Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #282: The Vice Girl Killer - Part 2 of 3 (Racheal Applewhaite)28/1/2025 
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.
entrance to Sydney Close, SW3 @Googlemap Sept2023
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 London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-TWO: On the weekend of the 24th and 25th of January 1987, two sex-workers vanished from two street (Sussex Gardens and Cleveland Terrace) near to Paddington Station. With their beaten, strangled and mutilated bodies found barely 24 hours apart in places where they didn't belong. The police quickly confirmed that a crazed killer was on the loose. But still unsolved today, it remains one of the most perplexing unsolved double murders in Britain. But who was he? MURDER TWO:
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a red symbol of a 'P' just by the words 'Bayswater' off Paddington Station. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Sunday 25th of January 1987 at 9:30pm, around the time that the body of Marina Monti lay on a cold hard slab in Kensington mortuary awaiting a post-mortem, Rachael Applewhaite and an unidentified ‘olive skinned’ male entered The King's Head pub, just two streets south of the red light districts of Sussex Gardens, Cleveland Terrace and Paddington Station, where she was often picked up by punters. Said to be “so drunk she couldn’t walk”, several eyewitnesses (including a friend Deborah Mezen, and several customers and bar-staff) confirmed that she wasn’t wearing her usual clothes – a black jumper, a blue denim skirt and blue shin-length denim boots – being a fashionable look for the era. Instead, she wore a second-hand navy-blue and purple hotel maid’s outfit made from hard-wearing polyester, which being a Size 12, looked like embarrassing hand-me-down as Racheal was barely a Size 10. The uniform wasn’t hers, her own clothes were missing, the white plastic bag she was carrying wasn’t big enough to hold them, and she hadn’t been back to her flat, where her boyfriend Ian was waiting. This could have been a mildly memorable moment in any pub, but it made the last official sighting of Racheal all the more credible, as she had argued and fought with Deborah who had mocked her outfit. Asked to leave just shy of ‘last orders’, she left with the man, who was said to be sober, and witnesses state that he drove her away in a small, possibly light coloured car, its make and reg number unknown. Murdered hours later, that sighting posed three big questions: if this was a pre-meditated attack by a pimp, a drug dealer or a spree-killer with a hatred of sex workers akin to the Yorkshire Ripper, why was she taken to a pub where she was known and dressed in a way which drew attention to her? Why did he allow his face to be seen? And if he had lashed out in a pre-sex rage, why did he murder her? Four days later, having autopsied both bodies, the detectives confirmed “we feel that both cases are linked” and the work of “a very violent man”, as there were too many similarities to be coincidental. Both women were a similar age, weight and size being barely five foot tall, they were sex workers for four years, they worked the same streets with possibly the same pimp, and they might have known each other as they picked up clients a couple of hundred yards apart, but that’s all that connects them. They vanished without a trace, their last client owned a small (possibly light coloured) car, and their bodies were found dumped miles from where they were last seen and in a place they didn’t belong. Both women were strangled with the ligature – a belt or tie – but never were found, both were beaten about the face and head but there were no obvious defensive wounds, there was no sexual assault, no proof they’d been robbed, and in some items of clothing were missing, in both cases, their boots. But there was one difference between both murders… …Racheal’s was much more savage. Monday 26th of January 1987. South Kensington. Two miles south of the pub where Racheal was last seen, a resident living in the affluent Sumner Place was returning from a weekend away. Driving down the busy A308 Fulham Road, she pulled up at a gap between a café and a dress shop, she opened the unlocked wrought iron gates and drove into a private area known as Sydney Close. It’s a place you would only know if you were one of twenty residents who parked their cars in these private garages. Arriving a little after midday, being cramped and surrounded on all sides by the backs of four and five storey Victorian terraced houses, even on the brightest days the sun struggles to reach the floor, but at night, being unlit, it is only illuminated by the odd bedroom window and the occasional headlight. Like the layby at Mitre Bridge junction, the killer had chosen a location which was isolated and dark. At the rear of 30-31 Sumner Place, the resident didn’t need to unlock her garage as she never used it for storage, but as the green steel door rose up, at the back corner, her headlights illuminated what she described as “a bundle of rags” - a phrase identical to the security guard who’d found Marina’s body - as her eyes were drawn to the bare pale legs of a small woman curled-up in the foetal position. The police arrived within minutes and the scene was sealed off. As before, the body looked as if it had been dumped from a car, but this time the killer had reversed in so it wouldn’t be seen by the flats overlooking it. With no signs of a struggle or any bloodstains, that proved she had been murdered elsewhere and driven her in the boot of the car. And with it being a frostless night, the tyre marks were illegible, but the axel width suggested they were from a small car. As with Marina, Racheal’s boots were missing (and were never to be found), and with her feet being bare but not dirty, she had removed them herself but hadn’t walked there. So why had he kept them? Her clothes were the same purple and blue hotel maid’s outfit she was seen wearing in the pub just hours before, but with no traces of mud, dirt or oil, she must have been killed inside a room or a car and was only taken outside when her killer carried her out, only now they were badly bloodstained. Like Marina, Racheal had been beaten about the head and face until she was rendered unconscious. With a ligature, she had been strangled from in-front as this defenceless woman lay limp and helpless. But although Marina’s injuries were limited, upon Racheal’s legs and face were the bruised imprints of a man’s Size 7 or 8 boot, as he repeatedly stamped on her body, breaking her nose, cheek and teeth. And yet, he hadn’t stopped there. Detective Sergeant Jim Hutchinson described Racheal’s injuries as “frenzied and horrific… two or more instruments were used to batter her about the head and face”, one of them believed to be either a wrench or a tyre-iron, stating “and we cannot rule out a chainsaw”. This wasn’t a killing in panic, as either someone truly hated her or didn’t want the body to be identified. That differentiated the killings, but was Marina’s mutilation cut short? One theory quickly dismissed was mistaken identity as Racheal had mousey brown hair and Marina’s was black. Another was a vengeful drug-dealer, only Racheal’s vice was drink. And although the press tried to attribute it to a copy-cat, that was impossible, as the first murder wasn’t reported until the second body was found. The autopsy was conducted by pathologist Dr Iain West who said it was impossible to pin down an accurate time of death as the body had been moved from a warm interior, to a slightly chilly car with its heating intermittently on, and into a cold and damp garage on a night barely above freezing. As an estimate, rigor mortis stated she had died eight to ten hours before she was found, so between 2am and 4am, but owing to the haemorrhaging she had suffered, she wasn’t dead when she was dumped. Having been subjected to horrifying injuries (using feet, fists and several tools) while she was still alive, she had lain there - unconscious and possibly paralysed - inside the closed garage in an isolated area that very few people knew about or would pass, bleeding and barely able to breathe, as she lay dying. Her killing was almost certainly committed a man without any compassion, someone who could kill at will, who had a history of physical assaults on women and sex-workers, who they trusted as neither woman was abducted, and with no empathy, he saw prostitutes as someone to be used and discarded. With such levels of violence, the police suspected he was likely to be a man was who unstable… …but who was he? With no witnesses to her murder, no clue as to where she was killed, no sighting of the car which had dumped her, and no idea who the ‘olive skinned’ man in the ski jacket she was last seen with in the pub was (or even if he had murdered her), detectives had to rely on the limited evidence they had. With her bag nowhere to be found, a positive ID was made by her boyfriend Ian who had reported her missing. Questioned over their disappearances, Racheal & Marina’s boyfriends remained as suspects as many men were, but with alibis and witnesses to prove their innocence, they were eliminated. All the usual suspects were rounded up – pimps, punters, perverts, addicts and prowlers, as well as the former owner of an illicit escort agency in Bayswater who lived off the earnings of prostitutes and was questioned over the assault of others – but there didn’t seem to be a suspect who stood out. Racheal’s murder was as mysterious as Marina’s, but what baffled detectives most was the purple and blue polyester uniform she was wearing for no known reason. When examined, the blouse’s label confirmed it was made by Warren Petites, a manufacturer of uniforms to the hotel and catering trade which were sold in shops and via mail-order. It wasn’t unique enough to identify who had bought it and it was the type used by mid-range boutique hotels across London, but also Britain and Europe. It wasn’t Racheal’s as it was a size too big and the arms creased in the wrong place, but faintly written in pen on the label, months if not years earlier, someone had scrawled in permanent marker ‘P Suarez’. It was faded from numerous washes, and although police suspected that this was its original owner, they were unable to find a ‘P Suarez’ missing from any local hotels, or any uniforms reported stolen. If her killer was a pervert who took pleasure in stealing his victims boots and in one case, dressed her up a like hotel maid, the Police warned others that “this terribly dangerous killer could strike again”. With no witnesses to her death and her timings a mystery, although said to be passive and quiet, the only likely suspect in her killing was the man that Racheal was last seen alive with. On Thursday 5th of February, barely a week after her body was found, Police issued a Photofit of him. It was a risk as if he was the killer, it could cause him to go into hiding or flee, but they desperately needed to find him. Blessed with reliable witnesses, each article stated “Police want to speak to a man of continental, maybe Greek or Arabic appearance, 5ft 9in, 35-40, hair black with specks of grey, wearing gold rimmed glasses and maybe a ski jacket, and on his left finger of his left hand was a large gold medallion ring”. Sadly, it failed to give them the leads they needed, so on Thursday 26th of February, detectives broadcast an appeal on the BBC’s Crimewatch, a successful TV show which drew in 14 million viewers. At this point, he was only a witness who police believed had information vital to the case - and having televised a recreation of her last sighting in the King’s Head pub, the unusual uniform she was wearing, where and how her body was found, and accompanied by a description and the Photofit of the man - police at the murder incident room took a few hundred calls from friends, associates and witnesses… …one of whom was the man himself. Watching TV, recognising the girl and seeing his own face staring back at him, that night, having first called his wife in Mexico, two days after its broadcast, 42 year old Guillermo Suarez walked into Kensington police station where detectives were shocked at how perfectly he matched the Photofit. Guillermo Suarez was an administrative attaché at the Mexican embassy in West Kensington, roughly half way between the street where Racheal was picked up by her punters and his third floor flat at the exclusive Coleherne Court in South Kensington, which – coincidentally – was barely half a mile west of the garage where Rachael’s body was found. He also was the owner of a small light-coloured car. When questioned, he confirmed that he was with Racheal in the pub that night, that he’d picked her up for the purposes of sex, and that the maid’s uniform belonged to his wife who – although in Mexico – sometimes visited him in London and worked at various hotels. Initially he denied leaving the pub with Racheal, but when confronted with witness testimony, he changed his story, and stated that after they left the pub, he drove them back to his flat, where in his wife’s wardrobe “she took a fancy to it”. This made no sense, as the uniform was unfashionable, uncomfortable, her denim skirt, boots and black jumper were nowhere to be seen, and it was the wrong size, so much so it was laughable. Asked if he dressed her up as part of a sexual fetish, he refused to answer the question as he feared it might incriminate him, with detectives later stating that “we don’t know what happened to her own clothes, nor do we have a satisfactory explanation as to why she wanted to take this new set”. Police said “he had offered himself as a witness of his own accord” and was treated accordingly, as a witness. But that night, always eager for the latest scoop, even though he hadn’t been charged with any crimes, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail – two tabloids famed for printing incorrect information, then days or weeks later in a barely visible column hidden inside where no one would read it issuing a retraction of their accusations – having already incorrectly listed his name as Jose and his job as a ‘Top Envoy’ when he was little more than a middle ranking administrator, they printed his details and a photo beside the headline of ‘I am TV Murder Suspect’, which in the public’s eyes made him as good as guilty. Details of the case had been leaked, possibly by a bent copper willing to blab for some cash to a sleazy hack, and - of course – they only printed the most sensational details, which derailed the questioning. Having admitted to paying Racheal £20 and having sex with her in his flat in and around the time that the pathologist said she had been viciously attacked which led to her death, detectives were later able to confront him with the evidence that witnesses had positively identified him as the man last seen with the victim, and that between the 31st of January and the 7th of February, one week after both murders were reported, Theresa Mellett, the manageress of a dry-cleaners a few streets from his flat identified him as a man who had “taken in a bag of bedding that was soiled with blood. He told me his wife had an accident”, but when the police checked, his wife in Mexico hadn’t visited him for months. The evidence was circumstantial, but Police later confirmed “although he had offered himself up as a witness, as a result he was arrested”. Guillermo Suarez was locked up for 1 ½ hours and questioned for 30 hours, but on the 1st of March, as they couldn’t charge him, he was de-arrested and released. Forensic tests were carried out on his car and his flat, but they were unable to prove whether Racheal was there or if this was where she had been murdered, and fearing another leak of information to the tabloid press, it was never reported what make of car he had, or if his boot prints matched those which had stamped on Racheal’s face. On Monday 23rd of March, Guillermo Suarez was interviewed a second time by detectives, this time about the double murder of Racheal Applewhaite and Marina Monti… … but again, lacking conclusive evidence, he was released without charge. Many questions we will never know the answer to, as after this point, the information fed to the press dried up; we’ll never know what he said happened to Racheal after they had sex, whether he knew of or had been to the garage in Sydney Close, whether he owned the orange Mini which picked Racheal up earlier that night, whether he took prostitutes to the layby at Mitre Bridge, whether had sex with Marina at the Lion Court Hotel, or if any of his fingerprints or items containing his DNA were found. In both murders, police said, he was the most likely suspect, but then a force more powerful than the police took control of the investigation, as although not high ranking Suarez was entitled to protection. Granted by the 1961 Geneva Convention, diplomatic immunity offers a degree of legal protection to the diplomats, their families and staff from criminal and some civil prosecution. Designed to prevent international incidents between governments whose relations may be strained, it ensures that a blind eye is turned to minor crimes like speeding or drink driving, but with rape, manslaughter or murder, if the diplomat is charged, they would be ‘expected’ to waive their immunity, but this is not a given. In 1986, one year before, 39 criminal offences were committed in the UK in which diplomatic immunity was used, including a US diplomat’s husband who was charged with the sexual assault of a child. When Suarez was arrested, it was reported “the Mexican charge d'affaires in London was summoned to the Foreign Office where he was told that the British expected the Mexican authorities to waive his protection”, but instead aided by the Mexican Ambassador, he refused to answer further questions. And like most people in powerful places their influential friends sought to protect them. On Monday 2nd of March, one day after his release, several MPs asked for the Home Secretary Douglas Hurd to mount an investigation “into the appalling way the Met Police treated this Mexican diplomat”, with none of them expressing remorse at how two women had been murdered at the hands of a maniac. On the 1st of July 1987, an inquest into the murder of Racheal Applewhaite was held at Hammersmith Coroner’s Court, as presided by Dr Paul Knappman. Having waived his diplomatic immunity, instead Suarez chose not to answer any questions for fear they may incriminate him, and with this meaning he couldn’t and wouldn’t say anything, at that point, the inquest couldn’t proceed with that charge. By the time the Director of Public Prosecutions had re-examined the case, without enough evidence to re-arrest him, using his diplomatic immunity, Suarez flew back to Mexico, where he was safe… …and there he remains, even today. John Folkes, Racheal’s father stated “I want him to come back to Britain and tell the police what he knows. It makes me sick that he has rebuilt his life in Mexico… I bet Suarez has a big house and plenty of money, all the things my Racheal dreamed of but never had and now never will”. Tracked down by the Daily Mirror one year later, it was true, he was living in a nice house in Mexico City with his wife and two children, and having left the embassy, he worked for the Epsom Computer Printing Company. Again, he refused to answer any questions, instead stating “I was innocent and simply trying to help. It's case closed as far as I am concerned”. Frustrated, Detective Superintendent Hutchinson’s reply was “the case is still open and I would like to ask Mr Suarez a number of vital questions”, but owing to a lack of conclusive evidence, the Crown Prosecution Service could not extradite him from Mexico. And that is where the case into the murder of Racheal Applewhaite remains… …unsolved, but with a very likely suspect whose guilt cannot be proven. On 13th of August 1987, at the inquest into the murder of Marina Monti, having previously stated that “we feel that both cases are linked” and the work of “a very violent man”, DS Hutchinson would confirm “I have now ruled out any link that the killings of Rachel Applewhaite and Marina Monti were connected”, stating that “Guillermo Suarez was no longer suspected of killing Marina”, only Racheal. There was no serial or spree-killer akin to the Yorkshire Ripper stalking the streets of Bayswater. There was no double murder of two seemingly associated prostitutes just streets apart. And although it was believed there were too many similarities for the murders to be coincidental – the time, the place, the small car, the ligature, the beatings, the lost clothes, the vanished handbags and the missing boots - that’s exactly what they were, two coincidental murders, but by two very different killers. (End) As of 2024, 37 years after the murders of Racheal Applewhaite & Marina Monti, they remain unsolved. With no new witnesses nor evidence, it’s a cold case which only gets colder. In 1997, Marina’s murder was one of 32 cold cases the Met’ Police re-investigated, but that didn’t include Racheal’s, as with the only suspect in her killing living in Mexico, that case would only be solved when Suarez is extradited. At the inquest into Marina Monti’s murder, DS Hutchingson’s claim that the murders weren’t connected didn’t come out of no-where, as before the coroner, Dr John Burton, he stated “we believe we know who her killer is, we just can’t prove it”, as having also extricated another man, he said “the Crown Prosecution Service feels there is insufficient evidence to charge him, but inquiries continue”. In the initial stages of their investigation, knowing the area well, all the usual suspects were rounded up; whether pimps, punters, perverts, addicts or prowlers, as well as one primary suspect who drew their attention. Said to be unstable, volatile and with a long history of violence against women, he was the former owner of an illicit escort agency in Bayswater who lived off the earnings of prostitutes and was questioned over the brutal assault of West End sex workers, who were left traumatised for life. As a robber, a pimp and a drug dealer who is currently incarcerated for a horrific murder, suspected of others and some say could even be a serial killer, just days after Marina’s murder – for no reason at all – he adopted several aliases, fled the country and went into hiding. But did he kill Marina Monti? The final part of The Vice Girl Killer concludes 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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