrupted view of Cromwell Road and Benson Close, and with everything being within a very short walking distance from his flat, this became the new hunting ground of Milton Wheeler. His criminal spree began almost immediately, being convicted on several occasions of stealing a set of tools, a handbag, a jacket and a £1000 jumper, as well as damaging a Ford Granada and a driving a Peugeot without insurance – all small and annoying stuff. Situated a few doors from his flat, Priti Shah, who ran a grocery store said “Wheeler was a monster who blighted the community. Old people were scared to come out… to use the lifts or walk down alleyways. I’ve hardly seen any of them in the shop”. Situated on the bend of Benson Close, and visible from his bedroom, stood an 11-storey high-rise block containing 55 one and two-bedroomed council flats. It was seen as a safe place, but with a pal on the third floor giving Milton the access code to the security door, the danger was now within their walls. Just like his father’s motiveless killing of a 78-year-old widow, it began innocently enough, when in April 1994, from outside of Flat 80 on the third floor, he stole a milk bottle worth just 36p. The residents of Flat 80 were Mr & Mrs Ambasna. Described as a “quiet and gentle couple who kept to themselves”, they had come from India in 1978 to raise their three daughters. As devout Hindus, they spent many hours every day in private prayer, and (like Gladys Bryant) were no bother to anyone. When they moved to Benson Close, they saw their home as “a safe place, often saying to neighbours that their small one-bedroom flat on the third floor with its security system, was better than a ground-floor flat on this small but well-maintained council estate”, especially as they got older and frailer. With Madhavji aged 82, and his wife Raliat aged 72, both suffered from heart and kidney problems, and with Raliat becoming less mobile owing to her arthritis, both being infirm, they were easy targets. In December 1993, just four months before, an unidentified burglar (who had access to the building having used the key codes) broke into their flat, tied up this terrified old couple, and although nothing was taken, no suspect was ever identified. But there was a suspicion about who it may have been. Monday 11th of April 1994 was the day of Milton’s spree of torture, rape and murder. Milton had finished his shift as a packer at a local freight company. With no real hobbies except being a menace, still wearing his overalls and with a Stanley knife in his pocket, he headed to the pub. Being drunk, his mood was bad and still seething, he later confided in a cellmate “I wanted to wreak revenge on the old cow for having the cheek to suggest he had stolen some milk” - which he probably had. The flat at the bend of Benson Road took him past those he knew, but he didn’t care. The security door was no bother, he just imputed the code and let himself in. And climbing the stairs, no-one batted an eyelid, as he was often seen on the third floor. Only he wasn’t going to call for his pal, but someone he wanted to punish. It was roughly 7pm. (doorbell) 72-year-old Raliat of Flat 80 unlocked the door as anyone else would, believing she was safe and that the only people with access to the building were family, neighbours or friends - only he was neither. The second the door opened, Milton burst in, his Stanley knife in one hand and scissors in the other, as he repeatedly stabbed the frail elderly lady about the face and neck. Hearing her screams, although slow and doddery himself, Madhavji tried to protect his wife, but was stabbed in the face, neck, chest and stomach, as the married couple both slumped onto the living room floor in twin pools of blood. None of the neighbours had heard a thing, or maybe they’d mistaken it for something else, so nobody came to their aid. Only Milton’s revenge on this couple over a milk bottle was far from finished, as with the cord of her dressing gown, twice he strangled the life out of her (maybe out of spite) and with his Stanley knife, he severed her throat with such force that the blade went down to the bone. Mr & Mrs Ambasna were dead, and although he had taken their lives, he would humiliate them in death, as these proud religious devotees were stripped and mutilated in ways it was too graphic for the press to publish. And then, having stolen some jewellery, knickknacks and a little cash, he left. He closed the door, he descended the stairs, he exited the building, and calmly walked down Benson Close with their blood on his hands, passed his flat and onto Cromwell Road. A vulnerable couple lay dead and defiled, but just as his father had, still being on a high after the killing, Milton was hungry. At roughly 8:30pm, Milton walked into the Silver Fish Bar at 35 Cromwell Road, barely a one-minute walk from the murder, and used his victim’s meagre pension money for a slap-up meal for himself. All he cared about was how much salt was on his chips, rather than the pain and suffering he had caused. Around the chip shop, several teens on bikes had congregated, as they do, making noise and causing a nuisance, especially to two local girls - aged 14 and 18 – who were sheltering from a gang of boys. Being a few years older than these scared girls, with Milton being a stranger but someone they felt they could trust, as he left carrying his food, they asked if they could walk with him. It’s uncertain what happened next, but having been invited by him back to his friend’s flat - maybe for chips - behind the security door with the access code, this was a safe place for the girls away from the gangs of boys… …but not from him. Climbing the stairs, they had no inkling of the horrors which awaited them. Upon the third floor, they had no hint what atrocities this man had unleashed in Flat 80. But as he opened the door to his friend’s flat and let the two girls in, locking the door behind him, he uttered a sentence so chilling and cold. "I'm going to make you wish you had never come in here". Pulling out his Stanley knife and scissors which were bloodstained with the blood of the last two who crossed him, holding the blades to their throats, Milton ordered the terrified girls to strip naked. Any refusal led to them being beaten across the face, and any sounds were punished in a similar way. Across the next two hours, holding both of the trembling girls at knifepoint, he sexually assaulted his hostages and raped the youngest. The torture went on and on, and although he had violated them, the biggest fear wasn’t the pain, but never knowing if, how and when his sadistic torture would end. Only having left them bruised, petrified and crying, Milton Wheeler was far from finished. Silencing them with the threat of being stabbed, he marched the two naked girls from the flat, across the corridor, and into Flat 80, where the bloodied and mutilated bodies of Mr & Mrs Ambasna still lay. Sprawled out like trophies of this psychopath’s frenzy, and a further warning for the girls to be silent. Dragging the girls into the bedroom, he tied each girl to a separate bed where they were both sexually assaulted repeatedly at knifepoint, and given the ultimatum to decide “which one of you should die?”. After a further hour of torture, having left both girls naked, gagged and tied spreadeagle on the beds, he bit the girls so hard that he left teeth marks, and - as before - he left without a care in the world. There was no denying that Milton was a sadist and a psychopath… …and although he hated his father, their crimes were eerily similar. They both attacked the elderly, they slashed and strangled their victims, they used weapons which they carried for their jobs, neither could offer any explanation for the violence with Milton saying “I can’t remember anything” and his father stating “why I did it I still don’t know”, and they both ate immediately after they had killed, as having been arrested, Richard chillingly said “I threw away the knife and went home and had my tea”. But it was while Milton was in his flat at 15 Cromwell Road, overlooking Benson Street, that he missed the most vital detail of his killing spree… that the youngest girl had escaped. Having wriggled free from her binds, she had alerted the caretaker, and by 11pm, the whole street was swarming with police. As his father had, Milton stood watching as the block of flats was sealed off. Initially, the police were at a loss, stating ''It's a bizarre case because we can't find any connection between the white girls and the Asian couple. It's a mystery”, with the only link being that the victims were found in the same flat. With the girls being cared for and questioned by specially trained officers, slowly they began to paint of picture of the incident, the culprit, what he looked like, as well as where they had met him. As you might expect, his arrest came swiftly, having committed a double abduction, a double rape and a double murder barely 300 feet from his home and in an area he was known. And with his fingerprints at the scene, his toothmarks on their bodies, their personal possession in his pockets and the bloodied knife still inside his jacket, Milton (and his pal whose flat they were held hostage in) were arrested. Questioned at Hounslow police station, Milton tried to act like a hardened criminal but very quickly he “wilted under the pressure”, and later he gave a statement which was a vague as his father’s. But with both girls positively identifying him in an ID parade, Milton Wheeler was charged. (End) More than 200 mourners attended their funeral of Mr & Mrs Ambasna in Hanworth, with them both described as “a lovely quiet couple who were totally devoted to one another”. In court, the constable who chaperoned the two girls said “they’ve found the strength to get over this horrendous ordeal… but there is part of their youth that has gone, and I don’t think it will ever come back”. In the space of just a few hours and across a single street, this sadistic little boy had destroyed at least four lives. Tried at the Old Bailey on 20th February 1995, 24-year-old Milton Duncan Wheeler faced ten charges including abduction, rape, buggery, indecent assault and murder. With three psychiatrists agreeing he was suffering “from a severe long-standing psychopathic disorder” and “he presented a grave danger to the public”, they accepted his plea of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. Oddly though, he pleaded guilty to the charges of rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment, but he denied the further charges of sexual assault and four further charges of indecent assault. With judge Neil Denison QC summing up: “you are in the view of the doctors, and I agree, an extremely dangerous young man and you will remain so for a long time to come”, he was sentenced to 18 years for the murders, a further 14 years for the rapes, and mandatory treatment at Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital. As of today, Milton Wheeler is 53-years-old, having spent two-thirds of his life in prison. Ironically, when Milton was convicted, his father (Richard Gainford) was released on licence. Professor David Canter who pioneered criminal profiling, said of Milton, “it is not a common pattern, but the fact that his father was a murderer, and his brother was a rapist have significant bearings on his actions”. But was he born evil, a product of a bad upbringing, or was he copying of his cruel father? 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.
2 Comments
Krish Ramsahye
24/8/2024 19:29:36
Strange reading this and didnt realise what a horror story it was, I was 19, kicked out of my stepmums place around summer 1995 and I asked a landlord who had housed me before for a room he could give me with immediate effect and he gave me Miltons room in 15 Cromwell Road. All I can remember was that it had crime scene police tape when I moved in. It was actually a room rather than a flat and it was facing the rear garden. The front facing windows were a portugese man who had been their for years. It was the worst place I had ever lived in as it was verfy bare and only had a wallpaper pasting desk I used for college work and a cheap bed. Creeps me out to think I slept in that same persons mattress and bed! Times were tough though! I had absolutely no idea of the severity of the crimes and I only found out about the murder when the lady who lived downstairs told me who had lived in my room before me. God bless those victims and what they went through... Crazy thing is I applied to Thames Valley Housing to move me to a better place and they gave me a shared flat with a petty crimimal (who I got on with actually) and his mate got murdered near the flat and he went into witness protection! Sometimes you never know when evil is going to cross paths with you... Excellent write up btw Michael! Regards Krish
Jane
15/9/2024 07:57:53
I was working at a recruitment agency, doing wages etc, new Milton as worked there, he did give me the creeps and it makes me wonder as I was in the office on my own with him a few times.. scary to think about now Leave a Reply. |
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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