Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper on YouTube

Just wanted to flag an interview I’ve done about The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper for Crime Country, a new YouTube channel. It’s been launched by Nick Barksdale. He also runs the hugely popular Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages channel on YouTube, which has 109,000 subscribers. We chat for around 45 minutes about the case of the West London serial killer who eluded Scotland Yard’s biggest ever manhunt in 1964-65. We talk about why the investigation failed and […]

A Beatle at The Bush

Little while ago @FlipLondonTours tweeted a pic of Paul McCartney filming a scene for A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. He’s seen going into The Bush on Goldhawk Road, London. The scene was never used in the final film, but the picture gave me a jolt because I wrote about this pub in The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper without knowing of this Beatles connection. It was the boozer in which the serial killer’s final victim, Bridie O’Hara, was last […]

Crime, manhunts and classic pop on Portobello Radio

It was fascinating to chat with Portobello Radio host Aidan McManus last night. He’s a walking encyclopaedia of rock music, local history and unsolved crimes. He is also a guide for the highly rated FlipsideLondon Tours, which explore London as home to David Bowie, Joe Strummer and the Clash, the punk scene and gangsters. His enthusiasm for music and local history is absolutely infectious. The 1960s Nude Murders case, which occurred on his Notting Hill manor, is one of his […]

Victim’s son encouraged by new focus on Nude Murders case

I was surprised and delighted to be contacted recently by Frank Quinn, the son of one of victims in the Hammersmith Nude Murders case. This was, of course, the unsolved serial-killer investigation from the 1960s that I cover occasionally on this blog, having first written about it in The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper. Frank is the son of Frances Brown, who was the fifth of six women to be murdered. The killer, who successfully eluded what was then the […]

Dark Son on BBC4

This intriguing documentary is now scheduled for next Tuesday (12 Feb) at 9pm on BBC4. Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a 90-minute look into one of the most appalling and unsolved serial killer cases in British history. In 1964-65 a kerb-crawler murdered six women in west London. He left their naked bodies in the River Thames or various outdoor secluded spots. Scotland Yard mounted its biggest ever manhunt but could uncover no strong suspects. The killer […]

Dark Son now on BBC iPlayer

Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is now available to view on BBC iPlayer. I have been talking about this documentary for a while now. It was almost a year ago that I got involved with filming some sequences for this re-examination of the unsolved Hammersmith Nude Murders. My involvement was sought because of findings in my book The Hunt for the 60s Ripper. This employed some modern policing theories to understand why Scotland Yard’s biggest ever manhunt […]