In this book, After the Battle have explored entirely new ground to
investigate 150 years of murder and present it through our ‘then and now’ theme
of comparison photographs. Scene of crime plans, photographs from police files
as well as from the Press, focus on a wide variety of murders committed between
1812, when a Prime Minister was shot in the House of Commons, to killings on the
streets of London in the 1960s.
Included are many of the ‘headline’ murderers like Jack the Ripper,
Dr Crippen, Kennedy and Browne, the ‘Black-out’ Ripper, John Haigh, John
Christie, Donald Hume, Ruth Ellis, Ronald Marwood, Guenther Podola and the
Roberts Gang, along with other less notorious — but equally important —
murders.
Extracts from eyewitnesses and investigating officers, original
statements taken by police including from the murderers, newspaper articles
published at the time, pathologist accounts and even descriptions given by
executioners are all blended with photographs of the murder scenes as they
appear today.
Homicide is not a subject for the faint-hearted and many of the
photographs are distressing which is why the book is made available with that
warning.
Far too often it is the perpetrator who is remembered while their
victims, many lying in unmarked graves, remain lost to history. So this book
sets out to redress the balance by tracking down the last resting places, even
going as far as to mark two wartime graves of taxi drivers killed by American
servicemen.
Research also resulted in achieving formal recognition by the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission for one of the victims of Neville Heath,
murdered while she was serving her country yet omitted from the commemorative
records until now.
Controversially, comes the revelation that 17 murderers who served in
the Army during the war, and who were executed for their crimes, now have their
names commemorated on the Brookwood Memorial to the Missing in Surrey.
Murders Covered
. . .
11th May 1812
The Death of a Prime Minister * 13th December 1867 The Last Public Execution *
December 1887-September 1889 ‘Jack the Ripper’ * 1st February 1910 Dr Hawley
Crippen * 16th December 1910 The Houndsditch Murders * 1st January 1911 The
Murder of Leon Beron * 17th June 1919 Riot by Canadian Troops at Epsom * 22nd
June 1922 The Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson * 4th October 1922 The
Bywaters/Thompson Affair * 27th September 1927 Police Constable George
Gutteridge * 6th November 1930 The Strange Case of Alfred Rouse * 7th August
1934 Death at the Palace Cinema * 14th July 1938 The ‘Lovers’ Lane’ Murder *
13th March 1940 The Shooting of Sir Michael O’Dwyer * February 1942 The
‘Black-out Ripper’ * 30th April 1942 — Double Execution for Murder * 7th October
1942 The ‘Wigwam’ Murder * 27th December 1942 The First American Execution in
Britain * 28th September 1943 Rape and Murder at Marlborough * 8th December 1943
The Birch Taxi-cab Murder * 5th March 1944 Execution by Firing Squad * 14th
February 1944 The ‘Cabbage Patch’ Murder * 22nd August 1944 The Killing of Betty Green * 7th October
1944 US Deserter tried in a British Court * 3rd December 1944 The Murder of Sir
Eric Teichman * 8th December 1944 Captain Ralph Binney, RN * 21st June 1946
Wanted for Murder: Neville Heath * 29th April 1947 The Killing of Alec de
Antiquis * 18th February 1949 John Haigh and the Acid-bath Murders * 4th October
1949 Donald Hume: ‘I got away with murder!’ * 4th June 1951 Gun-battle at
Chatham * 1943-1953 10 Rillington Place, London,W11 * 2nd November 1952
Christopher Craig and Derek Bentley * 2nd July 1953 The ‘Teddy Boy’ Murder * 8th
April 1955 Ruth Ellis: The Last Woman to be Hanged * 24th May 1957 The Slaying
of Countess Teresa Lubienska * 14th December 1958 The Murder of Police Constable
Ray Summers * 13th July 1959 The Death of Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy * 3rd
June 1961 Police Murders in West Ham * 23rd August 1961 Rape and Murder on the
A6 * 12th August 1966 The Shepherd’s Bush Murders * 21st February 1968 Death in
a London Street * Murderers Commemorated on the Brookwood Memorial in
1958
