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.
New Compton Street @LondonPIctureArchive
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN: On the 8th or 9th of December 1913, William & Eliza, now in their late 60s or early 70s were curled up in front of the fire in their small lodging on New Compton Street in St Giles in Holborn, London. Their life had been an unbearable tragedy which had tested every ounce of their love and strength, and yet, one more punishment was yet to come for this couple who deserved to die a dignified death. This a story about grief and how we all cope with it in our own way
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Can a broken heart ever be cured? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on New Compton Street in St Giles, WC2; one street north of the body of Norah Upchurch in the empty shop, one street west of the killing of Diego Pineiro-Villar by a Satan-loving paedophile, the same street as where Georgia Antoniou was given some ‘deadly soap’ for a backstreet abortion, and just shy of the rabid Nazi who could never fight back - coming soon to Murder Mile. New Compton Street currently connects St Giles High Street on the western side of Holborn, and now nothing, as whereas once it was a logical extension of Old Compton Street in Soho, just after Charing Cross Road, some council plonker put a massive pointless office building in its place, and that was that. Forgotten by tourists and locals alike, New Compton Street is a joyless chasm devoid of any sun, being full of council flats and the backs of office buildings, it’s where workers nip out for a crafty ciggie, the binmen divvy up their half-inched haul and where the drunks have a widdle, but no-one willingly goes. Back in the early 1900s, the same was said. Littered with factories which swathed this unlit street in a caustic blanket of choking fumes, in a basement room in an unrecorded flat, an elderly couple shared a last moment. Their life had been an unbearable tragedy which had tested every ounce of their love and strength, but a punishment was yet to come for this couple who deserved to die a dignified death. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 337: Everything is broken. It is said that “life is there to test you”, but whoever set the rules was clearly flawed, as some people seem to breeze through life with barely a wrinkle on their brow and their worries hardly worth a second thought, yet others like the Smith’s were undeservedly punished to live in pain and purgatory. William Smith was born on an undocumented date in the late 1840s in and around Clement St Danes, where Covent Garden sits. As the second or third son of several siblings to William James, a grocer, with his mother dying in his teens, he was never allowed to wallow in grief, as with his father having remarried a good woman, William was raised to feel loved and protected within this solid family unit. They weren’t well off, far from it. In fact, as a small market-stall holder whose seasonal products were often blighted by mites, storms, frosts, thefts, lost stock, bad handling, high seas and con merchants, when something bad blocked their way, they didn’t grumble and gripe, they adapted and coped. With William educated before the Elementary Education Act 1870 which made school compulsory for the under 10s, everything he knew he had learned from his parents who were exemplary role models. Every day, except Sunday worship, they worked from dawn till dusk, breaking their backs and never taking hand-outs. When times got tough, they didn’t steal, they diversified; the bruised stock became stews, pickles and jams; sometimes they sold loaves, knitted scarves and hats; if they had to, mum made cat meat and dad did repairs, as working together, they knew that love would see them through. William Jnr was like his dad; tall, strong, bushy bearded and barrel chested with a big heart, so when something tickled his fancy, his garrulous laugh could be heard on the next street, and when he cried, he wept buckets. Like his family, William had done everything right and he deserved to live a good life. The woman he would marry and love for the rest of his life was Elizabeth Kelly, known as Eliza. It is said, they had known each other since their earliest days being nearly neighbours, but with William being at least six or seven years her senior, they barely even acknowledged each other being children of very different ages, but in their late teens and early twenties, a romance had begun to blossom. From the start, Eliza’s life was always hard, being one of at least three daughters born into a festering family or drunks and deadbeats, pickpockets and petty criminals. For them; jail time was a way of life, everything was there to be nicked and they spent the best (and worst) part of their lives fighting. They had a reputation for dishonesty, and although they were only small-fry, they had no shame or morals. Eliza’s life could have been short and miserable, but it was her hard start which made her the woman she was; a strong-willed and formidable woman, who with ‘that’ walk and ‘that’ look, that was what William loved about her, as rejecting her old life and embracing the new, she was the family glue. William & Eliza married as soon as they could, a solid bond made by two lovers who made each other happy, who kept each other straight, and when one of them was down, they picked the other one up. Like his parents, William & Eliza ran a small market stall, side by side, always with a sense of pride in a daily grind which was barely enough to cover their costs, but it was theirs, it was hard, but it was legal. As happens to all of us, they experienced the same struggle and strife we all do, dealing with disease and death, poverty and plight, and like so many others, their desire to be a family was sadly hindered. Of those we know, their first babies never made it to full term. The first that did, a boy named William Jnr died as his lungs were too weak to breathe his first breath. The second, a girl called Eliza, made it to be a toddler until she was taken by a hacking bout of influenza. Showing their persistence, love and resilience, a third and fourth survived with these also called William Jnr and Eliza, and growing up to be healthy and strong, they were swiftly followed by another, a blossom-cheeked cherub named Jane. They never forgot their babies who never made it, and knowing they were blessed to have three who had survived, they bestowed upon them every ounce of love to ensure they lived good, happy lives… …yet, William & Eliza were about to confront of one of life’s most harrowing tests. The winter of 1878 was interminably bleak, as hours before the dawn, the Smith family left their tiny two-roomed lodging and trudged the icy cobblestoned streets to market, their woollen clothes made even heavier by the wet sludge which in turn froze, as their ladened hands burned red with chilblains. Together, William & Eliza pushed their battered old hand cart of produce while wrangling a trifecta of brats which scurried around them; William Jnr, aged about 10, had been awoken from a warm bed so was grumbling and scuffing his feet; Eliza Jnr, about 5, was naughtiness personified as she tested the boundaries of her parent’s patience; whereas Jane, who was barely 3, was asleep on her mother’s hip. It had been a hard start to the day, as with the coal wet, the kindling damp and the logs sodden, their lodging’s fire had gone out hours earlier, so no-one was in the mood to spend the next twelve hours selling their wares on a poorly populated market to earn a pittance just to survive, but they had to. That year had seen a series bad harvests owing to early frosts, soggy summers and a pinprick of sun. The usually reliable winter vegetables like carrots, turnips and potatoes looked as bruised as a boxer’s nose, many of the summer fruits like plums and gooseberries which were turned into jams had soured, with the wheat harvest bad bread was too pricey to produce except at scale, a higher sheep mortality meant less wool, and by the winter, with onions and chestnuts in excess supply, everyone was selling the same goods at a discount. Only those with overseas fruits like oranges made any actual money. Their market stall looked pitiful, hardly a radiance of nature’s bloom, so sales were sluggish. With most customers milling around the roast chestnut stall simply to keep warm, William & Eliza worked harder than usual to drum up trade, and with no money for a baby-sitter, they only had one eye on their kids. A few hours in, 5-year-old Eliza was having a tantrum, as with her brother William having slipped on a patch of ice, with a microscopic graze, he was wailing and getting the attention that his sister wanted. Father saw to son while serving a miser who was prodding the potatoes with displeasure, mother saw to daughter while reassembling the stock that the mardy little tyke had knocked over out of petulance, and as their eyes were distracted for a split second, this gave way to every parent’s worst nightmare. Eliza noticed first, seeing the little dot was missing from her side. She asked “where’s Jane?”, but she wasn’t there. William barked “Jane?!” across a sea of mingling adults, it impossible to spot their two-foot-tall daughter who could have gone in any direction. It was then that panic set in, “Jane?”, replaced by terror, “Jane?”, and as they grabbed and pulled at every child of the right height only to have their hopes dashed, “Jane?”, every second gone was another she would vanish further into the distance. A constable was called for, but what could one man do in a cross-crossing crowd of hundreds. Sobbing and frantic, by the time this family of now four were taken to Vine Street police station to make a report, valuable hours had passed, and no-one had seen three-year-old Jane, and they never would… …at least not alive. Three days later, washed-up on the half frozen shoreline of the River Thames, not far from the recently erected Cleopatra’s Needle, a tiny body was dragged from the water. It was limp and lifeless. Laid on the pavement; her once rosy skin was now a pale and sickly blue, her eyes were open but motionless, and although her doll-like frame was caked in a thick mud, it was unmistakeably her, as the sweater she was wearing had been knitted by her mother and, still attached to it, was one of the mittens. William & Eliza howled when they identified her, as with her missing there was hope, but with her body found, there was none. As an unnatural death, an autopsy was performed, and although a verdict of “accidental drowning” was listed at the inquest, several details were never explained; her clothes were torn (possibly in the fall), she had bruises and scratch marks (possibly having been rolled against the river bed as ships passed over), and what was said to be “a faint ligature mark” around her neck, it couldn’t be ruled out that the body had got caught in river’s detritus like old ropes and fishing nets. The case was closed and in a small grave paid for by the heartbroken locals, her body was buried. As the small plain box was lowered, Eliza wept as a very literal piece of herself had died, and her children clung to her hips having blamed themselves for the family tragedy, but William was unusually quiet. The death of their youngest posed so many questions, but it left so few answers. Always a fighter and the family glue, Eliza gave herself a gap to grieve, but with two youngsters who needed her more than ever, she brought their lives back to the familiar warmth of normality as fast as she could to ensure they lived the life that Jane never would - she had to live, so they could live. But William was broken, in his heart, in his mind, and in his soul. The big-hearted barrel-chested bellow laughing man was gone, replaced by a lolloping lump who couldn’t function. When he laid in bed, all he did was cry. When they sat at the dinner table, all he did was stare at her empty seat. And unable to return to the market stall, Eliza tried to run their business alone, as all he did was sit and wallow. Everyone deals with grief in different ways; some cry, some shout, some lash-out, some like Eliza use their pain to rebuild the shattered fragments of their lives, and whereas others, like William, collapse. He was going through what we know to be the seven stages of grief; shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, and acceptance. The numbness had hit them both hard, an intolerable pain which left her with an empty void, but him frozen like every ounce of his being had been ripped out whole. Next came the blame. He blamed himself, cursing himself for being a bad parent and scolding his total failure for not keeping an eye on his child every second of every day that she was alive, especially then. Then he blamed Eliza his wife, as Jane was barely a foot from her side when she vanished, so why didn’t she grab her, why didn’t she stop her, and why didn’t she see whoever had taken their baby? Then he blamed the children, uncharacteristically chastising them both for their innocent acts, such as William Jnr slipping on the ice and Eliza’s tantrum which distracted both parents for a brief second. And as he shouted, they cried, but the moment he saw sense, he wept a heartfelt apology as they all knew it wasn’t true. Then, he blamed everything else; the market, the street, the weather, the harvest, the fruit, the icy cobbles, the wet coal on the fire, the bad sleep they’d had the night before, and then God. As a devout Christian, how could God be benevolent yet let his daughter die? If he had been so faithful, why was God punishing them? And if – as his priest pleaded – if everything was part of God’s big plan, why did he decide to test of his faith by letting his baby possibly be murdered by bad men? What kind of a God would do that? William was angry, and he needed someone to blame, as this didn’t just happen by accident. With the case closed, the Police wouldn’t be investigating further, but something didn’t sit right. They said there was no hint of any foul play, no suspicion that she had been taken, and no suspects to lay the blame on, but how did this three-year-old girl make it two miles south to the river by herself? Jane hadn’t wondered away by herself, she never would, as wherever they went, she either held his hand tight, clung to her mother’s hip or was carried. She never ran away, was never out of their sight, and would happily play by their sides, rarely distracted by the sights and sounds of the bustling city. No-one was arrested, no-one was suspected, and having heard that several children had gone missing recently, why wasn’t Jane’s disappearance being linked to those, as surely they were connected? William’s decline began simply enough, as whenever William (who Eliza had lured back to the market to work) served a man whether he knew him or not, William always seemed to be eyeing them up as if this was the filthy beast who – he believed – had kidnapped Jane, all those weeks before. It wasn’t, but for as long as he didn’t sleep or breathe, he believed someone had done this, and they would pay. Everyone in his eyes was a suspect; whether a friend, a neighbour, a customer or a stranger. Although many knew he was struggling, he said too many unpleasant things and lost some of his closest pals. He accused random men of being responsible, many of whom wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it. He would scour the newspapers looking for any cases or suspects who were (even fleetingly) similar. And having begun to drink heavily, several pubs he was barred from and he often returned home bruised. He couldn’t let go, he wouldn’t let go, for Jane’s sake, as someone had to be blamed for her murder, even though it was never proven to be a murder, and the only person who thought it was, was William. With no suspects, as often happens, when the locals gossiped, William listened. One name which kept cropping up was ‘Odd Fred’; a sinister weirdo and a dirty vagrant who was blamed for everything just because he didn’t fit in; he was homeless, disfigured, he limped, he never blinked, and if he did speak, he left unnaturally long gaps after every other word. He had been blamed for every theft or assault since the dawn of time; whether stolen washing, a dead cat, or off milk, but never proven to be guilty. The Police refused to arrest ‘Odd Fred’ with no evidence except William’s suspicions, so having plucked up enough courage to confront this former war-veteran who was struggling himself, after too many pints, William (a usually placid man with no ill will against anyone) landed his fist in ‘Odd Fred’s face. Arrested on the charge of assault, it was only then that William realised how far he had sunk, a good and moral man having descended to the gutter as an angry paranoid drunk with a criminal conviction. That should have been his wake up call, but months later, he was still gripped by grief’s seven stages… …and next was depression. Over these months and years, the tall, strong, bushy bearded and barrel chested man with a big heart was gone. He spoke rarely and smiled never, as he was ashamed at his failure; as a father (whose own children, now in their teens, had become distant), as a husband (unable to provide, as he should, for his wife), and as a businessman (as lacking drive, Eliza, as the backbone and the glue, stopped the total collapse of this family which risked them all being sent to the workhouse, where they would be split). In the late 1880s, a decade after Jane’s death, William, now in late 40s or early 50s, had ploughed on with the vagaries of a working class life guided by Eliza who never left his side. Like an automaton, he worked, he washed, he lived and existed, but becoming ever sicker and weaker, shedding weight and with his skin hanging off his bones like the soggy woollen sweater which sagged from Jane’s corpse, it was clear that his body was going through the motions, but his mind was elsewhere, and far away. One bitter winter’s evening, with William & Eliza now greying and wrinkled, their children long having since left, as Eliza made dinner, William wheeled their hand cart into their cellar, and a while later, that’s where she found him, slumped on the floor by a box of mouldy potatoes; in one hand, a rope, in the other, Jane’s mitten, in his eyes a bursting levy of tears, and even though his failed attempt was a travesty against his God, his morals and would have made Eliza a widow, with an unbearable pain in his heart, he cried out “everything is broken”. All he wanted to do was die, but for wife, he couldn’t. From the late 1880s to the mid-1890s, William was a frequent visitor, voluntary, at the local asylums. They gave him a chance to breathe, to speak and be listened to, but it was Eliza who repaired his heart. Nearing the end of the century, with an aged (and equally grief stricken) Queen Victoria in her final years, this couple who had been married for thirty-plus years learned to live again, love again, and to grieve together. They rebuilt their stall, a smaller version, just a few yards from where their whole life had collapsed, every day as they passed the wall where Jane was last seen, they would both plant a little kiss, and on the anniversary of her disappearance, they’d lay a flower and say a player, together. The man he once was would never return, but the man he was now was okay for Eliza. Neither could repair the pain they would feel, but together, they learned to live again. Occasionally he smiled a little, and once he even laughed, well almost. But it was no longer about his personal pain, it was their pain and their sorrow, so together they cried and commiserated, but for the rest of their days, they lived. As familiar faces in this part of town, as they approached their sixties, William & Eliza Smith would be seen together, walking the same streets, seeing the same people, and holding each other’s hand. It was sweet, but perhaps still traumatised by Jane’s disappearance, were they too afraid to let go? It had been a tragedy which had broken them, but slowly, they were on the mend… …only their tragedy was far from over. In 1903, William Jnr, a bearded, barrel-chested doppelganger of the man his dad once was, was struck by an omnibus as he crossed the street, and he died of his injuries several days later. He never spoke of his sister, or how he had blamed himself for her disappearance, and being described as ‘distracted’, his death was ruled as an ‘accident’, but local gossips wondered if it was a suicide, or a coincidence. Eliza Jnr, hadn’t found a career as her brother had, instead she found solace in drunk, drugs, and some said prostitution. Where she ended up is uncertain, as having fallen in with a bad crowd, once in every blue moon William & Eliza thought they recognised a ragged and huddled mass begging for change on the street, but as they approached her, she fled into the night, never seen or heard from again. (End) By the winter of 1913, now in their mid-to-late 60s, William & Eliza were seeing out their final days in a basement room in a cheap but unrecorded lodging house on New Compton Street, the air thick with the caustic whiff of tanneries, and their sleep often sullied by the nightly thrum of hard machinery. As a small, basic room, they had a horsehair bed, two armchairs, a washstand, a log fire for warmth, and on the mantlepiece were reminders of their children, at least four or possibly five who had died. On maybe the 8th or 9th of December 1913, William & Eliza were sat in front of a fire in their armchairs, side-by-side, their hands touching as always. For long hours they sat, as with William’s body ravaged by chronic arthritis, he was too weak to totter to their bed and struggled to breathe when he lay down, and with Eliza unsteady on her feet, and just getting over the flu, the two spent their nights there. Their life had been an unbearable tragedy which had tested every ounce of their love and strength, and yet, one more punishment was yet to come for this couple who deserved to die a dignified death. Their last moment came as William slept. With Eliza still coughing, but not wanting to wake him, it was said, as she got up to fetch a jug of water, her legs buckled, she stumbled, she fell, she hit her head on the mantlepiece, and knocked out cold, she fell into the fire, and began to burn; everything was alight, her nightdress, her hair, her skin, and without her to help him up, all William could do was sit and see. Later alerted to the smoke, also the smell, when the door was broken down and the fire extinguished, both William & Eliza were found dead. Eliza was barely recognisable, a half-burned and blackened shadow of the strong woman she once was, it unlikely she knew she was on fire as he skull was been broken by the impact. As for William, somehow he had found the strength to get up, unaided, he had fallen to his feet, and having crawled across the cold floor to reach the woman he loved, he knew he couldn’t save her, but he knew where he had to be, by her side - it was said he died holding her hand. 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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