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 SEVENTY-FIVE:
On Sunday 5th of November 1978, at a little after 5:30pm, two women stood at a bus stop on Sydney Place in Kensington, SW7, waiting for the rush hour bus. Having been close friends for decades, there seemed to be an odd friction between them, and although their issue was of a personal nature, within minutes, one would be a wanted criminal on the run, and the other would be shot dead. But why did Alvada Kooken murder Margaret Philbin?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a brown symbol of a bin just by the words 'Chelsea' in the middle of the map. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: (a selection)
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Sydney Place in South Kensington, SW7; five streets north of the Devil’s Child’s home invasion, three streets east of the killing of Countess Lubienska, the epicentre of Guenther Podola’s brutal amnesia, and the same street as the drippy dangler - coming soon to Murder Mile. On the corner of Sydney Place and Onslow Square is a bus stop, Stand HY to be exact. Bus passengers are an odd breed of human (if indeed they are), as bus stops are spots where only cretins with coughs congregate and the lonely stand in the hope someone will talk to them, alongside teens with tinny speakers, drunks with greasy kebabs, brats with gobs as big as their mother’s backside, and an miserly old bag who chastises the driver for his lateness, only to waste more minutes rooting for her bus pass. If only this was a one-way trip to Switzerland, as these are the kind of people the world wouldn’t miss. And yet, a massacre of some of life’s most incompetent wouldn’t be the first murder to occur here. On Sunday 5th of November 1978, at a little after 5:30pm, two women stood at this stop along with a throng of other passengers waiting for the rush hour bus. Having been close friends for decades, there seemed to be an odd friction between them, and although their issue was of a personal nature, within minutes, one would be a wanted criminal on the run, and the other would be shot dead. But why? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 275: Stolen Womanhood. Some people don’t feel whole unless they marry, some don’t feel complete until they’ve had children, others feel empty when they’re bereaved, yet many are content in themselves. Everyone is different. But how does it feel when you’re no longer physically whole, with a ‘real’ piece of yourself missing? Alvada Ruth Kooken was born on the 5th of November 1923 as one of two siblings to Alva & Gertrude Kooken, alongside her brother Marvin. As a smart and forward-thinking family, they gave her a good start in life, and being educated at Downingtown High School in Pennsylvania, later moving from Kansas City in Kansas to neighbouring Kansas City in Missouri, this gave Alvada a taste for travel. Raised during the Great Depression - in the 1930s, when a woman’s role was solely as a homemaker - she came into adulthood during World War Two, and with millions of men fighting overseas, women like Alvada became vital part of industry, experiencing jobs and freedom like they never had before. When the war was over, some women went back to their old lives and old ways, but for others, it lit a fire under their backsides to live their own lives, rather than as a man’s appendage. They wanted their own money, their own home and - as a new breed of career women - to make their own decisions. Getting work as a secretary in the US Navy, the fallout of the war and the subsequent conflicts of the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam led Alvada to see the world. With much of her work classified, we can only get a hint at her exciting life from her movements; in 1947, she boarded the ‘Willard A Holbrook’, a US ship transporting refugees from Bremerhaven to New York, in 1948 she lived in Paris, in 1949 she was back in Kansas City to see her beloved family, and in 1956 she caught a Pan-Am flight to London where she continued working as a senior secretary at the US Naval Headquarters in Mayfair. As a government employee with a long illustrious service, Alvada was respected and earning £8000 a year - in an era when the average UK male earned barely half of that - she had achieved her goals and was living in her own flat in Basildon Court at 25 Devonshire Street in an exclusive part of Marylebone. But for every success, she was forced to make a sacrifice. Said to be 5 foot and 5 inches high, Alvada was a good-looking lady who was always neat, well-dressed and elegant. With collar length blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, startling blue eyes, and a pleasant face, which – devoid of wrinkles - always made her look younger than her true age, she was softly spoken with an accent which hid her past but accentuated her love of history, culture and travel. Everyone who met her said she was “likable, but a bit intense at times”, especially as she watched her friends get married and have babies - whereas for her, it was not to be. It was never said why, maybe it didn’t fit her grand plan, maybe she didn’t meet her Mr Right, or maybe it just didn’t happen? But for the rest of her life she would be cruelly defined as a spinster, as if being single was somehow a sin. In May 1963, when Alvada was 40, her mother died. As expected, it hurt her heart, it ached her soul and it left her with a sense that something in her life was missing. Whether a coincidence or not, that year, she started seeing a psychiatrist (one who came highly regarded from a slew of professionals on nearby Harley Street) and she would continue seeing him when she got low for the rest of her life. Thankfully, although miles from home and often feeling alone, when she needed a shoulder to cry on, the ones she trusted most with her secrets were her closest friends; Betty Stuckey & Margaret Philbin. Born on the 1st of September 1933 in Romford, Essex, Margaret Helen Philbin known as Peggy was the daughter of a housewife and a retired civil servant, with her brother a bank clerk. Like Alvada, she was raised with an ambition to succeed and having met while working for the US Government in Paris, said to be inseparable, Margaret and Alvada would become best friends for more than twenty years. It was a perfect friendship, and as two single women, they balanced each other out. They ate together, holidayed together, sometimes they double-dated, and were like a couple - only without the bad sex, the silent loathing and the arguments over who put the bins out – they always remained close. As a woman of routine, the porter at her apartment said “Margaret was quiet, a perfect tenant”, and a bubbly lady who enjoyed her life, never got upset and made the most of every moment. Said to be ‘pretty and popular’, into her mid-40s, although Margaret was childless, for her for it wasn’t an issue. Her loyal friendship kept Alvada happy and stable… until a medical incident changed everything. In May 1976, in her Marylebone flat at Basildon Court, Alvada hosted a dinner party for her boss and his wife. It was a small but elegant affair for a few senior dignitaries, with fine food, soft lighting and smooth music. Knowing how important it was for her career, as a good friend, Margaret helped out. By all accounts the party was a great success, but during the meal, Alvada was taken ill. With her face profusely sweaty and pale, and with her vomiting, it was believed to be food poisoning. But with her gripped by abdominal swelling and an intense pain in her gut, it was later suspected to be appendicitis. Rushed to The London Clinic, two streets away on Devonshire Place, Alvada could afford to go private, and therefore the doctor she paid for was the best. And when I say ‘the best’, I mean ‘the very best’. Her doctor was the distinguished consultant gynaecologist and internationally respected obstetrician, Dr George Pinker, Sir George Pinker to be precise; who for decades had been a consultant at St Mary's, the Middlesex, Bolingbroke, Battersea, Radcliffe, the Soho Hospital and the Samaritan Hospitals for Women, he assisted in the first Caesarean birth under epidural, he was president of the British Fertility Society and supported the research (three years later) which led to the birth of the first test-tube baby. Considered an expert, he pioneered many practices seen as standard today, and as the gynaecologist to Queen Elizabeth II, Sir George delivered nine royal babies – breaking with tradition by insisting they be born in a hospital – they included Peter & Zara Phillips and Prince William & Prince Harry. Said to be kindly, charming and courteous, for his services he was made a Knight of the Royal Victorian Order. If Alvada was to trust her body to anyone, it was to be Sir George Pinker, and that’s who she got. Assessed as an abdominal infection, although she’d had no prior sickness nor diseases in her family, it should have been cleared-up with antibiotics, but the swelling and bleeding persisted and it got worse. Consulting another surgeon, it was determined that emergency surgery was essential, Alvada was told of the risks, informed that – given the spread of the infection – that sick and healthy organs may need to be removed, and she signed the paperwork. Everything was done in accordance with the guidelines. In surgery, with the infected organ identified, “as a possible source of later infection if it was left in”, with the patient’s prior consent, he removed her appendix, uterus, fallopian tubes and her ovaries. It potentially saved her life and prevented further abdominal infections, and as a 53-year-old singleton who was already menopausal, she hadn’t planned to have a baby, and it wasn’t biologically possible. When she awoke, she felt sore, yet with the antibiotics working now the infected organ was out, her swelling was down, she didn’t feel sick, and being on the mend, she would be sent home to recuperate. For the first time in a month, Alvada felt bright and hopeful… …but at her bedside, told that her womb had been removed, her world came crashing down. She said “I didn’t want a hysterectomy. I know it sounds foolish for someone of my age to feel that way, but women do have children in their 50s. I knew he had taken out something that was healthy and normal, and I told him ‘you’ve made a mistake’. He tried to impress me with jargon so I got up and left”. Audrey Whiting, a friend who lived in her block said “she couldn’t think or talk about anything else”, as - in her eyes - a vital piece of her body had been ripped out and her womanhood had been stolen. Biology had been against her, she didn’t have a man to impregnate her, and now with her last chance at being a mother gone forever. Alvada later told the court “I had no feeling. I was dead inside”. Whereas once she was driven, the judge later described her as “a lady of impeccable background who worked throughout… only to become utterly and quite suddenly changed”, as whereas once she was whole, now she had a hole, a gap where her womb once was and – she felt - her future should be. By day, through misty eyes, she watched the women whose bumps she envied, but by night, as she clutched her pillow, she cried herself to sleep to the ghostly wails of the baby who could have been. In one swift slice – at least to her – her body was rendered empty, and hollow, and useless, a husk. Descending into insomnia and despair, although she’d put on weight prior, it was only now that she felt disgust when she looked in the mirror. Once she was young and feminine, and yet with her youth having abandoned her, what looked back at her was an old, bloated and sexless mess. But only to her. Audrey said “she blamed the dinner party, and with Margaret” – her younger, prettier, more popular and fertile friend - “having helped her, this led her to believe she was to blame for the whole thing”. It seems preposterous and it was, but maybe it’s no coincidence that Alvada’s father had died the year before, and with both parents’ dead, unable to face the truth, her mind sought someone to blame? In her head, Alvada believed it began with a clandestine call, in which “her friend had connived with a surgeon to have her ovaries unnecessarily removed”, even though Margaret wasn’t her next-of-kin. Nothing her friend said would convince her of the truth, as all Alvada could think of was the surgeon who stolen her womb and the woman who (she said) had arranged it, maybe out of spite? And with the two falling out, and never speaking again, even though Margaret moved to a new job as a secretary with a shipping company, this was not something that Alvada would ever forget… or even forgive. In August 1978, two years later, Margaret was sent a long and rambling letter in Alvada’s handwriting containing a list of thirty people involved in this conspiracy against her, who she believed had poisoned her at the party and plotted to rip out her womb. The list included nurses, doctors, friends, family and associates, but at the very top of the list was Betty Stuckey, Sir George Pinker and Margaret Philbin. It was a threat, but unsure if it was an idle threat, as Alvada became increasingly unhinged, that month, Margaret moved to a new flat in Pelham Court at 145 Fulham Road, a short walk from Sydney Place. For weeks, an eerie silence grew between them, only that threat wasn’t idle. In April, six months prior, Alvada had concocted a deadly plan. Having acted as if nothing was wrong as she wrote memos for the US Navy, across several evenings, she sidled into a series of seedy East End pubs and socialised with unseemly types, making it clear she was looking for a gun. She offered one man £1000 saying it was a present for her father. To another, she said it was only “to frighten two friends”, but neither wanted anything to do with it. And although they gave statements to the US Embassy, with Alvada having purchased a .38 revolver and 50 bullets, that all came too late. Sunday the 5th of November 1978. Guy Fawkes night, an annual celebration of the terrorist plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and either burn, maim or kill as many politicians as possible with a naked flame and barrels of gunpowder. At her flat at Pelham Court, in an ironic twist, Margaret was hosting a dinner party with fine food, soft lighting and smooth music. Only this time, no-one would fall sick, and no-one’s womb would be stolen. At around 5:30pm, with her guests having left, Margaret got herself ready for a night out at a fireworks display (and maybe to meet the man of her dreams who would become a lover, a husband and a father to her many children). Wearing a grey suede skirt, a red and yellow blouse and a brown fur coat, she descended the lift, exited the double doors of 145 Fulham Road, and headed to the nearest bus stop. As always, the night was bitterly cold as a biting frost gripped the air, a low fog clung to every surface, and with a frisson of excitement and reckless stupidity, it was as thrilling as it was annoying. From any and every corner, catherine wheels whizzed, shooting stars popped, and rockets banged, as with her ears echoing to the cacophony of booms, pops and flashes, the streets were also wreathed in smoke. It was the perfect night for fun… but also a murder. Nearby, for several hours, Alvada had lain in wait for her former friend, watching the double doors. Whether a coincidence or not, that day was Alvada’s 55th birthday, and although she was only a year older, maybe it was a reminder that she was still unmarried and forever childless, or a treat to herself? Dressed in a long grey coat and a headscarf, Alvada kept her distance as she followed Margaret across Fulham Road into Sydney Place. She later said “I didn’t intend to kill her. I wanted to hurt her because I knew she was the instigator of the whole thing. I knew I couldn’t sue her for what she had done”. The street was bustling with kids, couples and families on their way to a bonfire. Margaret had no idea she was being followed, until suddenly she felt eyes burning into her like red hot coals. “I saw her. She saw me. I knew she was frightened because she quickly crossed over”, then she stood at the bus stop. They hadn’t spoken in two years. They hadn’t seen each other since. “I followed her along a street and stopped behind her as she paused under a streetlamp”. To everyone else they were just two faces in a crowd, waiting for a bus, with one of them - Alvada - clutching a white and blue plastic Pan Am bag. Alvada said “she did not speak and I did not speak to her. I was waiting for something to happen”. It was something which – in a rational mind – would never happen, but - in an irrational mind – must at all costs. “If she had said ‘I am sorry’, I couldn’t have done it”, Alvada had said, “but she didn’t”. At that point, “two Spanish women passed. I know it made her bold enough to turn and look at me”, and as she did, Alvada pulled from her bag the revolver, and from inches away “I shot her in the head”. Having slipped the gun into her bag and slunk away into the crowd who’d mistaken that smoke-filled flash and bang for the one of thousands of others that night, with 1 down and 29 to go on her Kill List, next up was to be Margaret’s co-conspirator Betty Stukey and Dr Pinker in his Harley Street clinic. And with that, Alvada had vanished into thin air. Passengers on the No14 bus to Putney saw nothing as it pulled up to the stop. Some got on, but one woman didn’t, and with her being slumped on the cold wet and increasingly sticky floor, it was as she was illuminated by a streetlight, that they saw blood flowing from her mouth, her nose and her eyes as it pooled underneath her, as from the back of her head, the right side of her skull was missing. A passing Police Sergeant gave her mouth-to-mouth for several minutes before a doctor took over. Raced to St Stephen’s hospital, armed detectives stayed by her bed in the hope she could a statement, but she remained unconscious. For hours, doctors fought to save her life, but suffering chronic blood loss, a brain haemorrhage, and with her heart constantly stopping, at a little after 8pm, she died. Her killing was described as “calculating and chilling”. Hunting a “mystery woman in a long grey coat and a headscarf”, her photofit was issued to all police and identifying the victim, the motive wasn’t initially clear. But as the detectives searched Margaret’s flat, finding a rambling letter from Alvada complete with 30 names, one of whom she had shot dead, they realised that this wasn’t an empty threat, but a deadly mission. That night, the next two victims in this so-called conspiracy, Dr Pinker and Betty Stuckey, were placed under armed Police guard, the other 27 persons were advised to go into hiding, and Alvada was declared as “armed and dangerous”. Announcing her name and description at a press conference, Police stated “we need to catch her now, before she kills again”, as she had a history of mental illness, a belly full of hatred, and 49 more bullets. Every place she had lived or worked was checked. Every station and seaport was alerted. Security was tightened at Stanstead, Heathrow and Gatwick. And with a possible sighting at a bus stop on Gallows Corner near Romford, it was thought she may be heading to RAF Lakenheath, where she had friends. Police swarmed the area hoping to arrest her before she shot somebody else … …the problem was that wasn’t her. On the night of the murder, Alvada had planned to kill Dr George Pinker in his Harley Street clinic and Betty Stuckey at her home in Putney, but with the shooting having snarled traffic to a standstill, the No30 bus she needed never arrived, and fearing the Police would catch her, he caught the tube home. Packing a bag, she never went on the run. Instead, having withdrawn enough money, she booked into the Royal Garden Hotel on Kensington High Street, barely one mile north of the crime scene, and hid. On Wednesday 8th of November, while Police were searching airbases in Essex & Suffolk, James Hazan spotted the woman whose face he’d seen in the newspaper exiting the hotel, “I got hold of her arms, shouted for a policeman and made a citizen’s arrest”. And with that, the manhunt was over. (Out) Tried at the Old Bailey, beginning on Monday 9th of July 1979, before Mr Justice Cantley, the jury were asked if this was a coldblooded murder, or manslaughter by provocation. Evidence proved there was no conspiracy, nor any hint, between the respected surgeon and any of the 30 names on her kill list. With Alvada said to be “suffering delusions of persecution and a degree of schizophrenia”, she refused to allow her defence to put forward a plea of ‘diminished responsibility’ owing to her mental state, and with a defence of provocation (caused by her belief that her womb had been stolen by a jealous friend) dismissed by the jury, 55-year-old Alvada Kooken was sentenced to life for wilful murder. Transferred to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital for assessment, under Section 72 of the Mental Health Act of 1959, she was given a Hospital Order meaning she could only be released when she was deemed mentally well, and although she appealed her sentence, this was later dismissed. Seven years later, she was still at Broadmoor, while on a supervised day trip to Southsea with other patients, she escaped, hopped on a train and headed to London. Armed guards were posted to Dr Pinker’s home and his clinic, and although again the Police warned “this woman is dangerous. Do not go near her”, she was later found in a meeting room at St Ermins’s Hotel in Westminster, fast asleep. She didn’t rant about killing, and having fled, maybe for a brief moment she just wanted to feel free? On 8th of January 1995, Alvada died of natural causes in Broadmoor, aged 71. Shipped back to Kansas City, she was buried beside her parents in Forest Hill cemetery. Across her life, she’d achieved so much, but with a key piece of her life missing, till her dying day, she blamed it on her stolen womanhood. 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.
0 Comments
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. 
Archives
December 2024
Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast
Categories
All
Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
|
