Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #258: Three Tiny Specks (Dr Joan Francisco & Anthony Diedrick)12/6/2024 
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.
13 Ordnance Hill, St John's Wood (Nov 2022, Googlemaps2024)
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-EIGHT: On 26th December 1994, at 1pm, the body of 27-year-old Dr Joan Francisco was found in her basement flat at 13 Ordnance Hill. With the prime suspect being her ex-boyfriend, his conviction should have been imminent. Only this isn’t just a story about obsession, this is the tale of a family’s five-year battle for justice, with the evidence being missed owing to a fatal mistake.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a black coloured symbol of a bin above Regent's Park. 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 Ordnance Hill in St John's Wood, NW8; three streets west of the first failed assassination by Carlos the Jackal, two streets north of the first possible victim of the Blackout Ripper, and four streets east of the seedy sex scandal of lusty Lord Lambton - coming soon to Murder Mile. Ordnance Hill is a middle-class street full of four-storey Georgian terraces. With many split into flats, it seems odd that anyone would move into basement flat, as their only view would surely be feet. But maybe that’s its selling point; basement flats are foot-fetishist’s must, where they go crazy for cankles, flip-out over foot cheese, go “phwoar” over corn plasters, or get a major boner for bunions. Oooh hot. Everyone has obsessive tendencies, and for many, it’s nothing but a bit of harmless fun… …but for one man, his obsession for a woman (he claimed) he not to love would lead to murder. On 26th December 1994, at 1pm, the body of 27-year-old Dr Joan Francisco was found in her basement flat at 13 Ordnance Hill. With the prime suspect being her ex-boyfriend who had a history of stalking her, his conviction should have been imminent. Only this isn’t just a story about obsession, this is the tale of a family’s five-year battle for justice, with the evidence being missed owing to a fatal mistake. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 258: Three Tiny Specks. Joan was an exceptional woman. Born on the 27th of January 1967 in Westminster, West London, Joan Sarah Francisco was one of three sisters to their father (Alfred) and mother (Venus). With her parents having come from the sun-kissed Caribbean island of St Lucia in the 60s to the endless drizzle of London, having dedicated their lives to giving their children the opportunities denied to them, all three of their girls flourished and succeeded. Blessed with brains, a convent education, and their parent’s hard-working ethic, both of Joan's sisters Margrette and Celia eventually sought out the bright lights of Los Angeles where they practiced law, whereas (like her mother, a former nurse) Joan was drawn to the benevolent profession of medicine. Described as bubbly and eternally likeable, Joan trained at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead where she often worked as a locum, specialising in gynaecology and obstetrics she was also trained at the famous Cedar Sinai Medical Centre in LA, and having obtained her doctorate, by 1994, Dr Joan Francisco was working at the Queen Charlotte hospital in Hammersmith, and with her said to be “at the top of her profession”, she had planned to move to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Working 100-hours-a-week, although her career was hectic, she excelled as in every field … …but like most people, her love life was sometimes a little bit rocky. In 1987, while 20-year-old Joan was a medical student, she fell in love with 27-year-old Anthony Gilroy Diedrick. Born in Paddington, Tony was doing a degree in computing at the University of Westminster, he came across well, being clean-cut and driven, but what too often shone through was his arrogance. In total, they dated for about a year, and although Joan was initially lured by his looks and his charm, as bright woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly, it was the support of her family which helped her make the right decision. Sometimes all it takes is a loved one to be brutally honest, as when her sister Celia met Tony, with amazing foresight, she forewarned Joan that her boyfriend was “a ticking time bomb”. As an inveterate philanderer who always cheated on her, and whose aggressive streak had resulted in him pushing her off a bike and smashing a light bulb which injured her eye, by the winter of 1988 to 1989, Joan ended the relationship, with Tony (defensively) claiming “I wasn’t that keen on her”. But Tony wasn’t the kind of person who took rejection well, as with his fragile ego bruised, although anyone with a modicum of self-respect would have shrugged off this snub and moved on, across the next months as much as Joan had made it abundantly clear that it was over, he refused to accept it. In February 1989, Joan complained to the police that he was harassing and stalking her. As a wastrel who drifted between aimless jobs, he followed her from the hospital by Wormwood Scrubs to her parent’s home on The Ridgeway in Acton. But with this being 8 years before harassment was made an offence, and almost 30 years before staking was criminalised, there was little the police could do. Growing ever more distressed at his persistent pestering, everything came to a head that same month, when seeing Joan with her new boyfriend at her family’s home, boiling with petty rage that the woman he claimed not to love was seeing someone else, he smashed a plate glass window of the patio door and threatened to kill her new boyfriend - as if that act of moronic violence would woo her back. With Tony admitting his guilt to criminal damage, Justice Hallett who presided over the later trial said “it’s not surprising she wanted nothing to do with you”, and although the only punishment he received was a police caution, this brief dalliance with the legal system made him open his eyes to the truth. Across the next five years, they didn’t see or speak to each other, and this lack of contact helped their lives to flourish. Joan qualified as a gynaecologist, and having graduated as a computer programmer, Tony went on to have other unhappy girlfriends, and over time, he began to forget about Joan. The two had moved on to greener and brighter pastures… …but all it took was a glimpse of Joan for his warped obsession to re-emerge. Being born, raised and educated within streets of each other, a brief interaction by chance was bound to happen, but whereas Joan only harboured feelings of revulsion and fear, for Tony, he wasn’t filled with a need to seek her forgiveness for his actions, or rekindle their love, he wanted to possess her. In February 1994, neighbours spotted him hanging around her parent’s home in Acton, spying through the window, and – as a truly sad and pathetic man with nothing better to do – again, he followed her. Knowing that any contact would give him hope that their relationship might be rekindled, Joan had considered taking out an injunction against him, but again, she hoped that by ignoring him that he’d eventually get bored and leave. Only the more she ignored him, the more obsessive he became. By the autumn of 1994, his obsession was consuming his life. In his flat on Fermoy Road, police would later find a homemade listening device so he could eavesdrop on her telephone conversations, a body heat detector so he could tell if she was in and what she was doing even if her curtains were shut, and not only had he listened into her bedroom at night, also, he had spied on her as she got undressed. By the end of October 1994, Joan left her parent’s home in Acton and moved into her own basement flat on a quiet leafy street at 13 Ordnance Hill in St John’s Wood. Desperate to keep herself safe, she made her home phone number ex-directory, and she only shared her address with a chosen few. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find her, but his twisted persistence knew no bounds. Calling every hospital and discovering that she was working at the Royal Free Hospital in Belsize Park, on one occasion, he called the switchboard 10 times to find out if she was on shift. In conversations with his friends, he denied being obsessed with her, even though she was the only thing on his mind. And he resorted to sending letters to her mother to find out where she lived, but no-one would speak. He was obsessed (not with Joan but) by the fact that he couldn’t possess and control her, and as this object of his desire vanished into thin air, far from his grasp, the more this made him need to seek her. At the trial, he could claim that “I had no meaningful contact with her since we stopped dating”… …only somehow, he had found out where she was living, and soon, she would be dead. By the November of 1994, Joan was staying with film producer Anthony Henry in Bolton having met him on a flight back from LA, and across the month, she worked as a locum in Southport. He knew she wasn’t in her basement flat at 13 Ordnance Hill, as from the corner of Acacia Road and St John’s Wood Terrace, he spent many evenings and nights watching her unlit unoccupied home for signs of life. Knowing almost nothing about her friends, her career, her plans and her boyfriends drove him wild, and whether someone let slip or he had scrabbled for scraps of details by going through her bins, it’s uncertain how he knew that Joan was leaving for Los Angeles on the Boxing Day of 1994, but he did. Before the start of the next part of her career at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, Joan had planned to take a month-long break with her sisters in California, but as Tony’s paranoid brain leaped to the illogical conclusion that she was leaving Britain, although she had only just moved into the flat, he believed that he had to act now… …or he would lose her forever. (cliffhanger). Sunday 25th of December 1994 was a typically cold wet Christmas Day. As planned, Joan spent it at her parent’s home in Acton, they shared presents, as a gifted pianist she entertained them with a rendition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it was fun, it was calm, and there were no dramas. Joan chatted on the phone to her sister Margrette, who said “see you tomorrow”. Only tomorrow never came. Having kissed her mother goodbye, Joan headed back to her basement flat on Ordnance Hill. With her flight to LA leaving the next day at 2pm, having pre-arranged to see her parents at 10am, she had a lot to get done that night. So dressed in her knickers and a red t-shirt with the words ‘Beverly Hills, California’ upon it, she finished packing and - planning to be away for a month - she cleaned the flat. That night, being full of festive cheer, Joan’s only distraction was the weather, as with the rain soaking the street, and the dark clouds hanging low, the gales were looming which risked a delay to her flight. Inside her flat, lost in her own thoughts, Joan vacuumed the carpet… …unaware that, through the window, someone was watching her. Monday 26th of December 1994, Boxing Day. Not a flake of snow had settled, but as a sodden gloom hung over the city, thankfully the predicted 70 mile-an-hour winds had missed West London, and with only minor delays at Heathrow Airport, none of the planes to LA had been cancelled, including Joan’s. Only it was a flight which Joan would never catch. Her mother realised that something was wrong when she failed to arrive at her house, and then, when her home phone just rang and rang and rang. At 1pm, growing concerned, Police broke in via the locked front door, and at the foot of the stairs, her body was found. When questioned, not one neighbour had heard a sound as their new resident was murdered, as few knew her name or the circumstances which had plagued her for the last few months. With the front door locked from inside and the back door left open, Detective Superintendent Phillip Bebbe initially believed that it may have been a burglary which had gone wrong, but what baffled him was that no cupboards were opened, no drawers had been ransacked, nothing had been taken, and although Joan was only dressed in a knickers and a red t-shirt, there no evidence of a sexual assault. Somehow her killer had got in, and with footprints across the back garden implying that was how he’d fled, it was likely that Joan had opened the front door to him, suggesting that maybe she knew him. At some point, the two had a confrontation. At some point, a violent struggle had ensued. At some point, knowing they were never to be, he had pummelled her face with his fists, as if to say ‘if I can’t have you, then no other man can’. And in the ultimate act of possession, at some point, wrapping the vacuum cleaner cord around her neck, he choked the last breath from her lungs, and ended her life. The last thing she’d have seen was the eyes of the man who claimed “I wasn’t that keen on her”. With no fingerprints found at the scene and no witnesses to the incident, the police were at a loss. Eight years earlier, DNA fingerprinting had been successfully used to solve a crime, so although it was still in its infancy, Joan’s knickers and t-shirt were sent to forensic expert Dr Ann Priston for analysis. Being fresh on, the t-shirt was clean. Several sections were tested, but they only matched Joan’s DNA, and with three tiny specks of blood on the inside believed to have dripped from a wound to her mouth, even the latest innovations of forensic science couldn’t find a trace of the man who murdered Joan. Or it would have done, if a cruel assumption hadn’t been made. Joan’s family believed there was only one suspect, Tony Diedrick, Joan’s ex-boyfriend and her stalker. A few days after her murder, he was arrested and questioned at length. He denied knowing where she lived, but the police knew he was lying. He gave an alibi as to where he was that night, but the police had 19 witnesses who saw him loitering outside of her flat that night. And although his statement was littered with lies, the evidence against him was circumstantial; no-one saw him knock, no-one saw him enter, and with no fingerprints, witnesses or DNA, they couldn’t prove that he had been in her flat. Ten months later, after an exhaustive investigation and endless false leads and dead ends, the inquest declared that Joan had been ‘unlawfully killed’, but the coroner Dr Paul Knapman stressed that “more evidence was crucial in order to catch the killer… and if found, it’s likely a person could be charged”. Everyone associated with the case knew that Anthony Diedrick was the culprit, from the police to the family to the coroner, but the definitive proof was missing. After the inquest, even Detective Inspector Michael Bennett said “Everyone on the inquiry is 100 per cent certain they know who the killer is”. But with no new evidence, the investigation stalled. And yet, still, her loved one’s fought on. As a close-knit family, still grieving from their loss and seething that the only suspect was living his life and walking around having (literally) got away with murder, Joan’s sister Margrette would state “the police are supposed to bring criminals to justice and nothing was happening, but justice had to take place, so it meant I had to do something. That was the scariest part. At some point I realised something had to be done and”, as a lawyer “I was the only one who could do it. I couldn't depend on the police". Seeing a programme on the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence in Plumstead, Margrette hired Caron Thatcher, one of the lawyers in the case, and in March 1998, they took the evidence to a civil trial. Unlike in a criminal trial, the standard of proof at a civil trial is lower, therefore it didn’t require new evidence to be presented. Across the two-week hearing in March 1998, this was an unprecedented case in which (for the first time) someone was to be sued for a murder they hadn’t been charged with. Forced to relive the trauma, seeing the crime scene photos containing her daughter’s strangled body, Venus said "she must have called out for me and I wasn't there to help her. She was lying on the floor with that vacuum cleaner cord around her neck, she must have been pleading and crying out". Not being legally bound to attend the hearing, the accused (Tony Diedrick) gave no evidence, at which the judge said “I find it incredible that he would not seize the opportunity to declare his innocence”. And although, maybe it was his arrogance which compelled him not to… …that was also part of his undoing and the beginning of the end. On the 24th of March 1998, Joan’s family made legal history when they successfully sued her alleged killer. Awarded £50,000 in damages plus £17,000 in funeral costs, the money wasn’t the victory, but the fact that – after the Crown Prosecution Service had refused to prosecute him owing to insufficient evidence - a High Court Judge “was satisfied on the balance of probabilities” that Diedrick had stalked and harassed her, that he had no alibi for the day of the murder, that he was watching her that night, and “believing she was about to set off for America, he entered her home… struck and strangled her”. The judge decreed "I consider those factors make it a very strong prima facia case. This is a dreadful judgment to have to pass on any man... but I find the assault and battery alleged, in effect the murder, to have been proved". Anthony Diedrick had been successfully sued in a court of law for damages. They had won the civil case… but the criminal case would be a very different matter. In a criminal trial, you have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not based on the balance of probability, so having re-examined the evidence put forward at the civil trial, on the 16th May 1998, the Crown Prosecution Service said that “as no new evidence was forthcoming, the original decision not to prosecute stood”. Rightly, Joan’s mother was furious, stating “I can’t find words to express my anger and dissatisfaction. I am utterly disgusted and disappointed with the CPS for thinking so little of the life of a human being. We will fight on until Joan's killer has been put behind bars and justice is seen to have been done". That month, with the Met Police being embroiled in a racism row over Stephen Lawrence’s murder, the family met Met’ Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon and he ordered a fresh investigation in her murder, and (four years on, with new advances in DNA testing) that the evidence was re-examined. Re-submitted to the forensic expert Dr Ann Priston for analysis, the same red t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Beverly Hills, California’ was tested. But this time, a crucial piece of information was given. At the time of the murder, Joan was wearing the t-shirt inside out. Therefore the three tiny, almost pin prick sized specks of blood which were found on the inside and were mistakenly believed to have dripped from her bleeding mouth, were actually on the outside of the t-shirt. Using a more advanced DNA test which hadn’t been available in 1994, the blood around the neck was proven to be Joan’s, but the three tiny specks of blood had to belong to her killer. Arrested on the 15th January 1999, held at Marylebone Police Station, blood samples were taken, and Tony Diedrick was proven to be the murderer of Dr Joan Fransisco. When asked - if he hadn’t seen her since 1989 and her t-shirt had been washed hundreds of times in the six years since – to explain how her t-shirt contained traces of his blood on the day she was murdered? He said “I don’t know”… …and yet, the only possible conclusion was that he was her murderer. (End) In a three-week trial, held at the Old Bailey, in late September and early October 1999, Tony Diedrick pleaded not guilty to murder. With both the defence and prosecution in agreement that the three tiny specks of blood on her shirt was his, there was only a 1 in 170 million chance that the DNA wasn’t his. But still he tried to plead his innocence, denying that he was obsessed with her, claiming "I did not set out to do it" but also stating "I can't explain why I did it", which made Joan’s family worry that (still with no proof that he had been in her flat) he could still be acquitted, and again, he could walk free. With the jury deliberating for four hours, on the 12th of October 1999, a cry rang out in Court Room 2 when the verdict was read: “on the charge of murder, how do you find the accused?”, (pause) “guilty”. After almost five years, a coroner’s inquest, a civil trial, CPS battles, a failed investigation and a forensic test which was fatally floored, Joan’s family had done the unthinkable and successfully brought their loved one’s killer to justice, when everything else had failed and everyone else had given up. Anthony Diedrick was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum 15 years before parole is considered, during which, as an arrogant man, he accused Joan’s family of lying. He was due for release in 2014. Summing up, Mr Justice Hallett said "You claim to have loved her. I am not convinced you know the meaning of the word. You were obsessed with her, but you could not have her. You stalked her in a mean and despicable way, knowing that if she knew what you were up to, she would be terrified". Of Joan’s family, the judge praised their dignity and determination. And feeling that they could finally put Joan to rest, in her honour, they set up a foundation in Joan's memory to train black doctors. 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.
3 Comments
Jon
31/7/2024 22:52:55
Very sad.
Mr Derrick J Salmon
26/8/2024 10:53:41
A new front door wasn't fitted. The original one in still in place.
Mr Derrick J Salmon
26/8/2024 10:49:11
It was not a basement flat. It was mostly ground floor, but only had a bedroom and a bathroom in the basement. 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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