Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 17 6 18 Paul Longworth thought he had committed the perfect crime. He strangled his wife, Tina, with a rope and left her dangling from the banisters. He then left the scene of the crime, their home. He went to Southport Sailing Club, where he was the commodore, to celebrate his 37th birthday party. Back at home, he left his two young children asleep in their beds, while their dead mother was downstairs. No one at […]
First posted on robinjarossi.com 2 4 18 I spent Good Friday working on a documentary being made for CBS Reality called Murder by the Sea. The setting was a chilly boatyard in Cardiff. The premise of this 12-part series is fascinating. It is about how the seaside has been the setting for a spectrum of homicides down the years. Coastal towns can be quiet and idyllic, faded and in decline, or well-off and socially conservative. But they are often shaken […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 24 5 18 It is almost a year since publication of The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper, but the uncovering of new insights into this unsolved series of murders continues. The BBC documentary about the London serial killer of at least six women is likely to reveal new information about a possible culprit when it’s broadcast later this year. I was lucky enough to take part in this for a day’s filming in February and heard […]
First posted 1 10 17 on robinjarossi.com Despite the huge difficulties in unmasking the man who got away with the murder of at least six women in 1960s London so long after the event, efforts are still ongoing in 2017 to unravel this chilling mystery. Since the publication of The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper in July, I’ve been in touch with author Neil Milkins. In his 2011 book Who Was Jack the Stripper? he makes an interesting case for Harold […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 29 4 18 I’ve just finished the fascinating I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. What an amazing coincidence that California police finally nabbed a suspect for the Golden State Killer crimes so soon after its publication. Finding the perpetrator is the subject of McNamara’s book. Or was it a coincidence? It looks as if McNamara’s investigation may have inspired the capture of suspect Joseph James DeAngelo. The cops somehow surreptitiously got his DNA from […]
First posted on robinjarossi.com 25 4 18 I’m just reading I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. It’s a very readable account of her interest, or perhaps obsession, with a serial rapist and murderer call variously the Golden State Killer, the East Area Rapist or the Original Night Stalker. He committed 12 murders, 45 rapes and 120 burglaries, particularly in a swathe of Sacramento county. Reading McNamara’s account, I have been wondering how the police failed to catch […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 1 5 18 Oh, we do love to be beside the seaside. Beaches, piers and perhaps a summer romance… But Britain’s resorts do have a dark side, and this is explored in a series starting this month. Murder by the Sea is a six-part documentary on CBS Reality. I got a bit of an insight into the series and the cases featured when I was invited to be interviewed on it. Crimewriter Geoffrey Wansell Presented by crime […]
Posted originally on robinjarossi.com 22 3 18 I do some work as a book editor. This month has seen the publication of a memoir I helped to prepare that was one of the most shocking and disturbing I have ever read. Playland: Secrets of a Forgotten Scandal is by Anthony Daly. It recounts how as a young man in Ulster of the 1970s he fled the Troubles and came to London. A book lover, he got a job in Foyles. […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 12 2 18 Saturday was a fascinating glimpse into the world of documentary making – and the progress of the BBC team’s investigation into the 1960s Nude Murders. I spent three chilly hours on the Thames between Chiswick and Hammersmith, talking to forensic psychologist Dr Mike Berry. Victims Hannah Tailford and Irene Lockwood were found on this stretch of water in 1964. We were then filmed under Hammersmith Bridge before setting off to Masonians Bowls Club […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 30 8 17 I only devote a page or so to the theory that British light-heavyweight boxer Freddie Mills was the Nude Killer in The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper. The reasons for my scepticism? Mills never appeared in any police reports as a suspect and there are simply no facts connecting him to the crimes. But there have always been rumours. In the past week newspaper reports have brought these back with a vengeance. A […]
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