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.
16 Grafton Terrace (Jean's home) @Googlemaps2025 Aug2022
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-SEVEN:
On Sunday 8th of August 1948 at just after 10:30pm, Jean & Donald Ramsey, a young couple with two children met at this junction to discuss their collapsing marriage. It ended in murder. But how could something so simple be so complicated, as was this the story of a good man who was pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife, or a good wife who was murdered by a controlling and abusive husband?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a yellow 'P' below the words 'Kentish Town'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Ep297: Simply Complicated Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on the junction of Wellesley Road and Grafton Terrace in Kentish Town, NW5; five streets south of the murderous Greek mother-in-law, two stops north of the Camden Ripper’s bins, and a short walk from the drunken chemist who foretold his own death - coming soon to Murder Mile. Demolished in the 1960s as part of the post-war regeneration, the junction was replaced by the West Kentish Town Estate, a sprawling rabbit’s warren of four-storey council flats. With many residents boxed-in by their box-like flat, snoozing in a box bed, glaring at a telly box and gorging boxed meals until they’re carried out in a pine box, some may complain that its sense of community has gone. But was it any better or safer back in the days when we had nothing to occupy us, but life itself? On Sunday 8th of August 1948 at just after 10:30pm, Jean & Donald Ramsey, a young couple with two children met at this junction to discuss their collapsing marriage. It ended in murder. But how could something so simple be so complicated, as was this the story of a good man who was pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife, or a good wife who was murdered by a controlling and abusive husband? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 297: Simply Complicated. Born in the late Victorian era, Sophie Butler had been a mother, a grandmother, a wife and a widow. Like many women, she had survived child birth, poverty and two World Wars, yet, on the 7th of January 1949, four months after the trial, she wrote a letter to the coroner of St Pancras Coroner’s Court. Written in a shaky scrawl, she pleaded for her daughter’s case to be re-opened. “Dear Sir. Six months ago, my daughter (Jean Ramsey) was stabbed to death by her husband (Donald Ramsey) who walked out of prison ‘a free man’. Why, can you tell me?. You asked the people to help find him, we helped. You had your man, the right one, and he was allowed to go free. I cannot rest until justice is done”. Justice. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, as she wasn’t a mother who refused to accept the truth, or sought revenge in an era when the court demanded “an eye for an eye”; as the last thing a murderer saw was a white silk hood being placed over their head, the last sound they heard was the spring of the trap door, and the last thing they felt was a short drop and a sudden stop, as their neck snapped. Her daughter was dead, her killer (she said) was free… …yet this simple case was more complicated than it seemed. Sophie Butler was born Eliza Sophie Peverall on the 20th of November 1898, and for most (if not all) of her life, she had lived in the same area and the same house; a two-storey mid-Victorian terrace at 18 Grafton Terrace. As a typical working class family, several generations lived within, with their numbers swelling across the decades as wives, cousins, siblings and offspring were added where and when. In an area thick with industry, bricks were coated in a dark soot, as each street was surrounded by rail-lines and pockmarked with factories which belched the caustic fumes of progression, day and night. In 1919, aged 23, she married David Josiah Butler in a nearby church, and although – like her daughters – she was a tiny woman, just 4 foot 11 inches tall and barely 7 stone in weight - together they raised eight children; Ruth, David, Sophie, Jean, Malvena, Edward, Victor & Doreen, two of whom died young. Jean Margaret Butler was born on 18th of March 1925 as the second of the first four children to survive. Little is written about her, but like her mother, she was tiny yet formidable, basically educated and she always lived locally, with her job predetermined as a wife and a mother with bouts of factory work. By 1939, the Second World War had begun and money was short, but times were about to get harder. On the 17th of October 1940, Sophie’s husband, David Butler was sweeping the street outside of Dell's Toffee Factory on nearby Grafton Road. Recommissioned to make armaments instead of sweets, an ariel torpedo eviscerated the factory, several houses and erased his from existence. As the sole bread winner for a disabled wife and six children, Sophie survived as her family could get through anything… …anything, except scandal. Little is known as even less was said, but during the war, Jean (as only a teenager herself) gave birth to the illegitimate child of an American GI, and being seen as an outrage, Sophie had Jean leave home. 5 Gillies Street was chosen at random, she could have lived anywhere in any house on any street, but as an unmarried single mother who’d been partially abandoned by her parent, she had limited options. Remarkably similar to her own, 5 Gillies Street was the home of the Ramsey family; Sydney Snr was a builder, and Mabel, a housewife and mother, with four children; Eileen (a biscuit packer), Sidney Jnr (a wagon repairer), Lydia (a factory hand at the chemical works), and their son, Donald known as Don. Born in St Pancras on 6th of January 1926, one year after Jean, Donald Victor Ramsey was the youngest and was treated as “the baby of the family”, hence he was a late bloomer and immature for his age. Like Jean, being tiny, at just 5 foot 2 and 7 stone 8lbs, he was often mistaken for a boy, and although he had enlisted in the Army, being an inch too short, he was conscripted into the ‘Bantam Battalion’. He was skinny, healthy, of average intelligence, with no criminal record and an adequate work history. As many did in those post-war years, their relationship moved fast. The first words they spoke together was in March 1946 when he met her and her child as a lodger in his family’s home. They became close, loving and intimate, and keen to do right by her and her family, on 3rd of August 1946 – when she was four months pregnant but barely showing - they married, becoming Mr & Mrs Jean & Donald Ramsey. With another scandal averted, they moved in with her mum at 16 Grafton Terrace, their child (Donald Anthony Jnr) was born on 26th of January 1947 and Donald Snr raised her illegitimate child as his own. It should have been the beginning of a loving family … …but from the start, something wasn’t right. Donald’s sister would state “in spite of the many disappointments, he kept on trying” to make it work. Earning an okay wage, he provided for his wife and both children (his and the unnamed American GI’s), being frugal he mended their boots using an eight inch cobbler’s knife which he kept in a toolbox, and although he served 84 days detention in the Army barracks for going AWOL, he did it “to help my wife look after the baby”, and later admitting “we were having domestic difficulties”, as many did. On the 31st of March 1948, four months before Jean’s death, Donald was discharged from the Army, and earned a living as a painter and decorator. Donald would state “I knew she was going out with other men when I was in the Army, but I forgave her. But when I was living with her, she still persisted”. His brother, Sydney Ramsey told the Police, “he said he had seen her out with a chap called Blackburn”. Walter Blackburn was a loose associate of Donald’s having worked together at the ‘London, Midland & Scottish Railway’ as carriage cleaners, and he lived on Vicars Road with his pregnant wife, Florence, On the night of Sunday 14th of June, seven weeks before, Donald claimed “Jean came home soon after midnight in a distressed condition, with her lipstick smeared and her dress disarranged. She had sperm stains on her dress and on her knickers, and I accused her of having intercourse with someone. She said ‘I have got a right to go out and have a good time’. I told her that if that was her idea of a good time, that wasn’t my idea of married life, and I wasn’t prepared to spend that sort of life with her”. They had quarrelled many times before, and being of similar size, they had also fought. But with her unwilling to repent or to remain as faithful to him as he said he was to her, “I walked out of the house”. If she was unfaithful, we don’t know who with, and if she was attacked, it wasn’t reported to the police. But with only his version of events as Jean is dead, we will never know whether he was a good man pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife, or she was a good woman killed by an abusive husband? Sydney said of Jean & Walter “he was trying to catch them together with a view of divorce. He wanted proof of misconduct”. Yet, Walter denied this, as did his wife, Florence, and when Police investigated, “there were no grounds for any suspicion of infidelity”, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen? This is what dogged the case, it seemed simple, yet every angle was complicated by bias. In Sophie’s handwritten letter to the coroner, she continued; “my daughter was frightened for weeks …yet a man can walk about like him, who always carried a knife on him… he threatened her on many occasions with a razor and knocked her down in Wellesley Road, until some men shouted out to him”. Their relationship was tense, seeing each other only made it worse, so by June, Donald had returned to his home on Gillies Street, with Jean and their two children at her mother’s on Grafton Terrace. Donald stated “she caused trouble… my wife and her mother came round frequently causing grief”, and although “she was drawing money from the Public Assistance Board”, a hand-out from the council, “I was very willing to support her”, but he said she refused to take his money, possibly to shame him? On 16th of July 1948, three months before, Donald was summoned to attend Marylebone Police Court. There were two summonses against him for ‘disturbing the peace’; one by Florence Blackburn, Jean’s friend (and the heavily-pregnant wife of Walter, the man Jean was allegedly having an affair with) who there to support her, one by Sophie Butler (Jean’s mother) and a third by his wife, Jean, on the grounds of desertion and non-payment of maintenance. According to Donald, “Jean and her mother made a poor impression… and the case was dismissed”, as were the other two summonses. Whereas Florence would state, “in the waiting room, Donald’s said ‘I will kill her before I see her go with any other man’”. Everything detail which could simplify this story was littered with speculation and rumour. Outside of the court, Florence said Donald asked Jean to come home with him to “start again”, she said “no”, so – according to Florence – “he tried to push her in front of a bus”, but – just in time – she stopped him. There were no independent witnesses to this assault, Donald couldn’t recall it and no report was made to the Police. But in that era, domestic assault was considered a ‘private’ not a ‘police’ matter. On one occasion, when - it was said - Donald had beaten up Jean, Sophie stated “I dialled Scotland Yard… two officers arrived, and all they said to him was ‘we cannot have this’”. That was it, no report nor warning. But according to Sophie, “each night, he was always waiting on her, until the fatal night”. Sunday 8th of August 1948 had been a horrible day, as with a bruised sky, a torrent of rain lashed down. At 7pm, wearing just a light tweed coat and leaving her kids with her mother, Jean headed to 20 Vicars Road. It’s uncertain whether Donald followed her there, but this was the home of Walter Blackburn. With the curtains closed, Donald would have thought the worst, only Jean wasn’t here to see Walter, but Florence: “I paid her 30s a week to help me look after the baby when it was born”, as being due any day, Jean was helping her out with the duties she could no longer do. She was a good friend doing a kind deed for a woman in need, but jealousy always twists the facts. “She was afraid of her husband and feared his violence… so nearly every night, her mother took her home”. Only that night, she didn’t. At 10:10pm, 20 minutes before Jean would always head home, Donald returned to 5 Gillies Street. His brother Sydney stated “he knocked… and walked past me without speaking. He went up to the top of the house where Billy Russell (their brother in law) lived. Five minutes later, I heard him go out. He never spoke to me and I was not aware that anything was wrong”. It could be a coincidence, but in a tool box in Billy’s cupboard on the top floor, used to mend boots, he kept his eight inch Cobbler’s knife. Donald was on Gillies Street two streets north, as Jean was on Vicars Road three streets west, and when she left at 10:30pm, she was heading to her home one street south of where these roads intersect… …at the junction of Wellesley Road and Grafton Terrace. It was a bitter night, so bitter, no-one walked the sodden streets except those who truly had to. With very few streetlamps and being more than an hour after dusk, the moon was strangled by a brooding cloud, the only light was the intermittent flash of lightning, and – to anyone who may eavesdrop – any shouts or screams were distracted by thunder claps and the torrential rain washed away any sounds. It’s unlikely they met by design as the rain had left them both sodden; Donald in a blue striped suit and Jean sporting Florence’s scarf, even though from here, she was barely 100 yards from her home. At the T-Junction, the tiny couple met, yet what was said was only ever recounted by Donald’s words. “I left home to see my wife to make it up with her and give her money for the children”, both children, his and the child of the unnamed American GI who had abandoned her, and whose son he was raising as his own. “I said ‘hullo’ and asked her how the children were”. He loved them, he cared for them and he missed them, according to his siblings. Only she would reply “‘all right, but no thanks to you’”. The summonses at Marylebone Police Court still rankled, “I said ‘what do you mean?’, I tried to give her money, she refused, I begged her to take it, I said ‘it wasn’t right to go on this way on account of the kids’”, but as he pressed two £1 notes into her hand, she threw it in his face, and then she said it. “I’ve found someone else”. Whether she had is debatable and whether she said this is uncertain. “So I said to her ‘well, it’s hopeless, and there is no chance of reconciliation’, and she said ‘no chance whatsoever’, so I said ‘well, I’ll leave it at that’ and said ‘goodnight’”. According to Donald, his marriage to Jean ended right there, she had found someone else, and there was nothing he could do about it. That’s what he said. Then… “As I turned to walk away, she said ‘before you go, I’ve got something for you’, she said she had been ‘saving it for me’”. With a fist, she tried to strike him, he grabbed her arm, and in her hand “it looked like a chisel”. As they tussled violently, Jean wrestled to stab him, “I ducked back, and as she stepped back and tripped, she caught it in her coat, and went on the floor”, the handle sticking out of her lapel. “I tried to lift her up, but she was shouting and swearing one thing and another as she lay… so I ran all the way down Malden Road to the ‘Shipton’. I was terrified she might come after me with the knife”. Donald ran home, and having told Billy “there’s been an accident… Jean tried to dig a knife into me”, being convinced by his family to go to the Police, he made a statement at Kentish Town police station. But by the time that Sophie, Jean’s mother was told … …her daughter was already dead. Inspector Charles Strath was patrolling the nearby streets in a Police van at the time of Jean’s demise. Alerted to the junction just minutes after an ambulance had carted her away, her scarf remained, and through the torrent of rain, fresh blood has splashed the brick wall and pooled in a manhole cover. Only one resident, Alice Dicks of 15 Wellesley Road directly opposite, had witnessed it: stating “I heard someone scream ‘Help! Murder! Police!’. I got out of bed, I saw two people struggling… the man ran towards Queens Crescent, the woman collapsed at the junction of Malden Road and Grafton Terrace”. She was just 35 feet away when it happened, but with no lights and being in torrential rain, she heard little and she saw less, as the couple were in shadow. In fact, “I didn’t know it was Jean until I got to her. She was lying on her back, bleeding from her throat… her eyes were open, she was perfectly still”. At 11:40pm, Inspector Strath interviewed Donald Ramsey, who had volunteered to make a statement; his clothes, hands and face were still sopping wet. His first words to the officer were “is my wife alright – not dead”, as at that time, there was still a faint hope that she might make it, but by 12:40am, when Donald asked again “how if my wife, is it serious?”, this time the Inspector replied “your wife is dead”. With a wealth of evidence against him, 22-year-old Donald Ramsey was charged with the murder of his wife, Jean. In his cell, the police doctor described him as “agitated and frequently depressed”. On the surface, it seemed like such a simple case of wilful murder… The 8-inch Cobbler’s knife was found by the steps of 15 Wellesley Road, a few feet from the stabbing itself, and although rain had erased any fingerprints, the underside of the blade was still dry and caked in blood from hilt to tip. When asked, Donald stated “it is my knife, but the last time I saw it was in my tool box before I parted from Jean” last June, and yet he couldn’t account for how it had gone missing. Examined at the Met’ Police Laboratory, Dr Holden confirmed that the blood on the knife was ‘Group A’, Jean’s group, but as Donald had admitted the knife was his, Dr Holden wasn’t called as a witness. Her autopsy was conducted at St Pancras Mortuary by Dr Teare, and although Donald had claimed that Jean had viscously attacked him with the knife - even though not a mark was found on him and that “she stepped back, tripped and went on the floor” - the medical evidence strongly disputed this. Her face had been scored by five inch-long slashes to her left eyebrow, cheek and chin, consistent with the knife, yet the attack was so fast and frenzied, she had no defensive wounds to her hands or arms. Her cause of death was a single stab wound to the neck; 1 ¼ inches wide and 8 inches deep (the same as the blade), which entered her throat “having been plunged violently, piercing the thyroid gland, the jugular vein and the right side of the 7th cervical vertebra of the spine… being partially withdrawn and then plunged through the top of the right chest…”, nicking the apex of the left lung, “the right chest filled with 2 pints of blood and the left lung was markedly collapsed”. In short, Dr Teare stated in his report, “it could have been inflicted by the cobbler’s knife… and this was not a self-inflicted injury”. Two days after her murder, Bentley Purchase the St Pancras Coroner’s opened the inquest. That same day, Donald Ramsey was formerly charged at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court and being held on remand at Brixton Prison, the psychiatrist confirmed “he is sane and fit to plead”, as was to be expected. Tried at the Old Bailey from Thursday 9th of September, barely a month after the murder, Donald stuck to his defence that he was a good man pushed to his limit by an unfaithful wife who had attacked him. His alibi was swiftly demolished, as all agreed “Jean never carried a knife”, her outfit only had one pocket which was too small, she hadn’t been to his home where he kept his toolbox in months, and Florence Blackburn who had spent three hours with Jean that night, did not see her with any weapon. The evidence against Donald was presented, and although it seemed simple enough, over those three days, it began to fall apart piece-by-piece. Two crumpled up £1 notes in his pocket proved that he’d tried to give Jean money for the children, as he had said, disputing that this was a premeditated attack. He denied that he was jealous of her, he said he had accepted that the marriage was over, he said he wasn’t looking for evidence of an affair with Walter Blackburn (or any other man) so he could divorce her, and there was no proof that he had stalked her that night, or that he had collected the knife itself. When the sole eye-witness, Alice Dicks gave her testimony, owing to the rain and thunder, she couldn’t state whether it was Jean or Donald who had shouted “Help! Murder! Police!”, and although she knew them both, she stated “I know Donald well, but I cannot say if he was the person I saw running away”. With Dr Holden of the Met’s Police Laboratory not called to testify as the evidence was so strong, he wasn’t able to account for why none of Jean’s blood was found on Donald’s suit or shoes. And when the pathologist gave evidence - even though this does not appear in his report - in cross-examination, Dr Teare said “the throat wound with the double thrust could have been caused by a struggle”, suggesting – as Donald had said –this had been nothing but a minor domestic and a tragic accident. On Monday the 13th of September 1948, with the jury directed by Justice Sellars to disregard a charge of manslaughter, they returned a unanimous verdict of ‘not guilty’, and Donald was acquitted. (Out) Four months after the trial, still grieving, Sophie Butler, Jean’s mother wrote a letter to the coroner pleading for the case to be reopened. She continued: “There was too many stabs to be an accident… she hadn’t a chance. You have proof that he had a knife on the night”, but the proof was unprovable. In her eyes, his grief was merely tears for the court, stating “there’s a murderer walking about bragging because he gave himself up, and was then let free, not even caring about his wife’s death. He has the insurance policy, and promised to pay the undertaker, but instead he bought a suit for 19 guineas, a brown one”, and although, she gave the undertakers name, we’ll never know if this was looked into. To her, he was violent and manipulative: “he ripped the furniture up with a razor… he was a deserter, and got away with everything”, as being the baby of the family, his loved one’s always protected him. But to them, he was innocent, abused, and was a good man pushed to his limits by an unfaithful wife. Sophie continued her plea to the coroner: “Trusting you may re-open the case, for my daughter and my sake. Respectfully yours. Mrs S Butler”. Only it was not to be, it was closed and it remained closed. In 1948, Donald Ramsey was living at 7 Wellesley Road, just 3 doors from the murder. In 1949, he was living and working at the Reform Club, and in May 1990, aged 64, he died not far from his old house. Sophie Butler died never finding the conclusion she craved. But although every family seeks the truth, it is always their version of the truth they seek; with some believing he was innocent, provoked or guilty. Murder is rarely clear and concise even when it looks simple, as it’s the details which complicate it, as when anyone comes forward with evidence, the question to be asked is “is any of it even true?”. 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
June 2025
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.
|