Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
press photograph of The Shoe Box, 122 Uxbridge Road
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-THREE: Between the 29th of August and 17th of September 1980, 23 year old Mickey Jamieson and 25-year-old James Anderson went on a 19-day crime spree of theft, assault, torture and murder. With most of them committed within streets of their own homes, their last crime occurred 12 and a 1/2 miles west in Shepherd's Bush Green. But why? What drove them to this part of the city?
THE LOCATION
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The location is marked with a bright green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Shepherd's Bush'. 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 Shepherd’s Bush Green on the Uxbridge Road, W12; three roads east of the killing of Katerina Koneva, one road south of where Reg Christie euthanised his dog, one road west of the home of the Devil’s Child, and a few doors down from Bad Billy - coming soon to Murder Mile. As a once affluent shopping district, Shepherd’s Bush Green is now urgh, as the mark of how far it has fallen being that every shop either sells hair extensions, flavoured vapes, second hand phones (which are mostly nicked) and a plethora of puke-inducing takeaways, all deep-fried and slathered in a factory produced sauce as they’re too disgusting to eat sober and barely palatable to scoff when you’re drunk. At 122 Uxbridge Road currently stands Selekt Chicken, that’s Selekt with a ‘k’ nor a ‘c’, because as we all know, proving that you don’t even have the basic literacy skills of a three-year-old is cool. Back in 1980, this was The Shoe Box, a pleasant little cobbler’s shop which had been ran for almost a decade by 75-year-old Nathanial Taylor and his nephew 55-year-old Leonard Mintz. As locals, they were a big part of the community, they were well-liked, and financially their business was doing okay. But one afternoon, both men were brutally gunned down in the shop by two hoodlums in their early 20s who were on a 19-day crime spree of theft, torture and murder. And yet unlike their earlier crimes, this double murder wasn’t committed within a few streets of their East London homes. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide. And this is Murder Mile. Episode 253: The Shoe Box Killer – Part One. Mickey was an enigma… Michael Thomas Jamieson was born in West Ham in East London on the 5th of September 1957, as one of eleven children in a hectic working-class brood. Described as a mummy’s boy, being a baby-faced little cherub with light brown hair and bright green eyes, Mickey was an angel to his siblings, his pals, his girlfriend, his son and especially his beloved mother Shirley… but to everyone else, he was a devil. Little was reported about his upbringing, but with his father being an inmate at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital (a high-security prison for some of Britain’s most disturbed criminals), it was said “he had begun thieving as a child because he was hungry”, although how much of that was true is debatable. Being in trouble with the police before he was in his teens with a history of theft, burglary and assault, his very limited education was received in borstals, detention centres and approved schools, where he should have learned how to become a decent human being, but instead, he only learned to be bad. Assessed before his trial for multiple counts of murder, Dr Henry Rollin described 23-year-old Mickey Jamieson as “a born psychopath”, as he didn’t have any of the characteristics of a civilised member of society - at least, not to anyone he didn’t care about – as he abused alcohol, hated work, struggled to form lasting relationships, and towards the ‘other people’, he was aggressive, cruel and remorseless. For Mickey the wannabe thug, nothing was worth working for, everything was his for the taking, life was about having fun, and he didn’t give a damn who got hurt, injured or killed in his pursuit of money. In 1974, aged 17, recently released from borstal (which – as a failed experiment into the rehabilitation of criminals – was a few years from being shutdown), Mickey met Kay Elms, “when we were little more than kids” and moved into a rented flat together in Canning Town, not far from his mum’s house. This was his world; his mum’s house, his flat, his pals, his pub, and his beloved West Ham football club. His community consisted of a few streets around Plaistow and West Ham, with occasional seaside trips to Clacton on Sea and towns like Stratford and Romford. This was his home. But not being best blessed with brains, it was also the places he would steal from and the people he would terrorise. Living with Kay, his common-law wife, in 1976 they had a son who they named Edward, with Kay stating “he doted on the boy and couldn’t have treated him better”. And although a caring dad, he was far from a good father, as Kay recalled “he never worked, he just played pool and watched footie”. He loved his son, but whereas some dads get their child’s names tattooed upon their skin, on his right arm, Mickey was marked with the ‘quincunx’ - a square of four dots representing the four corners of a prison cell and a single dot at the centre representing himself behind bars. He had ruined his life before it had even begun, and rather than focussing on something good, it was all about being bad. Mickey was a brutal senseless thug who was hell-bent on a crime spree… …only he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) do it alone. His accomplice was 25-year-old James Anderson known as ‘Jimmy’, a childhood friend who looked equally as fresh-faced and innocent; with brown cropped hair, blue eyes, and (as criminals do as they love to ensure they’re easily caught) a tattoo of his name ‘Jim’ and his girlfriend ‘Lyn’ on his left wrist. Like twins separated at birth, who “enjoyed drinking and promiscuity”, although Jimmy would profess his innocence in court over the murders, it should have come as no surprise to him having described Mickey as “a nutter, just plain evil, who’d do outrageous things without any regard for anyone else”. The motive for his 19-day-spree of theft, robbery, torture and murder - from a burglary on the 29th of August 1980 to the double killing at the Shoe Box on the 17th of September 1980 - remains uncertain. It was suggested he had been drinking heavily, as Kay would say “people won’t believe it, but Mickey is a nice person, only he changes for the worse when he’s had a few drinks”. Another reason was two months earlier, Kay & Mickey had split, and although she was seeing someone else, “he always had other women, so our break in July was not unexpected”, Kay said. Maybe with him due to attend Snaresbrook Crown Court on charges of theft on Tuesday 9th September 1980 was his reason, wanting to have one last gangbang of wanton violence before he was locked away for a few months in choky… …or perhaps, these were all just feeble excuses for a psychopath with some seriously bad wiring? The first crime in their 19-day-spree took place on the night of Friday the 29th of August 1980. Barely a mile west of his mother’s home, two miles shy of his Canning Town flat and a five-minute walk from West Ham’s Upton Park stadium – armed with a gun he bought from a bloke down his local boozer – Mickey & Jimmy broke into the unoccupied home of Samuel Tucker on Thackery Road. Gaining entry by breaking a window, scattering like rats from room to room in search of goodies, they rifled the drawers for cash and jewellery, swiping £650 worth, roughly £3500 today. And between the two of them, they carried out a nearly new 28-inch colour television, weighing as much as a large dog. Fleeing like rabid flies lured to a fresher shit being squeezed out of an incontinent dog’s arsehole, both lads cackled, having made a sizable score. Some might say, it was an innocent crime as no-one was in, injured or shot, but as these two selfish turds stained a family home with a perpetual sense of fear that they’d be attacked again, they also pawned off the owner’s irreplaceable personal possessions. Some might also say “he just did it to feed his kids”, as they were both dads, and Mickey – supposedly – had begun his crime spree as a child, just so he could eat? But did this money go to their kids? No. That night, as the Tucker family wept, these two arrogant tossers headed to Snobs disco in Stratford; a low-brow nightclub where the East End’s hippest undesirables boogied in bright-red bodywarmers, caused a fire hazard in Spandex and an obstruction owing to their Dynasty style shoulder pads, while grooving to Winner Takes It All by ABBA, Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, a pirate copy of Baggy Trousers by Madness, and splashed out on Lambrini, Babysham, Blue Nun and a few cans of Skol lager. Having done their heist around the club’s opening, they got drunk, splashed the cash, Frenchied some girls having got them squiffy on Buck’s Fizz and generally acted like a bunch of Billy Big Bollocks. They didn’t care about the victims, all they cared about was having fun. And although £650 was a big haul… …by the morning, they had spent the lot. The next day, another life would be sullied by their cruelty. Only this isn’t a story about hardened criminals who were feared, respected and only attacked rivals who stepped on their turf. This is about two selfish cowards who only attacked the weak, the old, the lone, the vulnerable and the helpless. Raised with no sense of remorse, across their teenage years, they had burgled houses, robbed shops, and - like most sticky-fingered fiends – they were so lazy, they’d repeatedly attack the same premises, they were often too drunk to remember to bring a disguise, and although Jimmy would act like a mere innocent bystander claiming he was “only in it for the money”, knowing that “Mickey was a nutter”, he went along on the robbery with a deranged loon who was violent, cruel and psychopathic. Saturday the 30th of August 1980, another crime to fund another weekend of fun. Mickey & Jimmy sat in a pub in Plaistow nursing several pints of Kestrel until their pennies were spent, as although they dreamed of being feared, these turgid terrors could do diddly while they were sober. Last time, they burgled an empty home, this time, these utter cowards targeted the most defenceless. 78-year-old Catherine Herbert and her husband 75-year-old Joseph were a well-loved couple who had recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. In their 50 years together, Kitty & Joe had seen off sickness, disease, infirmity, strikes, recessions and a world war. They had witnessed happiness and hardship, but were always by each other’s side, holding hands and enjoying the well-deserved twilight of their years. Neighbours said “they were as devoted to each other as the day they were married”. But as old age had made them weaker, it had also made them a target of the morally feeble. A year earlier, their home on New Barn Street in Plaistow was burgled and £100 was taken. As a loving son who would do anything to protect his aged parents, 34-year-old Michael who worked at Scotland Yard’s information room had fitted a new uPVC door with dead bolts and toughen glass. It was a smart decision by a good son for the right reason, but it had just one weakness – the human factor. The Herbert’s home wasn’t chosen at random, as having left a nearby pub, Mickey & Jimmy headed to the pensioner’s home they had robbed before, knowing Joe & Kitty were weak, asleep and helpless. A little after 2am, along this busy road of two storey terraces, through the large living room window, they spotted that the lights were off, the curtains were closed and the occupants were snoozing. Unlike most targets, they knew this house hadn’t been split into flats as they’d been there before, and they had no panic alarms, no routes of escape, no lodgers and no dog, just a little green budgerigar. There were no witnesses to the crime, but we know it occurred at just before 2:15am. (Knocking). Mickey knocked on the door. It took a while for Joe to stir from his sleep, but as many of us would do, still being a little groggy and not thinking straight, he went to the door and unlocked it. Dressed in just his pyjamas, before Joe could see who it was, Mickey’s fist slammed fast into his face, breaking his nose, fracturing his eye socket and disorientating the old man, as he was pushed inside, and with the door locked and the curtains closed, none of their sleeping neighbours were any wiser. Once inside, regardless of their age and infirmity, Mickey started punching them, demanding to know where the money was, as Jimmy said “he was going crazy, saying they must have bundles stashed away”, and as he tore the watch from Joe’s wrist and smashed it, the hands stopped at exactly 2:15am. Slumped on the floor, terrified and bleeding, Jimmy would later claim “Mickey acted like an animal”. And with every drawer searched, every cupboard flung open and its contents scattered, still insistent that they had money stashed away, he would hurt them in a multitude of cruel and inhuman ways. But first, he would attack their faithful friend. From its cage, Mickey grabbed their budgie, as - fitting snuggling in his fist - he held this 35-gram bird. Asking once more “where’s the money?”, of which they had none, it squawked a last painful squawk as with his fingers tightening tighter, the budgie’s bones were crushed like toothpicks. It was a warning to Kitty & Joe, as the broken body of their faithful feathered friend was tossed at their bare feet. In court, Jimmy Anderson claimed “I left around then” leaving them alone with a sadistic psychopath. Having ransacked the house, whether he knew or didn’t believe he’d taken every penny that had, just £70 (about £370 today), he subjected the Herberts to a long and painful torture, maybe for pleasure. Dragging these petrified pensioners upstairs and into separate bedrooms, using ripped stripes of his pyjamas and leaving Joe in just his underwear, he bound their hands and ankles, he tied them to each bed, and - with this devoted couple unable to see each other – as he maliciously sliced and stabbed at their flesh, even as a pillow muffled their screams, they could still hear each other’s cries in pain. The knife was taken from their own kitchen, probably last used to make a bedtime snack. A can opener found on the bed was used to slice at Joe’s arms and legs to force him to give up the money they didn’t have. Until around 6:30am, having endured almost four hours of terror and torture, and with the dawn light well and truly risen, the sadist brutally stabbed Joe in his stomach and Kitty in her chest. Fleeing the house, with a pittance in his pocket, he smashed a wall clock in anger, which (like the wrist-watch) stopped the hands at exactly 6:32am – giving an accurate bookend to his night of sadistic fun. A pathologist would state “the couple may have survived for up to an hour after being stabbed”, and yet, tied to separate beds - gagged, bleeding and weak – as the street outside awoke and their neighbours went about their day, no-one was due to visit them and no-one knew they were dying. As happens, those who knew them thought it was odd that they hadn’t been seen since the Friday afternoon, but didn’t alert the police. Ann Hurd assumed “I thought they had gone on holiday”, but it wasn’t until five days later, when their milk bottles started piling up, that a milkman alerted the police. Notifying their son, on Thursday 4rh September 1980, the bodies of Kitty & Joe were found; bound, gagged, stabbed and tortured having died one room apart, their beloved budgie crushed and dumped. For the sake of barely a week’s wage, Michael Jamieson had perpetrated what Judge Miskin QC would describe as “one of the most revolting, loathsome killings ever”, with Detective Chief Superintendent Ron Hay stating, “we are looking for someone sick… we are looking for a very vicious animal”. It was a murder so horrific it haunted the nightmares of those who investigated it… …but Mickey Jamieson didn’t give a shit. Later calling at the Canning Town flat he shared with his girlfriend, Kay Elms, she said “he appeared very drunk and collapsed on the settee”, like (for the first time in his life) he’d done a hard day’s work. “I saw he had dried blood on his foot. He said he had been in a fight the previous night and said ‘some geezer and I were stabbing a man. I stabbed a bird and all. She was lying on the floor making a choking noise and I was laughing”, which sums up his attitude to the robbery, the torture and the murders. That day was the last day he would return to the flat, his wife and his son, as not being the smartest, his fingerprints were all over the Herbert’s house, they were also on his police file, he had a history of burglary and assault, and - like an idiot – he almost always committed his crimes on his own doorstep. Before he ran, he lied to Kay to provide himself an alibi, stating “if anyone asks, I was at Snobs disco until after 2:15am”, it being no coincidence that this was the time Joe Herbert’s smashed watch had stopped at, “I then came home and spent the rest of the night with you”. Only when she was asked, being a decent person and a good mum with a young boy to consider, rightly, she told the truth. Over the next five days, Mickey & Jimmy laid low, hiding out in hostels and sleeping on sofas, trying not to be spotted. Especially as on Thursday 4rh September, the local newspapers were plastered with ‘couple murdered in Plaistow”, which shook the neighbourhood to its core and erupted into whispers. Being wanted men, who it wouldn’t be a struggle to identify, they should have gone deep into hiding… …but with Friday 5th of September being Mickey’s birthday, like a self-absorbed twerp, all he wanted to get was boozed up and boogie, but once again, he was broke. That day, barely half a mile from the Herbert’s home, they broke into the unoccupied home of John Davis on High Street North in East Ham. Taking £260 (roughly £1400), they could have used their ill-gotten gains to flee, but as he wanted cake, he wanted booze and he wanted to boogie, he didn’t care who got hurt, as long as he had his fill. And around the time that the Herbert’s were being autopsied, he was partying heartily at Snobs disco… …until, once again, the cash ran out. On Monday 8th September 1980, nine days into a nineteen-day crime spree, having committed three burglaries and a double murder within streets of each other, like rats scurrying in a feted sewer, they were seeking an easy feast and made the decision to rob a post office on Katherine Road in East Ham. Had Jimmy been as innocent as he claimed to be, after the murder, he’d have ran. Only he didn’t. In court, Judge Miskin stated “when you looked at post offices to rob, there were too many people in some of them for you brave boys to manage”, so – along this bustling city street - they chose to rob the newsagent and sub-post office of 42-year-old Champaklal Bhagwandas Gandhi known as ‘Sebi’. Again, like idiots, the street was a place they all knew well, and being too lazy to go further as that required effort, these hopeless hoodlums wanted quick cash, fast fun and were allergic to work. Armed with the pistol he had purloined off a ponce in a local pub, Mickey, Jimmy and one other (said to be their equally-as-pathetic pal John Hamilton) – like three pitiful plebs – they sidled into the empty post-office. Sebi was by himself, but having been robbed many times before, he barely blinked. But it wasn’t just that Sebi was fearless, and was willing to stand up to them, which ruined their day… …as being drunk, what Mickey had forgotten was this - Sebi knew him. (End) Like a little boy bragging that he was now wearing big boy pants rather than Pampers, Mickey hadn’t twigged that by robbing a post-office in an area where he’d grown up, that Sebi had known him since he was a kid, he knew his name, his home, his mother, his father, his siblings and his criminal ways. Slurring his words as he’d sunk several pints of beer to drum up enough courage to be a petty thief and a pathetic waste-of-space, from a display, Mickey pulled what he said was “a card for my wife”. As Sebi rang it through, Mickey pulled the pistol from his pocket and pointed it at the postmaster, just six inches from his chest. But as he demanded the money from the till, Sebi just laughed cackling “you must be kidding, Mickey”. Never mind the fingerprints on the card, the postmaster had nailed him. Realising he was screwed, (BANG), Sebi was shot in the heart at point blank range, and as he slumped hard to the floor, like vultures, the boys ransacked his hard-earned cash from the till and fled. In total, they got away with £560 (barely £1000 each), which would barely last them a few more nights of fun. All three of them had wasted their lives… but one person who hadn’t, was Sebi’s surgeon, as although the bullet had entered his heart, the postmaster made a full recovery and gave the police descriptions of all three, including their names. Again, Jimmy would deny he had anything to do with the attempted murder of the postmaster, and Mickey would brag about to his ever decreasing circle of friends. The net was closing in on Mickey Jamieson, he was on the run, he was a wanted man in East Ham and Plaistow, and soon – in need of some quick cash in a place his face wasn’t known – he headed 12 and a ½ miles west to Shepherd’s Bush Green, bringing murder to a little shop called The Shoe Box. The concluding part of The Shoe Box Killer 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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