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EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE: Thursday the 11th of October 1962 at 4:20pm, off Cherry Lane, in Sipson’s Field in West Drayton, the body of 16 year old Carol Ann White was found; she had been brutally stabbed, but not sexually assaulted. Police believed it was connected to a string of other sex attacks in the area. But the true culprit wasn’t hiding in plain sight, but standing by their side.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
Daily Mirror Sat, Feb 02, 1963 The Daily Sketch Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Oct 12, 1962 The Daily Sketch Wed, Jan 23, 1963 The Daily Telegraph Sat, Dec 01, 1962 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Evening Standard Wed, Oct 31, 1963 Nottingham Evening News Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Huddersfield Daily Examiner Fri, Oct 12, 1962 The Daily Telegraph Thu, Nov 01, 1962 The Daily Telegraph Thu, Oct 18, 1962 The Daily Telegraph Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Herald Express Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Herald Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Daily Mirror Sat, Dec 01, 1962 Daily Mirror Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Eastern Daily Press Sat, Feb 02, 1963 Evening Post Fri, Oct 12, 1962 The Bolton News Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Herald Sat, Oct 13, 1962 The Guardian Journal Sat, Dec 01, 1962 The Citizen Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Coventry Evening Telegraph Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Evening Standard Fri, Jan 25, 1963 The Daily Telegraph Sat, Feb 02, 1963 The Birmingham Post Sat, Feb 02, 1963 The Guardian Sat, Dec 01, 1962 Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Wed, Feb 13, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Evening Standard Fri, Nov 30, 1962 The Daily Sketch Thu, Nov 01, 1962 Manchester Evening News Tue, Oct 30, 1962 Manchester Evening News Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Nottingham Evening News Mon, Oct 15, 1962 The Argus Tue, Jan 29, 1963 Evening Standard Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Manchester Evening News Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Southern Daily Echo Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Evening Standard Thu, Nov 08, 1962 The Birmingham Post Sat, Oct 13, 1962 The Daily Sketch Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Thu, Nov 01, 1962 Nottingham Evening News Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Evening Chronicle Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Southern Daily Echo Fri, Dec 07, 1962 The Bolton News Fri, Dec 07, 1962 Southern Daily Echo Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Manchester Evening News Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Lancashire Telegraph Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Echo Fri, Dec 07, 1962 Evening Post Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Evening Telegraph Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Liverpool Echo Thu, Jan 24, 1963 Manchester Evening News Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Evening Standard Sat, Oct 13, 1962 Western Daily Press Wed, Jan 23, 1963 Hull Daily Mail Fri, Nov 30, 1962 The Argus Fri, Oct 19, 1962 The Guardian Journal Tue, Oct 16, 1962 Daily Mirror Sat, Dec 15, 1962 Evening Standard Mon, Oct 15, 1962 Evening Standard Fri, Dec 14, 1962 Evening Post Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Evening Telegraph Thu, Jan 31, 1963 Evening Telegraph Tue, Jan 29, 1963 Eastern Daily Press Sat, Dec 15, 1962 The Argus Sat, Oct 13, 1962 Evening Post Sat, Oct 13, 1962 Grimsby Evening Telegraph Fri, Oct 12, 1962 Daily Herald Sat, Feb 02, 1963 Evening Telegraph Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Liverpool Echo Fri, Oct 12, 196 Daily Mirror Tue, Oct 16, 1962 The Argus Fri, Nov 30, 1962 Daily Mirror Thu, Nov 01, 1962 Evening Standard Mon, Oct 06, 1958 Daily Mirror Tue, Oct 07, 1958 Daily Mirror Wed, Oct 29, 1958 Daily Herald Fri, Nov 28, 1958 South Wales Argus Fri, Nov 28, 1958 Evening Standard Fri, Nov 28, 1958 The Daily Telegraph Fri, Nov 28, 1958 South Wales Argus Fri, Nov 28, 1958 Daily Herald Sat, Nov 29, 1958 Evening Post Tue, Aug 25, 1981 The Journal Wed, Oct 31, 1962 Evening Post Tue, Aug 25, 1981 Daily Mirror Tue, Oct 07, 1958 Daily Record Wed, Oct 29, 1958 Daily Herald Fri, Nov 28, 1958 Evening Standard Fri, Nov 28, 1958 The Guardian Journal Sat, Nov 29, 1958 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London, and hello again, as while I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat to bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit, this week, I’m back in West Drayton, Middlesex exploring a case we touched on in Undressing Jack the Stripper. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 365: The Foul Stench of Garlick. Thursday the 11th of October 1962; one week before, The Beatles had released their debut single ‘Love Me Do’, that day the African country of Uganda had gained its independent from the British Empire, and the Cuban Missile Crisis would soon be taking the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. The summer was drawing to a close, the sky was cloudy and blue, and the day was warmer than usual. At 4:20pm, having had a nice lunch at his aunt’s house in Harmondsworth, Edward & Barbara, a newly married couple in their 20s and 30s were heading to their home in Princes Park Lane. To the side was Stephen, Edward’s 11-year-old stepson, in a pram was their child, they were walking their landlord’s mongrel dog, Curly, and with it being a long day, they were tired, but still had two more miles to walk. Heading north up the quiet of Cherry Lane, a semi-rural road in West Drayton; with a line of post-war semi-detached houses to the left and to their right running parallel to Sipson’s Road was Sipson’s Farm, a huge field full of foot-high crops, few farm buildings, and surrounded by a thick gorse hedge. Edward recalled, that around 4:20pm, with the traffic busy, he went to put the dog on its lead, but it ran through a gap in the hedge and off into the field. “I called him, but he did not come. He was sniffing around, and I went in after him”. Curly hadn’t gone far, maybe 10 yards at best, but as Edward chased the excitable mutt around, Edward stated “I tripped over something” – something which shocked him. He recalled “I felt sick”. Unable to believe it, he called “Barb! Barb! Come here”, but he couldn’t talk. Barbara said “I saw him come out, he was staggering. He put his arms around me and said ‘Oh God’, I asked him what was the matter and I shook him to wake him out of it, he said ‘Barb’, I found a body”. Barbara checked and it was. Flagging down the first passing car, Frank Squires, a farmer from Old Slade Farm in Iver, Buckinghamshire, saw the body, called the Police, and the crime scene was sealed off. The body was of 16-year-old Carol Ann White. Said to be a shy and timid girl who was the second eldest of nine children to her father James, a crane driver and his wife Irene on nearby East Road, by day she worked at a shop assistant at Woolworths in Yiewsley, in the evening she liked to go to dances, coffee bars, and she was a Sunday school teacher. Being tall and pretty, although said to be ‘reserved’ and ‘bookish’, at the time she was dating 23-year-old Peter Watson of Guildford, who she had met a year before while doing his National Service at RAF Northolt. Everyone who knew them said they were madly in love, with her parents giving their blessing to get married, but they were holding off on getting engaged until Carol’s 17th birthday in January. Her murder shocked her friends, her family, her (soon-to-be) fiancé, and the whole community. Given the sadistic nature of her injuries, Police suspected she had been the victim of a sex attacker, as across that era and in eerily similar ways, the murders of several women and girls had gone unsolved. 14th of September 1954, having attended a party in London’s West End, 21-year-old costumier, Jean Mary Townsend caught the last Central Line tube to South Ruislip. At 11:45pm, she exited the station, walked along Victoria Road, heading to her parent’s home on Bempton Drive, but never arrived. The next day, her body was discovered on the waste ground to the north side of Victoria Road. She had been strangled with her own scarf, and – although partially undressed – there were no signs of rape. 3rd of May 1957, setting off to work at the Nestle factory in Hayes, 35-year-old widowed mother-of-two, Muriel Gwendoline Maitland cycled through an isolated and wooded area in Cranford Park, as she always did. Having failed to arrive, she was reported missing, and beside the River Crane, her body was found concealed in a hollow beneath the roots of a fallen tree. She had been raped and strangled. 25th of August 1958, in her cottage called Dawn Warren on Old Mill Road, Denham, Buckinghamshire, 31-year-old divorced single mother, Joyce Vera Green was attacked in her own bed by a man who had forced his way in. With her seven-year-old son locked in an upstairs cupboard, Joyce was gagged and raped, then strangled. And even though her son had seen her attacker, no-one was ever identified. And finally, on the 28th of October 1960, while walking home from her Girl Guide group in Heston, 12-year-old Brenda Nash went missing. A search was undertaken of all fields, pits and ponds, and after 44 days, her body was found in Hampshire, miles from her home. She was sexually assaulted, strangled and with a second victim stating her attacker had driven a black Vauxhall, 44-year-old Arthur Albert Jones was given a life sentence in June 1961, but continued to profess his innocence, as did his wife. Even though there was no evidence to prove that these cases were connected, as well as others, many believed that they were; as all four victims were accessible to someone with a car, their deaths had hints of sadism and were sexual in nature - like the murder of Carol Ann White, just a few miles away. Her killing terrified every girl in the district of West Drayton. Wednesday 10th of October 1962 was as ordinary as any other day for 16-year-old Carol. She finished work at 5pm, was back in their semi-detached house on East Road on the Bell Farm council estate by 6pm in time for tea, she helped her mother bathe and put to bed the younger of her seven sisters and one brother, and at 8:50pm - dressed in a fashionable green and white blouse, a skirt and white shoes but no coat or hat as the evening was relatively warm and her journey was short - as planned, she left. Being two hours after dusk, although her route – along East Road, down the alley and into Cherry Lane – had limited street lighting, she didn’t need a torch, as she knew this walk well. Crossing a semi-busy street circled by long rows of houses, just before 9pm, she arrived at the phone-box at the top end of Sipson’s Farm, near the corner of Sipson’s Road, and beside the Yiewsley & West Drayton Boys Club. Peter Watson, her boyfriend who lived 26 miles south in Guildford told Police “she was going to ring me to arrange what time she would meet me at the weekend. I was coming to stay with her family… there isn’t a phone in Carol’s house or mine, so we always rang each other from phone boxes. On Wednesday night, I was to phone Carol at the Cherry Lane box at nine o’clock”, but that night, Carol was early, so instead (she did as she done before), she called Alan & Molly Willis, Peter’s neighbours on Yew Tree Drive, who had a home phone and they happily took calls for these two young lovebirds. Peter recalled “while I was on my way to our nearest kiosk, Carol phoned my neighbours”. Molly spoke to Carol, who she said “sounded quite normal”, and she went to fetch Peter. But by 9pm, when Peter dialled West Drayton 4497, “I phoned the Cherry Lane call-box, there was no answer”. The phone just rang and rang. Richard Rogers who ran the boy’s club next door closed up the club at 9pm exactly, and stated, “as I passed, the phone was ringing. There was nobody in sight”. But Carol wasn’t missing… …with the call taking too long, she had run out of money, so by the time Molly had ran back and told her “I’ve got him now”, Carol had hung up. At 9:05pm, he dad, James recalled “She had no money for another call, so she came home”. She took her pink plastic purse, a blue pencil “and went out again”. At 9:13pm, back at the Cherry Lane phone-box, Carol called Peter’s phone-box in Guildford where he had been, but she got no reply. She never made another call, and she was never seen alive again. Carol had vanished. At 10:30pm, growing concerned, her dad, James said “when she hadn’t returned after an hour, I went to look for her. I went down to the phone-box, but there was no sign of Carol. Her pink purse was on the shelf and her blue pencil was on the floor. I got terribly worried then. I started searching the fields”, while her mother put the children to bed and waited at home in case Carol returned. But she didn’t. At midnight, having searched everywhere he could think, he called the Police. Initial thoughts was that she was a runaway or had met a friend, but no-one had seen her. Nothing sinister was suspected as no screams were heard. And with an unnamed woman using the phone at 9:30pm, but no signs of violence or a potential abductor, maybe she had left her purse by mistake, as it only had 5 pence in it. Her disappearance wasn’t reported to the press, and few people talked about it. But all that changed at 4:35pm, when Frank Squires, a passing farmer called the Police, having been alerted to a girl’s dead body in a field at Sipson’s Farm by Edward & Barbara, when their landlord’s dog, Curly had found her. The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Maurice Osborn, who had led the case into the unsolved murder of Muriel Maitland. Surrounding houses were canvassed, but no-one saw or heard anything. At that time of night, Cherry Lane would have been quiet, but not dead, so any passing motorists were questioned, but information was slight. The owner of Sipson’s Farm was quizzed, he heard nothing suspicious, but recalled “I knew Carol, she worked for me for a time last year during her holidays when she was still at school. She would have known the field well”. But why was she here? Between the lane and the field stood a chest-high hedge, over which – as Frank Squires recalled “when the man and woman flagged me down, he said ‘there’s a woman lying dead in that field’. I looked, but could only see material”, possibly her blouse, but when he looked though a larger gap in the hedge, being just 10 yards (roughly 30 feet) away “I saw this young girl lying in the grass, obviously dead”. Edward & Barbara gave statements, as did Mr Squires, and all three were said to be “pretty shook up”. 16-year-old Carol was found on her back, her eyes open, her mouth etched in fear, and in her left hand she held a clump of bracken which she had grasped in her final moments alive. With bruising to her face (as with Muriel’s killer) she had been viciously punched to stop her screaming, a piece of rag had been pushed into her mouth “so firmly, she could not have done it herself”, and then with a six-inch double-edged knife, he had stabbed her seven times; five times to her left lung and once to her heart. The detective’s initial theory was that a serial sex attacker had seen her in the phone-box, pulled up (possibly in a black Vauxhall car which a witness saw parked opposite the phone-box at the time Carol had vanished), threatened her with a knife (hence she left her purse and pencil behind), walked her to his car (but didn’t drag her as her shoes were unblemished), then gagged, raped and murdered her. Her autopsy was conducted by Dr W Evans at Uxbridge Mortuary. Death was caused by asphyxiation owing to the rag in the throat, the repeated stabbing “suggested a sadistic attack”, and yet, none of her clothes were ripped or disarranged, and all the evidence suggested that she hadn’t been raped. Irene, her mother stated “I hope they get this maniac before he kills someone else. The man who killed my Carol must have a mother who knows something. I beg her to give her son up before he kills again”. The search for Carol’s killer was a mammoth undertaking; 1800 people were interviewed, 6000 houses were questioned, officers with dogs, sickles and metal detectors searched every surrounding field for the knife, laundries and drycleaners were asked to be on alert for bloodstained clothes, coffee bars in a five mile radius were quizzed, soil samples were taken, and fingerprints taken from the phone-box. But it all proved negative; the fingerprints were Carol’s, as was the blood, and with no signs that she had been abducted by a stranger, but more likely that she had walked from the phone-box to the field of her own accord, with the pathologist confirming that sex was most likely “consensual”, Police were no longer seeking a serial sex attacker, but someone who Carol knew – a friend, family or a fiancé? This theory was given greater credence when 15-year-old Christopher Denny came forward to report that at roughly 9:30pm, he and two pals cycled down Cherry Lane and saw a girl matching Carol and a man (early 20s, tall, dark-haired) “walking very close together” and entered “the hole in the hedge”. She wasn’t upset, crying, or in fear for her life, in fact, they cycled on, thinking nothing more of it. Said to be a quiet and timid girl who wasn’t going to get engaged until she was 17, the Police drew up a list of the boys she knew, roughly 24, mostly from the Bell Farm estate. Her dad said “she’d never go with any down and outs”, meaning rough looking boys as she was always smartly dressed, but as Peter, her fiancé-to-be would agree in court, when Ashe Lincoln QC said “I am not anxious to blacken Carol’s character, but we know there were other young men besides yourself she was friendly with”, when asked “did she have another boyfriend, and you were annoyed about it?”, he had to agree “yes”. Bill Johnson, a 24-year-old ex-guardsman who owned a black Vauxhall, one of 5000 in Middlesex, came forward and stated that three weeks before, he had met Carol at a fair, “she told me she had a regular boyfriend, she seemed a nice quiet girl, I made a date to meet her on Monday 24th of September, but I forgot all about it. I haven’t seen her since”. Bill Johnson was in the Midlands with friends when Carol was killed, and her boyfriend, Peter was ruled out as a suspect, as he was 26 miles south in Guildford. So, if she had another boyfriend or was open to seeing others, who was he? Those who found her body, although shaken by the sight of her, remained helpful to the investigation, and had their alibis checked; Frank was on his farm in Iver as confirmed by his family, Barbara was at her home in Princes Park Lane 2 and a ½ miles north, and her husband Edward had driven to four different pubs to find a brand of aspirin for her as she had a headache, and said he was home by 10pm. But one of them was unusually helpful, and when Detective Inspector Robert Field cross-referenced Edward’s statement “suspicion fell on him when we did not get truthful answers we put to him”. He said, after Curly the dog ran into Sipson’s field “I went in after him. I tripped over something and I saw the body of a girl”, but both Frank and Barbara said the body was visible from the hole in the hedge. He claimed he had to driven to four pubs to find aspirin, but the two he had said didn’t stock it, did, and they didn’t recall seeing him that night. He also said he owned a six-inch double-edged knife, but couldn’t recall where it was. He drove a black Vauxhall, like the one seen near the phone-box on the night Carol was murdered, but denied being anywhere near Cherry Lane. And yet, Winifred Coleman, who knew him, saw Edward at 10:25pm in nearby Goulds Green, when he was supposedly at home. The more he lied, the more he became a suspect… and then, Police looked into his past. Questioned at Harlington Police Station, Edward said “I never went into Cherry Lane that night. It was not me who attacked the girl. I am willing for the police to take my blood to prove my innocence”, but worried, he continued, “If you find blood on my clothes, you and everyone will say I’m a liar”. His new statement was written-up and presented to him, but he refused to sign it until he’d spoken to his wife. His name was Edward Garlick… and as his name suggests, his past had a foul stench. Born on the 30th of July 1937 in Staines, Middlesex, 25-year-old Edward Donald Garlick was a tall, dark-haired and handsome young man, said to be the only child of elderly parents. Little was reported about his upbringing, but in 1957, aged 20, he met 18-year-old Wendy June Hornblow of nearby Hanworth. Her mother Nancy recalled, “I disliked him the first time I saw him. He had some sort of terrible hold over Wendy. We rowed about him keeping her out late”, as with Wendy having to walk home alone by Bluebell Woods where Muriel Maitland was murdered, “we were only anxious about her safety”. Arguments flared, tears flowed, “we refused to give her our consent to marry”, so Wendy left home, and on Boxing Day 1957, Wendy married Edward Garlick, and her parents were not invited. Nancy said “we were willing to forgive and forget, but Wendy couldn’t… I only saw her once more, as I passed her in the street. Wendy didn’t look at me, I suppose she was too proud or ashamed of us to help her”. Times were hard, debts had piled up, many of their possessions were paid for by hire purchase, and with Wendy & Edward Garlick living in a caravan, even this was reclaimed by the finance company. In September 1958, nine months into their marriage, they were living in a grotty, two-roomed flat on Mosslea Road in Penge, South London for of £4 a week. Edward Garlick said “it was all we could get”. Phylis Stoneman, their landlady said “they were very quiet people, and appeared to be very much in love”, but were so broke, that when he lost his job as a plaster moulder, she helped them out with money and food. He also claimed, “Wendy suggested she should go to Piccadilly, go with some men and get money”, implying prostitution, “she went to Piccadilly twice and got about £1 30s”, about £60. On the morning of Saturday 27th of September 1958, Phylis handed him a bill for £9, 5s and 3d (£350) for two weeks rent and milk, which had to be paid by the following morning. Garlick said “we walked to Hyde Park Corner, where I stood around while she waited for men. But she didn’t not earn any. It was no good”, and as they walked the 10 miles back home, he recalled “I said ‘I am fed up with this. How about suicide?’ Wendy said she did not feel like living, and said ‘if you want to do it, then do it’. That night, as they sat in the kitchen, he taped up the doors and windows, put three sixpences in the meter, left a note for their landlady stating “we are very sorry for the trouble we have caused you. This is the only way out. We have no money”, and turned on the gas. Or so, Edward Garlick would say. Garlick said “Wendy said she did not like the smell of gas. We struggled. I think she banged her head on the floor”, but also said “there was a struggle in which I hit the wife. I got a knife and I tried to get off the tape I had stuck round the door off… I fell back unconscious. It was the last think I remember”. Smelling the sulphurous stench of gas, and hearing groans, Phylis called the Police. Wendy was dead by the time the ambulance arrived, but taken to Beckenham Hospital, Garlick remained unconscious for four days, and when he was fit enough to be questioned, he was charged with his wife’s murder. Tried at Maidstone Assizes, the pathologist Dr Francis Camps stated that although Wendy had died of coal gas poisoning, with Edward also suffering the effects, his memory could not be relied upon as the sole witness, and the medical evidence suggested there were no signs of a struggle, violence or force. 21-year-old Edward Garlick was acquitted of Wendy’s murder but found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, with it said she had died by suicide pact. Justice Slade stated “it is clear you have suffered enough, I sentence you to three years probation on the condition you spend a year in a mental hospital”. He spent five months on a psychiatric ward, before he was paroled. Nancy told the press “until the day I die, I will never believe that Wendy wanted to kill herself”, and told the Police, “he forced my Wendy into her grave, he is a menace to women… he will kill again…” …and she was right. In 1959 he was released, in 1961 he married Barbara Barham, a 30 year old mother of two with an 11 year old son, Stephen, and they had a child of their own. He got a job as a storeman, a black Vauxhall car, and they lived in a council house in Princes Park Lane, two and a half miles north of Cherry Lane. Garlick later confessed, in March 1962, “I met the girl about seven months ago at a bus stop. I offered her a lift. Because of that, we arranged to meet at the weekend”, even though in his earlier statement he said “I had never seen her before I found the body”. He didn’t say if they were dating or just friendly. On the night of her killing, he implied that their encounter was entirely coincidental, Garlick stated “I met her by the phone-box, we saw each other at the same time… she came dashing out to speak to me… we chatted… and I asked her for a light for my fags… I then said ‘what about coming for a walk’”, a phrase many people took to mean ‘having sex’, “and she said she knew a place up the road”. According to Garlick, she walked of her own accord, accidentally left behind her purse and pencil, his car was parked by the phone-box and a short walk down Cherry Lane, they entered a hole in the hedge. He claimed at some point “I showed her my knife, she was not frightened, and put it in her handbag”, which makes no sense either way. He then said that they had consensual sex, which the autopsy would clarify, as she had no restraint marks, torn clothes or vaginal tears, just dry soil on her blouse and skirt. Garlick claimed, this is when the mood shifted. After sex, “she said I needed more practice”, a barbed comment which impugned his masculinity, they then spoke about girls who scream during sex, and he said “the girl said ‘have you got anything to put in my mouth to show that I am not one of those… and put it in her mouth”, but the autopsy stated “it was so firmly pushed in, she could not have done it”. Bafflingly, according to his statement, “when she was straightening herself, she used the handbag and gave my knife back. I then went mad. I got my knife in my hand and pushed it into her. I don’t know how many times I stabbed her”, and having brutally butchered her, he drove back to his family. That night he returned home about 11pm, an hour later than he stated, and with no aspirins. Barbara recalled, “his left hand was bleeding, he said he had cut it on a fence, he was cheerful and joking about it”, and although he claimed that the guilt tormented him, his morbid curiosity was to be his undoing. The next day, with nothing on the radio or the papers, he said “I asked myself ‘did I really do it’?”. Having had lunch at his Aunt Alice’s in Harmondsworth, with his wife, step-son and new baby in tow, he deliberately walked them the four mile journey home, going the long way round along Cherry Lane. When he arrived at the hole in the hedge, there were no Police officers, just cars passing obliviously. He claimed the dog ran in, but that was disputed. He said he couldn’t see the body until he had tripped over it, but Frank Squires had seen it from the road. And according to Barbara, his wife, she said “he ran in and called ‘Barb! Barb! Come here’. I saw him come out of the field and he was staggering. He came over to me and put his arms around me and his head on my shoulder and said ‘Oh God’, I asked him what was the matter and I shook him and he said ‘Barb’, I found a body. I’m not sure whether I did it or not’. I replied ‘I will go into the field with you and if I see it, you will know you did. I left the babies, went into the field with him, and I saw her. I told him ‘we can’t leave her there. We will have to get help in some way’”. And with the farmer being the next car to pass, the Police were notified. Questioned at Harlington Police Station, when Barbara arrived at 3am, with tears in her eyes, instantly she asked ‘did you do it?’, he hugged her, and crying said ‘yes, I did’. As with the death of his first wife, Garlick said “I’ll only spend a year in a mental home, wait for me?’”, she said “‘I’ll wait for you forever”. Charged on the 30th of October 1962, he showed the police how he had killed her, he led them to the knife which he had hidden in his back garden, and said “I never thought you would think I did it. I tried to forget about it, but I can’t. If I tell you all about it, perhaps it will help me to forget”, but he wouldn’t. Tried at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Paull, Edward Garlick tried to have his detailed confession of how he had murdered Carol Ann White retracted to “protect his wife and children from the details”. He stated he only made a false statement as he was worried that his wife and eldest stepson would be implicated as accessories after the fact. He pled ‘not guilty’ to murder, and given his prior conviction and brief stint in a psychiatric hospital, he pled guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility. But the jury were not buying it. On the 1st of February 1963, having deliberated for 75 minutes, they found him guilty of Carol Ann White‘s wilful murder, and Justice Paull sentenced him to life in prison. He appealed his sentence just 13 days later, but this was rejected, as were all subsequent appeals. By 1981, having served 18 years, being of good character, 44-year-old Edward Garlick was transferred to HMP Leyhill, an open prison in Gloucestershire. On the 25th of August 1981, having been on home leave to visit his parents in Ramsgate, failing to return to prison, at 4:15am, a grisly discovery was made in a tunnel on the Bristol to Paddington line – his decapitated body, having taken his own life. He had murdered Carol, and possibly his first wife, but had he killed others and taken this to his grave. 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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