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-FOUR: Saturday the 12th of April 1958, two men – 60-year-old Isaiah Dixon and 32-year-old Matthew Kavanagh – returned to their boarding house at 11 Hillmorton Road in Rugby. Kavanagh strangled Dixon with his own tie, stole 34 10s from his pockets, went shopping, and confessed to his murder. But then in court, he denied murder, and used an alibi which had got many 1950s killers off a murder charge.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m still in Rugby, Warwickshire, to explore an alibi to a murder, so baffling, yet it’s still being used today. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 354: The Strangler’s Excuse. Saturday the 12th of April 1958, mid-afternoon, Rugby town centre. Among the bustling market stalls, and down a tight network of old alleys, two men stagger. They giggle and guffaw, tottering unsteadily on their feet after a boozy session in some of the neighbouring pubs. To any passer-by, they seemed like a father and son, as with 60-year-old Isaiah Dixon, slim but slightly greying, and 32-year-old Matthew Kavanagh, similar in size and shape, their differing accents made it unmistakable that these were friends, as Isaiah had the soft drawl of a Cheshire accent, and coming from County Meath in Ireland, between Dublin and Belfast, Kavanagh’s was lyrical and sounded rural. As lodgers, they had only known each other for a few weeks at best, but living in a four-storey boarding house at nearby 11 Hillmorton Road, their rooms were so basic (a single bed, a wardrobe, a side table, a wash stand, and very little else), they often chatted while waiting outside of the shared bathroom or cooking in the communal kitchen, and living in close quarters, this made many of them firm friends. Across that boozy afternoon, the two new pals sauntered into several pubs, whether The Squirrell Inn on Church Street, The Old King’s Arms on Market Street and The New Inn on Regent Street, and even if they seemed a little worse for wear, with rosy cheeks and slurred words, they weren’t rude or rowdy. Isaiah Dixon was born on the 18th of May 1897 in the town of Sale, Cheshire in the north-west of England, where he lived for the first half of his life in the family’s home, a simple two-storey terraced house at 19 Northenden Road. Usually reserved for the first born boy, it may seem odd that being the last of four brothers, that he would be named after his father, but dying on the 19th of February 1897, when his mother, Annie, was six months pregnant, Isaiah Dixon Junior would never met his father. Remaining fatherless as Annie never remarried, by 1901, the boys - Harold aged 13, George 12, Frank 8 and Isaiah aged 3 - would all be raised healthy, educated and instilled with an ethic of hard work. When World War One broke out, wisely one year before, Harold had emigrated far from the European conflicts having moved to Queensland, Australia, but Isaiah enlisted as a Private in the East Lancashire regiment. Serving at home, he was discharged from the Army in November 1918, like all soldiers he was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal, and as a skilled labourer and erector of towers, walls and structures for our homeland’s defence, this may be where he got his love of engineering. By 1921, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Frank, who was an insurance inspector, Isaiah was a fire insurance clerk for the British Law Insurance Company in Manchester, but being too old to be conscripted by the Second World War, still being physically fit and a lot stronger than men half his age, Isaiah served his country working as a ‘stall erector’, assembling the engine cowlings on bombers. Isaiah accomplished a lot across his years, he rarely took a day off, and (unlike so many) he never used sickness as an excuse not to be busy and productive. But one side of his life was lacking. He was never married or had children, and for whatever reason, prior to the death of his mother in February 1933, he lost all contact with his brothers for the next 30 years, so a work colleague would identify his body. By 1958, the year of his death, Isaiah was working as a clerical officer at RMS, the Government radio measuring station at Pailton, 5 miles northwest of Rugby, which was once the largest transmitting facility in the world, which tested and calibrated the strength of aviation and navigation systems. He was described as first class, and having had just one day off that year, he was letting off a bit of stream. In the pub, the two men continued drinking, as what else is there to do on a weekend? They chatted about nuclear weapons as the Cold War hotted up, and with Isaiah swigging back eight and a half pints, Kavanagh drank a similar amount but never paid a penny, as he was unemployed and broke. It was Isaiah’s treat, as if you can’t help a pal, what’s the point, and it meant he wasn’t drinking alone. As for Matthew Kavanagh, we know a lot less about him Born on the 7th of September 1910 in the rural village of Carlanstown in County Meath, Ireland, he too was one of four siblings, two girls (Bridget & Mary) and two boys (Daniel and himself) to Patrick & Julie Kavanagh. Likewise he was unmarried and childless, but lacking a specific skill or trade, sometime in the 1950s, he came to England looking for labour in the heartland of British Industry – Birmingham. In 1957, he was a power press operator in Small Heath, Birmingham, but having lost his job due to a criminal conviction for which he was acquitted, in 1958, he moved to Rugby, 30 miles away. On the 20th of February 1958 his mother died, and being unemployed, struggling to pay his rent, to buy food, and with his clothes looking shabby, on Saturday the 12th of April, Isaiah Dixon treated him to drinks. By early evening, being plastered, Isaiah needed Kavanagh to help him up the front door steps to their lodging house at 11 Hillmorton Road, and with no witnesses of any kind to what happened next… …we only have Kavanagh’s word. Giving a full verbal confession to the police, while still drunk and without a solicitor present, Kavanagh said “I told him, ‘come up and get your head down for a couple of hours and you’ll be all right’”. They went into Isaiah’s ground floor room, “He just pulled me down on top of him. He never spoke at all”. With Kavanagh being unsteady on his feet, he said he was just trying to make his pal more comfortable. “I grabbed his tie and slipped the knot out, and tried to get up again to walk out of his room”, making it seem like it was a drunken accident, but it was clear that this was not. With Kavanagh later admitting “I caught hold of the two parts of his tie and pulled it right across his neck until my wrist was practically dead. I didn’t know how long I held the tie tight. He looked very purple in the face, I thought he was done for”. But he didn’t call for help, instead he emptied his pockets of £4 and 18s (about £120 today). At the ensuing trial, R K Brown QC for the prosecution said “this was murder for money”, nothing less, as an hour after Isaiah’s killing, Kavanagh bragged to a lodger that he’d got a new job, and showed him the £4 in his hands. He later went to a shop to buy a new shirt, then at around 11pm, he headed to 11 miles west to Coventry, and on Far Gosford Street, he ordered some food in a late-night café. William Steele, the manager of a café spoke to him as he looked morose, and with Kavanagh still being drunk and his lips blathering freely as his brain was not in gear, he confessed “I am in trouble. I have killed a man”. But this wasn’t an accident, Kavanagh admitted “I thought I might take him for £1 or 10s. I helped him into his room. All the time he was making a fuss of me. I did not know what I was doing, and I strangled him with his own tie. I went through his pockets and took £4 and some silver”. The manager convinced Kavanagh to call the police. At 11:50pm, Kavanagh told the dispatcher “Send a car to Hillmorton Road. There has been serious trouble", and with the dispatcher not believing him as he was drunk, the manager took over, and when the police arrived, Kavanagh just sat there, quietly. The body of Isaiah Dixon was found at 12:35am. He was lying on his bed, partially clothed, his pockets were empty, and his black tie was wound but not knotted around his neck. Pathologist, Dr Frederick E D Griffiths of the West Midlands Forensics Laboratory performed an autopsy of the body. Isaiah Dixon was deemed physically fit for his age, he had no disease or sickness except for mild hypertension, and with “the neck-tie being the means and cause… he died of strangulation, with no evidence of assault”. The investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Woodward was short and perfunctory, as they had a dead body, a murder weapon, fingerprints, and a confession by the killer himself. At 7:45am on Sunday 13th of April, just a few hours later, Kavanagh was formally charged with murder in the furtherance of theft. He replied “I understand”, he then made a full confession, and with that he was as good as dead. Mathhew Kavanagh was on a one way trip to the hangman’s noose… …until this strangler put forward a very plausible excuse. It was known as Vagal Inhibition. Originating in the lower brainstem, the vagus nerve is our longest cranial nerve. It exits the skull at the neck, splits into two branches, travels through the chest and abdomen, innervates our vital organs like the heart, lungs and stomach, counteracting the fight-or-flight responses and sending signals when to rest or digest. Body functions, such as the heart beat or blood flow are regulated by the vagus nerve. When the vagus nerve is stimulated, it releases a neurotransmitter to slow the heart, drop the blood pressure, and can be triggered by shock, injury and emotional stress, as well as dehydration, extremes in temperature, certain foods, drugs and alcohol, as well as prolonged standing and even coughing. It causes swift fainting spells, and is incredibly common; with 40% of the world’s population having recurring spells of vasovagal fainting in their lifetime, especially if they’re young, or in their later years. Common symptoms prior to fainting often includes dizziness, blurred vision, sweating and nausea, but in rare cases, the vagal response can be exaggerated, as when pressure is applied to the carotid artery in the neck, this excessive reflex can cause the heart to beat dangerously slow, and even stop instantly. These are just a few of the hundreds of examples of vagal inhibition from 1950s Britain. 21st of July 1950. It was reported that 25-year-old, Royston McDonald of Fulham headed to the Butlin’s holiday camp in Clacton, he was feeling good as over the last 12 months he had lost 3 stone in weight. The day was hot, but as he entered the cold pool, the extreme temperatures caused a vagal inhibition, and with his heart stopping instantly owing to the shock, he was found dead at the bottom of the pool. 23rd of April 1958. 12-year-old schoolgirl Brenda Holt of Washwood Heath in Birmingham was walking her dog off-lead, when it rushed out into busy traffic and was almost ran over by a car. Luckily, it was unhurt. Brenda walked the dog home to fetch its lead, but when she got back, feeling pale and clammy, her mother recalled that she collapsed in a chair, dying instantly. Before that she was healthy and well. And 17th of October 1951. 14-year-old Brian Samson of Rochester got on the school bus having had a larger than usual breakfast, he collapsed while being seated, and died on route to the hospital. Cause of death was “vagal inhibition caused by the stimulations of a full stomach”, he wasn’t hit or tripped. Death due to an extreme reaction by the vagus nerve is more common than it sounds, it is accepted as a cause of death in a coroner’s court, and it was also a very popular murder defence in the 1950s. In 1952, six years before Isaiah Dixon’s death, 32-year-old Edmonton Arthur Pye of Aveley, Essex was upset that his wife, Mary was having an affair and planned to leave her husband and child. He admitted that during a heated row, “I put my hands round her throat to frighten her, and then it was all over, she was dead. I did not intend to hurt her, I was humiliated”, but being scared of what he had done, he admitted to strangling and burying her body in the garden, but was found not guilty of her murder. Dr Francis Camps, the pathologist stated “cause of death was manual strangulation, but she had died of vagal inhibition as soon as the grip was applied”, and with the injuries to her neck being too slight to have caused her murder, at Chelmsford Assizes, he was sentenced to 10 years for her manslaughter. In 1954, four years before Isaiah’s death, 25-year-old newly married factory-worker Lillian Joan Collins was heading to her home in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, when on a patch of waste ground, 19-year-old soldier Kenneth Causer grabbed her, and attempted to rape her. He claimed “I did not intend to kill her, I only intended to make love with her”, and in a contradictory statement, he recalled “I put my hand on her mouth to stop her screaming, she fainted when we were on the grass. I got frightened. I dragged her to the wall and left her because I thought she’d fainted and did not think she was dead”. Professor Webster, the pathologist, stated that she died of asphyxia caused by his hand being placed on her nose and mouth to stifle her screams, and vagal inhibition owing to the emotional shock. Found guilty of murder, he was sentenced to death, but reprieved on appeal, this was commuted to life. And at the time of the investigation into Isaiah’s death, 23-year-old Brian Candish of Kingsteignton in Devon was standing trial for the murder of his lover, Yvonne Hannaford, a married mother who had separated from her husband, but was planning to go back with him. The pathologist, Dr Warren stated that vagal inhibition was the cause of her death, but as he couldn’t determine if it was caused by blows or squeezing of the neck, Brian Candish was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to five years. It was an alibi which was causing a uproar across the 1950s by many victim’s families who felt that a case of wilful murder was being excused owing to a medical loophole, which was often unprovable… …so it seemed odd that this could be Matthew Kavanagh’s defence, but it was. Kavanagh would claim he didn’t intend to kill Isaiah, he was just helping him get undressed. That the theft was a mistake, and borne out of desperation. And that his earlier confessions were inadmissible, not only because (as was common in that era) a solicitor wasn’t present, but because he was drunk. Tried at Warwick Assizes, on the 2nd and 3rd of July 1958, Kavanagh pleaded ‘not guilty’ and offered no evidence in his defence. This seemed a smart move as ‘vagal inhibition’ had – for a decade – been impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, so his acquittal or manslaughter seemed a dead cert. Ironically, 47-year-old Enoch Puncus, one of the prosecution witnesses actually died by vagal inhibition while crossing the street, and with it not seen as suspicious, the coroner accepted this cause of death. But when pathologist, Dr Frederick Griffiths gave evidence, stating “the neck-tie was the means and the cause”, death was by “strangulation, with no evidence of assault” and with Isaiah’s neck being purple and bruised with a slight ligature mark, he concluded “death could not have been caused by vagal inhibition”, nor was he accidentally smothered by Kavanagh lying on his face or neck, as claimed. The jury deliberated for 40 minutes, and found guilty of murder, Kavanagh was sentenced to death. He appealed his sentence, but this was rejected. He asked for a reprieve, pleading to The Queen for clemency, but the Home Secretary found “no grounds to recommend that Her Majesty interfere with the due course of law”. And having been held at Winson Green Prison, on Tuesday the 12th of August 1958, at 9:30am, Kavanagh was hanged by executioner Harry Allen, and buried in the prison cemetery. The strangler’s excuse had failed… …but why did he think it would work? Born around Christmas in 1920, Evelyn Williams was the youngest of six siblings to Thomas, a colliery labourer and Gertrude, a housewife. Raised in the mining town of Bargoed, 16 miles north of Cardiff, for years this struggling family of eight was crammed into a small miner’s house at 13 Factory Road. With little prospects for their children, as although William was a boy, he was likely to follow his father into the pit, but unless the five sisters (Margaret, Isabella, Alice, Iris and Evelyn) got married and had children, opportunities were slim so many moved to where the work was in Coventry and Birmingham. In April 1944, at Cardiff Registry Office, Evelyn married Azim Ulla, a stoker in the Merchant Navy who had come to the UK from India. They lived for five years in Allerton Street in the Welsh capital, but in need of better wages, by 1950, they were living in a small flat at 174 Bordesley Park Road in Small Heath, South-East Birmingham. They had no children, and she earned a modest living in factory work. In 1954, they moved to 73 Longmore Street in Balsall Heath, a rundown inner-city area synonymous as a red-light district, and by the May of 1957, with the marriage not a happy one, they had separated. Around the same time, 37-year-old Evelyn Ulla had been dating a 31-year-old man for five weeks; he was a power press operator in a local factory who lived nearby on Charles Road, he had a Irish accent and although always broke, being prone to heavy drinking, he was said to be jealous with a temper. Catherine Cooper, one of Evelyn’s friends said “a fortnight before her death, we were all sitting in a pub when I heard him threaten to slice her up”, if Evelyn ever went out with other men, except him. His name was Matthew Kavanagh… and he was ten months away from murdering Isaiah Dixon. The summer of 1957 had been unusually hot and clammy, as with June being a month of back-to-back sunshine, temperatures had entered 30 degrees in places, which (back then) was considered extreme. On the Whitt weekend of Saturday 8th of June, Evelyn Ullah & Matthew Kavanagh headed out for some fun. After lunch, they lay in the sun. By afternoon, they went to The Luxor cinema on Balsall Heath Road to watch a film, possibly An Affair to Remember starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, they went to a few pubs, and getting the bus into Sheldon, they went to the Wheatsheaf pub on Coventry Road. It was their regular haunt, and Kavanagh admitted that he drank about ten pints. When ‘last orders’ was called, at 10:45pm, witnesses saw them leaving the Wheatsheaf together, but instead of getting the bus home or staggering back - with large swathes of Birmingham, like most cities in the decades since the blitz, still being riddled with bomb sites – they headed to the waste ground behind the pub, as being drunk and amorous, Kavanagh would claim “we went there to make love”. By then, the sun had set and with thick clouds causing the temperature to dip sharply, Kavanagh would later tell the Police, “she said she was cold, I took hold of the scarf she was wearing and pulled it tight… she didn’t speak or struggle in any way”, and with no intention to harm her, he said “she just went out like a light”. He denied strangling or attempting to kill her, he wanted her to be warm, and she fainted. With her body limp in his arms, he claimed that for ten minutes, he sat there, calling her name in panic and slapping her face, “but it was no good”. She was clammy and cooling, silent and motionless. Scared at what he may have done, he placed her under an oak tree amidst the long grass, folded her arms as if she was sleeping, and headed back to his lodgings in Small Heath, where he said, “I didn’t sleep”. The next day, Whitt Sunday, when the nearby churches would have been busy, Kavanagh returned to the waste ground, and her body was still there, so unable to sleep that next night, as he had done in Isaiah’s killing, on Whitt Monday, he called the police, claiming “there has been a tragic accident”. The investigation was headed-up by Superintendent Hubert James, and as would happen in the next killing that Kavanagh was accused of, they had a body (as Evelyn Ullah hadn’t been moved), a murder weapon (as like Isaiah’s tie, her spotted silk scarf was found around her neck, but it wasn’t tied tight), and with no obvious motive (no rape or robbery), all they had to go on was Kavanagh’s confession. On Wednesday the 12th of June, two days later, he was charged with Evelyn’s murder. This was the first of two times in a year that Kavanagh would be charged with wilful murder, only by that point, having a relatively clean criminal record in this country, when he was committed for trial at Solihull magistrates court on the 4th of July 1957, they had no reason not to accept his strange alibi. M D Hutchinson for the Prosecution said “if Kavanagh’s defence was that her death was an accident, if this was true, we would have expected him to have gone for help, instead of leaving her body there for two days”, but Kavanagh would claim that he was too shocked to go to the police, as (not being a medical man) he didn’t understand what had happened to her, as she had fainted and died instantly. CC Ladds, his defence counsel, queried why – four times – he had asked for a copy of the autopsy into Evelyn’s death, and yet, the Prosecution had one, but the defence had not. Was there something they were hiding, as CC Ladds stated “the medical evidence will be of considerable importance in this case”, as it all rested on whether she had died by ligature strangulation, or a very common medical loophole. With the magistrate, F W Neway unable to find a case for murder, Kavanagh was committed to trial, under the lesser charge of manslaughter, and against police opposition, he was released on bail. (End) So, surely Matthew Kavanagh, the man who was tried for the murder of Isaiah Dixon, had his appeal rejected, clemency denied and was executed, that he was imprisoned for the killing of Evelyn Ullah? On the 24th of July 1958, at Birmingham Assizes, he was tried before Mr Justice Lynskey. With not a single witness to her murder, the primary evidence was given by Dr Frederick Griffiths, the same Home Office pathologist who, a year later, ruled out vagal inhibition as the cause of Isaiah Dixon’s death. With no bruising to her neck muscles or skin, and no fracture to her hyoid bone, no clear strangulation marks were found around her throat, and she had no obvious defensive wounds. With vagal inhibition being the most likely cause of her death, Dr Griffiths agreed with Kavanagh’s defence counsel that “it was caused by an action, not intended to do her harm”, “it was caused by an emotional disturbance when the scarf was tightened”, “a nerve in her neck was compressed, resulting in instant death”, and with no clear motive, no witnesses, and no proof that an argument or an attempted rape had taken place, CC Ladds for the defence stated “Kavanagh had done nothing more than adjust her scarf”. After a one day trial, 31-year-old Matthew Kavanagh was acquitted of all charges and walked free from court with the judge stating “there was no case for the defence”. A month later, an open verdict was recorded in the death of Evelyn Ullah, and with his name being mud, he moved to Rugby, where few people knew that he had been tried for murder, and that included his new pal, Isaiah Dixon. Vagal inhibition is still used as an alibi today, and since it was first published in a scientific paper by pathologist Professor Keith Simpson in the late 1940s, ‘sudden neurogenic cardiac arrest’ as it was then known was heavily debated and in cases such as ‘rough sex pleas’, it remains highly controversial. 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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