Hammersmith Nude Murders (Stripper)

[Neil Milkins]

hammersmith nudes

Hi Stan, I think "Jonty" has already answered your question about the change from children to women.Besides Jones was an evil psychopath , who had an obsession with control,a craving for attention and a total lack of remorse for his crimes. He never targetted anyone his own size and able to put up a fight, which was shown by the fact that both his child victims were relatively small in stature. It is of interest to note that according to Jack of Jumps all the murdered prostitutes were small in stature too.
Regards Neil.

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Cap'n, Re:Ward.

November 25th Francis Brown aka Margret McGowan was discovered on a pile of rubbish in a car park in Hornton Street, nr Kensington high street. Again spots of paint covered her body and she had a tooth missing. The previous year she had given evidence for the defence trial of Dr Stephen Ward, who had been charged with living off the earnings of prostitutes.

Yes, I've given a Ward connection serious consideration. The idea of a link to Perfumo or high level cover-up I dont really buy..I've never been much for conspiracies, the truth will always out.. However Ward was involved in running parties that used 8 mm films. I believe that four of the victims may have been connected to films: Hannah Tailford, Irene Lockwood, Helene Barthelemy and Francis Brown (McGowan).

Tailford ran a film studio in Victoria and was addicted to 'Purple Hearts' while going through her Correner's report I was puzzled by a Map of the Eastend marking Brick Lane...rather out of her area? And why did she frequented the area? Witness statements also put Tailford at a number of Soho Clubs...

Th Kays also had control of 8 mm porn films and Purple hearts Soho/Eastend . Owning clubs like Benny's, commercial road, Dodgers Brick lane. And I beleive that Rees worked from one of their Eastend clubs at one time...

I'm not suggest the Krays as Stripper suspects, not their style, but I have always wondered if their was a connection to 8 mm films, purple hearts and private parties.....that the killer also may have had some connection to?...

I was trying to track down a mysterious collector of Antique porn films..if my theory was correct the victims should make appearances between 1959-1964. Just a Theory. But i'd love to check those police records and know what happened to the confescated photographic equipment and films?

Hi Neil

Re; The Storage of the Bodies.

The bodies weren't really stored in a wharehouse. They were stored in an Electric Substation on the Heron Industrial Estate. At the time there was a car spraying shop oppersite the substation. Flecks of paint discovered on the bodies of the later victims matched paint from this Garage.

The Garage no longer exists but back in 2004/5 I filmed at the substation with Crime author Paul Begg. Its not very big, may be twenty feet wide and a little further back. Seven feet high with a flat roof. Made of those post war utility bricks. Theres another small shed on the side that contains electrical transformers. Inside are two very large Transformers that give out a constant and eiry electrical Buzz. Its like something out of Flash Gorden, and still powering the Heron Estate. At the front is a green double door. Padlocked.

On the floor are a series of wooden boards that when lifted reveal a drop of about 2/3 feet with cables at the bottom. One can only assume an ideal hiding place for a body.

Paul also discovered a substation entry book which listed inspections right back to the nineteen fifties. We scanned the early sixties but it reveal no names we recognized. Just encials and dates. However we couldn't help thinking that some of these entries would have been made by the killer.

There are open air vents at the top, which one must assume how the paint entered the building. And other samples from this substation match those found on the victims bodies...

The reason Ireland is a leading suspect is because he had access to this building..however in his Book 'Jack of Jumps' Seabrook claims that Ireland was in Scotland when Bridget O'Hara disappeared. Seabrook claims the murders werre comitted by a petty criminal and ex-police officer Cushway, who is still alive and living in Chingford area..

Anyway hope some of the above info helps..

Yours Jeff

PS sorry about my dyslexia folks, it aint gettin any better.

[Jeff Leahy]

Bugger..'Th Kays"..should have read "The Krays" I do check this stuff honestly.

[sdreid]

Hi Jeff and Neil,

It would be interesting to find a film with one of those women in it. That would be like finding the supposed illusive movie with Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.

I thought maybe someone would have an explanation why a guy would kill only girls up to one point and then kill nothing but women after that. Just curious. It's certainly possible that the reason is unknown or just chance. The reason people think that the Boston Strangler was actually two men was because there was a group of young victims and a group of elderly victims.

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks for the considered reply, you old pirate you.
What concerns me here is that the prostitutes connected to Ward appeared to be operating in a climate of fear and retribution... of what?
What was going to happen to them if they testified to certain details concerning the high ranking customers they were serving?
Were they going to die?
Some of them did.
Two of them.
And the others.
Ruth Ellis shot full of drugs, with a revolver placed in her hands, whose only defence was that she didn't want to talk about it.
Or Vicki Martin suffering two head-on collisions in two years, the last of which killed her.
The simple fact that two of the victims of the 'Stripper' were part of Ward's stable of call girls would appear to indicate that some form of retribution was being distributed after Ward's death to bring swift closure to a delicate matter.
I think one needs to look seriously at events from the 1950's involving these same individuals so that a historical signifigance can be given to the later events.

[Jeff Leahy]

If you fancy a trip to Cannes Cap’in jack..i’m viewing a new Pirate Ship this weekend!

The Hollywood plot could be fantastic..

Taiford is a good working class girl with some spirit, falls out with Dad, she comes to London and gets mixed up in the S&M scene, and gets pregnant servicing rich clients. She sells one of her kids in the local press and buys a movie camera and with the help of her best friend (a transvestite) starts making movies. She gets mixed up with Simon Ward, and with the help of some actresses and a russian spy, brings down the Government. However she ows money to Eastend Gangsters, the Kray twins, who send round a well known boxer, to stuff her knickers in her mouth and drown her in the Thames. A number of girls start to be found dead and Naked…the films contain clues as to the true identity of the Baby she sold?

Mary Flemming knows the Truth, but is hunted down by Jamaican gangs operating out of Bayswater…The Richardson’s are after a piece of the action and also pursue the actresses in the film, Helene and Francis…who is the babies real father?

Du Rose, is called in to solve the murders, he has only four days to solve the case or the government will collapse but he is surrounded by corruption…His investigation starts with film stars Dianna Doors and Barbra Windsor…He discovers the policeman investigating the case is link to the Great train robbery. But they weren’t after money, they were after the films!

Ruth Ellis has been framed, If she talks, the government, the Krays, the Richarsons and the corrupt police force will all come crumbling down…

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten..

If anyone has a decent ending then I’m sure we can better Stephen Knight.

However I’m sure the suggestion of a serial killer simply makes more sense…

However the elements surrounding the case, could be absolute dynamite in Hollywood hands….you are correct in that Cap’in Jack

I don’t wont to trivualize this thread so please if you do have any Hollywood suggestions for ‘Stripper’ a Hollywood movie..another thread perhaps?

Pirate

[sdreid]

There was a movie entitled Jack the Stripper but it was a porno and had nothing to do with this case.

Interesting, to me at least, that this case received not a mention in the film The Krays. JtR was even briefly alluded to in that movie.

[Cap'n Jack]

Oh me old pirating mate, we don't need any of that kitsch or ****, just enough to understand that the 'Thursday Club' became the 'Monday Club' in that 'one crowded hour'.
Time magazine was in front of this story a long time ago, and got sued for it.
It is the simplest suggestion after all, that men in power were seduced by the female frame and portrait; and that men in power would then reduce their roses to compost.
History gives a good account of this. It is but and just a world flowing.
No conspiracy, just life and death in the conservative realm of the kingdom.
I don't think it needs another thread, for I labour under the impression that all of the victims of the Hammersmith Murderer were brutally killed for the knowledge they held.

[Jeff Leahy]

All the above elements are true Stan...

What worries me is trying to piece them all together....We're dealing with a serial killer.

Tailfords murder has always puzzled me however...

An older couple who new her from a local cafe (Thames Embankment) said that she was very depressed at the time of her murder,,she was clearly worried about something. She was discovered with her stockings around her ankles and her knickers stuffed in her mouth...

Different from the others..and she could have been the first..Figg 1959? Rees, possible abortion gone wrong.

The corroner seriously considered suicide as a motive for Taiford...was she being persued by someone?

She left a little girl at home with Jock. Two of her kids she had adopted..she tried to sell one child through a local news paper..eventually adopted in Newcastle area..little girl may have gone Australia?

Three boys, one girl..never found them all, reunited one with his family. It all still plays on my mind what happened to the others.

Good night casebook

Pirate

[Cap'n Jack]

Time magazine at the time reported this:

'As Ward's own crowded hour came to an end, many Englishmen began to feel a twinge of compassion for the talented, if twisted, master of the revels. As the osteopath lay unconscious, red-haired Julie Gulliver, a 23-year-old singer who had been his last, most loyal girl friend, burst out: "There's a whole crowd of people right now praying for Stephen to die so that their names won't be mentioned. I'm going to see that they are."

In a guarded room at the hospital, Stephen Ward died at week's end without knowing that he had been convicted. A suicide note written four days earlier explained: "It's a wish not to let them get me. I'd rather get myself."

Whatever happened to Julie Gulliver?

[Jeff Leahy]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870391-2,00.html

http://www.leeharris.co.uk/LeeHarris/History/ShapiroInterview.htm

[Jeff Leahy]

Time Theory

Ok, I've had a little time to sleep on things and I think Cap'n Jack may have a lagitamate piont. What you and I have been trying to create over the last few weeks Stan is a comprehensive list of Stripper suspects.

Surely Cap'n Jacks 'Time' theory is a lagitamate suspect?

Not that I'm certain which high British aritocrat we're talking about here? Lord Astor?

However its on the list. How about the 'Time' Theory?

I stil dont understand why Christine Keeler is wondering about writing books, while poor old Bridget O'Hara, who wasn't really a professional prostitute but scaping a living because her old man drunk the house keeping, got 'done in' and mixed up with it all?

To much doesnt make sence unless you stick to Tailford (film) Lockwood (blackmailer) Barthelemy (Stripper/Dancer) aand Frances Brown (gave evidence at Wards Trial)

Prhaps we also need a comprehensive outline of the Victims. Whoi they were what they did..when last seen etc...

I'll make my Mission Mary Fleming as opener, because I know the least about her...

Pirate

PS Don't expect this done in a hurry..I'm filming in Brighton this weekend. And i have just had news on Catherine Eddows in Hunton..lots to do.

[sdreid]

Hi Jeff,

Maybe we need two suspect lists, an A list of named suspects who haven't been definitively eliminated then a B list of far out and unnamed suspects.

The A list would be Mills, Cushway, Jones, Butler and Ireland (others?).

B list would be the likes of the mysterious Ward associate, unknown local man, perhaps Archibald and whatever.

[Jeff Leahy]

Sounds like a good idea to me

Not certain what to do with Stewart Evans 'Went to Australia' suspect. As hes requested its not currently discussed perhaps a 'B' mention for now.

Looks like were going to need an A B and C list for victims.

Catch you later Stan

Pirate

[sdreid]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, you are right on the victim list as well. Would we put Jones' early victims on a C or D list?

At present, I guess Vincent's suspect would be on the "B list" also.