Hammersmith Nude Murders (Stripper)

[Cap'n Jack]

Thank you me ol' ship mate, but I'll stick with what the wise coroner said, that 'all the murders took place within an area of about five square miles in West London'.
I was wondering whether you realised that Irene Lockwood's best friend, Vicki Pendler, was also battered to death?

[Jeff Leahy]

I'll do some more checking. You really need to out line your victims, the time scale etc..

However O'Hara was discovered a few hundred yards from the electrical substation where we know the bodies were stores..

I'm looking at a map. THe station was further north. The others closer to the river. Mary Flemming would be dead centre of Diamond shape. O'hara North, Flemming/Rees south, Brown West and Barthelemy East towards Brentford.

However the forensics links OHara, to Brown, Fleming, Barthelemy and Lockwood. The paint spots.

Pirate

[Cap'n Jack]

'However O'Hara was discovered a few hundred yards from the electrical substation where we know the bodies were stores..'

That was an assumption made by a desperate police commander who was suffering severe staff shortage at the time.
And he clutched at straws.
If the entire forensic evidence is based on 'paint spots' derived from an environment where cars were being resprayed, then those paint spots should have been vital evidence because they would have demonstrated the unique dna of every single type of automotive paint available at that time, and the exact make and model of car that it was designed for.
If the paint spots were relevant, the police would have been looking for a certain type of vehicle from a certain year, and they would have said so, especially considering that vehicle descriptions connected to the murders had been given.
If the vehicle used to dump the bodies had been resprayed in a colour that was not original it would have been even easier to trace.
I would suggest that what the police believed to be contact with a heat source in regard to the victims is better explained by what we now know as 'freezer burn', indicating that raw flesh kept in a chilled environment without covering will show evidence of what the police described.

[Natalie Severn]

re Vicki Martin etc....what with cars and cooch behars could you be telling us something Cap"n?

[Jeff Leahy]

Cap'in I need to be careful here because I'm working from three books and one coroners report however I've always understood that the garage opposite the substation was a general respray shop using lots of different paint. The substation was ventilated and paint got in through vents..

I've not seen the police files, Seabrook did, however I've always believed that the forensics was fairly incontrovertable..

It was the Heron Industrial substation where all the later bodies were stored?

I've never heard the bodies were frozen

Pirate

[Neil Milkins]

Hammersmith nudes murders

Intresting information via newspaper clippings. Does anyone have paper clippings on the inquest of Mungo Ireland. Regards Neil Milkins.

[Cap'n Jack]

Yes Natalie, it appears that Vicki Martin went to school with Christine Keeler's older sister, and you are right, for I do have a personal family interest in her highly suspicious death; and a professional interest in the murders of these other poor young women... and I don't buy the line for one second that they were the victims of a lone serial killer, simply because of the quote from The Times which I posted above which appears to preclude that possibility.
As I said, police and court statements appear to indicate that their enquiries met a 'brick wall', which is indicative of organised crime rather than solitary crime.

[sdreid]

When I read the idiom "brick wall", my thought was that it just meant that they were perplexed. That their investigation was impeded due to lack of evidence.

[vincent]

And Vincent I really must encourage you to talk to someone in the police who can here what you say and give you proper advice. It is obviously still eating at you. Actually my experience is that there are some surprisingly good people in todays force. My brother in law might advice you, at least listen, he's Essex. But its up to you.

Pirate[/QUOTE]
It would be a cold person indeed that wasn't affected by the strong possibility of his father being a murderer. What does you B/I/L do?

[Jeff Leahy]

My babies home from France in an hour so cant stop..

I'm still digging on O'hara.

I'm not certain on Ireland inquest, any help appriciated, I can supply some info. He was in Scotland when O'Hara disappeared.

Capin you didnt answer about Joe Cannon, is he a link?

must dash...Bar B Q

Cheers all Pirate

[Cap'n Jack]

That may be your view, Stan, but the accepted meaning of the idiom is to run into some physical obstacle which impedes what you are trying to do, ergo not a lack of evidence but rather a reluctance to provide that evidence.
If the former applied then the police and court would have described themselves as baffled or confused, but it appears that they met an obstacle.

[sdreid]

What is your evidence Vincent?

[Cap'n Jack]

I always think that the best motive for murder is fear.
Which is why it is interesting that in the aftermath of the slayings in Trinidad, Stanley Abbot - one of Michael X's thugs in London in the 1960's at the time of the Hammersmith Nude Murders - attempted to justify his murder of Gale Benson in Trinidad by claiming that he had been forced to commit the act by Michael X otherwise he would have been murdered himself, by Michael X.
The fact of the matter was accepted by the highest court in the realm, but the plea was dismissed.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks AP.I looked up a book published in 2001 entitled ,"Christine Keeler, The Truth at Last, My Story" and like you say there are a number of links,starting with Murray"s Cabaret Club which was where Christine Keeler began working as a hostess [and real movie stars like Kay Kendall began].What interested me reading about Murrays though was its clientelle-from the aristoctrat and film star to the ordinary business man.And I noted that among the film stars in Keeler"s book, the name of Douglas Fairbanks junior cropped up several times which made me pause because a while back I went to the recent Black Dahlia movie and began to read up a bit on the background , I recalled the Fairbanks jr name cropped up as someone who had been with her around the time she "disappeared" and here he was yet again, going to the same types of clubs as Murrays and the Twenty One club where Mandy R Davies and Christine Keeler went off with him-----I read these clubs had their own "doctors" too ,who helped over unwanted pregnancies.The Christine Keeler book is good in that it mentions several of the young women you referred to as having "disappeared".Its possible you are onto something there AP-but it could be concidence too.
I think Ruth Ellis worked at Murrays too and Vicki Martin her friend.

[Natalie Severn]

This Michael X- real name de Freitas,was a total villain and a disgrace.However its important not to muddle him up with his namesake Malcolm X who ,though he had started out pretty dreadfully and had been into crime etc worked hard on his own redemption and had renounced all links with thugs of de Freitas ilk.He was also moving away from Black Separatism when he was assassinated.