TRANSCRIPT - The Hammersmith Nudes Murders And 'Jack the Stripper'

[Music]This podcast contains descriptions of death and violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Hello, Jacques how are you at the moment? Very well thanks Simon uh busy spinning a few plates what about you what have you been up to oh you know bit of this bit of that ducking and diving bobbing and weaving some good feedback for the valentine's day murder piece I think these uh old village murders seem to grab people's attention don't you especially with those big hitting Scotland Yard detectives descending on the place yeah especially when they return to London without finding the killer yeah there is that as well big city senior detectives they might bring some experience but not necessarily what would you say the determination to finish the job maybe they had one eye on retirement and writing those uh those lucrative memoirs what case are we looking at today Simon well today Jacques we're moving into the realm of a London serial killer who was never caught here's your briefing document ah the swinging 60s so we've gone from 1940s war weary village to the hedonism of 1960s post-war London that's about the size of it mate and this one has a real twist at the end bringing things right up to date linking it into a case right back in the 1920s so there's some time travel involved in this and guess what you could even throw in your favourite Scotland Yard team getting involved great now let's see the Hammersmith nude murders it was a series of six murders in London England in 1964 and the victims all prostitutes found undressed in or near the River Thames leading to the press giving the nickname to the killer Jacques the stripper a reference to Jacques the ripper two earlier murders committed 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 all forensic evidence gathered at the time is reported to have been destroyed or lost yep that's about the size of it it's probably worth me giving you the names of the eight women as well and of course we never forget that in all of these cases these are real people who were deeply affected by these cases all eight women had their own hopes and dreams family and friends some of them obviously still alive so we do respect that I guess many of them were from other parts of the country that their parents probably didn't even know that they drifted into prostitution yeah exactly well none of the families ever had closure on who killed their relative or why and their names were Elizabeth Figg, Gwyneth Reese, Hannah Taylford, Irene Lockwood, Helen Barthelemy, Mary Fleming, Francis Brown and Bridget O’Hara on the 17th of June 1959 age 21 the body of Elizabeth Figg was discovered at duke's meadow in Chiswick in west London she'd been strangled her body was found at 5 10 am by police officers on routine patrol in the park on the north bank of the River Thames funnily enough this is my old stamping ground from a few years ago so I do know the locations the park had a reputation as a lover's lane and prostitutes were known to take their clients there fig's body was found on scrubland between dan mason drive and the rivers towpath that's about 200 yards west of Barnes bridge her dress was torn at the waist and opened to reveal her breasts and her underwear and her shoes were missing the pathologist concluded that she died between midnight and 2 am the following morning extensive searches failed to find her underwear black stiletto shoes or her white handbag now a police official theorized that she'd 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 off at duke's meadow the proprietor of a pub on the opposite side of the river to where fig 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 around five past midnight shortly afterwards the lights were switched off and that was when they heard a woman scream I know this area too in fact I recently walked along the path by the Thames I think it was from cube bridge uh along to the fullest brewery at Chiswick there's pubs every mile or so along there plus parks and sports pitches it's an affluent part of west London particularly on the south of the river there's also Brentford nearby probably less affluent with more industry but I remember the river brent is also the start of the grand union canal that links London and the midlands yeah that's about the size of it of course there's been quite a lot of gentrification in that area now in the 1960s I think it was a very different kettle of fish and there were still bomb sites there for instance you know the area had a very different reputation which leads us on to the next case which was four years later so did they get anywhere with this case from 1959 well no apparently not um we'll talk about suspects later on but do you want to jump forward and do the next case I think it's um 1963 the year that Kennedy was shot yeah 29th September 1963 22 year old prostitute named of Gwyneth Reese reported missing on the 8th of November sometime later her body was found at a household refuse site on town mead road mort lake 40 Yards from the Thames towpath and approximately one mile from where Elizabeth Figg’s body was found four years earlier Reece was naked except for a single stocking on her right leg oh dear her decomposed body was it was decapitated by the council workmen before they realized what was in the refuse that they were levelling so her actual cause of death was never established okay so but this is on the other side of the river an over cube bridge so at this point there's two separate murder inquiries and they're four years apart you've got it 1959 then 1963 and then on the 2nd of February 1964 the body of Hannah Taylford was found on the Thames foreshore west of Hammersmith bridge and below linden house that's the clubhouse of the London Corinthian sailing club and it's a very exclusive area these days back in the day probably less so she'd been strangled and several of her teeth were missing oh that her underwear had been forced down her throat as well so kind of a weird scene that greeted police and then on the 8th of April 1964 the body of Irene Lockwood was found on the foreshore of the Thames at Corney reach in Chiswick that's not far from where Taylford had been found okay with the discovery of the third victim the police realized that a serial murderer was at large now Miss Lockwood was 25 years old and she was pregnant at the time of her death right so her child would be in their 50s now had he or she been born yeah it's a sobering thought isn't it really because that little boy or little girl would have been of our generation so it doesn't make you think doesn't it and as I said earlier we do contemplate the fact that these are real people we're talking about they're not just statistics well on the 24th of April 1964 here's another one Helen Barthelemy she was found dead in an alleyway at the rear of Boston Manor Road in Brentford Helen was 22 years old she'd been strangled and her 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 and they focused on identifying business premises in the area then the murder team was diverted for a time after a man actually confessed to the Lockwood murder what was all that about three days after the Barthelemy murder there's a guy called Kenneth Archibald 57 year old caretaker from the holland park lawn tennis club and he walks into Notting Hill police station and voluntarily confesses to the killing of Irene Lockwood but there's little corroboration to his confession however Archibald was charged with the murder at the start of his trial in June a couple of months later he retracted his confession and pleaded not guilty and he was formally found not guilty by a jury and acquitted he claimed that he was depressed and under stress over theft charges that he was facing now that was a probably more of a problem back then I guess charging people on the strength of confessions that they the police suspected to be false I mean nowadays in my time that wouldn't get past first post you know the uh even DNA evidence requires some corroboration and this would have this issue with Archibald and his confession it would have caused unnecessary work for the detectives on the case and it would have been an unwelcome distraction so they might have lost what weeks months the hunt for the serial killer trail might have gone cold is that what you're saying Jacques yeah they've certainly lost weeks haven't they it's not so much the trails gone cold but the impetus of the investigation um may maybe have been distracted we're looking at the file here the trail didn't go cold for very long not long after the false confession trial on the 11th of july 1964 Mary Fleming went missing her body was found three days later on the morning of the 14th of july now this time the body had been dumped on a residential street in Chiswick in full view of all of the people who lived there she'd been strangled once again there were paint spots found on her body and residents reported hearing a car reversing down the street just before the body was discovered oh and that dental thing again Mary Fleming wore dentures and her dentures were missing interestingly a van had been seen earlier it had driven off in a hurry from near to a restaurant in Chiswick the premises actually had decorators working on site through the night and it was believed that whoever was in the van was disturbed not expecting people to be on the premises okay any more description of the van oh if only not enough to identify it or so it seems the police were clearly under pressure now right they tried new tactics they offered an amnesty for prostitutes or well we might call them sex workers I suppose and they deployed undercover police women to try and glean information as an investigator I would want to know how they operated and where they operated did they have similar appearance did they have a similar method of finding clients did they offer the same niche were they even living in the same area or traveling in together all right hold your horses we'll come on to that meanwhile the deaths continue I feel like the voice of doom at this point on the 25th of October 1964 Frances Brown was seen by a colleague she saw her get into a client's car a month later on the 25th of November. Frances’s body was found in a car park in Kensington and she'd been strangled the colleague was able to provide police with an identifit picture of the person in the car and a description of the car thought to be a grey Ford Zephyr interestingly Brown had also been a defence witness at the high profile trial of Stephen Ward back in July 64 which if you know about the Profumo affair you'll understand that this was a trial that involved Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davis as co-witnesses in January 65 the last of the series of murders occurred on the 11th of January Bridget O’Hara went missing her body was found over a month later on the 16th of February this time near a storage shed behind the heron trading estate in Acton once again O’Hara’s body turned up flecks of industrial paint which were traced to an electrical transformer near where her body was discovered and her body also showed signs of having been stored in a warm environment so the transformer was a good fit for both the paint and for the heating remember it's February it's gonna be chilly outside wow this person he's killing for the sake of it isn't he I mean in most cases the offender he's just dumped these bodies in public places it's almost like he's fly tipping a worthless piece of garbage none of these women were obviously sexually assaulted there was no mutilation or injuries from sexual penetration they would have strangled and stripped naked yeah they were strangled they were stripped and some of them also had their teeth removed whether they were actual biological teeth their own teeth or false teeth dentures so from this short summary there's a few obvious areas that the detectives would have worked on were there other prostitute murders elsewhere in the country I guess not otherwise they would have been included in in the report we've got so this suggests that the killer may have been based in the area and not traveling around the country for his work etc that said was the killer using them for sex or was he targeting them by the nature of their work you know we all accept that prostitutes are easy targets they take risks because they go with unknown men now these killings started what in 1959 wasn't it I think that was the year of the street offenses act which made soliciting for the purpose of prostitution and offence the prevalence of street prostitution was clearly a hot topic for the government at the time these women were treated as criminals then the legislation that came in would have been in it an attempt to move prostitution off the streets to hide this I suppose morally offensive behaviour behind closed doors so I’m just thinking out loud here what details link these women did they solicit in the same area did they know each other we now have officially recognized organizations that support women involved in prostitution did outreach workers operate then I don't know either way these women would have protected each other as best they could you know they would warn each other of clients who had odd characteristics prostitutes get asked to perform all kinds of unusual sexual services and maybe when these women refuse to do a certain act they would without doubt discuss it between themselves they would warn each other about dodgy punters wouldn't they let's assume that the killer intended to kill on each occasion there must have been surely other occasions when something went wrong where something happened that meant that the woman was allowed to go and get away there must have been occasions when the killer approached other women there may have been women who managed to fight him off now that's the biggest opportunity to glean vital intelligence by speaking to these known prostitutes right well the police did offer an amnesty to prostitutes to come forward and give information and they also had undercover officers on the streets posing as prostitutes and they were wearing wires tape recorders but that all suggests that they did not normally speak to the police maybe there was a lack of trust in those days these attitudes have changed now the other detail that stands out is the use of a vehicle by the killer now vehicle ownership was much less in those days I think even vehicles were registered with the local council the Swansea DVLA that we accept that came later so what intelligence was gleaned about cars that became of interest the Zephyr car and the van well yeah I mentioned that the record keeping was lacking um and the record confirms that so my inference from that is that things were missed although the ford zephyr was a popular car at the time and it wasn't a cheap car either it was a powerful car so this was I suppose the equivalent of say a three series BMW in those days you know it was popular and it had some status and it was a powerful car the police used them for instance that's interesting so each of these murders as they came in they would have to be taken in isolation regardless of the similarities you know we are looking at them now as a group of series of crimes committed by probably the same person but at the time the movements of the victim would need to be established and house to house inquiries would be a standard part of those investigations and these would take place at the location of where the body was found and also around their home address or where they had last been seen and each case would need to consider whether a partner or family member was responsible now house to house inquiries I don't know if you're aware of this Simon it's not just about knocking on a door and saying did you see anything or do you know anything when these are done properly they build up a lot of information they also ask about neighbours and that's crucial in cases like this for instance Mrs Smith may say truthfully that she lives alone and she doesn't have a car Mrs Smith's neighbour when asked about who lives next door may say oh it's Mrs Smith but a man called Jim comes over at weekends and he drives a grey zephyr car so I would expect the house to house on these investigations to be very thorough they were a vital line of inquiry in those days there was no Barthelemy to control no mobile phone masts that recorded who was in the area no GPS locations to go on the question is how well was that information analysed is the killer or the killer's car mentioned in those original documents just waiting to be found well very good point from what information we have available chief superintendent John Du Rose of Scotland Yard was put in charge of the case his team interviewed a hundred and twenty thousand people three hundred thousand vehicles were collated and almost 7 000 suspects were interviewed that's a long list right in the spring of 1965 the investigation into the murders encountered a major breakthrough a sample of paint that was recovered from several of the victims the same paint was found beneath an electrical transformer at the rear of a building on the heron factory estate in Acton the factory estate faced a paint spraying shop shortly thereafter Du Rose held a news conference where he boasted that they'd narrowed the suspect pool down from seven thousand to twenty men and by a process of elimination these suspects were being ruled out from the investigation after a short time he announced that the suspect pool contained only 10 members and then only three members there were no further known stripper killings following his initial news conference so it sounds like he was desperate to get a result and who can blame him I suppose once the killing stopped the pressure was reduced and possibly the enthusiasm to get to the bottom of it well it looks like the media and various writers kept the story going lots of articles were being published about the case in one it was reported that Hannah Taylford and Frances Brown were peripherally connected to the 1963 Profumo affair you remember I mentioned that earlier on well some victims were also known to engage in the underground party scene in addition to appearing in porno movies several writers have postulated that the victims may well have known each other and that the killer may have been connected to this underground blue movie orgy scene as well it clearly got people speculating about the wealthy and the powerful this underground party scene sounds more erotic and exciting than servicing an unhappy man in a car park if you if you get what I mean it's going to sell papers in it really yeah you can imagine all the talk about it in the pubs and clubs over a pint of fuller's London pride but hey why let the truth spoil a good story so these suspects who were the main suspects well a few have been reported on a man with the unusual name of mungo island was chief superintendent Du Rose’s most likely suspect mungo island was a security guard at the industrial estate where Bridget O’Hara’s body was found by the time jurors first identified him which happened to be in an interview with the BBC in 1970 mungo island was dead shortly after the police started investigating him in 1965 he took his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning he left his wife a note that read I can't stick it any longer to save you and the police looking for me I’ll be in the garage well whilst seen by many as a strong suspect in the killings recent research suggests the island was in Scotland when O’Hara was murdered therefore couldn't have been the killer right I wonder how much he could be linked to the other cases if at all I suppose someone working in a solitary occupation at night has opportunities to get up to no good but this chief superintendent de rose then and the BBC interview five years later that wouldn't have coincided with his memoirs being published would it a bit like the valentine's day murder case we looked at last time what is about coppers being cynical uh you're right though mate it would appear so yes Du Rose was only brought into the case in 1965 after the O’Hara murder the press had nicknamed him four day johnny because he had this reputation for solving cases within four days I mean no wonder he claimed that paul mungo island probably did it saved his reputation to claim that he would have sold the case if the selfish killer had not topped himself well yeah mungo island wasn't there to either defend himself or indeed to contradict chief inspector dew rose the fact is though there were no more killings right a former flying squad office a guy called dick kirby wrote a book about the case in it he says with hindsight I’m not surprised the killer wasn't caught after Du Rose started his operations there were no more killings either because the murderer was scared off had left the country was in prison or was dead you know this reminds me of so much of a case that I worked on it was a 25 year old unsolved rape and murder and we asked ourselves the same question why did he stop was he dead was he in prison had he left the country and you know when we solved that case we were shocked that the killer was still living in the same area not only had he not offended again he'd married he'd raise the family he even managed a bit of charity work in his spare time so these kind of offenders they're a rare kind of person they can stop when they want to you could ask a similar question of Jack the Stripper why did he start in the first place hey let's mention Freddie Mills in 2001 a reformed gangster named Jimmy Tippett Jr. said that during research for his book about London's gangland he'd uncovered information suggesting that British light heavyweight boxing champion Freddie Mills was responsible for the murders Tippett said quote I’ve spoken to famous figures in the underworld and senior police officers in Scotland Yard and I’m convinced Freddie Mills was the killer contrary to his public image mills was a sexually warped sadist who enjoyed inflicting pain end quote according to Tippett, Kray-era gangsters including Charlie Richardson and Frankie Fraser had long suspected mills of being the murderer mills had previously been linked to the murders by Peter Neal a freelance journalist Neil told police in july 1972 that he'd received information in confidence from a serving chief inspector that Mills quote killed the new prostitutes unquote he also said that this was quote common knowledge in the west end many people would say oh Freddie did I mean in july 1965 mills was found shot dead in his car apparently that was suicide apparently Freddie Mills’ car was seen on several occasions in the vice areas too I’m assuming here that he was not suggested as a suspect until after he took his own life I mean unless the team seriously investigated him after his death this sounds like more like classic London rumours and sensational reporting rather than having any value well the suggestion that Freddie was the Hammersmith nudes murderer originated with gangster Frankie Fraser who told it to policeman Bob Berry who told it to the sun crime reporter Michael Litchfield is still with me on this aren't you right okay Fraser claimed that Freddie Mills involvement was discussed with chief superintendent Du Rose but when Du Rose published his autobiography there was no mention of Freddie Mills with regard to this case Peter McGuinness put the allegations to the investigating officer who stated that Freddie Mills had never been a suspect during the investigation well I think we can leave up there don't you I mean you've mentioned the sun newspaper gangsters speaking to the police who then speak to the tabloid press this sounds more like a story of value to the Leveson inquiry than us I think so and personally speaking I was just getting tangled up with all of the names and all of the pronouns so yes I’m pleased to back away from that one but you know police and press corruption or maybe collusion use another word goes back a long way you know there was also talk of the killer being a metropolitan police officer named tommy butler David Seabrook he wrote a book called Jack of Jumps in 2006 and he said that a former metropolitan police detective was a suspect in the opinion of several senior detectives investigating the case Owen Summers a journalist for The Sun newspaper had previously raised suspicion about the unnamed office's involvement in a series of articles published by the newspaper in 1972 and daily mirror journalist Brian McConnell followed a similar line of inquiry in his book found naked and dead in 1974. he was also considered by dick kirby former metropolitan police detective in his book laid bare the nude murders and the hunt for Jack the Stripper 2016 in which Kirby referred to him only as quote the cop in another book the survivor published in 2002 the alleged culprit was superintendent tommy butler of the metropolitan police's flying squad butler was retired as a police officer but died in 1970 at the age of 57. of course Tommy but yeah tommy butler he was the man in charge of the great train robbery investigation blimey once you've left this mortal coil in London they seem to queue up and point the finger at you don't they did uh did butler conveniently take his own life conveniently god no much less sensational he died after a long battle with lung cancer okay well I think maybe we should let him rest oh definitely I think so in fact I think it's time to introduce the name Harold Jones into this discourse this man was a nasty nay sadistic piece of work a convicted double child killer that sounds bad enough doesn't it but the details of his earlier crimes are frankly distressing he wasn't a suspect though during the Jacques the stripper case okay this is the case you mentioned right at the start that's been linked to our case more recently yeah that's right and this story starts a long way from 1960s London rather in the 1920s in a small colliery town in the Welsh valleys Abertilly was a close-knit and god-fearing community where everybody knew each other and of course they felt safe you know the kind of place where you leave your front door open the whole time in 1921 when he was 15 years old he was charged with the murder of an eight-year-old girl named Freda Bonnell he was acquitted due to lack of physical evidence and then 17 days later he murdered again this time his victim was an 11 year old who was still accusing him of murdering her friend Freda there have been several books and documentaries about this case in order for you to understand how disturbed and calculating Harold Jones was let me summarize it for you Harold Jones was described as an ordinary child smart in appearance who socialized with the other children after finishing school he got a job at an animal feed shop in Abertilly on the day of the murder he was alone in the shop when eight-year-old Freda came in she'd been sent on an errand for her father and one of the items that she wanted was in the storage premises nearby so Jones suggested that Freda goes with him into the store once inside he sexually assaulted her and then beat her about the head with a pickaxe handle leaving her for dead he returns to the shop as though nothing's happened the girl's father begins to worry and goes to the shop where Jones calmly says that she's been in the shop but she left the girl is now reported missing and the search is on when Jones finishes work he returns to the store shed puts Freda's body in a sack and carries it a short distance before dumping it in a nearby alleyway Jones then continues his pretence by visiting the girl's house and asks if they found her yet he's clearly enjoying this game that he's playing the following morning a miner on his way to the colliery find Sheila’s body in the alleyway well the town was in shock the police were called in from London the locals believe that the person responsible must be an outsider no one in Abertilly would surely do such a terrible thing Jones behaves normally and even gives evidence of the inquest well so this is a 15 year old playing to the crowd enjoying his moment and the police meanwhile begin to search the outbuildings and they check the storage premises belonging to the shop where Jones had worked the bloodstained pickaxe handle and Freda's handkerchief identify it as the scene of her death suspicion now falls on young Harold Jones he maintains that he's innocent but he's charged with it to the disbelief of the local people at his trial the locals are only too keen to vouch for his character even the shopkeeper who employed him gave evidence that Jones was in the shop all the time Jones was naturally found not guilty by this support from the people around him and he even came home to a hero's welcome I mean many people in the town refuse to accept that one of their own was a child murderer and this included Mr little who lived a few doors down from the Jones family but Mr Little's daughter Florence thought differently she even taunted Harold Jones about it one day when Harold was home on his own he invited Florence little into his house Harold didn't really take kindly to having an 11 year old girl going around the place calling him a murderer so he cut her throat and held her over the sink so that the blood flowed down the pipe didn't make a mess on the floor once Florence was dead he tied a rope around her and hauled her up into the attic and then cleaned up the mess downstairs Harold Jones then acted like a concerned neighbour helping in the frantic search for another missing girl this young man is enjoying this isn't he yeah it would seem to be the case but this time the police were quick to focus their efforts and they checked inside the Jones house they saw evidence of surfaces that were cleaner than others they looked in the attic and discovered that a sadistic murderer had struck again Harold Jones's father handed him in to the police this time Harold was in the mood to confess his crime he was also willing to confess to the murder of Freda too he was still playing his game with the people of Abertilly he was twisting the knife into the people who'd supported him and had protested his innocence especially the jury who'd acquitted this innocent looking fifteen-year-old on November the first 1921 Harold Jones won another battle in the court he pleaded guilty to both murders knowing that he would not hang for those crimes he was still not 16 years old and was sentenced to life imprisonment instead he was released after 20 years due to the influence of the commissioner for prisons Alec Paterson Paterson seemed to think that Jones was not a danger and could serve and help out in the war in 1941 the prison governor did not approve of his release but Jones was released from once with prison in London 1941. once with prison it's on the bus route to Hammersmith from here it's probably worth skipping forward to 2008 when a book titled every mother's nightmare in mourning was published the author Neil Milken’s is based in Wales and had researched the Abertilly murders in order to complete his book milkins made checks to find out what happened to Harold Jones what he found out was so astonishing that it's been the subject of various newspaper articles and it's been made into a few documentaries too Jones was living in Fulham by 1947 and calling himself harry stevens so west London he'd served his time and started a new life with a new name yep and he was married as well and he had a daughter all very promising eh he'd put his past behind him settle down he stayed at an address in Hetherskam Avenue Fulham until 1962 when he moved to a house at Aldensley Road in you've guessed it Hammersmith Hammersmith is what two miles from Chiswick and Acton where the two of the bodies were dumped so that's about a 10 minute drive in the car yeah I mean at the very most and in those days the traffic was a lot lighter too and wait for it Oldensley Road is very close to where two of the victims also lived so did the house to house inquiries knock on Mr Jones’ aka Mr Stephen's door hmm unfortunately not his road was just outside the area where the police made their house-to-house enquiries wow I wonder what they would have gleaned I wonder how plausible he would have been and we will never know I wonder what his neighbours would have said about him well Jones also worked within the motor trade as a panel beater add to that the fact that the bodies were stored for a time before they were disposed of it all seems to connect him right the dots are joining up living and working in this area for years would mean he knew the area well something the killer of the eight women would find useful when disposing of their bodies so what happened to him Jones died in Hammersmith in 1971 from bone cancer so he stuck around the area if it was him he'd stopped his urge to kill women or at least suppressed it maybe a change in lifestyle who knows yeah maybe just got it out of his system the work of Neil Milken’s was passed to a professor of criminology gentleman called David Wilson now he said these women were sadistically murdered and because of that sadism which had a sexual overtone they lost their lives Wilson goes on to explain sadism doesn't dissipate over time sadism always finds some way of expressing itself in terms of the killer's life and lifestyle so who knows what was going on behind closed doors Wilson also feels that Jones had a fixation with the mouth now as a child teenager it's known that his girlfriend was unhappy that he asked her to spit in his mouth I’m not quite sure how that came about but anyway this unusual request may have extended to the removal of the teeth and the removal of the dentures the false teeth from some of the later murder victims okay so all of this information has been passed on to the metropolitan police question is had the detectives known about Jones Steve Jones in 1965 would he have been getting a six o'clock knock without a doubt Simon I mean what you've just relayed there and what we've just gone through anywhere that Jones had access to would have been turned upside down within a few hours of shaking the tree I think some fruit would have dropped into the evidential basket for sure I mean to be fair to him and any of the so-called suspects the introduction of DNA would have sorted this case out without a doubt it possibly still could if the key exhibits were still available we may not have the DNA of the suspects but they had family Jones certainly did and familial DNA can lead to the killer and of course I suppose at the very least get some closure for the relatives the people who were left behind the families of the eight women who were murdered absolutely there's eight families there who don't understand what happened to uh to their relatives Jacques it's a fascinating case quite disturbing as well but you know that's the name of the game in your business I suppose isn't it um and again a case that wasn't closed captioning not 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