Five time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
22 Coulter Road in Shepherd's Bush @Googlemaps2026 July2025
EP331: THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS: On Friday 7th of February 2025, single mother of four children, Victoria Adams invited homeless ex-con Apapale Adoum arrived to stay at her home at 2 Coulter Road in Shepherd’s Bush. The next day, he brutally murdered her. But what were both of their motives?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Why did a mother-of-four invite a violent ex-con to live in her home? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Coulter Road in Shepherd’s Bush, W6; three streets east of where Reg Christie had his dog (Judy) put to death, two streets north of the sadistic rape and murder of 12-year-old Katerina Koneva, three streets south of the recent suitcase murders by a fame-obsessed ex-porn star, and four streets west of the maniac who terrorised an empty grave - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated off Goldhawk Road in what is affectionately called Brackenbury Village (even though it’s not a village), Coulter Road consists of a very ordinary series of two storey terraces from the early Victorian era. Being flat-fronted except for a bow window on the ground floor, this gives everyone the chance to gorp inside to see what their neighbour is watching on telly and get a sense of who they truly are. In short, if it’s reality TV guff, they’re a bit thick, as they think all ‘celebrities’ must have Turkey teeth, a tan, fake tits and no brain; if it’s art, they’re a pretentious ponce in red trousers; if it’s news, they’re a bigot, a bore or a blatant racist depending on what channel they’re watching; and sport denotes a fat wheezing loser whose sole purpose in life is to drone on about what the players did wrong, having seen the offending clip fifty-two times from sixty-eight angles in slow-mo. Oh, isn’t hindsight great? But not everything we need to know about our neighbours can be gleaned within a single look. On Thursday 6th of February 2025, Victoria Adams, a single mother-of-four invited a homeless man to escape the bitter cold. Said to be a ‘good Samaritan’, she opened her heart to this fellow human who had recently been released from prison, and by the Friday, she had opened her doors to him. But by the Saturday, he had taken advantage of her warmth and generosity, and had brutally murdered her. But why did he sabotage this valuable act of kindness, and why did she invite him to stay? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 331: The Kindness of Strangers. Life is difficult, it’s a struggle, and although many of us refuse to admit it, we need others to survive and with it being difficult to ask for help, we often only do so when our lives reach its lowest ebb. The ‘Good Samaritan’ was 37-year-old Victoria Adams, known to her friends and loved ones as ‘Vicky’. Little was reported about her upbringing, as with the trauma of her tragic death still fresh in their memories of those who grieved her, their grief rightly revolved about what they miss about her most. Her aunt Cathy tearfully told the press "Vicky tried to repay the kindness she’d been shown by others”, as a good deed can only be repaid if the recipient pays it forward to someone equally as in need, “but she paid for this with her life. She was a woman in her prime with her whole life in front of her”. It was a life of strife and struggle, but having been aided by others, this was possibly her chance to pay it back. Vicky was described as “very trusting, generous, caring and fun-loving”, a woman who wanted not the finer things in life, but what any person deserves; to be happy, to be loved, to be safe, and although in the reporting of her death, a husband or partner was never mentioned in the life of mother-of-four young children, those details may have been kept out of the press, and for good reason. Nobody wants the tabloids trawling thought the difficulties she had endured, or worse still, its readers making a slew of uneducated accusations about her circumstances, based on her name, her photo, or even less. It's little more than victim-blaming or victim-shaming, as if her actions were the reason for her death. What’s undeniable is that Vicky was vulnerable, someone who needed support, and yet instead, for her own reasons, she became a saviour to someone who she felt was worse off than her. Her younger sister, Sophie said “I was in shock… she was murdered in her own home by a man she barely knew, a man she was only trying to help. The hardest part is knowing she left behind four beautiful children. It breaks my heart to knew they will grow up without her. She didn’t deserve this, no-one does”… …and yet, her life would be taken by “one man’s selfish actions”. For just a short period of time, Vicky had lived in the upstairs flat of 22 Coulter Road in Shepherd’s Bush, a pleasant residential street in a decent neighbourhood where generations of families had lived since the 1860s. The flat was small and self-contained, perfect for a lone woman, where she may have hoped to rebuilt her life, as (given her circumstances) it was suggested that her children didn’t live with her. …but someone else soon would. Thursday 6th of February 2025 was a typical late-winter’s day; cold, drizzly and barely above freezing. Only Vicky truly knew why she went there, but that day, she headed to one of the several homeless charities in the area (maybe St Mungo’s, St Paul’s, Shelter, Crisis or Glass Door), where some of the most desperate queued up for life’s basics; like a warm meal, fresh water, clean socks and a safe place to sleep, being not just drunks and druggies, immigrants and the insane, but battered wives fleeing abuse, ex-soldiers forgotten by the state, and (all too often) prisoners who have served their sentence. The saviour and the homeless man were strangers. It was said that there they “met for the first time”, and the next day, having given him her address, holding a suitcase of his possessions, he came to stay. It may seen odd, even dangerous, that a vulnerable lone woman would invite a stranger, especially a man, who is also an ex-con whose history (including any possible crimes, drug habits and mental health issues) she was unaware of, to come and live in a small isolated flat behind a locked door, but she did. It’s something that happens to us all, a sense of charity and a need to help others; for some, it’ll mean a small monthly donation to built a well in a far-away village they’ll never visit, to others, they’ll give their time and energy to a cause which tugs at their heart strings - Vicky would help a homeless man. And although many lives have been changed by such positive altruism, it can come with many dangers. In 2016, nine years prior, 50-year-old Tracey Wilkinson of Stourbridge, a married woman with a good life, a nice house, a happy life and a 13-year-old son called Pierce, took pity when she saw 24-year-old Aaron Barley outside a supermarket huddled in a cardboard box. Knowing she could change his life, she drove him home, fed him, gave him a safe place to stay, and her husband, Peter, found him a job. It was a fresh start for a young drug-addict for whom life had run out of second chances, but as the judge later summed up “you abused (their) extraordinary kindness and generosity… you destroyed this family”. Having crept back in, and lain in wait, he launched a “violent, sustained assault involving severe force”, which Peter barely survived, but with Pierce stabbed 8 times and Tracey 17 times, both mother and son died in bloody agony. Aaron Barley was sentenced to life with a minimum of 30 years. Not all acts of kindness end in tragedy, but this did, and Vicky’s story would. But why did this lone and vulnerable female invite a dangerous male stranger into her home? Was it charity and compassion… …or an ulterior motive? Every story has a hero and a villain, regardless of whether it’s a film, a soap opera or a news story. The murder of Victoria Adams was no different, as the second it hit the headlines, it became politicised, a tool to beat those who are different, as if we (and our own kind) are entirely blameless of any crimes. In the early stages of the investigation, very little could be reported, so the press all rehashed the same basic facts and used similar headlines along the lines of ‘homeless man beat good mother to death’. Rightly, they highlighted her positives, being a kind and loving mother-of-four, but some also tweaked details to suit this agenda of showing how different they were by (in some cases) calling him a ‘tramp’, and her street as 'Millionaire's Row', when it wasn’t, as the average house price in London is £1 million. Under the headline were two photos; Vicky, whose kind face was that of an ordinary, tax-paying, law-abiding woman who – instantly – every reader knew they could relate to; and next to hers, her killer. His photo, even before the facts were known (and many of which were never reported) didn’t stop a torrent of uneducated bile from spewing forth from the bored knee-jerk reactionaries on social media who claim to be patriots, or foreign-funded news organisations with their own ‘dog-whistle’ agendas. All we could tell from his grumpy, scowling face was that he was a male in his late 30s and black, and even though almost every article regardless of it’s political leaning was mostly accurate, that didn’t stop the morons making their opinions known in the comments section, having not read a single word. On a popular news website, when he was named as Apapale Adoum, the comments read “not a very British name. No surprise… I could’ve guaranteed you that he wasn’t gonna be called Jonh!”, which was made all the more ironic having spelled ‘John’ wrong, with one even blaming Vicky for her killing, stating “what kind of a name is that, lady should have known better!”. And because he was black, some wrote “tell us again why diversity is our strength” and “more enrichment in our community?”. In the first week of 2025, the migrant boats crossing the English channel from France had become a hot potato, as used (and abused) by every political party. One year before, figures state that 36,000 people mostly from Afghanistan, Syria and Vietnam made the perilous journey in flimsy boats. In 2025, that increased by 16%, with roughly 50 on day one, 100 on day two and increasing to 250 on day three. It didn’t matter that Vicky’s killer wasn’t an immigrant, an asylum seeker or had never lived overseas, as having seen his photo, all that mattered was that he wasn’t white, and that’s all they had to know. One commenter wrote “another ‘guest’ of our government?” followed by angry emojis, another wrote “no immigration, no crime” as if there’s never been a white person in prison, one wrote “deport every last one of them” which would be easy as he born just a bus ride away from London, and – rattling the chains of another political hot potato, the government’s scheme to reduce the asylum backlog of refugees facing homelessness, by ordinary people offering up their spare rooms, especially to families of those from war-torn Ukraine – one commenter wrote “I ain’t letting no murderers in my bedroom”. Admittedly, some gave good advice; “we look after homeless people over winter but we are told never to invite them into our homes”, some turned it into a joke “strange way to go about looking for a step dad”, some pointed out “though not all homeless are thieves, drug addicts, psychopaths or sociopaths. Some are! The same as those who are religious, middle class and wealthy”. But it didn’t take long for the basic facts to be bastardised, with some sources claiming he was “a migrant from Chad, in Africa”. And as it always does, with every falsehood now a fact in the eyes of those who choose to believe it, with the so-called immigrant status of Vicky’s killer weaponised by those with an axe to grind, and with the truth about Apapale Adoum not being reported, it’s hard to blame the ignorant for their lies. So, who was he? On 12th of December 1986, five years after the Birmingham race riots, Wynton Apapale Adoum was born in Eastbourne, a seaside town on the English south coast – meaning he was British born and bred. As the eldest of two sons to a single-parent mother whose maiden name was Buffard (a name which has Middle English origins), he was educated at Wey Valley School in Weymouth, a very British seaside town in the picturesque county of Dorset, known for its stunning Jurassic coastline. Little is known of his early life being raised on a 1970s council estate called Littlemoor, and although it may seem idyllic and far from the crime of the big city, being a black youth in white village came with its own problems. In fact, the only time the family was mentioned in the local paper was when his brother went missing for several days, aged 12, but was later found safe and well, having ran away from home. But it wouldn’t be the last time that Apapale Adoum would make the headlines. With no known skills or job, on the 19th of July 2004, aged 18, his descent into drugs and violence was reported in the Dorset Echo: stating “Wynton Apapale Adoum… has denied threatening to kill a person and two counts of assault. But admitted damaging a door frame on the day of the alleged offences. He was granted bail on condition that he lives at a friend’s house in Bristol, does not contact any witnesses, does not drink alcohol or take any non-prescription drugs, and does not visit Weymouth, except to attend court”. Barely out of his teens, and already an angry messed-up boy who, often being high and drunk, was banned from his hometown owing to threats, intimidation, and prone to unprovoked acts of violence and with murder on his mind, Apapale Adoum was about to serve a stretch in prison, the first of many. The prosecutor, John Price KC, said during his trial for Vicky’s murder that “he had a history of violence against women”. Something it’s unlikely Vicky knew, as in 2018 he broke a woman’s jaw and gave her a black eye, and in 2024 he attacked two female prison officers, punching one and knocking her out. In court, he shouted furiously from the dock, denying claims that he was a woman beater, stating “I’m just violent. That’s my problem. I’m a bad man for that, don’t make me out to be a coward”, for which the judge had to send him back down to the cells at the Old Bailey, so he could calm himself down. See? With a little research rather than just reacting to the colour of his skin, those who commented on his crime didn’t need to fabricate his immigrant status in order to hate him, as he was already a nasty, violent man who should never have been allowed near any woman, ever again… …but he was. During the last week of January 2025, having been released from prison, Adoum was homeless, alone, and broke. This also meant that any anger management courses became voluntary, his counselling became as empty as his wallet, and the medication to cure his drug abuse was sketchy as his prospects. Upon release, his situation was bad, as it was for many prisoners that year. 13.1% of prisoner released in England in 2024 ended up homeless. 53% of all homeless persons have been in prison with 11% citing it as their last address. 67% of homeless ex-prisoners are more likely to reoffend, and with overcrowding and funding an issue, that year, 12% more prisoners were released. Many ex-prisoners become homeless owing to faults which aren’t their own. Some are only told of their release with little (if any) notice, so any accommodation cannot be planned. While inside, they are disqualified from council housing. Landlords are hesitant to rent to those with criminal records. Delays in Universal Credit leave ex-prisoners without funds for rent or deposits. Prison can worsen any trauma, mental health and addiction. Family ties and friendships are often severed. And the situation is so bad that some prisons issue homeless prisoners with a tent and a sleeping bag upon their release. Prison is a hard and unforgiving place, full of fear and danger. But for many, homelessness is worse. It’s so horrific – with it reported that in 2023, the UK saw a worrying rise of 12.2% in homeless deaths, - many former convicts deliberately reoffend, so they can return to the place they feel safe – prison. September 2024, an early-release scheme was initiated to free up space in our overcrowded prisons. Again, on paper, it ticked a lot of boxes so the bureaucrats could give themselves a pat on the back for a job well done, but with some prisoners released by mistake and others let out without electronic tags or a curfews, as before, with no accommodation planned, where were these prisoners to stay? Many would be homeless without the kindness of a Good Samaritan… ...but, why did Vicky invite this homeless stranger into her home? It seems odd, as she was a lone vulnerable female. It seems stranger still, given his history of violence against women, which (having supposedly just met him) she may not have known. But said to be “kind and trusting”, it was believed Vicky had "tried to repay the kindness she’d been shown by others”. Her neighbour, Ellie Scot, said the street as “peaceful… there’s never any trouble”, and although, just days later, an attempted murder occurred just a few streets away, the reason Vicky was said to be vulnerable was because of her drug use and having previously invited homeless people to stay. That could also be why her children weren’t there… and thankfully so, as this could have been a massacre. On Wednesday 5th of February, three days before her murder, and one day before (it is said) she had met Adoum at a local homeless shelter, neighbours saw three men shouting up at her first-floor flat, they argued, and at roughly 3am, another neighbour heard the “piercing screams of a woman”. As a lone vulnerable female, it is unexplained why she didn’t call the Police, her friends or family, as instead she went to the homeless shelter seeking someone who looked like he could protect her. It was never said why she was at a homeless shelter, maybe she was a Good Samaritan, a volunteer, or being in dire need, she was visiting a food bank? Both being drug users, that could be how they knew each other? And although this could seem strange to us, it may have seemed normal for Vicky. On Friday the 7th of February 2025, Apapale Adoum arrived (as planned) at the communal door of 22 Coulter Road in Shepherd’s Bush, and rang the bell to the upstairs flat. He was wearing the same clothes, he was hungry, in need of a bath, and carried his worldly possessions in a small suitcase. Prosecutor John Price KC said “Ms Adams allowed him to stay at her home as he had nowhere to live and thought he would offer her some protection from local drug dealers who were threatening her. She came to regret it, probably because he is by nature violently unpredictable and she may well have become frightened of him”, and realising her mistake, she wrote him a nice note asking him to leave. But where as she feared the violence of drug dealers, he feared being hungry and homeless. Sometime during the afternoon of Saturday the 8th, just one day after his arrival, being alone behind a locked door in an isolated flat with a large powerful man who refused to leave her home, Vicky was attacked in what was said to be ‘a blind rage’, as his unpredictable fury against women was unleashed. In her bedroom, the one place she should have felt safe, he entered with one just thought on his mind – her murder. Neighbours later reported hearing screams coming from the flat, but no-one came to her aid, as taking these weapons of death from her own kitchen; he slipped a black plastic bin-bag over her head, pushed her face into a pillow suffocating her, and with a wooden cooking mallet, “he bludgeoned her with severe force… inflicting 10 separate injuries to the back and side of the head”. Her death was horrific and swift, but his departure was not. Instead of fleeing, he left her body where she lay, growing ever cold until her blood coagulated around her. In the kitchen, he attempted to wash-up the mallet which was matted with her blood and hair. He then packed his suitcase, leaving it in the sitting room to collect later, and left, stealing her purse. But as premediated as this murder had been, one thing he had forgotten to steal – her house keys. Having drained her bank account and blown what little she had on cocaine, drink, trainers and junk food, the next day, Sunday 9th at 10:13pm, police were called to 22 Coulter Road as neighbours heard Adoum’s repeated attempts to break down the communal door. With two knives and a screwdriver found in his pockets, he was charged with two counts of possession of an offensive weapon, and even though Vicky’s body was found, at that point in the investigation, they couldn’t charge him with murder, so callously he asked about his suitcase, “am I going to get the rest of my stuff from upstairs?” On Tuesday 11th, three days later at Westminster Magistrates Court, Adoum pleaded ‘guilty’ to two counts of possession of an offensive weapon and was sentenced to 42 weeks’ imprisonment. He could have fled, and vanished at any time, but as the police’s only suspect in the murder of Vicky Adams and with the evidence against him mounting, his bail was denied and he was held at Wandsworth Prison. The investigation headed up by Detective Chief Inspectors Matt Denby and Ollie Stride was thorough, and with a timeline established and a careful forensic analysis of how Adoum was linked to Vicky’s death – including CCTV footage, traffic cameras, phone mast data and her bank statements which showed where he had spent her money during his spending spree – the most damning evidence was the bloodstains in her sink, the mallet which (although he had attempted to wash it, her DNA remained on it) being found inside his suitcase, as well as his fingerprints on the binbag used to suffocate her. On Thursday 5th of June 2025, almost exactly four months after they had met, Adoum was re-arrested on suspicion of her murder, and the very next day, he was formerly charged with that offence. (End) The three-week trial began at the Old Bailey on Tuesday 26th of August 2025 before Judge Nigel Lickley KC. Before the court, 39-year-old Wynton Apapale Adoum of no fixed address said he had prepared a statement which was said to include “derogatory comments about Victoria Adams”, and he wanted it read out “for the sake of appeasement for anyone who may be present”. And although his “various handwritten notes about what happened at the flat had been prepared”, they were never reported. That same day, pleading guilty to her murder, with the judge delaying his sentencing for two months to allow time for any appeals on grounds of his mental health, later found to be sane and fully aware of his actions, on Thursday 30th of October 2025, Adoum given a life sentence with a minimum term of 21 years, meaning he will not be eligible for parole until 2046. In his summing up, Judge Lickley told Adoum: "Ms Adams was murdered in her own home. She had taken you in and offered you shelter… but you betrayed her kindness and good nature… in an attack which was both brutal and savage". Detective Chief Inspector Matt Denby said: “I hope that Adoum’s admission of guilt and long sentence is a small reprieve for Victoria’s family and friends. It is a tragedy that she was killed by Adoum after offering him a place to stay, and showing him kindness during his time of need. She deserved better”. Yet, for her sister and aunt, they were left "numb and struggling to understand what happened". And that’s what happened. The truth is truly out there, but many will never find (or seek) it by making crude assumptions about a person or persons based on their name and photo. There was no need to fake any details to make Vicky more sympathetic, just as Adoum was a heinous man whose diabolical deeds as a villain (throughout his life) didn’t need to be inflated any further, as he was a poor excuse for a human being regardless of his ethnicity, and he didn’t deserve the kindness of strangers. 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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