Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #263: Sweethearts (Robert Ian Vaughan & Michelle Anne Sadler)21/8/2024 
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.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE:
On the night of Saturday 4th to Sunday 5th February 1984, in the workshop of Courier Display Systems on Union Street in Southwark, teenage lovers (Robert Ian Vaughan & Michelle Anne Sadler) were brutally murdered by their work colleague David Carty. But why?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a lime green coloured symbol of a bin near the River Thames and the word Borough. 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.
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14185761 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Union Street in Southwark, SE1; five streets west of where Thomas Meaney was mistaken for a dummy, three streets south of the suspicious suicide of God’s banker, and four streets east of the smashed 5-year-old boy found dead in a toilet - coming soon to Murder Mile. As the kind of street untouched since the Victorian era (except for The Shard looming large on the skyline) you might expect to see a toddler hacking-up a lungful of soot after a shift as a chimney sweep, his 10-year-old mum sozzled on homemade gin, a legless war veteran flogging cat meat he made from a mashed-up horse, and a toothless old sex-worker cooing “tuppence for a flash of my ankle, deary?”. As an aged street still riddled with the workshops of a bygone era, although its true location was never reported, it’s cruellest of crimes occurred in a decade where prosperity was said to have boomed. On the night of Saturday 4th February 1984, in the workshop of Courier Display Systems near Redcross Way, teenage lovers (Robert & Michelle) were working the nightshift to earn a few quid for something special. It was a night as ordinary as any other as they did their job alongside a friend who they liked. But for some reason, something made that friend turn bad, as in the blink of an eye, the lives of these two young lovers was ended in a truly horrific way which defied reason, decency and humanity. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 263: Sweethearts. Like a modern-day Romeo & Juliet, the love between Robert and Michelle was meant to be. Born just six weeks apart, their story began miles from each other on opposite sides of the city of London, so although they were unlikely to meet, maybe it was fate which had brought them together. Born on the 1st of October 1966, with the city still pockmarked and rubble-strewn from the devastation of the Second World War, Michelle entered the world at a time when the grey gave way to colour; the swinging sixties was in full psychedelic bloom, the nation was still high from the euphoria of our World Cup win over West Germany, and NASA was just three years from putting a man on the moon. In the industrial, working-class district of Stepney in East London, Michelle Anne Sadler would live her life raised by her mum Joyce, alongside her siblings Brian and Pamela. Like so many, money was tight, but being blessed with a loving family in a modern council-flat at 89 Burlsey House on Chudleigh Street, unlike the generation before her, Michelle would be able to fulfil whatever life she dreamed of. Educated at the Sir John Cass School in Stepney, she’d passed her O’Levels and was in the process of doing her A’Levels, as living in an era when a woman didn’t have to just be a mother and wife if she didn’t want to, Michelle wanted a career, but also marriage and babies if she found her Mr Right. His name was Robert Ian Vaughan, the youngest son of Ronald & Daphne with two older siblings called Jim and Jane. Raised in a council-flat at Cherry Gardens in Rotherhithe, he too had a strong and loving family to support him, and like many teens, having left school aged 16, he was still finding his feet. Where they first met is something that only they and their loved ones would know, but being in a city of then 6.7 million people and separated by the Thames, maybe it was meant to be. They were just 14 when they began dating, and although it was often a slog travelling by bus two miles to see each other daily, holding hands and gazing gooey-eyed, to those who knew them, they were destined to marry. The happy event happened just before Christmas of 1983, when aged just 17, Robert & Michelle got engaged. To some this may have seemed a rash decision by two young kids, or just the aftereffects of too much sugar and a set of raging hormones, but they were both wise and sensible for their age. Her mother Joyce said “Michelle was a very beautiful girl and everyone loved her. She and Robert had such wonderful plans for the future. They planned to marry in a couple of years’ time, but first Michelle was concentrating on her exams and Robert was setting himself up in a job”. They wanted it all; love, marriage, a house, babies and happiness, but they wouldn’t race into it, as they needed to do it right. Not long after this happy event, Robert & Michelle went to a photobooth at a local train station and took four wallet-sized snaps of themselves together. Cuddling tightly - with Michelle sat sideways on his knee and their hair almost matching being parted from left to right - there’s something sweet and alluring about their look as if they’ve just been caught in the midst of a kiss; as Michelle’s cherubic lips are pouting and Robert’s bold eyebrows are quizzically raised, as her hand (adorned with the ring which would cement their lives together) creeps inches from his cheek as if they’re about to kiss again. Somehow across this vast city they had found each other, they had fallen in love, they had committed to each other, and for the rest of (what would tragically be) their short lives, they lived side by side… …only to be found dead in each other’s arms. The early 1980s was an era of change for ordinary people, as being in the dying days of the Cold War, consumerism reigned supreme as Yuppies in red braces flicked through Filofaxes, the hottest car was the MK1 Ford Escort, and with many British cities up in flames or on standstill owing to the race riots and miner’s strikes, there was mass hostility between youths, workers, the government and the police. But from the fires came hope for everyday youths, as seeing that Britain was awash with the unskilled and the unemployed, by the time Robert left school, the Youth Training Scheme (known as YTS) had been introduced, as an initiative to give the under 18’s work, education or an apprenticeship. It was what Robert wanted; to learn a trade, to earn an honest living and to save up to marry his beloved. As a good lad with a solid work ethic, Robert made many friends on the YTS, and although Britain was still rocked by hostilities between black and white youths, it didn’t matter what race, colour or religion you were, if he liked you, you became his friend. One pal he was close to was 18-year-old David Carty. David Anthony Carty was like him, young, ambitious and struggling to work out what he wanted to do with his life, but having met and liked each other, when Robert got a job at Courier Display Systems on Union Street in Southwark, he put in a good word for his pal, and the two became inseparable – two lads from council estates who did the same job for the same wage and worked the same hours. As a baby-faced West Indian adorned with a full and fluffy afro, David brought colour and joy wherever he walked as his cheeky smile beamed, and - reflecting his West Indian roots – he loved to dress in bright colours as if the sunshine followed him wherever he walked, whether wearing loud shirts or blue suede trainers. Like Robert, neither of them had a bad bone in their bodies, but unlike his pal… …David didn’t have a girlfriend. 1984 began badly as hurricane force winds battered the country, killing six people and leaving the rest the month a wet and soggy mess of icy-cold rain. On the flipside, the halfpenny had been phased out, the 128k Apple Mac had gone on sale and Torvill & Dean were set to win a gold at the Winter Olympics. But what gripped the people’s attention was the unemployment rate, which had surged to record high of 11.9%, the highest level ever seen. So everyone was doubly keen to keep their jobs in such a desperate and volatile market, especially a young man like Robert, and a young black man like David. The morning of Saturday 4th of February 1984 was predictably wet and windy, as Robert left the family flat on Cherry Garden Street in Rotherhithe. As always, they waved him off, but didn’t expect to see that night, at least until the morning as keen to earn some extra cash, he was pulling a night shift too. As pals who worked together, ate together and drank together, as per usual, Robert met David at the Jamaica Road junction and from there they walked the rest of the 30minute walk to Union Street. Courier Display Systems was a small independent business set in a converted warehouse. Entering via the loading bay, it was predictably quiet with no trucks nor workmen, as being a weekend, theirs was the only company open that day as with a large order of advertising displays needing to be assembled and parcelled up by Monday, the bosses had let Richard & David work the night, helped by Michelle. In the loading bay, the slightly shoddy tea-hut cobbled together from wood was shut so they’d brought in a flask of tea and a bundle of sandwiches. By the entrance was the men’s toilet with a double urinal, two cubicles and three washbasins. And at the end of the corridor was their workroom; a single room, just 60 feet long by 20 feet wide, with no partition walls, just a large assembly table and several shelves full of everything they’d need; large rolls of plastic, reels of gaffer tape and a set of Stanley knives. It was an ordinary day, with no upsets, harsh words, issues or debts. With the radio on, a few tunes kept them entertained, and being diligent, nobody drank except tea, and although Michelle and David had only met one week before, as a friend of Robert’s, she liked him, and why wouldn’t she? The night consisted of nothing but three young people doing a good job for a few extra pounds and having a giggle to pass the time. No-one would have thought it would end in a brutal double murder... …not Robert, not Michelle, and probably not even David. When asked to account for his whereabouts that night, David claimed “I only spent 30 minutes there, before I went shopping in the West End, then I went home”. Which was odd, as he couldn’t prove which shops he’d been to, his trip home was brief and in the middle of the night when the shops were shut, and his employer confirmed that he had asked to work the night shift with David, and Michelle. But what was lacking most was a motive; Robert was his friend, Michelle he barely knew, and there were no witnesses to the hours before, during and after the murder, so what happened may remain unknown. When it came to sentencing, Mr Justice Jones would state “there are many unanswered questions, mostly being why he killed them. There has virtually been no light thrown on that at all”. It happened sometime after midnight, as the rain battered the windows muffling many of the sounds. In the workshop, which was just a little bit larger than a bus, the threesome stood around the biggest table carefully wrapping neon tubes in bubble-wrap, so they’d make it to their destinations unbroken. Using Stanley Knives to finely trim each package, it was a slow laborious task which couldn’t be rushed. Said to be nearer to 1am, having drank a full flask of tea, Robert headed to the toilet to do as nature intended, leaving David alone with Michelle, who had got to know each other better across the night. Seconds before, Robert wasn’t upset or tense, he didn’t fight back or attempt to flee, as the evidence would show he was standing at the urinal having a pee when he was attacked with no provocation, as when his body was found, his penis was still peeping out of his trousers. We also don’t know whether David was urinating beside his pal, or – and this is unlikely – if he crept up behind him and then struck. Robert trusted him, so it’s possible that as David turned to wash his hands in the basin behind, it was then – maybe reassured by the running tap - that David pulled out the Stanley knife, stabbed the small sharp blade into the right of his neck, and yanked it fast across his throat. Undoubtably shocked, as Robert clutched at the gaping wound, seeing him still standing and far from mortally wounded, David ripped the knife across his neck again, severing his windpipe, his voice-box and his carotid artery. It took just seconds for him to slump to the floor in hard heap, his blood having spattered up the wall, the door, the light-switch, and pooling about his body below him. He hadn’t the time to fight back, and being at the end of a long corridor, we know that it’s unlikely Michelle had heard a sound, as she had remained in the workshop waiting for them both to return. Moments later, David did just that. Something would perturb her though. Whether it was the lack of her lover, the look in David’s eyes, or the fresh blood on his hands and his blue suede trainers, but she knew she was in danger. Possibly screaming her boyfriend’s name in vain, she’d be unaware that he was incapacitated, and that no-one - in this vast empty building on a quiet industrial street hours after midnight - would hear her screams. David strangled her with a length of wire used to bind the displays, which he tightly wrapped around the beam of a shelving unit, but still able to scream, he stuffed fistfuls of paper towels into her mouth and down into her throat, not only to silence her but to stop her from breathing for good. He didn’t know her, but he liked her, and maybe gripped by jealousy or sadistic lust, he stripped her naked of everything except for her woollen jumper, and as she lay either dying or already dead, he raped her. No-one had seen the abhorrent acts he’d committed seemingly out of the blue, so until he could work out what he was going to do with their bodies, he dragged them down to the dank cold basement. (Dragging sound over this). In court, David claimed that having come back from shopping in the West End “I went in through the loading bay. It didn’t occur to me that Robert and Michelle might be there… I saw Michelle. She was fastened to the shelving with a wire, I touched the neck, but I did not feel any pulse. I started walking out of the room to go out of the building. But I didn’t go out. I went back to look for Robert and found him in the toilet. I had to put the lights on. I saw Robert on the floor. There was blood on him. There was blood on my hand. It came from the light switch. I started to clean up”. That was his alibi, that he found them, that he panicked, and – living in an era when many black men were targeted by the police and fitted up for crime they didn’t commit – that he would get the blame. In the toilet, he grabbed a plastic bucket, filled it with water, and (starting with the light switch) began washing down the blood-spattered walls, the sinks, the urinals, the corridor to the basement, around the shelving in the workshop, and with paper towels he soaked up the thick ooze from Richard’s neck. Had he planned this, he wouldn't have made as many mistakes, but he did, and it would convict him. At some point he went home, no-one knows why but he knew he couldn’t just leave their bodies there. David has no history of violence and no criminal record, so it baffles the mind why he did this. Terrified of being caught and not thinking it through, in panic he knew he had to get the bodies are far away from him as possible, but having no car or driving licence, he had to make-do with there was there. The bodies he wrapped in plastic sheeting and secured with gaffer tape. Onto the roof of the tea hut, he flung a bag of Michelle’s clothes, just a few yards from the murder scene itself. And stacking both bodies onto a palette truck, he wheeled them out into the loading bay, opened the gates and carted it off into the darkness; two bodies wrapped in plastic wheeled by a bloodied man down a city street. It may seem odd that, at 4am, none of the trucks, taxis, night workers or early commuters thought it strange that two corpses were dragged 400 yards (quarter of a mile) off Union Street, down Redcross Way, over Marshalsea Road and west into Mint Street, but as a dark and isolated part of the city, everyone – from market-boy to milkman, postmen to porters – were carrying bundles or wheeling trollies three hours before dawn when its best to get work done before the world and his wife wakes. No-one recalls seeing him, as no-one thought it was strange, he was just one of many people in a 24-hour city moving something which was none of anyone else’s business to a shop, a shed or a tip. Five minutes later, in the grounds of the old and derelict Evelina Children's Hospital, in what would be known as Mint Street Park, David dumped the ripped and raped bodies of two young lovers into the bucket of one of the dumper trucks. Their lives over, their love cold and their dreams left unattained, as they lay in each other’s arms as dead as their plans for happiness, marriage, a home and babies. Four and a half hours later on this crisp Sunday morning, a woman walking her dog saw a leg sticking out. Peeping in, she saw the bodies, the blood and called the police, but it wasn’t until later when Michelle failed to turn up for a party, that her family suspected the worst, and reported her missing. The investigation was simple, but thorough. According to the owners of Courier Display Systems, three employees were working the nightshift; Michelle who was dead, Robert who was dead and David who was at home. When questioned, David gave an alibi, he said he wasn’t there, and denied any knowledge of killing his friend or his friend’s girl. But as much as he had hastily attempted to clean up the scene, the evidence was against him. On the roof of the tea hut of where even his family said he was working that night, Michelle’s missing clothes were found; her dark green corduroy trousers, her brown and beige low-heeled shoes and a mid-blue knee length woollen coat, although missing was Robert’s jacket and Michelle’s knickers. Upon entering the toilets, the floor was waterlogged as fistfuls of wastepaper had blocked the drain. The tiles had been washed and wiped down, but the police’s scientific team got a positive reaction for the presence of blood (matching Robert’s) with several small spots still on the back of the urinal door, with the angle of spatter showing that Robert was standing and urinating when his throat was slit. Setting up ultra-violet lamps in the toilet, even though almost all of the blood had been cleaned away, eight barely visible bloodstained footprints from a man’s left trainer were found, and being subjected to further analysis, in David’s wardrobe, Police found a pair of blue suede trainers whose imprint was a perfect match for the floor tiles, as well as a selection of small blood spots which matched Robert’s. Given his alibi of being elsewhere and stumbling across their bodies, David stuck to his story, even as a paper tissue found in the rubbish bin contained not only Michelle’s blood, but also David’s semen. It was an alibi which held no weight, but with no other option but the truth, he stuck with it. (Out) Starting on Monday 26th November 1984, almost a year after their engagement, David Carty was tried in Court One of the Old Bailey for the rape and double murder of Michelle Sadler and Robert Vaughan. With eight men and four women in the jury, at the end of the seven-day trial, having deliberated for four hours, the 18-year-old was found guilty on all charges. Claiming innocence against all evidence, with no obvious motive, Mr Justice Jones stated “the sentence which I am about to pass on you is laid down by law. I have no control over them. So, on each count you will go to youth custody for life”. He wept as he gave testimony, and as he was led from the dock, he cried further as his life was also over. Moved to an adult prison when he was 21, as there was no minimum sentence set and with it being his first offence, he may have served just 15 years inside, and now aged 59, he could be out and free. As for Michelle & Robert, these two beautiful young people in the peak of their youth lost everything; their hopes, their dreams and their lives together, as behind they left a wealth of grieving friends and two families, who instead of being joined in happiness, wept over the loss of those they still loved. With a delay in the investigation, neither Michelle nor Robert were buried until the 11th of April. nine weeks later. And although they never got to marry as their lives were viscously cut short, their parents knew exactly what to do to cement this young couple’s forever. That day in Grave 22583 in Plot 89 of Camberwell New Cemetery, Robert & Michelle were buried together. The headstone reads “In loving memory of Michelle Anne Sadler and Robert Ian Vaughan, who tragically died together on the 5th February 1984, aged 17”, followed by a poem which read “Although you left so suddenly, your thoughts were unknown, you left a beautiful memory, that we are proud to own”. 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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