Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 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.
Hella's coffin being led from the house
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 NINETY-SIX: On the night of Wednesday 28th of July 1954, 11 South Hill Park was the scene of one of London’s most shocking and brutal murders. It was so horrific, it caused an outrage in society, an uproar in the press and a debate in Parliament as how could anyone be so callous and cruel? It was a murder which devastated a family, yet, the killer would claim they did it not out of hate, they did it for love.
THE LOCATION:
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SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on South Hill Park, near Hampstead Heath, NW3; four streets west of the Night Porter’s hangout, a short walk from the home of the suicidal pathologist, two stops east of the suitcase of death, and three streets north of the war hero and his cheating wife - coming soon to Murder Mile. This is 11 South Hill Park, a mid-Victorian five-storey terraced house with brown brick walls, black wrought iron gates, white window sills and a set of stone steps leading up to the ground floor. It’s a perfect little house on a pleasant little street being the kind of place a loving little family would live. It’s so joyous, I’m sure that meal-times are a masterclass in etiquette and manners, the teenagers float upstairs as softly as pixies tip-toeing on marshmallows, dad goes out of the room to ‘blow off’, mum is never drunk on her ‘special afternoon refreshment’, and there’s no crying, fighting or screaming. (sound: “I hate you”, door slams). Of course, that kind of family life is fantasy, as in truth, it’s pure hell. On the night of Wednesday 28th of July 1954, 11 South Hill Park was the scene of one of London’s most shocking and brutal murders. It was so horrific, it caused an outrage in society, an uproar in the press and a debate in Parliament as how could anyone be so callous and cruel? It was a murder which devastated a family, yet, the killer would claim they did it not out of hate, they did it for love. My name is Michael, I am your guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 296: An Afterglow of Hate. Thursday 29th of July 1954, at around 1am. It was a warm night, silent and still, as not even a slight breeze shook the Elm trees which cast shadows down South Hill Park. With no moon and few streetlamps, everything was shrouded in darkness. And although every light was out, every door was shut and every window was closed at number 11, being hours passed bedtime and a nice part of town, this wasn’t the kind of place a stranger passes through. Yet, something roused Styllou from her sleep. A noise? It could have been anything, as the old wooden floorboards and walls were prone to creaking. Then she felt a movement, as if something or someone was inside the family home; but - with both of her grandsons (Nicholas, aged 11 and Peter, aged 10) fast asleep beside her in their back bedroom on the ground floor, her daughter-in-law Hella and granddaughter (Stella, aged 8) in the front bedroom, and Styllou’s son, Stavros at work and not due back for two more hours - it could have been nothing. But then, in the hallway, beyond her door, she heard two voices, two men, two strangers. Styllou pulled aside her bedsheets, popped on her slippers and got out of bed quietly so as not to wake her grandsons. It’s uncertain what she planned to do, as being a 53-year-old grandmother who wasn’t even five foot tall, weighed a slight 8 stone 3 lbs (or 53 kilos) and walked with a slow stoop after years of hard graft as olive farmer in Cyprus, a stiff breeze could topple her, or worse, two burly intruders. But although small and frail, Styllou was a typical Greek-Cypriot mother; tough, domineering, a force of nature, who will kick, scream and fight (literally fight with feet, fists and teeth) to defend her family from those she believes are out to do them harm, and she will do anything to protect them, anything. Entering the hall, she saw that the front door was open, which before bed, had definitely been locked. The voices were downstairs in the basement kitchen, and with no phone in the house, Styllou peeped into her daughter-in-law’s room to rouse her, “Hella? Hella?” - unsure how to explain this as Hella was German and Styllou could barely speak English – but it was all for nothing, as she wasn’t in her bed. Only one witness, an elderly neighbour later confirmed that she heard two men whispering, as Styllou had said, but being blind, she didn’t know what they were doing, and she could do nothing to help. Alone, as Styllou crept down the stairs to the basement, she saw that the kitchen light was on and the men’s voices were close, but Hella was nowhere to be seen. Drifting through the French windows, a choking smoke rose as flames danced in the dark. Translated, Styllou said “I saw a man with a suitcase” and as she stepped into the garden, “I saw another man” holding a metal tin, who both quickly fled. She didn’t chase them, as something horrific caused her to freeze. A yellow glow illuminated the steps as wood and paper crackled. Paraffin made the flames to lick higher as the air hung with an acrid smell of paraffin, but stinging her nostrils was the sickening stench of singed hair and the bubbling of burned flesh. Styllou raced back and forth with bowls of water to extinguish the fire, but Hella was dead. Naked except for her knickers, the slim frame of this former fashion model was blackened and charred, her pretty face was burned beyond recognition, and as Styllou touched it “blood stuck to my hands”. Desperate for help, Styllou ran into the street, but it was empty. In slippers, she dashed down South End Road, but that was dead. Seeing no cars, she ran a third of a mile away passed Hampstead Heath station which was shut, till at Pond Street, she flagged down a car with screams and frantic hands. Mr & Mrs Burstoff said “she was panicked, in broken English she said ‘Come. Fire burning. Children sleep’". Arriving at 11 South Hill Park, they saw the burned body of Hella, and called the Police. It was a callous, brutal murder of a loving and devoted mother of three children, which destroyed a family forever… …but where did it all begin? Styllou was born Stylliani Nicola Parpotta in 1901 in the north-eastern village of Rizokarpaso, a small remote town on the Karpas Peninsula in the northeastern part of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Her upbringing was hard, being an impoverished Cypriot family living far from the city and existing under the rules of the British protectorate. With no schooling, she was illiterate, but all her education came from her father who taught her to till the dry soil all day in the blistering sun for little reward, and her mother, who – like many stereotypical Greek-Cypriot mothers – was small and domineering. As was expected of her, in 1915, aged just 14 years old, Styllou was made to marry Pantopiou Christofi Antoniou, a poor farmer with a tiny olive grove in Varosha which barely sustained them. Renamed Styllou Pantopiou Christofi, they raised five children, one of whom in 1922 was her son, Stavros. It is said that Greek-Cypriot mothers have a reputation which proceeds them; they’re loyal and loving, but (especially with their sons) they smother them with love and protection. They’re deeply religious and rabidly superstitious, they’re always right and know best, they’re pushy and critical of their son’s wife or girlfriend as there will only ever be one woman who’s good enough for her ‘little prince’, who – she still cooks and irons for into his 30s or 40s, whether he likes it or not - as she is his momma. You don’t defy them, you don’t answer back, and you don’t ever, ever, get between her and her son. It’s part of how many traditional Greek-Cypriot families were in the remote rural villages of that era. Family was everything, the momma was the lynchpin, but (especially from 1878 until its independence in 1960) Cypriots didn’t trust their British overlords, so they dealt with their problems their way; their law was the law, they were the police, and if needs be, the family was the judge, jury and executioner. In a community based around family honour, you followed the rules, or your justice was meted out. In 1925, Styllou, her sister-in-law and a neighbour meted out some serious justice against her mother-in-law, Maria Goula-Christophi. For her community, a wrong had been righted, but in the eyes of the British courts – who saw these ‘Cypriot peasants’ as little more than ‘savages’ - she had broken to law. Tried in court at Famagusta, the real punishment for this mother and wife was her husband separated from her. Unable to divorce owing to Cypriot law and poverty, after that, she earned a living as a fruit picker and a cleaner, but with sides taken and the damage done, it had driven her family apart. In 1937, aged 15, her son Stavros left the village and headed to the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, far from his mother’s smothering arms. He was only 30 miles away, but to a woman who lived hand-to-mouth, he might as well be living in another country. Then in 1941, having saved-up enough money working as a waiter, seeking a better life, Stavros permanently moved 2500 miles away to the city of London… …which to her was as far away as the moon. She was broke, distraught and it was war-time. Her son was gone, she didn’t own a phone and couldn’t afford it if she did. And although she wrote letters to him regularly, back in Cyprus, she grew lonely. This was a fresh start for Stavros Christofi, a young man in a bright city, where he could flap his wings without them being clipped by his overbearing mother. Every day, she fretted, as London was ravaged by bombings, and working in Piccadilly, her boy was in the thick of it. But Stavros was safe and thriving. Having got a job as a wine waiter at the prestigious Café de Paris – recently reopened after a direct hit by a blitz bomb in March 1941 which killed 34 people including bandleader Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson – it was here that Stavros met and fell in love with his future wife and mother of his three children. Born in 1917, Hella Belcher had emigrated from Wuppertal in Germany, and as a slim and pretty 19-year-old brunette, her dream was to make it to America to seek her fame as a fashion model. But arriving in England in May 1939, with the Second World War looming, for now she was stuck in London. Like many war-time romances, with death on every doorstep, many couples rushed to get engaged, and although not all succeeded, being married in 1942 and with three children following in 1943, 1944 and 1946, the Christofi’s were strong and devoted. Inside Hella’s gold wedding ring it was inscribed with her husband’s name ‘Stavros’, and from the day she slipped that ring on, she never took it off. By 1953, with war a distant memory and rationing coming to a close, seeking good schools and a nice flat in a good part of town, the Christofi’s moved into 11 South Hill Park just off Hampstead Heath. As a pleasant little home for a loving family, it was small but it had everything they needed; two bedrooms on the ground floor, a sitting room and a kitchen in the basement, and a small paved garden outback, In the basement, Hella stored her tools and occasionally a mannequin having made a name for herself as belt maker at a high-end fashion boutique in the West End. When it was cold, they had a healthy pile of paper, wood and a tin of paraffin to heat the house using a cast iron boiler. But in the summer months such as this, they opened the French windows which led down the steps to the back garden. This was their home, a place of happiness and joy where their family felt safe. And although Hella was described as a wonderful women who was hardworking, dedicated and devoted to her children… …on those steps, someone would burn her beyond recognition, as if they wanted her erased. By the summer of 1953, Styllou hadn’t seen her son for 12 years. Because of the war, she had never met his wife, Hella, she’d only seen photos of her grandchildren, and having saved up every penny, Stavros said “my mother came to this country on the 26th July of 1953”, and with post-war Britain now booming, “she came to earn money to pay for a plot of land in Cyprus”. She found work as a kitchen hand and a shirt maker, and to help her out, they offered her a bed in their home for a few days or weeks, and as Hella & Stavros were both working, it would be nice for the kids to meet their granny. But the friction between them started early, as being a traditional Greek-Cypriot mother, Styllou didn’t like Hella, she didn’t think she was good enough for her ‘little prince’, she critiqued her skills as a wife and mother, and was incensed that her British-born children knew nothing about their Cypriot culture. Often, they argued, with Stavros (as the interpreter) taking his wife’s side. Often, Styllou belittled Hella in the same way her own mother-in-law, Maria had done to her back in Cyprus. And although, they tried to make the best of it in their cramped little flat, with Styllou insisting that she should move in permanently, it exacerbated their mental health. By the winter, six months in, Hella was so sick, her nerves were shot, she had chest pains, her hair was falling out, and Styllou was anxious and depressed. Styllou had brought her old-fashioned ways from a remote rural village of yesteryear to Hella’s modern progressive style of child-rearing. She refused to accept she was wrong, as is her mind, she was right. She was pushy and overpowering, so much so that three times across that year, she had to move out. By early July 1954, almost a whole year into her quick trip to England, Hella & Stavros had had enough. The marriage was struggling, tensions were fraught, and the whole house was in a state of upheaval. Desperate to appease everyone, Stavros came up with an amicable solution. As Hella’s 37th birthday was at the end of August when the schools had broken up, why didn’t she take their children to stay with her mother in Germany? And while she was away, as Styllou had suffered several colds in the last bitter winter, Stavros told his momma “it would be better for your health if you went back to Cyprus”. Later, J F Claxton for the Prosecution asked in court “did your mother say anything about her feelings in this matter?”, Stavros replied “she said ‘if you feel that way, I’ll go back’”. It was said, they all agreed it was the right thing to do, and although no date was set, Styllou did seem to have accepted this. Styllou was hurt, but she could never blame her son for any of it, this was all the fault of his non-Greek, non-Cypriot wife who she could never see as good enough for her ‘little prince’ and would never accept as a daughter-in-law. She hated her with every breath, and with this woman having impugned her role as the matriarch, this problem had to be dealt with her way as the judge, jury and executioner. It was all down to family honour, and if Hella didn’t obey the rules, her justice would be meted out. Back in 1925, as a 24-year-old mother of five, Styllou was sick and tired of Maria, her pushy and critical mother-in-law, who – with the irony lost on her – demeaned her as a wife and made her life a misery. This was how rural life was, but there was a dark secret in Maria’s past which fuelled Styllou’s hatred. When Styllou’s husband was a boy, Maria had killed his father to be with her lover. With the family incensed, Styllou, her sister-in-law and a neighbour cornered this maniacal matriarch, and as the two other women held her down, it was said that Styllou had rammed a flaming stake into Maria’s throat. In their small rural community, by murdering Maria, they had righted a wrong as she had dishonoured the family, but with the law now broken, all three women were arrested. Tried at Famagusta Court, it is uncertain what their fate was; some sources state they were acquitted owing to a lack of evidence and (unsurprisingly) any witnesses. In other accounts, Styllou served five years for manslaughter. And although, some villagers claimed Styllou had murdered someone else in Varosha during war-time… …this was what had driven her family apart, yet, Styllou always believed that she was right. Wednesday 28th of July 1954 was the day of Hella’s brutal murder. It had been an ordinary day; Hella was at work, Starvos had slept as he started late, Styllou collected the kids from school, and - as a barmy summer evening - the Christofi’s sat around the kitchen table eating a Shepherd’s Pie, and being too warm to pop the boiler on, they had the French windows open. At 8pm, they got the children ready for bed. At 8:30pm, heading out to work, Stavros kissed them all good night, shutting every curtain and closing every window to ensure his family were safe. Kissing his wife goodbye, as the front door was locked behind him, it left Hella & Styllou alone in the house. Translated, Styllou later stated “when I went to bed, Hella & I were on perfectly good terms”. Then at 1am, awoken by a noise, a movement and two men’s voices; “I saw the front door open, as I go down to the kitchen, I see a man with a suitcase… two men” standing on the steps by the French windows tossing paraffin over the bludgeoned body of her daughter-in-law, burning it beyond all recognition. That was Styllou’s statement, but it was all a lie, as unbeknownst to Hella, her killer was already within. Two hours after dusk, with the children asleep, Hella was in the kitchen washing up; she didn’t talk to Styllou nor could she look at her, which is why the attack seemed to come out of nowhere. With force and ferocity, Styllou smacked Hella across the back of her head with the boiler’s ash-plate, this foot-wide one-and-a-half kilo slab of cast iron fracturing her skull, as she hit her again and again and again. Slumping unconscious onto the linoleum, with the head wound gaping and the occipital vein severed, blood had spattered up the kitchen walls and ceiling, as it slowly pooled around her broken skull. Only, Styllou wasn’t finished, as wrapping Peter’s school scarf around his mother’s neck, with every ounce of strength in Styllou’s thin but powerful arms, she strangled Hella until her body stopped twitching. Hella was dead, only Styllou’s hatred of her was so rabid, that her vengeance couldn’t end there. From her left hand – being another thing which disgusted this very traditional Greek-Cypriot – Styllou removed Hella’s wedding ring, wrapped it in transparent paper and hid it inside a vase in her bedroom. Why? We don’t know, but it was the first thing she did before the dead body had even begun to cool. Then she stripped it of all its clothes, except the knickers. Perhaps to shame her, as because of this and the false alibi about the two male intruders, a tabloid newspaper made accusations that Hella was a prostitute, which were proven to be wholly untrue, but that decision was detrimental to her plan. Out of the kitchen and onto the garden steps by the French windows, Styllou dragged Hella’s lifeless corpse. Around it, she formed a pyre of rags, logs and kindling which she had soaked in paraffin, and with a lit match flicked towards the symbol of her son’s misguided love, it erupted in a ball of fire. As Hella burned, in Styllou’s eyes, she had righted a wrong, as she had with her own mother-in-law, and as the hair singed and the flesh peeled and bubbled, to disguise the evidence of her crime, with a knife, she cut the scarf from the neck, split it into four pieces, and scattered it. Only she knows why. At roughly 11:40pm, John Bryce Young, an engineer who lived two houses down had let his dog out into the garden to do its business, when he smelled smoke. It was common to burn your rubbish so he thought little of it, but seeing the flames licking higher, “I saw the whole of the house was aglow”. Worried, he crossed the neighbours wall, and peering over the fence, “I called out, but got no reply”. Before him lay the fire, and within it, the unmistakable shape of a woman. John told the Police “I could not see a head, but the legs were pointing out towards the garden. It was surrounded by a circle of flames. The arms were raised and bent back at the elbows…”. Yet, to him, it didn’t seem strange. With Hella’s body having the shapely frame of a fashion model, dressed only in knickers, and the smell of paraffin being mistaken for wax, as Hella was a fashion designer who often used old-fashioned wax mannequins to display her latest range, he thought it was a broken old dummy. And who wouldn’t? “A figure came out of the kitchen… it was Mr Christofis’ mother. She was bent over it and gave the impression that she was about to stir the fire. It was dying down. I thought all was in order and I left”. Styllou didn’t see him, as in the afterglow of hatred, she was so focussed on erasing it from existence. Over the next hour, Styllou washed the kitchen lino, placed Hella’s clothes in a bucket as if she’d been washing them, she hid the wedding ring, and added more paraffin to the fire. Believing the body was destroyed, at 1am, she hysterically ran out from the house, until at Pond Street, she flagged down the car of Mr & Mrs Burstoff with screams and frantic hands, crying ‘Come. Fire burning. Children sleep’. Thankfully, the children slept through it all, but returning home at 3:30am, Stavros not only had to be told that his wife was dead, and identify the body, but he had to translate his mother’s fabricated alibi. The investigation by Detective Superintendent Leonard Crawford was short and swift. An autopsy by Dr Francis Camps confirmed that death was due to asphyxia by strangulation, and with no smoke in her lungs, Hella was dead before she was set light. Styllou stated that she was awoken at 1am by two male intruders, but with John Young having entered his garden at no later than 11:45pm, this dismantled Styllou’s alibi as well as the old blind witness who said she heard ‘two men whispering’. For the Prosecution, Christmas Humphries stated in court, “this is a murderess who is remarkably tidy in cleaning away the evidence of the murder”, only she wasn’t exactly thorough; the washed kitchen lino was still spattered with blood, she’d left paraffin soaked rags on the floor, she’d claimed Hella’s wedding ring was a curtain ring of which none were found in the house, her bed hadn’t been slept in, and when examined by the Met’ Police laboratory, her slippers were stained with blood and paraffin. Two days later, Styllou was arrested and charged with Hella’s murder. (Out) The trial began in Court 1 of the Old Bailey on Monday 25th of October 1954, before Mr Justice Devlin. In the dock, with a black scarf of grief draped over her head, when asked “did you kill your daughter-in-law?”, she muttered “oudepote” the Greek word for ‘never’, “did you strangle her?”, “oudepote”, “did you burn her?”, “oudepote” and as Stavros gave evidence, he couldn’t look his mother in the eye. On remand, Dr T Christie, principal medical officer of Holloway Prison had diagnosed her with “a non-systemised, delusional mental disorder” and certified “she is insane, but medically fit to stand trial”. Yet this diagnosis was not used in evidence, the doctor was not called as a witness, and even Styllou herself refused to plead insanity as a defence, stating “I may be poor and illiterate, but I’m not mad”. With this being her second trial since her mother-in-law’s murder in Cyprus, this time, a jury of 10 men and 2 women deliberated for two hours, but found her guilty and sentenced her to death. An appeal was lodged, with a several MP’s requesting the Queen grant her the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, but with Styllou found to be sane by three psychiatrists, her appeal collapsed in less than four minutes. On Wednesday 15th of December 1954 at 8am in Holloway Prison, having prayed with a Greek priest, Prisoner 8034, Styllou Christofi was hanged by executioner Albert Pierrepoint and his assistant Harry Allen. Her son, Stavros, refused to visit her in prison and he made no requests for clemency, stating “I cannot find it in my heart to forgive my mother. The word 'mother' has become a mockery to me". Buried at Holloway Prison, when it was redeveloped in 1971, Styllou’s body was exhumed and reburied in Brookwood Cemetery, and up until his own death in 1998, Stavros never visited his mother’s grave. 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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