London Murders
Coal Yard was the original name of Stukeley Street. It is reputed that Nell Gwynn was born there in the seventeenth century, in those days a much smarter place than it became by 1740. During that year it housed John Thrift, a public hangman, and it was a thoroughly run down slum. After Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highland Rising in 1745 it fell on Mr Thrift to behead the rebel Lords, and while the City Fathers approved, the vulgar citizens were offended by the bloodshed. An angry crowd chased Thrift to his house and besieged it, shouting Jacobite slogans. Once home Thrift got back his nerve, he lost his temper and raced out after the mob, who crossed Drury lane and into Shorts gardens, there was a brief struggle, where one David Farris was seen to be lying dead. The Hangman was put on a murder charge, in his defence he told that the cutglass used to kill Farris had been seized from his grasp by Enoch Stock who had struck down Farris. Stock did not contest this as he claimed to be stunned at the time. Thrift was condemned to death, however, the city fathers had no intention of seeing him hang, they petitioned for his release, and at his next visit to Tyburn, he was, as usual, putting a rope around someone else's neck instead of wearing it himself.
By the year 1821 Coal Yard was sinking, it now housed the parish constable, Mr Haffian, but he left the house next door to a dubious couple, Mathew Welch and Mary Baker. Both were married: Mr Welch had a wife and children in Paddington, while Mrs Baker's husband lived in the country. Trouble started when Mr Baker visited his estranged wife. He left before Welch's return, but a drunken Welch had a furious quarrel with her for entertaining her legitimate spouse, that the neighbours had to intervene, threatening to lock him in the watch-house. Welch them all away with a poker, then at midnight he barricaded himself in the house, then at midnight horrified occupants of Caol Yard listened to curses, blows and screams. Then a deadly silence fell, with no one daring to investigate until the next morning. It was then that Mrs Baker Welch was found on her bed with her brains beaten in. Of her common-law husband, there was no sign.
It was later revealed that he turned up in Paddington with his legal family. After eating his breakfast, he left the house and was never heard of ever again.
The very first railway murder was a Hackney event. The victim an elderly head banker, who lived at number 5 Clapton Square, it's terraced neighbours still stand, just north of Mare Street. Every Saturday Mr Thomas Briggs would dine with his married niece at her house at 23 Nelson Square (today's Farley Road) Peckham.
Another Hackney resident also visited south London in July 1864. Franz Muller, a German tailor, lived at 16 Park Terrace, part of today's Old Ford Road opposite Victoria Park.
He passed the early evening of Saturday, July 9th visiting a prostitute in Peckham, and returned to Hackney on the same train, in the same compartment - from Fenchurch Street as Mr Briggs.
At Hackney Wick station Muller left the train unnoticed, and two young clerks who entered the compartment found its seats sticky with blood. They alerted the guard, and Mr Briggs unconscious body was found on the line between Bow and Hackney. He never recovered. His watch and chain were missing. A hat that was not his was found in the compartment.
A Cheapside jeweller named John Death came forward with the watch and chain of Mr Briggs, that he had exchanged for cheap jewellery on Monday following the murder. Nine days later a cabman named Mathews, remembered picking up a hat from Crawford Street Marylebone for Muller, that he saw in the shop window. Muller had gone when Police arrived, not fleeing as he had given the Land Lord notice, declaring his intention of emigrating to America. Briggs's watch had supplied the funds for his steerage passage. Muller on the ship
Victoria was chased by police with Mathews and Death on a fast steamship and reached New York before him. Muller was arrested and found to have Briggs's hat that he exchanged for his one, he had cut the hat to the size he liked better, and such hats were known for many years as "Muller cut-downs". He was executed at Newgate with a public hanging, that was disrupted by a good deal off mugging in the crowd that later contributed to abolishing public hangings a few years later.
In 1922 Henry Jacoby, an 18-year-old pantry boy, worked at the
Spencer Hotel in Bryanston st W.1 Today the hotel is known as Mostyn Hotel. Widowed Lady White was a resident, and her room was accessible to Jacoby when he made up his mind to rob a guest. He left his own room in the basement around midnight, he took with him a hammer found in a workman's toolbox. He went through the kitchen to the guest's room. It is thought he awoke Lady White, for he killed her with the hammer, washed it afterwards, then put the hammer back in the toolbox, and retired back to bed.
The police were set with a problem, no weapon could be found, and nothing had been stolen. Jacoby though brought attention to himself with a story of having heard voices in the night on his way to the toilets. After a few days of police questions, he confessed.
The Wandsworth train murder of 1897 took place at the Wandsworth Town Station, where a bloodstained pestle which killed Elizabeth Camp was found on the line. Miss Camp's body was later discovered, pushed under a seat of the evening train from Hounslow, when it arrived at Waterloo Station.
Elizabeth was a barmaid with no known enemies, and she was not robbed or raped. Police were under the impression that the killer was a heavily moustached man, with a bloodstained collar, who had two rums at the Alma pub near the Wandsworth Town Station. The police believed the killer was a demented clean-shaven vagrant who was committed shortly afterwards, who was known to have bought and disposed of a false moustache. They were, however, unable to get a clear identification from witnesses, so the murder remains unsolved.
Louis Voisin, a Belgian butcher lived in the basement of 101 Charlotte Street W.I. He was attractive to ladies of his own nationality. One night in 1917 a Mme Emilienne Gerard came to his flat to shelter from the threatened air raid. She found that a new lover Berthe Roche was now live in lover of Voisin.
The ladies came to blows and Voisin tried to intervene, but somehow he and Roche battered Mme Gerard to death.
Voisin soon put his butcher skills to work and cut up Gerard to small portions and then packed them in a brown paper parcel. To make it look like a racist attack Voisin wrote on the parcel 'Bloody Belgium' spelt wrongly as, 'Blodie Belgiam' loaded the parcels onto his cart and left them by railings in Regent Square near Judd Street, Bloomsbury. They were found next morning, and soon traced back to Voisin, he was soon caught out, when a police officer trapped him into repeating his mis-spelling again. A search of the flat found bloodstains, and tucked away in a recess were the head and hands of Mme Gerard. Voisin was hanged, and Berthe died while in prison serving her long sentence.
The Ratcliff Highway Murders.
On a foggy night 7th December 1811, at number 29 Ratcliff Highway, now The Highway wapping, at just before midnight the maid Margaret Jewell was sent by the housekeeper Timothy Marr to buy some oysters, unable to find any she returned to find Marr, his wife and baby and their assistant, dead with their throats cut. The horrific murders caused the government to offer a 500 guineas reward for information. On December 19th, 1811 and just twelve days after the murders at number 29, the landlord Mr Williamson of the Kings Arms pub at number 81 Gravell Lane, modern-day Garnet street, had shortly arrived home at number 81 Ratcliff Highway with his wife. After a disturbance, the upstairs lodger, John Turner climbed out the window shouting "Murder, Murder." A crowd push in the door and found Williamson at the foot of the stairs with his throat cut, his wife and maids throats cut as well and bleeding to death.
The police later arrested John Williams a sailor who had been a shipmate of Marr's, at the Peartree pub in Cinnamon street, and charged him with all the murders. He was sent to Cold Bath Fields prison, where he took his own life before he was tried. His corpse was dragged through the streets of London, and the cart paused outside 29 Ratcliff Highway. The body was taken to the junction of Cannon Street road and cable street, a stake driven through his heart, and the body thrown into a hole. About 100 years later the body was exhumed, and the bones were given to criminologists looking for forensic clues. The landlord of the Crown and Dolphin pub at the corner of Cannon Street road kept the skull as a souvenir.
Duncan Robertson and his friend Issac Hunt a Mile End glazier were walking along High Holborn near the junction of Smarts Buildings at twenty-to-six on Thursday 16th of November 1786. It was quite a dark evening with very little street lights when suddenly Issac felt a hand in his pocket and looking round saw the left hand of Michael Walker withdrawing from his side pocket. He discovered his green parchment notebook missing and grabbing at walkers collar to stop him escaping, intending to have him searched in a nearby pub. Walker protesting his innocence, claiming that in Smarts buildings a dark and dingy alleyway, there was a late night magistrate who could do the searching. Hunt knowing the area very well told Walker that he was no fool. At this point, Walker punched out hitting the soft part at the back of Hunt's neck, with Hunt responding by lashing out with his wooden cane that had metal knobs on the end. He became aware of another man fighting with his friend, and his friend warding him off with his stick. The accomplice named Richard Payne had with him, a young boy named John Cox who both had Robertson laying on the pavement, and all three made a getaway down the alleyway of Smarts buildings with Issac Hunt in pursuit, finding them at the far end of the alley laughing at him and saying "come and get us". Knowing he would get a beating if he went any farther he returned to check on his friend finding him in a pool of blood. He was taken to the corner shop of Mr Hodges the pattern maker, where with the aid of a candle they looked at Duncan’s wounds, finding a deep cut from the forehead hairline, to the end of his nose, with the nose almost severed. Also a deep cut on his left shoulder of about seven inches long. They called a nearby Doctor, who bandaged him up and then took a Hackney coach to Duncan’s house. A constable was informed of the attack and found the three suspects drinking in the White-Heart public house in Newcomers lane, where he searched them all finding a broken knife in the pocket of Michael Walker, although the missing notebook was never discovered. Duncan became delirious and the Doctor visited him on Sunday, found him with blood-soaked bandages, and struggling in a deranged fit, a straight jacket was borrowed from a nearby workhouse. Duncan Robertson died at five to twelve on Monday the 20th November 1786. Michael Walker, Richard Payne and John Cox were all found guilty of wilful murder and hanged a few weeks later.
It was a routine day for the police Q car FOX-TROT 11 as it drove along Braybrook street near the bend by Wormwood Scrubs prison in August 1966. They found a car parked in a lonely spot with three suspicious looking men John Witney, John Duddy and Harry Roberts seated inside, they decided to inquire as to why they were parked there. The three policemen. Detective Sergeant Christopher Head, Detective Constable David Wombwell and PC David Fox approached the car, Roberts startling response was to shoot all three dead in Braybrook Street, after the police were shot down dead the three crooks went tearing off to dump the car in a lock-up garage under a railway arch at Waterloo.
All three were wanted for the murder, Duddy fled to Glasgow, Roberts to the Russell hotel and Witney went home to Fernhead Road Maida Vale and was soon arrested. Duddy was also soon arrested in Scotland. But Roberts went to east London where he brought some camping equipment and set off to Epping Forest to live rough.
For three months he evaded arrest camping out until a schoolboy spotted him in Thorley Wood by Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire. Roberts was arrested for the triple police murders.
On the 21st of May 1959, Gunter Podola arrived at London's Heathrow Airport from Germany. He spent the next couple of months bumming around unemployed, staying in the Kensington area.
Until the 3rd of July of the same year when Podola decided to burgle the flat of Mrs Verne Schiffman in Rowland Gardens, South Kensington, Mrs Schiffman who was a 30-year-old model that had once been a hostess on Hughie Green's double your money t.v show was staying in London on holiday. Podola's robbery included some jewellery and furs with a value estimated at £2,000 which was a lot of money. Trying a bit of blackmail and Posing as an American private investigator named Levine, Podola wrote to Mrs Schiffman offering to return some compromising photos and tapes, that he said he had, for £500. Mrs Schiffman received the letter on 7 July and, having nothing to fear from the blackmail threats, informed the police.
On 13 July 1959, Podola was in a telephone box by South Kensington Tube Station around 3.30pm making his call to Mrs Schiffman a tap on the phone was placed to catch him. Mrs Schiffman managed to keep Podola talking while police traced the call. Mrs Schiffman was still talking on the phone as she heard the blackmailer say 'Hey, what do you want?' After that was the sounds of a scuffle a man came on the line and said to her, 'This is Detective Sergeant Purdy. Remember my name.
Detective Sergeants Purdy and Sandford arrested Podola, they were walking to the police car when Podola escaped and ran into the hall of a block of flats in Onslow Square, South Kensington, where he was re-captured. Detective Sergeant Sandford went to get the Police Car, leaving Detective Sergeant Purdy guarding Podola in the hall of the flats. While alone with Purdy, Podola pulled out an automatic pistol and shot Purdy in the heart.
Detective Sergeant Purdy, aged 43, died almost immediately as Podola made his escape.
Three days later Police was led to a hotel in Queens Gate, South Kensington where Podola was arrested and taken to Chelsea Police Station. The automatic pistol which killed Purdy was later found in the hotel attic where Podola had been staying.
At the Old Bailey on 19 July 1959 the trial commenced, in his evidence from the dock, Podola stated that he could not remember the alleged crime itself or the circumstances leading up to it. After an absence of just 35 minutes, the jury found Podola guilty of capital murder, and Mr. Justice Edmund Davies sentenced Podola to death.
On 5 November 1959, Podola was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. Podola was buried in the prison graveyard (grave 59) and Padola became the last person to hang in the U. K for killing a police officer.
London Time
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