The two girls were well known in clubs in the Soho and Euston area and both were car prostitutes. On 21 March 1963, red-haired, twenty-three-year-old Vicki, whose real name was Veronica Walsh, was found battered and strangled in her two-room flat at Adolphus Road, Finsbury Park, N.4. Former paratrooper Colin Welt Fisher, who lived with his wife and two children at Leverstock Green, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, was found guilty of her murder and jailed for life.
When first interviewed by the police, Fisher told them that on the night Vicki was killed he was at an hotel with Irene Lockwood, but at his trial at the Old Bailey in July, 1963, the jury heard about a weekend “bender” he had shared with Vicki. He was said to have bought reefer cigarettes before he met the girl in the Nucleus Club in Monmouth Street, Soho. They both took purple hearts and spent the night together at her flat, where her body was found four days later.
Frank Davies was one of the Yard’s shrewdest detectives. Prematurely bald and with a small moustache, he is a man who bristles with energy when he handles a major investigation. Because of his exceptional ability, he is today the head of the Yard’s Flying Squad. At first, and for a very good reason, he suspected that Irene Lockwood, if she was working the same photographic blackmail racket as Vicki, might have been murdered by one of her victims—or that the men behind the racket, who employed a number of prostitutes, might have killed her because she tried to poach private fees for herself, instead of being content with the “wages” they offered.
But enquiries into her death took a new turn when, out of the blue, a man named Kenneth Archibald confessed to her murder.
The fifty-four-year-old bachelor caretaker of a tennis club in Addison Road, Kensington, W.14, Archibald had appeared at Marlborough Street Court on 27 April 1964, in connection with the alleged theft of a hearing aid. The case was adjourned and Archibald went drinking with friends.
He told them: “It is more serious than you think. You do not know how serious it is.” He then went to Notting Hill police station and told a detective that he had killed Irene Lockwood and pushed her body into the river.
After fifty-six days in jail and a six-day trial, he was found not guilty and set free. He told reporters: “I should never have had all that beer, then I would not have shot my mouth off in such a ridiculous way. I just kept talking, thinking up the story as I went along, and by amazing coincidence, certain details fitted in with what the police knew. I was confused and depressed, although I shall never really know why I said I did it. I have been very silly.”
We had no reason to believe that Archibald had anything to do with the murder, but he had to be charged and a jury had to decide the case because he had repeated his false confession twice before eventually retracting it.
The Lockwood affair, naturally enough, revived the enquiries into the circumstances of Hannah Tailford’s death and these were being pursued when the next murder occurred. This time the victim was Helen Barthelemy who, like the others, was completely unclothed when she was found lying in a narrow driveway at the rear of houses off Swincombe Avenue, Brentford, only a mile or so from the scenes of the earlier murders. Detective Superintendent Bill Baldock led the investigation. The discovery was made by a young man named Christopher Parnell as he was on his way to work early one morning.
In this case Detective Superintendent Maurice Osborne, an experienced murder investigator with so many successes that he had been appointed to the Yard’s Murder Squad, collaborated in the inquiries, collating and coordinating the previous investigations.
Helen Barthelemy, a petite brunette who lived in Talbot Road, N.W.10., had the doubtful distinction of being the first nude among the victims to be found away from the river and this happened on 24 March 1964 – only sixteen days after the discovery of Irene Lockwood’s body. Four of her teeth were missing and a broken piece of one was found lodged in her throat but, strangely enough, there was no indication that the teeth had been dislodged by a blow. Nevertheless, the condition was a factor of some kind as was the discovery of a dark ring round the victim’s waist which proved that her panties had been removed after death.
I suppose one might say that Helen, who was only twenty-two and convent-educated, had had a colourful career. She had left her home in Scotland when she was sixteen to join a circus and became a performer on the trapeze. Then for a time she had worked as a stripper on Blackpool’s Golden Mile and later as a café waitress.
Some people knew her as Teddie and she had used the surnames Thompson and Paul. She varied the colour of her Beatle-style hair, too. There were times when she was a brunette and other periods when she became a redhead. Like many prostitutes she was tattooed and had the words “Loving You” on her forearms.
She hadn’t been in London much longer than a year because in August, 1962, she had been convicted at Liverpool of luring a young man on to Blackpool sands to be robbed. She had met the man, a holidaymaker, and gone with him to the sandhills to make love—a pleasure which came to a speedy end when he was beaten up and robbed of his wallet containing twenty-two pounds, by three men who had been with Helen earlier in the evening. She was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, but the conviction was quashed on appeal.
In London she became a prostitute around Notting Hill and Shepherd’s Bush. Because of Helen’s association with coloured men—she lived in a house occupied by coloured families—the investigation took this factor into account. It could hardly have been ignored although the police recognized that, if the same person was responsible for the deaths of Tailford, Lockwood and Barthelemy, it was highly improbable that he could have been a close friend of all three.
The more closely detectives studied the details of the murders the more certain they became that the killer was a casual “pick-up.”
The target for the officers engaged in the “field” investigations—Detective Inspector Frank Ridge, Detective Superintendents Frank Davies and Maurice Osborne—were those men who used their cars for kerb-prowling and nightly checks were made on any driver in the area. Warnings were given to those girls who were known to be soliciting in Notting Hill and they were asked to cooperate with the police if only for their own sakes. Helen Barthelemy had, in fact, been specifically warned only a few days before she was killed. Many streetwalkers did, in fact, report encounters with “clients” in search of sex deviation and quite often the police were able to trace the men concerned.
So great was the Press and public interest in police activities that for the next three months no further killings took place. The enormous publicity, plus greater cautiousness on the part of the prostitutes, obviously persuaded the murderer to lie low.
In the meantime, at the end of April, the inquest on Helen Barthelemy was opened and adjourned. Her mother, Mrs Mary Thomson, of New Waltham, Grimsby, said that she had last seen her daughter about four years previously.
Then, on 14 July 1964, the Stripper claimed victim number four—Mary Fleming, of Lancaster Gardens, W.11. Her naked body was found in a sitting position at the entrance to the garage of a private house in Berrymead Road, a cul-de-sac, in Chiswick, W4. She, too, had teeth missing, although in her case it was a denture. There was no sign of the clothing she was thought to have been wearing—a woollen two-piece suit, black padded bra, red suspender belt, lace G-string panties and white shoes.
Scots-born Mary Fleming was married in 1953, but had left her husband James Fleming, of Blake Street, Barrow-in-Furness, during his period of service in the army in Germany in 1955. At the time of her death she was living in one room with her two young children and, apart from the money she earned by soliciting, received National Assistance.
Her body was discovered at 5 a.m., by Mr George Heard, a City banker’s chauffeur, who lived directly opposite the spot. Detectives learned of a strange incident that had occurred earlier that morning when some painters, working throughout the night at business premises at the rear of Chiswick High Road, had heard the doors of a vehicle being slammed after it had reversed. They had seen a m
an standing at the side of the vehicle. When he realised he was being watched, he got in the car and hurriedly drove away. Unfortunately the men were looking through open frosted windows and only saw the shadowy figure of the driver. They could not see the number of the car but said that it was an estate vehicle or a small van.
About ten minutes later similar noises were heard in the quiet cul-de-sac and two hours later the body was found.
Despite the somewhat vague details we had been given of the vehicle, a full-scale effort was made to trace its driver. Many curious incidents came to light, to be sure, but our suspect was not among the numerous men we interviewed.
A vital clue, however, was uncovered by the Metropolitan Police Forensic Laboratory and passed on to Superintendent Osborne.
It had been noticed that the bodies of the last two victims, Barthelemy and Fleming—both found in London Streets—bore minute dust particles, which, under microscopic examination, were shown to contain even smaller particles of paint. The laboratory staff devoted a lot of time to this clue and found that a constant pattern of colours showed up in the paint. This pattern was found to fit in with the general picture of the colours of motor cars being currently produced by certain manufacturers and it became clear that these two bodies had been in or near premises in which cars were spray-painted during repairs. But where were the premises?
We had a double headache. We had to find a killer and we had to ensure, as far as was humanly possible, that nobody else fell victim to him. But such were the difficulties that had existed from the very beginning that the tempo of the investigation, involving countless enquiries, could not be quickened enough to prevent the deaths of yet two more women.
Already the manpower engaged on these murders was affecting the work of the Metropolitan Police, and particularly the CID. Sir Ranulph Bacon, the Assistant Commissioner for Crime, had allocated a far larger number of men and women to the investigation than is customary in a murder enquiry.
On 2 November 1964, the adjourned inquests on Helen Bathelemy and Mary Fleming were held jointly and the jury often men returned verdicts in each case of murder by a person or persons unknown. The West Middlesex Coroner, Mr Harold Broadbridge, commented that the cases were “strangely similar” but, so far as was known at that time, unconnected.
Detective Superintendent Bill Marchant (today Commander of No. 3 District Metropolitan Police) joined Superintendent Osborne and they were still investigating Mary Fleming’s death three months later when the fifth woman died.
She was Margaret McGowan who, like the others, was a prostitute from the Notting Hill area. She was actually soliciting in the company of another prostitute when last seen alive on 23 October 1964. A month later her nude body, somewhat decomposed, was found in a shallow grave of wood, foliage and debris in a car park at Hornton Street, Kensington, W.8. She was easily identified by her tattoo marks—three floral designs and the words “Helen, Mum and Dad”—on her left arm. One tooth was missing.
There was no sign of the clothes she had been wearing—a furtrimmed green suit, blue blouse, blue and white check slip, blue bra, black and pink panties and black suède shoes.
This slight, dark-haired girl had come to London from Glasgow. She was the mother of three illegitimate children, and lived in Shepherd’s Bush. She used a number of aliases and it was under the names of Frances Brown that she had given evidence at the vice trial of society osteopath Stephen Ward, who committed suicide on the last morning of the ten-day hearing in 1963. At the trial she said that Ward had sketched her on one of the two visits she had made to his flat.
Every person connected with the Stephen Ward scandal was traced and questioned by the police, but all inquiries proved fruitless.
Margaret McGowan had been in the company of a girl called Kim Taylor for twenty-four hours before she disappeared, and had drunk about nineteen whiskies before they went out soliciting together in Portobello Road. She and Kim were picked up by two men in separate cars and it was arranged that all four should meet at Chiswick Green, but Kim and her male partner lost the other car in the Bayswater Road and Margaret was not seen alive again.
On the basis of Kim’s descriptions we produced identikit pictures of both men and these were published in the newspapers with an appeal for the men to come forward. Neither did so. The man who drove off with McGowan was probably not responsible for her death, but the secrecy under which most men in these circumstances must shelter usually prevents them from making any contact with the police.
The unflagging efforts of Bill Marchant and the rest of his team were now whipped into frenzied activity. Things had reached such a pitch that not only were the prostitutes and their ponces extremely disturbed, but the public was beginning to ask if everything possible was being done to stop the slaughter.
Finally, nearly a year after Hannah Tailford disappeared, the last victim of the Stripper, Bridget (Bridie) O’Hara vanished from her usual haunts and her home in Agate Road, W.6.
On 11 January 1965, she visited the Shepherd’s Bush Hotel and was recognized by several men who spoke to her during the evening until the public house closed at 11 p.m. What happened to her then is not clear, but it is certain that she died not very long afterwards and that her body was kept in some place until about 16 February, when it was found behind a small workshop alongside a very busy factory estate railway line. The discovery was made by Mr Ernest Beauchamp, working at the Heron Trading Estate, who saw two feet protruding from the undergrowth behind a shed on the estate. At first he thought it was a tailor’s dummy, but soon realised that the feet were human.
Within minutes of him reporting, Detective Superintendent William Baldock and Detective Inspector Crabb, of T Division, which covers that area, were on the spot.
I was driving to St. Mary’s Bay for a holiday with my wife when I heard the news flash on my car radio. Five hours later a uniformed sergeant from Dymchurch police station knocked on the door of my bungalow to tell me I was wanted in London to lead the murder hunt.
The Assistant Commissioner wanted me to take over murder headquarters at Shepherd’s Bush and lead the senior officers there—Detective Inspector Frank Ridge, Detective Superintendent Frank Davies, Detective Superintendent Bill Marchant and Detective Superintendent Bill Baldock.
This type of summons was nothing new. When I was a superintendent serving with the Murder Squad I had become accustomed to being called from my bed at a moment’s notice, prepared to go anywhere in the world. On this occasion I was furious because my holiday was long overdue and my wife, particularly, had been looking forward to a break. But I had no choice. I returned to London—and started work during the early hours of the morning.
Like the Stripper’s other victims, Bridie O’Hara died from asphyxia and suffocation and had lost some of her teeth. She was married to a man called Michael O’Hara and one of the identifying features on the body was a tattoo with the name “Mick” in a heart on her arm. Her clothing, of course, had disappeared.
Born in Dublin, she was one of a family of thirteen, several of whom attended the inquest at Ealing in March, 1965, to hear the verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown. Her mother, fifty-two-year-old Mrs Mary Moore, who flew to London from Dublin as soon as she heard of her daughter’s death, broke down when she went to the flat in Agate Road. I don’t know how much she knew of her daughter’s life in London, but she kept asking: “How could this have happened to her?” She described Bridie as “the most beautiful of all my family and a really kind, good girl”.
A curious feature of this murder was the remarkably preserved state of the body. It had been kept in some kind of storage and was partly mummified. There were clear indications that the body had been dumped and had not long lain in the grass.
Subsequently a witness came forward to testify that suspicious noises had been heard on the site in the early hours of 12 February. Once again forensic experts found dust and paint spray marks similar to those previously discovered.
It was assumed from the manner in which all these girls had died that their killer was a man of some strength and virility. He certainly wasn’t satisfied with normal intercourse and in every instance the victims had slight marks on the neck apparently made by fingernails, either by the murderer, or by the victim in an attempt at self-defence. Some had injuries and very slight bruising as though pressure had been directed in the region of the nose and mouth.
One thing is quite certain, the girls died extremely quickly and another certainty is that some time or other they had all suffered from venereal disease. It would have been easy to assume that the man we were hunting was a man carrying out a personal vendetta against prostitutes because he had caught the disease. That was never my view. Early in the inquiry I became convinced that the killer was a man in his forties with extremely strong sexual urges which, perhaps because of his age, were not easily satisfied normally. It was probably this physical difficulty that took him away from his wife and into the twilight world of the prostitutes.
He knew that these women set no limits to the sexual acts in which they would allow their clients to indulge. In obtaining satisfaction he became utterly frenzied and at the moment of his orgasm, the girls died. In his encounter with Hannah Tailford, he might not have realized that she was dead and for this reason pushed the gag into her mouth. With the other victims he knew that the girls had died and made no attempt to gag them. What he did was to dispose of their clothing to avoid identification.
One could postulate a theory that had this man been caught after the death of the first prostitute, and the circumstances of the sexual act had been revealed in court, the jury might have brought in a verdict of manslaughter or even accidental death. But when he continued to indulge in his particular perversion, well knowing that the girl concerned would die, then he must have recognized that he was fulfilling himself as a murderer.
The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes Page 76