London Nude Murders /// True Crime Garage | Forensic Files

Heat up [Music] here. [Music] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
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seen it. He will tell us no lie. A man that only speak the truth. He's the captain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
you. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you. This week we are drinking Well,
I've got to be honest. Just like the captain, I speak of the truth. I wanted to try something new. England has got so
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ocean between me and England. So, it makes it tough to try some of their more crafty, harder to get your hands on
beers. I wanted to try Old Chimney's Good King Henry Cloud. There's a beer called Magic Rock that sounded
fantastic. And I think that there's a brewery called Siren that has paired up with some of our great breweries here in
the States like Evil Twin and Cigar City. But tonight, in the spirit of Halloween,
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true crime. [Music] [Music] The year is 1964 and in the United States of America, President Lyndon B. Johnson
declares war on poverty. The Warren Commission reports their findings, stating that Lee Harvey
Oswald was the lone gunman. Cashes Clay defeats Sunny Lon to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the
world. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed. Dr. Martin Luther King wins the Nobel Peace
Prize. The first Ford Mustang hits the streets and amongst the popular films is the unforgettable Mary Poppins. The rock
band The Rolling Stones released their debut record self-titled The Rolling Stones.
The Beatles make an appearance on the Ed Solidan Show and they have 13 singles in
the top 100. A little more than 75 years after Jack the Ripper. In the UK, they abolished the death penalty. In the
streets of London, there were a string of murders that quickly became known as the London Nude murders. The suspect
became known as Jack the Stripper. and Scotland Yard was about to unleash one of the largest manhunts London would
ever see. And unfortunately, there would be victim after victim. How many total?
Well, just like Jack the Ripper, the victim count is up for debate. This is True Crime Garage, and
this is the case of the London nude murders. [Music] [Music] Okay. Almost everybody knows the story
or at least has heard of Jack the Ripper. And of course, no one really knows who Jack the Ripper was. Mhm. Uh
but few have heard of the killer that became known as Jack the Stripper. Uh, we're talking about the London nude
murders. Well, you might know of the name Jack the Stripper. It's a there's a rock band called Jack the Stripper. And
there was also a rock song by Black Sabbath, which was an instrumental tune called Jack the Stripper. And that's why
on our intro when I introduced the captain there, I said Fairies Wear Boots. That's because on the album
Paranoid, uh, the they pair those songs together. Jack the stripper slashf fairies wear boots which was one of my
favorite Black Sabbath songs. So um but just like Jack the Strip I'm sorry just like Jack Senior Jack the Ripper. Jack
the Stripper too is an unknown serial killer. Jack the Ripper is not just a clever name. Jack named himself in
taunting letters to the police and to the public. And some have argued are those from the actual killer and others
would suggest that they are simply a hoax for some sicko or from someone or someone's wishing to increase newspaper
sales. But Jack the Ripper uh he didn't just kill, he ripped. He would rip his victims apart. Meaning he would cut the
victims sometimes a lot. slitting the throat, cutting into the abdomen, uh, and actually removing body parts, you
know, uterus, liver, the tip of one's nose, or clipping the ears. Now, Jack the Stripper, he did not cut his
victims. He strangled them, and he did not rip them or remove any body parts. He left his strangled victims nude or
pretty much fully exposed. This of course leading to the name of the unknown perpetrator, but the crimes in
remain unsolved and it's unsolved murders of seven of London's working girls. Go ahead. So, let's go back a
little bit. I mean, so the stripper part makes sense, but using Jack the Stripper
is just because of the area that these crimes took place in. Mhm. Yep. And uh they would also be called the London
Nude Murders as well as the Hammersmith murders. Our story starts in 1964, London, England. Um, now earlier I did
say seven victims, but as you will see when we go through this that there is some debate regarding the actual number
of victims here. Yeah, it seems like the consensus is that there's six confirmed
victims and possibly another two, maybe even more. But so when you see this uh normally if you're looking up this case,
you'll see six confirmed, possibly eight. During the years of 1964 and 1965, six women are found dead in or
around the river tames. The first victim that we're going to talk about is Hannah
Tailford. Uh she was 30 years old at the time of her death. Hannah was excluded from several schools when she was a
young girl uh as she was pretty disruptive at school. When she was a teenager, she ran away to the big big
city of London. Uh it was not long after her arrival that she started getting into more trouble. She was convicted a
couple of times of for soliciting. Now, apparently she was quite desperate or just a terrible person because on one
occasion she placed a classified ad in a local paper offering to sell her unborn
baby to the highest bidder. Uh it has also been reported that Hannah had told some friends she was being paid to
participate in bizarre orgies hosted by some of the more wellto-do Londoners. She was known to have been offered money
to have sex on camera and it speculated that she and some she was in some stag films. Hannah also told a friend she had
attended an orgy at the home of a French diplomat named Andre. Now, on one occasion, after having been paid, she
was taken by a limousine to a house where a man in a gorilla costume had sex with her while a crowd of rich and
wealthy onlookers cheered. Um, that's uh definitely strange. Yeah, that's, you know, usually when I throw a party, I
turn on a football game and put out some guac and uh, you know, but no gorilla suit. Uh, now I normally have the
gorilla suit, but it's not all the other stuff cuz gorilla suits are fun. We mention these things to show what kinds
of ties she may have had and what kind of suspect pull the police could have been dealing with because on February
2nd, 1964, her the body of 30-year-old Hannah Tail Ford was found by rowers on the
tames shore near Hammersmith Bridge. Mhm. She was naked except for a pair of stockings and she had been strangled.
Several of her teeth were missing and her underwear had been stuffed in her mouth. During the investigation, police
interviewed hundreds of people who they knew to have had dealings with prostitutes, including an international
soccer player and several members of the clergy. Two months later, this was April
8th, Irene Lockwood, who was only 26 years of age, was found a few hundred yards upstream
in the river Tames. Now, so that she's found very close to the first victim that we just discussed, Hannah Tailford.
They were able to determine that Irene had been in the water for less than 48 hours. And like Hannah, she had been
strangled with a legature, possibly a piece of her own clothing. She had been stripped before being placed in the
water. Like Hannah, the police had some strange leads to follow. Things she may have known or things that she may have
done could have played a big part in her murder. Only about a year before the young woman was found dead, one of her
friends had been found beaten to death. This is Vicky Pender, and her body was found in her North London flat. Vicki
had tried to blackmail some of her clients over photos she had taken of them. And I guess Irene Lockwood had
some of her own tricks. Irene would take clients to a flat and she would insist that the man remove his pants and then
leave them outside of the room before entering to have sex. When he would go into the room, someone would go through
the man's pockets and steal any money or valuables that were found. Another trick
that she did, this was very much like that from the Seinfeld episode where George met a woman and then they went to
a hotel room and she handcuffed him to the bed and robbed him. Well, Irene, she would uh agree to go to a private room
with a man and she would tie him up and then she would rob him, sometimes taking
his clothes. Police suspected that these two murders may have been connected to two previous murders. These are the
deaths of Elizabeth Fig, also known as Anne Phillips. Elizabeth's body was found in the early morning hours by
officers on their regular beat on June 17th, 1959. She was kind of sitting up. She
was like slumped against a tree and her dress was torn open exposing her body as
well as, you know, easily visible scratches around her throat. Right. She had been strangled. I guess her
boyfriend in the beginning was she he was a suspect early on. Her boyfriend was a boxer and was Elizabeth's pimp as
well. He was known to have slapped Elizabeth around, but for some reason he was ruled out fairly quickly into the
investigation. The other murder that was that of 22-year-old Gwyneth Reese. Ree was found about a mile from Elizabeth's
body on the riverbank. Now, Gwennneth's body was found November 8th, 1963. But the weird thing here, she was last seen
almost 6 months before. So, she's last seen getting So, she was missing for roughly six months. Yeah, she I'm sorry,
six weeks before. I apologize, but yeah, no one had seen her in six weeks and then she turns up on the shore. It's
still a long time. I mean, 6 months would be obviously a lot longer, but 6 weeks for nobody to see you. Um, again,
as far as this profession goes, um, you're working mostly at night, so I I would assume that there'd be weeks out
of time where that your normal crowd of people would not see you. Exactly. And this is only when she's reported to have
been last seen. Who knows? Um, but she's last seen getting into a car with a man.
Uh, this is way back in September of that year. Uh, this is at the end of September of ' 63. Police suspected
strangulation to be the cause of her death, but this was never 100% determined to be the cause of death.
Mhm. And this is why it should be one of the one of the victims that they don't confirm as one of the victims at uh of
Jack the Stripper. Yeah. Elizabeth Elizabeth Fig uh murdered in 1959 and Gwyneth Reese murdered in 1963. Some
debate that they are part of Jack the Strippers case and others say very similar. They do very similar. And then
it looks to me with all these cases so far, it looks girls that have uh some sort of desperation. And then seems like
a either one man or a group of males that have power, that have money and uh like to also humil humiliate, not just
have sex with, but to do almost like I'm rich and I'm powerful. Let me take this
to the extreme or just I'm in control of this situation. Uh so Gwyneth Reese, just like the other girls, uh again, it
wasn't 100% determined that she was strangled, but strangulation was suspected. Uh she was found naked and
she was missing some teeth. Like in Elizabeth's case, Gwyneth's pimp, now he is not not believed to have been her
actual boyfriend, uh but her pimp was suspected. This is Cornelius Whitehead and he was a violent criminal with
gangster ties, right? He was suspected of being violent with women as well. We don't know. And sometimes you'd see this
as a way to teach the other women that are working for him like don't get out of line, right? He's he's running his
little, you know, criminal business and this is how criminals behave. Well, yeah. And you're messing it up. So, you
mess up, uh, you'll end up dead. And this is a warning to all the other girls that that instills fear and then they
they're never going to leave. I couldn't find any record of him actually having been violent with her with Gwyneith. Um
but we do know that she did say uh that she intended to leave him. I'm guessing you know not work for uh Cornelius
Whitehead anymore. Uh but shortly, this happened just shortly before she disappeared and he was reportingly
looking for her uh after she had disappeared. Mhm. Another possible lead. I was looking for his paycheck. Well,
another possible lead here too was the abortion angle. Abortions were still illegal in the UK at this time. But much
like we had discussed in the Black Dalia case, you could find someone an an illegal abortionist uh to carry out
these things. And Gwyneith had already had she already had two children. Neither were living with her and relying
on her for care at the time, which is probably a a very good thing. Surprise, surprise. And uh but she had some
illegal procedures before. The summer before her disappearance, Gwyneth had become pregnant. And after her
disappearance, some other prostitutes had said that she had been looking to contact an illegal abortionist. Well,
also at this time it's 1964, birth control is probably a lot harder to get and probably more
expensive. And I don't know what forms exactly what forms they would have had. So, it's probably limited as well. Uh,
but right now, Captain, what we're seeing here is a couple things. Okay, so we got two cases that the police are
saying are very much connected. We have two that they suspect could be part of this whole thing. Uh but what we can see
by the lifestyles that these four women have led and the people that they have known and furthermore things that they
had done to other people. I mean a couple of these girls had you know robbed people and uh you know done a
couple things to humiliate their customers or blackmail people. Uh so we're already starting to see too many
suspects. You know, we have four dead women all working the streets of London and we can immediately see an issue with
the investigation of each of these cases. Yeah. But when you overstep your boundaries, I mean, when these uh
clients are paying for kind of obscene, almost degrading types of actions, you know, it's, you know, it's one thing to
go have sex in a room. It's another thing to go, hey, well, this guy's going to put on a monkey suit and we're going
to have um a a crowd cheering it on. Now, look, if you're into that thing, that's that's on you. But I could see um
being treated like this, being treated even less than that you expect to be treated that hey, I'm going to pay you
back. You know, like you think you got one on over on me. Well, I've been stealing stuff from you or taking
pictures that I shouldn't have been taking and uh I'm going to get mine. Yeah. And the the first off the obvious
is the high-risk lifestyle of the profession. And you know that leads to this large suspect poll. And we're not
talking about just an investigation into the deaths of all four of these women, whether they're connected or not. We
could be talking about them even in an individual case. We could have a large suspect pool. Now, victim similarities.
There are a bunch of similarities here. So far, all four women were 5'2 or less,
so they're shorter women. All four had suffered an STD. Several of them had several missing teeth. Now, that may not
be part of the actual crime. This could just This could just be the the part of the lifestyle. Yeah. Which is totally
just simply point out how poor they were or unable to afford certain products or
personal hygiene products. Well, and this is also the time where they wouldn't they wouldn't do implants or do
crowns and stuff like that. They would just yank the tooth. Mhm. And three of the four women were pregnant and at
least two of the pregnant women were trying to cancel the pregnancy. Irene had been taking pills to achieve this
and she believed that they were working because she said that the the pills had made her tummy move. Oh, that's
horrible. So, police were pretty convinced that they are dealing with the work of one killer who has gone out on
four separate occasions and murdered a woman and stripping and dumping the bodies in or around the river. Mhm. Keep
one thing in mind though here. Uh he may have been forcing the women to strip before strangling them or he could have
been stripping them of their clothing afterward. Now, police would suspect that he's stripping them afterwards
because yeah, it's a postmortem. They they are familiar with the prostitutes in the area and they say that the
working girls in the area are mostly using vehicles to spend their time with the John's and most of them would not
strip at all or they would not need to strip all the way for the act, right? Uh they were hike up the skirt. Yeah. They,
you know, they could just remove whatever necessary clothing they could or lift something up or pull something
down. Oh, by the way, if uh your kids should not be listening to this episode, so if your kids are listening to this
episode, please turn it off or let the state take your children. Anyways, but one thing they have figured
out and one thing that they suspect is that they don't seem to see this killer as some kind of crazy maniac. Uh he
doesn't seem to be out of control. Uh there are not really any known sightings of the killer having been with the women
right before their death or the last time that they are seen but the killer seems to be in control of himself. Do
you think it's uh the manner in which they're found? Do you think it's almost like planned if we do if if the body is
found like this AB C and D that the police will assume that it's a mad man? I think that it would show I think what
they're talking about here is that each victim seems to show almost identical an
identical form of attack. Um where he is not, you know, it's not a it's not a stabbing one one time. It's not a
strangulation one time. Somebody's not beat to death. It's it's seems to be the same attack over and over again where
he's really he's really just it's an ends to a means almost like you know or means to an end I'm sorry where he it's
just part of what he's doing right so this is how I kill somebody I I follow this plan and he's getting better at the
plan as he goes along and what they mean by this too is that he would be very messy if he were a maniac you know if he
if he was out of control out of his mind obviously this guy's a sicko But if he was not in control of himself, he
probably would have been seen disposing of the bodies or seen with the women the
last time they were seen. Yeah, I know that. But I'm just saying I wonder if the person that is committing these
crimes going, "Oh, I'm going to rip up their clothes and do some things possibly postmortem. Is that for a
motive to throw the cops off for some reason?" This is what Yeah. And that's one thing that I had wondered about as
well and a good thing to bring up. You know, was he removing the clothing just to destroy it? you know, just so that
there's less evidence or was it just something that he needed to do? Again, the police wanted to figure out, was he
forcing them to strip in advance or was this something he was doing afterwards? And so, now we're at four possible
victims of the total uh the eight possible total victims. So, this is a good time to take a beer break. And
we're back from the beer break. Cheers, my friends. Cheers. Let's talk about some of the additional police efforts
involved in the investigation in the London nude murders. So, police are going to start strategizing, which is
what you have to do, right? You have to figure out how are we going to find this
guy? How do we find the criminal? No duh. We have seen some patterns and some repeated behaviors and tendencies of the
person that you are hunting. So, what do you do? You're going to try to use those
repeated behaviors and tendencies to track him down and apprehend him. Or if you can't track him down, you must lay a
trap and try to lure him out of the shadows, right? And you know so little where a victim was last seen or who was
with that person, you know, so it's going to be hard to track this down, this guy down. So, Captain, let's start
setting some traps, right? The police hire additional officers. They increase their police force. And the new officers
are brought in with one simple purpose. They are to watch and patrol the river. We can't stop him from killing again.
But maybe what we can do is we can limit this to only one more victim. Right. Well, and they could also deter him
from, you know, he's probably patrolling the area himself. And so you start seeing more cops beefing up security,
you know, uh and and then you start thinking, well, is this the best place to to leave my next victim? And but if
he does continue to do what he does, he should be returning to the river's edge with another body soon. And if you're
patrolling and watching the river, maybe you can catch him with a body in his arms. Yeah. or if these girls are, you
know, walking the street or maybe they even walk this river that maybe they'll see somebody leave with one of the the
victims. Mhm. Well, just as much as the police can set their trap and the and the killer again, he seems much in
control of himself and somewhat in control of this case. They zigged and now the killer is going to zag. He dumps
his next victim. He dumps the next body of his fifth victim in an alleyway. This
is away from the river. April 24th, 1964. This is only about two weeks after the finding of the fourth dead woman,
Irene Lockwood. So on April 24th, Helen Bartholomew, she's only 20 years old. Uh
she was found dumped in an alleyway, which is a little younger than the other victims. Mhm. She was nude and signs of
strangulation or exfixiation were present. Helen was a short street worker. who had suffered an STD. Again,
we see the same pattern and but again, it's 1964, so there's less um options for pregnancies and and and contra
contraceptives, but there is also probably less health care as far as uh sexually transmitted diseases go as
well. Mhm. And Helen, she was known to have frequented or worked some of the same areas, including some pubs,
underground clubs, and drinking dens as some of the other girls. Police find some forensics at this crime scene,
though. They find microscopic specks of a different of different colored paints on Helen's skin. Analysis of the paint
reveals that it was identical to paint used in an automatic paint spray. uh when they spray paint into cars or onto
furniture or any type of metal work, it's identical to that kind of paint. So, police have their first lead and now
they will employ a call to action. This was unusual, especially for the time. Scotland Yard made a public appeal for
prostitutes to come forward and they were promised absolute secrecy. And of course, they were reminded too that this
was in the prostitute's best interest as they may be the only source of information that the police could have.
Right. Well, and they're also people that are being targeted. They're also in the most danger of being hunted by this
monster. Yeah. He he's not at this point, he's not hunting anybody that doesn't work in that industry. there the
police statement saying uh police are fearful if information is not forthcoming by other prostitutes that
other prostitutes will be killed. They were particularly interested in interviewing anyone that had been made
to strip and then was assaulted afterwards. Right. Within the first two days uh their efforts they they see some
reward for their efforts. They have over 40 female prostitutes come forward and over 20 men came forward to speak with
police. So, the response was good. They also start logging the plate numbers of cars that they see out after dark. Mhm.
They also have female officers walking the streets. They are disguised as prostitutes. Some of them armed with
tape recorders, you know, so if they get into a situation, they can they can record anything that goes down, which is
interesting for 1964. And the prostitutes were arming themselves as well. You know, they they were carrying
knives or some kind of weapon when they would go out for the night. And if if I were a prostitute, I would just arm
myself regardless of what's going on. But that's that's just me. Uh July 14th, the body of Mary Fleming is found in a
sitting type position at the entrance of a garage. This is in an area that is now
being heavily patrolled by the officers. This seems like something he would have
only done as a necessity to me. Or he's trying to taunt the police, which they they believe that at the time that, you
know, we're we're watching this area and he just puts one in our backyard. But they Well, yeah, I believe
that too because like like we were talking about, they beef up security on the river. So now the guy is going,
"Well, I can't dump him here." So then he dumps in the alleyway. That's fine. But he chances are he has his body. It's
in the car. He goes down to the river and he sees patrol men and he's like, "Oh shit." Takes her in the car, drives
somewhere else, dumps her there. Now he's on the lookout for more security. And as he sees more police officers
patrolling the area, and I'm sure he has some knowledge of what's going on because he's hearing from other
prostitutes, he's probably hearing from other John's. He's he's hearing from all
these people what's going on. And he's listening to the news. Yeah. and the news is is the big thing at the time.
And so now, yeah, it's it's it's a total move of I'm going to put it right in your back pocket and you can't stop me.
Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a taunt. But the police, they will get lucky again here because Mary's body contained the
same paint evidence that was discovered uh earlier. You know, this this paint evidence is on her body. Yeah. is but
now are we assuming like you said this is some kind of spray paint which um so maybe automobile worker or furniture
worker or something of that nature. So we think it's a laborer. Yeah. And this is pretty much confirming their sus
suspicions that they got what they believe to being you know they were believing all along that these cases or
most of them are in fact linked. Right. Yeah. I I don't like the fact that they dismissed the two, but uh we we'll
continue down the path. Now, on October 23rd, 1964, two prostitutes had been working together for their own safety.
They were going on these things together. Uh they were approached by two cars, each with a driver. Uh this is
where the two of them split up, each of them going in one of the vehicles. Mhm. Kim Taylor reported to the police that
her friend Francis Brown got into either a Ford Zephr or Zodiac and she had not been seen since. She had not seen her
friends since she got in that car. Weird coincidence with the Zodiac, but so but
now here's what we're starting to see. We're starting to see things loosen up and work more towards the police fa
favor because we've already said, hey, we've made this call out to the people working the streets and said, you know,
you're sworn to secrecy. We'll keep your information. You're not going to get in
any trouble by coming forward. This is the only way that they have a chance at catching this guy. Well, and then the
obvious chance is him just completely messing up. But this guy seems like somebody that's in control. So now they
have the paint evidence and now they believe they have what could be a description of a vehicle. The body of
Francis Brown, she was the girl that went with the with the other car in the Ford Zephr or Zodiac. Now you said there
was a driver. So there's a driver of each car. Correct. Like I just wanted I wanted it to be clear that it wasn't two
guys pulling up in one car. It was uh two two separate vehicles pulled up to talk to both of the girls. Not like a
professional driver. Correct. It wasn't like a one person, right? There's one person in the car. Okay. Exactly. The
body of Francis Brown, the girl that went in the car in the the Ford Zephr or Zodiac. Uh she was found one month later
on November 25th. Uh she is found on a side street. Again, a this victim is a short prostitute, an STD carrier, and
paint spots are again found on her body. Now, Taylor, her friend Kim Taylor, tries to provide a description of the
man to police. They use what's called an identicate uh to put together a description of a roundfaced man of
medium height and a sturdy build. Um, this description doesn't provide them anything other than they're able to
release this general description to the public. Yeah, they don't do composite sketch at this time. No, this the I
think the way that the identicate works is that they show you like a shape of some eyes and they say does this look
like his eyes and you say yes, yes, you know, yes or no and then they put those down. Then they show you a shape of a
nose and you go through there and then at the end they put them all together and this is what your guy looks like or
somewhat. Well, the sketch of this guy, if you've seen it, or you know, the the probably the most popular sketch of Jack
the Stripper, he kind of looks like uh like a little more handsome version of of the Goonies of the the the crazy guy
from the Goonies. Yeah. Uh sloth. Okay. Yeah. With a little more hair, too. Yeah, he has Yeah, he definitely has
hair. But that's what I'll post that on Instagram if anybody wants to check it out. Okay. So, what do we have on this
guy so far? We have a general description of his appearance. We have a vehicle which was the Ford Zephr or
Zodiac. Uh we can also surmise that he is probably dumping the bodies in the early morning hours. Here's the problem
with this whole theory though is she was gone for a month and a half. So this is
just the last known sighting we Right. I mean she could have actually went missing two weeks after this. But it
sounds to me like this Kim Taylor was friends with Francis Brown. If they had already made plans that they're going to
go out and work together, you know, one would assume that Kim Taylor was probably going to go out and work
another night and she would look for her friend to go out with her again. Right.
So she would see her before the the month and a half. Okay. Exactly. And she's come forward. I agree with you.
She's come forward to police before her friend's body is even found. Again though, let's go back to uh the thinking
that we're on here, right? That that we might be able to figure out that he's probably dumping the bodies in the early
morning hours. And this holds a little bit of weight here, Captain, because when Mary Fleming's body was found,
right? Several of the people that lived in near in the nearby area had reported hearing a car reversing down the street
just minutes before the body was found. The body was found by a chauffeur driver
at about 500 a.m. Yeah. And what's interesting here is, I mean, yeah, it's 2016. So, so we're not used to this
lifestyle. What we're used to is 24 hours a day. Everything's open. You can go get Taco Bell at Taco Bell at what
12:00 on a weekday, sometimes later. Fourth meal. Fourth. Yeah. And so this is 1964. This is 1964 and
1965. This is back in the day where once it was dinner time, once the street lights came on, the the activities
normally died down more. Now, this is London, so this is, you know, their version of like New York City, city that
never sleeps. But it still was like that. You know, people had to work the next day. People would shut down
earlier. So, you're looking at a window from like, you know, 9:00 p.m. to the following day about 6 a.m. where
everything becomes very, very calm. And so, if you hear a car at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, you're going to remember
it. You're going to take notice of this. Yeah. And I hope, you know what? I hope
that the the chauffeur driver was fully vetted and figured out whether he had any kind of involvement at all. Um, but
that's a whole another story. Now, the other thing going on here is they noticed that after this killer heated
up, the last few murders that he had committed, they were no longer than 3 months apart. So, by January of 1965,
the police were really thinking that we are going to find another body any day now. Well, something may have thrown the
killer off of his game because this time it was almost four months. You know, we
we see a little bit of a a waiting period here. It wasn't until February 16th of 1965 that the naked body of
28-year-old Bridey O'Hare was found behind a storage shed. This is just less than a mile from where they found the
last victim. Mary Fleming had been found. And of course, she is found again with the same paint specs on her. So, if
you can't find your killer, you need to find where the paint is located or coming from. Right. Yeah. They had been
searching for the paint location for months. In fact, they had searched over a 24 square mile for the origin of the
paint. It was after the discovery of Bridey O'Hare's body that they were able to find a matching paint
sample. This was beneath a covered transformer. And they find this very near where Bridey's body was found. So
this transformer is near well it's opposite a paint spray shop that is located here in estates. They also
figure out that bridey had been mummified and this would have taken a heat source to occur. So again the
transformer here it meets all of this criteria right puts off some heat. Yeah the transformer would have heated up the
body. So, someone was keeping Bry's body there and had done so for some time and
probably the other bodies as well. And they find a paint sample, not this paint, you know, this paint could have
got there any number of ways. Right. Right. But I'm wondering if if this wasn't simply downwind, you know, if the
transformer was just downwind of the of the paint shop, uh, where specks or flexs of the paint would would travel
and get airborne. And I wonder if they just got airborne and traveled a short distance to the transformer and did the
killer even know that the paint was on the bodies until he, you know, heard it from police. Yeah. And the thing is is
this again this is the ' 60s so we don't have all these ventilation systems and and all these things to catch all these
particles with inside a warehouse. So it'd be more likely that you know cars parked outside this building would have
paint specks on it. Um people possibly even walking by would get paint specks on them. So So we got a couple things to
consider here. Are are the paint specks getting onto the bodies because they're stored near the paint shop and and it's
just getting airborne and carrying down wind on them or is the killer bringing those paint samples to the body uh that
he's in that paint shop and bringing them there when he visits the body or goes to dump the body. Yeah. Or
depending on how he paints. I mean, maybe he doesn't use gloves, so he constantly has paint on his hands. Then
there would be a transfer process there. So, these are considered to be the six or eight murders that are involved in
this case, depending on who you talk to. Some say that all eight were involved. Some say that three or four were
involved. Only the ones with the paint were involved. To me, they just seem very connected. You know, it seems like
the motive motive was the same. They're they're found in similar locations. The strangulation is pretty much the same.
And it if there's any differences between the the eight, they're very small. And so it's not like, oh, we got
two that don't make any sense and then these other six make complete sense together cuz the, you know, towards the
end they're not being dumped by the river. Now you could say, well, that's because security beefed up. But again,
that is something that is different in every uh victim's story. Yeah. And sometimes with these killers, they
either get lazy or they get complacent. You know, they feel like, "Oh, well, I've done this before. I haven't got
caught. I don't need to go to all these extreme lengths to not get caught, you know, throw the body in the river or
carry it all the way to the river. Um, I'll just put it right here, you know, um because I can. Because I've gotten
away with it before, they're not going to catch me now." I think it's more likely that he knew the cops were
patrolling heavier and they beefed up security and and he had to find a different option. And one thing that we
alluded to earlier which which you will see if if you study these uh serial killers especially the ones that are
involved in uh taking of prostitutes and and getting high numbers of kills. M they're very involved in watching the
news, listening to the news, reading all the newspaper articles about their case
because they're they're playing a game, you know, they're they're trying to to not get caught, to do what they want to
do. Yeah. It's the extra bonus on top of what they're doing. Their plan is to kill these people for for whatever
reason, whatever their motive is. On top of that, all now this has become big news. I also think a lot of these people
I think if you look through history of a lot of these serial killers a lot of them are loners and so the fact that
they're getting attention even though it's uh for a negative reason they kind of get off on the attention. You're
exactly right. The attention they get off on that but they also get off on thinking they're smarter than the people
investigating them. They also get off on the fact of well I know something that nobody else knows. Look at all these
people that are interested in this thing. Look at all these people that are trying to figure out who I am and what
I'm doing. Well, and that some of that is the society's fault because we've done this thing where a serial killer um
you know has a high kill count and then we start saying words as genius or mastermind. It's really like well it's
it's it's definitely a lack of intelligence that you're going to kill somebody. like just that uh idea in
general I think would be a lack of intelligence. And then you look at situations like Silence of the Lambs or
something where then we even you know now we got this guy that's extreme genius and all by the way he was a
killer. Right. And actually that movie, even though it's one of my favorite movies, the bad thing about
that is when you talk to a lay person that doesn't really know much about true crime or know much about serial killers,
they seem to think that it requires a high level of intelligence to be somebody like that and to get away with
it for so long. When actually when you study it for a very long time, you will figure out that most of the killers are
of average intelligence. Some of them are above average, some of them are below. uh it does doesn't really hold
true. You don't have to be of superior intelligence to get away with this stuff. Sometimes it's just luck. Um and
sometimes it's just you know people people most of the people are good. Right. So when when somebody's not the
serial killers, right? But when somebody's doing some horrible stuff, we just we don't assume the bad. Usually we
assume the good. So we do become a little bit blind to some of the things that are going on around us because of
that because you know there's only a small population thank God that are that are bad evil people. So speaking of bad
evil people let's talk about some of the suspects in this case right. So earlier
on we had saw a couple of the boyfriends or pimps were suspected of those murders. Of course. Um, do you think
they were called pimps in 1964 or was that something that came later in the '7s? Uh, not only that, I
actually think that because it was uh, England that they were probably called something different. Uh, I think they
were called pounces or p I read the word and it didn't really it didn't really didn't register. It didn't register.
Well, any of our London listeners, just uh, send us a message. Tell us what the technical term is over in London. Uh,
They might use pimp now, but right, I think pimp is pretty universal now, right? Uh but anyway, so we had seen a
couple of the boyfriends and some of the pimps uh that were that were uh potential suspects and they were for
whatever reason once they were only considered when their case was an individual murder case, right? And once
the police figured out and started connecting these things and now we have a string of unsolved murders, a lot of
these boyfriends or pimps were no longer considered, right? Because there it would make no sense and there would be
no zero connection with the pimp to these other prostitutes. Yeah. Other than the fact that they are pimps and so
they are in the industry. Mhm. And but other than that, there were however a few more interesting suspects. Uh, so in
the case of Irene Lockwood, police had found a business card for a man that was simply named Kenny on the business card
accompanied by a phone number. And we'll give out that phone number right now. No, we we don't have that phone number.
It's 444. Yeah. 444. Well, of course, the phone number makes sense. Uh, it makes it very easy to find this Kenny
character, whether that's his real name or if it's a nickname. But when they do track down the man, it leads them to a
former soldier and his name is guess what? Kenneth Archabald. Okay, so we are cooking with gas, right?
He at first denies having ever known uh the victim, Irene Lockwood. And he says that uh the only way that she would have
got his card, his name, his number, uh they found this in Irene's apartment, right? Yeah. He says that she would have
had to have got this from a third party that she received it from somebody else which is very possible because you have
somebody that what you know some services that maybe he can offer and somebody says oh you call my buddy Ken
Ken and then here's his number and but then here's the thing later he's brought in again. He's brought in again at a
later date for questioning and this time they get an entirely different response.
All right. He kind of freaks out on him and he shouts out, "I killed her. I've got to tell somebody about it." What?
Yeah. I've killed her and I've got to tell somebody about All right. Lock him up. Lock him up. I mean, even if he
didn't kill her, if he felt the need to scream this, then then just lock him up.
Well, he says that the two of them had argued about money and that he had must have lost his temper and strangled her.
He said that he must have See, it seems like he's assuming he blacked out. Yeah,
I think uh Kenny's got quite the drinking problem. Um and so it sounds like he's a little unsure of what he's
done. Uh but he did say that he took off Irene's clothes and he put her in the river and he said that he took the
clothes home and he burned them. Uh this sounds promising, right? Right. We got we got a guy here. Yeah. Where's the
validity? There's probably some questioning as far as the validity to his story. So what happens is he does go
on trial and when he goes on trial he retracts his confession. Oh surprise surprise. And this of course screws
everything up because they have no evidence on him other than the confession. Now Kenneth Archabald is a
57year-old former soldier and once they lose the confession well they lose the case. And they also did state that and
and they didn't state exactly what it was, but they did state that they found some inconsistencies in his confession
anyway. Yeah. And I think part of this could be one the drinking problem and then possible uh PTSD as far as being a
soldier is concerned. Um we you know a lot of people are asking us what what the what the deal is with false
confessions and I don't think there is a real answer. I think some people get pressured and they just don't know what
to say. Um I I don't have a rhyme or reason uh that seems to come up over and over. It seems like there's vary and
different reasons, but more or less it's the pressure that they're being put under. I you know I spoke to a detective
about that one time and he told me that he you know he didn't have the ability to do it himself but he said that he
knew of a detective that that that he swore that if you spent a certain amount of time in a room with this detective in
in an interrogation and uh and you got nervous enough he could probably convince you that you had done something
that you didn't do right and I don't know the psychology behind that but uh that you know that's that's what he said
that's a nice little power to have. Yeah, it's like Jedi mind trick, right? Uh now, again, I couldn't find out
exactly why the police ruled him out, but again, there were inconsistencies in the confession. They lose the
confession, they lose the case, and it does sound like from the things that I've read that police were starting to
doubt Kenny's confession before he even retracted it. Well, good good on them for doubting it because we've seen in
case after case where you get a false confession and the cops never let go of that. Mhm. And then they constantly go
back to those we got this confession. Well, the confession doesn't make any sense at one and then two, when they
confess again, there's no logic between confession number one and number two, and they just never let it go. And that
really hinders finding the truth. Yeah. Well, the thing here too is, you know, it could be something as simple as he
got some dates wrong, right? Maybe he says, "Well, I killed her on this night or I killed her on this morning and
she's actually been seen walking around on that time or after that time." Right?
Um, and the other thing we got to keep in mind, too, is he's admitting to one of the deaths, right? And we have eight
total and the police are pretty certain that they are dealing with a serial offender. So, and the other thing too
with Kenneth's confession that that kind of throws a wrench in the whole thing is
there was another girl that was found dead. This girl was found dead, you know, right around the time he's
confessing to it. Uh this was Helen Beth Bethamy. Uh we had talked about her earlier. Uh she was one that they had
discovered with paint on her. So, uh he may not have had the opportunity to be part of her murder. They figure out that
he couldn't have been part of that murder and she's got the paint on her. So, we know that this this is connected
to all the other ones and the person that he suspected of killing has that same paint on her as well, right? The
one that he confessed to. And these police said it's there's a possibility that the paint is just getting onto
these girls for some other reason. It could be, but he would have to have taken his victim to the same location or
brought the same paint to the victim as this other killer is bringing to all the
other victims. So that the the you know the math there is blowing my mind right now. Um so these are other reasons why
he was probably ruled out and we'll talk about some other police tactics. And there was another confession, right? How
many confessions we got in this case? Oh, there's like 50. There's 50. Well, there's probably a lot of people too
that after the fact years and years later, just kind of like with the Black Dalia and Zodiac and stuff like that
where people come out and say, "My father, it was my father that did it cuz this was a pretty popular case." Yeah.
Well, uh, John D. Rose, and I probably got his name wrong, but, uh, he was the head of Scotland Yard's murder squad
back then, and he was in charge during this investigation. And after his retirement, he would go on to write a
book called Murder Was My Business. He had some he he had a cool nickname. All right. So they called him 4day Johnny
because when he was involved with cases, they were solved very quickly. In his book, this case is featured quite
extensively, which of course makes sense as it's one of the largest investigations, I mean probably even one
of the largest investigations of the 1960s. So John, 4day Johnny as we'll call him, he decides he's going to turn
up the heat, right? This is during the investigation. He knows his man is still out there and he's going to try to shake
the bushes and see what comes crawling out. So John states that Scotland Yard, this is to the public, they had a very
large list of suspects and after uncovering the latest evidence and further factchecking that they were able
to whittle down the list to three suspects and soon that would shrink to just one suspect. Well, yeah, but they
did this thing in this case where they would say, "Oh, we have now narrowed it down to 40. We narrowed it down to 20."
Then and they kept on getting smaller and and you know then the big one was we got it down to three. But a lot of
people think that this was all just horseshit anyways. Well, I mean come on. You and I, Captain, we've seen this
tactic. This was used in our lifetime. It was used by the Boulder, Colorado police in the investigation of the death
of John Benet Ramsay. Right. And of course, uh it's probably been used in many investigations where you just say,
"Yeah, we got this big list. Now it's down to three." Yeah. Pretty soon it's going to just be
you, buddy. Yeah. And if you turn up that heat, you're hoping that they make a mistake or they just get so scared
that they turn themselves in. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. He John was thinking that maybe somebody would come forward and confess
or that the perpetrator would panic and do something crazy or something to get himself caught. But regardless, the
murders did stop. John D. Rose, now he is the captain of the murder squad that we've been talking about. So now I'm the
captain. Let's talk about 5 years after the last murder. D. Rose is on a BBC television show. He's doing an interview
and in this interview he claims that he knew the identity of Jack the Stripper. Now, furthermore, he says that
detectives had been preparing to make an arrest in March of 1965 when news reached them that the suspect that they
were looking for had committed suicide. the he had gassed himself in a locked up
garage in southwest London. Now, he explained that the press and the television publicity that had been
orchestrated by the police, it was intended to frighten the suspect and to make him run. And he go on to say,
eventually it did have the effect that they desired because the killer became so frightened that he took his own life.
In his 1971 memoir, Murder Was My Business, Ford Day Johnny, he rep he he repeated his claim saying that the man
had left a suicide note explaining that he was unable to take the strain any longer. At the end of the suicide note,
Captain, he says, uh, if the police are looking for me or I'll do the police a favor, I'll be in the garage. He says
something to that extent. And that's where they find him. Well, first of all, he's not invited into this garage. They
find himself. He's gassed himself in the garage. Um, another author, Brian McDonald, he fleshed out the suspect
further in his 1974 book called Found Naked. A different suspect. No, this is the same suspect. We're talking about
the same guy. Okay. It's just he goes into a little more detail in his book. And his book's called Found Naked and
Dead. He nicknamed the murderer as Big John. and he described him as a respectable man in his 40s with a wife
and several children uh that had suffered a grim childhood in Scotland characterized by an extreme puritan
puritanism and frequent beatings uh at the hands of his parents. While this Big John was serving in World War II, he
developed a habit of using prostitutes and would often turn to violence when he drank and vet his feelings of
self-loathing, beating up the prostitutes. Right? This happens a lot of time uh with Catholics as well. And
after he got out of the war, he later joined the police force and eventually he was turned down. Hold on, let me just
say the self-loathing part of being a Catholic. Okay, so thank you. You're not the kill him part. You're a Catholic.
You can speak. You can speak for yourself. I can speak for my own experiences. So after he gets out of the war, this
this this standup citizen citizen who's beating up prostitutes decides that he's
going to join the police force. Uh eventually he is turned down for a promotion. He's seeking the rank of
detective. He's turned down and at this point he starts drinking again and he turns to the bottle and eventually he
quits working for the police. Eventually John he finds work as a security guard and he worked at the herin trading
estate where the bodies were believed to have been stored for some time. Now remember we talked about this this paint
spraying company. It was a part of this herin estate and he worked as a security
guard there. So I think this is so he's a failed cop, works out as a security guard. Yeah. But but both uh 4day Johnny
and uh the author McConnell, they did refuse to reveal Big John's true identity for the sake that they claimed
that the killer's living relatives who remain oblivious to his crimes of the, you know, he's a suspected killer and
and they they left they didn't want the the family to to Well, yeah. and logically become victims, right? And
logically, this makes sense. I mean, there's all this heat gets turned up on this guy. He's had um some failures in
his life. He has a lot of self-loathing. And as they think they're getting closer
to, you know, capturing this guy and identifying him, possibly not so much to save himself, but possibly to save his
family, his kids, and everything like that. Well, I'll just kill myself. If I kill myself, chances are well, one, I
won't be killing anymore. So, that could be part of the rel religious uh background into him where he is uh
remorseful. Um because of the drinking, maybe he feels like because of the drinking and because of uh my childhood
and everything, I can't stop this. I've become some kind of monster. And so to rid the world of me being a problem and
then to take away the burden on my family, I'll commit suicide. Mhm. So I think logically it it all lines up. It
does all line up. And I think those are all factors as well. Plus the thing is it looked to this guy, if this is the
right guy, it looks to me like they were zeroing in on him pretty well and that he was going to be caught. And again, if
if he has connections with police officers, he could still have uh personal relationships with them,
possibly drinking buddies that are police officers. So, he's hearing more first and firsthand information. Um,
this seems like the clear path. I mean, like you said, is they go by the name Big John or whatever, so no real name
there. My thought initially when reading all this stuff and looking into this case was there's a lot of connections as
far as the the sex scene and I'm going to call it the sex scene or the sex industry because it's not just
prostitutions but possibly uh sex movies and things of that nature but there's a
connection between that and people of power in London. And so there was a lot of uh rich men and powerful men using
the services of the prostitutes then leading for the the um opportunity that they could blackmail
the people of power. And so I I always assumed not always but the last week of looking into this case was that I would
be looking at somebody that was actually not connected to the prostitutes at all.
somebody similar to this Big John guy where he's possibly not using the prostitutes, but that he is hired by the
higherups to, hey, take care of these problems. These girls are these girls are trying to blackmail us or maybe
something got out of hand or they didn't pay them again. We're going to go to the
to the press and and so they're hiring somebody that's taking care of all these problems. Yeah. and and possibly with
the higher ups and the rich and powerful having connections with the police. Maybe that's why they never solved it
because it did just stop because they stopped hiring them. But also maybe the rich and powerful took proper measures
to stop doing this foolish the foolish behavior of like going above and beyond what you know just uh the sex act. You
know, I'll pay you for sex and and you be on your way. And so to me, there's something still there. Uh I'd have to
read these guys books to dive into that their theory more. Uh it just sounds very logical where they're coming from.
And again, it's not just one author looking into this. This is another author diving into it more. And one of
those authors being the captain of the murder squad at the time. And now, like you mentioned, there was a pretty big
sex scandal going on in London at the time, and it did have some ties to this case, but when I looked at when I looked
at this, and this is the only reason why we didn't discuss it more than what we will now, was I didn't see ties to every
every victim. Well, I mean, you know, the tie would be the sex industry, right? Right. I I get that. But I I only
saw one instance where somebody was reporting things or was willing to testify against somebody in court. Um,
you know, these other people could have had these other victims could have had some ties to to this same-sex scandal. I
think what I'm seeing here though is I'm going to go with the with the lead investigators opinion of of that at the
time for day Johnny. And exactly and and what we were pointing out here was all the extra steps and precautions and all
the extra effort that the police put into this search. While it at the end it didn't it didn't bring the killer
forward, it didn't bring the killer to justice. However, the the guy in charge firmly believes that their
tactics eventually leaded to led to their guy. Yeah. And and the the justice here was him taking his own life. So, if
you'd like to dive into this case more, you're going to hear about this uh big-time scandal in London called the
Proffumo Affair. And if you can just Google it, go down a couple different rabbit holes. It's also on the Wikipedia
page if you look for the London nude murders or if you look up Jack the Stripper. Dive into the Poffumo affair
if you like. We could have spent a whole hour or two talking just about that and
not got to any of these victims or sus other suspects uh for this case. And I think Yeah. There but there's definitely
when you're going down the rabbit hole, there's definitely stuff that you run into dead ends. Mhm. So yeah. And and I
think that there trying to make it bigger than what it even was at the time. And I think that, you know,
hearing our opinion, I think that this guy has uh there's more ties to him to this case than what you will find in the
the affair case. Recommended reading for this week, Captain. You want to read a good book? Why don't you check out the
ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion? You know, we couldn't do this case without picking a Jack the Ripper book. There
are a bazillion Jack the Ripper books out there. You could check out any of them. You could that you Google it and
your your mind will be blown. There will be hundreds of them. But in my opinion,
this one is one of the best, if not the best. I'm not going to claim to have read all of them. Uh, but the ultimate
Jack the Ripper companion. It's an illustrated encyclopedia. It's got a lot of good drawings and pictures in it.
Plus, it's a big thick book. It's written by Stuart P. Evans and Keith Skinner. Anybody that has read Jack the
Ripper books knows that I think that Keith Skinner, if there's a hundred Jack the Ripper books, Keith Skinner wrote or
or worked on half of them. So, you're getting your information from one of the best ripperologists out there out there.
And you can pick that up by going to our website that is trueimeg.com and click on the
recommended reading page. You'll see this book amongst a whole bunch of others and you just click on the Amazon
banner and buy your book that way. And what's great about this Amazon banner is you can actually buy anything. I
actually just purchased electric violin for my friend Jess. It's her birthday. Happy uh 21st. We'll say 21st uh
birthday. Uh but it's simple. You just click on it and then it just takes you to basically a blank page and then you
start your search and you have to sign in. But it gives a little kick back to the garage and keeps the lights on and
it costs you nothing extra. And for everything True Crime Garage, make sure you go to the website true crimegar.com.
Sign up on the mailing list. Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, all that good stuff at True
Crime Garage. And don't forget to pick up your brand new True Crime Garage T-shirts that just came out this week.
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and do that. And much love to you. Thanks for the support. And make sure you tell a friend. That's right. Be
good, be kind, and don't litter. [Music]

London Nude Murders ////// 55 Original Release: 10-11-2016

TrueCrimeGarage.com

We have all heard of Jack the Ripper, there is probably no more famous unsolved case invovling a serial killer. But nearly 70 years after Scotland Yard searched for the Ripper police had one of the largest manhunts in London's history. The search for the killer dubbed Jack the Stripper. This Jack was killing prostitutes and leaving their naked bodies in the River Thames and in the cities alleyways. This Jack did not taunt the police by writing letters and laughing at them on paper, no he simply gave them another body. Tonight we take the flying garage ship to England and review this strange cold case.

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