BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
23 Old Compton Street today, where Bar Soho stands, but back in 1943 this was the Helvetia public house. On the pavement outside, Savvaas Demitriades was stabbed to death
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE:
On Monday 25th October 1943, at roughly 3:30pm, a businessman called Savvas Demetriades was murdered in broad daylight on a public pavement outside of the Helvetia pub at 23 Old Compton Street. The Police's investigation should have collapsed owing to the code of silence in Soho’s Greek-Cypriot community. But this would collapse owing to how petty the murder was.
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 teh patch of pavement where Savvas was murdered is located where the rum & raisen triangle is. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, 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.
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: This case was researched using the original court documents and the declassified police investigation files from the National Archives, as well as many other sources. MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: 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 a beef, a bust-up, a bit of bad blood between two hot-headed Greek Cypriots over little more than a few coins, which led to a brutal murder in broad daylight. Those who knew the two men claimed that they had seen nothing, but their strict code of silence was about to break. 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 112: Savvas Demetriades and the Code of Silence. Today I’m standing on Old Compton Street, in Soho, W1; one street south of the bungled porn heist by rabid willy-fiddler Richard Rhodes Henley, a few shops east of the arcade where Alfredo Zomparelli got popped playing pinball, and right next door to the Union Club where Charles Berthier gunned-down a rival over an innocent little comment about his “big arms” - coming soon to Murder Mile. Based at its edges, Old Compton Street is the cultural heart of Soho; a single street thankfully absent of the same high-street stores. Instead, we are blessed with something unique, diverse and authentic. Sadly, like so many places, Soho is sprinkled with attention-seeking tools with their silly beards, trilbies and motorised scooters - all of which screams “look at me, I have no personality” - as they dodge a dance troop shooting the next YouTube hit, a scrawny hipster reading ‘Trendy Allergies’ magazine and a dullard with a thimble-sized laptop who claims to be a ‘writer’ (they even have a website so it must be true) but the only thing that they’ve ever written is a Twitter post stating “I’m writing my novel”. Setting aside the awful gentrification which has ripped the guts out of Soho, what makes Old Compton Street so special is that it’s a place where many nationalities have settled down, set-up shop and served-up a little slice of their old life in with their new. It wasn’t planned, it just evolved, but it has spawned into a marvellous melting pot of styles, sights and smells, with little enclaves of culture on every street corner; whether delicatessens, patisseries, coffee shops or pizza parlours. In 1943, Savvas Demetriades & Christos Georghiou, two Greek-Cypriots who owned a café in the welsh city of Cardiff were frequent visitors to Soho for a coffee, a game of cards and some good conversation with their fellow countrymen. As with so many immigrants, the Cypriots kept-to-themselves, sorted out any problems within and (if needed) they protected their own with a refusal to trust the Police. But their loyalty would be sorely tested, when - in broad daylight, on the bustling pavement, outside of the busy Helvetia pub at 23 Old Compton Street - these best-buddies and recent rivals ended a very bitter feud… and the eye-witnesses to their crime felt obliged to claim that they had seen nothing. As it was here, on Monday 25th October 1943, that the very public stabbing of Savvas would prove to be so petty, that the code of silence in Soho’s Greek-Cypriot community would collapse. (interstitial) Some people kill for love, country, revenge or survival. It’s frowned upon, but to many such motives are understandable. And yet, others kill for causes so trivial, it makes you wonder why they bothered. Savvas and Christos were as close to being brothers as any brothers could be without being brothers. Born two years apart on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus; growing up in the capital city of Nicosia in the years preceding the First World War, daily life was hard owing to its isolated position, economic collapse, religious infighting and made worse by this former Greek colony being under the British boot. To the British, Cyprus was nothing but a strategic naval outpost overlooking the Suez Canal; its people were invisible, their lives were worthless and the land was traded as a little trinket between the Greeks and the Turks. Systematically plundered by larger nations, the tiny island of Cyprus and its people have endured tyranny for centuries in a divided population split between the Turkish-Cypriots and the Greek-Cypriots, many of whom fought during both World Wars for and against the British. As little boys raised during the First World War, the childhoods of Savvas and Christos were short; food was scarce, clothes were ragged and death was frequent. Being gripped by rationing, even law-abiding citizens would dabble in the depths of small-time criminality simply to survive by buying even the most basic of necessities on the black-market. Regarded as petty-thieves by their British occupiers, their daily lives were ruled - not by the military, or even their own police - but by the British Police, therefore it’s unsurprising that many Cypriots developed a mistrust and a strict code of silence was formed. Raised in abject poverty, Savvas & Christos naturally had a thirst for wealth, fine foods and sharp suits. To them, every penny was precious and - as in every family - the two boys squabbled over increasingly trivial matters, but always stuck together through thick-and-thin; like a big brother and a little. Savvas Christos Demetriades was born in 1909, two years after Christos. As the youngest of the two, Savvas was blessed with the patience and wisdom of an older man. He was frugal, astute and (although he loved the thrill of gambling on cards, dogs, horses and dice) he was a sensible spender who would happily blow a bundle on a long-shot in the hope of a big pay-off, but he always knew his limits. In relationships, Savvas was as a calm and loving man for whom family was an unbreakable bond. And being short but muscular man who was handsome in his own way, he had no problem with the ladies. By 1927, as Cyprus had become a British colony, being granted his citizenship and keen to seek a better life overseas, Savvas joined the Merchant Navy alongside his best-friend Christos. Being three inches shorter, four stone heavier and two years older, Christos Georghiou was more akin to a baby brother, both physically and mentally, who often envied the style and savvy that Savvas had, and (lacking the business acumen) he clung onto the younger man’s coat-tails. Like mirror opposites, Christos aspired to be bigger and better than his best-buddy - by petulantly being dressed in sharper suits, slicker hats and with his thin moustache Brilliantine’d into razor sharp slivers - but instead of trying to forge his own path, he would remain stuck in the shadow of Savvas. As a businessman, he disliked hard-work but loved money. As a gambler, he took big risks which rarely paid off. As a lover, he dated many of Savvas’ ex’s and flirted with any potential squeeze. And whereas Savvas had several bank accounts (for his legitimate purchases) and a strongbox under the floorboards (for those which weren’t), Christos never saved a penny. Instead he would seek out his next potential investment in the sports pages of his local rag. And although both men were hot-headed Cypriots prone to fiery outbursts, where-as Savvas would fume then forgive, Christos would bubble and erupt. Savvas would always take Christos under his wing, as although they weren’t related, family was family. For several years, the two men served side-by-side as cooks on several ships in the Merchant Navy. In the early 1930’s, as naturalised British citizens, they moved to Southampton, London and then to the Welsh city of Cardiff, all of which had a large Cypriot community and this became their new home. In 1939, Savvas & Christos decided to go into business together. They invested £150 each, put their skills to good use and – by infusing the standard English fare of cups of tea and fry-ups with a slice of their Cypriot upbringing – they opened the ‘British & Continental Café’ at 19 Caroline Street in Cardiff. It was popular and profitable among the Welsh and Cypriot locals alike. During the day it was a cheap eatery to feed families, but by night - with the blinds down and the doors locked – it was a gambling den for card-sharks like Christos. It was illegal, but through silence, it was kept off-the-Police’s radar. Being as different as they were similar, with two hot-headed men working side-by-side, all day, every day, in the heat of a scorching kitchen, naturally their tempers flared. So, for a while, although their little café proved to be a minor success, trivial little things had already caused it to start to slide. Seeing the café less as a business and more as a place for any pal of Christos to hang-out, Savvas rightly resented these bums who ponced his free food and ate up his profits, so as it tumbled from being a charming family café to doss-hole for deadbeats, very quickly the regular customers stopped coming. Desperate to beat his best-friend who was also his bitter rival, in the den, Christos used loaded dice, a rigged deck and every underhanded trick to win, and so, a deep mistrust began to creep in. It all seems so obvious where the problems lay, but being so hot-headed, both men struggled to simply say “I’m sorry” and (even over such trivial matters) they both harboured a grudge, especially when Savvas had started to date a young lady known only as ‘Peggy’, and Christos would flirt with her too. As best-friends who were as close as any brothers, their relationship fractured, their café bled money and as even the smallest of issues spiralled into petty violence, three incidents would split them apart. On the evening of 23rd March 1943, feeling rightly cheated having lost a sizable sum owing to Christos’ marked cards and wonky dice, an unidentified gambler cursed Christos as a “dirty Greek rat” and sliced open his nose with a flung cup. Seething, bloodied and unwilling to back-down from a petty slight - pulling a stiletto blade from his boot - Christos slashed back, and as the den erupted into all out war, tables were tipped, bottles were hurled and the white walls were re-decorated with splashes of red. And during the melee, as the level-headed Savvas tried to hold back his rabid partner, Christos bit him, which left a trail of blood to the sink and his right hand with a very visible scar for the rest of his life. Within minutes, the Police had a wealth of evidence, but with every witness held by a code of silence, no-one was convicted. All were released, but it lit a bright spotlight on the café, Christos and Savvas. On 12th April 1943, three weeks later, Christos was at it again. The place was a rival gambling den called the Anchor in Hayes Bridge, his targets were a croupier called Chris and a gambler known only as ‘Australian Joe’, the reason was petty, and armed with a broken table leg, he left six men bleeding and one man hospitalised for a week. Twelve arrests were made, but with the witnesses silent, no-one was convicted. And again, Christos was bailed out by Savvas… …but this wasn’t the proverbial straw which broke the camel’s back. In late April 1943, roughly two weeks later, Christos – who would rarely pull his weight, who had let his pals pitch the café into debt and who had frequently been bailed out by Savvas (whose personal savings had often propped up the business) – said that he had seen Savvas pocket some money from the café’s till. Savvas denied it, Christos was adamant, but by May their partnership was dissolved. Unable to find a common ground, or to simply apologise, the two former best-friends split-up, refused to talk and went their separate ways, but with both men being Greek-Cypriots with the same pals and past-times - as the bad blood festered - the chance of them bumping into each other again was high. Six months later, Savvas Demetriades was dead over matter of just £1 and 15 shillings... ...but for Christos Georghiou, it was a matter of pride. On Sunday 24th October 1943, one day before his death, Savvas caught the 10:30am train from Cardiff to Paddington and hopped in a cab to Soho. As a familiar face in its betting shops, patisseries and coffee bars, who had lived in a Cypriot enclave on nearby New Compton Street only a few years earlier, to Savvas, Soho was like a second home and his visits here were frequent and welcome. Since their partnership had dissolved, for an astute investor like Savvas, business had been good. The café was in profit, the gambling den was civilised, the police surveillance had ceased and he was here to collect a £200 winning from a £1 bet. That’s roughly £6000 he’d won off a dog he hadn’t even seen. Looking sharp in his black tailored suit, mirror-shined shoes and starched white shirt - although he carried a bank-book with a balance (in today’s money) of £40,000, with £11,500 in his bag, £10,000 in a cash box, two gold lighters in his pockets and a 24-carat gold ring on his finger with a diamond big enough to cause blindness – he knew no-one would mug him, as he was connected and respected. But being a cultural melting pot, as not everyone in Soho was Cypriot, Savvas left the bulk of his cash with Kristacos Dichomides; an old pal known as ‘Kiki’ who owned the Blue Water Café at 18 St Giles High Street, who – being like a brother – he knew he could trust him with his money and his life. At 5pm he left. At 7pm he met a cousin called Harry at the College Café on Gower Street, where they drank tea and discussed dog-racing. And at 8pm, they met a buddy called Nicola Costas, headed to a Greek tavern on Rathbone Place and ate heartily from the foods of their homeland. It was an ordinary evening for the party of four. So, needing a strong coffee and a few games of cards to see them through to the wee small hours, they headed to a friendly little café called Nico’s at 42 Dean Street... ...just a few doors down the pavement outside of 23 Old Compton Street, where barely sixteen hours later, Savvas Demetriades would be stabbed to death. As he casually strolled in, suddenly it was as if all of the air had been sucked out, as the room fell silent and cold. Like the British and Continental Café, Nico’s was a legal family eatery by day but an illicit den by night, where cards were played, items were fenced, money was made and no questions were asked. Full of Europe’s more hot-tempered patrons, tempers flared and fights were frequent as no-one liked to lose face. Only now, everyone’s eyes were fixed on two men, stood just a few feet apart, who hadn’t uttered a single word to each other in the last six months and now they were standing eye-to-eye. As a tight-knit community, everyone knew about the rift, the break-up and the café, they even knew about the £1 and 15 shillings which Savvas had supposedly stolen from the till, according to Christos. That was what the beef was about, £1 and 15 shillings, which today doesn’t even add up to fifty quid... ...but for the short, dumpy and moustachioed Christos, whose puffy pale face was profusely sweating and whose trembling hand was creeping nearer the blade in his boot, it was a matter of pride... ...only for Savvas it wasn’t. He was a businessman, a family man and a loyal friend, not a two-bit hood. So bellowing (Savvas) “Christos, my brother” across the room, scooping up his old pal in his big arms, wrapping him in a bear-hug and kissing both cheeks, for Savvas, family was family and all was forgiven. That night, the two men laughed like they did in the old good days. With the cards out, Christos on the beer and Savvas supping a lemonade (as he liked to keep sharp when money was at stake), the two men chatted about their ex-girlfriend ‘Peggy’ and mutually agreed to split the cost to bail her out of prison. And as this calm and pleasant night rolled on, at 4am, they all headed home to their beds. At 10am, the next day, Savvas, Harry and Nicola met at Nico’s café, but Christos didn’t show. Each man put in £300, but - with Christos missing - the pile was short, so (as always) Savvas covered his debt. He wasn’t angry or upset, he was just disappointed, but he knew that Christos couldn’t be trusted. Which was true... ...Christos stumbled out of bed just shy of noon, too late to be any use, too hungover to care and with his wallet suspiciously light, Christos headed out to a pub to grumble about his misfortune... but mostly to fume about Savvas. (Christos) “Savvas and his suits”. “Savvas and his gold”. “Savvas and his money”. Spitting venomous curses like “he take from me”, “he cheat me”, “we like brothers”, and never once hearing the irony in his paranoid fuming, as he angrily shuffled into a pub to sink a few pints and having got so staggeringly drunk he could hardly stand-up straight, at 3:20pm, as the seething wreck shuffled out of the Coach & Horses on Greek Street - still furious over the £1 and 15 shillings that “I know he stole” – Christos headed north up Dean Street towards Old Compton Street with a blade in his boot. The paths were bustling, the shops were buzzing and it was broad daylight when Savvas Demetriades and his friend Christos Costas headed south down Dean Street and entered Old Compton Street. In short, this should have been a simple case for the Police to solve, but with every investigation being reliant on eye-witnesses and with a deep mistrust of the British authorities among the Greek-Cypriots, as the strict code of silence crept in... suddenly the eye-witnesses turned blind, deaf and mute. The murder itself was self-explanatory... ... as outside of the Helvetia pub at 23 Old Compton Street, seeing Savvas, Christos punched his bitter rival in the back, a scuffle ensued with fists and feet flying, pulling his blade Christos stabbed Savvas once in chest, both men fell and Savvas was stabbed two more times. And as the blood-spattered man stumbled east towards Charing Cross Road, at the busy intersection, he hailed a taxi and fled... ...and that was it, but very few eye-witnesses could recall even those simple details. Within minutes PC George Newman had arrived on scene, where he saw a large crowd congregated around Dr Calvin Lambert (a passing doctor) who was attending to the profusely bleeding man. As a lone constable awaiting back-up, he tried to make sense of it all and to preserve the crime-scene as best he could, but he was just one man. Many witnesses walked away, many were unsure what they’d seen and many stated “I don’t recall”, “I didn’t see” or gave a vague description. Even Christos Costas (who had dined with both men the night before) claimed “I never seen that man before” and even as Savvas lay dying – with a punctured stomach, three broken ribs, a collapsed right lung and his left lung failing – he used one of his last breaths to protect his fellow Cypriot, his brother and his friend. Savvas Demetriades was rushed to Charing Cross Hospital, but owing to blood loss, he died on arrival. The investigation struggled to find the assailant, as although the Police had secured several witnesses to the attack, their memories would prove to be flaky, vague or mysteriously absent. Especially for those who had families, homes, livelihoods and a selfish desire to keep breathing. A US solider called Private Hoornastra saw Savvas but not his attacker. Martha Zurrer, a waitress at Brown’s Hotel saw most of it, but only from behind. Ellen Bennett, a receptionist at The Queensbury saw everything, except she was three stories up. And a milkman called Alwyn Childs who saw the whole incident (from soup-to-nuts) and gave a full and detailed description of the murder and the culprit, even down to the fact that the attacker was so drunk he had stabbed himself in the left leg. But when they were called in to attend a Police identification parade with Christos in the line-up; the soldier was absent, the waitress’s testimony was dismissed, the receptionist couldn’t identify the man at all, and the milkman (who served many of the Green-Cypriot businesses in and around Soho) flatly refused to walk down the line of suspects, nervously stating “he’s definitely not here”. As for evidence, the knife was lost, the taxi was never found and the blood stains on the street were washed away. And there, the murder investigation came to a close... (End) ...or, at least, it should have done. But a code of silence in a tight-knit community requires a level of honour for those to respect it. Being a businessman (even though his earnings weren’t always legitimate), Savvas was a good, decent and loyal man who treated every Greek-Cypriot as his own, as to him - family was family. Whereas Christos was a reckless gambler and an angry drunk who left debts all over town and had spilled blood on a public street over the paltry sum of just £1 and 15 shillings... which wouldn’t feed him for one day. All it took was one person to say his name and the whole code collapsed. A cousin of Savvas called Joannis Mina spotted Christos in the shop of a Mrs Christina Douglas on New Cavendish Street and (after a brief bit of surveillance) he was arrested the next morning at her home at 26 Marlborough Hill in Wealdstone. He was pale, hungover, agitated and had a fresh stab wound to his left leg. And although the Police had no viable witnesses, it became a moot point, as Christos gave a full confession. Christos Georghiou was tried at the Old Bailey on 10th December 1943, at which he pleaded ‘not guilty’. But having deliberated for 55 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of ‘guilty’ and he was sentence to death. As Christos left the dock, the 36-year-old gambler wept (as he did during his confession) stating of Savvas (Christos) “I don’t know why I did it, he was so good to me, my friend, my brother”. On 2nd February 1944 at 9am, with his appeal dismissed, he was executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison and in his final days alive, not one single friend from his close-knit community paid him a visit. So many people attended the funeral for Savvas that the service was standing-room only, but having shamefully killed in broad daylight for a few coins, the friends of Christos Georghiou refused to take the short trip to see him in prison, as - to them – his life wasn’t even worth the price of a bus ticket. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. Up next, we have some extra info about this murder case, there’s a little quiz and a chat about tea and cake, as well as the usual pointless waffle. It’s not compulsory, so feel free to switch off now. If not, pop on the kettle and join me for a cuppa. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporter who is Kevin Price, I thank you very much, as well as a thank you to two very kind people who have donated to keep Murder Mile alive, they are Tracy The Cat Lady (who donated via Supporter) and Anne-Marie Griffin (via Murder Mile eShop). I thank both of you hugely. As well as a thank you to everyone who continues to listen to the show. Murder Mile was researched, written and 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
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BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
By the Maida Hill tunnel where the Pineapple Gate tollbooth once stood and where the torso of Hannah Brown was discovered
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN:
On Wednesday 28th December 1836 at roughly 2pm, off Pineapple Place in Maida Vale, the dismembered torso of an unidentified lady was discovered hidden behind a paving stone. With no arms, no legs and no head, her identity was impossible to determine, but the investigation and discovery of subsequent body parts unearthed one of the most brutal murders in British history.
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 Pineapple Place, near Pineapple Gate where the torso of Hannah Brown was found is located where the red triangle is. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two little videos of the locations for Ep111: The Scattered Remains of Hannah Brown. To the left is the footage by the Maida Hill tunnel where Pineapple Place once stood and where the torso of Hannah Brown was found and on the right is Stepney Lock where her head was found.
This video is a link to youtube, so it won't eat up your data. 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 to bottom and left to right: the rough location of Pineapple Place where the torso of Hannah Brown was found, Stepney Lock where her head was found, The Angel pub where the pre-wedding drinks were to take place, St Giles In The Fields Church where the wedding was to take place, an example of Hannah's home and the villas near Pineapple Place.
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: This case was researched using the original court documents from the Old Bailey, as well as many other sources. MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: 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 Hannah Brown, a hard-working sweet-natured widow in her twilight years of her life who was looking to settle down, set-up shop and move to America with her loving husband-to-be. Every part of her dream came true, only what she found wasn’t happiness, but death. 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 111: The Scattered Remains of Hannah Brown. Today I’m standing by the Maida Hill tunnel, just off Edgware Road, W2; four blocks north of the seedy hotel where Agnes Mary Walsh met her demise at the hands of the Sad Faced Killer, three blocks north of the odd suicide pact of Lieutenant Colonel Felic Sterbe, one street north-east of the floating suitcase found to have been stuffed with the suffocated corpse of Marta Ligman, and one street west of the unsolved and deeply troubling death of Amala De Vere Whelan - coming soon to Murder Mile. Situated within tooting distance of the dingy squalor of Paddington station, running parallel with the busy roar of Edgware Road and skirting the eastern edge of the last stretch of the Grand Union Canal is a series of long elegant avenues comprising of opulent white-stone villas for the seriously wealthy. As a former hunting ground known as Tyburnia, around the 1830’s when construction began, although it was only one and a half miles from Marble Arch and the Tyburn Gallows (which marked the entrance to the city), this part of Maida Vale was still regarded as countryside. One of the few thoroughfares of which was Edgware Road, and a few yards from this spot stood a toll-booth called Pineapple Gate. Of course - except for the avenues, the canal and the tunnel - very little still exists of the woodland, the toll-booth or the exact location at Canterbury Villas where this first grisly discovery took place. This is a gentle canal-side walk, where couples drained of conversation beyond the occasional grunt toss scraps of focaccia to the disapproving ducks, sip a glass of house white as the trucks thunder by, drool over the houses no-one could never hope to buy (if they actually pay their taxes) and dream of a better life in a bigger house… only stuck with the same old misery-guts. But then again, that is love. To many, love is for life. But to some, love is brief, convenient and a necessary evil to a quick solution. By Christmas 1836, fifty-year-old widow Hannah Brown had found happiness, love and (after years of hard-work and heart-ache) she was about to fulfil the dreams which she truly deserved. She felt alive, whole and complete, and yet – with her life cruelly cut-short - her arms, legs and head were missing. As it was here, on Wednesday 28th December 1836, just off Pineapple Place, that the first piece of Hannah Brown was found, and unveiled one of the most brutal murders in British history (interstitial) There was never a lovelier lady than that of Hannah Brown, as said every single one of her friends and neighbours, and although - in death - pleasantries are readily spoken, in Hannah’s case this was true. Hannah Brown was born Hannah Gay in the spring of 1776. Raised in the rural peace of the market town of Wymondham (in Norfolk), it was a place famed for brush-making. Coming from an aspirational lower middle-class family, Hannah was the second eldest child to a school master and a seamstress, who blessed their children – Mary, Hannah, Sarah, Rebecca and William – with a solid education, the skills to survive life and – more importantly – a level of politeness, decency and a strong work ethic. Being a real mix of both parents, Hannah was a strong stout woman who stood five-foot eight inches tall; with a long pale face, short thick teeth and brown hair down to her waist, with a high-chest, strong limbs and large hands. She was gentile, polite and elegant, but with a man’s physical strength. Described as friendly and warm, being blessed with so many faithful friends who would remain by her side through thick and thin, Hannah always had a song in her heart, a spring in her step and - no matter what, being so strong-willed - she would be prepared for everything that life would throw at her. By the turn of the 1800’s, Hannah was married; she was in love, happy and although accepting of the cruel fact that she could never bear children – she had a loving husband and a happy future ahead. But barely a few years later, Hannah was alone, childless and a widow, aged just twenty-three. By the 1810’s, Hannah had remarried and – once more - he was a good man who loved her dearly, but bad luck would strike again, and by the time she was in her mid-thirties, she had been widowed twice. As before, her friends and family rallied round, and with her grief dampened by a £400 inheritance which would keep this smart frugal lady safe and secure for a good long while, she didn’t need to remarry, but knowing that she loved to be loved, she worried that her love life was forever doomed. Having buried her second husband, shortly afterwards her brother-in-law was tragically killed leaving his pregnant wife a widow, who (unable to cope) was committed to an asylum. Hannah had no experience as a parent, but being a devoted god-mother, her warmth and compassion came naturally, she raised Mary-Ann as her own and often referred to this young sweet girl as “my daughter”. Mary-Ann would flourish and thrive as a hatmaker in Yarmouth, and it was all down to Hannah. By her forties, having moved to London’s West End and being an independent woman, Hannah earned her income as housekeeper to Mr Perrin, a hatter and Mr Oliver, an anchor-maker, all who hailed her as an asset. But keen to become her own boss, Hannah purchased a brand-new mangle off a carpenter called Mr Ward on nearby Chenies Street and became a washer woman. A physically demanding job which took skill and strength, but it wasn’t just to earn an income, it was to get her nearer her goal. In the parishes of Soho and Fitzrovia, Hannah was well-known, well-loved and easy to spot by her distinctive look; even if age had added a few wrinkles, a salt & pepper hue to her long hair and (in an accident with a fellow maid) had left a tear in the lobe of her left ear when an earring was ripped out. Elegantly dressed in a black silk cloak, a hand-woven shawl and a long black boa, she didn’t dress like a typical washer-woman, but again, she didn’t dress like someone pretending to be who she wasn’t. She was a decent, kind and staunchly sober woman, who worked incredibly hard to save every penny so she could fulfil her dream of buying a little shop of her own to sell fruits and pastries. By the winter of 1836, having started with a series of tragedies, the life of fifty-year-old Hannah Brown was looking rather rosy. She was happy, healthy and having fallen in love with a young widower - who loved her without question, he had asked her to marry him on Christmas Day and the two planned to emigrate to his farmstead in Canada - this is where she would spend the rest of her life… …only, when the world was celebrating Christmas, Hannah was being hacked to bits. Wednesday 28th December 1836 was a bitterly cold day. The wind was bitingly crisp, the canal was solid with ice and a thick layer of snow speckled the frozen ground. So cold was the earth that the workmen in Tyburnia had to wait to lay the pathways till the midday sun had softened the soil. At a little after 2pm, by the toll booth at Pineapple Gate, a builder called Robert Bond was returning to work when he spotted a four-foot long by three-foot wide paving slab propped against the wall of Canterbury Villas. It had been there for exactly four days, only now, it was hiding a large hessian sack. With frosted breath, as Robert heaved the brown coarsely-woven bag (which was as big and bulky as a small sack of coal), a slight tearing ripped at its sticky base as the leaking red liquid from within had frozen the sack to the cold-stone floor, leaving a vivid pool which was unmistakably blood. Alerting a policeman, PC Samuel Peglar arrived at the scene at 2:10pm, and when he held the lip of the sack, unwound its string cord (held in place by several crudely poked eyelets) and as the wide mouth of the sack gaped open, he gasped, as inside he witnessed the aftermath of an act of pure evil. Pale, naked and partially frozen, it was unmistakably a woman’s body, only with no arms, no legs and no head, it was just a torso. Being large framed, loose-skinned and high-breasted, her age was hard to fathom but early fifties seemed about right. With no birth-marks, her identity was impossible to tell. And missing two-thirds of her body, her cause of death was unknown. But whoever had hacked her to pieces had done so crudely (by ripping jagged tears through her thighs, arms and neck), but as the old rusty blade snagged and stalled half-way through - with brute force – each bone was pressed and bent till it snapped like twigs, leaving five jagged sticks poking out of the tatty stumps of her corpse. Requisitioning a barrow, the body was carted to the Paddington Police station on Hermitage Street (where it was preserved in vinegar) along with the hessian sack and the wood shavings at its base, but as no-one had been reported missing, the unidentified torso at Pineapple Gate was a mystery. In the months leading up to Christmas 1836, Hannah Brown’s life was good, in fact it was very good. Blessed with powerful arms, large hands and a solid work ethic, Hannah was a savvy woman who knew how to run a business well. With a new mangle, a warm fire and constant pots of boiling water on the stove, from the ground-floor at 45 Union Street in Fitzrovia, she worked in the front parlour, lived in the back, and although frugal, she was always kind and elegant, with her sights on a little pastry shop. With her parents dead, her sisters back in Norfolk and her god-daughter all grown-up, Hannah’s only family was her little brother William – who worked as a broker to Mrs Blanchard at 10 Goodge Street – and although they lived just one street apart – for whatever reason – they rarely spoke. And yet, as a truly lovely lady, Hannah was never short of old friends, new pals… and now, a male admirer. On an unspecified date in October 1836, while her mangle was being repaired by the carpenter Mr Ward on nearby Chenies Street and she was ordering a hessian sack of wood shavings to stoke her fire, it was there that she first set eyes on a very dashing gentleman called James Greenacre. Being a charming forty-two-year-old businessman with sorrowful eyes, a distinguished nose and a kind smile, whose curly brown hair and tatty side-burns were in dire need of a lady’s finesse, although they looked an odd fit – as he was a few inches shorter, a good deal thinner and eight years younger than Hannah – the couple were instantly smitten, having found their soul-mate with a lot in common. Equally being as unlucky in love, where-as Hannah had grieved by the graves of two husbands, living a short but harder life, James had lost three wives and had buried four of his seven children. And just like Hannah, although money could never replace a loved-one, he was financially secure having bought several houses in Camberwell (South London) and a one-thousand-acre farm off Canada’s Hudson Bay. Neither of them needed to remarry, but finding a kinship together, they both loved to be loved. Near the end of November 1836, James Greenacre proposed to Hannah Brown and she accepted. As devout Catholics, they had their wedding banns published by the minister of St Giles-in-the-Fields church on the 27th November, 4th December and 11th December and planning a little libation with a few friends next door at The Angel public house, they would be married at St Giles on Christmas Day. It was the epitome of a whirlwind romance. As a delightful couple, united in grief, who’d found love later in life and chose to be wed surrounded by a handful of Hannah’s dearest friends, as under a twinkling blanket of snow, Mr & Mrs Greenacre would emerge to jubilant bells and Christmas hymns. So smitten was Hannah, that although her plan was to sell-off her mangle, pack-up her clothes and wisely invest her inheritance in a little pastry shop in Fitzrovia, now she had a new dream. To pack-up, to marry, to move to Canada with her beloved husband James and to live the life that this wonderful woman truly deserved. She had no debts, no children and no responsibility. There was no real reason for Hannah to remain in England, so why not leave the smoggy drizzle behind and finally be happy? On Wednesday 21st December, four days before her nuptials, Hannah visited her brother William to inform him of her plans to emigrate, but – for whatever reason – he wasn’t invited to the wedding. On Thursday 22nd December, Hannah introduced James to her best friends Mr & Mrs Davis over a light supper in the Davis’s home at 45 Bartholomew Close in Smithfield. The conversation was cordial, the couple sat hand-in hand on the sofa and the Davis’ were ecstatic at the news that (with no parents of her own) Hannah wanted Mr Davis to give her away and Mrs Davis to be her bridesmaid. Both were delighted and honoured, if a little tearful at the thought of losing contact with their good friend, but James assured them that they would always welcome, at any time, to stay with them in Hudson Bay. And with that, although Hannah was a sober woman who never drank, instead she raised a goblet of water as the foursome of friends toasted the glorious wedding and bright future of Hannah Brown and her new beau. At 10pm they left, smiling, happy and walking arm-in-arm towards Newgate Prison. On the Christmas Eve of 1836, with the ground freshly sprinkled with a smattering of crisp snow, the festival smell of mulled wine and roasted chestnuts teasing every sniffly nose, and the joyous hum as carols were carried on the misty air, Hannah had finished packing-up her life at 45 Union Street. Her mangle was gifted to an old friend, her furniture was sold, the keys were returned, the rent was paid, her customers were thanked and her two rooms was left clean and ready for the next tenant. At 12pm, Hannah called on Catherine Glass, a friend and washer-woman who lived on Windmill Street to drop off an overnight bag and her wedding dress, so she could spend (as tradition decrees) her last night of freedom away from her husband-to-be. Hannah’s mood was bright, happy and beaming. At 3pm, wearing her black silk cloak, black boa and distinctive white shawl, as well as two elegant pearl drop earrings worn a little higher owing to the old tear in her left ear lobe, James and the coachman loaded Hannah’s three trunks into a horse-drawn carriage, and she left Union Street forever. By the next morning, at St Giles, Hannah was due to be married to the man that she loved … …but instead, her cold dead corpse had been crudely dismembered. So, what went wrong? James Greenacre was a lover and a liar. As a serial widower with three dead wives, all of whom he had met, hastily married and were all older and wealthier than himself, each one (whether by disease, fever or accident) had died young and left him as the sole beneficiary of their estates. And where-as Hannah had frugally saved the nest-egg which she had been bequeathed, James liked to spend. He bought a pub in Woolwich, a house in West Ham, a terrace in Camberwell, and (supposedly) a large farm in Hudson Bay, although no-one ever saw it. Prone to dodgy deals, often dabbling in untaxed tea, he had fled to America with a wife and four children, but by August 1836, only he returned to London. On an unspecified date two months later, James overheard a carpenter called Mr Ward chatting to a lovely but lonely lady who planned to purchase a little pastry shop with her £400 widow’s inheritance. James was instantly smitten with Hannah, and where-as she loved to be loved, all he loved was money. Marriage was the fastest route to legally acquire it. And to him, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t single. Four years earlier, whilst married to his third wife, as a serial philanderer, James also had a thirty-five-year-old mistress called Sarah Gale, together they had a son and they planned to elope to Canada. He needed money, Hannah’s money and marriage was the key… only something went horribly wrong. Late on Christmas Eve, as Mr & Mrs Davis picked-up a cut of mutton for the post-wedding roast, they bumped into James on Tottenham Court Road. He was agitated, flushed and barked “the wedding’s off”, rambling about how Hannah was “debt-ridden”, “morally-loose” and a “drunk”, as he barged by the aghast couple with a few borrowed tools under his arm, all tied-up in a brown hessian sack. His accusations were untrue, they knew that, but without Hannah here, how could they prove it? Six hours earlier everything had started so well, as James loaded onto a horse-drawn carriage the three heavy trunks full of her worldly possessions – such as some silks, pottery and trinkets, all of which would fetch a pretty price, as well as a pair of pearl earrings, a gold pocket-watch and details of her inheritance – as they trotted out of Union Street for the very last time, with James lovingly wrapping a warm shawl around her shoulders, to shield his cash-cow from the cold, as the couple headed south. Over the next hour, as the carriage clip-clopped over the River Thames, they kissed and cuddled as James regaled Hannah with the false hopes of what their new life together would be. All of it was true – the home, the marriage, the ship to Canada – only the woman he wanted by his side was his mistress. At 5pm, the carriage pulled into Carpenter’s Place in Camberwell; a tightly-packed terrace of slightly dilapidated houses with broken bricks, shattered tiles and cracked windows. As landlord, James owned them all, but being in arrears and ready to default, he had no plans to repair them, or even to stay. As he dragged the trunk’s dead-weight into the dark gloom of house number six, happy that none of the neighbours had seen them, James closed the door and shuttered the windows to hide his crime. Only, this wasn’t a murder, but adultery. James was a coward, plain-and-simple, who was no better at brutality than he was as a businessman. After the marriage, he wouldn’t kill her, he would fleece her and flee on a fast ship with his mistress Sarah and their son, leaving Hannah broke, alone and tearful. That was James’ plan… or so he would claim. Only Hannah didn’t know that, and neither did Sarah. Keen to spend Christmas Eve with the man they loved, that evening, the two women met for the very first time. They argued, they cried and - according to James – being a bit drunk, Hannah swung in her chair, fell backwards, hit her head on the fireplace and - out of blind panic - he disposed of her body. Of course, being a liar, her autopsy would tell a different story. Being seated at the time of the attack, with a cup of tea in her belly and no defensive wounds, Hannah was struck from behind with a heavy blunt object. With a force so hard she headbutted the table, it snapped her nose, split her skull and detached her right eye from the socket, so the ruptured eyeball dangled down the pale skin of her bleeding cheek. Conscious but dazed, as she steadied herself to sit upright, she saw two sights - her bloodied lap and James with a log – as across her swollen lumpen face, he struck again, fracturing both sides of her jaw, as she slumped hard onto the cold stone floor. And as this grieving widow, loyal friend and kindly god mother lay in a contorted heap, with her dreams now as shattered as the bones in her face, James slit her throat and stood as she rasped her last breath. A short while later, having stashed a few rusty tools in a hessian sack from the shop of Mr Ward the mangle-maker, as he barked to Mr & Mrs Davis “the wedding’s off”, Hannah Brown was already dead. Across the snowy Christmas night, as joyous carols drifted in the foggy air, behind the dark shutters of 6 Carpenter’s Place, a young boy endlessly wailed at the sights he was seeing. As sat atop of a table, with a fresh corpse below his knees, as the old rusty saw he had stolen was barely sharp enough to rip the muscle and sinew, but was too blunt to sever through her neck, perching the corpse’s head over the edge, his father - James – pressed and bent with all of his force, until the fifth vertebrae went snap. Crudely, her limbs were severed likewise, as (quickly recovering from the shock of such a savage death) Sarah picked over the dead woman’s belongings, like a famished vulture pecking at a rotting carcase. On Christmas Day, James bagged up the bits; the head in a silk handkerchief, her limbs in a tradesman’s bag and her torso in a brown hessian sack, as at the base lay a scattering of wood shavings. On Boxing Day, he boarded a horse-drawn carriage bus with a blue tradesman’s bag and - in separate journeys - discarded the bits of his betrothed far across the city – in the West, the East and the South – with her limbs later found in a field in Brixton, her severed head blocking the canal lock in Stepney and her frozen torso hidden behind a large stone paving slab by the toll-booth at Pineapple Gate. Having neither heard a peep from Hannah or James since Christmas Eve - believing she had either fled in shame, eloped in joy, or (as she had originally planned) was living overseas - no-one reported her missing. So, for the next few months, having preserved it in vinegar, the head of Hannah Brown was put on display in a pickling jar at the Paddington Workhouse, but no-one was able to identify her… Not until three months later, when hearing word that the mysterious severed head had salt & pepper hair, short thick teeth and a healed slit down her left ear-lobe – although the bloodless skull was gaunt and deformed – William identified it as his sister and James Greenacre was arrested. (End) On the evening of Sunday 24th March 1837, having obtained a warrant, Inspector George Feltham entered a rented lodging at 1 St Alban's Place in Kennington, where he found James and Sarah in bed together. To the side were three large trunks stuffed full of the deceased’s worldly possessions; a black silk cloak, a black boa, a distinctive white shawl, and – of the pieces they hadn’t pawned off, such as rings, gowns and handkerchiefs – were the gold pinchbeck pocket-watch and the set of pearl earrings. The Policeman’s timing was very fortuitous, as having already booked a ship’s passage for the next day, by the break of dawn, James, Sarah and their son would have set sail to Canada – never to return. Upon his arrest, having become a media sensation especially in the trashy penny-dreadfuls which lapped up every gory detail of the corpse’s demise, although James relished his new-found fame – like a coward - he stuck to his story about an accident and he branded Hannah as drunk, loose and in debt. On 10th April 1837, James Greenacre and Sarah Gale were tried at the Old Bailey. Sarah as an accessory after the fact and James for wilful murder, to which they both pleaded ‘not guilty’. But after a two-day trial, having deliberated for just two minutes, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. Sarah Gale was transported to Australia where she would live for the rest of her life. Where-as, on the 2nd May 1837 at Newgate Prison, at the hands of an equally sadistic executioner such as he, known as William Calcraft, James Greenacre entertained the baying crowds with a dangle and an odd little dance at the end of a taut hemp rope, until – after six interminably long minutes – his feet stopped twitching. His death was agonisingly slow, but for the greedy few who sold grisly memorabilia, it was profitable. But this story isn’t his. Hannah Brown was a lovely lady with dreams of living the life which she truly deserved. She was strong, smart and independent. She didn’t need to marry, but she loved to be loved, so in her twilight years, she knew she didn’t wish to be alone. She thought she had found the perfect man, a loving widower who was so similar to her in so many ways, but all he ever loved was her money. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. If you’ve not been too grossed-out by the grisly details of the scattered remains of Hannah Brown, there are a lot more details which didn’t make it into the episode which I can share with you in the next instalment of Extra Mile after the break, as well as some of the usual nonsense. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporter who is Fiona Montgomery, I thank you very much, as well as a thank you to Selina Dean for your very kind donation via the Murder Mile e-shop. Plus a big thank you to everyone who sent lovely messages saying how much they enjoyed How To Get Away With Murder. It was a much-needed deviation from the usual Murder Mile gloom, which we all need at the moment (given how crappy the year’s been) so I’m glad you liked it. 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
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Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TEN:
On Friday 5th July 1940 at 13:45pm, War Reservist Constable Jack William Avery left his post at the 'Old Police House' in Hyde Park having been alerted to a man "acting suspisiously" near the gun-emplacements. Confronting the man, PC Avery was stabbed in the left thigh and died the next day of blood loss. PC Avery is one of 1600 police officers to have died since policing began... but is there more to this story, why did he die and who was Frank Stephen Cobbett?
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 the gun emplacements in Hyde Park is where the black triangle is, just to the right of the Sepentine in Hyde Park. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two little videos of the locations for Ep110: A Memorial to The Fallen. On the left is the Old Police House in Hyde Park where Constable Jack Avery was based and the location of the gun emplacements which Frank Cobbett was sketching. This video is a link to youtube, so it won't eat up your data.
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. On the left is the medical report marking Jack's arrival in hospital, his injuries and his death. On the right is the Old Police House, the location of the gun emplacement and the memorial.
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: This case was researched using the original declassified polcie investigation files held at the National Archives, as well as many other sources.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: 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 a memorial to a police constable who died in the line of duty. On the plaque is inscribed his name, his rank and a few details about his tragic demise, but one key detail is missing; as there was also a man with a name and a rank who (some may say) deserves to be remembered too. 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 110: A Memorial to The Fallen. Today I’m standing in Hyde Park, W2; a leisurely stroll west from the site of the Hyde Park bombing, a short dawdle south of the three possible robberies or murders of Vincent Patrick Keighrey, a brisk walk north from where John George Haigh toasted his old pal William McSwan before dissolving his body in acid, and a little saunter from the ice disaster on the Serpentine - coming soon to Murder Mile. Perched near the border of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens is the ‘Old Police House’; a three-storey brown-brick Queen Anne-style lodge built in 1902; with crisp white window sills, a neatly manicured garden and Victorian street lamps. If anything, it looks more like a manor house than a police station. The Royal Parks Keepers (as they were known until 1974) were a police constabulary separate from the Metropolitan Police who were there to keep peace and order in London’s royal parks, with some constables living in the park’s many lodges as well as working inside of the Marble Arch itself. Today, as a constant wail of sirens encircles Hyde Park, inside the lush greenery of this 350-acre former hunting ground, life is a little more sedate than in the city itself. It’s not without crime, as there’s often a rogue barbeque to extinguish, a noisy stereo to quieten, rowdy crowds to quell at Speaker’s Corner and the endless theft of phones from a long procession of posing pouting narcissists who believe that Instagram isn’t worth tuppence unless it’s chock full of shoddy videos of their stupid grinning faces. But during World War Two, the policing of Hyde Park faced some truly challenging times, as it wasn’t just an escape for the city’s civilians or a pasture for the grazing sheep, as to protect the city from the daily onslaught of Messerschmitt’s and Heinkel bombers from the German Luftwaffe, Hyde Park was a strategic military base complete with soldiers, barracks and a radar station, as well as defences and offensive weapons such as barrage balloons, rocket-batteries and gun-emplacements. Largely undocumented, much of Hyde Park’s war-time history has been lost to the winds of time, and although a memorial rightfully stands at the ‘Old Police House’ to Constable Jack William Avery - who gave his life doing his job and protecting the city - this is not a story about one fallen hero, but of two. One who is remembered in death, and the other who was forgotten while he was still alive. As it was here, on Friday 5th July 1940 at 13:45pm that Constable Avery left his post on a routine job, where two very different heroes would meet, and their lives would be changed forever. (Interstitial) On 5th July 2007, a memorial to mark the 67th anniversary of the murder of PC Avery was held at the north-east corner of the ‘Old Police House’. In attendance was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, the officers of the renamed Royal Parks Police and - following a mass media appeal by the superintendent - Margaret Penfold, who was a distant relative of the deceased constable. With the gloomy sunless sky speckled with scattered showers which reflected the sombre tone of this lost summer’s day, Jack’s death represented one of more than sixteen thousand officers who had died in the line of duty since policing began in Britain, including fourteen who would be killed that year alone. To honour him, on the brown-brick wall of his former-station was placed a grey square slate etched with the Metropolitan Police emblem, and in a white Arial font (as used by the UK Police) were these few words; “to the memory of Jack William Avery, war reserve constable 890A, Metropolitan Police, A Division, Hyde Park Police Station, who was murdered near this spot on the 5th day of July 1940”. To the many people who pass this plaque, this is all they will ever know, as it says very little about him, and to be honest we know very little about him. Like so many ordinary people who died to give us the freedom we often squander - as Jack wasn’t a lord, a general or blessed with wealthy benefactors who would ensure that a rose-tinted view of his potted history would be nationally marked with reverence and honour – the details of Jack’s ordinary life are as scant as the words on his own memorial. Jack William Avery was born on 5th November 1911 in Bromley (a borough now in south-east London but back then it was a parish in Kent). As the only known child of a 29-year-old mechanic and chauffeur called Frank Gerard Avery and a 30-year-old teacher called Bertha Wilding, Jack was born and raised in an ample lodging at 5 Northall Villas in the nearby borough of Mottingham. Their income was small, their home life was happy and although his birth was unexpected, he was no less loved. Being educated locally, Jack was described as a “good student” although he was nothing exceptional, he passed his school certificate and – just like his father – he trained as a motor mechanic, but being short, asthmatic and cursed with bad eyesight, Jack’s career options were always going to be limited. Described as kind and polite, Jack was a slightly built peaceful young man with old-fashioned manners, who would always tip his hat to a lady, open doors for mothers and never forgot his p’s and q’s. By 1939, being recently engaged, earning a wage and living with his fiancé in a small flat, Jack’s little life was as good as anyone else’s in those turbulent months before the world was plunged into war. Keen ‘to fight for King & Country’, on the 3rd September 1939, 28-year-old Jack marched down to Lord’s cricket ground to enlist in the armed forces. Experience wasn’t necessary, as all the right recruit needed was four simple things; to be young, fit, eager and healthy. But of the four, Jack only had three. Listed as ‘4F’, there were many reasons why a seemingly healthy young man like Jack could fail his medical and be declared ‘unfit to serve’, in Jack’s case it was his height, his sight and his weak lungs. Still eager to ‘do his bit for Britain’, that very same day, Jack enlisted as a War Reserve Constable for the Royal Parks Keepers, based at ‘The Old Police House’ in Hyde Park, and he did his parents proud. For such a slight man, it was an odd career, but with the city bludgeoned by a constant bombardment, the park under military control and the air thick with suspicion as possible foreign agents lurked within, being in a time of great mistrust and uncertainty, his role was no less vital. And yet, Jack’s new job and its location perfectly suited his mild demeanour as – although his humdrum routine would often be interspersed by the swift crack of cannon fire and the brilliant flash of surface-to-air rockets – he liked being an officer who peacefully patrolled the lush green oblong of ponds, trees and sheep. Only, of the six years the war would last, Constable Avery would serve only ten months and two days. On Friday 5th July 1940, at 1:45pm, having been alerted by a keen-eyed member of the public who had seen a dark suspicious figure lying-low in the thick grass, furtively making notes with a pad and pencil of the arch of allied gun emplacements positioned at the north-west edge by Lancaster Gate, although unarmed, PC Avery dashed to the scene and in the pursuit doing of his duty, he was stabbed to death. His murder would leave his elderly parents childless and his grieving fiancé without a husband-to-be. That was his story and (of course) it warrants a memorial for the sacrifice that this selfless hero made, but this is only half of the story, as (unusually) the other hero in this tragic tale… was his murderer. His name was Frank Cobbett… but very few people would know that, or even care. Frank Stephen Cobbett was born on the 21st November 1897, in a small one-roomed lodging in a tiny tumble-down house at 19 John Street in Battersea, an industrial wharf-strewn part of South London. As the third eldest child to John Cobbett (a builder) and Mary Ann Taylor (a housewife) - just like his two older siblings Thomas and Ellen who were shamefully conceived out-of-wedlock - by the time that both parents had scraped together a little money to marry, Mary Ann was very heavily pregnant, the wedding was a shotgun affair and Frank would forever cursed with the cruel title of a ‘bastard’. Aged four, with Mary Ann’s mother in-tow, moving to a slightly bigger but equally tiny brown-bricked cottage at 28 Mullins Path in Mortlake, this family of six, soon to be seven, lived a life which was hard, cold, cramped and chaotic. Fights were frequent, food was scarce and tragedy would soon strike. In 1907, when Frank was only nine, his mother died. In need of a wife to care for him and his children, John Cobbett hastily married a recent widow called Ada Coxen barely one year after his wife’s death, and in the two cramped rooms of their squalid little cottage now lived a family of twelve; including Frank, his dad, his dead mother’s mum, his three siblings, a step-mother, four step-siblings and a new baby on the way. Frank was devastated at his mum’s death but equally distraught at his dad’s betrayal. Being a little slow at reading and writing, Frank scraped through a basic education; he was unskilled, uneducated and (as tradition dictated) doomed to follow his father in the trade of being a brick-layer. Disliking his dad, bored with his lot in life and eager to escape a tough upbringing in which he felt very little love; Frank was prone to outbursts of anger - a flaw which could only be cured by drawing. He wasn’t a great artist and his talent was only so-so, but he was only truly calm and content when he was sat in the sun, lying on his belly and breathing softly, with a pencil and pad in his hand, sketching. Everybody has a hobby, this was his… and yet, the soothing act of drawing or doodling would guide Frank through some of the darkest moments of his turbulent little life, many which lay right ahead. On 12th December 1917, three years into the First World War, with the Influenza pandemic wiping out troops faster than any bullets, bombs and mustard gas could, and with the Army in dire need of ‘fresh meat for the grinder’– just like Jack Avery – Frank grabbed his conscription papers and enlisted. Unlike Jack - being young, fit, eager and healthy - Frank ticked all the boxes, and against his father’s wishes (being a veteran who had witnessed at first-hand the horrors of conflict), after a bitter row so fierce that neither would speak to the other again – Frank Cobbett went to war. And for the very last time, he would have a name, a rank and a few scant details which marked his life and his demise. Having passed basic training, 20-year-old Frank Cobbett became Private Cobbett of the 3rd East Kent Regiment and was shipped off to the boggy blood-soaked quagmire of the French frontline to bolster the beleaguered 230th Brigade of the 74th Division. With the brooding skies thick with an acrid smoke, the mud often knee-deep and the vile stench of rotting flesh as dead comrades died where they fell – being too dangerous to move or bury, so often many bodies became makeshift sandbags – living on a diet of death, disease and depression - like so many men - Frank was subjected to horror after horror. And throughout this bloody conflict, although he’d been issued a Lee Enfield 303 rifle, the thing which truly saved his life and his sanity was his pad and pencil; a little hobby which kept him calm, was used by his superiors to sketch the enemy positions and kept up the moral of his war-buddies with portraits. On 11th November 1918, with the war officially over, the enemy having surrendered, twenty million people dead and twenty-one million wounded, as memorials were erected to those brave souls who had selflessly given their lives so that we might live, the unsung heroes who had survived fought on. Following the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of 1915 to 1918, along with the 10th Battalion comprising the Royal East Kent and West Kent Yeomanry – with barely a day to catch their breath - Private Frank Cobbett and his compatriots were sent to Egypt to defend a key strategic point at the Suez Canal. Just like Jack, he did his part for King & Country. Just like Jack, he would be hailed a hero. And just like Jack, his service would be short, as although the aftermath of the First World War would rage on for many years and decades, Private Frank S Cobbett would serve for only fifteen months and three days. On an unrecorded date in February 1919, while doing his duty, Frank was cut-down by an enemy bullet which hit him squarely in the chest, and although this fast-hot-lead had missed any vital organs, blood vessels and (crucially) his spine - leaving him with what seemed like just a small hole in his right breast – the force had blasted-out a chunk of flesh from his back ripping him open from shoulder-to-shoulder. Frank was lucky to be alive, and although his war was over, the pain and trauma was not. On 15th March 1919, being patched-up and shipped home, 21-year-old Frank was discharged from the army, he was given two medals, a bottle of painkillers and a pitiful pension of eight shillings a week (a fifth of the working wage) and like so many battle-scarred veterans who had returned all broken, the soldiers who died were rightfully remembered, but those who had survived were cruelly forgotten. Still furious at his father and unwilling to embrace his family, Frank tried to return to a normal life, but this once-eager boy had died back in Suez and – although barely two years older – what now remained was a moody sullen shadow of his former self, crippled by constant pain and dumped by his country. Unable to carry a hod of bricks on his shattered back, this fit young lad could no longer earn an honest wage as a labourer. He worked for three years on-and-off as a brewer, but plagued by pain, in 1923, he lost his last regular job. And being barely literate and increasingly angry, his options were limited. Over the next two decades, as life for the average civilian returned to normal, Frank became invisible. He had no home, no job, no money and no help. His family were gone, his friends had disowned him and he had no wife, girlfriend or kids. Unable to adjust, Frank became a nobody, a nothing, who drifted from day-to-day, place-to-place and doorway to park-bench. To the many thousands who passed this vagrant slumped in the gutter, they didn’t see him as a hero, but as a dirty shambling wreck who lived out of hostels, begged for spare change and foraged for food scraps in the bins. Frank Cobbett had disappeared and like so many ordinary heroes who gave their health, life and sanity to protect us - with no title, rank or wealth to ensure they would be fondly remembered by strangers – the only reason we know anything about his life after his war-time service is by his criminal record. On 7th February 1930, at Nottingham magistrates court, he was sentenced to one-month’s hard labour for smashing two windows at Trent Bridge in a pique of anger. Returning to London and living rough, he received four further sentences in quick succession; on 13th June 1932 he was bound-over for three years for begging, on 20th February 1933 he served fourteen days hard labour for begging, on 7th April 1933 he served ten days hard labour for assaulting a policeman, a further day in prison on 5th February 1934 for begging, and on 1st October 1935 he was fined £2 for vagrancy. His crime? Being homeless. We know he was local as he was tried at Bow Street and Marlborough Magistrates Courts, his prison stints were at Brixton, and he withdrew his meagre army pension at the Shepherd’s Bush Post Office. By 3rd September 1939, as motor-mechanic Jack Avery enlisted as a War Reserve Constable based at the ‘Old Police House’ in Hyde Park, former Private F Cobbett of 3rd East Kent Regiment had been alone and isolated from a hearty meal, a warm bed and even just a simple conversation with another person for almost two decades. In fact, the most contact he’d had with another human-being of recent was the bruises, cracked ribs and a fractured jaw he had sustained having been beaten-up by a cowardly gang of drunken louts who had attacked him - all because he was weak, dirty and vulnerable. For longer than any human should endure, Frank lived alone, he lived in fear and terrified of being attacked again he was armed with an old rusty kitchen knife he had found at the bottom of a bin. But as lonely as his life was, he still had one love which would always comfort him – drawing. As no matter how poor he was – even if all he could find was a broken stub and an old bit of chip-paper – Frank always found solace by sitting quietly and sketching. It was just his little hobby to pass the time… …but life was against him, his lifestyle was illegal and the law would soon conspire to cause him to kill. Friday 5th July 1940 was a crisp clear day, as Frank quietly lay in the thick grass of Hyde Park, soaking-up the sun along-side the grazing sheep. On his body was his one set of clothes, in his pockets were his worldly possessions (a shaving razor, a pension book, 13 shillings and 6 pence) and in his hands he held a short stubby pencil and a square memo block of paper. And where-as once this had been a calendar - with every page left empty and blank - instead he used it to sketch. Sometimes he’d draw a tree, sometimes a street, sometimes a pond full of ducks and geese, he kept to himself and was no bother to anyone, but today he decided to draw something a little more exciting. Perched by the north-west corner of Hyde Park, a short walk from Lancaster Gate, sat one of the city’s military defences - as with barrage balloons by Kensington and a volley of rockets by Park Lane – the 263rd battery of the 84th Royal Artillery Regiment had positioned an arch of four 3.7-inch mobile anti-aircraft guns, with corrugated Nissen huts and a GL Mark IA radar unit. It was still an unusual sight for a public park, so people often stopped, looked and chatted to the soldiers… but instead Frank drew. There were two laws which made Frank a criminal without him raising a single finger. The first was old and he knew it well – The Vagrancy Act of 1824 – having been arrested three times for being hungry and homeless. But the second was new, very new, as having only received Royal Ascent in Parliament ten months prior, the Defence Regulation Act of 1939 were emergency powers to force British civilians onto a war-footing. It implemented a nationwide blackout, emptied prisons to make way for spies and looters, it criminalised German-owned businesses, requisitioned factories to make munitions, public parks to become military defences, and – to protect the people from the threat of the enemies within – it became illegal to photograph or draw any military bases, buildings or gun-emplacements. But how would Frank know that? After almost two decades of solitude with no-one to talk to, no-one to hug and being barely literate, he wasn’t a threat or a spy, he was just a broken war-hero, abandoned by the country he had fought for, who kept himself busy by doing the one thing he loved – drawing. Only, to those who didn’t know Frank – as a person - he was dirty, strange and suspicious. At 1:45pm, a 40-year-old carpet-fitter called George Bryant ran to the ‘Old Police House’ to alert them to “a strange man” who was “hiding in the grass” and seemed to be “making notes about the guns”. Doing his duty, Constable Jack Avery dashed to the scene to apprehend the enemy; what he saw was a man dressed in black, lying low in the grass, his eyes furtively spying and his hand secretly scribbling. As Jack cautiously sidled-up behind this possible Nazi collaborator and potential traitor to the people, the PC barked “what are you doing?”. Unused to contact and fearful of others, Frank mumbled “what’s it got to do with you?”. Unhappy with his reply, Jack snatched-up the pad to see for himself, and although to many it was nothing but a block of tatty paper, to Frank, his sketch-pad was everything. As his blood boiled, Frank bellowed “fuck off” as he got to his knees. Seeing a knife where his body lay, to defend himself Jack grabbed his truncheon. To defend himself, Frank pulled a knife. As Frank swung, Jack dodged and cracked Frank hard across the head with his truncheon and as the constable blew his whistle to call for back-up, Frank drove the five-inch blade deep into the top of Jack’s left leg. Dashing to aid the injured officer, Constable Hyman Krantz blocked the assailant’s sight with his cape, and – while temporarily blinded - Jack whacked Frank once more on the head to subdue him, and as both men fell; Jack bled profusely as barely conscious Frank muttered something incoherent. Pinned to the ground by two burly men, Frank was arrested and charged with the malicious wounding of a constable, to which his only reply was “I was drawing the guns, that’s all". Cruelly, on every witness statement given that day, Frank is described as a “low moral person”, “odd” and “looking like a tramp”. PC Avery was rushed to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, suffering a single stab wound to his left thigh and groin which had struck the thighbone and split the femoral artery and vein. Given two transfusions and an emergency operation, sadly Jack died at 8:20am of blood loss and shock. His father was by his side as he passed, but unable to reach her in time, his fiancé never got to say goodbye. (End) At 11:15am on Saturday 6th July 1940, 42-year-old Frank Stephen Cobbett, a vagrant of no-fixed-abode was charged with the murder of 28-year-old Constable Jack William Avery. Held at Brixton Prison, his medical assessment described him as “an uncouth type, insolent and mentally low”, but there was no mention of the sacrifice he had made to defend his country, or how shabbily he had been treated. In a short trial, at the Old Bailey, on 15th July (just ten days later) Frank Cobbett was found guilty and on the 22nd he was sentenced to death and to be executed by hanging. But following an appeal, which stated that both men were equally as culpable for their actions, his sentence was reduced from the capital charge of murder to the lesser offence of manslaughter and he would serve 15 years in prison. He did his time, he was released and very little else is known except that he died in 1980, aged 82. Having died in the line of duty, Constable Jack William Avery was buried, his name is listed on the Met’ Police ‘Roll of Honour’, and – rightfully – he has a memorial to remember the sacrifice that he made. It’s great that we live in a country where an ordinary person doing their job can be immortalised for the courage and bravery they’ve shown, rather than always being ordered to applaud a lord, a general or a politician who (by the size of their statue) states that they deserve our thoughts, tears and respect. But too often, we remember the dead and we mark the fallen, but too easily we forget those who are still serving and struggling with the physical, mental and psychological trauma they have suffered and continue to suffer - beyond their loyal service - by fighting for our rights and freedoms. Constable Jack Avery was a hero, as was Private Frank Cobbett; the difference was that one was a man with a job, a house and wife-to-be, and the other was a nobody with nothing but a pad and a pencil. Every hero deserves to be remembered, so until there’s a plaque for Frank, his will be his memorial. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. We’ve got nine more weeks of your regular Murder Mile episodes as well as a big multi-part finale to bring us up to the end of the season, which has taken ages to research, and up next is Extra Mile after the break, which takes no effort at all; none, nothing, zero, zip, it’s as easy as pie, or eating pie. Yum! Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Liz Tibbutt, Roy Harris, Simon Sandells, Sher Bowie and Fiona McCulloch, I thank you all for your support, it’s much appreciated, as in these difficult times Patreon has become my main source of income. Plus a big welcome to anyone who’s new listeners to the podcast and a big thank you to those who continue to support it. 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
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This is a hypothetical exploration into the possibility or impossibility of getting away with murder, which over four episodes covers motivation, methods, surveillance, research, eacape and clear-up, as well as the legal ramifications of planning a murder of a victim called Bob... who is fictional.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - PART FOUR: UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT Let’s pretend that I’ve committed a pre-meditated murder and the target was my old pal Bob. But don’t fret my friend, I’m sure you’ll get an invisible invite to the fictional funeral of this imaginary man. Was his killing perfect? Yes. Did it look like natural? Of course. Was it a bloody death in which Bob was pumped full of helium and popped like a large lardy balloon, or fed bum-first into a wood-chipper as his minced-up entrails were spattered along a wall in Morse code which read “this was an accident, honest”? No, I killed him in the dullest way possible, by lacing his pizza with an untraceable poison which was only toxic to his body… a salad leaf. Will this murder be talked about? Will books be written about it? Will the ‘salad leaf killing’ of Bob become the latest hit podcast series which true-crime fans will endlessly drone on about even though it’s not actually that good? No, but then, that was the point. As the hard part isn’t the murder, the real challenge is to get away with it. So, in this final part of this four-part series I shall attempt to ensure that I’m never suspected or arrested for the hypothetical murder of a fictional idiot called Bob… and soon, that cakey-Eva portrait will be all mine. Sigh! My name is Michael, I am a murderer, and this is How To Get Away With Murder. Part Four: Clean-Up & Escape. Dear friends. I regret to inform you that last week, Bob died. Boo hoo! Boo hoo! He was forty years old but he didn’t look a day over sixty-eight. He leaves behind a dirty sofa, the washing up and a basket of unwashed underpants. He will be sorely missed by Iqbal ‘Luigi’ Singh, the owner of Pizza Schmucks who may have to hock his diamond encrusted pizza cutter and sell his pepperoni coloured Bentley as with Bob’s pizza app’ now silent, Luigi’s cash-cow has gone to the big abattoir in the sky… literally. Bob died “peacefully” (in inverted commas) doing what he loved best; dribbling, snoozing and slobbing about, gorping at brainless shite on his telly box, while scratching his arse, adjusting his dangle fruits and feeding an endless conveyor of pizza slices into his gob using that ‘very same hand’. Urgh! His death was quick, natural and unremarkable, so much so that when the Police, Fire or Ambulance arrive, the main thing they will do is notify the next-of-kin, and not initiate a criminal investigation. If I’m smart, no-one should ever know that this was a murder, but sadly some killers really aren’t that smart. In fact, when they are finally caught, it’s not the diligence of a detective which leads to their arrest, often it’s their own stupidity and arrogance which trips them up first. For example:
So, what if Bob realised the Pizza Guy was me? What if he choked on the salad leaf? What if the tearing sound I heard was his sweaty blubbery bulk actually separating from the sofa, and being so shocked at the sight of him standing-upright – which was only possible as the calcified sweat down his back had formed a makeshift spinal brace and (although his leg muscles had withered like the two last chicken drumsticks in a party bucket) several decades worth of cola splashes had harden like seaside sticks of rock – as we wrestled to the death (with Bob angry but always keeping an eye on the telly as The World’s Craziest Celebrity Patio-Makeover Home-Video Accidents from Hell on Ice was on, and me, dodging drinks cups and urine pots, with one foot in an old spag’ bol’, another in a congealed bowl of custard and standing awkwardly, as being so close to my prized portrait of lovely Eva gently teasing me with a jammy mouthful of Battenberg, it is difficult to wrestle an angry sweaty man whilst you’ve got an erection), it was then that I accidentally slit his throat with a pizza cutter, and maybe kicked his bonce about the bedsit a bit, while playing keepie-uppie and using a lamp-shade as a basketball hoop? Now, that didn’t happen, but if it did? How do you dispose of a brutally massacred corpse in a regular domestic house? If you listen to too much true-crime, you may think “oh that’s easy”, but it isn’t. The average house isn’t equipped with the tools for a full body disposal; we don’t all own axes, chainsaws, flame throwers, wood chippers and two hundred gallons of sulphuric acid, and if we did, the Police would see that as pre-meditation. So, let’s get realistic. Can you dispose of a body in a house? No.
As planned, Bob’s death looks natural; he will be found slumped on his sofa, in front of his telly, with an endless conveyor-belt of food being fed into the huge chomping hole in his face. There are no signs of injury, assault, interference or poison, so they will assume that he choked. But how do I ensure that his death definitely looks natural, and that the Police don’t suspect that someone else was involved? Here’s a few possible suggestions which may work a treat:
To be honest, courtesy of some seriously (if entirely fictional) research and surveillance by himself, Bob’s ordinary clothing, his homelife and his lifestyle perfectly match his method of death, so nothing needs to be added… unless I wanted to dob someone else in for my crime. So, I could:
Think about this; The Golden State Killer was arrested using the DNA on a single disposable coffee cup, so I could easily scatter a half-eaten sandwich found in a bin, a smelly old sock left in a laundry or a manky ear-wax coated cotton bud at the scene to implicate someone else, but I won’t, as that would cause the police to investigate this as a murder, which is exactly what I don’t want them to do. But what if I have left some DNA behind; maybe a hair, a print, or a long line of frothy dribble and a splatter of love-hummus by the cakey Eva porn? What should I do to hide my filthy Mickey man-muck?
These are all terrible ideas, but they are the most obvious ways that murderers try to clean-up a crime scene. Each one could erase the evidence but they all point to the involvement of a third-party. But there are a few ways to eradicate any viable DNA at a crime scene without you even being there, or anywhere near, and they all involve time, air and – inevitably – the human-factor:
Right! Bob is dead, his death looks natural and his bedsit doesn’t look like a crime-scene. Yay! Well done me. So, now that all done-and-dusted, when should I call the Police? When?! Never! Here is a simple list of idiotic things which trip up almost every serial killer and murderer all the bloody time.
That means no heads, no hands, no teeth and no trinkets. Don’t nick a celebratory cheese sarnie from the fridge if I feel a bit peckish or try on his Batman underpants (as where-as once they seemed cheesy, now they’ve got a kitsch value), as everything I steal will lead directly back to me, as the culprit. So, as much as I want to, need to, and every ounce of my soul wants me to steal it, I have to leave behind the sultry cakey fresco of the lovely Hollywood siren Eva Green devouring a mini Battenberg in a way which makes me wish I had died and was reincarnated as a cake. Sigh! This is a waiting game, but if I’m patient, it may pay-off. My hope is that his legal guardians will either sell off, auction or bin his personal possessions, and then ‘cakey-Eva’ is legally mine. ALL MINE! But until then, I must weep. But what if I am suspect number one? What should I do? Here’s my top tips for when Police Constable Arsenal Guinness drains the last can, finishes his hand-shandy and gets down to some work… for once:
If I am arrested and charged with Bob’s murder, luckily the conviction rate for murder in England and Wales is pretty low. According to the Office of National Statistics, of the 712 homicides in 2018, only 163 suspects were charged, with an average conviction rate of between 17 and 33%, and even before the cases went to court, 3% of all suspects had either died or committed suicide, and post-trial, 79% of suspects were found guilty, 14% were acquitted and 4% were convicted of a lesser offence. But how many of these were well-researched pre-meditated murders for very worthwhile cause like some cakey-Eva porn, rather than some bloke gave me a bit of a funny look? Probably none. So, let us return to where we began, with one big question - how possible or impossible is it to commit and get away with perfect murder? We all assume (having consumed one too many true-crime shows which cherry-pick a few scant details of a six-year investigation and boil them down into a handy-half-hour chunk) that killing is a bit of a doddle. But for the average person like me or you, it wouldn’t be. Mentally we’d be a mess, physically we’d shake like a leaf and psychologically we’d be broken for life. Throughout every step of the planning, the research and the execution, we would stall, fumble, panic and even though I have the perfect alibi to aid my escape – that being a fat bald man in his mid-forties, I’m entirely invisible to women, most men but thankfully not dogs– I’d either have given-up, got bored, handed myself in, or been arrested for looking suspicious before I’ve even entered Bob’s bedsit. So, to conclude, unless you are a criminal mastermind, a remorseless killer, a fictional character, or the kind of arrogant self-obsessed douch-bag who doesn’t understand that every problem is solvable, every solution is negotiable and every positive action takes vastly more effort than a negative action - if you’re willing to put in the time to try and make it work - it’ll be better for everyone. Getting away with anything illegal (let alone a murder) is next-to-impossible, so why bother? Why waste the few years or decades you have left on this Earth fuming over something unimportant, when you could savour a simple life, being happy with what you do have, content with what you don’t have, and – best of all – that no-one (including myself, yourself or Bob) will end up dead. (Bob) “Hello, my name is Bob, I am Mike’s fictional friend who is ‘very-much-alive’, and I approve this message”. Oh, and if anyone is on the look-out for a rather lovely, non-dribble coated, man-hummus-free, cakey portrait of Hollywood sex-bomb Eva Green clutching a range of Mr Kipling’s finest cakes (swoon), then apparently they sell them on eBay for £10. I know! Who knew? Next time, I’ll do my research first. Thanks for listening folks. Tatty-bye. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Part Four and the final part of How To get Away With Murder. Next week, your regular Murder Mile episodes will return. A big thank you to my new Patreon Supporters who are Tony Inglis, Sarah London and Kicha Blackstone, I thank you all muchly. I hope you entered the very exclusive competition on Patreon and they you are now the proud owners of a very exclusive Murder Mile key-ring. Ooh. Plus a thank you to everyone who leaves lovely comments when you download the freebies (like ringtones, quizzes and ebooks) in the Murder Mile merch shop – there’s a link in the show notes. I read them all and they are all very much appreciated. Up next is Extra Mile. 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
This is a hypothetical exploration into the possibility or impossibility of getting away with murder, which over four episodes covers motivation, methods, surveillance, research, eacape and clear-up, as well as the legal ramifications of planning a murder of a victim called Bob... who is fictional.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - PART THREE: UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT Let’s pretend that I’m going to commit a pre-meditated murder and the target is my old pal Bob. But don’t fret dear friend, as the murder is made-up, the victim isn’t real and all of this is total bunkum. Do I know where to kill him? Oh yes. Do I know how to kill him? Meh. And is it a 100% fool-proof plan? Not on your nelly. But that aside, I could easily extinguish Bob’s pitiful little existence by attaching his nipple piercings to the National Grid, by stapling his lips to a drag-racer’s exhaust, or by slowly feeding him into a pasta-maker tongue-first. And yes, I have given this some serious thought. But the hard part isn’t the murder, the real challenge is to get away with it. So, across this four-part series I shall be planning and executing the hypothetical murder of a fictional idiot called Bob; soon he’ll be nothing but dust, I shall be one cakey-Eva portrait better off, and you shall keep schtum, right? My name is Michael, I am a murderer, and this is How To Get Away With Murder. Part Three: Murder & Method. Last week, we established that – owing to the complete and utter sadness of Bob’s pathetic little life; where the only person he talks to is his own shadow, that sitting on a different sofa is his version of ‘taking a vacation’ and ‘spicing-up his sex-life’ means that sometimes he’ll ‘use a different hand’ (not unlike my own, if I’m honest) – I have made the momentous decision (based on weeks of research and surveillance) to murder Bob in his small lonely little bedsit. On his pizza-speckled sofa to be precise, as that is where he feels safest, where he is isolate and – more importantly – if he actually left his flat, just once in his life, he’d probably die of fresh-air overdose and his neighbours would die of shock. Now I may be a potential murderer, but I don’t want to be responsible for a massacre, do I? Do I?! Admittedly, Bob’s bedsit may seem like a really dull place to say “tata” to his existence, given that so many infamous serial-killers have upped-the-stakes in terms of murder locations, such as;
Ah lovely. Now that may all seem very exciting, but there’s one teeny tiny problem with each of these murderers? They were all caught, trapped by their own arrogance and imprisoned by their own ego. By over-complicating a simple thing such as making someone dead, it was impossible for anyone to see either of these deaths as anything other than a murder… and where there’s a murder, there is always a murderer. So, to get away with Bob’s death, I need this to look like an accident or natural. Now, this is not going to be easy, as I am dead dirty. I am a real mucky Mickey McYuckfest and a filthy festering scuz-ball of absolute scum. Oh yes, that is a fact. In fact, you are too, genetically speaking; as with the average human being made up of roughly 10 trillion cells, as 16% of our bodies is skin, every year we shed around 8lbs (or 3 ½ kilos) of skin, we lose 27000 hairs and expel 4300 litres of sweat. Oh yeah, we are dead dirty. And give that our cells contain DNA which is uniquely-coded to us, I might as well go to the crime-scene and hand the Police a business card reading ‘Hi, I am Bob’s killer. Call me’. To avoid that, I need to erase any trace of myself before I go anywhere near Bob’s bedsit. There are a few ways I could ensure I leave no traces of my DNA behind
And besides, although I’d be unable to walk, talk, see or touch, any witness could easily identify Bob’s killer as “the wailing dripping chronically-bleeding Frankenmonster who left smoking bits of his fizzing flesh all across the floor and grumbled endlessly about how he wished he could have swapped skin with someone who had a nicer bottom, a six-pack instead of a barrel of blubber, and how he can’t go to the loo as that technically means he’ll be touching another man’s winkle”. Alternatively, there are some simpler options:
Of course, if I don’t want the Police to go searching for my DNA, I have one simple way to ensure that they don’t: don’t make Bob’s death look like a murder. So, obviously, him drifting-off into the forever sleepy bye-byes is good, but a hatchet to the head and daubing the walls with his entrails is bad. So, given that Bob rarely gets up from the crispy chocolatey outline of himself on his sofa, and leaves the inside of his one-room bedsit, how do I get in? Here’s a few do’s and don’ts which I plan to follow:
It was a no-brainer really, wasn’t it? That was like luring a faded reality TV star out of a rehab centre by posing as a tabloid hack and promising you definitely won’t take slightly slutty photos of them and are only interested in telling their “true story”, but… if they spill the beans on a real celeb and flash a bit of tit, butt of chuff to the camera, then their vapid uninteresting mug will suddenly move from just under the crossword puzzle to front page news. And lo, the Christmas panto roles will come a flowing. Hmm. Is that really how the tabloid media works, or doesn’t work? Sadly, yes. Any-who. To ensure that I’m not caught for my dastardly crime, I must ask “is there a way to kill Bob, but not actually be in the room when his clogs are forcibly popped and his bucket is firmly kicked”? Well, yes. I could use explosives (only I don’t own any), I could hire a hitman (only I don’t know any), I could launch a nuclear attack on his house (only I seem to have misplaced my membership of Kim Jong Un’s Apocalyptic Boom Club), I could pray for a tornado (only I’m not religious and the worst weather Bob’s street gets is a mild gust when he’s been on the sprouts), I could initiate some gangland violence between Bob and a local crew by telling them that he cussed their mommas (except the only gang in Bob’s town is the over 80’s sewing circle and - although they are vicious - all of their mommas are probably dead), and I could also engineer a gas explosion, drill a sink-hole under his floor and reroute the airport’s flight path to land on his house (only I have enough trouble turning my phone to silent when it goes off in a cinema), so although a simpler alternative is to accuse him of treason by rudely suggesting he dared to say that Princess Kate isn’t lovely (that’s illegal), that Prince Phillip isn’t a racist (that’s untrue) and to claim that he has conclusive evidence about Prince Andrew (which we know no-one will ever see), so although it may seem safer if I’m not there when Bob’s resigns from Team Life, how can I be sure that he’s actually dead and that I didn’t leave any incriminating evidence behind? I can’t. So, I’ll have to witness his death up-close. Boo hoo! Boo hoo! Note to self: buy some popcorn. Right! When’s the best time to cark the dozy little bleeder? Bob’s sleep pattern is screwed, as his body thinks that dawn is when the telly goes on and dusk is when it goes off, which it never does. So, even though the middle of the night would be the best time to murder most people – as we’re usually spark-out, dribbling, farting and dreaming of flushing our bosses down the sewer with the other little turds – there are a few moments when Bob is totally absorbed or distracted. Admittedly, when he’s asleep, he’s as useless and immobile as most British politicians debating a new law which could cripple a pauper, but doesn’t affect the MP’s expense accounts, second-home, or which hooker they plan to bang at the tax payer’s expense (like the shower of shits that many of them are). And yet, when Bob is awake, there’s not a lot going on to be honest; it’s mostly an open mouth, a line of dribble, some food in, some poo out, a grunt, a fart and a burp, it’s all automatic. But there are some TV moments which can affect his concentration span:
Not his life, his home or his health. It’s just him, his mouth and a warm slice of floppy dough drenched in tomato, salami, chicken, beef, bacon, sausage, and even something they ominously also refer to as ‘meat’, as well as the world’s stretchiest mozzarella. And yes, you are sensing a running theme here? So, can I make Bob’s death look like an accident? Possibly, but again, I am limited by choice, as Bob is the laziest person who has ever existed. Even his own body has given up; as his belly doesn’t rumble, instead it outsources all noises to someone else’s stomach; he’s spent so long lying on one side that the left hand-side of his body is technically taller than the right; and he looks so pale and deathly, he has been certified as dead six times… including once, while he was sitting up and talking to the doctor. But there are several accidents even Bob could conceivably have. Those out-of-the-question include:
In terms of a natural death?
I think we all know where this is going, so let’s just whizz through all of the possible ways that I can kill Bob, while avoiding anything messy, loud or obvious such as; shooting, stabbing, strangling, beating, bashing, slicing, dicing or mincing (that’s the method of butchery and not the slightly camp walk).
Which leaves me with one simple option; I become the Pizza Guy. It’s the perfect disguise, the perfect alibi and the perfect method, I turn up, clutching five free pizzas for being such a great customer and (as the perfect poison which fine for us, but is completely alien and toxic to him) I add humble salad leaf. A tiny insignificant sprig of nature, full of vitamins and minerals, which will be discretely hidden under his usual mountain of dead pig shavings, ripped-off chicken’s arms and a cow’s eyeballs and anuses mashed into a sausage-y paste, on a thick white wall of stretchy buffalo tit-glue. Yummy! It’s how he would have wanted to go. Besides, it’s so simple that – if I do this right – no-one will suspect a thing, as Bob’s so unhealthy that the Grim Reaper has his heart on text alert. And all it took was a bit of common sense, some research and an understanding of Bob’s routine, strengths and weaknesses. By next week, Bob will be dead and that lovely cakey portrait of Eva will be mine. Hmm. Admittedly, I have buggered this up by putting it out as a weekly podcast, so I’m just going to have to murder you all to cover my alibi. Sorry about that, but I’m sure you’ll understand, it is for a good cause after all. See you next week, maybe, when I shall escape and – I hope - never become a suspect. Bye bye. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Part Three of How To get Away With Murder. This continues for one more week, when your regular Murder Mile episodes will return. A big thank you to my new Patreon Supporters who are Christian Treppel, Lisa Yolland, Adele Mol, Eliisa Mark, Mandy Belshaw, Damian Ross-Murphy, Vanessa Casey and Jannike Molander, I thank you all muchly. You may even survive this podcast. Ooh. And thank you to Christine Mitchell for your very kind donation via the Murder Mile website. Plus a welcome to new listeners, a thank you to regular listeners and a thank you to everyone. Up next is Extra Mile. 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
This is a hypothetical exploration into the possibility or impossibility of getting away with murder, which over four episodes covers motivation, methods, surveillance, research, eacape and clear-up, as well as the legal ramifications of planning a murder of a victim called Bob... who is fictional.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - PART TWO: UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT Let’s pretend that I’m going to commit a pre-meditated murder, the target is my good friend Bob. But fear not, as the murder is hypothetical, the victim is fictional and none of this will ever exist. Am I prepared to kill him? Physically? Yes. Psychologically? Probably not. But that aside, I could easily end Bob’s life in a jiffy by sprinkling his chips with cyanide, gluing his head to a steamroller and stuffing an insane quantity of illegal fireworks up his brown mouse-house and lighting the fuse. Good times. But the hard part isn’t the murder, the real challenge is to get away with it. So, across this four-part series I shall be planning and executing the hypothetical murder of a fictional character called Bob; soon he will be dead, I will be free, and no-one (except you good listeners) will be none the wiser. My name is Michael, I am a murderer, and this is How To Get Away With Murder. Part Two: Target & Surveillance. Last week, we established that should Bob ‘accidentally’ stop living owing to his home having one-too-many cakey portraits of lovely Eva munching on a Mr Kipling (grr, I want it so bad), given the long and provable decline in our friendship, I would be the Police’s number one suspect. So, I need to plan such a perfect murder that the Police won’t even begin searching for a suspect, as they will assume that his death was either natural or an accident, but not foul-play. Most pre-meditated killers are tripped up by either by ego, arrogance, greed, or a basic mistake having failed to research their methods and their victims beforehand. For example;
Research is vital, but before I choose a weapon, a method or a location, I need to understand the one variable which makes every plan unpredictable – my target, Bob – I may think I know him, but I don’t. Everybody has secrets, both big and small, and it’s only when a loved one dies and we’re forced to sift through their personal belongings that we learn those little details about them that we never knew. It could be something small like a habit, a hobby, a hygiene issue, an illness, a trinket or a porn stash; maybe items they once bought, gifts they were once given or things they promised they had binned; perhaps letters from lost loves, photos of missed friends and diaries full of their deepest secrets and regrets whether an affair, a trauma, a criminal past, or a love child no-one knew existed, until now. It would be impossible to plan Bob’s murder – to find the perfect time, place and space to erase him from the face of the Earth – unless I knew the minutia of his life, and that will take surveillance. Here’s a few tips on how I shouldn’t research Bob. For example;
All of these techniques come with the risk of being spotted, and once I’ve been spotted, the research is as good as useless because – becoming unnerved and cautious by my presence - Bob may begin to adapt his regular timings and movements, and it’s during his usual routine that his guard is down. Sadly, at the expense of my surveillance, Bob & I don’t live, work or (owing to a little Eva-based issue) we don’t hang-out together, so my research would need to be more subtle than simply spying on him through eyeholes I’ve cut into a newspaper. So, here’s how I could discretely research my target.
Without thinking, the average person uploads every single detail about their boring little life as if they are the most fascinating person in history, when they’re not. Admittedly, being full of narcissists, eight-out-of-every-ten updates features yet another photo of their bloody face, but it also contains details about their friends, family, life, work, habits, hobbies, pubs, clubs and timings, as well as a guided tour of their home, live updates from their holiday – which burglars love as that’s like daubing “I’m away for two weeks, don’t steal too much” across the front of your house - and even the most cautious of people who brag “I never share any personal data online” can’t help but upload a photo themselves with their favourite pet, football strip, a bust of their hero and whilst holding their ‘happy 40th birthday’ cake, so their date of birth and other so-called ‘personal details’ aren’t exactly hard to work out. Oh, and private accounts? Ha! That’s about as inaccessible as opening a tin of beans with a can-opener. So, understanding the target. What will I learn by spying on Bob? I’ll learn things I already knew, I’ll learn a lot of irrelevant bumph, but I’ll also learn two vital details; his weaknesses and when he’s alone. Weaknesses. We all have weakness, it’s not a failing, it’s what makes us all so different and human. Some people can run fast, others do a weird waddle. Some are mentally sharp, others forget their own phone number. Some are brave, others think that plummeting from the sky with a bit of fabric to stop your body smacking into the earth so fast your grieving relatives have to scoop you up with a trowel is a stupid idea, and some of ‘the best people in the world’ have only two weaknesses – Eva and Cake – simply lace an Eva-shaped Battenberg with arsenic and I’m as-good-as-dead, but I’ll die a happy man. The only way I can get away with Bob’s murder is by knowing his weakness, this will allow me to lure him somewhere isolated, lull him into a false sense of security and ensure that I have the advantage. For example; you wouldn’t poison a loaf if the target had a wheat allergy (unless you planned to make them fart to death), you wouldn’t drown an underwater diver, force-feed the world hot-dog scoffing champion, push a wheelchair bound agoraphobic off the top of Mount Everest, or shoot a lead bullet at a man with a steel plate in his head… although, using a big magnet would be cruel but very amusing. The little details I can glean from Bob’s life tells me a lot about his weaknesses:
I could kill Bob in a multitude of ways which would appear entirely natural given my knowledge of his life, his health and his habits, but he may also have a few phobias I never knew about which could trip me up. Here’s just a few strange phobias which could limit any chosen method of murder:Bathmophobia - a fear of stairs, Belonephobia - a fear of needles, Utophobia - a fear of being alone, Ecophobia, a fear of the home, Koinoniphobia - a fear of rooms, Megalophobia - a fear of large things, Microphobia - small things, Noctiphobia - the night, Scoptophobia - being stared at, Trypophobia - holes, Venustraphobia – a fear of beautiful women (such as Eva) and – two phobias which could scupper my plans - Peladophobia, a fear of bald men and Thanatophobia, a fear of death. Gulp! These will be a nightmare to discover, but thankfully, the most useful details I need to prep’ for Bob’s impending demise are much easier to research, as – like almost all of us – Bob is a creature of habit. We all have routines, whether big or small, and regardless of who we are or what we do, our lives are unremittingly humdrum and predictable at various points of the day or night, which rarely change, and are set in place as part of our job, lifestyle, social circle, family life, medical needs, or by habit. For many of us, buying milk not from our local shop but from a different store one-street over is a big deal, but all of our lives are controlled by an innate structure which gives us a sense of stability. Such as:
No-one is truly unpredictable, our lives are flecked with patterns, habits and routines; from the friends we see, the places we go, the times we leave, the hobbies we enjoy, the food we eat, the clothes we wear and even down to speed we reply to some texts but not others, everything we do is predictable. Admittedly, the bulk of our day is spent queueing, complaining, doodling and bunking-off, with added tea-breaks, bouts of bitching and waffling on about the things we plan to do but never do. Sadly, for me, Bob does nothing, goes nowhere and talks to no-one, which limits my options on how to make his death look natural, as if he’s gorged on a fifty-foot fajita while changing the channel from the Dog Poop Investigators to Celebrity Chef Kung-Fu Karaoke on Ice… but everyone has their weaknesses. That said, given that in England and Wales there are 7700 deaths a week, only 14 of which are murders, it would look less suspicious if Bob died doing what he loved best or simply slipped away? So, if he dies “naturally”, I could just steal this portrait of the Hollywood Goddess with the Battenberg Fingers? Life is dangerous and the chance of surviving it is pretty slim. Every year, across the world; 17.7 million people die by heart disease, 9.5 by cancer, 1.24 by car-crash, 295000 by drowning, 270000 by hunger, 193000 giving birth, 120000 by fire, 26000 by terrorism and 9600 by natural disaster. Statistically, we all have a 1 in 180000 chance of being killed by lightning, 1 in 118000 will be mauled by a dog, 1 in 53000 will die by bee-sting, 1 in 7700 by sunstroke and 1 in 2600 will die chocking on their food. And even more bizarrely, 1 in every 15000 people die every year doing exercise, every year 3 million people die owing to obesity, 640 people die each year falling out of bed, 240 people are killed by falling icicles and one person dies every year bouncing on a trampoline. Ironically, with only 26 deaths over the last decade, it’s safer to go skydiving than it is to walk the street, to eat your dinner or to fall asleep. So, does Bob have role which makes him more likely to “accidentally” expire than most people during his every day duties? Here’s a few possible high-risk occupations which could quicken his demise: a painter as lead-based paints are deadly if consumed using a very large spoon… which he has done before when his fridge was empty, a carpenter but only if he mistakes a plank of wood for his head… which is possible, a chef because of knives and hot things… but that’s unlikely as it involves actually shifting his arse and Bob’s so lazy that a depressed sloth wearing a t-shirt which read ‘bollocks to life’ actually tutted at him for his laziness, so there are loads of high risk occupations – racing driver, scuba diver, arsenic deliver boy, tornado chaser, chainsaw juggler, cliff-based car brakes tester, a freelance trainee bomb disposal technician and food tester for a despotic war-lord – but as Bob does nothing but eat, sleep and watch telly, everything which involves him burning a single calorie is unlikely. And yet, Bob’s natural lethargy does open a window of deadly opportunities. I’m thinking…
Now I could consider allergies, as a fatal attack of anaphylaxis can be triggered by just the briefest hint of peanuts and sesame seeds, but as Bob has no allergies - except work, energy and effort - thankfully there are some everyday foods which are toxic and deadly to everyone. Such as:
Sadly, Bob has never seen a vegetable… ever, he’s so food-illiterate, he believes that when beef bleeds it bleeds gravy, that meatballs come from male cows and that all chickens are born McNugget-shaped. Admittedly, a single salad leaf could be toxic to his system, but there’s no way he would swallow that. Which brings us onto the next step, where to kill Bob? I mean, this is entirely pointless, as although statistically most people die at home and the majority die in their own beds, Bob is so lazy that he spends all day on the sofa, and when it comes to beddy-byes, he stays on the sofa as he’s too bone idle to pull-out the bed from under the sofa and fall onto that… as it means getting back up again. But anyway, if Bob wasn’t the human equivalent of a pot of blancmange, knowing that the best place to murder him is where he was isolated but felt safest, this is where I would choose and avoid:
I would also avoid any sewage plants, abattoirs, changing rooms, nudie booths, maternity wards and sperms banks, just because it will look really odd and will have people asking “why there? Weirdo!” In short, Bob will die at home, on his sofa, where he feels safe, warm and is usually fast-asleep with a trickle of syrupy dribble down his chin and a circle of cast-off Doritos on his chest, which suits me fine. He’ll be home, happy and unaware that he’s going to heaven… which he’ll hate as that means moving. So, before I go, there’s two steps I need to do to ensure that no-one suspects me. Firstly, I know Bob’s routine – eat, sleep, shit, repeat – his weaknesses and the best place to kill him, but there’s one other person I need to research too – myself. I can’t provide the perfect alibi for myself, unless I know where our lives cross and how I can discretely distance myself from Bob in the days prior to his sad and tragic demise. Boo-hoo-hoo. Luckily, I’m not the pizza delivery guy, who is the only people Bob grunts with. And secondly, no matter what, I must never photograph, film, internet search or write down anything about Bob’s death, and I must never EVER turn it into a blog or podcast. Oh, bollocks I’ve done it again. What an idiot! Find out how and if I can pull of the perfect murder in part three next week. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Part Two of How To get Away With Murder. This continues for the next two weeks, when your regular Murder Mile episodes will return. A big thank you to my new Patreon Supporters who are Michael Potter, Marg Tomnay, Cynthia Dahle, Glenda McCarthy and Gavin Cooke, I hope you’re enjoying the secret videos I’m posting this week whilst regular Murder Mile is off-air. And thank you to Kara Langford for your very kind donations via the Murder Mile website. Thank you everyone. Up next is Extra Mile. 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
This is a hypothetical exploration into the possibility or impossibility of getting away with murder, which over four episodes covers motivation, methods, surveillance, research, eacape and clear-up, as well as the legal ramifications of planning a murder of a victim called Bob... who is fictional.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - PART ONE: UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT Let’s pretend that I’m going to commit a pre-meditated murder; the target is my good friend Bob, the reason is profit, the location in his home and the time scale is the next four weeks. Do you need to call the Police? No, as the murder is hypothetical, the victim is fictional and none of this will ever exist. But could I kill him? Well, yes, of course. We are all very capable of taking another person’s life. I could easily end Bob’s life in a jiffy by lacing his Pot Noodle with lashings of arsenic, bashing his brain-in with a common house brick, plunging his annoying face into an icy lake, or by stuffing his lazy sweaty bulk in a mincing machine and hitting ‘turbo’ so his bloody chunks spatter up the kitchen wall. Oh joy! It seems so simple and physically it is, we are all animals after all, but the hard part is to not get caught. Across this four-part series I shall be carefully planning the hypothetical murder of a fictional character called Bob; in three week’s time he will die and in four week’s time I shall be free and never convicted. My name is Michael, I am a murderer, and this is How To Get Away With Murder. Part One: Motivation & Realism. Murder is moral quandary, simply getting over the emotional hurdle and psychological trauma of even contemplating another person’s death is harder than the physical act of murder itself… but that is the very first step any potential killer needs to consider in order to get away with murder. In episode two of this four-part series, we shall explore the research phase of a pre-meditated murder, part three explores the best techniques to limit the evidence, in part four we shall dip into the clean-up and escape from the crime-scene to evade capture, but this first part is about the most important but least understood aspect of getting away with a pre-meditated murder – motivation. Before we begin, what does the average murder look like? Well, I can tell you what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like the majority of cases that any true-crime fan has absorbed before. Such as in:
Sadly, there’s a big discrepancy between reality and fiction, even if the murder case itself is real. What you see on the telly and hear about in podcasts isn’t typical of most murder cases. They are just a very small selection of the most engaging, compelling and sensational cases deliberately chosen to draw you in. Even the cases you hear about in the news are selectively chosen, as the role of the media is to inform but also to entertain you. They are there to tell you a story, but if the story is dull and mundane, they know they’ve lost you as a viewer or a listener, which they can’t afford to do. In all honesty, most murder cases are barely - if at all - covered by the press. Why? Because they’re not interesting, yes there’s a murder in them, but there’s no intrigue, no mystery and no angle. A story about an evil doctor murdering a patient for money will have coverage for months and years, where-as a young lad stabbed to death by a rival gang over a pair of trainers will be forgotten about in a day. Think about it; when was the last time you saw a drama entirely based around the investigation into why two homeless drug addicts stabbed each other to death over a £5 bag of skag, why a drunken yob beat a rival footie fan into a coma having knocked-over his kebab, or why a depressed single-mother with post-natal depression drowned her baby? When? Never. Why? Because they know that most people wouldn’t tune in. What we are consuming isn’t fact, it’s entertainment. So, what does the average murder look like? According to the Office of National Statistics, during 2019, in England & Wales (as that is where I live) there were 662 homicides in a population of 56.1 million people, which was broken down like this:
Unlike in TV shows or on podcasts, real murders are rarely premeditated or planned to the extent that the assailant even considers the ramifications of their crime or how they will get away with it. These are crimes of passion, they’re primal, they’re irrational and fuelled by raw uncontrolled emotion. Emotion is a key part of our personality, it’s what makes us who we are, it defines our character, and every moment of every day we wrestle with a myriad of emotions as that’s how a human being copes with the dilemmas, crises and incidents that life throws at us. Every day our emotions swing from anger to jealousy to lust to rage to greed to pride to hatred to pain to joy to boredom. We cope with issues, we learn from our mistakes and we move on to the next problem. But for some people, something tips them over the edge from being a normal rational person… to being a murderer. So, even before we discuss the who, the how and where of Bob’s impending but entirely fictional murder, we have to consider the most important detail – why. Why do I want to murder Bob? It’s a detail that most murderers fail to consider fully, as their actions are clouded by emotion, so as the red mist kicks in, their fists clench and their eyes widen, before they even know what they’ve done, someone is dead. But let’s explore some bizarre but common motivations for murder.
These may seem extreme, but they’re no more extreme than the very ordinary and everyday cases we’ve covered in Murder Mile. So, if we set aside the serial-killers for a second, consider this:
We hear about it in the newspapers all the time, that someone was murdered because of a misheard word, an unappreciated look, a perceived slight or unwanted attention. It could occur over something so insignificant, most of us wouldn’t consider it reason to kill, let alone a reason to argue or tut. Of course, there can be good reasons to kill; whether fighting for your country, serving in the line of duty, or protecting a loved one, yourself or others from danger? The vast majority of people don’t kill for the sake of killing, in truth, most people who become murderers just snap. Like that! And, let’s not forget that mental health problems can also play a big part. So, why should I kill Bob? I mean the reasons are limitless; he’s rude, he’s smelly, he never says “please”, he thinks his jokes are funny, he borrows money but never repays, he dashes out the second the bill arrives, he clips his toe-nails while watching TV, he flicks his bogies, he leaves his dirty dishes next to an open dishwasher, he buys himself a cakey-treat but not me, and cleans out the filthy from between of his toes with his sock. Yuck! Surely that’s motivation enough? If I was the judge? Yes, but not in this case, as this isn’t a crime-of-passion, this is a premeditated murder for profit, which I intend to get away with. So, here’s some possible motives for a premeditated murder for profit:
These are the top five motivations for a pre-meditated murder with a few others notable reasons close behind; such as status, territory, legal issues, personal disputes, a rite of passage and the erasing of a mistake, to name but a few. But my reason to kill Bob is a lot more personal, as is what I shall gain. Bob’s most prized possession – which I want – is a signed portrait of my beloved (if fictional) girlfriend Eva Green holding a Belgian Bun and eating a Battenberg Cake. And although he constantly taunts me with it, every day and in my dreams, he rightfully covets it with his life. To you, this may seem like a bit of meaningless tatt hardly worth killing over, but to me, I see nothing else but this. And in every murder, even those which are well-planned, the prospective killer’s judgement, morals and ethics are clouded by a single-minded need to attain what they cherish the most… and this is mine. So, if this cakey-photo of beautiful Eva is my goal, why kill Bob? Why not negotiate with him first? This is the first stumbling block in many situations, including murder, as an amicable solution could be achieved by talking, listening, asking, understanding and (as galling as it may be) by apologising. These are very simple steps which all of us could take, but again, our needs and emotions gets in the way. So, for sake of this fictitious beef with my imaginary chum over a cakey doodle of a Hollywood goddess (drool, drool, swoon), let’s assume I’ve tried every option… but Bob said “no”. Ooh what a git. Can you feel my anger rising? I’m shaking my fist and cursing the day he was born (which was a Tuesday). And I’m so furious, I’ve even used some blue words like ‘rogue’, ‘scallywag’ and ‘c**t’. Sorry, I’ve no middle ground when it comes to curse-words. You should hear me order a cup of tea? Filthy boy. Right! I have a good reason to kill Bob, but how easy will it be to actually kill him? In truth, it’s going to somewhere between very difficult and almost impossible. Why? Because I’m not a killer. I’ve seen it depicted in films, I’ve heard about in on podcasts and I’ve read about it in books, but I have never ended another person’s life and – like almost all of us - I probably never will. My experience is zero. Am I up to it? Probably not. Murder is not easy.
Luckily Bob isn’t real, he’s a fictional character created for a hypothetical scenario which results in his bloody and hopefully amusing death. Besides, even if he was alive, I don’t think anyone could logically consider him as a human, as Bob doesn’t like strawberry Angel Delight, he prefers butterscotch. Yuck! The physical act of murder isn’t the hardest part, and neither is the planning, it’s the psychological trauma which comes with it… not just before and during, but days, months and even years afterwards. Killing is next-to-impossible to do in a calm and rational way. Serial killers are uniquely able to do this as they have a distinct lack of empathy for their victims. Killing isn’t an emotional experience for them, it’s about a different type of need or loss; for Dennis Nilsen it was rejection, Harold Shipman had a misguided God complex, for Ian Brady it was about control, for Reg Christie it was to be desired, for Gordon Cummins he had sadistic urges to quell and for John George Haigh it was always about money. Serial-killers are selfish, arrogant and obsessive, they have an ability to be calm and calculating in a way that no-one else can and that is why they often (but not always) get away with murder. So, in order to achieve my goal, I need to become unemotional, calculated, calm and callous. But can I? Can I deal with the emotional and psychological trauma with comes with murder? The second I murder, or attempt to murder Bob, even if I go get away with it and am rewarded with this thing that I cherish the most; his life, my life and the lives of everyone we both know will be changed forever.
To get away with murder, I need to be cold and callous, which isn’t easy as our emotional responses to stress are hard-wired into our brains. And even if I could cope, I’m already screwed by the many interactions I’ve already had with Bob in the days, months and years before my hatred had formed. In almost every premeditated murder, the victim and perpetrator will have a long-established history together which leaves a detailed trail charting the highs and lows of their connection. For example:
What if things have already got heated? There may be legal letters, police reports, secret diaries, lists of abuse, documented sightings and worst of all death threats. My trail will be extensive, as will Bob’s. I could try to delete it all, but it would be futile, it would take a lifetime and everyone – from friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, police detectives and even Bob himself – would want to know why? Admit it! I am the worst person to even attempt to try and get away with Bob’s murder. I’m neither physically, mentally or psychological capable; my motive is weak, my experience is zero, my planning hasn’t begun, I left a trail charting the decline in our relationship (from years before the murder has taken place) and – even worse than that – I am a true-crime podcaster who has recorded a four-part series called How To Get Away With Murder in which I explain how I’m going to kill Bob. I am an idiot. And let’s not forget, simply by planning and rehearsing Bob’s murder, I won’t just be breaking one law, there are loads of smaller crimes I will have to commit in order to get that far: Such as:
So, before I’ve taken a single step to even plan Bob’s murder – way before I’ve casually flicked through a catalogue of industrial mincers, cherry-picked a strong enough acid to dissolve his flabby butt, or chosen a spot in my love-shrine for that much-coveted portrait of Eva munching on fistfuls of cakey-goodness (mmm) - the chance of me actually getting away with murder… is slim… very slim… which is why I need understand my target, his life and his routines. Find out how in Part Two. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Part One of How To get Away With Murder. This continues for the next three weeks, when your regular Murder Mile episodes will return, once I’ve finished the research. A big thank you to my new Patreon Supporters who are Anne-Marie Montgomery, Penny Richardson, Campbell Welsh and Sarah Cameron. As there’s no regular episodes this week, I’ll be posting you some interesting videos to keep you entertained. Up next is Extra Mile and a very special announcement. 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. 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. MUSIC:
*** 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, 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. *** 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", 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. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #109: The Thames Towpath Murders - Part Three: The Suspect16/9/2020
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
This is a photo of 24 Sydney Road in Teddington, which was the former home of Alfred Charles Whiteway, and just three doors down, nine years earlier, the Songhurst family lived.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND NINE:
Across May & June 1953, a violent serial rapist who would attack lone women in isolated spots in and around Teddington, and yet, going against his own method, that same man would rape and murder two young girls at the same time. But why?
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 Sandy Lane where Alfed Whiteway was initially picked-up by the Police and questioned over the murders of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed is located where the black triangle is, on the far left of the screen. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two videos to go with this week's episode; on the left is the "grassy-slope" at Teddington Lock where the bodies of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed were disposed of in the river, and on the right is Alfred Whiteway's former home at 24 Sydney Road in Teddington. These videos are a link to youtube, so it won't eat up your data.
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. 
Photos left to right (top row): Alfred Whiteway, Alfred with Nelloe and Christina, a photo of Nellie with her two children (the second was born after Alfred was arrested) and Sydney Road today. On the bottom row: 11 Lower King's Road in Kingston (where Nellie's lived with her mum), 24 Sydney Road where Alfred lived, the alley behind 11 Lower King's Road where Alfred first spoke to Nellie (and often had sex) and Canbury Gardens where they last chatted before the murders.
The original police drawing of the murder location with comparison photos taken recently. I've marked each photo 1 and 2 and the black lines represent what angle the photo was taken at.
A comparison map of Alfred's route home from Nellie's house. The red line is the route he initially said he took from 2 (Nellie's house) to 1 (Alfred's house), entirely missing Teddington Lock, but the red line represents the route he took via the towpath and the murder scene 3.
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: This case was researched using the original declassified polcie investigation files held at the National Archives, as well as many other sources.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: 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 the hunt for the Thames Towpath Murderer; a violent serial rapist who attacked lone women in isolated spots in and around Teddington, and yet, going against his own method, he would rape and murder two young girls at the same time. But why? 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 109: The Thames Towpath Murders – Part Three: The Suspect. Today I’m standing on Sandy Lane in Surrey; fifteen miles south-east of the rape of Patricia Birch in Windsor Great Park, eight miles south of the double murder of Barbara Songhurst & Christine Reed at Teddington Lock, one road north of the rape of 14-year-old Kathleen Ringham on Oxshott Heath, and just a few feet from the spot where Police would pick-up a possible suspect for all three attacks. Sandy Lane isn’t famous, vital or even a place of historical importance to the tourists or locals alike. In truth, it’s little more than a two-laned tree-lined country road with no footpath connecting the A244 on the north-east corner of Oxshott Heath to another insignificant little spot called Miles Lane. Being posh, secluded and selective about who they let live here, Sandy Lane is encircled by country houses, golf courses and a tennis club, but strictly no shops; as shops mean visitors, visitors mean riff-raff, and riff-raff means an infestation of poor people all dressed in track-suits who take selfies outside of a brick-built tax-dodge and wolf down fistfuls of McFood into the McMouth of their McBastard. In fact, except for a few furious curtain-twitchers yelling at any passers-by to “get back to your council tenement”, the only other people you’ll see here are walkers dressed in mountain gear to dawdle on the heath, builder’s dumping the debris they can’t be bothered to take to a tip, doggers doing ‘blowie Morse code’ with their headlights, and occasionally a stockbroker dumping the body of a golf rival. There’s not much to see or do and very few reasons to be here. There’s the heath, a small train station and a single road in the middle of the woods. It’s so remote you can only get here by train, car or bike. But why would you want to, unless you were fleeing a rape scene and seeking another victim? As it was here, on Wednesday 17th June 1953, at roughly 6:30pm, that a very plausible suspect for all three attacks was caught, and yet the Police (almost) let him slip through their fingers. (Interstitial) (Police) “28th June 1953, 4:30pm, statement by Alfred Charles Whiteway”. (Alfred) “Three weeks ago, I went for a ride on my cycle to see a friend in Englefield Green. I couldn’t see her, so I went to Windsor Great Park. As I was cycling along one of the footpaths, I saw a woman coming towards me, she smiled, said “good morning” and for some reason, I turned and followed her. I grabbed hold of her. I asked her to go in the bushes with me but she refused and struggled to get away. She talked me out of it and offered me about 17 shillings. I jumped on my cycle and rode away”. In his statement, Alfred conveniently forgot a few key details; like how he perched his blue bike by the park gate so he could seek-out lone females, why his saddlebag contained a seven-inch sheath knife and a foot-and-a-half long axe, how he stalked her up an isolated path, dazed her with the axe’s blunt curved butt, dragged her into a dense thicket, strangled her, raped her, stole her money and fled. It was a brazen attack in broad daylight, but to him, she was just a stranger who meant nothing, but sex. Patricia Birch gave the Police a detailed description of the attacker; “young, dark-haired, spotty with a cleft chin, rode a blue bike with white mudguards and a black saddlebag, he was scruffy-looking like he’d come off a building site and wore a crumpled blue-shirt, green gaberdine trousers, brown leather gloves and brown crepe-soled shoes” which matched a photofit of the Thames Towpath Murderer. By then, Alfred had fled… but having already raped once that day, and with his insatiable sexual lust clouding his every thought, he cycled a further fifteen miles south-east to Oxshott Heath to rape again. Spotted by two builders (“you know what, that looks a lot like Alf”), the Police were called, the suspect was identified and at 6:30pm Constables Oliver & Howard spotted the young man walking down Sandy Lane; a dark and isolated country road, lined with a dense thicket of trees, and no-one else in sight. (PC) “What’s your name son?”, (Alfred) “Alfred Whiteway”, which was true. (PC) “Address?”, (Alfred) “24 Sydney Road in Teddington”, which was true. (PC) “Empty your pockets”, which he did, but they only found ten shillings and two bike clips. (PC) “So where’s your bike?”, (Alfred) “I left it at home”, which was a lie as he’d stashed it in the bushes with his saddlebag. (PC) “You got a bag?”, (Alfred) “Nah, just what I got”. Had the officers searched him then, instead of later at the Police station, down his left leg they would have spotted a twenty-inch axe, still flecked with the blood of four women and with one more victim to add, as he lay-in-wait on Sandy Lane for another lone female. But they didn’t. Driven in the Police’s black Wolseley Saloon, Alfred was calm, pleasant and feigned a genuine interest in cars, as with the axe in his hand, he leaned forward to get a better look at the speedometer, (Alfred) “and as I was chatting to the copper, watching him in the mirror, I pushed it under the driver’s seat”. At roughly 7pm, at Kingston Police Station, Detective Inspector Brammell dismissed the spotty youth as a viable suspect and Alfred Charles Whiteway – the Thames Towpath Murderer – walked free. So, how did such a violent and dangerous predator slip under the Police radar? Alfred Charles Whiteway was born in Teddington on 21st June 1931. As the middle-child of eight - with two older brothers, three older sisters and two younger sisters, with one sister mentally disabled, one brother crippled by shell-shock, their father unable to work as a labourer owing to terminal cancer and their frazzled mother ran ragged by too many chores and so little money - being crammed into three small rooms in a tiny council flat on a scruffy dead-end at 24 Sydney Road, Alfred slept on the kitchen floor which he shared with Uncle Charles. Life was chaotic, impoverished and undisciplined. Educated at the nearby Stanley Road School, Alfred known as ‘Alf’ was described as a bully with an above average intelligence, who found it difficult to focus on anything but money, knives and girls. As a scrawny jug-eared youth with a spotty face and a cleft-chin, Alfred wasn’t a hit with the girls. Even as he lifted weights to become a lean yet powerfully built teen, being burdened by a bad attitude and a habit of forcing himself on a female which he called “seducing”, he lost his virginity early and never lost his appetite for sex. (Alfred) “I’d go any distance to get a bit from a girl who hadn’t had it before”. Alfred believed that rather than earning it, he had the right to take whatever he desired. On 4th June 1943, he was fined £5 and bound-over for stealing torches from a house - he was 11 years old. Three months later, aged 12, he stole a ladies’ purse, but was too young to be effectively punished. Quitting school, he struggled to stay employed as an errand-boy, a paint-sprayer and a coal-loader for more than a few months. And charged with stealing a bicycle, aged 15, Alfred was sent to the Cotswold Approved School; a borstal for young boys with emotional and behavioural problems. Described as “angry and difficult”, Alfred was rude, unruly and violent, he was obsessed with knives, fixated by sex, cruel to animals and was sexually aggressive towards the female teachers. On 22nd July 1948, having absconded from the school for a third time, aged 17 (and therefore an adult), being found guilty of the theft of a pair of gloves, Alfred was dismissed from borstal and sentenced to one year in prison. Discharged on 23rd March 1949, Alfred was given a chance to go straight or risk a lifetime inside. Having dreamed of earning an honest wage, learning a skill and seeing the world, like many of his pals who had enlisted, Alfred applied for National Service. He was young, strong and physically fit, but being so short-sighted he could barely read, let alone spot a relative from across the street, having flatly refused to wear glasses, he was declared unfit to serve and returned home with his pride severely dented. For the next three years, he drifted between temporary jobs whether by unloading vans, building walls or chopping down trees, and his love life was no better. Being single, it still stung that his ex-girlfriend (June Knight) had married Danny Songhurst; the eldest son of Gertrude & Daniel and the brother of their middle-child Barbara, who (until a few years earlier) had lived on Sydney Road, just three doors down from Alfred Whiteway. But his luck would soon change when he met and fell in love with Nellie. In April 1951, 16-year-old Nellie May Jones and her friend Dianne Isaacs went to Bushy Park; a Royal Park over the river which borders Teddington, Hampton Hill and the Thames towpath. Covering 1100 acres of rutting deer, paddling ponds, dense woods and meandering paths, it’s a popular place where kids feel safe and was large enough to still feel peaceful as the two young girls played on the swings. Being perched on his blue bike, 20-year-old Alfred spied-on the two girls as they paddled in the pond. Only he didn’t speak to them, he didn’t approach them, instead he just watched, waited and (hours later) he followed them through the park, over the river and up the towpath, a full mile to their homes. By 10pm, unnerved by the stranger pushing his bike slowly behind them, as the girls snuck up a dark unlit alley at the back of their homes on the Lower King’s Road, as Dianne darted into number 13, it was only when Nellie was by herself, with her exit blocked by a dead-end, that Alfred made his move. (Alfred) “It’s okay, don’t be afraid, I just wanted to talk to you”. And although an odd approach, having found him to be shy, charming and a little bit dishy; they talked for ten minutes, he asked her out on a date, their relationship blossomed and four months later he asked her to marry him. It was a whirlwind romance for the two young lovers… but it wouldn’t be easy. Aged just 16 and too young to legally wed, Nellie’s recently-widowed mother had refused to give them her blessing, and for good reason – Alfred was unemployed, impolite and a convicted thief - she didn’t like him, she didn’t trust him and she didn’t let him into their house at 11 Lower King’s Road. So, in a pique of teenage petulance - with their intimate relations limited to a few fumblings in Bushy Park, some sticky trysts on the towpath, or (rebelliously) sex up the alley behind her mother’s house - to force her hand, Nellie & Alfred got pregnant. On 27th February 1952, they married and on 20th May baby Christina was born, only as (Nellie’s mother had warned her) Alfred wasn’t there to provide for his wife and child, as at the time of the birth, he was serving six months in prison for theft and burglary. Upon his release, unable to afford a home, the couple lived apart. Feeling disconnected, their fights grew more frequent. Spending more time alone, instead of working every hour to feed his family, he would bunk-off to Old Ham Lock to practice throwing his knife and axe at a tree. And with one baby born and a second due in two months, his insatiable demands for sex was proving harder to assuage. Alfred Charles Whiteway wasn’t a crazed homicidal maniac with a string of assaults, rapes and murders in his wake. At worst, he was little more than a trouble youth, a bad parent and a very selfish boy, who (like many young men) had a odd fixation with knives and sex, but he wasn’t a killer… …and yet, just one week later, on the Thames towpath, two young girls would be raped and murdered. His first known attack was on Sunday 24th May 1953; nine days before the Queen’s Coronation, three weeks before the rape of Patricia Birch, and one week before the double murder of two best-friends. But there would be enough similarity to suggest a link for Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan. At 10:30am, 14-year-old Kathleen Ringham went for a walk with her dog on Oxshott Heath. She would state “I saw a man on a blue bike with a blue shirt go by. As I got to an isolated path, I heard a bicycle behind me. I felt a blow on the back of my head, I was dazed and dragged into the bushes. He said it would be alright and that he was going to do me. I struggled to fight him off. He pulled up my blouse and pulled off my shorts, and then before he put his person inside me, he asked me how old I was, I said I was fourteen. I did not scream as it was a lonely spot and I was worried he would put his hands around my throat again. After he got off, I tried to get up but I felt dizzy and my head was hurting”. With a pain in her head and blood in her eyes, Kathleen gave a vivid description of her attacker, whose spotty face, blue bike, brown gloves, black saddlebag, crepe-soled shoes and twenty-inch long yellow and black axe would later prove a positive match to the attack – one month later - on Patricia Birch. Evidence was slim, no name was given and Police knew of no-known suspect who matched this very unique attacker, so ultimately the investigation stalled. And although Detective Inspector Brammell had mistakenly released a credible suspect who had no prior convictions for rape or assault, detectives had already began questioning Alfred Charles Whiteway in connection with the rapes of Kathleen Ringham, Patricia Birch and the double rapes and murders of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed. But by then, one very crucial piece of evidence had gone missing. (Police) “28th June 1953, 4:30pm, statement by Alfred Charles Whiteway”. (Alfred) “Three weeks ago, I went for a ride on my cycle to see a friend in Englefield Green. I couldn’t see her, so I went to Windsor Great Park. As I was cycling along one of the footpaths, I saw a woman coming towards me, for some reason, I followed her, I grabbed hold of her. I asked her to go in the bushes with me but she refused. She talked me out of it, offered me 17 shillings and I rode away”. Although deliberately misleading, in that statement Alfred admitted to the minor offence of robbery, and not rape, but having been positively identified by Kathleen and Patricia, the Police had enough evidence to detain and question him, whilst all three cases were investigated. (Police) “29th June 1953, I am Detective Constable Virgo of Richmond CID. On the night of Sunday 31st May, two girls were murdered on the Teddington Lock towpath. Where were you at the time?”. In a statement backed-up by his wife, Alfred denied any connection to the murders. At that time “I was with my wife and child in Canbury Gardens until gone 11:30pm”, one mile south of the crime-scene. “I didn’t go near Teddington Lock. I rarely do. I cycle home by Kingston Bridge”, a longer route which avoids the towpath, and “I didn’t stop, I went straight home and got in about five to twelve, as seen by my Uncle Charles”. And although he admitted he knew Barbara, “they lived in our road years ago, Barbara was about six, but I haven’t seen her since and I don’t know Christine”, which was true. With no axe, knife or witnesses, Alfred knew the murders couldn’t be pinned on him. But then again, he hadn’t met Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan; a highly-experienced Police interrogator and investigator who was smart, cunning and (worst of all) devious. (Hannan) “1st July 1953, 12:10pm. I am Detective Superintendent Hannan enquiring into the murders of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed, I want to ask you a few questions”, but Alfred wasn’t playing ball “Nah, I’m keeping my mouth shut otherwise you’ll bloody pin it on me. I had nothing to do with them girls. You know I’d go any distance to get a bit from a girl who hadn’t had it before, but I’d never go that far”. But Hannan knew he had, he just needed to prove it, but this was proving fruitless. Having taken blood and saliva samples, although a search of Alfred’s home uncovered the blue bike, the brown gloves, the crepe-soled shoes and the black saddlebag, no knife or axe was found. In fact, having hidden it under the driver’s seat of the police car, the axe had since gone missing. On 8th July, with Alfred Whiteway formerly charged over the rapes of Patricia and Kathleen, as he awaited his sentence, Hannan had more time to question him, and more chances to make him slip. Hannan’s questions were nothing interesting, just a series of dull questions about Alfred’s routines. Questioned about his route to and from his wife’s house (Alfred) “sometimes I ride along the towpath and over lock bridge”, his obsession with knives “I keep some in my saddlebag for throwing at trees”, the knives’ blades “it’s a twelve-inch Ghurkha knife and an eight-inch sheath knife”, his route to the trees at Old Ham Lock, “I cycle over Kingston footbridge and passed my swimming place by Teddington Lock. I know that bit of the towpath well”, and as he nervously gabbled with the devious detective, Alfred even admitted that the last time he could recall throwing his twenty-inch black-and-yellow axe at a tree - was at Old Ham Lock, where the two girls were last seen, a few hours before their murders. Hannan was compiling a confession, but he needed something concrete. On 15th July, the same day that Alfred pleaded ‘guilty’ at The Old Bailey to the rape of Patricia Birch and Kathleen Ringham, Constable Arthur Cosh of Kingston police station made a startling realisation. While cleaning-out a black Wolseley Saloon before his shift, under the driver’s seat, he found an axe, but instead of handing it in, he took it home and used it to chop up firewood on the concrete floor. Three weeks later, realising its significance, PC Cosh handed the axe to Detective Hannan. But by that point; any fingerprints were missing, any blood traces were gone, the blade was blunt and - although the curved butt exactly matched the wounds to the girls’ heads – it was inadmissible as evidence. Without it, the entire case would collapse, unless Hannan could secure a confession from the killer. Alfred Whiteway was now a convicted rapist, and although his statements were shaky and the physical evidence was weak, there was no way Hannan would let him walk free on a technicality. So, what he did next was highly unethical. But then again, Detective Herbert Hannan, ‘the Policeman’s Policeman’ was a man who would drain a three-mile stretch of the River Thames to find a single little girl, and as he would later state “sometimes, you have to go beyond what it right, to see justice done”. On 30th July 1953, having repeatedly interviewed his heavily-pregnant wife, as much to fact-check his lies as to get under Alfred’s skin, Hannan showed his evidence. First, the Ghurkha knife that Police had dredged out of Old Ham Lock, at which Alfred barely blinked (Alfred) “oh, you got it out of the water, did you?”. Second, Alfred’s bloodstained shoe which was too faint to group, a tiny detail that Hannan failed to mention, and as he turned pale and trembled, Alfred spluttered “you know bloody well it was me, don’t you?”. At which, thinking this key piece of evidence was lost forever, Hannan thudded onto the table - the axe - it was inadmissible in a court of law, but Alfred didn’t know that. (Alfred) “It’s all up. You bloody know well I done it! That’s buggered me. I can’t stop myself. I must have a woman. I didn’t mean to kill them. I never wanted to hurt anyone”. And with that, Hannan had his confession. Alfred Charles Whiteway was charged with the murders of Barbara Songhurst & Christine Reed. Tried at the Old Bailey, he denied all charges and stated that the Police had fabricated his statement. But with a unanimous jury finding him guilty, on 23rd December 1953 he was hung at Wandsworth Prison. A killer was dead, streets would be safe and (as he had promised) justice had returned to Teddington, but several details about the attack still bothered Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan. Alfred Whiteway was a serial rapist who attacked lone females in dark isolated spots; his motive was sex, his victims were strangers, he felt no anger towards them only lust and his method of attack never deviated. Chosen at random; each girl was spotted, stalked, struck, dazed, dragged, stripped, raped and – although bloodied and traumatised – all of them were left alive… except Barbara and Christine. But why? Why rape and murder two young girls at the same time? What if one screamed, or got away? The truest words that Alfred ever stated was during his confession, he said “I didn’t mean to kill them, I never wanted to hurt anyone”. And yet - for whatever reason – something drove him to kill. Sunday 31st May 1953 was a glorious sunny day, perfect for a little riverside picnic for two best-friends and their pals. But for Nellie & Alfred, married-life had soured, and as they strolled through Canbury Park - with one baby wailing, a second baby due, no home, no job and their fights becoming more frequent - although they kissed and made-up, at 11pm Alfred cycled-away to make his way home. He wasn’t angry or upset, but as the couple’s sex-life had stalled, his ever-insatiable urges lay unsated. At 11:10pm, having cycled one mile north to the Kingston footbridge, “I know that bit of the towpath well”; with moonless sky all dark and cloudy, occasionally spotting a lone female cycling by the dense thicket at Teddington Lock, his urges stirred. “You know I’d go any distance to get a bit from a girl who hadn’t had it before”. Hiding behind a tree, Alfred waited; his bike hidden, his bag stashed, his axe in his hand and an erection in his pants. “I can’t stop myself. I must have a woman”. He didn’t care who, a stranger’s a stranger, and being used to taking whatever he desired, all they meant to him was sex. The lock was the perfect place for a rapist to lurk… but not one with bad eyesight, who was so short-sighted he could barely read or spot a relative across the street, and was too proud to wear glasses. At 11:15pm, as Barbara & Christine left the picnic at Petersham Meadows and cycled south passed Old Ham Lock, their rickety bikes clattered down the dark uneven towpath as the girls rode in tandem. Barely illuminated by the single yellowy bike-light she had borrowed, Barbara cycled ahead, singing as she often did, as (unlit owing to a broken bulb) a slightly shyer Christine meekly followed behind her. Fifteen minutes later, as Alfred lay in wait, hidden by a tree; his eyes saw only one bike-light, not two, his ears heard one voice singing, not two, and thinking she was a lone female - with the curved blunt butt of his axe – Alfred struck and knocked Barbara clean off her bike. “She came round the tree where I was stood, I bashed her no harder than the (girl in the park) and she went down like a log”. Hearing her bike fall, as Christine stopped a few feet short; seeing a man, an axe and her best-friend lying all bloodied and slumped, Christine panicked. “I only saw one girl. Then the other one screamed”. With his perfect plan smashed and at the risk of her fleeing “I nipped over to shut her up”, with four swift blows to the head which rendered her dazed, immobile and disorientated, but not dead. Having dragged both girls into the dense dark thicket, for Alfred, although things had gone awry, the maths was very simple; two virgins, one rapist and an insatiable sexual urge to satisfy. So, in a shift to his plan, as they struggled, he strangled, stripped and raped both girls, as they lay side-by-side. Except… with a pain in her head and blood in her eyes, even as she drifted in-and-out of consciousness in the dark dense thicket, unlike Alfred, there was nothing wrong with Barbara’s eyesight. She was not a stranger (Barbara) “Alf? Alf Whiteway?”. She knew his name, he knew his face, she knew where he lived. “And then I tumbled, she knew me. If it hadn’t been for that, it wouldn’t have happened”. In a blind angry panic, he snatched the sheath-knife from his saddlebag and in a swift frenzied attack stabbed both girls to death; with Christine lying face-up and his old neighbour Barbara face-down, so he didn’t have to look into the petrified eyes of the little girl he last saw when she was six. Being dead, he dragged both girls down the grassy slope – their blood stained the coping stones and the oak timbers of the lock-wall – and as he cast both bodies out into the dark black river, the tidal waters carried them upstream and - he hoped - out to sea. He took the weapons, dumped the bikes, mistakenly left behind his green gaberdine rain-coat and believed he had got away with murder. (End) Only he hadn’t counted on Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan. Across the five-day trial at The Old Bailey, the defence council for Alfred Whiteway picked holes in the evidence, stated that the confession was a complete fabrication and they questioned the ethics of this highly experienced but devious detective who “always got the job done”. With the eye-witness testimony of his 14-year-old Kathleen Ringham deemed irrelevant by the judge and the axe inadmissible, basing their conclusion on circumstantial evidence and a dubious confession, the jury took less than 45 minutes to find Alfred Whiteway guilty and his appeal was dismissed. On 12th November 1953, six weeks before his execution, Alfred sent the detective a handwritten letter from prison. It read “Mr Hannan, you were wrong. Why you made up that false confession I can’t say, but you knew your word would be more accepted than mine. I played into your hands too easily. You were so positive that it was me that you risked a lot to have me hanged. Well, you were successful”. A second letter Alfred sent to his own mother, it read “I’ll tell you this ma, I’ve done some rotten things in my life but this time they are wrong. I never did it, but I still reckon I deserve to die for that Oxshott affair. So, if anybody brings that up against me, you tell them they’re wrong. Your loving son. Alfred”. Whether the detective had lied, we shall never know. But the sentence brought closure to the grieving families, the girls were buried, a new era was ushered-in with a new Queen, and - just as Herbert Hannan had promised - peace returned to Teddington as the Thames Towpath Murderer was dead. Or was he? This episode is dedicated to the memory of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed; two best-friends who lived as they died, side-by-side. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was the final part of the Thames Towpath Murders. Next week? Something different. And you love a bit of pointless waffle, Extra Mile is up next. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Shane Kinnair, Kathryn Williams, Cecelia Chang, Sharon Symonds, Michelle Anne Rogers and Lawrence McG, I thank you all muchly for your support. A thank you to Dawn Smith for your very kind donation via my website, and – I’m feeling very spoiled – John Lee, Annemieke (Anna-mick) and Mike Hughes, who weren’t put-off by that annoying advert that Acast forced into each episode, which I have since deleted, and donated via the Supporter link in the show-notes, I thank you too. And as always, a huge thank you to everyone who listens to the show… and doesn’t hate it. This show is for you. Everyone else? Meh. 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, 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. *** 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", 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. Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast #108: The Thames Towpath Murders - Part Two: The Investigation9/9/2020
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St Helena Pier as seen from Richmond Bridge
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT:
On the morning of Monday 1st June 1953, at 09:05am, the body of Barbara Songhurst was pulled out of the River Thames at Radnor Gardens and brought ashore at St Helena Pier, as many dead bodies are. But even before an autopsy was conducted, Scotland Yard were notified, as this was no accident, this was unmistakably a murder.
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 St Helena Pier where the bodies of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed were brought ashore is marked with a yellow triangle, at the bottom left of the screen by Ham and Petersham. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, such as Soho, King's Cross, etc, access them by clicking here.
Here's two little videos to go with this episode; to the left is 15 Roy Grove, Christine's home where her parents last saw her and Barbara alive and to the right is St Helena Pier where the bodies of both girls were pulled ashore. Below are two more videos showing you the locations where each other girls bodies were found. These videos are a link to youtube, so it won't eat up your data.
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.
A comparison photo of the murder location at Teddington Lock of the Thames Towpath Murders; left is the original crime scene photo, and right is a photo taken by myself recently
A comparison photo of the slipiway, just outside of the locak entrance at Teddington where the two girls bodies were dragged and cast into the water. This is also where Christine's bike was found
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: This case was researched using the original declassified polcie investigation files held at the National Archives, as well as many other sources.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: 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 the investigation into the vicious double-murder of two best-friends, Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed, who were stabbed, raped and disposed-of by an unknown attacker on a peaceful Thames towpath. But who was this man, and why did he kill? 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 108: The Thames Towpath Murders – Part Two: The Investigation. Today I’m standing by St Helena Pier, just off the Thames towpath in Richmond; one mile north of the camp site at Petersham Meadows where Barbara and Christine enjoyed a last laugh, two miles north of their final sighting just shy of Old Ham Lock, two miles north-east of the shallow waters by Radnor Gardens where Barbara’s body was found, and a full three miles north of Teddington Lock. St Helena Pier is a popular place for tourists and locals alike, as you’re only a short totter from a posh shopping trip in Richmond town centre, a pleasant scoot along the oddly uneven towpath from Kew Gardens or a bobbly wind-swept boat ride to Hampton Court Palace, but this is a place of rest. Being an old-fashioned sloped boat-dock leading down to the water’s edge, although buses and trucks whizz passed on the nearby Richmond Bridge, St Helena Pier has a real slowness about it, as everything is done at a very a sedate pace. With a smattering of ale-houses and tea-shops set around a Georgian stepped terrace - if you ignore the modern monstrosity of the aluminium pier – it’s a lovely spot to soak up the view, feed the ducks, inhale some semi-fresh air and do a bit of people-watching. There’s several types you can see; there’s the strollers, the joggers, the sitters and the snoozers; there’s the pseudo-intellectuals who seem fully absorbed in every word of Albert Camu, except it’s just a dust-jacket covering the latest Jackie Collins smut-fest; there’s the hopeless romantics who’ve hired a boat and punt it like a limbless gondolier and think it’s original to sing the Cornetto song; there’s always a mahogany moron so sunburnt their reddening skin makes you wince, only you know (right now) they’re too drunk to feel it; and from a series of wooden boat sheds, cleverly called the Riverside buildings, four-and-eight man sculling crews row knife-like boats through the water while a mini Hitler barks order at them and gives everyone a hint at how this sad singleton spends his spare time (“stroke, stroke, stroke”). It’s not all pleasantness though, as with over two hundred bridges along the Thames, sadly each year, at least fifty bodies are recovered from the river. So many, that the Police set-up a marine force to fish the bodies out, several mortuaries were built under various bridges (including Tower Bridge) and many dead have been pulled out – right here - at St Helena Pier. One of whom was a sixteen-year-old girl. As it was here, on Monday 1st June 1953, that Barbara Songhurst’s body was pulled shore, but even before the autopsy had begun, it was clear that she hadn’t drowned, she was murdered. (Interstitial) Just one day before the Queen’s Coronation - as the streets were swept, railings were painted and the homeless were bussed-out so they didn’t sully the celebration - for many, this was the start of a public holiday, but for Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan, a murder investigation was about to begin. At 09:05am, from a few inches of shallow water by the riverbank at Radnor Gardens, Sergeant George Cooper struggled to pull the tiny child-like body of this seven-stone and five-foot girl into his boat, as her blue jeans, white tartan blouse and white woollen coat were sodden with the silty river’s sludge. Who she was, how she had died and where she had entered the water was unknown, as although most of the evidence had washed away, with the river becoming tidal when the lock’s sluices are up, her body could have travelled many miles upstream or down, depending on the time of day or night. At a steady speed, Sergeant Cooper drove the boat north, passed Petersham Meadows, Duke’s Hole and fifteen minutes later he arrived at St Helena Pier, where an excitable crowd had already gathered. Attracted by the sight of a constable carrying a lump draped in a thick grey blanket, the chatter ceased and a silence descended, as although the gorpers spied a corpse, by its tiny size, it was clearly a child. Having commandeered a boat-shed at the Riverside Buildings, whilst they waited for an ambulance to arrive, in accordance with the law Dr Albert Bowtell confirmed her life as extinct. And with her injuries not consistent with a drowning, an accident or a fall, suspecting foul-play, Scotland Yard was notified. 44-year-old Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan was a short but smart man, widely regarded as a highly experienced senior detective with many cases under his belt. Being nicknamed ‘The Count’ owing to his high-class aspirations and slightly affected upper-class accent (which hid the fact he was actually from working-class stock, being born in Paddington to an Irish mother and a Midlands father), that aside, being thorough and determined, he was a man who would leave no stone unturned to see justice done. At 12:10pm, the autopsy began at Richmond Mortuary, conducted by the pathologist Dr Arthur Mant. With the young girl’s identity determined and her cause of death confirmed, although he was not medically-trained, Herbert knew that every one of her wounds helped paint a picture of her attacker. With two impact craters to her head and cheekbone but no defensive wounds, this suggested the initial attack was sudden and premeditated. With the angle of the wounds being head-height, the killer was likely to be a foot taller than Barbara. Being well-built, he inflicted enough force to render her semi-conscious, but his motive wasn’t murder as he had struck her with the blunt curved butt of an axe and not its sharp deadly head, which risked her waking, fleeing or screaming. Both strikes were controlled, as was her violent rape and the disposal of her body, suggesting thar he had attacked before, and yet the three deep and frenzied stab wounds to her back - rather than her front - told a completely different story. It was as if – for whatever reason - something had compelled him to kill. Detective Superintendent Hannan had painted a rough picture, as the evidence suggested this man was a young well-built male of average height, possibly local, handy with a knife and an axe, who was likely to have prior convictions for a similar offence… only he matched no-known rapist or murderer. And yet, Herbert saw a strange similarity between Barbara’s murder and an attack, one week prior. On Sunday 24th May, eight miles south of Teddington, as 14-year-old Kathleen Ringham walked along an isolated path on Oxshott Heath, a vicious sadistic attack had left her dazed, raped and traumatised. Blinded by the pain in her head and the blood in her eyes, she caught a brief glimpse of her assailant; a young white male with dark hair and a cleft chin, who was grubby “like he’d come off a building site” and he had struck her across the head with the blunt curved butt of an axe. The investigation stalled owing to a lack of evidence and witnesses, but the Police had enough details to compile a photofit. At around the same time that the body of Barbara Songhurst was brought ashore at St Helena Pier, her murder location was discovered, almost three miles south, on the corner of Teddington Lock. Amid the cloudy moonless sky of the previous night, the raging river had seemed as black as the dense thicket of shadowy trees which shrouded the uneven towpath, but being in the bright light of the crisp summer sun, where red looked red and liquid was vivid, this was the unmistakable sight of a massacre. On the Ham side of the Thames, just down from the lockkeeper’s cottage, the two pedestrian bridges and the river’s triple locks, on an s-shaped kink to the path lay a green gaberdine rain-coat, several blood spots and some scuff marks in the soil. To the untrained eye it looked like the aftermath of a fight, but to Herbert Hannan, as his experienced eyes followed an obvious and unsettling trail from the towpath to the thicket to the river, it backed-up every detail that Barbara’s autopsy had suggested. From behind a lone tree, whilst the anxiously waiting assailant had hacked at its bark with an axe, with a swift strike as she cycled-by, he had knocked Barbara clean off her bike. As she fell to the path and perhaps screamed, to silence her, he struck her a second time to render her semi-conscious but alive. Into the dense thicket he dragged her, among the wooded undergrowth he scattered her clothes, on a patch of flattened grass he savagely raped her, and although he seemed to relish staring into the terrified eyes of this little girl – for whatever reason - having raped her while she was face-up, he then turned her face-down to brutally stab her, as a thick bloody pool slowly spread where she lay dying. With his evil deed done and his tiny victim dead, having dragged Barbara across the towpath, down the grassy slope - her blood staining the coping stones and the oak timbers of the lock-wall - as cast her out into the dark black river, the tidal waters carried her upstream and - he hoped - out to sea. He took the weapons, dumped her bike and mistakenly left behind his green gaberdine rain-coat. Everything about this crime-scene made sense to Detective Hannan… only this wasn’t just the sight of a young girl’s attack, as every detail had been duplicated. This was unmistakably a double murder. Down to the water, a second set of heels had been dragged. Among the undergrowth were two sets of girl’s low-heeled shoes; one black, one white and both bloodstained, as well as ripped pair of dark blue slacks. And in the dense thicket, lay two flattened patches of grass and two thick pools of blood, where two best-friends had died, side-by-side, as the last sound they heard were each other’s tears. The scene gave up very few definitive clues to the killer’s identity; there were no bikes, no weapons, no sightings, no witnesses, no shoe-marks and no fingerprints. A lot of vital evidence was missing… …but more importantly, so was Christine Reed… …and the likelihood was, she was already dead. The last days and hours of Barbara and Christine’s lives were investigated thoroughly; the places, the timings and their patterns, all meal-times, every social group and their flick-flacking back and forth between each other’s homes. Gertrude, Daniel and the Songhurst siblings gave solid and consistent statements, as did Herbert, Lucy and the rest of the Reed family. Everyone was questioned from the Blue Angel café, York House, the chemist shop, the factory and the church, but it all drew a blank. Five people were confirmed as the last to see both girls alive. Their three pals; John Wells, Albert Sparkes and Peter Warren all gave statements confirming the place and times that the girls had arrived and left the camp-site at Petersham Meadows; they explained what they said, what they did and who with; John admitted to a little light kissing with Barbara, Peter confirmed he had loaned her his bike light, the hand-axe that Albert had used to chop-up the firewood was deemed too small to be the murder weapon, and having gone to sleep fifteen minutes after girls had cycled away, they awoke, packed-up and left the next morning - as verified by the other campers. As for Basil Nixon and Sheila Daines, who heard the two girls on clattering bikes and chattering away just north of Old Ham Lock? At roughly midnight, needing to head home, Basil and Sheila walked down that same dark overgrown towpath; with the thunder of the black raging river to their right, a dense thicket of shadowy trees to their left, the cloudy moonless sky obscured by a heavy canopy of low-hanging branches and (even with a good torch) their visibility was only a few feet ahead. But as they walked along the towpath passed Teddington Lock, amidst the darkness… they saw and heard nothing. And that was it. With no eye-witnesses, no concrete evidence and Christine Reed still missing and presumed dead, the Police publicly released a photofit of the young scruffy man with the cleft-chin wanted for the rape of a minor in Oxshott Heath and possibly Barbara’s murder. But as no-one came forward, the case stalled. The next day, as the 27-year-old ex-princess was crowned as Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, the grey streets of London erupted in a kaleidoscope of colour and sound as a new era dawned… …but for one family, this wasn’t a time of joy, but a time of dreaded anticipation, as with their daughter missing and her best-friend dead, the Police search continued unabated for either the girl, or her body. Nothing was left unchecked, as at the Police’s request, the Port of London Authority drained a three-mile long, four-hundred-foot-wide and forty-foot-deep stretch of the Thames from Teddington Lock to Richmond Bridge for almost a week. To find one little girl, the mighty river was turned into a trickle. Police boats scoured in packs, divers dredged the thick silty waters and long-lines of constables waded waist-deep along the shoreline for any hint or clue. On Tuesday 2nd, at about 10:30am, a few feet from the grassy-slope at Teddington Lock, Christine’s cream and blue BSA sports model bicycle was found. Four days later, on Saturday 6th June at 1:35pm, as a Police boat patrolled a popular fishing spot known as Duke’s Hole, among a thick blanket of green algae and a flash of pale white skin, the semi-clad body of a young girl was found face-down in the shallow water, just a few feet from Petersham Meadows. As before, the body was brought to St Helena Pier. Only this time, as two solemn constables carried the little lump ashore, respectfully hidden under a thick grey blanket, there was no excitable chatter from the people, only the silence of heads hanging low, as everyone’s worst fear had been realised. And at 2:40pm, in Richmond Mortuary, Herbert Reed identified the body of his daughter – Christine. With her body bloated and her face decomposed after six days in the cold silty water, just like Barbara, the autopsy was conducted by Dr Arthur Mant, with Detective Superintendent Hannan present. Time, weather and water had been cruel to her body. In short pale patches, her decaying flesh had been stripped by fish, pecked-at by birds and sharp rocks had torn at her soft skin as she tumbled in the raging river, but although deformed, it was clear which wounds were natural and which were not. Like Barbara, Christine had been struck, raped, stabbed, dragged and dumped in a premeditated and sudden attack, and although the same wounds had been inflicted by the same man with the same weapons, each of her injuries were more frenzied and brutal, as if he resented Christine being there. Rather than two, four deep craters impacted the back of her head as the blunt curved butt of an axe had repeatedly caved in her skull, crushing the bone and haemorrhaging her brain. Rather than three, six fast and savage stab wounds had ripped six-and-a-half inches deep into her left breast and chest, piercing her lung, liver and heart, and yet - unlike Barbara - when she was stabbed, she was face-up. Oddly, unlike Barbara, he stripped her lower half, scattering her black flat-heeled shoes and dark blue slacks into the bushy undergrowth, and yet her white cotton knickers were never found. And with lacerations to her hymen and cuts to her perineum, her virginity had been taken and her rape had been brutal, but during the very brief time he was at the crime scene - in both girls - he had ejaculated. The autopsy was conclusive, whoever had done this was young, strong, patient and dangerous. With no known suspects matching this sadistic and horrific attack, Detective Superintendent Hannan had no idea who this man was but he knew one thing for certain… having brazenly committed a double rape and murder, at the same time, in the same place, he had struck before and he would strike again. Two weeks later, he did. On the mid-morning of Wednesday 17th June, 15 miles west of Teddington, 49-year-old Patricia Birch left her home in Engelfield Green to walk her dog in Windsor Great Park. The day was clear, sunny and dry, and being a 5000-acre royal park full of rutting deer, wide lakes, dense woods and meandering paths, it’s a popular spot for picnics and walkers, but is large enough to still feel peaceful and private. As she crossed Wick Lane to enter a gate by Saville Gardens, she spotted a young man on a blue bike staring aimlessly as he watched the smattering of cars which trundled along on this quiet country lane. He was young, dark-haired and spotty-faced with a noticeable cleft to his chin. He rode a blue bike with white mud-guards and a black saddle-bag. And looking scruffy, as if he had come off a building site, he wore a crumpled blue-shirt, green gaberdine trousers, brown leather gloves and brown shoes with a crepe-sole. He looked a little bit odd, but thinking nothing more of it, she entered the heath. Playing fetch with her little dog, as Patricia sauntered along an isolated path toward the flat bleak beauty of Black Pond, she heard a clatter as behind her a bike slowly approached. Turning to see that same young man, she called her excitable little dog to her side, so it didn’t run in front of his wheels. But as she stooped to clip on its lead… suddenly her vision went very dark, very fast. Briefly seeing nothing but black and unable to tell up-from-down as her world spun around, as Patricia slumped hard onto the grassy ground as her weakened legs buckled under her, a trickle of blood ran down her face and pooled into her eyes, as she felt herself being dragged into a dense dark thicket. Dazed and partially blinded, although petrified and drifting in-and-out of consciousness, as his brown leather gloves gripped tightly around her gasping throat - as much to silence her as to suffocate her - during the attack, Patricia tried to memorise as many details as possible; his height, his age, his weight, his size, his spots, his birth marks, his bike, his saddle-bag and the terrifying sight of his axe. Big enough to chop logs, this yellow-handled, long wooden necked and black bladed axe with a curved blunt butt could inflict death in a single swift blow, being almost as long as an arm and as thick as a head. Fighting for her life and barely able move her weakened limbs as he tore the clothes off her body and cast them aside into the dense undergrowth – with no-one in sight, her screams muffled and her yappy little dog too small to be of any protection – amidst the dark thicket, he violently raped her. And when he was done, having stolen the pitiful sum of 17 shillings from her purse, he buttoned-up his trousers and packed-up his saddle-bag, as if this was the most normal thing to do in the world. He didn’t care that she had seen his face, heard his voice or been close enough to smell his breath. To him, they were nothing but strangers. Seeing an elderly man approach on the path, alerted by her lone dog barking at bushes, the young man rode off on his bike and – into the distance – he vanished. Patricia Birch was taken straight to Kingston Hospital; her skull hadn’t fractured, the wound only need three stitches, she gave a full statement to the Police, and she went on to make a good recovery. Sadly, the young man had disappeared… …but from people’s minds, his photofit had not. At 5:30pm, that same day, two builders - Harry Bradford & Bernard Hannam – were reading the paper, discussing the murders and looking at the photofit of the ‘possible suspect’ for the attacks on Barbara Songhurst, Christine Reed and an unnamed 14-year-old girl on nearby Oxshott Heath, when one of the men said “you know what, that looks a lot like Alf”. Having seen him earlier that day, sitting on a tree stump on Oxshott Heath with his bike and his saddle-bag by his side - knowing this local builder fitted the description and had a passion for knives - they did the right thing and called the Police. At 5:45pm, Constables Oliver & Howard left Kingston Police Station, picked up the builders and over the next 45 minutes they patrolled Oxshott Heath, until they found ‘Alf’. Casually strolling along Sandy Lane, although he had been positively identified, baring only a passing resemblance to the photofit and having no bike, no bag and – more importantly – no axe, the officers stopped and questioned him. (PC) “What’s your name son?”, (Alfred) “Alfred Whiteway”, (PC) “Address?”, (Alfred) “24 Sydney Road in Teddington”, (PC) “Yours?”, (Alfred) “Nah, I live with my mum”. (PC) “Empty your pockets”, which he did, but it only contained 10 shillings and two bike clips. (PC) “Bike-clips, so where’s your bike?”, (Alfred) “I left it at home”, (PC) “You got a bag?”, (Alfred) “Nah, just what I got”. And seeing a few spots of blood dotted down his crumpled blue shirt, accepting acne as a plausible excuse, the baby-faced youth agreed to come in for questioning and freely volunteered his time to assist the Police. Driven in the Police’s black Wolseley Saloon, 22-year old Alfred Charles Whiteway, known to his pals as ‘Alf’ was calm, pleasant and showed a genuine interest in cars, he even leaned forward from the back seat to ask the constables questions about the motor and get a better look at the speedometer. Never once did he act like a killer who had been caught and not for a single second did he seem like a sadistic sexual predator who had attacked one girl, murdered two more and having already raped one woman that day, had cycled a further fifteen miles south-east to Oxshott Heath, to attack again. At roughly 7pm, they arrived at Kingston Police Station. Brought before Detective Inspector Brammell who looked the spotty youth up-and-down, before he could be questioned any further, seeing only a vague similarity in the boy, the detective dismissed him, and Alfred Whiteway walked free. (End) Being in an era of typewriters, paper-files and index-cards, with just two telephones per office, no easy way to copy documents and little communication between the Police – by the time of Alfred’s release – the report on the attack of Patricia Birch had yet to be filed. It hadn’t been circulated to the press, other officers, or the detective heading-up the investigation into the murders of Barbara & Christine. Among the post-euphoric glow of the Queen’s Coronation, as war-time rationing wound down and the people dreamed of a better future for all, a sadistic sex maniac and violent double murderer was still in their midst. Free to go where he wished, to do as he pleased, and to rape whoever he desired. The press had dubbed him ‘The Thames Towpath Murderer’, but as invisible and invincible as this monster felt, with not a single shred of evidence to tie him to his crimes, the one person he hadn’t counted on was the one man who sought to bring him down, who was nicknamed ‘The Count’. Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan was one of Scotland Yard’s most highly experienced and decorated officers, who was thorough, determined and precise, and would leave no stone unturned, even going so far as to drain a three-mile stretch of London’s largest river to find a single little girl. He was a loving husband, a doting father and a proud grandfather who wanted his girls (and every other girl) to be safe to walk the streets, paths or towpaths of the place they all called home. Described by the Force as ‘The Policeman’s Policeman’, Hannan was smart, cunning, devious and although a highly skilled interrogator and investigator who always got the job done, to get results he would later state “sometimes, you have to go beyond what it right, to see justice done”. Justice was coming to Teddington, but two big questions still plagued the mind of Detective Herbert Hannan - “who was this maniac” and “why did he attack both girls at the same time?” OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was part two of three of the Thames Towpath Murders, with the final part next week. And there’s some aimless waffle after the break with Extra Mile, so turn off now, if you haven’t already. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Richard Saunders, Tony Hobden and Paige Spencer, I thank you all muchly for your support. A thank you to Sue Lloyd for your very kind donation via my website, and Gavin, Minna and Racheal P who donated via the Supporter link in the show-notes, I thank you too. I’m now off to buy a wheelbarrow load of cake. Yum. And as always, a huge thank you to everyone who listens to the show, as without listeners, I’m just a fat bald man talking to himself. 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, 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. *** 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", 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.
BEST TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at British Podcast Awards, The Telegraph's Top Five True-Crime Podcasts, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50 and iTunes Top 25. Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher and all podcast platforms.
The exact location at Teddington Lock where the murders took place
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN:
On the night of Sunday 31st May 1953, Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed, two innocent and inseparable best-friends were brutally raped and murdered on a peaceful towpath and their bodies were dumped in the River Thames. But who would want these two young girls dead, and why?
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.
Here's two little videos; on the left is the exact location of the Thames towpath where Alfred Whiteway was hiding and where Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed would be murdered. And on the right is a short extract to show you part of the route both girls would have cycled. This video is a link to youtube, so it won't eat up your data.
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.
Left to right: a photo of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed, Babrara's home at 75 Prince's Road in Teddington, Christine's home at 15 Roy Grove in Hampton, and then in the smaller photos (top left) Petersham Meadows, (bottom left) Teddington footbridge on the opposite side of the river, (top right) Teddington Lock looking down towards the Lockkeeper's Cottage and the murder location and (bottom right) the first Teddington footbridge, just passed the murder location.
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: This case was researched using the original Police investigation files, as well as many other reliable sources, including first hand accounts, autopsy reports and personal experimentation. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4202459 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C10887878 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4202445 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C555396 SOUNDS: Blackbird (klankbeeld) - https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/273810/ English Bird Song - https://freesound.org/people/kernowrules/sounds/233575/ Fringe Sounds - https://freesound.org/people/Udit%20Duseja/sounds/243708/ River Boats - https://freesound.org/people/echobones/sounds/122262/ MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: 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 the vicious double-murder of Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed; two innocent and inseparable best-friends brutally savaged on a peaceful riverside towpath. But who would want these two young girls dead, and why? 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 107: The Thames Towpath Murders – Part One: The Girls. Today I’m standing by Teddington Lock on the south side of the River Thames, far beyond anywhere we’ve been to before, but oddly, every location (from Petersham Meadows, Old Ham Lock, St Helena Pier, Duke’s Hole and Teddington Lock Bridge, right across Twickenham, Kingston and Hampton Hill) can be seen from Richmond Hill where Kate Beagley watched her last sunset with the First Date Killer. At 215 miles long, the Thames is the second longest river in Britain, stretching from Kemble (west of Oxford), through the city of London, to Foulness Point on the east coast and the North Sea beyond. It’s fast, wide, strong and deadly, rising and falling 23 feet a day and flowing faster than most boats. For many Londoners, a walk along the Thames can make you feel like you’re in the country whilst still being in the city, as with buildings heavily-restricted, many stretches are full of wild fields, woodlands and deer parks. Of course, at weekends, the uneven towpaths are chock-a-block with Lycra-clad twats on pricey bikes swearing at any dog who disrupts their land speed record, sweaty-faced joggers (one step from a heart-attack) who feel obliged to make ‘that’ sound (hurgh) with every breath, and swarms of over-sugared seeds-of-Satan terrorising the wildlife because their parents would rather see a duck stamped to death than hire a babysitter, or ‘do their bloody job’. Thankfully, at other times of the week - being shielded by trees, shrubs and bushes - it’s actually a very nice place for a quiet walk. With the Thames being tidal, initially built over 200 years ago, Teddington Lock is a triple-lock between the Middlesex and Surrey sides of this 250 foot wide stretch of the river, allowing the safe passage of boats, as well as pedestrians via two footbridges interconnected over a small island. And where-as the Teddington side has many homes, pubs and shops, the Ham side of the lock is little more than an unlit over-grown towpath shrouded in a dense dark thicket of trees and bushes, where an endless series of dog-walkers, joggers and casual strollers breathe in the fresh sea air. So, it seems unthinkable that such a peaceful little spot could be scene of a brutal double-murder. But it was. As it was here, on the night of Sunday 31st May 1953, at the corner of Teddington Lock, that two young girls would be brutally murdered. But the question wasn’t how, or who by, but why? (Interstitial) As two loving and inseparable best-friends, Barbara and Christine lived as they died, side-by-side. Barbara Songhurst was born in Teddington on the 29th April 1937, as a middle-child of ten to Gertrude & Daniel; a loving couple, married for 23 years, who had stuck together through good times and bad. Being a good Anglican family of twelve crammed into a small white council-house on a long tree-lined street in Hampton Hill - although the two eldest boys (Danny and Robert) had moved out, Arthur was on National Service and Doris was hospitalised with spinal tuberculosis – with only three bedrooms for mum, dad, Pamela, Edwin, John and Nina, with 16-year-old Barbara sharing a bed with her eldest sister Rose. this little terraced house at 75 Prince’s Road was a squeeze for a family of eight. Having moved out of a tiny terrace at 18 Sydney Road just eight years earlier, since birth and for the rest of her life, Barbara would always live in and around Teddington, the place she called home. Life was busy, noisy and hard, as with their invalid father being confined to a steel jacket having broken his back, with the compensation spent and unable to work for ten years, as Gertrude was the full-time carer for her children and husband, they lived off benefits and what the siblings could earn. Homelife was difficult but never unkind, chaotic but never cruel, and although a little undisciplined, it was only as dysfunctional as was to be expected from a big family in a small house living (but surviving) in a difficult circumstance. But as with all of their children, Barbara was good, decent and raised well. Having graduated with a school certificate from the Victoria Girls School, a Church of England school a few doors down on Prince’s Road, aged 15, Barbara got a job as a shop assistant at Harwood & Halls chemist shop in Hampton Hill, earning £1 and 15 shillings-a-week, and – just as all of her work-age siblings did – more than half of what she earned went to feed and clothe the family. Described by everyone as bubbly, fun and energetic - as a slim petite brunette just shy of five-foot-tall; with a slender figure, a confident stance, a fashionable dress sense and a cheeky smile - Barbara was popular with the boys and she loved their attention, but being blessed with a forceful personality, she had held onto her virginity as (being religious) she was saving herself for ‘Mr Right’. Barbara wasn’t a silly little giggling girl who stumbled into trouble, as although she had a small child-like body and the excitable brain of a teen savouring her freedom, she also had an adult’s wisdom which belied her tender years. As a local girl, she had some serious street-smarts. She liked watching live music, but didn’t venture any place she didn’t feel safe. She liked thrills, but was never a bother to herself or anyone else. She freely cycled along the river, but rarely strayed far from the towpaths or bridges she trusted to get herself home. She stayed out late, but always kept her parents informed of her whereabouts. And although chatty and confident, she never, ever, talked to strangers. In fact, being both sensible and inseparable, always by Barbara’s side was her best-friend – Christine. Born two years and one month earlier on 18th March 1935, Christine Rose Reed was the middle-child of Herbert & Lucy. Living off Herbert’s modest wage as a shop assistant and with her housewife mother Lucy being deaf, they weren’t well-off, but their homelife was always happy, loving and stable. Having scraped by at school and described as a little bit educationally challenged, 18-year-old Christine had found work as a factory hand in Hampton, earning a wage of £3 18 shillings a week, and (just like her best pal) half of her wage went to support her family. Like a slightly taller twin, Christine was a slim petite brunette with olive skin, brown eyes, a small nose and a curly bob of hair, and although she also liked the boy’s attention, she often got less than her bubbly buddy being a little more shy, quiet and prim, but no less chatty once she felt comfortable. Living a few roads apart, Christine and Barbara’s life revolved around their friendship. Every moment of their free-time was spent by each other’s side; they ate, cried, prayed and (during their many sleep-overs) they even slept together, and although both girls often stayed out late, neither of their parents ever worried as the girls were always honest about where they had been, who with, when they would be home, and that – no matter what – these inseparable sisters would never be parted, even in death. Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed were two innocent young girls living their ordinary little lives within the safety of the place they had always called home. Nobody wanted them dead. And yet, for no known reason, someone would brutally savage both girls in a truly horrifying way. (Interstitial) Eight years after the end of the Second World War, with the country smashed and battle-scarred, its charred cities pockmarked with bomb-craters and a weary people struggling under the twin burden of an economic slump and a population boom, 1953 marked a new dawn for Britain. Over the sweet smell of cakes being baked, the excitable squeal of children playing and the drab grey streets flecked with the patriotic red, white and blue of Union Jack bunting, a joyous thrum rippled across the city in anticipation of the impending Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in just one week’s time. This wasn’t just a party, this was a fresh beginning, and with the typically unpredictable British weather actually playing ball for once – being a bank holiday – with shorts on, tops off and work done, swarms of Londoners flocked to the banks of the River Thames for picnics, walks and to set up camp. It was a moment of great celebration… …so, one weekend prior, on Sunday 24th May, following short spate of sexual assaults on lone females walking in isolated spots, a vicious sadistic attack occurred eight miles south of Teddington on Oxshott Heath, leaving a 14-year-old girl raped, bloodied and traumatised. But with very little evidence, the investigation came to nothing, and for now, such horrors would be put to the back of everyone’s mind. The seven days before their deaths were unremittingly ordinary for the girls; they saw nothing strange, they heard nothing weird and they met no-one odd; they had no fears, no worries and they felt need to ever be frightened; their families was fine, their friendship was solid and their life was simple. On Sunday 24th May, as per usual, they went to church, had a roast, cycled and came home. Monday 25th was a Bank Holiday, so with the shops shut, the day was much the same. Tuesday to Friday was a regular working week so Barbara assisted at Harwood & Halls chemist shop, Christine as an assembly-line worker at a nearby factory, and each evening, as if by clockwork, the two best-friends met-up to sit, chat and giggle. On Friday 29th, at the Blue Angel café in Hampton Hill - a local hang-out full of fizzy pop, rock-and-roll and pinball machines - John Wells who was Christine’s neighbour at 8 Roy Grove and her good friend for the last five years invited both girls to a camping party that Sunday at Petersham Meadows. It would a bit of fun with a few chums in a safe local place that they all knew, so both parents approved. And on Saturday 30th, Barbara, Christine and their pal Joy Woolveridge got dressed in their finest and went dancing at York House, a rather grand stately home in Twickenham. With the band packed-up by midnight, they cycled two miles home, partially down the unlit and overgrown towpath – which may sound dangerous but it was a damn-sight safer than sharing a potholed road with the nightly rumble of trucks and buses that thundered by – and at 12:45am, a little later than promised, both girls returned to 15 Roy Grove, as witnessed by Christine’s father and (as per usual) Barbara stayed over. The only thing that made the next day strange was that, by nightfall, both girls would be dead. Sunday 31st May 1953 would be a glorious day; the sun was out, the skies were blue, the breeze was kept the heat cool and it would be a perfect day for a friendly little picnic at a mate’s camping party. Waking-up at a little after 9am in Christine’s tiny bedroom, the two girls made their plans for the day, and as Christine dressed, Barbara cycled the eight-minutes home to 75 Prince’s Road, and at roughly the same time, they regaled their parents with last night’s fun and news of today’s picnic at Petersham Meadows with John Wells and a few pals. With tomorrow being a work day, they promised to be back in their own beds by 11pm, which both parents knew meant either midnight or just a touch later. At 10:30am - being fashionably and yet comfortably dressed in blue jeans, a white coat, a yellow tartan blouse, flat-heeled shoes with white socks and accessorised with a double row of imitation pearls and two brooches (one a patriotic pin for the Festival of Britain and a horseshoe for good luck) - being in a bright and perky mood, Barbara Songhurst left her home on her maroon-coloured Phillips sports cycle. Likewise – being semi-sensibly dressed in dark blue slacks, a yellow woollen cardigan, a white blouse, white ankle socks and a pair of low-heeled black shoes – as Christine cycled away on her cream and blue BSA sports model bicycle, her mood was typically upbeat, happy and carefree. At 11am, they met somewhere in Teddington, but no-one knows where, and they headed to John’s picnic at Petersham Meadows - which they would return to three times that day - although no-one else can recall seeing them. But then again, why would they? Barbara and Christine were two young girls in a sea of a few thousand people who flocked to the bustling riverbank on a gloriously sunny day. At 1:30pm, both girls briefly returned to Barbara’s home, although no-one can be unsure why, but with the shops shut, it may have been to find a spare battery or a bulb for her broken bicycle light. At 1:45pm, they left again, they were still happy and laughing, and by 2pm, they returned to 15 Roy Grove for lunch with Christine’s parents. At 4pm they left and at 5pm they returned, but this back-and-forth between each other’s homes was very typical of the two girls, who often flick-flacked across the town travelling as-and-where the mood took them, but – not for a single second – were they ever apart. At 7:30pm, as Christine cycled away from her home, down a side alley between 14 and 15 Roy Grove, with Barbara beside her, that was the last time that Herbert Reed would ever see his daughter alive. Roy Grove to Petersham Meadows was a familiar four-mile route that the two girls had already cycled twice that day and hundreds of times – both day and night - over the years they had been best-friends. Scooting down Uxbridge Road, they snuck across Bushy Park for a peek at the deer, headed through the hubbub of the High Street, down Ferry Road and at the river they crossed the two footbridges over Teddington Lock, turned left passed the lock keeper’s cottage, and followed the Thames north, up an over-grown and uneven towpath, passed Old Ham Lock, Eel Pie Island and – twenty minutes later, just passed Duke’s Hole - they would reach a little place known as Log Farm in Petersham Meadows. Of course, at 8pm, as they dumped their bikes in the long grass and sauntered up towards the joyous sounds of a tinny transistor radio, the delicious smell of fire-roasted sausages and sidled up to the camp-site to say “hi” to the boys, neither girl would know the significance that Duke’s Hole (or even St Helena Pier just half a mile north) would play in the final days and hours of their lives and deaths, as Barbara and Christine were here to have fun. Petersham Meadows was a large open field, just off the Thames towpath, with a small farm for felling trees on the south side, water-filled gravel-pits at the front and surrounded by a thick line of tree. That day, although typically, the bright sunshine had been masked behind a thick grey dollop of cloud, the field was still relatively full of campers, and although the numbers had dwindled a little since dusk had begun to fall, the nearest other camping party was only about one hundred and fifty feet away. As before, the party was small, just five chums in total; John Wells had erected a canvas tent for the three boys to sleep in, Albert Sparkes was chopping fire-wood with a small slightly blunt axe and Peter Warren was supposed to be the chef, but most of the sausages ended-up raw or burnt to a crisp. And that was it. Just like in the days before their deaths, they saw nothing strange, they heard nothing weird and they met no-one odd. This was just a simple little picnic with some old and new friends around a camp-fire by a river. Being teenagers and young men, there was a little drinking, some giggling, some kissing, a few larks, japes and high-jinx, but it was all pretty innocent stuff for such virtuous girls. Only this moment of fun and hilarity would be the last that the two girls would ever share With little of what was left of the sun having set almost two hours earlier, with only a hint of a moon, a dense cloud-cover having descended, and being nowhere near a single flickering street-light, head lamp or brightly-coloured bulb in celebration of this coming Tuesday’s Coronation, the five pals were only illuminated by the alluring glow of the crackling campfire. Darkness was upon them, and as the silences between the laughs grew longer, the party wound down and the girls knew it was time to go. As none of the group wore a watch, having heard a distant clocktower strike its eleventh chime, the girls knew that they would be slightly (but not unreasonably) late if they set-off now, which they did. With the woods, river and towpath being pitch-black at this time of night, as the batteries to Barbara and Christine’s bicycle lights had run flat and having been unable to find any spares earlier that day, Peter kindly loaned his bike light to Barbara. It wasn’t a great little lamp. In fact, it’s dull yellow glow barely shone further than a few feet ahead of her thin front wheel, but it was better than nothing. At roughly 11:15pm, having waved the girls goodbye, John, Albert and Peter finished off the sausages, turned off the radio and amidst the soft rustle of their sleeping-bags, all three went to sleep. The night was deathly quiet, except for a light wind, the leaves in the trees and the soothing rush of the river. The last sighting of Barbara and Christine was roughly fifteen minutes later, just shy of Old Ham Lock. As two pals - Basil Nixon and Sheila Daines - lay on the grass, from the north they heard the rickety clatter of two bikes riding in tandem, with two young girls loudly chatting back-and-forth, as up-front a single dull yellowy bike-light bobbed along the uneven towpath towards Teddington Lock, and as they were slowly swallowed-up by the dark dense woodland – with that - the two girls had vanished. Just shy of midnight, needing to head home, Basil & Sheila walked down that same dark overgrown towpath; with the thunder of the black raging river to their right, a dense thicket of shadowy trees to their left, the cloudy sky obscured by a heavy canopy of low-hanging branches and (even with a decent torch) their visibility was just a few feet ahead. So, as the couple dawdled south, along the towpath, passed Teddington Lock, the Lockkeeper’s Cottage and crossed over the double footbridges heading towards the distant lights of Teddington town, amidst the darkness… they saw and heard nothing. That night, 16-year-old Barbara Songhurst and 18-year-old Christine Reed didn’t return home. At 8:15am, on Monday 1st June, the next morning, as George Coster, a foreman for the Port of London Authority was working at Radnor Gardens (one mile north of Teddington Lock), just twenty feet from the riverbank, he spotted something floating in the shallow water. It was “probably a log” he thought, or “a bit of rubbish, or debris”, but as he threw a rope to draw it nearer – seeing a white coat, dark hair, a yellow tartan blouse and pale white skin – it was unmistakably the body of a young girl. Alerting the Police, at 9:05am, Sergeant George Cooper placed the cold damp body in a boat, and under a blanket took it to St Helena Pier - just one mile north of Petersham Meadows where barely twelve hours earlier this little girl had enjoyed a last laugh with her best-friend – and in a discrete wooden boat-shed at the Riverside Buildings, (as the law decrees) Dr Bowtell determined her life as extinct. Transferred to Richmond Mortuary and having already been declared as missing by her parents, later that morning, Gertrude Songhurst confirmed that the clothes, the brooch pin and the stone-cold body which lay before her, as that of her daughter – Barbara. She was dead, and had been in the water for nearly nine hours. But she didn’t drown. And seeing only her baby’s beautiful face, under a black rubber sheet, the worst of the young girl’s injuries were deliberately hidden from view. At 12:10pm, in the presence of Detective Superintendent Herbert Hannan and conducted by Dr Arthur Mant, the autopsy of 16-year-old Barbara Songhurst took place. Her face and head had two obvious wounds; under a one-inch gash to top of her skull, a crushing blow had cratered the bone and haemorrhaged her brain, and under a curved two-inch wound between her left eye and ear, a second swift strike had split her left cheekbone, as if – without warning - she had been forcibly struck by something heavy and hard but dull, perhaps the blunt end of an axe. On her torso, her tartan blouse and white coat (now sodden with the silty filth of the river) was only fastened by the top button, but through its once-white cloth, three deep stab-wounds could be clearly seen across her back; each one having punctured her left lung, her right lung and right into her heart, with several blades of severed grass poking out of the lowest of the wounds. With her socks still on but her shoes missing, the raging water had rearranged parts of her clothing, but with her top exposing her midriff, her blue jeans unbuttoned and the crotch of her thin cotton knickers ripped open, there was no denying that this innocent little girl had been raped, as she lay dying. And with a series of rough cuts to her hyman, bruises up her inner thighs and her vagina full of semen - with her very last breath - she had tried to put up a fight, as her attacker took her virginity. And once he was done - with her dead and raped - a series of long lacerations down her legs, buttocks, back and heels suggested she had been dragged along the towpath, down the side of the riverbank, into the tidal waters below, and – like an unwanted piece of rubbish – she was dumped in the river. Her shoes were gone, her other brooch had vanished, her bike was missing and so was Christine. (End) The murder of Barbara Songhurst was a perplexing mystery; no-one saw her attack, no-one heard her rape, no-one witnessed her murder or disposal, and no-one wanted her (or her best-friend) dead. They were two innocent young girls living their ordinary little lives in the place they felt safe, who would be brutally attacked in an isolated spot, on a public towpath, by a person or persons unknown. This should have been a fresh start for everyone, a time of celebration, but a violent killer was in their midst, and just one day from the Queen’s Coronation, the newspapers were all about a dead little girl. But the rape and murder of Barbara Songhurst didn’t make any sense. If it was pre-meditated, the murder location would have been somewhere dark, dense and isolated, perhaps a spot on the towpath up near the Lock. But if her rape was his motive, why did he attack two girls, on bicycles, at the same time, rather than just one? What if the other screamed, or got away? If the murder was personal, and a brazen double-murder of two little girls was his aim, why did the attacker strike Barbara twice across the head and face with a blunt end of an axe to render her semi-conscious, only to violently stab her to death with a knife? Why keep her alive, only to make her dead? Nothing made sense, and with no footmarks, no fingerprints, no witnesses, no sounds heard, no sights seen and no weapons found, Barbara’s murder would remain a mystery. And yet, as a second little girl would wash up on the river bank and the murder location was uncovered, it became very clear, that - as two loving and inseparable best-friends - Barbara and Christine had lived as they died, side-by-side. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. That was part one of three of the Thames Towpath Murders, with the next part next week. But if you fancy learning some more details about the case and enjoy half an hour of utter waffle, stay tuned for Extra Mile. Before that, a big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Bridget O'Keeffe, Jacqueline Rutland, Samantha Woodhouse and Grace Ashby-Walker, I thank you all for your support, it’s much appreciated. A thank you to Kay Fillmore for your very kind donation, and Stevo and Patsy who donated via the Supporter link in the show-notes, I thank you too. And with a huge thank you to all supporters of the show, in whatever way you choose, whether by Patreon, donations, reviews, or simply by listening to it and saying “yeah, I like that, it was okay”. 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", 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. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster & tour guide of Murder Mile Walks, hailed as one of the best "quirky curious & unusual things to do in London". 
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