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3 Peter Street, Soho @Googlemaps2025 June 2022
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND TWELVE: On the morning of 18th of March 1901, having perpetuated a con to make money, the owner of Stoppani's grocer's shop at 3 Peter Street in Soho was again said to be ‘up to his old tricks’, but instead of potentially poisoning almost 10th of Soho’s residents, he unwittingly saved a frail and terrified widow from a violent and bloody death.
THE LOCATION: (note I stopped updating the map, as MapHub were demanding money)
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: How did a prolific Soho poisoner save a widow from her cruel death? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing outside of 3 Peter Street in Soho, W1; Wait! Isn’t this last week’s episode? No. But it’s the same building? Yes. But there can’t be more crimes in this same place, can there? Oh yes. As this is where Jeanne Western burned to death in a gangland hit, where Jacqueline Birri was murdered because another prostitute was on holiday, where the council helped the Camden Ripper find his next victim, and where a boy’s innocent crime led to his death in Australia - coming soon to Murder Mile. As we know, 3 Peter Street is now a boutique called Supreme where rubbery man-boys who’ve never shaved blow a year’s wage on clothes too stylish to wear while skate-boarding, so instead, they stand on corners looking constipated, strut like their left leg is too short and have faces like slapped arses. Since it was built in the 1810s, across the last 210 years, 3 Peter Street has had many incarnations; it was a pawnbrokers in the 1820s, a dairy in the 1830s, a general store from the 1850s to the 1940s, and from the 1970s, it has been a brothel, a sex shop and a clip joint. But even though, it was a decent establishment for most of its time, even seemingly respectable businesses have indulged in crime. Between 1899 and 1901, the ground and first floors of 3 Peter Street was a grocer’s shop which sold general provisions (fruits, vegetables, meats, canned goods and foreign delicacies) to the public and the restaurants, and with Soho being a melting pot of nationalities, business should have been good. On the morning of 18th of March 1901, having perpetuated a con to make money, this shop’s owner was again said to be ‘up to his old tricks’, but instead of potentially poisoning almost 10th of Soho’s residents, this time, he unwittingly saved a frail and terrified widow from a violent and bloody death. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 312: Frayed Nerves and Bad Guts. As Ken Scott wrote in Jack of Hearts: “Fate is a fickle bitch. Just when you believe you’ve secured the goose that lays the golden egg, she back-heels you in the bollocks”. Sometimes it helps you, sometimes it hinders you, and other times, fate will throw you a curve ball that you never realised was even there. Winter, 1897, in an unspecified graveyard somewhere in Westminster, a bitterly cold wind whipped across the frozen spoils of earth on either side of a humble wooden coffin. Beside it, as the priest’s words echoed, a sullen woman stood wearing black, a lace veil masked her tears as she sobbed softly. With no-one to hold or hug her, she stood alone, but this wasn’t because she was disliked, far from it, she just wanted to be left alone to grieve the loss of her husband of almost the last three decades, as the pallbearers lowered the coffin into an old grave that for as many years she has visited almost daily. He was known as ‘Victor Leopold’, but said to possibly be a Russian Jew fleeing the East where the pogroms had massacred their lives and loved ones, some say his real name was ‘Gustav Ladovsky’ or something similar. Little was known about them as being good but quiet people, they didn’t mingle and kept to themselves, with him being an educated man, maybe an accountant, and her a seamstress. On this large gravestone, a space had been left for his name to be etched. Below his, at the bottom near a bundle of dying flowers she had left barely a week before, lay a space where one day her name would be written - ‘Annie Leopold’, yet four names had already been etched above; all with the same surname, all of whom died tragically young, one of whom was taken by smallpox, one who had gone by influenza, one by a tragic accident, and one – as many did – who went to sleep and never woke up. She had buried them all, all four of her babies were gone, and although each time she’d her husband’s hand to hold, now she had no-one. His death was no surprise, as two years before when he’d got sick, to fund his care, they had sold their small but cosy home on the outskirts of London and moved nearer the hospital, in a cheap lodging house on Peter Street was where she had nursed him to his dying day. That day, having thanked the priest (being the only words she uttered), alone, she walked back to her lodging (said to be) at 28 Peter Street in Soho and sat in her lonely room; her two armchairs, one now empty; two teacups, one no longer needed; with photos on the mantlepiece, reminders by the ash in his pipe and his smell still clinging to the air, as – for the next days and nights as she wept, her hand stroked the empty depression in their bed where her husband used to be – but now she had nothing. Being a good husband who had always provided for her, with no known next-of-him, his Last Will and Testament had ensured that ‘Annie’ wouldn’t fall foul as many women did in that era when their main breadwinner was dead, and even though she wouldn’t be well-off, she would never starve to death. It wasn’t until the summer of 1898 that ‘Annie Leopold’ slowly emerged from her grief. Said to be a small ‘bird-like’ woman in her late 40s or early 50s who was timid and polite, everybody gave her space to recover and to begin to live again. To keep herself busy, she worked as a washer woman and she was said to be a reliable baby-sitter, but with too many memories at 28 Peter Street, around that time, she moved to another lodging either still on Peter Street or nearby Berwick Street. That spring tragedy struck one of her neighbours, a young single woman whose toddler she babysat; when a cold became the flu and then a bad bout of pneumonia took her to her grave. With no family and the child at risk of being orphaned, ‘Annie’ took on the sole role of being his carer, and instead of being raised in a cruel workhouse, the boy would flourish in the arms of this new mum who loved him. In the summer of 1898, it was said she had found her purpose again… …it was also said that, around the same time, ‘Annie’ found love. He was known as ‘Gus’, possibly short for Gustav, the same name as her dead husband. Unsurprisingly, he too was a big man with big hands and a large bellowing laugh, so it’s uncertain whether she ever truly fell madly in love with him, or whether, still grieving, she was missing a piece of her life and this facsimile filled a space. But soon he moved in, soon she was making his dinner, mending his clothes, and with his pipe in the ashtray and slippers under the bed, suddenly she felt as if she was whole again. But he wasn’t the ‘Gustav’ she once loved, but the ‘Gustav’ she now feared. Whereas her husband was softly-spoken and affectionate, this faker was coarse and vulgar. Whereas her lover was diligent and compassionate, this interloper rarely worked and when he realised she had savings, this foul labourer stopped visiting the building sites and spent his time gambling and drinking. When he was drunk, he was violent and abusive. And when he was sober, he was the same; a nasty bastard who treated her like a skivvy, barked at her like she was a dog, and kicked like she was an old bucket of shit. One day, she thought she had got rid of him for good when he slipped off a scaffolding, but having only injured his leg and back a little, he used this as an excuse to do nothing from now on. By the winter of 1898, ‘Gus’ spent most days sat in her dead husband’s armchair like a tinpot dictator on his throne, as this fat sweaty glutton gorged on yet another free meal of pork chops, French beans, roast chicken and (his favourite) fois-gras, as delivered to his lap by his slave. And when she was too slow or dared to speak back, with a walking stick made of three-feet of beech with a hard copper base always to hand, administering many hard whacks, her frail body was often thick with welts and bruises. Being so small and timid, she never spoke up, fought back or ran, as ‘Annie’ was trapped… …and there was no way to get rid of him. At least that’s what she thought. Her saviour came in the guise of Giuseppe Stoppani, a 48-year-old Italian-born shopkeeper known as Joseph. Married in 1894 to Kathleen Smith, he had one son by his first wife, ‘Leonard’ aged 12, and having lived at 28 Peter Street where they got to know ‘Annie’, their two daughters were born - ‘Amelia’ in 1896, ‘Sessie’ in 1897, and for many years their lodger had been Kathleen’s brother John. In late 1898, Joseph opened Stoppani’s, a provisions shop on the ground floor of 3 Peter Street, where they sold fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, dried and tinned goods to restaurants and the passing public. Being neither big nor brave, Joseph wasn’t the kind of man to save a widow’s life as being a down-on-his-luck grocer trying to scrape by in a rough and seedy part of town, he was mostly known for cutting corners to make an easy penny, especially as the Boar war began to bite the average wage; sometimes he fiddled the prices, sometimes he added to the weighing scales, and sometimes, well… you’ll see. This was an era when the average person didn’t have a kitchen at home, let alone a fridge; that became a status symbol for the middle-classes in the 1950s and 60s, and for the less well off from the 1970s on. So prior to that, people either ate out, bought food pre-cooked, or relied on a gas hob or log fire. For centuries, food could only be preserved in winter, or by being salted, smoked or dried. Glass jars were better but prone to shattering. So it wasn’t until 1813 when Bryan Donkin & John Hall built the first commercial canning factory in London, and by sealing the food in tin cans using pressure cookers at the right temperatures, the bacteria can remain dormant within for years without any refrigeration. It revolutionised food, but when there’s things to be sold, there was also money to be made and saved. In the 1800s, it was said that at least 70% of the food sold had been tampered with to increase profit; bread was often bulked out with ash, sand and chalk, and although the 1860 Food Adulteration Act had some powers to kerb it, many grocers still perpetuated this con, and Joseph was one of them. In November 1899, shy of the new Millenium, Thomas Claverley the Sanitary Inspector for the parish of St Thomas’s issued a warning to Joseph about the state of the cheeses on sale in his window. They weren’t just ripe, they were repugnant. Mr Claverley referred to them as “unwholesome”, as when the wax paper was untied, it revealed an oozing mess of greens and blues, which fizzed and popped. Joseph was issued a warning, a slapped wrist, but seeing nothing but profit, he chose to ignore it. That month, Joseph had a plan, a big plan, one which could see him spending as little as £1 and making a tidy profit of £30 (£4500 today). And having rented a basement at 14 Broad Street, one street up, all he needed was a workbench, a reel of tin alloy, a can-opener, a soldering iron and a strong stomach. Talking of stomachs, ‘Gustav’s gut was growing larger as this glutton gorged on the goods he got Annie to fetch him; as she worked, he slept; as she earned, he squandered; and without any irony, seeing the boy she was raising as her own as nothing but “a leech” who he claimed “belongs in a workhouse”, she could shield the boy from his walking stick whacks with her own broken body, but for how long? Annie hadn’t a bad bone in her body, but she hated this man and she wanted him dead, but his death was as distant as any dream of happier times. She couldn’t strangle him as she knew she hadn’t got the strength, any poison purchased was noted in the chemist’s register, she was too afraid to suffocate him in his sleep, and although a heart attack could take him, he’d probably die beating her to death. ‘Annie’ was tip-toeing ever closer to her grave, and Joseph was nowhere to be seen… …but by the winter of 1898, his penny-pinching antics could definitely be heard. Across Old Compton Street, up Wardour Street, along Berwick Street and over Greek Street, a foul and fermented fug hung in the air, as the bottoms of several diners popped with little gasps of flatulence. In such cheap eateries, an occasional botty grumble or a back-passage bellow was not uncommon, but as each restaurant saw an increase in patrons groaning, sweating and rubbing their guts, as the street became awash with the splash of stomach bile, this area usually stunk, but this time, it stunk bad. Something was wrong, and with a flushing toilet not standard in Britain until the 1950s, many a bedpan was carried to the sewer with not a single ‘brown trout’ being released, but a shoal of stinking sprats. Again, Thomas Claverley the Sanitary Inspector was called to investigate and whereas he would usually expect to find a maybe bad stew in one café’s kitchen being the culprit, all of the affected restaurants had purchased the same tins of food from the same little grocer’s shop – Stoppani’s at 3 Peter Street. It was a con Joseph had done before, just never on this scale. On the 16th of December 1899, during the harsh winter just shy of centuries change, Joseph drove two horse-drawn carts from Soho, two and a half miles east to Eastcheap and the warehouse of Messrs Thurbers & Co, a trustworthy importer of canned goods from overseas. As often happened when his ship docked, it was to be expected that some of the tinned foods from Italy may have spoiled, and so were destined to be thrown on either the rubbish heap or sold at a discount as pig food or as manure. But with Joseph willing to pay to it take away, George Howard the manager sold him a tonne of canned foods for a sovereign, and (as was the law) he wrote on the invoice ‘unfit for human consumption”. So far, everything was legal and above board… but as the carts returned to Soho, Joseph redirected it to his recently rented cellar at 14 Broad Street, and set about pulling off his moneymaking con. Each tin was ‘blown, buckled into a ugly shape like a old boxer’s nose, as either it had been damaged in transit, the food had been incorrectly sealed or pressure-cooked at the wrong temperature, so even to the most blind of buyers, it was clear that this food was off, but to Joseph, it was still sellable. Having purchased over 1000 tins, at his workbench, he pierced each bulging lid with a single prick, this caused the foul gases of decomposing meats and vegetables to escape. Draining out the stinking liquid, he replaced this with salted water which disguised the hideous whiff and ceased the decay for a while, he then soldered the hole shut with an alloy, hammered the tin back into a reasonable shape, sanded it down where it had rusted, and sold it in his shop as ‘damaged’ stock, as everyone loves a bargain. Unfortunately, too many people loved a bargain and now the streets were stinking of shit. On the 19th of December 1899, John Pollard, another sanitary inspector went to the cellar and found 650 tins of tomatoes, peaches, apricots, peas, pineapples, pears, sardines, asparagus and condensed milk, many fizzing with putrefaction, and 3 kilos of bacon, “all mildewed and covered with maggots”. At his shop, a further 400 tins were found, as thankfully this second batch of rotten pigswill hadn’t sold as well, and for good reason, as across Soho, many were still suffering with bad guts and bilious. One of whom was Gustav. Across the New Year, he had been bedbound, as a horrific chorus of gurgling and foul winds had emanated from his rusty downpipe. For days, he had vomited. As for nights, as his skin grew paler, it looked as if Soho’s new sickness might ultimately take this glutton to his grave. So, with him unaware of this, it was said she kept on feeding him this deadly stew, and prayed for mercy. On Friday 2nd of February 1900 at Marlborough Street Police Court, Joseph Stoppani was summoned before Mr Denman for the sale of tinned foods being “unsound and unfit for human consumption”. The sanitary inspectors laid the case against him, Mr Ricketts his solicitor said “it was useless to defend against the overwhelming evidence”, Joseph claimed “I thought I could find some good food among the bad”, but with Dr James Edwards, medical officer of health for the district stating “those tinned goods might have killed a large number of people”, even though it didn’t, Joseph was rightly convicted. Mr Denman summed up “it was a shocking thing that people should indulge in such a trade, selling as food what was meant for manure and was worse than poison. I can’t imagine a more worse case”. All 1000 tins were destroyed, Joseph was ordered to pay £3 4s costs, and sentenced to 3 months hard labour. It wasn’t a big story, as that day alone, Ebenezer Durvan, a grocer on Whitcross Street was sentenced to six months for trying to sell 136 tins of decomposing salmon, and Henry Schimdt, manager of the London Hotel was fined £50 for selling liquor without a licence and had £130 worth of stock destroyed. In short, this Soho poisoner was no different to any other who had entered the court that week, and as nobody had died, the law was as weak as ever, and once again, he got just a slap on the wrist. But as Joseph went to prison, ‘Annie’ was still in her own prison. ‘Gustav’ wasn’t dead, as like everyone else, he got sicker, only to get better. With a few of the old tins left, she kept feeding him this rancid filth having disguised its stench with mustard or horseradish, but as the bloated bastard read about Joseph’s conviction, he demanded that she buy his food elsewhere. By now, having barely moved in months, with ulcers on his legs, his back covered in bedsores and even a boil upon his buttocks, Annie should have had some peace from his persistent beatings by his walking stick as he grew slower, but being immobile only made him more volatile towards her, and the boy. The more pain he felt, she more he made her feel his pain, as days turned into weeks and then months. Given his size and growing sickness, some days she hoped that his indigestion was a burst appendix, that a bout of reflux was a massive heart attack, or that one of his headaches was a terminal cancer, but fate never handed him anything which was even close to being fatal, as somehow he kept on living. You may think, why didn’t she just get a knife and slit his fat gizzard from ear-to-ear, as she watches him choke on his last gasp and die a slow painful death? In her dreams, she had probably thought of that, but as neither she nor the boy had any family, if she was convicted of murder, she’d be dangling from a noose by sunset, and with this orphan being sent to the workhouse, he’d be as good as dead. Joseph Stoppani would be in prison for three months, so maybe, maybe she would just wait? In April 1900, having served two-thirds of his sentence, Joseph was released from prison. In his absence, his wife, Kathleen had been running the grocer’s at 3 Peter Street, but with word having spread across Soho about his disgusting shop where the rusty tins on the shelves bulged and popped, business had been bad, very bad. With his name synonymous with filth, he got a new partner, Gastano Melisi, and with the shop now renamed as ‘G Melisi & Co’, it should have been a fresh start for him. But they were both up to his old tricks, only this time in places he wasn’t known as a poisoner. Having purchased for a sovereign another tonne of rotten vegetables and meats in ‘blown’ tins which were destined to be sent to the piggery, they both put profits over people’s lives, but this time, the streets didn’t ring with the parps of putrefied guts, as the manager of the Empire Buffet at the Brighton Empire had recognised the signs of pricked and resoldered tins, and he had called a sanitary inspector. On Friday the 11th of January 1901, at Brighton Police Court, Joseph Stopanni & Gastano Melisi were convicted of selling 247 tins of “utterly bad French beans” which “could have caused fatal results”, Gastano was able to pay the £30 fine, but being broke, Joseph served another three months in prison. Released at the start of March 1901, Joseph returned to his shop, a broken man, and with no money to buy goods and no customers browsing his shelves, he slowly began to spiral into a depression which had before (and would again) send him to the workhouse infirmary, where the poorest were treated. Back at Annie’s lodging, Gustav was furious, his festering leg ulcers were sore, weeping, and blaming her for his pain, she received the brunt of his violence, as when he hurt, she hurt, as the stick hit hard. Early on the morning of Monday the 18th of March 1901, having screamed all night, even though she so wanted to push him down the stairs hoping that the fall would snap his neck, leaving the boy fast asleep, she aided this wheezing lump outside, and painfully slow over to the doctor’s on Meard Street. There his ulcers were drained, cleaned, dressed, and being as good as new, they left. He should have been happy, but he wasn’t, as once again, all he did was bitch about her; complaining about her food, her mood, her dwindling savings, and the boy he never liked and insisted she “get rid of”. She knew that one day he would beat her senseless or even dead. Maybe that was today, or maybe tomorrow? It was then that she saw smoke on Peter Street, a lot of smoke, and then she heard screaming. (End) Fearing for her sleeping boy, Annie ran toward Peter Street leaving the puffing wastrel hobbling and waving his walking stick, angrily cursing “come back woman, I demand it”. If he had got her, he’d have made her regret it. But it was as he neared Peter Street, that fate took an odd turn, as with the carriage driver and his passengers looking towards the smoke, Gustav was hit hard by a 3 ¼ tonne omnibus. The evil bastard was said to be dead before Annie had even turned having heard him scream. Her lodging wasn’t on fire and her boy was fine, having slept through it all. Outside of 3 Peter Street, Joseph Stoppani stood beside his wife, all soot covered, coughing and clutching their daughters, as the fire which had started in their first floor lodgings had consumed the top floor and the grocer’s shop. That night they lost everything, except the few things Joseph was able to salvage from the flames, and although it was deemed to have been an accident, some speculated that he was up to his old tricks; that a fire was on, the embers were hot and beside it, a soldering iron and several tin cans were found. According to records, Joseph never rebuilt his grocer’s shop, he hadn’t the money or the strength. On the 30th of November 1904, three years later, for the third time in as many years, Joseph was admitted to the Westminster Union workhouse, where his notes describe him as ‘temporarily disabled’. It is uncertain if he ever knew the effect he had on ‘Annie Leopold’s life, or how much of it was even true. After that day, it was said that Annie and the boy were never seen again; she never said goodbye, she left behind a few belongings and being uncertain of her real name, we can’t be sure where she went. Some say that as the last few years had been horrific, ‘Annie’ headed home, maybe back East, but having placed one last flower on her family’s grave before she left, a space still remains for her name. 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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