Gordon Cummins: The Blackout Ripper (Part 1) | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elina I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid it's morbid and it's 20
25 it's 2025 yeah it's been 2025 for like a I think yeah like a last couple episodes maybe like you know we don't
know I was going to say it's a trend I have no idea yeah where we are you know what I'm you know where I'm I'm at where
are you at do do you know where I'm at I'm in a bad place oh no I'm in a bad bad place what place is this it's the
place of I don't have any more of my frosted sugar cookie holiday creamer I am also in that place so I commiserate
that creamer from International Delight International Delight if you're listening please send us help me get to
a good place because they're gone they're gone they're absolutely gone and do you know what happened to me the
other day actually oh I have a feeling I know what happened to you because it might have happened to me as well why I
ought to I ordered two on door Dash and I gave a nice little tip and everything and I said if not available just refund
me cuz I don't want some other [ __ ] no they didn't want to refund me so the Dasher brought me two random ass [ __ ]
creamers which like they were International Delight and actually I shouldn't complain because one of them
is like Italian sweet cream oh I love this sweet cream that one's really good that one's really good so I'm not super
mad but anyways International Delight please send me a whole entire stock of the frosted sugar cookie creamer and I
second that please show that that requires it please I've only had one bottle of it cuz that's the only bottle
I've been able to find this season me too and it's making me upset and you know we got to shoot our shot here
that's the thing we got to shoot it um you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take Wayne Gretzky Michael Scott
there you go I just offed it I did just realize that this is going to come out after the holidays and maybe it won't be
available at all no they still have it I'm sure they do okay I believe you what do they do with it I trust you then they
have the recipe yeah give me in I don't even care if it's in that fancy bottle you can just send it to me in a jug in a
jug please in a vat if you would send it to me in a barrel just pleas just place
and a keg if you will send me a cow that makes that and I'll milk him send me a keg of the frosted sugar cookie I would
what I would Keg Stand that I would do a keg stand on that that's horrifying one
thing I never did is a keg stand me neither yeah I mean every I know I was going to say is that
shocky um I used to but and I didn't do that um yeah anyways I just really want that my life is hard without it today I
did the my life is hard my life is hard without it I did I did this sweet cream today and I I made it through it's only
like 2 o' we're really proud of you thanks we're everybody keep Ash in your thought it's hard thank you she's using
sweet cream instead of frosted sugar keep me in your thoughts what am I going to do thoughts and
prayers thank you those are useful so to get to gain some much needed perspective we're going to shift
we're going to shift into something that's honestly going to shock you I believe everyone listening
um the case that I am covering today I so I'm going to be covering the blackout Ripper oh I haven't heard of this one uh
his name is Gordon cumins and that's so unassuming yeah just Gordon I just always think of Gordon Ramsey yeah he's
very Assuming he's pretty assuming but he's just an idiot sandwich yeah he's definitely assuming uh but this guy I
knew I had heard of this case but I didn't know the details and when I looked further into it I was like whoa
so he this happened after Jack the Ripper okay also happened um over in Europe though and many rippers in Europe
many rippers we have a few over here too but these ones are rough and the thing is I'm I'm I hesitate to say any any
Ripper is worse than the other because they're all [ __ ] terrible that's why they are literally called rippers um but
the thing with the blackout Ripper that we're going to cover today this is going
to be a two-parter by the way because it's a lot but he is like with Jack the R er sorry I'm like everywhere my
thoughts are all over the place it's cuz you didn't have the right coffee I didn't that's very true so Jack the
Ripper was pretty methodical about the way he went about things seemed like he had almost like a plan when he went in
to each murder he did it quick he did it relatively you know I clean isn't the word but like very quick and smooth um
he also did his mutilation postmortem for the most part um really the only one that you can point to is
Mary Kelly at the end that was like frenzied and out of control and totally off the map which some people even
wonder if it's obviously we went into that if that's all connected and all that but we won't go into that but the
blackout Ripper Gordon cumins he do he's a mutilator that's why he's called the Ripper yeah but he is like sadistic
because his mutilation is not not done postmortem okay it seems like he enjoys hurting women and he enjoys hurting
women when they can feel it like torturing them yeah he mutilates and tortures while they are alive and it's
so well I hesitate to say he is worse because obviously it is all awful yeah he's different he's a different brand
he's a different level of Ripper I would say he's it's very upsetting I'm giving
you a trigger warning up front this is very graphic and there is a lot of really [ __ ] up gruesome things that
he does to his victims so please be aware of that okay good news is though they caught him that's good he's not a
Jack the Ripper he's a Gordon he's a Gordon he got caught he's Gordon the idiot so let's take it back shall we
let's take it back back back we're going back into you know when German bombing raids were happening during World War II
that's far back taking it back um we're in the 30s late 30s early 40s uh so in response to the onset of German bombing
raids during World War II a lot of England's most vulnerable citizens were evacuated and temporarily they you know
they were taken out of like the urban areas to be safer in the more rural parts of the country because it was
really really dangerous time and very unprecedented and very like unpredictable time but those who stayed
in the cities would spend years enduring blackouts so scary and these were periods where the city was intentionally
plunged Into Darkness to prevent German bombers from easily identifying urban areas to bomb that's so sad that they
even had to do that to avoid being bombed oh and it's a that in of itself is an awful awful thing if you research
into these blackouts horrific and they were s they were a huge inconvenience and obviously like tough to deal with in
a myriad of ways but they were also a safety risk for everybody but for at least one person they offered the
perfect opportunity to enact what was clearly his darkest fantasies this man clearly had been thinking about this you
don't just go and do this and he didn't have a criminal record wow so he went straight he must have been thinking
about this for a long time and this gave him the opportunity so with the German AR Army
invaded Poland in September 1939 like we said countries all over Europe were forced to take a position and develop a
strategy just in case they were drawn into the conflict in England where attacks from Germany were kind of
everybody was just waiting for it it it was imminent essentially the war secretary just quickly mobilized the
British arm for armed forces and began evacuating 1.5 million citizens wow those citizens
were mostly like women children the elderly the most vulnerable like I said taking them out of the Cities bringing
them to the countryside that's where they were going to be safer but these would end up being super traumatic for a
lot of people because they ended up being relocated to the homes of strangers often and they also wouldn't
know what happened to the people that they left behind oh my God I can't imagine like fathers you know Brothers
all like husbands all kinds of people yeah um and that was for like many years they dealt with this under those
circumstances when the bombs began falling a few months later many of these people chose to just return home instead
of being separated from their families and just dealt with the the chaos that was about to ensue now in addition to
the relocation of honestly the most vulnerable people in the nation the government also implemented those
widespread nightly blackouts it was every night wow during this time all lights electric or natural were to be
extinguished oh my God that must straight up Blackness so scary I don't think any of us can truly
appreciate how dark would be that was happening here because we are no matter what there's lights around us at all
times always it's like when we covered Jack the Ripper we talked about how I don't think people take into account how
Wild it is that he did what he did with such Precision in that darkness in how dark it was there wasn't Street lamps
there weren't they were he was doing this by the light of a small flame up in a corner right like that's insane and
then here there's no light whatsoever it is a black that you can't even conceive
of oh God and that just adds to the to the feeling the over feeling God because it takes away all your senses it it
totally like it puts you in a place of like just complete vulnerability in every way imag like there are so many
people who have genuine like people say oh I'm scared of the dark but there are people who have literal phobias of the
dark can you imagine having to deal with that I don't think I I feel like it would make me crazy yeah I feel not
having any kind of like perception of what was around you that's what would scare me the most that would [ __ ] you up
and though and it's not like this was something you could just like not do because if you violated this blackout
you were going to be subject to fines of various amounts and it was as simple as
like lighting a map would get you a fine and these people could afford this stuff and they could
afford to be thrown in jail and also you don't want to be the person who [ __ ] it
up [ __ ] it up exactly and like puts everybody in danger yeah and obviously this like you said like you don't want
to be the one to [ __ ] this up because what they were doing was trying to stay hidden from German bombers identifying
them as targets during Air Raids but while it was like strategically made sense for the time because like what
else are they going to do M it had obviously added risks with it it's like yeah you were safe from Air Raids you're
not safe from each other right and that's a problem in the first month alone traffic deaths doubled and by the
by January 1942 one in five people had sustained some form of injury from the blackouts one in five people now as all
this chaos was unfolding the question that came about was what do we do with the nation's countless prisoners that
are now yeah unlike the free British citizens who could evacuate or hide during an air raid people in prison and
youth detention centers were just sitting targets it's like what do you do you just let them be S not all of them are
in there for like killing people you know what I mean like it's like this is some petty crimes are there right and
it's like they're just sitting there waiting to be bombed now so in response the government implemented a policy
where any inmate with less than three months left on their sentence and boys who completed at least six months of
their sentence would be released that's a little bit scary you understand why that happened but that's definitely a
little scary well the result was a massive massive uptick in criminal activity at a time when law enforcement
was already overworked and their attention was understandably in many other places so during this period
police relied on support from civilian volunteers who were instrumental in coordin coordinating air raid precaution
efforts and could could be identified now like these volunteer uh citizens they could be identified by their
helmets and air raid precautions armband so you could know who you could trust quote unquote but unfortunately as
people are going to do they're going to people so petty criminals quickly realized those armbands gave the wearer
considerable power and according to an article by Duncan Campbell criminals began to Kit themselves out with an ARP
warden's helmet and armband and St smash their way into shops when no one was looking so they just started using it
it's like Ted Bundy carrying around a police badge exactly under the circumstances law enforcement and the
public had to make distinctions between what was and what wasn't Behavior worth Prosecuting because they can't go after
everybody know in simple terms stealing a blanket from a shop would ordinarily be considered theft but during wartime
most people would probably agree with you that stealing a blanket from a shop to cover a body in the street was
probably not criminal Behavior yeah fair enough things were lines were being blurred which makes it very scary now in
Wartime England looting and shoplifting alone were such huge massive problems that the court set aside two days each
week just to prosecute those charge for those crimes wow but they were not the only crimes that were clogging up the
courts the less scrupulous business owners for example were known to exploit the rationing of wartime Goods by
selling additional products at like crazy over like price gouging essentially and even some doctors were
more than happy to disqualify a young man from military service just for a few extra bucks yeah so everybody's suddenly
tilting in the wrong direction on the moral scale here with the British justice system just so bogged down with
additional crime and a dramatic increase in public need other crimes were kind of
ignored like sex work for example was a a big crime back then considered a big crime and it flourished during the
wartime years in part because it was obviously like way less important of like who is it really like what are we
doing here you know and but also because these women provided what some were arguing a was a valuable service to the
military men yeah so what are you you going to prosecute them like just let everybody there's a lot of way worse
[ __ ] happening in here in London's padil circus for example the so-called Picadilly Commandos as the area sex
workers were known catered to thousands of young men about to ship off the front
line to the front lines all of which went largely ignored by the police they just let it Happ you know they're going
off to war you might as well whatever with that said The Lax attitudes around sex work at the time and law enforcement
turning a blind eye to the whole thing allowed for at least one man to quickly and easily find victims with who he
could get very close to very easily and act out his murderous fantasies that he had very clearly been having for a long
time yeah so it's like it's it's a double-edged sword for real definitely now given the tensions and frustrations
being felt across Brit Britain in those days murder seemed like an inevitable thing that was going to happen in fact
within just two weeks of the announ announcements of the nightly blackouts the report of the first murder came in
from Edinburgh on September 15th 1939 and this victim in this case 52-year-old Isabella Ralph had no fixed address and
did make her living sometimes doing sex work okay now in the case of Isabella Ralph the Press reported the death and
gave like a brief overview of the circumstances that was really it just quick little mention you know with
cities being ripped apart by German Air Raids and families being separated by evacuations and displacement it seemed
like everyone just kind of moved on from this murder of this woman this you know
like nomadic woman in Scotland right fortunately Edinburgh police got lucky and a few days later they arrested John
Henry Connell a 24-year-old brick layer that was living in Edinburgh damn 24 yeah upon being arrested Connell told
police he'd taken a room at a boarding house and the next day he realized that he had some money that was stolen so he
confronted Isabella Ralph with whom he'd had relations relations with the previous evening okay and he managed to
retrieve his stolen money but in the process of this whole thing the two got physically aggressive with each other
they started struggling and he said he grabbed her throat in order to stop her from screaming and oops he killed her I
think we all know by now how long it takes to manually strangle someone uhhuh so that's [ __ ] y uh you you don't
just go oh oh I tried to make her stop screen is so crazy I held it there for like you know many many minutes like at
the very least it's 3 minutes right at least like four I think it is yeah and it's and it's consistent pressure too
it's like if you let off even for a second it starts the clock again yeah now at trial connell's lawyer claimed
his client had never intended to kill Isabella and he had only wanted to get his stolen money back despite the
evidence showing that several of um Isabella Ralph's ribs had been crushed in the process indicating a very much
higher degree of violence than he was talking about the judge accepted the Lesser plea of cul homicide and
sentenced Connell to 3 years of penal Ser servitude wow in handing down this sentence Lord Justice clerk told him I
am satisfied that the result of your conduct was the very last thing you anticipated but you took This Woman's
life through violence which you inflicted upon her so he's like I'm confident that you didn't mean to kill
her but you did essentially okay now the murder of Isabella Ralph which was definitely a violent homicide like yes
good try illustrates two important things about the press and the judicial system's understanding of murder at the
time especially of the lower class persuasion during this time period first regardless of the brutality or
Sensational nature of the crime page space was limited and editorial and journalistic priorities were given to
coverage of the war at the time so they were just not going to focus on this and
second the justice system particularly the resources of the police and the court system had very limited band with
and were eager to process what they considered lesser crimes as quickly and with as little attention as possible
Right these two realities are definitely going to be an important factor and why
there was relatively little coverage of what would end up being a serial killer operating in London during these
blackouts especially when you consider the obvious comparisons to none other than England's most notorious and
mysterious killer Jack the Ripper there's a very obvious like they're you can compare them yeah definitely and
it's like it shows you how [ __ ] Bonkers it was at the time that they're not talking about like a Jack the Ripper
2.0 a second Jack the Ripper essentially is kind of going unnoticed and not really talked about it's like that
should have been liter like Jack the Ripper at the time was all anyone was talking about yeah literally all they
were talking about all the Press was talking about anybody on the street and this one which is essentially the same
like Mo but somehow more sadistic it's not even being talked about it's very interesting and you and I have been
talking about it lately how certain social climates will just desensitize people to the worst things yeah they
just and they just it wasn't being reported on now by the winter of 1942 the war had been dragging on for
more than a year and violence had honestly for the residents of London had just become a normal thing they just
dealt with it every day violence violence violence still even the most hardened of londoners would have been
absolutely shocked by the first discovery this discovery was made by plumbers William Baldwin and Harold bat
Elder on their way to work on the morning of February 9th 1942 so as the two men passed through
montigue place in Mary laone I looked this up Mary labone that morning they noticed what looked to be a broken
flashlight laying in the snow just out of one of outside of one of these like um they're like basically handmade Air
Raids shelters okay if you look it up you it's like a little kind of a half circle like you know like a half sphere
kind of made with no it's kind of made with like a like a tin almost oh with like a little opening so you can scoot
in and hide essentially next to it they found a woman's green wool turban style hat some
matches and some oval te tablets then as they got closer to it they saw what looked like the pale leg of what they
believed was a mannequin sticking out of the doorway of the shelter never a mannequin Harold bachelder ran to the
nearest phone and called the police and PC John Miles arrived a short time later
they discovered this was a human body because initially they thought it was a mannequin but they were like let's call
it in cuz there just in case with all like the the objects that clearly belong to a woman this we're not going to check
ourselves so upon seeing this woman's body miles knew was not an accidental death yeah um so he called for
additional officers and he secured the scene now as far as the officers at the scene could tell the woman in the air
raid shelter had been brutalized by her attacker her face and neck were badly bruised her clothes were torn her skirt
had been pulled up to her thighs and she had been violently sexually assaulted oh
the following day the pathologist sir Bernard spillsbury I love this Bernard sir Bernard spillsbury that's a very
important name it is an important name uh he concluded his postmortem examination and he reported that aside
from the bruising on her face and neck there were quote a small a number of small abrasions to her upper including a
small amount of abrasions to her exposed right breast oh uh the cause of death was listed as manual strangulation okay
uh she ended up being the least brutalized of all of his victims if you can believe it just to give you a heads
up for what's to come at the scene there was very little forensic evidence to work with
investigators theorized that that her body which had been discovered quote with her legs wide open in the doorway
of the shelter oh had been deliberately posed to humiliate her corpse yeah later
that day PC miles found the victim's purse a short distance away on the sidewalk someone had clearly gone
through it and taken whatever money and valuable BS were inside as well as her ID card okay the only blood found on the
victim was her own but the bruising on her neck and fingerprints found at the scene suggested that she'd been killed
by a left-handed person ah interesting that they could figure that out back in the 30s isn't that interesting a few
days later the victim was identified as Evelyn Hamilton a 41-year-old pharmacist
from Essex the outbreak of the war had all but bankrupted the pharmacy where Evelyn was working and on the night of
her death she had been passing through London on her way to Grimsby where she was going to start a new job at a
different Pharmacy so she was just going to her job right detectives learned that
Hamilton had been staying at a loc local woman's hostel that evening and was last
seen at the Lion's Corner House where she had dinner and a drink but unfortunately no one at the Lion's
Corner remembered whether she was joined by a man that evening so they couldn't really determin whether she'd been lured
to the shelter or simply attacked on her way back from the hospital or the hostel detectives had only just begun
investigating the Hamilton murder when a report of a similar murder was reported
on February 10th this is just the next day right that morning two meter readers from the electric company were doing
their rounds you know just going from rooming house to rooming house and they were like they were trying to go into
one place in a rooming house on W Warder Street in SoHo so the men knocked on the
door of 34-year-old Evan oley's room and they got no reply the manager was like no she's home like I know this I saw her
like she hasn't left so the manager was like you know what did you try the door and they were like well no we can't just
like walk into people's houses so we didn't and he was like no I know she's home I'm just going to like see if I can
open and yell for her yeah so he jiggled the door and it was unlocked so he kind
of like opened it a little kind of yelled her name didn't get an answer and he was like I know she's home like what
the [ __ ] she wouldn't leave this unlocked so they ended up going inside and as they entered the apartment they
found Evelyn lying face up on her bed they later they later said they believe she had a red scarf around her neck but
found out it was just that her neck had been violently slashed open wow yeah the
men ran into the street to find the nearest police officer and returned with inspector John Hennessy in his report
filed later that day Hennessy described what he saw when he entered the apartment this is rough I flashed my
torch and saw a woman believed to be Evelyn Oatley on her back on a DI van or single bed in a transverse position we
looked it up in a Dian I didn't know what that was no Mei it apparently like a Shaz Lounge essentially uh her head
was pointing North and was hanging down over down the side of the bed she was naked except for a slender garment which
covered her breasts I saw that her throat had been cut and a hand torch was wedged in her private parts a tin can
opener was lying near the torch and her legs were wide apart oh my God it gets worse additional investigators arrived
at the house soon after the discovery and were shocked by the brutality of this murder uh superintendent Fred
Cheryl said she was a ghastly sight she had been the victim of a sadistic attack
of the most horrible and revolting kind yeah now superintendent Fred Cheryl is um kind of like a fingerprint expert as
well oh wow so he was like really big in this case and even he couldn't uh he was
the one that determined that they were probably leftand this person was probably left-handed and tried to run
these fingerprints alongside like known offenders and couldn't find a match anywhere he's the one that determined
person wasn't known uh things that had been used in this murder and on Evelyn uh were razor
blade a can opener parts of a broken mirror a flashlight and curling tongs oh wow yeah it's literally
Unthinkable rage and sism in this case that's why I was saying that he's there's a different element
here than there was in Jack the Ripper case yeah not there's per se but there but it's a different level for sure
curling tongs yeah there it's it's sadism and it what it it appears to be that the Killer is taking a lot of time
to torture and inflict pain and mutilations on these victims while they are alive yeah like the Hamilton murder
there was very little evidence found at the scene and no one could think of any reason that someone would kill Oley at
the time of her death Evelyn was married but had been living apart from her husband Harold for some time while she
pursued an acting career in London according to Harold Oley Evelyn was quote fascinated with West End life and
would not leave it but while it was true that she was hoping to make her way in the theater she had worked at a
nightclub for a little while but while her husband was away she had been supporting herself as a full-time sex
worker since 1939 the last time anyone had seen her was when she was with a darkhaired
Airman the night before this darkhaired Airman had approached her somebody said okay and according to this really cool
YouTuber who he's fascinating his channel he's called well I never well and he's just this British man who will
tell you all about these amazing things and horrifying things love it um apparently her friends and this like
really well break your heart when he said it her friends later said she had turned to sex work you know obviously
for income while her husband was away but also because she was afraid of sleeping in her apartment alone because
of the blackouts so like she just wanted that's so sad she was just lonely and scared
it's like really sad according to the medical examiner Evelyn Oley had been quote beaten and strangled to
unconsciousness and then suffered extensive sexually motil motivated mutilations inflicted by the killer
using a safety razor curling tongs a corner fragment of a broken mirror and the tin can
opener yeah Evelyn's cause of death was the 5 and 1/2 inch wound on her neck that severed her kateed artery which was
believed to have been inflicted with the 2-in razor blade right now among the evidence that was found in the room were
unidentified fingerprints on the fragment of the broken mirror and the tin can opener and they again indicated
that the killer was left-handed so we're relating these two cases even though they were very different but yeah you
know otherwise it looked like there was you know obviously a huge struggle but that there was also only one thing
missing and this it was like um a silver cigarette case oh that was in her purse
just a trophy but her bank books and her money were still there now that makes me
think that in the first case the Hamilton murder they said they found her purse close by but on the sidewalk and
that I think somebody passing that I just stole her [ __ ] possibly yeah I don't even know if he did he maybe took
her identification but I don't know if he took her money my thought was that possibly he like chased her somehow and
she dropped her purse along the way and then like you said somebody else did her
stuff I think someone else probably did I do wonder if like obviously there's such an escalation here if he didn't do
everything that he did to his second victim to his first victim because it was a little bit more like in this case
he's in an apartment tued away he has all the time in the world yeah and he doesn't it doesn't look like he brings
these things with him yeah it looks like he finds them where he is and he available at the so I think he just
didn't have anything available to him I think if he did it probably would have been the exact same thing yeah but it
was outside yeah what's even worse is a neighbor told police later that a little
after midnight the night before they had heard a radio turn suddenly turn up really loud from that apartment enough
that they could hear it through the walls we always say how much we hate that F hate that he literally was doing
it to drown out her screams now on February 12th a sex worker named Catherine M nearly lost her life to this
man but oh God she got away yes apparently a very Nic looking cleancut man approached her while she was
soliciting on Regent Street and she agreed to work with him once they were at her apartment and the whole thing
began he got on top of her and attacked her immediately he dug his knees as hard
as he could into her abdomen and started trying to strangle her her manually but
she fought back hard and apparently she still had her boots on and she kicked him as hard as she could off of her and
ran the [ __ ] out of there to her neighbors completely nuded oh he ran after her and threw money at her
claiming he was drunk and he didn't mean to and then he ran away yeah sure but he
left something behind what did he left a belt behind a royal Air Force belt specifically [ __ ] in that Air
Force and remember the night before Evelyn had been seen being approached by a nice cleancut darkhaired air Forceman
isn't it so scary how like somebody can look so unassuming and even charming and
then they're this and then they're this they're this scary yeah now he went right on
that evening to kill again after this what he would consider a failure but that victim would not be discovered
until February 13th so we're going to get there but I'm trying to go in order of the discoveries while making the like
maintaining the timeline okay cuz I want you to get the idea of how bloodthirsty
this [ __ ] really was like he barely went a day sometimes even hours between murders it was like a spree and when one
failed he would immediately find another woman to kill so he does go right to another one but she is not found for a
couple of days okay so the police and press had honestly barely begun to even process Evelyn Oley scene when a report
of yet another body came in not 24 hours later on the afternoon of the 13th 15-year-old and it's not her who died uh
15-year-old Barbara low went to visit her mother Margaret at her apartment in North Soho oh it's her mom though yeah
when Barbara's knocks didn't get an answer she asked a neighbor if they'd seen her mother Margaret but the
neighbor was like you know what I haven't seen her in a couple of days and there is a package that's been sitting
on the step for a couple of days so it was not her 's character to go away without saying anything or to like just
abandon her in any way so Barbara called the police who dispatched an officer to
the apartment they used a spare key and were able to get inside but when they went inside DS Leonard blacktop was very
surprised to see that the blackout curtains were still drawn and everything was completely dark and he was like are
you sure she's in here and he fled he switched on his flashlight and started making his way through the place and in
the kitchen he saw a woman's purse was laying on the floor and everything in the purse was strewn across the floor
okay so finally he reached the last door in the apartment which was Margaret's bedroom the door was locked but Barbara
gave the detective permission to force the door open so they could get inside fortunately he was able to stop Barbara
from coming into the room which spared her a lot of horror uh Margaret Low's body was on the bed
completely nude and hav probably been there for at least a day or two her face and head were brutally beaten uh and
beaten with what the detective assumed was the fireplace poker that lay in two pieces on the floor beside her it
broke a fireplace poker those things are usually like rot iron later the autopsy
would show that her jaw had been Shattered by the blows one of her stockings had been tied tightly around
her neck and knotted it had dug into her skin Oh and her body had been badly badly
mutilated um with among other things a razor a potato peeler and a kit and a table knife and and this is horrifying
not that everything else hasn't been there was a large serrated bread knife protruding from a wound near her groin
and a wax candle had been inserted into her vagina yeah everybody is literally in this room
in a state of absolute shock it's that when I tell you that I was not ready for this case to be as brutal as it is I had
no idea I don't know if we've heard anything that brutal back to back the fact that this has gone largely kind of
like under the radar even now yeah like I've said we're going to cover the blackout Ripper to a couple people and
they're like oh what's that I've literally never heard of this you had never heard of it nobody had ever heard
of it oh my God and this is what it is a potato peeler that I couldn't move that's the thing somehow that I was
focused on but then he's using just kitchen items oh God like he's just using what is around this is Brut which
is even more [ __ ] up that this man is coming in he knows he can strangle them to death so he's not worried about he he
doesn't seem to be worried about like the end result he knows he can probably get the end result but he's just coming
in there being like I'll just use what's around like potato peeler razor [ __ ] candle I can't even begin
you would do with brok mirr to somebody like oh my God yeah that poor poor woman think God
her daughter didn't see that that's the thing that's the thing I don't know how you would ever go on no even just
hearing what had happened to her mother to like oh my God like how do you even I'm speechless right now
that's the other thing 15 in the middle of the war like motherless yeah and her mom had been like you know just trying
to make and like just trying to and keep her in boarding school too like pay to keep her in boarding school oh because
so fingerprints were found in the apartment and again left-handed so they're connecting it now y but that
wasn't and and obviously she had some commonalities with the other victims but until the early 1930s Margaret and her
husband had had been relatively wealthy living off an income from the dry goods store and boarding house that they had
owned together but her husband died in 1932 and the income quickly went away and Margaret found herself desperate to
support herself and her daughter so she turned to sex work this was not and again she was her daughter was going to
boarding school and she wanted to keep her in boarding school so she did this keep her daughter where she was safest
yeah now this was not the first time that she'd relied on sex work for income but and but she was kind of hoping to
have left it behind when she met her husband and like started a family yeah and she did until he died right which is
really just like you feel so bad cuz like you know she didn't want to no now the similarities between the victims
weren't lost on The Press um one reporter wrote The Three West End murders have all been discovered within
an area of just over one square mile as each woman was strangled the possibility
that all three were the victims of the same person cannot be ruled out there were of course other details about the
cases that the Press hadn't made even been aware of at the time and it probably would have only strengthened
their belief that the women were victims of the same man but there was really not
a lot of time to consider all the connections between the cases because another victim was discovered just hours
after Margaret Low's body had been found my God I can't imagine the police just going from scene to scene like this just
one after the other after the other yeah and that's where we're going to end part
one just because I think there's a lot in here and it's very heavy seriously um but this is I mean luckily you know he
gets caught that's the he will get caught it's shocking when he's caught because he's he's not like he's he's not
a walking monster on the outside he's obviously like yeah good-looking enough to have Charmed these women normal
looking enough and normal seeming enough to batting an eye and he's in the Air Force like he had to have passed some
kind of well I don't know how that worked back then actually I don't either I know now you have to pass so many
tests to be cleared to be part of the military I think you still needed to pass you certain test so it's like say
so he passed some of those tests and it's like geez Louise it's just the Jack the Ripper case is so
brutal and like so vicious and like it's shocking when you go through a bit by bid and find out the injuries to these
women and then like this is just like cuz you can't you can't help but compare the two because they're in the same you
know relative you know corner of the world sure not like you know too far away in time from each other same victim
same kind of victim profile it's the same F almost like frenzy when it comes to like how quickly and how many victims
he was ranking up here right but it's like there's just like so you he has to be such an e evil [ __ ] yeah like he has
just be such an evil to use a potato peeler on somebody to stab somebody with a bread knife I mean to kill anybody
obviously but the length that he's going to and like you know assaulting sexually
assaulting them with these objects and yeah oh my God it's I think this is definitely up there with some of the
most brutal cases that you have covered I agree I was shocked I am shocked right
now I think it's good that we're ending here for part one cuz I think oh damn should we bring back pallet cleansers I
know seriously I think everybody needs a quick pallet cleanser so go listen to the rewatcher for that yeah and part two
there's there's more he's not done so part two is not you know just the arrest and all that it's he's not done right
and he's as brutal I'm very excited to hear the part where he gets caught and sentenced to so many years in prison I
hope all the years all the years hope he's still there yeah well [ __ ] yeah okay well thanks for listening and we
hope you keep it weird oh but not so weird um that this I'm so shocked that I can't actually
even speak right now she like am I supposed to say something not that weird no not that weird never that we don't
have to tell you that no you know [Music] [Music]

In response to the onset of German bombing raids during World War II, many of England’s most vulnerable citizens evacuated or were temporarily evacuated out of urban areas to safer, more rural parts of the country. Those who remained in the cities would ultimately spend years enduring wartime blackouts, periods where the city was plunged into complete darkness in order to prevent German bombers from easily identifying their targets. The blackouts were a significant inconvenience and safety risk for everyone, but for at least one Londoner, they offered a perfect opportunity to enact his darkest fantasies.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Bolton News. 1942. "Is 'killer' at large?" Bolton News, February 14: 1.

Campbell, Duncan. 2010. "London in the blitz: how crime flourished under cover of the blackout." The Guardian, August 28.

Driscoll, Margarette. 2022. "Ranmpage of the Blackout Ripper." Daily Mail, November 24.

Evening Standard. 1942. "Accused of murder of 4 women." Evening Standard (London, England), March 26: 8.

Evening Telegraph. 1942. "'Killer' theory in wave of London murders." Evening Telegraph (Derby, England), February 14: 8.

Herald Express. 1942. "Cadet's defense in murder trial." Herald Express (Devon, England), April 28: 1.

Hull Daily Mail. 1942. "London murders." Hull Daily Mail, February 11: 1.

Imperial War Museum. n.d. Imperial War Museum. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-nation-at-a-standstill-shutdown-in-the-second-world-war.

Liverpool Daily Post. 1942. "Another London murder." Liverpool Daily Post, February 14: 1.

Storey, Neil. 2023. The Blackout Murders: Homicide in WW2. South Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword.

The Citizen. 1942. "Cadet sent for trial." The Citizen (Gloucester, England), March 27: 1.

—. 1942. "'Evidence was overwhelming'." The Citizen (Gloucester, England), June 9: 8.

—. 1942. "Fresh Jury to be sworn in." The Citizen (Gloucester, England), April 24: 1.

The Times. 1942. "Airman charged with three murders." The Times (London, England), March 13: 2.

Venning, Annabel. 2017. "The Blackout Ripper; under cover of the Blitz." Mail on Sunday, January 29.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Blackout Ripper, Gordon Cummins, and his brutal murders during WWII in London.

Key points

Life Without Creamer. Elina and Ash lament the absence of their favorite holiday creamer.
The Blackout Ripper. A chilling exploration of Gordon Cumins, a sadistic murderer active during WWII blackouts.
Murder During Blackouts. The first murder reported during the blackout era, highlighting societal chaos.
The Discovery of Evelyn Hamilton. Evelyn Hamilton's body is discovered in a shelter, revealing a brutal murder.
Evelyn Oatley's Murder. Evelyn Oatley is found murdered in her apartment, showcasing extreme violence.
Margaret Low's Tragic End. Margaret Low's body is discovered, brutally beaten and mutilated, shocking investigators.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

My life is hard without it.

Elina and Ash discuss their missing holiday creamer.

3:10WatchJan 9, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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