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.
9 Effra Road, Brixton (@Googlemap2025 June2018)
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SEVEN: Tuesday the 18th of February 1992 at 7:15pm. Merlyn Nuttall was kidnapped, raped, stabbed and set on fire by a drug-crazed assailant inside of a crack den at 9 Effra Road in Brixton. She could have died owing to her wounds and she should have been scarred for life owing to the attack, but as you’ll hear, from the precipice of death, it was the woman she was who ensured that the case was resolved, the culprit was convicted, and that the rest of her life was worth living.
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MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Kidnapped, raped, stabbed and set on fire, but how did she survive? Find out on Murder Mile. Today I’m standing on Effra Road in Brixton, SW2; one street north of the cult leader’s bookshop, three streets west of a God called JACKIE, a few doors up from the first bombing by David Copeland, and a short walk from the policeman who paid for the ultimate price for porn - coming soon to Murder Mile. In the heart of Brixton, passed the Ritzy Cinema and towards Tulse Hill sits a series of five mid-Victorian townhouses with sash windows, doric columns and stone steps up to the ground floor. Having survived the blitz bombings of the 1940s, the slum clearances of the 50s and 60s, misused as squalid immigrant lodgings in the 70s, with some buildings burnt out during the race riots of the 80s and reduced to crack dens in the 90s, since its redevelopment, today each flat is worth a cool £500,000 to £1 million apiece. At the last house of the left still sits 9 Effra Road, a house which has been witness to poverty, cruelty and one of the most shocking crimes imaginable. Yet this isn’t an ordinary tale about an evil man doing bad things, but a strong and resilient woman whose strength and courage is the reason she survived. Merlyn Nuttall could have died owing to her wounds and she should have been scarred for life owing to the attack, but as you’ll hear, from the precipice of death, it was the woman she was who ensured that the case was resolved, the culprit was convicted, and that the rest of her life was worth living. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 307: The Sadist and the Survivor. "I was always streetwise and confident" Merlyn said, "I was the last person you'd describe as a victim”. Much of what you can attribute to her strength came from the kind of family she was raised in. Born in 1964 in Harrow, West London, Merlyn was the youngest of four daughters to Reginald and Merlyn Nuttal, Anglo-Indian parents, who ensured their children had the best of everything even when they couldn’t afford it, and no matter what life threw at them, they always weathered the proverbial storm. Raised in the leafy residential calm of Morland Road and Lodge Avenue, Lorraine, Sharon and Lesley protected their little sister, Merlyn, shaping her to become independent, sociable and with a strong belief in God, Merlyn always felt “I’m here for a purpose”, but at that age, she never really knew what. In 1970, the family moved to Astley Bridge in Bolton, a middle-class suburb of Manchester where they lived comfortably, and with Merlyn described as “bright, intelligent, eager and enthusiastic”, she excelled at St Gregory’s Convent School. But this was when the first of two tragedies shaped her life. On the 27th of May 1974, when Merlyn was just nine, her mother was returning from her first day back at work having been a full-time housewife and mother for years, when – aged just 50 - she collapsed in the street and died of heart attack. The death of a parent can be devastating, and as Merlyn later said “her death left a huge sadness in my life, but I came to understand, even then, that hard knocks only make me stronger and more resilient” – and it was this strength which would later save her life. "I was always the baby of the family”, Merlyn recalled, “mum called me her shadow, and I followed her everywhere. When she died, Dad became doubly protective towards me and my sisters”, and eager to ensure that - even without a mother - that his daughters never went without, they all thrived. In 1975, Merlyn went to secondary school where she developed her keen interest in art, and as a solid netball and tennis player, she also represented her county at badminton. In 1980, with good grades, she went to Thornleigh College, and later having graduated from the University of Brighton, by the early 1990s, she had become a respected fashion buyer for the famous retailer British Home Stores. And yet, all this she had achieved after the two tragedies which shaped her early life, as on the 12th of May 1989, while sitting her degree, her father also died of a heart attack. Again, this grief only made her stronger. Every day, she wore her mother’s wedding ring to keep her close. And although his death upset her, Merlyn said “I'm glad he didn't live to see what happened to me. It would have killed him"… …and yet, being blessed with her parent’s strength, that led to her survival. Tuesday the 18th of February 1992 was a typical winter’s day in London, as a thick blanket of grey cloud drizzled but never bothered to rain, and it was cold but the light rain couldn’t be bothered to snow. In her rented flat in Tulse Hill just off Effra Road, Merlyn awoke, and got herself ready for a busy day ahead; with her hair and make-up immaculate as always, she dressed stylishly for an 8am meeting at the company’s head office on Berner’s Street in Fitzrovia, and had arranged to see her friends later. Since she had moved to the Tulse Hill side of Brixton, her life had been good; she was single but hadn’t any horror stories about ex-boyfriends, she lived well but wasn’t in any debt, the neighbourhood had its seedy side but she kept herself safe by being savvy to the ways of city life, and like her sisters – who all succeeded in their own way as lawyers, restauranteurs and mums – she was driving her own dream. At roughly 7am, she left her flat in Tulse Hill and headed south down Effra Road, a route she had taken 100s of times before without incident or worry, seeing the same people and passing the same sights, as the usual rush hour traffic staggered and snarled on its way towards Brixton tube station. It was 30 minutes passed dawn, the pavements were busy, and the only fear Merlyn had was about the meeting. As we have all done many times before, as she got half way to the bus stop, Merlyn realised she’d left her bus pass at home and had to head back to get it, delaying her by minutes. Again, realising she had left without a letter she needed, she headed back a second time, as this seemingly ordinary morning became more frantic than usual, but it was as her black ankle boots clacked quickly and a fake Chanel scarf billowed in the breeze, that although she ran, at 7:15am, she missed the next bus by seconds. Usually, as the precursor to this kind of tale, the victim would be left alone on a dark and isolated alley with nobody there to help her. But this wasn’t a terrifying incident, it was just a mild inconvenience which occurred in the daytime on a busy intersection in Brixton as it had many times before, and with her only chance of arriving on time being to get the Victoria Line tube from Brixton to Oxford Circus, as she crossed Effra Road, she narrowly missed being clipped as a taxi pulling away from Bus Stop Z. It was then that she crossed paths by chance with her attacker, two strangers from different worlds who would have never met had a bus pass and a letter been in Merlyn’s bag barely 15 minutes before. At the bus stop where several commuters stood waiting impatiently, he approached her with urgency in his voice, pleading “help me, please”. He clearly wasn’t begging for change as being a tall, well-built black male with a newly trimmed ‘flat top’ haircut with a stylish swoosh shaved into one side, wearing bright white trainers and a dark blue Hummel tracksuit, he looked like any other resident of Brixton. His plea seemed genuine and honest, as he implored Merlyn “my girlfriend’s pregnant and she’s fallen over”, pointing towards a mid-Victorian townhouse 30 feet away. And although he pleaded “can you stay with her while I get an ambulance?”, there was something about his eyes which unsettled her. Her heart said ‘yes’, and her brain said ‘no’, but it was as she momentarily looked at her watch to give an excuse that she was late, that in a split second, “he reached out, grabbed me and held a knife to my side. I froze. I didn’t think that’s what I’d do. As far as I was concerned I was capable of fighting someone off… but my instinct was to freeze”, as lethal levels of adrenaline coursed through her veins. Nobody noticed, or seemed to notice, as every pedestrian was too focussed on their own lives. She couldn’t scream, as the blade was embedded into her flesh, just inches from vital organs. And as he calmly ushered her off the street and onto Kellett Road, as they entered the private garden in front of the townhouses, ascended the dirty stone steps and entered through the battered wooden door, they looked like any ordinary couple (of similar age and height) heading home to 9 Effra Road… …only this was a door which Merlyn’s attacker never intended her to leave. 9 Effra Road had been a derelict squat for a decade. Declared ‘unfit for human habitation’, nobody owned it and (legally) nobody lived there, except the rats which scurried among the rubbish piles, and the undocumented denizens of the darkness who hid from the law under leaky pipes and a mountain of filth; whether a vagrant collapsed in a puke-spattered stupor, a crack-head lost in a paranoid haze, or the most desperate sex-worker who would sell their body for a hit in a piss and shit stained hovel. Silently, he ushered her up five flights of stairs, knowing exactly where he was taking her, and why. From the outside, over the traffic, no-one could hear her if she screamed. On the inside, if she ran, she had no idea if anyone would come to her aid, or to attack her, or if they were conscious or alive. After a long terrifying minute, on the top floor, he dragged Merlyn into a small empty room; the walls thick with graffiti, crack pipes crunching under foot, cockroaches scurried into the corners, and as she had already predicted, there was no pregnant girlfriend who had fallen, just a filthy soiled mattress. Merlyn later recalled “I can’t describe the fear when I realised there was nobody else in the room and I thought he was going to kill me. This realisation sent jolts of panic thudding through me. I half turned and finding my voice, I screamed ‘No!’ No!’ and pushed to get by him”, but as he shoved her inside and the closed the door tight, “it was an eerie feeling; a mixture of terror and frantic despair”… …which (for him) marked the start of her brutal murder. Antony Ferrira, known locally as Usher was a crack dealer, an addict and a pimp who had spent a large chunk of his first 27-years alive in prison. Born in 1961, he was the second of four children to Devon & Ruby alongside his siblings Pauline, Colin & Annette, and being raised in and around the working class areas of Wilsden, although life was hard, he had every chance, but chose to take instead of earning. Little is known about his early life, his upbringing, his traumas, and why he became the monster who inflicted such a horrific attack on Merlyn, but there are hints through the crimes he was convicted of. In 1981, when he was 16-years-old, he indecently assaulted an 11-year-old girl in a sex attack which had some of the sadistic hallmarks of his crimes, but as a first-offence, he wasn’t imprisoned or even sent for a psychiatric assessment, but was put on an ineffectual supervision order for a limited period. With drugs taking over his life, in October 1984, aged 19, he was sentenced to two years for robbery in a Young Offender Institute, and although he blamed his crimes on drugs, Merlyn refuted this saying “(the sadism) must have always been there. Drugs don’t make someone a murderer or a sex attacker”. One year into his sentence, having been weaned off crack, because of a petty spat over a tackle in a football match at Rochester Youth Custody Centre, Ferrira attacked and killed 17-year-old Latyre Khan, a fellow prisoner who he stabbed to death in the paint shop with a pair of scissors. When questioned, he claimed it was self-defence, and in a trial at Maidstone Crown Court, with the jury not satisfied that his motive was to kill, he was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to just five years in prison. Again, he wasn’t assessed as ‘a danger to society’. When released, he went back on crack. And in the two years he was free, he was convicted of possession of Class A’s, burglary and the GBH of a police officer, and described as “a very nasty piece of work”, he sold women for sex, including his girlfriends. Seeing himself as a big time pimp - who was cocky, arrogant and only had respect for himself – while every penny he stole was spent on the trainers, tracksuits, gold chains and a ‘flat top’ haircut with a neatly crafted ‘swoosh’ on the side; his two main girlfriends (Heidi and Jeanette) lived in near poverty, with one barely able to feed her child in a small council-flat at Telford Parade Mansions in Streatham. Living in fear of his jealousy and paranoia; both women cooked and cleaned to keep him happy, sold sex to fuel his drug habit, and whenever he was high on crack, as a sexual sadist, he always forced these women he claimed to love to commit sex acts described as “deeply sickening and humiliating”. On Monday the 17th of February 1992, the day before the attack on Merlyn, dressed in a blue Hummel tracksuit, he left Jeanette’s flat at 10:30pm having had a row, he stayed at Heidi’s until 6am, called a taxi at 6:30am, had it drive him to Fiveways (a set of flyovers in Finchley where drug deals take place), and at 7am, the driver was asked to wait while Ferrira headed into a derelict crack-den in Brixton. Inside, he got high. Outside, thinking his passenger had fled, the taxi drove off. By Bus Stop Z, the driver almost clipped Merlyn as (having missed her next bus) she crossed over the road. And as a sexual sadist with a need to degrade and humiliate women, it was then that Ferrira left 9 Effra Road. That was the only time they had ever met, and it was all by chance… …as Ferrira later confessed “I was looking for a thrill, and she took his fancy”. Trapped in the foul-smelling squat, as the door slammed shut, Ferrira started strangling Merlyn with her own scarf. Through pained rasps she gasped “why me?”, as with his staring eyes wide, he replied “because you are pretty and I would never get a woman like you”, and having made her pliable and weak through a severe lack of oxygen, he stripped her naked and threw her onto the rancid mattress. “I knew I was going to be raped”, she later said, but for him, this wasn’t about sex or penetration but degradation and humiliation, the kind sadistic acts his girlfriend’s had described as “deeply sickening” and Merlyn stated were “repulsive, but I thought I’d do anything to stay alive”. Acts so abhorrent they couldn’t be reported in the press, so the Sunday Independent alluded that “after he had finished with her mouth, he got up off her shoulders and told her to turn over”, as by then, he was done with her… …but her ordeal was far from over. From a plastic bag beside the bed, Ferrira pulled a metre of stainless steel wire used in catering to slice cheese. Merlyn recalled “the wire bit into my neck and I felt pain like I had never known before, sharp, searing, tearing, blocking out my breathing. I knew that he was going to kill me, that he had always intended to kill me, that it didn’t matter who I was, he was out to rape and kill me”, and although she had slipped her hand under the wire, as he pulled the wire tight, it almost severed her right thumb. As his mood swung from silent to seething, Merlyn said “this crazed violence started. I fought to stop him killing me. I was frantically struggling. Somehow we fell off the bed. I remember fighting for my life”, but as the cheese wire got tighter, as much as she wanted to live “I wanted to lose consciousness. I wanted it to stop, just to stop the pain, even if it meant dying. Then there was this profound agony, which I presume was unconsciousness. It was a strange state of not knowing if you are alive or dead”... …but again, her ordeal was far from over. With her throat slit so wide open that her windpipe and hyoid bone were exposed, rolling onto her front as her breath gargled blood, using his full weight upon her, he smashed a bottle and frenziedly stabbing her in the back of her neck, as this sharp shard of glass gouged ten deep wounds to the bone. He wanted her dead, and she was dying, but knowing she was now too weak to fight him off, “I thought I’d play dead. I had to give no indication that I was alive. I lay as still as I could and he seemed to stop”. She fought every instinct to cry, flee, blink or even breathe, knowing that any movement could be her last, and although – believing she was dead – he stole her boots, her scarf and her bag, what hurt her the most was the one thing he stole which she would never get back - her mother's wedding ring… …but again, her ordeal was far from over. To destroy the evidence of his crimes, Ferrira bundled up her torn clothes and soaked it in the smashed alcohol. Merlyn recalled “the next thing I remember was a crackling” as she drifted into consciousness. “I thought my hair was alight, but I had to keep still and bear the heat because I could still hear him”, and although the smoke almost made her choke, “I hoped I’d die before the flames got to me”. But it was then that he left, and having smashed the handle from the inside of the door, he locked her inside. At 8am, bell of St Matthew’s rang, her attack had lasted 45 minutes, and she was trapped and dying. In the attack, she had lost 5 pints of blood, more than half of her body’s supply, and feeling weak and faint, many would have simply laid down and died, but Merlyn still had enough fight within her. She dragged herself to the door, “I was convinced this was the end. I could feel the heat of the flames. I was convinced I was going to die”, so as she called out for help, a lodger who was squatting one floor below heard her screams, broke down the door, and ran to safety before the fire enveloped them. Staggering down five flights of stairs, her naked body saturated in blood, as she crawled on all fours to the front door and slumped on the cold stone steps, although the bus stop was barely 30 feet away, the commuters ignored her weak cries, believing she was a junkie and they didn’t want to get involved. The first responders on the scene wasn’t a paramedic or the police, but a fire engine called to a report of fire in a flat, but as firefighter Ian Crittenden saw the horror of Merlyn’s injuries, with the ambulance delayed 25 minutes as the system had crashed, until their arrival, he held her neck together with his hands, but no-one held out much hope that she would even survive. Detective Inspector John Jones who headed up the investigation later stated “the only time I have ever seen injuries approaching that kind of gravity was on a dead body… we truly believed that this was going to be a murder injury”. Merlyn Nuttal was rushed to King’s College Hospital and after a 3-hour operation which required more than 400 stitches, internally and externally, her condition was said to be “serious, but out of danger”. Her survival was a miracle, a testament to the surgeon’s skill and her courage and strength… …but although it seemed solvable, the hunt for her would-be killer proved problematic. The squat at 9 Effra Road had been gutted by fire, erasing almost every trace of DNA or fingerprints. As an abandoned crack den used by 100s of undesirables who wanted nothing to do with the Police, there were no witnesses. And although Merlyn gave a detailed description of her unnamed attacker, looking like 1000s of other locals, 15 known rapists and crack addicts were questioned, but released. Forensics thoroughly searched all floors at 9 Effra Road, but even if they had found Ferrira’s fingerprint in any room, as an addict in a crack den, it wouldn’t directly link him to Merlyn’s attempted murder. In fact, the only evidence they had was a single hair on a shard of glass, but that belonged to Merlyn. With a description but no name, on Thursday 19th of March 1992 at 9:30pm, Police issued an appeal on BBC1’s Crimewatch, and seeing an accurate e-Fit of his own face staring back at him, Ferrira almost overdosed on crack, he stopped going out and even started sleeping on his own roof to evade capture. Following a tip-off, on the 26th of March 1992, in a dawn raid at both of his girlfriend’s flats, Ferrira was arrested and interviewed, but only spoke to claim it this was a case of mistaken identity. With little concrete evidence against him, he was placed on an ID parade, but having changed his identity by growing his hair and wearing a shirt and jumper, both the tenant and Merlyn failed to identify him. That day, without enough proof to charge him, Ferrira was released on bail for a minor drugs offence. Throughout, even in the face of potential failure, Merlyn had remained strong and resilient. But it took three acts of luck, strength and perseverance to finally bring her rapist and attempted killer to justice. With the Police desperate to hunt down the owner of the Hummel tracksuit (of which only 5000 were made), Merlyn was shown a photo of a man wearing one, and although she wasn’t told that this was Antony Ferrira before he changed his appearance, she stated “that’s him”, positively identifying him. That week, a new forensic technique had extracted his fingerprint on a tissue spattered with Merlyn’s blood, directly linking him to the crime, but now they needed to prove when he was in the crack den. Merlyn had shown unwavering strength and bravery throughout, and now the detectives needed his terrified girlfriends (Heidi and Jeanette) to give statements against this man who had beaten them, threatened and intimidated them, and committed degrading and humiliating sexual acts against them. They were terrified, but together, their statements helped convict him; they proved that at 10:30pm he left Jeanette’s flat in the tracksuit, stayed at Heidi’s until 6am, had a taxi drive him to a crack den in Brixton, and at 7:15am, the driver almost clipped Merlyn with his car as he drove from 9 Effra Road. 30 minutes after the attack, Ferrira returned to Jeanette’s flat, having disposed of the tracksuit. (End) On the 11th of January 1993, at the Old Bailey, Merlyn Nuttall gave her evidence against her attacker and although “I saw him briefly, I was surprised that I felt nothing. He looked pathetic”. With the jury deliberating for two hours, Antony Ferrira was found ‘guilty’ of kidnap and sentenced to 5 years, indecent assault for which he’d serve 8, and 20 years for attempted murder, to be served concurrently. Summing up, Judge Richard Lowry praised Merlyn’s courage, with her later stating “I am not prepared to stop my life because of what has happened to me”. In 1995, she was awarded damages of £76000 which barely covered the cost of five operations to heel her scars. In 1998, her book ‘It Could Have Been You’ won the Cosmopolitan/House of Fraser Achievement Award. That year, she helped launch the first 24-hour telephone helpline for victims of crime. And in 2001, the same year she married, she helped set-up The Haven, the first self-referral safe house for victim of rape at King’s College Hospital. Today, having taken control of her life, she runs her own fashion outlet. After the trial, she stated “no sentence is long enough for him, he should never be allowed out to do the same thing to anyone else”. In 2002, 10 years into his sentence, Antony Ferrira became eligible for parole. Merlyn stated “I feel scared for his next victim because I don’t feel that his time behind bars will have rehabilitated him”. But as an evil arrogant man with wickedness to his core, on the 23rd of April 2002, he was convicted at Hull Crown Court of attacking another prisoner at HMP Full Sutton with a broken bottle, stabbing and slashing his victim’s face and neck, as he had with Merlyn. As far as we know, he is still in prison. Antony Ferrira wasted his life on drugs, sadism and cruelty, whereas Merlyn Nuttall flourished against all odds. She later said “Every day feels like a plus. I love my life. That’s why I fought so hard for it”. 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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