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EPISODE NINETY-FOUR:
On Tuesday 15th June 1948, in the 'The Maltese Club' situated basement of 3 Carlisle Street, one of Soho’s deadliest and most feared gangsters known as 'The Terror of Maltese London' was murdered by Joseph Farrugia? But who was 'The Terror' and why did he have to die?
THE LOCATION
As many photos of the case are copyright protected by greedy news organisations, to view them, take a peek at my entirely legal social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The location of 3 Carlisle Street, where 'The Maltese Clulb' was based and Amabile Ricca was murdered is where the lime triangle is. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as West London, King's Cross, Paddington, etc, access them by clicking here.
I've also posted some photos to aid your "enjoyment" of the episode. These photos were taken by myself (copyright Murder Mile) or granted under Government License 3.0, where applicable.
Top left to right: Carlisle Street today (looking the full length towards Soho Square), 3 Carlisle Street, Soho Square, the middle photo is 56 Greek Street (where the Tulip Restaurant was, in the basement) and to the right was Amabile & Francis' flat at 66 Frith Street (slightly out of shot).
Original newspapers clipping relating to the murder and trial.
Credits: The Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast was researched, written and recorded by Michael J Buchanan-Dunne, with the sounds recorded on location (where possible), and the music written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Additional music was written and performed as used under the Creative Common Agreement 4.0. SOURCES: To research this, the main source I used was the original police investigation file into the murder Amabile Ricca. Death of Amabile Ricca in a club at Carlisle Street, W1 on 15 June 1948: Francis & Joseph Farrugia http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1258463 MUSIC:
TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: THE TERROR OF MALTESE LONDON SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about an infamous day in Soho’s history, when one of its most feared gangsters got his comeuppance having been gunned-down in a dingy basement. He was so hated and despised, that his death was covered-up to protect his attacker. But who was Amabile Ricca and what was the truth? Murder Mile is researched using the original police files. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details, and as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 94: The Terror of Maltese London. Today I’m standing on Carlisle Street in Soho, W1; one road east of The Blackout Ripper’s second victim Evelyn Oatley, one street north of the mafia hit on Alfredo Zomparelli, three roads south of the Charlotte Street robbery, a few doors up from the Canadian masturbator Richard Rhodes Henley, and home of the final victim of one of Britain’s most terrifying serial-killers - coming soon to Murder Mile. Carlisle Street sits at the top of Dean Street; it’s a tiny side-street, barely one hundred feet long, with a dead-end to the left, Soho Square to the right, Old Compton Street below, and the ‘Tottenham Court Road’ exit to the Elizabeth Line above - even though it’s nowhere near Tottenham Court Road and is actually on Oxford Street, but hey, don’t the planners love confusing the tourists? This street has all the essentials that any aspiring Soho resident would ever need; there’s a jazz club, a piano bar, two pubs, a secret gin-joint, a posh hotel (for the rich), a posh hostel (for the not-so poor), and loads of Air B & B’s (for those who aren’t choosey about sleeping in a part-time brothel), as well as two pizza shops, a hair-dressers, a nail salon, a lap-dancing club, a centre of drug addicts, a sexual disease clinic and the headquarters of satirical newspaper Private Eye. Oh yes, all the essentials. Next to Pizza Pilgrims is 3 Carlisle Street; a four-storey brown-brick premises with an anonymous black door, which is now the office for a developer of boutique hotels. Oh joy! So, expect another swanky pad to be build real soon; with pillows woven from yak’s scrotums, bedsheets washed in Perrier, loo-paper folded into shapes of the guest’s name, stunningly beautiful meals that can only be eaten using tweezers, a mini-bar with 52 different varieties of tap water, and an entirely un-ironic gallery featuring photos of the old Soho they bulldozed to make way for this fake Soho. Sigh! And yet, it was here, on Tuesday 15th June 1948, in the basement of 3 Carlisle Street, that one of Soho’s deadliest and most feared gangsters called Amabile Ricca was erased forever. (Interstitial) Amabile Ricca was known by everyone as ‘The Terror of Maltese London”. (Thunder) Mwah-ha-ha-ha. The whole of Soho and beyond knew about this monster; he was part man, part myth but pure evil. A nasty brutal bully with crazy eyes, fast fists and furious temper, and - as this crazed killer stalked the shadows - curtains closed, doors shut and streets fell silent, as every man, boy and gangster trembled and quaked, as they lived in fear of ‘The Terror of Maltese London”. (Thunder) Mwah-ha-ha-ha. In court, petrified witnesses muttered their description of him as “he’s a monster, a real monster”, “he truly is a very dangerous man”, “no-one can touch him, not the Police, not the bosses, no-one”, and although (it is said) many witnesses were too scared and intimidated to testify against him at trial, everyone agreed “we’re all frightened of him”, “he has killed before, he will kill again”, and – always being armed with a knife, a gun and a knuckleduster, as Soho’s most feared gangster who would hurt any rival with impunity – word got around that “he is the most dangerous Maltese man in the country”. Why have you never heard of this beast? Why?! Because no-one in all of Soho and beyond ever dared to speak the name of ‘The Terror of Maltese London”. (Thunder) Mwah-ha-ha-ha. (Clears throat). Or so they say. You see, the problem with gangsters is there’s often a large discrepancy between the man and the myth, as the bulk of a gangster’s work is to build their reputation. Fear is a greater weapon than a gun, so it’s simpler to have a rival back down, than to risk a fight to the death. Every gangster claims to be the biggest, the baddest and the cruellest, and when you live in a world of lies, where no-one confesses to the coppers about their crimes but openly brags to their buddies about a caper they claimed to commit, reputations are created with rarely an ounce of truth or proof, except by the pals of this wannabe gangster, as – just by knowing them - they also benefit by making a myth. Amabile Ricca was known as ‘The Terror of Maltese London’. (Thunder) Mwah-ha-ha. Yes, enough of that crap. (Thunder off) Let’s ask the question - how truthful was his reputation and who was he really? In 1910, Amabile Ricca was born in Valletta, the capital city of Malta, a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea between Italy, Libya and Tunisia. Little is known about his upbringing, except the basics; his father died young, he was one of six siblings, aged thirteen (being rude and unruly) he was sent to borstal for theft, he left school uneducated, he had no known occupation, he married aged nineteen and fathered four children. In fact, the only accurate details we have about his life are from his criminal record. On paper, there is no denying that Amabile Ricca was a criminal, who was well-known to the Maltese police having amassed forty-seven convictions by the age of twenty-eight, and part of his terrifying reputation was built on the fact that he’d served prison time for GBH, attempted murder and murder. In truth, he was little more than a mindless thug, who was hot-tempered, fond of his drink and handy with his fists, so although his number of convictions was impressive, the crimes themselves were not. His forty-seven convictions included; twenty-seven counts of fighting (while drunk), eight counts of assault (while drunk), two counts of wilful damage (while drunk), five counts of insulting a policeman, three counts of “uttering immoral words in public”, one count of trespassing and another count of being a stowaway on a ship (meaning he didn’t buy a ticket). Oooh, what a bad boy. He was imprisoned twice, fined often, and all of his heinous crimes were marked on his record as “minor offences”. His reputation as a big-time gangster was built on the foundation of being a small-time crook, but a big part of this myth-making was that he had murdered a man in Malta. (Echoes) “we’re all frightened of him”, “he’s killed before, he’ll kill again”, “he’s the most dangerous Maltese man in the country”. Yes, he held the gun. Yes, someone die. And yes, he was found guilty. But the truth of what happened isn’t exactly the kind of myth which makes a monster. On 17th May 1932, twenty-two-year-old Amabile was tried at Malta Court, the jury heard that whilst he and his pal were fooling about with a loaded revolver, it slipped from his fingers, bounced, misfired and – having been shot in the leg - his pal died a day later of blood-loss and shock. Amabile wasn’t charged with murder, manslaughter or even GHB, he was found guilty of the minor offence of “causing death through negligence and non-observance of the regulations”. He served four months in prison. Amabile wasn’t a killer, he was an imbecilic, whose incompetence caused his pal’s death, but having fudged the facts, a legitimate lie had become a terrifying tale for those with no access to the truth. In 1938, Amabile fled Malta with his wife and eldest son; he served briefly in the Army, separated from his wife, shacked-up with a “gypsy” woman in Kent called Louisa, and had four more children. By war-time, with the rise of Maltese gangsters like the Messina brothers and the Vassallo gang, even though he went by such preposterous nicknames as ‘the Maltese barber’ or ‘Ricky the Malt’, simply by being Maltese meant that his name came with a cache of fear, backed-up by the myth that he was a killer. In 1947, he was convicted twice; serving three months for stealing food stamps, and eighteen months for ‘assault’, which he bragged was ‘attempted murder’, but it wasn’t. And this is how his myth grew. On 13th June 1948, the thirty-eight-year-old boasted he had roughed-up a rival in a brawl on Bateman Street, but it was a little more than a slight scuffle with a barrow boy, which left him with a limp. But, as people gossip and words spread, what began as a small fib soon spawned into something truly terrifying… and that is how Amabile Ricca became ‘The Terror of Maltese London’. (Thunder) Mwah-ha-ha. And yet, having got into a beef with a couple of hoods, two days later, he was dead. (Interstitial) Amabile Ricca’s reign of terror was extinguished by the Farrugia Brothers. (Explosion/winds) Dun-dun-duuuurrrn. Unlike their rival who was only one, they were three - Phillip, Francis and Joseph Farrugia. (Explosion) Dun-dun-duurrrn. And just like ‘The Terror of Maltese London’, their reputation as villains, hoods and bad-boys who were feared, respected and blah-de-blah-de-blah, is still a lie that’s trotted-out in those tawdry semi-literate toilet-paper books, usually titled ‘geezers and gangsters’, which over-glorify the criminal acts of massive morons to a mythical status, without a single shred of proof. So, in fact, the truth about the Farrugia Brothers is less terrifying, and rather more pathetic. Born seven years apart – with Phillip in 1912, Joseph in 1919 and Francis in 1926 - the Farrugia Brothers were raised in the Maltese city of Zebbug to a farmer mother and a stone-mason father. They had a basic education till the age of thirteen (as many men did), they married young and had several kids, with Phillip becoming a cook, Joseph working as a stevedore (unloading cargo in the dock) and Francis as a labourer in Valetta harbour. It was a pretty normal upbringing for three pretty normal brothers. As with Amabile, the only facts we have about these “big-time villains” is from their criminal records. Joseph Farrugia, commonly known by the nickname of “Joe”, or when his mum was angry with him, by his birth name of Giuseppe; he had two convictions of brawling, one for disturbing the peace, one for “using immoral words”, one for “throwing stones” and one which – as we’ve seen – he could have used to balloon his bad-boy image by fudging the facts to suggest it was an ‘attempted murder’, but having accidentally discharged a gun near his father and causing a very superficial wound, it was deemed such a minor misdemeanour that he was given a slap on the wrist and sent home. Joseph was bound-over twice, he served no prison time and he paid fines that totalled a whopping twelve shillings. He came to London in April 1946, leaving his wife and two children in Malta; he shacked up with sex-worker called Cecilia Courtney, he served four months for ‘living off immoral earnings’ as (being broke) he lived in her Notting Hill flat, and he worked as a waiter at the Premiere Restaurant on Oxford Street. Yep, he is a big-time gangster through and through. As for his other brothers; Francis, nicknamed ‘Frank’ but born Francisco was charged twice for fighting, once for using immoral words (like damn, God and maybe even bugger) and fined ten shillings, he moved to London in December 1946 and joined Joseph as a cook on Oxford Street. Where-as Phillip, although he claimed to be a decent hard-working man, with a wife, a child, a nice home at 34 D’Arblay Street in Soho, and a successful career as head chef at the Melita Restaurant also on Oxford Street, in April 1948 he was found guilty of running a brothel, and was fined £52, which he paid. And that is the infamous and terrifying Farrugia Brothers. (Explosion/winds) Dun-dun-duuuurrrn. They’re not exactly big-time criminals, but this need for a fearsome status does make sense; as living and working in post-war Soho, being Maltese men whose nationality came with a criminal cache, it’s less likely that their reputation was a true reflection of who they were, and it’s more likely that they adopted a persona to protect themselves from others, as fear is a greater weapon than a gun. So, there you have it. Four of Soho’s most infamous villains comprised of little more than a mouthy ruffian who limped like a lame puppy having bashed up his tootsies in a brawl with a barrow boy, and three part-time cooks with a brief history of fisticuffs, chucking stones and uttering dirty words. Ooh. And yet, on Tuesday 15th June 1948, Joseph Farrugia would shoot Amabile Ricca dead, but why? Was it a revenge attack, a turf war, a gangland hit, or a sadistic execution to send a message to the criminals of Soho that a new ‘Terror of Maltese London’ was in town and he was not to be trifled with? Sadly not. Their rift was a rather petty affair and it all began in the place where it would end. In November 1945, two-and-a-half-years before the murder, Phillip Farrugia decided to treat his wife Olive to a lovely evening at ‘The Maltese Club’ at 3 Carlisle Street. Sashaying in via a squeaky side door, the giggling couple sauntered down the dark alley it shared with a pub, a café, a brothel and a funeral parlour. Having passed the overflowing bins, Phillip escorted his beloved down a rickety metal stairs, into two dimly-lit rooms - filled with a mishmash of thread-bare chairs, wonky tables and the stale odour of sweat, smoke and bum-guffs - where she would be spoiled by a choice of either tea or coffee, a game of billiards or rummy, and the inane waffle of several part-time cooks and pretend gangsters who bitched and moaned about all manner of pathetic shit, like a gaggle of old ladies sat around the biscuit tin at their weekly sewing circle. Oh yes, Olive Farrugia was a very lucky lady. That night, as a regular at ‘The Maltese Club’, Amabile Ricca was there with his new floozy. As always, being drunk, brusque and potty-mouthed, this nasty bastard began to abuse this girl whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn, by slapping her and whacking her with a billiard cue. Without doubt, he was a gold-plated piece-of-shit. So, doing the decent thing, Phillip & Olive stepped in, Amabile pushed Olive – a lady half his size - to the floor, and squaring off against Phillip, with his chest puffed out and acting like he was a billy big-bollocks, Amabile warned Phillip “if your wife go to Police, I kill you”. Obviously, by “I kill you”, he probably meant that having fumbled a loaded gun in his fat fingers, he’d drop it, and accidentally cause his death by negligence, in contravention of the appropriate gun law. But at that point, the spat between Amabile Ricca and Farrugia brothers had begun. Over the next two years, Amabile repeatedly taunted the brothers; he chided Francis saying “don’t speak to me no more, I break you three up, run you out of London” and twice he taunted Joseph by cursing “I will kill you all, I will cut you up in pieces and bits and throw you all away”, but he never did. Wisely, Phillip stayed out of his way, but (for various reasons) his two brothers could not; as they all frequented the same club, often worked in the same restaurant, and - as if this wasn’t weird enough - Francis lived in a top floor flat, at 66 Frith Street in Soho, and his flat-mate… was Amabile Ricca. So scared was little Francis of his burly room-mate - who had eyes like Satan’s nostrils, fists like meat-hooks and (it is said) slept with a knuckleduster on his fist, a knife in his hand and a loaded gun in his underpants - by the end of May, even though he was paying the rent, Francis was sleeping elsewhere. Francis was petrified, but just three weeks later, Amabile Ricca would be dead. Tuesday 15th June 1948 began as a very ordinary day… The two Farrugia brothers awoke in Cecilia Courtney’s flat at 17 St Luke’s Road in Notting Hill, with Joseph in his girlfriend’s bed and (being too afraid to head home) Francis kipping in their spare-room. Francis hadn’t slept a wink all night. As a small and slightly nervous man who hid in his big brother’s shadows; he didn’t like confrontations, he wasn’t much of a fighter and usually froze when faced with danger, but then he never needed to be the tough-guy, as he knew that Joseph always had his back. Over a late tea of egg, chips and fried bread, Joseph reassured his baby-brother (Joseph) “if he start on me, I won’t give him a chance”, and winked as he tapped his jacket pocket, which ominously bulged with a .32 calibre Walther pistol he had purchased three weeks earlier. But these were big brave words coming from a short-order cook with only minor convictions for blasphemy and rock-tossing. At 6pm, being low on basic rations like bread and milk, Joseph and Francis caught the bus to Oxford Street, where they did their shopping, collected their pay-slips, chatted with chums, and then treated themselves to a nice cup of tea at The Tulip, a basement restaurant at 56 Greek Street, situated smack-bang in the heart of Soho, just one street from Amabile, Francis’ flat and ‘The Maltese Club’. In less than three hours, Joseph Farrugia would shoot Amabile Ricca to death, but he didn’t know that. This was his first violent crime and his only murder, as he wasn’t a villain, a gangster or a killer. He was a cook, with a wife, two kids and a girlfriend. Like many, he dabbled in black-market goods, he skirted the law, he drank a bit, he fought a bit, he had an overblown reputation (as many Maltese men did for protection), and although it was said that ‘fear is a greater weapon than a gun’, when that threat isn’t real, the terrified then reach for the next-best thing - a gun – with no plans to use it, only to show it. That night, Joseph was here for billiards, not a bloodbath. But by 10pm, all that would change. Sat inside The Tulip, supping tea, although Joseph (and his gun) had left to pot some balls, Francis felt safe, as around him were his pals. The mood was casual, fun and calm, until the door swung open. (Thunder) Suddenly, a silence gripped the room, as mouths dried, throats gulped and hearts stopped. Being part man, part myth and pure evil, many had heard of him but very few had ever seen him, it was too late to leave or even to flee, as being a bad-dude with forty-seven convictions for assault, attempted murder and murder, including a brutal attack on a barrow boy who some said “was lucky to be alive”, everybody fell in fear of ‘The Terror of Maltese London’ (Thunder). Mwah-ha-ha-ha. But Amabile Ricca was only here for one man – Francis Farrugia. Looming ever closer; wincing at the foul smell from his sweaty brown suit, his yellowy crooked teeth and his bad breath (owing to his passion for pickled eggs), Francis’ petrified pals shuffled further away in their seats, as within an inch of Francis’ ear, Amabile hissed “I run you out of town, I kill you bad”. Perhaps this was an empty threat, one he had reneged on many times before, or maybe it wasn’t? Francis was alone, afraid and (unlike his brother) he was unarmed. Spotting his moment, Francis fled the restaurant and a few seconds later, he was safe… …except, as he reached Soho Square – allegedly being a big-time gangster - he realised he hadn’t paid for his cup of tea, and returned to the Tulip with an apology on his lips and a tuppence in his hand. Amabile saw him, got up and stalked his tiny prey all the way to ‘The Maltese Club’ at 3 Carlisle Street. Thirty minutes later, Amabile Ricca, The Terror of Maltese London’ and one of Soho’s most infamous and brutal gangsters would be gunned-down in a hail of bullets and blood. Well… sort of. Through the dark back alley, passed the overflowing bins and down the rickety metal staircase, Francis dashed into the safety of The Maltese Club. Inside sat the usual band of misfits and part-time kitchen staff, all sipping tea and acting tough, shielded from danger by a bluff reputation and a silly nickname. In the billiard room, Joseph played against the club’s co-owner “Big George” Mifsud, as watching from the side was Nicky “the Malt” Borg, Giovanni “The Meat” Portelli, George “Fish Eye” Talutti and a man known only as “Cush” because his surname was Cusherson. And in the card-room playing gin-rummy was Franky “Jurdin” who had a squint, “Nicky the butcher” had a double thumb on his right hand, and John Borg known “Hanzira” - as being short, fat and pale - his nickname translated as “the Pig”. They were joined in a game by Francis, as – outback in the kitchen - Harry Ardino was making the tea. As notorious gangsters go, these guys were (at best) slightly surly and (at worst) laughable. At 10:15pm, the heaving sweaty bulk of Amabile Ricca limped down the stairs of The Maltese Club. To the left, in the card-room, he saw no sign of Francis whose weak bladder meant he had popped to the loo, so he walked into the billiard room. Slumping his flabby backside on a thread-bare chair, the fat oaf groaned and moaned, as having removed his shoe, a dirty bandage and massaging his stinky foot, the Maltese terror whinged about his blisters like an old biddy with a dodgy hip. Unwittingly admitting that his foot wasn’t injured in a bloody fight with a barrow boy, but that his shoes were rubbing a bit. But across the billiard table - seeing Joseph Farrugia - suddenly Amabile’s mood changed. Popping on his shoe and standing nose-to-nose with his rival, as he hovered his hand just inside his jacket, Amabile shot Joseph a filthy look and cursed “I kill you, I kill you both”; only to then grin, laugh and back away. For now, the threat was over and the danger had looked as if it had passed… but by the time that the laughing bully had limped back to the hallway, in the card-room, he saw that Francis had returned. They traded glances. With Amabile stood by the stairs, glaring and grinning, taunting the tiny terrified man whose playing cards violently shook in his terrified hand, as this infamous killer – feared all across Soho - mouthed the words “I kill you, I kill you”, with his hand in his jacket, he lunged forward (BANG). Fired from a distance of just half-an-inch, the first shot ripped into Amabile’s back, breaking his third rib and fragmenting into bits, as one piece pierced his heart and the main chunk of lead sliced through his left lung. As he sunk to his knees, Joseph fired again (BANG), but his piss-poor aim scared the shit out of the card-players, as a smoking hot bullet rivetted itself into the heart of the wooden table. Clutching his chest, Amabile cried “Kattuni! Kattuni!”, which in Maltese means “they’ve killed me”. Being slumped like a sweaty lump at the foot of the stairs, his painful demise was marked by his wrist watch which shattered at exactly 10:29pm, the moment this nasty bastard struggled to clamber up the stairs and out to the safety beyond, as his slipping feet swam in a pool of his own sticky blood. Dying and wailing, no-one stopped to help him, no-one came to his aid, and – being so despised - even though there was a phone just above his head, no-one called the Police until ten minutes later. Amabile Ricca was rushed to Charring Cross Hospital, but by 10:55pm, he was declared dead (End). When the Police arrived, the crime-scene was strangely empty; they had a dying man, two bullets, an empty cartridge and a lot of blood; but no gun, no culprit and not a single eye-witness. A few had stayed, but all claimed to have been indisposed, distracted or suffering from an odd kind of amnesia, when the shooting took place. And as there were no regulars in this club that evening, only strangers, the manager could only remember his customers by nickname. By the next morning, as - Soho’s Maltese community was small, the list of possible suspects were few and all of the known felons who frequented that club weren’t difficult to track down - every witness was identified, interrogated, and although their memories were vague and many miraculously lost the ability to speak a single word of English, the only two who were missing were Joseph & Francis. Joseph & Francis Farrugia were tried at the Old Bailey on 16th July 1948; they both pleaded ‘not guilty’ on to the grounds of self-defence, but as dead man was unarmed, twenty-one-year-old Francis was charged as an accessory and sentenced to six months in prison, and twenty-nine-year-old Joseph was found guilty of murder, and sentenced to five years, but he served barely three. And that was the story of Amabile Ricca. Supposedly he was one of Soho’s most dangerous and feared gangsters, who died from a badly aimed shot, by a part-time cook, having bitched about his feet, made faces and cursed some empty threats in a club which only sold tea. He sounds pathetic, but this need to have a reputation is common amongst frightened boys trying to play big in a man’s world. So, was this a myth created as a form of self-protection, was it concocted by those who witnessed his death as a form of self-defence, or was Amabile Ricca really ‘The Terror of Maltese London’? OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. After the break, I’m going to eat a biscuit, slurp my tea, entertain you with a quiz (part of which I’ll probably ruin) and I’ll impart from more facts about this case, in an exciting instalment of Extra Mile. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Dreaded Frankie and Estelle Sullivan, I thank you both. Plus a thank you to everyone who took part in my secret Live Reading, which happened last week. I hope you enjoyed it. For those who missed it, there’s more on that shortly. Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** 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 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, therefore mistakes will be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile 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. It is not a full representation of the case, the people or the investigation in its entirety, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity and drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, therefore it will contain a certain level of bias to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER *** Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards 2018", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk
4 Comments
Harley O'Connor
21/6/2020 16:20:32
Phillip Farrugia is my grandfather, 10 years dead this month. Thanks for this slice of family history I never knew fully about. As you can imagine, wrongdoings are not often spoken about.
Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast
22/6/2020 14:52:15
Glad you found it interesting. A few weeks ago I was also introduced to the grandson of Amabile Ricca. It's a small world.
Rosemarie Smith (Attard)
6/7/2020 01:19:14
Amabile Ricca was my grandfather on my Mother's side. She was one of the four children. My mother was placed in an orphanage in Malta after Amabile died.
Philip Caruana
25/9/2020 07:50:42
The Farrugia’s are my uncles never heard the detailed story. Thanks Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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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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