Jack the Stripper

The Hammersmith nude murders is the name of a series of six murders in West London, England, in 1964 and 1965. The victims, all prostitutes, were found undressed in or near the River Thames, leading the press to nickname the killer Jack the Stripper (a reference to "Jack the Ripper"). Two earlier murders, committed in West London in 1959 and 1963, have also been linked by some investigators to the same perpetrator.

Despite "intense media interest and one of the biggest manhunts in Scotland Yard's history" the case is unsolved. Forensic evidence gathered at the time is believed to have been destroyed or lost.

Victims

Elizabeth Figg

Figg was found dead at 5:10am on 17 June 1959 by police officers on routine patrol in Duke's Meadows, Chiswick, on the north bank of the River Thames. The park had a reputation as a lovers' lane, and prostitutes were known to take their clients there.

Figg's body was found on scrubland between Dan Mason Drive and the river's towpath, approximately west of Barnes Bridge. Her dress was torn at the waist and opened to reveal her breasts; marks around the neck were consistent with strangulation. Figg's underwear and shoes were missing, and no identification or personal possessions were found. A pathologist concluded that death had occurred between midnight and 2:00a.m. on 17 June.

A post-mortem photograph of Figg's face distributed to the press was independently recognized by her roommate and her mother.

Extensive searches of the areaincluding the river bedfailed to find Figg's underwear, black stiletto shoes, or white handbag. A police official theorized that she had been murdered by a client in his car, after removing her shoes and underwear, and that these and her handbag had then remained in the car after the body was disposed of at Duke's Meadows. The proprietor of a pub on the opposite side of the river to where Figg was found said that on the night of the murder he and his wife had seen a car's headlights as it parked in that area at 12:05a.m. Shortly after the lights were switched off, they heard a woman's scream.

Gwynneth Rees

The body of Welsh-born Gwynneth Rees was found on 8 November 1963 at the Barnes Borough Council household refuse disposal site on Townmead Road, Mortlake. The dump was situated from the Thames towpath, and approximately from Duke's Meadows.

Rees was naked except for a single stocking on her right leg, extending no further up than the ankle. She had been accidentally decapitated by a shovel which workmen had been using to level the refuse.

Hannah Tailford

Tailford was found dead on 2 February 1964 on the Thames foreshore below Linden Housethe clubhouse of the London Corinthian Sailing Clubwest of Hammersmith Bridge. She had been strangled, several of her teeth were missing, and her underwear had been stuffed into her mouth.

Irene Lockwood

Lockwood was found dead on 8 April 1964 on the foreshore of the Thames at Corney Reach, Chiswick, not far from where Tailford had been found. With the discovery of this third victim, police realized that a serial murderer was at large. Lockwood was pregnant at the time of her death.

Helen Barthelemy

East Lothian-born Barthelemy was found dead on 24 April 1964 in an alleyway at the rear of 199 Boston Manor Road, Brentford. Barthelemy's death gave investigators their first solid piece of evidence in the case: flecks of paint used in car manufacturing. Police felt that the paint had probably come from the killer's workplace; they therefore focused on tracing it to a business nearby.

Mary Fleming

Scottish-born Fleming was found dead on 14 July 1964 outside 48 Berrymede Road, Chiswick. Once again, paint spots were found on the body; many neighbours had also heard a car reversing down the street just before the body was discovered.

Frances Brown

Brown, a native of Edinburgh, was last seen alive on 23 October 1964 by a colleague who saw her get into a client's car; on 25 November her body was found in a car park on Hornton Street, Kensington. She had been strangled. The colleague was able to provide police with an identikit picture and a description of the car, thought to be a grey Ford Zephyr. Brown had testified as a witness for the defence, along with Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, at the trial of Stephen Ward in July 1963.

Bridget O'Hara

Irish immigrant Bridget "Bridie" O'Hara was found dead on 16 February 1965 near a storage shed behind the Heron Trading Estate, Acton. She had been missing since 11 January. Once again, O'Hara's body turned up flecks of industrial paint which were traced to an electrical transformer near where she was discovered. Her body also showed signs of having been stored in a warm environment. The transformer was a good fit for both the paint and the heating.

Investigation

Chief Superintendent John Du Rose of Scotland Yard, the detective put in charge of the case, interviewed almost 7,000 suspects.

In the spring of 1965, the investigation into the murders encountered a major breakthrough when a sample of paint which perfectly matched that recovered from several victims' bodies was found beneath a concealed transformer at the rear of a building on the Heron Factory Estate in Acton. This factory estate faced a paint spraying shop. Shortly thereafter, Du Rose held a news conference in which he falsely announced that the police had narrowed the suspect pool down to 20 men and that, by a process of elimination, these suspects were being eliminated from the investigation. After a short time, he announced that the suspect pool contained only 10 members, and then three. There were no further known Stripper killings following the initial news conference.

According to the writer Anthony Summers, Hannah Tailford and Frances Brown, the Stripper's third and seventh victims, were peripherally connected to the 1963 Profumo affair. Some victims were also known to engage in the underground party scene in addition to appearing in pornographic movies. Several writers have postulated that the victims may have known each other, and that the killer may have been connected to this scene as well.

Suspects

Kenneth Archibald

On 27 April 1964, Kenneth Archibald, a 57-year-old caretaker at the Holland Park Lawn Tennis Club, walked into Notting Hill police station and voluntarily confessed to the killing of Irene Lockwood. Archibald was charged with the murder and stood trial at the Old Bailey in June 1964. When asked to plead, he retracted his confession and pleaded not guilty. There was no other evidence to link him to the crime and on 23 June 1964, he was found not guilty by a jury and acquitted by the judge, Mr. Justice Neild.

Mungo Ireland

For Du Rose, the most likely suspect was a Scottish security guard called Mungo Ireland, whom Du Rose first identified in a BBC
...