Murder Mile UK True Crime

The Blackout Ripper Part 5: Before the brutal murder of 34 year old Doris Jouanett on Thursday 12th February 1942 at roughly 11pm, The Blackout Ripper had attacked two more women in London's West End - Greta Hayward and Kathryn Mulcahy - but why did his killing spree abruptly come to an end? Date: Thursday 12th February 1942 Location: St Alban's Street & 29 Southwick Street, Piccadilly, London...

The Blackout Ripper Part 4: On 12th February 1942, 32 year old Doris Jouanett was found strangled, posed and mutilated in her flat at 187 Sussex Gardens in a murder strangely similar to Evelyn Hamilton, Evelyn Oatley and Margaret Florence Lowe, over four nights prior. So who was The Blackout Ripper? Date: Thursday 12th February 1942 Location: 187 Sussex Gardens, Paddington, London, W2 Victims:&nbs...

The Blackout Ripper Part 3: The Blackout Ripper Part 3: In the early hours of Wednesday 11th February 1942, 43 year old Margaret Florence Lowe was found strangled and posed in her flat on 9/10 Gosfield Street (Fitzrovia), but her murder was uncannily similar to the murders of Evelyn Hamilton and Evelyn Oatley just two days before. Was a sadistic spree-killer on the loose? Date: Wednesday 11th Febr...

The Blackout Ripper Part 2: On 10th February 1942, 34 year old Evelyn Oatley was found strangled, posed and mutilated in her flat at 153 Wardour Street in a murder strangely similar to Evelyn Hamilton, just one night before. Was this coincidence, or was there a sadistic spree-killer on the loose in Soho? Date: Monday 10th February 1942 Location: 153 Wardour Street (now demolished), Soho, London, W...

The Blackout Ripper Part 1: On 9th February 1942, 41 year old Evelyn Margaret Hamilton was found strangled and posed in an air-raid shelter in Montagu Place (Marylebone). Police had no idea who had murdered her, or that this was the start of a vicious killing spree of The Blackout Ripper. Date: Monday 9th February 1942 Location: Montagu Place, Marylebone, London, W2 Victims:  1  (Evelyn...

PART 2 OF 2: On 19th February 2001, ten dismembered body-parts of an unidentified woman were found submerged in the Regent's Canal, in a sickening attacked which matched that of a headless torso found in a Rotterdam Canal a decade earlier. But who were they? And what connected them? Date: Monday 19th February 2015 Location: Regent's Canal / Battlebridge Basin, Kings Cross, London, N1 Victims:&nbsp...

PART 1 OF 2: On 19th February 2001, at Battlebridge Basin, ten dismembered body-parts, belonging to an unidentified woman, wrapped in six separate bags, were found submerged in the Regent's Canal. But who was she? And who had murdered her? Date: Monday 19th February 2015 Location: Regent's Canal / Battlebridge Basin , King's Cross, London, N1 Victims:  1  (Melissa Halstead & Paula Fi...

On the afternoon of Sunday 10th May 2015, a suitcase was found floating in the Grand Union Canal in Little Venice containing the folded-up corpse of 23 year old Marta Ligman. But how had she got there, who put her there, and why? Date: 28th April to 10th May 2015 Location: 5 Buckingham Road, Harlesden, London, NW10, Old Oak Bridge and Little Venice Victims:  1  (Martusia "Marta" Ligman)...

On the evening of Tuesday 22nd September 2015, Italian tour-guide and English teacher Sebastiano Magnanini was last seen alive walking by King’s Cross Station. Two days later, his decomposing body was found dead in the Regent’s Canal, having been tied to a shopping trolley. But what happened? Date: Tuesday 22nd September 2015 Location: Regent's Canal / Islington Tunnel (and Wharfdale Road), King's...

On 1st November 2006, Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated in the heart of London’s West End, by two of Russia’s top assassins, using one of the most bizarre and deadliest poisons ever, and yet, from day one, his brutal murder was a textbook case of incompetence. Date:  Wednesday 1st November 2006 Location:  The MIllennium Hotel  (Grosvenor Square), Mayfair, Londo...

On Tuesday 25th July 1933, 27 year old Frederick Field fully confessed to the murder of West End prostitute Norah Upchurch who was found strangled inside a locked empty shop in Shaftesbury Avenue. And yet – in a bizarre twist of fate - even today, her murder remains unsolved. Date: Tuesday 29th October 1931 Location: 177 Shaftesbury Avenue (now demolished), Bloomsbury, London, W1 Victims:  1...

On Friday 2nd October 1931, West End prostitute Norah Upchurch was found strangled inside a locked empty shop in Shaftesbury Avenue; with no sign of a break-in, no-one knows how she got in or how her killer got out. 87 years since her murder, her killer has never been caught. Or was he? Date: Tuesday 29th October 1931 Location: 177 Shaftesbury Avenue (now demolished), Bloomsbury, London, W1) Victi...

On Christmas Eve 1982, 36 year old David Ralph Martin was charged at the Marlborough Street Magistrates Court on twelve counts including armed robbery, theft, fraud and attempted murder, but his bungled arrest would led to one of the Metropolitan Police’s worst miscarriages of justice. Date: 5th August 1982 to 13th March 1983 Location: 22 Portman Close , Marlborough Magistrates Court and 1 Crawfor...

On Saturday 27th October 1956, 26 year old Canadian sailor Richard Rhodes Henley committed armed robbery for the first and very last time, but he didn’t steal money, or booze, or drugs to feed his habit, he stole pornography to fuel his addiction to masturbation, and yet, so desperate was his carnal needs that it would drive him to commit murder. Date:  Saturday 27th October 1956 Location:&nb...

On Friday 12th May 1933, 31 year old disgruntled dish-washer Varnavros Antorka murdered his overbearing boss, head-chef Boleslaw Pankorski at Bellometti’s restaurant in Soho Square, and yet this brief moment of madness almost lead to him being convicted of double murder. Date: Friday 12th May 1933 Location: 27 Soho Square (now demolished), Soho, London, W1 Victims: 1 (Boleslaw "Paul" Pankorski) Cu...

On Saturday 30th September 1843, 28 year old William Stoltzer stabbed Peter Keim once in the stomach with a boot-maker’s knife, and even though he confessed to the murder; the life, the death and the trail of William Stoltzer is as strange and mysterious as both his past and future. Date:  Saturday 30th September 1843 Location:  Silver Street  (now Beak Street), Soho, London, W1 Vic...

On 10th November 1946, a 26 year old club singer and prostitute Margaret Cook was brutally gunned down outside the Soho nightclub known as the Blue Lagoon, and although the murder remains unsolved, her life is even more mysterious than her death. Date: Saturday 10th November 1946 Location: 50 Carnaby Street  (now Ben Sherman), Carnaby Street, Soho, London, W1 Victims: 1 (Margaret Cook) Culpri...

The CONCLUDING PART of Dennis Nilsen and the Sleeping Bag of Death. On 23rd November 1981, 19 year old student Paul Nobbs met a man in The Golden Lion public house on Dean Street; here they drank, laughed and headed back to his place for more drink, a bite to eat, some sex and a sleep… but whether he’d ever wake-up again was not his decision, as he had just spent the night with one of Britain...

On 23rd November 1981, 19 year old student Paul Nobbs met a man in The Golden Lion public house on Dean Street; here they drank, laughed and headed back to his place for more drink, a bite to eat, some sex and a sleep… but whether he’d ever wake-up again was not his decision, as he had just spent the night with one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers – Dennis Nilsen. Murder Mile is a true-cr...

On 4th September 1974, Soho gangster Alfredo Zomparelli was shot to death as he played on a pinball machine in the Golden Goose amusement arcade on Old Compton Street, by two hitmen in what was supposedly a contract killing. But who ordered him killed? And why? Date: Wednesday 4th September 1974 Location: 36-38 Old Compton Street (now Muriel's Kitchen), Soho, London, W1 Victims: 1 (Alfredo Zompare...

Who killed “Ginger Rae”? A warm, kind and sweet-natured Soho prostitute who didn’t seem to have any drug issues, debts or enemies? Was her death part of a turf-war between two rival pimps, a disagreement between jealous lovers, or was she murdered at the hands of a homicidal maniac? Date: Saturday 25th September 1948 Location: 46 Broadwick Street, Soho, London, W1 Victims: 1 (Rachel Annie Fennick)...

On Saturday 25th September 1948, Rachel Annie Fennick (alias Ginger Rae), a veteran Soho sex-worker with a sweet smile and a kind heart was brutally murdered. And yet, her bloody death remains shrouded in so much mystery, that 70 years on, her murder may remain unsolved forever. Date: Saturday 25th September 1948 Location: 46 Broadwick Street, Soho, London, W1 Victims: 1 (Rachel Annie Fennick) Cul...

On Friday 3rd March 1961, at 23 Cecil Court (London), 21 year old Edwin Bush would brutally murder 59 year old part-time shop assistant Elsie May Batten whilst attempting to steal a £15 ornamental dress sword. And as shocking as the case was, how the culprit was caught, would be a watershed moment in modern British murder investigations. Date: Friday 3rd March 1961 Location: 23 Cecil Court, off Ch...

On Saturday 18th January 1908, 41 year old Jane Farvish entered her local dentist’s for the first and last time, and yet, although she had a simple problem to solve, her agonising and painful death is not the most shocking element of this case, as although this isn’t a murder (as such), the actions of the man who killed her and the outcome of this story is certain to make your blood boil Date: Sat...

On Friday 30th April 1999, a deeply-deluded neo-Nazi exploded the third in a series of nail-bombs across London at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho. In total, he killed three people and injured one hundred and forty, but his aim to drive apart London’s multicultural communities failed spectacularly. Date:  Friday 30th April 1999 Location: Admiral Duncan, 54 Old Compton Street, Soho, London...