Why did Scotland Yard's biggest serial killer hunt fail? Part 1

I thought I'd return to a case I covered in The Hunt for the 60s' Ripper. This year is the 60th anniversary of Scotland Yard's most tragic failure…

On 24 April 1964, Britons woke to shocking front-page headlines. The Daily Mirror typified the tabloids’ tone: GIANT HUNT FOR MANIAC SEX KILLER.

The body of 22-year-old Helen Barthelemy had been found in an alley in west London. However, the shock factor did not come from that single crime, disturbing as it was.

This was major news because her killing made it clear to Scotland Yard and Fleet Street’s crime reporters that a serial murderer was on the loose.

Helen was the third woman whose body had been left in public places, and the second to be found that month. Hannah Tailford, 30, was found on 2 February on the Thames foreshore by the Corinthian Sailing Club, Hammersmith.

Then Irene Lockwood, 25, was discovered on 8 April by Corney Reach steps, Chiswick.

Throughout the rest of the year more bodies would be found.

On 11 July, chauffeur George Heard would look out of the window of his home on Berrymede Road, Chiswick, and see what he thought was a tailor’s dummy in the street. It was actually the body of 30-year-old Mary Fleming. 

Frances Brown, 21, was found on November 25, 1964, in a car park off Kensington High Street.

Finally, Bridget ‘Bridie’ O’Hara, 27, spent her last evening drinking in the Shepherd’s Bush Hotel, before strolling off with an unidentified man down Goldhawk Road. She was found five weeks later on February 16, 1965, on the Heron Trading Estate, Acton.

Poor women in west London targeted by a kerb-crawler

The women were all sex workers. Their clients were kerb-crawling motorists. 

They were short, around five feet one inch tall. The first two, Hannah and Irene, were found in the River Thames; the next four all had dust and paint particles on their bodies, revealing that they had been undressed and stored somewhere before being dumped in public places. The final four had also been asphyxiated, probably with their clothes tightened around their throats.

None showed signs of sexual violence, but detectives speculated that they had been killed during a sex act.

It is worth pausing to consider how disturbing this murder spree was in 1964-65. Six victims was an appalling toll in the annals of British criminal history, the highest since the Whitechapel murders the Victorian East End of the capital nearly 80 years before (generally accepted as five victims).

Moreover, the crimes presented a more modern Scotland Yard with a similar set of headaches. This kind of proactive murder by stranger – the ‘serial killer’ had not been defined or seriously studied at this time – was extremely rare.

Finding a killer with little or no personal connection to his victims is extremely difficult. There had been virtually no witnesses, and the man responsible covered his tracks forensically by removing the victims’ clothes and belongings, and thereby most trace evidence.

Today, faced with such a brazen series of chilling crimes in such a short period of time, the media outcry would be ferocious. But in the mid-1960s, while coverage was building, criticism of the police was virtually non-existent.

There was still a perception at this time that Scotland Yard was one of the world’s finest crime-fighting institutions. Its officers of integrity would get their man.

However, there was immense and growing pressure on those at the top of the Metropolitan Police to end the outrageous murder spree. Something had to be done to inject the hunt with fresh momentum.

In February 1965 they finally called one of their top investigators. Detective Chief Superintendent John du Rose was one of Scotland Yard’s top five detectives. He was ordered to take charge of the Nude Murders case, as it was being called, just when it seemed the Yard was getting nowhere in stopping the killer. 

‘I wanted West London flooded with policemen – and it was,’ du Rose said. He had a 200-strong CID force, with another 100 men and women in uniform. The Special Patrol Group (SPG) of 300 officers was also called in.

One deviant loner hunted by a team of some 600 officers. Surely, it was only a matter of time before the Hammersmith Nudes Killer was in custody.

The investigation

John Du Rose’s appointment was hailed by newspapers from the London Evening News to the Los Angeles Times. The Daily Mirror called him ‘Scotland Yard’s Top Murder Detective’, while the Chicago Tribune went overboard in describing him as a detective ‘who has never failed to solve a murder case’.

The Daily Mail assured readers on Monday, 22 February, a few days after the discovery of Bridie O’Hara, that a breakthrough was expected soon. ‘An important development is expected in the next few days in the investigation of the six deaths. Criminal scientists working round the clock at Scotland Yard may produce evidence linking clues discovered by detectives.’

It was beginning to sound a little desperate, but as the Mail had also warned, du Rose had ‘landed the toughest job of his 32-year career’.

Public and media were never made aware in coming months that the investigation was under strain. The inability of the murder squad to locate one truly compelling suspect meant they were having to undertake a huge number of searches and chase a scattergun pattern of leads and tips purely on spec.

Du Rose was leading a huge force of uniformed officers and detectives, but the killer remained elusive.

There was frustration that so far this man had struck six times in 12 months even while the police presence had increased with the growing investigation. The approach of Detective Superintendent Bill Baldock, du Rose’s right-hand man, was that now ‘no stone was left unturned’.

Police thinking had crystallised on the most likely type of suspect. This was a man cruising the Notting Hill/Shepherd’s Bush/Bayswater area picking up streetwalkers. He had asphyxiated and stripped them, before keeping them in a place where they came into contact with a particular mix of paint and dust particles. While finding his storage spot was one vital part of the police strategy, the other was identifying his vehicle. The killer was looking for his victims in possibly a van or Hillman Husky-type vehicle with closed sides. Such a van had been spotted in Brentford and Chiswick, near where two victims had been deposited.

Identifying this vehicle would surely expose the guilty man. Night observations around west London were established. There was logic in this, but trying to monitor and note the movements of every vehicle, investigating suspicious incidents and journeys against registration details, was daunting.

However, it was hoped that in the event of any further killings the perpetrator’s licence registration would be recorded. Observation points were set up around a 24-square mile area. The early murders of Hannah Tailford and Irene Lockwood, prompted the River Police being called on to watch the river from Hammersmith Bridge to Chiswick Bridge, particularly around Dukes Meadows, and this continued.

Long nights watching motorists

On 9 March the night squad got an additional six CID officers, 58 aids to CID (aids were essentially detectives on a trial period), four female plainclothes officers and eight uniformed officers in plainclothes. The squad came under a detective inspector. In addition, dog handlers were detailed to work alongside the SPG.

A typical night-observation detail was at Ealing Common, where an officer sat with a civilian driver in a baker’s van. During a 12-hour shift on freezing nights, wrapped in blankets, the detective constable would stare through slits in the van’s sides watching the local prostitutes as they waited for customers to come by in their vehicles. These women cooperated with the officer, clocking on and off with him in the van, and if a new woman turned up, he would take down her details on a form. He would also log the cars cruising for business.

Roger Crowhurst, a temporary detective constable, was on duty here. ‘There was a steel seat which spun round, a bit like an office seat with a cushion on it. The other seat was a biscuit tin with a cushion on it. We had to pee in another biscuit tin – and shit as well.’

Meanwhile, at murder HQ, Shepherd’s Bush police station, there was a wall map covered in red and blue flags. The blue markers denoted cars seen entering the murder area twice, while the red ones were for vehicles seen in the area three times. The red-flagged drivers were visited by detectives and discreetly asked about their journeys. Notting Hill, Bayswater, Kensington and Shepherd’s Bush were all under surveillance. Car parks, cul-de-sacs, lovers’ lanes, railway arches, parks – all were watched.

Officers were working up to 16 hours a day, earning so much in overtime some cleared enough to buy a new garage, a Morris 1100 or put down a deposit on a house.

Officers were also instructed to spend time in pubs, cafes and clubs from Soho to Shepherd’s Bush. Here the job was to mingle with prostitutes and punters. One aspect of this intelligence-gathering that attracted headlines around the world was the use of decoy female officers.

Four women dressed as prostitutes worked in pairs each night in the usual kerb-crawling areas of Queensway, Westbourne Grove, Pembridge Road, Kensington Church Street and Shepherd’s Bush Green. Accompanying each pair at a discreet distance was a male officer. By simply standing in the street – not actively soliciting business – they drew a queue of cars and could chat to the drivers and note number plates, driver descriptions and any other details useful to the inquiry. On some nights a continuous line of cars ran the length of the street waiting to speak to these decoys.

Some women had tape recorders with mics concealed in their clothing, but often notes were scribbled on scraps of paper within the woman’s coat.

The real street prostitutes saw the decoys as allies and helped by sharing information about their punters. Senior officers were stunned by the high volume of men looking for sex, often the same drivers out night after night cruising the areas in which the decoys were operating.

All car details were placed on index cards the following morning. Drivers who approached prostitutes or were seen regularly in these areas were then interviewed and dust samples taken from their vehicles. These punters were often professional types – doctors, clergymen, lawyers, company bosses.

The police index of vehicles in connection with the Nude Murders eventually ballooned to 300,000 entries, while 1,700 drivers were interviewed and had dust taken from their cars.

The ‘special decoy patrol’ ran from 22 March to 18 June, while night observations continued until 3 July. In addition to gathering valuable data about the sex trade, 59 arrests were made for attendant crimes such as robbery, larceny and possessing offensive weapons. But again, the killer was nowhere to be seen. Had du Rose’s plan to flood west London with officers left the fugitive no dark corners to work in?

Ultimately, Scotland Yard could not be faulted for the resources it threw at this investigation. So many hundreds of officers were seconded to it that the hunt for the Nudes Murderer put a strain on other areas of policing in the capital.

However, what is damning is the utter failure of this huge operation to uncover one strong suspect.

In Part 2 of this post I’ll look at the slim line-up of men who detectives considered to be suspects, one man who should have been investigated a lot more closely, and why the killer got away multiple murders.

Anyone interested in reading my full account of the case can find The Hunt for the 60s’ Rippers here

See also: Did detectives eventually uncover the killer’s identity but cover it up?