Seven 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.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO:
Back in 2019, the ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road in Kew was home to 34-year-old Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, a busy singleton working in the media who had big plans of being a creative success, and was striving to make it happen. She had a good job, a busy social life, she was liked, and she was popular. By the March, she was about to begin (what she believed or maybe hoped) was a fresh start by moving to a new flat. Yet, something was eating away at her, a sickness that pervaded her life, and a terminal disease which could never be cured, but this wasn’t a virus which festered within, it was all around her, and it had been for a decade.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: How do you cure yourself of a cancer, when it isn’t inside of you? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Darell Road in Kew, near Twickenham; two stops south of the ‘meticulous’ disposal of Alec Vanags’ wife, two stops south-east of the ‘coldblooded’ killing of taxi-driver George Heath, three stops east of the sadistic rape and murder of two young girls at Teddington Lock, and one stop north the severed body parts strewn over Richmond Park - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 4 Darell Road sits a two-storey brown-bricked Victorian terraced house. It’s desirable being so close to Kew Gardens, but undesirable being so close to the Lower Richmond Road. Its unusable, postage-stamp sized front garden is reserved for the bins, and typical for London, a place so devoid of greenery, that it has a pencil thin rear garden covered in large paving slabs, except for a single small flowerbed. It’s the kind of house you would imagine a harassed mum screaming at her brat for smearing jam on her white walls, a teen slamming doors like she was King Kong reborn, and dad snoring so loud the neighbours accuse him of all-night drilling, but you don’t imagine anything really bad happening. Every street has a murder house, and this is theirs. Back in 2019, the ground floor flat was home to 34-year-old Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, a busy singleton working in the media who had big plans of being a creative success, and was striving to make it happen. She had a good job, a busy social life, she was liked, and she was popular. By the March, she was about to begin (what she believed or maybe hoped) was a fresh start by moving to a new flat. Yet, something was eating away at her, a sickness that pervaded her life, and a terminal disease which could never be cured, but this wasn’t a virus which festered within, it was all around her, and it had been for a decade. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 352: Living with ‘Cancer’. Sunday the 3rd of March 2019. The front room of Laureline’s ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road in Kew was packed full of boxes, half-loaded as she still has items to bubble-wrap, secure with parcel tape and neatly store for the removals van. The flat looks bare, yet oddly chaotic, as bin bags of rubbish sat by the door, and with the dishes and the cutlery in a box marked ‘kitchen’, there was the obligatory mug of tea and takeaway boxes. Except for the persistent bark and whimper of Laureline’s beloved dogs, a Rottweiler and a Husky, the flat was silent. All that was heard was the click and bleep of her phone, as being a millennial, Laureline was never off it. It was an exciting time, and being a fresh start, her friends and family received texts. To her friend Iain Richards, one text read: (Laureline’s voice) “bought a few dresses, two pairs of shoes, and I can’t stop. And I met an interesting guy, maybe will go and have a coffee with him later on”, as - with £17,000 worth of debts paid off, moving to a new flat and (said to be) on better terms with her ex-boyfriend, who some say, she was still besotted with – she seemed to be giddy with excitement. To her best friend, Beth Penman, one text read; “soooo, I met someone quite interesting, he’s a vet and we are going for coffee. I don’t know why I said yes, but wish me luck. He’s fit, shy and confident at the same time”, and although Laureline was supposed to be moving house that day, it seemed odd, that all of this was being put on hold for a shopping trip she rarely did, and a blind date out of nowhere. To her loved ones, it didn’t seem like the Laureline they knew… …and it wasn’t, as she was already dead. Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, nickname Lolo, was born on the 25th of November 1984 in Aix-en-Provence, a university city in southern France, 30 km north of Marseille. As a hub of education and culture, being the birthplace of painter Paul Cézanne, and bustling with 17th-century mansions, it was an idyllic place to be raised. And having lived for while in Corsica (a Mediterranean island north of Sardinia), this gave her a thirst for travel, adventure and self-discovery, with her family giving her the freedom she’d need. The name ‘Laureline’ means ‘to be crowned with laurels’, deriving from the Latin Laurus, it symbolizes victory, honour and distinction. That summed her up. As tall and confident woman, she strode when others shuffled, she was strong willed but never rude, a force of nature but compassionate, with her many friends praising her as "talented, loyal, caring and vivacious" as well as “talkative and friendly”. As a natural performer, from the age of four, Laureline loved to dance; any kind, from street to ballet, modern jazz to belly-dancing, she got the acting bug early on and appeared in many school plays, she performed in a cover band called The Tam’s and was a talented singer-songwriter in her own right, but seeing that her talents lay behind the camera, she began to experiment with art and music videos. Laureline studied at Sorbonne Université in Paris, and seeking to expand her skills further, in 2008, she studied at the St Martin’s School or Art and Design in Central London. She was ambitious and driven. For five years she worked as a Production Assistant at the Discovery Channel. In her spare time, she cut her teeth as a line and co-producer on short films, such as; Being Ernest in 2012, K & P in 2013, Then & Now starring Julian Glover in 2015, Gerry in 2018 with Joan Collins, and Spanish Pigeon with Robert Glenister & Don Warrington in 2020, and as a step-up, she worked on the feature film 'Tower Block' staring Sheridan Smith, and ‘Bone in the Throat’ featuring John Hannah. This was her passion. She was also a keen fashion blogger, she loved music, and catalogued every aspect of her life on social media, but knowing that passion rarely pay the bills, especially in the British film industry, she worked as an executive assistant at the PR firm Golin, based out of their offices at 99 Clifton Street, Shoreditch. Laureline’s life was busy, yet the thing she loved most was taking her beloved dogs for a walk or curling up with her ‘babies’ (as she called them) on the sofa, covered in fur and dribble like a good dog mum. …and yet, a cancer was about to infect her life. They met in 2009. Her friends never liked him, and for good reason. Kirill Belorusov held an Estonian passport, but was born in Russia's second-largest city, St Petersburg on the 4th of March 1987. His name, Kirill, derives from the Greek, Kyrillos meaning ‘Lord’ and ‘Master’, which those who knew him felt was how he saw himself. He was possessive, jealous and manipulative, he wasn’t well liked, and he believed he was the master of everything he possessed, including women. As a pencil-thin rake-of-a-man with an expressionless face, as if it has been moulded on by a machine, he was so odd looking, even his own lawyer later described as looking “like a Bond villain”, and with the personality of a walnut, it’s hard to know what made Laureline fall in love with Kirill, but she did. Little is known about his early life. He was raised in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital city, where his father was a policeman. Like all Russian men, he served a year in the military as part of the national draft. With a limited online presence, we know he liked Western bands like Slipknot, and brands like Burger King and PlayStation, and yet he never posted anything about his family to his 10 friends on Facebook. We know he worked in bars and nightclubs, he was a night owl, who liked loud music and hated being communicative, so that suited him, but unable to accept that his life wasn’t a rip-roaring success, he also claimed he was casino security for many high rollers, and (fittingly given his looks), he claimed he was a stuntman on the zombie-apocalypse movie ‘World War Z’, but most of his facts were all a lie. He lied about everything, as his life was vapid and empty. He was friendless, often unemployed, and described as a "cruel and heartless fraud", Kirill wasted his life surfing for porn, gaming and gambling. Laureline was healthy and well before she met Kirill… …and yet, he was ‘real’ cancer in her life, in more ways than one. Having met in 2009, by 2013, they were living in a ground floor flat at 208 Court Road in Mottingham, South London. The relationship was the epitome of toxic, as being a manipulator; he professed to love her, yet ridiculed her ‘curvy’ figure; he could kiss her with the same lips he would curse her; and across their ten-years together, the way he gaslit her was later described as “psychological waterboarding”, as this confident and strong-willed woman slowly became withdrawn, sullen, lost and submissive. This wasn’t love, this was control. He was an unemployed “slob” who leeched off Laureline, and even though (as an assistant) she wasn’t earning a lot, across the years, she loaned him £17,000 (the equivalent of the average annual UK wage after tax), which he always promised to pay back, but never did. While he was gambling, she became more frugal, and struggling to pay the bills, if she spent any money, it would be on her dogs not herself. In 2017, they split up, but stayed in contact. He moved out. She began online dating on Tinder, Bumble and The Inner Circle, and although she was free, the damage had been done. Some said she was still besotted by him, as like many abused partners, she was made to feel worthless like she was nothing without him, and that he was the answer to her problems, when in truth he was the cancer killing her. Mentally, she was dying, as he had already infected her with his lies. At the trial, Martin Rutherford QC said: “That is the level, extent and breadth of his dishonesty… one cannot rely on anything Kirill Belorusov says. He is someone who lies and lies brazenly over and over and over again. He is someone who believes in his power to tell lies and his power to be believed”. With Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC stating: "He just tells them on a scale and magnitude which I have not encountered before… he is a calculating and deceitful liar”, as deep down, he knew he was worthless. But his lies weren’t just manipulative, they were also cruel. To avoid paying Laureline back the £17,000 he owed her, he told her, her friends and family that he had advanced pancreatic cancer, and was receiving treatment at The Royal Marsden and other cancer hospitals, only he wasn’t. To make his lie believable, he fabricated his symptoms; intense stomach and back pain, nausea and severe fatigue, and already being skinny and pale, enema and weight loss was hard to spot. The symptoms hard to fake, like jaundice and onset diabetes, he found excuses for; and like a cruel cherry on a cake full of horrible lies, he shaved his head totally bald, as if he was on chemo’. He always looked sick, and mentally he was, but now he looked sicker. Police found no trace of him receiving cancer treatment in London or the UK, as being nowhere near a hospital when he told her he was seeing his oncologist… he was actually seeing his other girlfriend. Neither women had met, and although both lived in London, they never knew of each other. His other woman was fed the same lies about his cancer, she too was duped into giving him money, and as he lay on her sofa moaning and groaning about his illness, like Laureline, this girlfriend did everything for him, as this ‘Lord’ and ‘Master’ sat on his throne, being waited on hand and foot by his loyal servants. By November 2018, their friendship had started to sour, whether Laureline had begun to see cracks in Kirill’s lies (like his bald head being smooth but not patchy, and his eyebrows and armpits still hairy), with his unpaid loan of £17,000 causing her misery, she texted him, begging “I don’t think you realise how bad the situation is! I can barely pay my rent this month, and food for myself and the dogs!”. Months before, she had moved into the ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road. It was within her budget, but only just. It had a thin back garden, which was vital for her beloved dogs. And although it had two bedrooms, that was for friends and family when they came to visit, including her ex-boyfriend, Kirill. At the trial, although he deleted all of their messages, and destroyed her phone so it would never be found, retrieved by the Police’s digital forensics team, every message was read out to the jury which showed how desperate and anxious Laureline was, and how callous and controlling Kirill remained. By the start of February 2019, Laureline was in a financially precarious position, as unable to pay her bills or rent, although the £17,000 loan he had promised to pay back would have saved her, she was threatened with eviction with Sunday the 3rd of March 2019 being her last day in the flat. Kirill’s greed and selfishness had driven her to homelessness, and once she was gone, he would lose her forever. So how does a serial liar solve an impossible problem? With another lie. Still sporting a bald head, a wince and conveniently-timed nausea, he told Laureline he would sort it. In February, he paid her back a tiny portion, but not all, of the money he owed her as a token gesture, and said he had pulled out all the stops to find her a lovely new flat in South London to move into. She believed him, as that is the mark of an abused partner, being besotted beyond the realms of belief, and unwilling to see the truth as she had been made to believe that she was nothing without him. Whether she knew it or not, the cancer had infected her heart, and only cure was to cut Kirill out… …but was Laureline strong enough? That final weekend, Kirill claimed he had come down to help Laureline move to her new, fictional flat. He came to her like a shining knight, and although this was his fault, he wanted something in return. At the trial, Laureline’s mother saw him smirk as his text to her dead daughter was read, it said “Will it be possible for some nudie (photos of you) to keep me motivated and happy until Friday? I wanna see all of you, please be kinky. Me want booby and you naked and pretty. I miss your soft curvy self”. On Friday 1st of March 2019, he treated her to dinner at Jackson + Rye in Richmond, an American-style brasserie at 1 Heron Square on the banks of the River Thames; they held hands and drank prosecco. Anyone watching them would have believed she was once again in love with him, and not a prisoner to his lies, but as they got the R68 bus back to Darell Road, although they held hands, the CCTV clearly showed that across the 18-minute journey, the couple were quiet and Laureline was upset and tearful. Unlike the cancer, Kirill could fake a miraculous recovery, but his latest lie (created entirely by himself) had a large impending problem, as once that deadly deadline was crossed, the truth had to be outed. Saturday the 2nd of March 2019 was the day when Laureline was supposed to be packing to move out. She had everything planned; she had disassembled her bed, bubble wrapped the telly, boxed up her possessions everything from the cups to the cutlery, and needing a big bag of dog food and some other essentials, Laureline & Kirill went shopping at Pets at Home and Argos nearby on the Richmond Road. But the lie was unravelling. For weeks, she had asked him for photos of the flat, and the address to redirect her post, but he kept coming up with excuses. With the packing half-done, she may have realised it was a lie and challenged him, and with his cruel deception about to be unmasked, Laureline became a hurdle to Kirill’s cruelty. With neither injured or drugged, the dogs may have been in the garden when he grabbed a cable and strangled Laureline. Oliver Glasgow QC for the prosecution said: "the last few minutes of her life must have been truly terrifying as he squeezed the very life out of her. She realised the man who cared for her was a cheat and a killer. It was the kind of calculated and selfish callousness that only a man who would lie about his impending death could show… as Laureline was a problem that had to be removed and the only way… was to silence her. And as a bonus he walked away with the money he owed her”. In a killing described as “calm and methodical”, he kneeled on her with so much force, the pathologist said “it was as if something heavy had fallen on her chest”, taking at least four minutes for her to die. But this wasn’t a killing out of rage or hatred, but financial necessity. The Judge described it as a killing with “brutal and clinical precision”, and so lacking in remorse was this man, that he didn’t cry a single tear. Instead as her slowly-cooling body lay at his feet, he ordered himself some takeaway, he prowled the internet on PornHub and PaddyPower, and then he messaged his other woman, telling her; “you’re the most beautiful and most precious lady in my life… I’d kill for you and lie for you”… …only his litany of cruel lies had only just begun. The front room of Laureline’s ground floor flat at 4 Darell Road was packed full of boxes, half-loaded as she still had items to bubble-wrap, and as her dogs whimpered anxiously as her body lay cold and dead, sat on the sofa scoffing his takeaway and slugging back beer, Kirill held her phone in his hand. To her friend Iain Richards, he wrote pretending to be Laureline: “bought a few dresses, two pairs of shoes, and I can’t stop. And I met an interesting guy, maybe will go and have a coffee with him later on”. To her best friend, Beth Penman, he wrote “soooo, I met someone quite interesting, he’s a vet and we are going for coffee. I don’t know why I said yes, but wish me luck. He’s fit, shy and confident at the same time”, with other messages sent to her family to make it seem like she was alive and well. That day, Sunday the 3rd of March, he calmly walked to Homebase, as if he was planning to do a spot of DIY, he casually purchased some heavy-duty rubble sacks, a bag of soil, an axe and several reels of duct tape. He paid for it using her card, with not a bead of sweat on his brow. He went to a convenience store on Market Road for more duct tape as well as eight cans of strong lager, and headed back to do the unthinkable… at least, something unthinkable for anyone with a heart and an ounce of humanity. First he stripped her. It wasn’t to hide her identity as everyone would know who she was, so maybe it was to shame this body-conscious woman in death as he had done in her life? Like she was rubbish, he wrapped her in black binbags, bound her wrists behind her back (to ensure that this corpse did as he demanded, even in death), and with this thin back garden paved over with heavy slabs, he dug up a 6 foot by 3 foot flowerbed with a spade, and he dragged her body into this painfully shallow grave. In his eyes, she was dead and buried, but to her friends and family, she was very much alive. To cover his tracks, but also give himself an alibi so no-one would suspect him, he texted her friends and family so they would believe he had been as good as his word. On her phone, as Laureline, he wrote “I went to see the house it’s BEAUTIFUL! And Kirill gave me another £7,000 so I’m going on a shopping spree... he transferred another £10,000 a week ago and he left... housewarming party coming real soon, so hot tub and boob lift”, which some of her friends believed and even praised him. …but others saw through his lies, as only someone who truly knew Laureline would; she never spoke of boob jobs or liposuction, she never went on shopping sprees as she was financially broke, and as for the date with the “fit vet”, this seemed far fetched, as that weekend, she was meant to be moving. But one detail proved that these messages weren’t written by Laureline. Her first language was French, she wrote in French to her family, yet Kirill, a non-French speaker, had put it through Google Translate. It’s impossible to fabricate someone else’s prose, especially in a foreign language. But Kirill didn’t see that, as his arrogance knew no bounds, and stripping her family of any hope, he shut down her phone. On Monday the 4th of March, with Laureline having failed to turn up to work at the PR firm Golin, Kirill professing to be “out of his mind with worry” when asked by her brother if he had seen her, and with her flat locked up but her beloved dogs “unusually subdued”, with her disappearance being out-of-character, she was reported as missing, and Police called by to 4 Darell Road to do a welfare check. Looking through the letterbox, it was clear that she hadn’t gone anywhere, as her purse and keys were on the door-side table, her dogs had soiled the carpet suggesting they hadn’t been let out in hours or days, and with her possessions only partially boxed up, she must be inside, but she wasn’t responding. Gaining entry via the back door, it was clear that the flat was empty and Laurelin was missing, but one detail stood out among the boxes and parcel tape. With a spade wet with soil next to the flowerbed, who would do some gardening in a flat they were only renting on the day they were due to move out? A detective moved away a few inches of top soil, and wrapped in plastic, they saw her feet. To build a timeline of her movements, text messages from Laureline’s phone provider suggested that she had met a man for a date, but she hadn’t. She was supposedly moving house, only a removals van hadn’t been booked. To resolve this, they needed to speak to her ex-boyfriend, Kirill, who by text, was initially helpful. But on Wednesday 6th of March, the day her body was found, he fled to Estonia. And as predicted, he didn’t come across as a man remorseful at his crimes, as heading out in his home city of Tallinn, he got drunk, he partied with his pals, and to his 10 friends on Facebook, he posted footage of himself playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and hashtag #winnerwinnerchickendinner (End) With the evidence stacked against him, a European Arrest Warrant was issued on the 12th of March, it was processed on the 13th, and with the help of Europol, Estonian Police arrested him in five minutes. Extradited to England, his fingerprints and DNA matched those found on the binbags and duct tape, so even without a confession (which they knew he wouldn’t give) Kirill was charged with her murder. Tried at the Old Bailey before Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, on the 9th of September 2019, as Kirill took the stand to testify in his own defence, he doubled-down on his lies. When told “there is no evidence you ever had cancer”, he replied “I do”. When told “you aren’t a stunt man”, he replied “I am”. When asked if he killed her, he replied “I didn’t, it was someone else”, as a liar can’t help but lie. And so cruel was Kirill, that as he finished his testimony, walking passed Laureline’s family, he winked and smiled. With his guilt proven, and it stated he was “a monster who had swindled several other women out of cash”, on 30th of September, the jury of seven women & five men took just two hours to deliberate. Still smirking, Kirill Belorusov was sentenced to life with a minimum of 24 years. Summing up, Judge Hilliard remarked “It was all about you. I am satisfied you killed her in an effort to stop being exposed as an imposter and fraud. Having seen you giving evidence, I'm sure you held yourself in high regard”. After sentencing, her mother Frederique said "The death of one's own child goes against nature. There is not a moment during the day I don't think of my Laureline. I can't touch her, I can't kiss her anymore. I watch videos of her just to hear her voice, hear her laugh, to see how she moves. I would give anything to hear her happy moments, even sad moments, and to hear her say 'mum I love you'. Laureline Garcia-Bertaux was kind, generous, loving, and Kirill Belorusov exploited this. In her life, he was the cancer… and like so many cancer’s which plague society, he took an innocent life with him. 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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