Speaker 1: Pushkin. The jury have taken a certain view of your case.
Speaker 1: The judge, mister Justice Charles, is astounded by the verdict
Speaker 1: just delivered in his court, and I want to make
Speaker 1: it perfectly clear that it is the view of the
Speaker 1: jury and not mine, he tells the defendant, a serviceman
Speaker 1: standing in the dock before him, Mister Justice Charles has
Speaker 1: sent many a killer to the gallows, and he seems
Speaker 1: utterly incensed that today he won't be pronouncing the death
Speaker 1: sentence for this man. The jury has stunned the venerable
Speaker 1: judge by finding the serviceman not guilty of murder. Mister
Speaker 1: Justice Charles doesn't seem to delight in sending criminals for execution. Indeed,
Speaker 1: it's been noted a previous sentencings that he's visibly affected
Speaker 1: when telling convicts that the law offers him no other
Speaker 1: choice than to send them to be hanged by the
Speaker 1: neck until dead. But today the judge is wrathful, and
Speaker 1: his angry indignation is aimed at the jury. The murder
Speaker 1: case against the defendant is watertight. The serviceman was caught
Speaker 1: red handed. He was drenched in the blood of his
Speaker 1: female victim. He told witnesses what he'd just done to
Speaker 1: Kathleen Patmore. And he didn't deny carrying a knife with
Speaker 1: the express purpose of using it to hack and mutilate
Speaker 1: the woman. And yet, and yet the jury had found
Speaker 1: him not guilty. The judge is livid. This was not
Speaker 1: the sort of justice he is used to presiding over
Speaker 1: at London's Central Criminal Court. The famed Old Bailey wasn't
Speaker 1: the law of the land as he knew it. It was, instead,
Speaker 1: mister Justice Charles Bellowed, the law of the jungle. In
Speaker 1: wartime London, it seems there were some women you could
Speaker 1: murder and no jury would willingly convict you. This is
Speaker 1: the seldom told story of women in World War Two
Speaker 1: who were killed not by the enemy but my husbands,
Speaker 1: lovers and strangers wearing the uniform of their own side.
Speaker 1: It's also the tale of a particular string of murder
Speaker 1: victims that history has swept from view. I'm Hallie Rubinhold
Speaker 1: and I'm Alice Fines, and you're listening to bad women.
Speaker 1: The blackout River flat it out times against As a
Speaker 1: letter had arrived for Prisoner one six four four at
Speaker 1: his Majesty's prison, Onsworth, bloggings A proper nerd a dun
Speaker 1: colored brick and stone Victorian Jale in Southwest London. Gordon,
Speaker 1: my dearest love, it began. I want you to know
Speaker 1: that nothing can alter my feelings for you. Marjorie Cummins
Speaker 1: had heard the prosecution case against her husband when he
Speaker 1: was tried for the murder of Evelyn Oatley in her
Speaker 1: Soho flat. She'd heard that a cigarette case, the one
Speaker 1: inscribed with the initials of Evelyn's showbiz alter ego Leta Ward,
Speaker 1: was found at cummins raf accommodation. Furthermore, she'd heard how
Speaker 1: her husband's fingerprints were left on a kitchen implement that
Speaker 1: had been used in a depraved and sickening attack on Evelyn.
Speaker 1: As her life ebbed away. It was, the judge said,
Speaker 1: a sadistic sexual murder of the ghoulish type. The police
Speaker 1: had amassed other equally damning evidence linking Gordon Cummins to
Speaker 1: the grisly murders of Evelyn Hamilton, Margaret Lowe and Doris Joanne,
Speaker 1: and the airman had all but admitted to police that
Speaker 1: he'd strangled Greta Heyward in a Piccadilly doorway. I am
Speaker 1: the man he told his arresting officers, though he added
Speaker 1: that he'd been too drunk to fully recall the incident.
Speaker 1: No detail in this catalog of revolting violence could turn
Speaker 1: Marjorie Cummins against her husband, nor shake her deep affection
Speaker 1: for him. Marjorie, you see, still didn't believe he was
Speaker 1: the blackout ripper. I shall always believe you innocent. I
Speaker 1: love you so much it breaks my heart to see
Speaker 1: you suffer. So why you've got you Amy. As Cummins
Speaker 1: sat in his narrow prison cell, with its whitewashed brick walls,
Speaker 1: its bucket for a toilet, it's small barred window too
Speaker 1: high up to afford him a view, awaiting his date
Speaker 1: with the hangman, Marjorie continued to think of her husband
Speaker 1: as a hero. I'm sure men have been awarded the
Speaker 1: Victoria Cross for going through less than you have endured.
Speaker 1: The Victoria Cross is Britain's very highest award for bravery,
Speaker 1: and even in the vast conflict then underway, it was
Speaker 1: given out only rarely to men whose single handedly stormed
Speaker 1: Nazi bunkers or piloted burning aircraft through a hail of
Speaker 1: enemy fire, all who paid no heed to their own
Speaker 1: mortality to save the lives of wounded comrades. Marjorie felt
Speaker 1: that her husband's resolved that he would clear his name
Speaker 1: was an act of bravery to equal all of these.
Speaker 1: You have been wonderful all through the difficult time, and
Speaker 1: you have our admiration as well as our love. This
Speaker 1: letter was signed off every scrap of my love and
Speaker 1: a million kisses from your adoring wife. It was delivered
Speaker 1: to the prison just before Comin's final roll of the dice,
Speaker 1: an appeal to have his murder conviction quashed and his
Speaker 1: death sentence lifted. The following Tuesday morning, Marjorie would sit
Speaker 1: in court as the airman's lawyers argued that the pioneering
Speaker 1: fingerprint evidence was flawed, that Evelyn Oatley's possessions had been
Speaker 1: planted in the raf billet by the police or by
Speaker 1: the real killer who was trying to cover his tracks,
Speaker 1: and that have Cummins were really the perpetrator of such
Speaker 1: frenzied crimes, how come no traitors of blood were found
Speaker 1: on his clothing. If Cummins could unpick the case against
Speaker 1: him and introduce sufficient doubt, might the man Marjorie loved
Speaker 1: so very much yet brought free The morning's persistent rain
Speaker 1: had grounded the attack aircraft, but eventually it lifted. Bad
Speaker 1: luck for the men on the ground. As their column
Speaker 1: of trucks trumbled forward, two bombers dived down on them,
Speaker 1: releasing canisters a deadly poisoned gas. Men could be seen
Speaker 1: falling on all sides, reported one newspaper, noting that the
Speaker 1: ambulance drivers coming along to ten the survivors of the
Speaker 1: now burning convoy had to work glass masks to enter
Speaker 1: the lethal FuG and fumes. The delighted crowd, no doubt
Speaker 1: cheered their arrival and applaud in my whole chet point definitely.
Speaker 1: This reenactment wasn't the only attraction that Saturday afternoon at
Speaker 1: r F Henlo's Empire Air Day celebration. Like air bases
Speaker 1: up and down the country, and Henlo had been thrown
Speaker 1: open to the general public, partly to benefit charity, partly
Speaker 1: as a pr exercise for the Royal Air Force. The
Speaker 1: thousands of civilian visitors on May twenty third, nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: six were treated to aerobatic displays and demonstrations of daring
Speaker 1: parachute jumps. They were so free to roam the base,
Speaker 1: allowed to peer into the hangars, barracks and dining halls incredible.
Speaker 1: Twenty one year old Marjorie Stevens was among the throng,
Speaker 1: and it was on this day that she first met
Speaker 1: Airman Gordon Cummons. Cummins was on the very lowest rung
Speaker 1: of the RAF and his duties involved the maintenance and
Speaker 1: upkeep of the aircraft. He was quite literally no high flyer,
Speaker 1: but Marjorie seems to have been smitten with him all
Speaker 1: the same. He's very cultured and well spoken. Within months
Speaker 1: of their first meeting, the couple had wed. Other women
Speaker 1: might not have seen lowly aircraftman Cummins as much of
Speaker 1: a catch. A life with such a man would mean
Speaker 1: either long separations or trailing round after him from air
Speaker 1: base to airbase, but Marjorie was a tune to the
Speaker 1: life of a surfaceman's wife. Marjorie's father, Ernest Stevens, had
Speaker 1: been a career soldier serving with the kilt wearing Seaforth Highlanders,
Speaker 1: stationed in India to defend Britain's occupation of the colony.
Speaker 1: Ernest had risen up the ranks till he finally attained
Speaker 1: officer status. His elevation came as the Highlanders swapped the
Speaker 1: balmy cricket matches, swimming gallers and regimental concerts, at which
Speaker 1: Ernest excelled for the mud and blood of the trenches.
Speaker 1: At the start of the First World War, the British
Speaker 1: Army had little choice but to push its most experienced
Speaker 1: soldiers into frontline duties to hold back the Germans until
Speaker 1: sufficient civilian volunteers could be trained up to join them.
Speaker 1: Ernest unit was thus plucked from India and sent to
Speaker 1: the front. On February first, nineteen fifteen, just weeks after
Speaker 1: becoming a second lieutenant, Ernest was out at night supervising
Speaker 1: a party of soldiers digging trenches. Tried to keep the
Speaker 1: noise down boys when he was struck by a German
Speaker 1: bullet a head wound. He lingered for a day before dying.
Speaker 1: His wife, Ethel, was pregnant with Marjorie. Ethel had followed
Speaker 1: her husband to Europe, but her roots were firmly in
Speaker 1: Britain's imperial possession in South Asia, so as soon as
Speaker 1: the war was over, she boarded the SS city of
Speaker 1: Karachi to take her three young daughters home to India.
Speaker 1: The liner was packed with the colonial ruling elite Christian missionaries, engineers, bankers,
Speaker 1: but there were also army officers sailing east. They would
Speaker 1: perhaps have been a stinging reminder that she was returning
Speaker 1: to India as a war widow. Despite their strong ties
Speaker 1: to India, all three Stephens girls drifted back to Britain,
Speaker 1: and when Marjorie wed Cummins in London just after Christmas
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, she said she opted to rent apartment
Speaker 1: with her eldest sister, Frieda in order that my husband
Speaker 1: would have a flat to come to for spending his leave.
Speaker 1: The Air Force sent Cummins to bases right across the
Speaker 1: British isles north, southeast and west in Scotland for one posting,
Speaker 1: then distant Cornwall for another. It's not clear if Marjorie
Speaker 1: closely shadowed these moves or exactly when she moved in
Speaker 1: with Freda. At the outbreak of war, Marjorie was living
Speaker 1: slap bang in the middle of England, perhaps the best
Speaker 1: compromise given her husband's geographically erratic postings. She lodged for
Speaker 1: the middle aged couple the Hipwards, and was listed as
Speaker 1: being incapacitated, though her normal occupation was as a theatrical secretary.
Speaker 1: The limitations of her long distance marriage seem not to
Speaker 1: have saddened or worried Marjorie. We have been very, very happy,
Speaker 1: and he has never been anything but kind and tolerant
Speaker 1: in every respect. It was not his habit to consort
Speaker 1: other women. Cummins, however, seems to have made the very
Speaker 1: most of the separation. Cummins gave me and everyone else
Speaker 1: the idea that he'd more or less cut away from
Speaker 1: his wife. Flight Lieutenant William Pete, an officer at one
Speaker 1: of cummins postings, thought the airman behaved far more like
Speaker 1: a bachelor than a married man. Cummins used to boast
Speaker 1: of his conquests of women, and when he had a
Speaker 1: few days leave, he'd boast of his being with his
Speaker 1: West End friends and used to say he didn't go
Speaker 1: home to his wife. Beyond this, he never made any
Speaker 1: reference to his wife in my presence. It also seems
Speaker 1: Cummins wasn't sending much money home either. According to Pete,
Speaker 1: the airman was the very image of profligacy. Every so
Speaker 1: often he would be flush with cash and appear in
Speaker 1: the local pub, and there he would treat all, what
Speaker 1: are you having, bill? Very kind of you Gordon just
Speaker 1: a kind of sludge. I'll take my usual Canadian rye
Speaker 1: a double. Naturally, I have simple tastes, not your yearning
Speaker 1: for the finer things. Such ostentatious displays of generosity would
Speaker 1: cost come Ins the equivalent of several hundred dollars, and
Speaker 1: usually within a couple of nights he'd be broke and
Speaker 1: would not be seen again at the bar until he
Speaker 1: was once again flashing of bulging Billfolt. Was he carefully
Speaker 1: husbanding his military salary so that he could indulge in
Speaker 1: such grandstanding, or tapping up Marjorie for cash? Look here,
Speaker 1: I'm on the rocks. Perhaps he was getting money from
Speaker 1: the women he boasted of conquering flight. Lieutenant Pete claimed
Speaker 1: to have seen him in the company of wealthy women
Speaker 1: at fine hotels in the nearby city of Bath, with
Speaker 1: these women giving the air and money. Or was he
Speaker 1: simply stealing it from them? If he did, he was
Speaker 1: never caught. There was not a single black mark in
Speaker 1: his RAF records. Cummins's own explanation of the source of
Speaker 1: his wealth was more fantastic. In reality, he was the
Speaker 1: son of the principle of a school for delinquents, but
Speaker 1: he would tell anyone who would listen that he was
Speaker 1: the scion of an aristocratic family, complete with a title.
Speaker 1: When Cummings told me he was the Honorable Gordon Cummins,
Speaker 1: I and others accepted that he was owing to his
Speaker 1: manner and speech, he tried to create the impression that
Speaker 1: he was the black sheep of a good family. Cummins
Speaker 1: probably bridle that his humble status in the air was hierarchy.
Speaker 1: He was said not to associate with his fellow rank
Speaker 1: and file airmen, and he instead tried to cultivate relationships
Speaker 1: with officers such as Flight Lieutenant Pete. His attempts to
Speaker 1: impress his commanding officer, a revered aviation pioneer called George Stainforth,
Speaker 1: seemed to have paid particular dividends. Just as in Marjorie's
Speaker 1: father's day. The coming of conflict enabled ordinary servicemen to advance.
Speaker 1: Wing Commander Stainforth now pushed for Cummins, who had spent
Speaker 1: so long on the lowest rung of the Air Force,
Speaker 1: to be allowed to join the RAF's officer cadet program
Speaker 1: and train for duties in the air. That training would
Speaker 1: see Cummins transferred to lodgings in London, not too far
Speaker 1: from where Marjorie had now set up home with her
Speaker 1: sister Frieda. But if Marjorie was hoping to see more
Speaker 1: of her husband in his free time, she was to
Speaker 1: be sorely disappointed. She believed that he chose to stay
Speaker 1: at his barracks during the week and not at home
Speaker 1: because he was conscientious about rising through the ranks of
Speaker 1: the Air Force. Of course, far closer to cummins billet
Speaker 1: than Marjorie, his home and fireside were the brasseries, bars
Speaker 1: and women of Piccadilly. Cummins entered the dock at the
Speaker 1: Criminal Court of Appeal and scan the public gallery. Newspaper
Speaker 1: reporters saw him lock eyes with a woman. He smiled.
Speaker 1: Marjorie deserved this tiny show of appreciation. From the moment
Speaker 1: of his arrest and through his initial conviction, she tirelessly
Speaker 1: agitated for her husband's release. She felt their original lawyer
Speaker 1: had made a hash at the defense. Surely, in a
Speaker 1: land where the law is supposed to be so just,
Speaker 1: an innocent man cannot be hanged because his counsel didn't
Speaker 1: know his case properly. The prosecution held that the small
Speaker 1: fingerprints on a mirror in Evelyn Oakley's room and on
Speaker 1: the cutting blade of a can opener conclusively linked Cummings
Speaker 1: to the crime scene and the murder. Cummings original lawyer
Speaker 1: had failed to shake the jury's faith in that argument.
Speaker 1: The twelve men had put great stock in the evidence
Speaker 1: of the nation's top fingerprint expert, Cheryl of the Yard.
Speaker 1: According to Superintendent Cheryl, only five or six points of
Speaker 1: agreement were needed to match a fingerprint to the digit
Speaker 1: that had left it, and in the case of Cummings
Speaker 1: and the prints left at Evelyn Oatley's home, there had
Speaker 1: been at least twenty five such points of agreement. Surely
Speaker 1: the judges would be independent minded and skeptical of such
Speaker 1: cockshure testimony the incriminating fingerprint with tiny and incomplete ventured
Speaker 1: Cumming's new defense lawyer. He fingerprint evidence is vital, Judge,
Speaker 1: Mister Justice Humphrey, retorted, end of deadly significance. The guilty
Speaker 1: verdict stood and Cummins would be returned to Wandsworth Prison
Speaker 1: to await execution. Marjorie burst into tears as her husband
Speaker 1: left the dock. He stopped to wave at her. Are
Speaker 1: you missus Cummings Final chance? The senior detective asked Marjorie
Speaker 1: as she stood alone in a corridor. Why, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I am. I'd like to offer you my congratulations. Whatever
Speaker 1: do you mean? I'd like to offer you my congratulations
Speaker 1: on your lucky escape. The detective's words infuriated Marjorie, and
Speaker 1: she complained bitterly about the officer's conduct to the very
Speaker 1: highest authorities. But to his seasoned i perhaps the thought
Speaker 1: that violent men invariably turn their attention to their wives
Speaker 1: did not seem far fetched. Such cases were, unfortunately legion,
Speaker 1: especially as those violent men returned home from war. The
Speaker 1: blackout Ripper will return in a moment. The men of
Speaker 1: the first Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers were feeling
Speaker 1: hard done by fighting the merciless Japanese and the merciless
Speaker 1: heat in the fetid jungles of Burma. They suspected that
Speaker 1: their sacrifices were of little interest to those back home.
Speaker 1: They grumbled that they had no British cigarettes to smoke,
Speaker 1: and pointedly called themselves the forgotten Army. The message that
Speaker 1: arrived the Fusiliers, Cyril Patmore, compounded their misery. Such correspondents
Speaker 1: could bring military units to their knees, spreading disquiet from
Speaker 1: man to man like a raging infection, until their commanders
Speaker 1: reckon morrale was so low that the men couldn't be
Speaker 1: sent back into battle. Kathleen Patmore was expecting a baby,
Speaker 1: and of course Cyril wasn't the father. This thunderbolt was
Speaker 1: delivered as an air graph, a short message shrunk down
Speaker 1: on microfilm so as to save vital space in aircraft
Speaker 1: heading to the war zone. It wasn't a particularly private
Speaker 1: way of imparting sensitive news, nor did it allow the
Speaker 1: writer to go into great detail. Heavily pregnant, Kathleen, cath
Speaker 1: later wrote more fulsome letters. These were pages of sorrow
Speaker 1: and remorse, My darling. I am wondering if you're caring
Speaker 1: to get letters from me any more, but I feel
Speaker 1: I must keep writing until I see you again, or
Speaker 1: you tell me not to. Kathleen explained that in Cyril's absence,
Speaker 1: she'd been out celebrating their wedding anniversary and his birthday,
Speaker 1: which fell a week apart in November. The evening out
Speaker 1: had meant a long walk home. Evidently I didn't make it.
Speaker 1: I didn't go into it cold sober, Otherwise it would
Speaker 1: never have happened. It had taken a full seven months
Speaker 1: for that airgraph and this news to come. Shame, remorse, frightened,
Speaker 1: call it what you like, but each time I attempted
Speaker 1: to write to you, I just had the nerve. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean to do it, sweetheart, Please believe me and
Speaker 1: don't start a divorce. I just couldn't stand that fusilia.
Speaker 1: Pat Moore showed these letters to the welfare officer of
Speaker 1: his unit. In cases of marital infidelity, it was common
Speaker 1: for soldiers to ask for the allowance paid to their
Speaker 1: spouse to be immediately halted and for the process of
Speaker 1: drawing up divorce papers to begin. War had brought upheaval,
Speaker 1: tearing the fabric of society into pieces, and with so
Speaker 1: many partners separated from each other, adultery on both sides
Speaker 1: wasn't uncommon. Some tens of thousands of British servicemen had
Speaker 1: initiated divorce proceedings, with one estimate suggesting it would take
Speaker 1: something like fifteen years to clear the backlock. But Cyril
Speaker 1: pat Moore didn't ask to join the tail end of
Speaker 1: that melancholy queue. He just wanted to be allowed to
Speaker 1: go home. I feel ashamed for you to see me
Speaker 1: in this condition. Yet, how I wish I could see you,
Speaker 1: to talk to you. It wouldn't matter what you did
Speaker 1: to me. Afterwards. The clock was ticking down to the
Speaker 1: berth and after three years away, Private pat Moore was
Speaker 1: finally granted passage a ship heading home. That voyage, it seems,
Speaker 1: was broken in the Mediterranean, and Patmore went supernir shopping
Speaker 1: at an Italian market, where he purchased a six inch knife.
Speaker 1: Behind looked, if anything, more like an aristocrat's stately home
Speaker 1: than a hotel. The ironstone building, topped with a golden
Speaker 1: statue of a deer, dated back hundreds of years, but
Speaker 1: the hind was moving with the times. Parking for motor
Speaker 1: cars had been added to compliment the ample stabling for guests.
Speaker 1: Horses Behind had other attractions too. In nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: its restaurant employed a dapper little waiter, Cyril pat Moore,
Speaker 1: was no more than five feet tall, but he made
Speaker 1: a big impression on missus. Kathleen Shore, the married mother
Speaker 1: of one, entered into an association with Patmore and promptly
Speaker 1: left mister Shaw, a shoemaker, and her home in the Shires.
Speaker 1: Sixty miles north of London. This act of desertion was
Speaker 1: sighted in Alfred Shaw's petition for divorce, and Cyril Patmore
Speaker 1: was named in Kathleen's adultery. A daughter, Chrissie, was born
Speaker 1: before the divorce. The record of this birth is missing
Speaker 1: from the archives, but Patmore certainly thought of the child
Speaker 1: as his and was there at the birth. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was in your arms. After Chrissy was born,
Speaker 1: wrote Kathleen, I was the happiest woman in the world.
Speaker 1: The pain and suffering was soon forgotten. As early as
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, Kathleen had assumed her lover's surname and
Speaker 1: official documents, even though the pair didn't actually wed until
Speaker 1: late nineteen thirty seven. They lived together at the very
Speaker 1: heart of London. Patmore no longer waiting tables for the
Speaker 1: horse riding set, but instead working at the Embassy Club.
Speaker 1: This was a legendary private member's establishment, and it was
Speaker 1: so exclusive that, according to one regular, even a duke
Speaker 1: with an income of a quarter million, a great townhouse,
Speaker 1: a yacht, a lovely wife, and one or two pensioned
Speaker 1: off ones might have to wait at the door for
Speaker 1: a table to become available. Despite the eyewatering membership fees
Speaker 1: he'd already stumped up, but the merrymaking was coming to
Speaker 1: an end. Kathleen gave birth to a boy just as
Speaker 1: war was declared, and Pat Moore took a government post
Speaker 1: as an air aid warden, perhaps out of civic duty,
Speaker 1: or perhaps simply to supplement his income and provide for
Speaker 1: his growing family. The couple also admitted a lodger into
Speaker 1: their home, Frank Tobin, aged thirty two, and apparently following
Speaker 1: a quarrel with Kathleen Patmore, volunteered to join the army.
Speaker 1: When he went off to fight, first in Africa and
Speaker 1: then the Far East, his wife stayed on in the
Speaker 1: house with Tobin. The lodger was said to write to
Speaker 1: his friend Pat and keep him abreast of events at home.
Speaker 1: He also regularly gave Kathleen large sums of money. Two
Speaker 1: more Patmore children were born. Some observed that the new
Speaker 1: arrivals resembled Tobin, who was described as being too friendly
Speaker 1: for a mere lodger. For many who had endured the Blitz,
Speaker 1: with wave after wave of bomber aircraft coming to London
Speaker 1: night after night, the new onslaught of pilotless rocket bombs,
Speaker 1: brought a new kind of terror. The v Ones, the
Speaker 1: so called doodle bugs or buzz bombs, were jet propelled
Speaker 1: craft packed with explosives launched from far away Nazi based
Speaker 1: They would burble their way towards their targets. When their
Speaker 1: fuel ran dry, the engine would cut out, and those
Speaker 1: on the ground would have just seconds to find cover
Speaker 1: before the eerie silence was violently rent apart. At once
Speaker 1: malevolent and inhuman, these new weapons unnerved many Londoners who'd
Speaker 1: assumed that by nineteen forty four the worst of the
Speaker 1: war was over. They proved too much for Kathleen Patmore.
Speaker 1: She left London and her lodger to return to her
Speaker 1: roots in rural Oxfordshire. Kathleen was descended from a line
Speaker 1: of agricultural laborers, and she moved into a rented cottage
Speaker 1: with her sister May. Her other siblings and relatives were
Speaker 1: dotted around the farms nearby, and some of them were
Speaker 1: already housing Kathleen's older children, As is sometimes the word
Speaker 1: with families, Kathleen seems to have set up home amongst
Speaker 1: her very fiercest critics her behavior in this idyllic corner
Speaker 1: of England, safely away from the deadly buzz bombs would
Speaker 1: prompt their ire, and that disapproval and their willingness to
Speaker 1: gossip would have appalling consequences for Kathleen. In the summer
Speaker 1: and autumn of nineteen forty four, the harvest in this
Speaker 1: quaint part of England was reached by the Sons of Napoli,
Speaker 1: Palermo and Brindisi. As many as one hundred thousand Italian
Speaker 1: prisoners of war had been shipped to Britain following their
Speaker 1: defeat and surrender in earlier campaigns. When Italy switched sides
Speaker 1: and joined the Allies, all except the most fervent fascists
Speaker 1: in their ranks were designated as cooperators. They weren't really
Speaker 1: the enemy any longer. Those some Britons remained uncon vince
Speaker 1: that they were reliable Allies. In any case, Italian men
Speaker 1: performed a valuable service. Was so many farm hands away
Speaker 1: at war and women increasingly taking up jobs in the factories,
Speaker 1: who else was there to gather in the crops and
Speaker 1: tender livestock. Italian cooperators could visit cinemas, but not pubs
Speaker 1: or dance halls. They could only use trains or buses
Speaker 1: as part of their work duties, and they had to
Speaker 1: observe a curfew, though some communities grumbled that the Italians
Speaker 1: were still allowed out too late. Raio its Ice fraternization
Speaker 1: with locals was another saw point. You ain't insanni itarly
Speaker 1: now mates. The cooperators could enter private homes if invited,
Speaker 1: but women seen entertaining Italian men were treated with the
Speaker 1: utmost suspicion. Kathleen's older brother, Horace, kept a beady eye
Speaker 1: on her and on her sister May. I've seen both
Speaker 1: of them going out at night with Italian prisoners of
Speaker 1: war in the woods and returning to the house separately
Speaker 1: as late as seven am. A laborer on the farm
Speaker 1: where the sisters leased their cottage corroborated similar accusations. Their landlord, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: was so scandalized that he reported two of his Italian
Speaker 1: workers to the authorities and stopped taking any rent money,
Speaker 1: hoping that the women would pack up and leave. Curiously,
Speaker 1: May joined this chorus of disapproving voices, recounting stories of
Speaker 1: Kathleen sleeping with other men. She even went as far
Speaker 1: as to write anonymous letters to those in charge of
Speaker 1: Italian cooperators, informing them that Kathleen had close ties to
Speaker 1: one man in particular, I was afraid she was getting
Speaker 1: too friendly with one named Fronzo Antonio. That though I
Speaker 1: don't know if anything was happening between them, I made
Speaker 1: this Italian understand that missus Patmore was a married woman
Speaker 1: with children and a husband in Burma. In the spring
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty five, Kathleen's pregnancy began to show, and
Speaker 1: she was, perhaps unsurprisingly reluctant to take May into her confidence.
Speaker 1: I thought she was pregnant, and she admitted she was,
Speaker 1: but declined to discuss the matter with me. She was
Speaker 1: very secretive in nature and told me very little about
Speaker 1: her men friends. The bombs were no longer falling on London,
Speaker 1: and soon the blackout would end, so Kathleen returned to
Speaker 1: the capital. She left behind her children and a country
Speaker 1: community roiling with rumor and gossip about the identity of
Speaker 1: her next baby's father. Was it a yank or a
Speaker 1: truck driver called Bill? The prime suspect was forty year
Speaker 1: old Soldato Friendzo Antonio. Kathleen's new lodgings in London were
Speaker 1: close to where the Italian had been sent following the
Speaker 1: scandal at the farm. Sailing back from the war. It's
Speaker 1: unclear if Cyril Patmore knew any of these salacious tales.
Speaker 1: His letters to his calf seemed to have been optimistic.
Speaker 1: Roll on the day when I can straighten things out
Speaker 1: and settle down to the second chapter of married life.
Speaker 1: That's going to be hard at first, However, we should
Speaker 1: be able to get a little home together and live happily.
Speaker 1: Ever after, Patmore's confidence seems to have evaporated on arriving
Speaker 1: home from the Far East. A visit to see his
Speaker 1: children in the Oxfordshire countryside opened up the floodgates to
Speaker 1: the vicious and score settling gossip about his wife. With
Speaker 1: her husband now in their midst, Kathleen's family spared not
Speaker 1: a moment in apprising him of their views of her
Speaker 1: total moral lag. May even produced a written list of
Speaker 1: men she said her sister had slept with, and twelve
Speaker 1: year old Chrissie was called as a witness to her
Speaker 1: mother's infidelities, recounting how she'd walked in on Kathleen in
Speaker 1: bed with the truck driver Bill. Patmore even began to
Speaker 1: suspect that Frank Tobin had indeed been overly friendly for
Speaker 1: a lodger and to doubt the parentage of his youngest children.
Speaker 1: They're just like the bastard. The final straw was the
Speaker 1: naming of Soldato Antonio as the likely father of the
Speaker 1: child growing in his wife's belly, if it had been
Speaker 1: anyone else but not our enemies. Kathleen's brother, Horace, witnessed
Speaker 1: Patmore's growing confusion and anger and fueled it with his
Speaker 1: own tittle tattle. But with Patmore planning to return to
Speaker 1: London to confront his wife, Horace makes no mention of
Speaker 1: trying to warn Kathleen of the soldier's grim mood, nor
Speaker 1: Patmore's chilling and vengeful parting words. I will do her
Speaker 1: in and I will hang for it, fusela Patmore was.
Speaker 1: It turns out half right. The blackout ripper will return
Speaker 1: in a moment. The soldier who approached Frederick Keeling's car
Speaker 1: was covered in blood and holding a six inch knife.
Speaker 1: The chauffeur was waiting for a fair just a few
Speaker 1: doors down from Kathleen Patmore's new digs. Call the police.
Speaker 1: I've done my missus. When officers arrived, Cyril Patmore directed
Speaker 1: them towards the body of his wife and held out
Speaker 1: the knife slick with her blood. I did it with this.
Speaker 1: The kitchen of number twelve Green Hill Road was also
Speaker 1: a wash with Athleene's blood. Her lifeless body lay face
Speaker 1: down in it. She could not have survived such an attack.
Speaker 1: But then a police detective saw a movement rolling the
Speaker 1: heavily pregnant corpse over. He witnessed the final kicks of
Speaker 1: her unborn child. The officers arrested pat Moore and drove
Speaker 1: him to the police station, noting that he was keen
Speaker 1: to tell them of his troubles. He repeated one lament
Speaker 1: over and over to think it was an Italian she's
Speaker 1: been going with. If this was the second chapter in
Speaker 1: Patmore's marriage, it was a bloody Shakespearean tragedy. The soldier
Speaker 1: had kept his word and done Kathleen in, But would
Speaker 1: he hang the law of the jungle Cyril. Patmore wasn't
Speaker 1: going to the gallows after all. The jury didn't think
Speaker 1: he deserved it, and mister Justice Charles, the Old Bailey
Speaker 1: judge presiding, was incensed with the twelve I am bound
Speaker 1: to tell you. The liver man comes back, finds his
Speaker 1: wife unfaithful, stabs her and she dies. He is guilty
Speaker 1: of stark murder. The jury had heard witness after witness
Speaker 1: outline Kathleen's supposed marital wrongdoings. In the witness box, her
Speaker 1: sister May was asked if Kathleen had been consistently and
Speaker 1: persistently immoral. Yes, she practically lived with the Italian prisoners
Speaker 1: billeted in our area. Pat Moore had gone to Kathleen's
Speaker 1: London home armed with the list of men's names May
Speaker 1: had happily supplied, and with this Italian knife. I only
Speaker 1: meant to scar her so nobody else could have her
Speaker 1: but me. Kathleen's face did indeed bear the mark of
Speaker 1: one disfiguring slashing cut, but she struggled, and I stabbed
Speaker 1: her in the wrong place. He plunged that souvenir knife
Speaker 1: deep into her neck, going as far as the lung,
Speaker 1: a wound which would have proved rapidly fatal. He viewed
Speaker 1: this woman as a possession and would not accept the
Speaker 1: humiliation of its loss. For years, I've been waiting for
Speaker 1: this moment to return and have you for my own again,
Speaker 1: he told her, and I'm robbed of everything. Though peeved
Speaker 1: that the jury had returned the wrong verdict, mister Justice,
Speaker 1: Charles wasn't going to take his frustrations out on Patmore.
Speaker 1: If the jury decided he was guilty of manslaughter instead
Speaker 1: of murder, then the judge could show the soldier leniency,
Speaker 1: after all, his unfaithful wife had behaved abuminably. As your
Speaker 1: counsel has said, you were a solid tried, he told
Speaker 1: the prisoner. If you had not been so solid tried,
Speaker 1: I would have been bound to give you a very
Speaker 1: very heavy sentence. Private Patmore, who the judge described as
Speaker 1: a good man and a good husband, only got five years.
Speaker 1: The murder of Kathleen Patmore in the final months of
Speaker 1: World War Two was not, of course, an isolated case.
Speaker 1: Doctor Mark Roothouse from the University of York is an
Speaker 1: expert in wartime crime. Although the increase in domestic violence
Speaker 1: is not reflected in the crime figures, there is plenty
Speaker 1: of anecdotal evidence, particularly in oral testimonies, in memoirs and autobiographies,
Speaker 1: that there was an increase in these things as individuals
Speaker 1: who were processing very traumatic experiences turned in on themselves
Speaker 1: but also outwards on others. Men who'd been exhorted to
Speaker 1: sacrifice themselves and fight for home and family were being
Speaker 1: demobilized from the armed forces, and many had the feeling,
Speaker 1: like Cyril Patmore, that they'd be robbed of the homecoming
Speaker 1: that they'd imagined that they felt they deserved. The very
Speaker 1: same week as the Patmore verdict, another soldier stood in
Speaker 1: the dock at the Old Bailey. Frederick and Lillian Hooker
Speaker 1: had had eleven children together when Frederick joined the Pioneer
Speaker 1: Corps and had been sent away. Missus Hooker was said
Speaker 1: to have struck up a friendship with an Irish soldier,
Speaker 1: something to which their fourteen year old son, Thomas, attested
Speaker 1: in court. On leaving the army, Frederick Hooker said he
Speaker 1: found his wife to be culled towards him, but despite
Speaker 1: this difficult homecoming, he still worshiped her. That is until
Speaker 1: he stabbed her. She drove me to it. She was
Speaker 1: carrying on with other men, and I asked her not
Speaker 1: to for the children's sake. I su I've done it again.
Speaker 1: The jury rejected the judge's guidance that the offense was
Speaker 1: murder and found Hooker guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter.
Speaker 1: Summing up mister Justice Tucker chided the twelve that their
Speaker 1: verdict was sending a dangerous message. That is murder and
Speaker 1: nothing else. If Parliament thinks fit to pars an act
Speaker 1: that soldiers returning and finding their wives unfaithful may kill
Speaker 1: them and that is manslaughter, it will be the law
Speaker 1: of the land. Until that is done, it is not
Speaker 1: the law of the land. These twin verdicts showing sympathy
Speaker 1: for wife killers in England's most famous court, prompted much
Speaker 1: comment in the newspapers, with one legal expert of pining
Speaker 1: it is inevitable will be more such cases of killing.
Speaker 1: One hears of so many wives who have misconducted themselves.
Speaker 1: The refusal of these juries to send such defendants to
Speaker 1: the hangman had deep roots in the prevailing culture. One
Speaker 1: of the important things to note about the nineteen forties
Speaker 1: is that physical violence is part of everyday life. Here's
Speaker 1: Mark again. He says that from the beatings handed out
Speaker 1: by school teachers to husbands clouting their wives, recourse to
Speaker 1: brutality wasn't frowned upon, even by the police. The police
Speaker 1: did not want to get involved because it got them
Speaker 1: into difficult negotiations about what was acceptable what was not acceptable.
Speaker 1: If the violence took place in a public space, then
Speaker 1: the police would take an interest if it was causing
Speaker 1: some kind of disturbance and complaints from neighbors. They would
Speaker 1: also take an interest if the violence within the household
Speaker 1: overstepped the mark and someone ended up being seriously injured
Speaker 1: or worse than the police would take an interest. But
Speaker 1: run of the male physical chastisement would be the kind
Speaker 1: of thing the police would be very cautious about getting
Speaker 1: involved with. In such a society where violence was a permissible,
Speaker 1: even expected part of family life, Inflicting physical harm on
Speaker 1: women was only wrong if the severity of the injury
Speaker 1: outweighed the provocation. Kathleen Patmore had sorely tried her husband,
Speaker 1: and Lilian Hooker drove hers to take her life. They
Speaker 1: weren't bad men, thought the jurors. They'd just been pushed
Speaker 1: to breaking point. They'd snapped. The crime of passion has
Speaker 1: been around for millennia. Professor Jane Monkton Smith is an
Speaker 1: expert on homicide and particularly on domestic violence. She rejects
Speaker 1: the crime of passion defense, the idea that lover may,
Speaker 1: in a fit of jealousy or after an appalling betrayal,
Speaker 1: lose control of themselves and kill Jane's research has shown
Speaker 1: that the crime of passion, though an established feature of
Speaker 1: our cultural script, is nothing more than myth. It kind
Speaker 1: of acts to defend, especially men who kill their partners
Speaker 1: allegedly spontaneously. So there's some kind of dreadful provocation. They
Speaker 1: in the moment react to that and things go a
Speaker 1: bit far. Nobody could really have predicted it, and it's
Speaker 1: a terrible situation. But of course that's not the way
Speaker 1: these things play out at all. There is nothing, no
Speaker 1: fact anywhere to suggest that the crime of passion narrative
Speaker 1: has anything to support it, because all the research that
Speaker 1: has been done in this area shows that there are
Speaker 1: levels of planning. These homicides, despite what everybody really wants
Speaker 1: to believe, are not spontaneous. Indeed, Cyril Patmore had time
Speaker 1: enough between Oxfordshire and London to think about his marriage
Speaker 1: several days. In fact, even if we believe his story
Speaker 1: that he took a six inch knife to threaten and
Speaker 1: to scar Kathleen, Cyril Patmore did not simply snap. He
Speaker 1: thought about the grievous harm he wanted to inflict on
Speaker 1: his wife, and then he settled on a determined course
Speaker 1: of action to echo those judges that is murder and
Speaker 1: nothing else. Had say the cuckolded poultry farmer Harold Oatley
Speaker 1: finally run out of patience with Evelyn and her soho
Speaker 1: lifestyle and taken his razor to her, or indeed, had
Speaker 1: on rue Jouanne bickered with his wife Doris about her
Speaker 1: return to the sex trade and choked her to death.
Speaker 1: Would they have been sentenced to hang or just given
Speaker 1: a light sentence. Would a jury have perhaps looked sympathetically
Speaker 1: on leading aircraftman Cummings if he'd offered his wife Marjorie
Speaker 1: then spun a defense in court detailing her immoral, unreasonable,
Speaker 1: or nagging ways. As it was on June twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, with all legal avenues exhausted, all appeals
Speaker 1: from reprieved denied, Cummings was taken from the condemned cell
Speaker 1: where he played distracted games of chest with his warders,
Speaker 1: to the nearby gallows and the drop. The man dubbed
Speaker 1: the most notorious killer since Jack the Ripper was no
Speaker 1: more and his swordid crimes, far from growing in notoriety,
Speaker 1: quickly slipped into obscurity. And this suited the families of
Speaker 1: the dead and the survivors too, when the murders of
Speaker 1: February nineteen forty two occasionally resurfaced in the newspapers, often
Speaker 1: when one of the investigating detectives had a memoir. Note,
Speaker 1: the victims were invariably referred to as prostitutes. When we
Speaker 1: approached the relatives of the dead women for this series,
Speaker 1: they politely decline to be interviewed. The shame associated with
Speaker 1: the crimes has even suppressed conversations within families. Cummings not
Speaker 1: only rob these women of their lives, his depravity has
Speaker 1: also meant that their very memories have been erased. We
Speaker 1: don't have any information about any of this, wrote one
Speaker 1: relative in reply to us, as I'm sure you can understand.
Speaker 1: It's not something we discussed. I was fascinated to learn
Speaker 1: about this case that almost doesn't exist. It's not in
Speaker 1: the press, you don't see it on tally. Michael Buchanan
Speaker 1: Done is a London to a guide, an host of
Speaker 1: Murder Mile UK podcast. He's done much to uncover the
Speaker 1: truth about the valuable lives Cummings snuffed out. Hlne fits
Speaker 1: should be that one shouldn't always exactly criss crossings, soho
Speaker 1: Piccadilly and Paddington. Michael shows visitors the streets the women walked,
Speaker 1: the bars where they drank and met friends, the places
Speaker 1: they called home, and in so doing, Michael hopes his
Speaker 1: tool groups will come to know the women as he does,
Speaker 1: as real, rounded people and not simply as victims of
Speaker 1: a killer. Evelyn Hamilton left in a freezing, dank air
Speaker 1: aid Shelter was no mere corpse. She was someone who'd
Speaker 1: known poverty and then dedicated herself to improving both a
Speaker 1: lot of other working people and her own mind. Through determination,
Speaker 1: she became a pharmacist. I mean, that's amazing for today,
Speaker 1: but we're talking a hundred years ago. She's clearly smart,
Speaker 1: she's clearly educated. She's quiet. But I think that's the
Speaker 1: problem is that people of think about her shyness and
Speaker 1: they equate that to loneliness, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: big mistake when you look at her life. She liked herself,
Speaker 1: she liked her world, she liked what she did. The
Speaker 1: Soho home of Evelyn Oatley, who was so cruelly dismissed
Speaker 1: as a mere good time girl, was demolished long ago.
Speaker 1: But Michael's tour groups can still get a flavor if
Speaker 1: the edgy, creative and bohemian neighborhood that drew Evelyn from
Speaker 1: the gritty industrial north to the place where she became
Speaker 1: hopeful starlet Lta Ward. Where she grew up, there was nothing.
Speaker 1: She's got dreams of going to London to become an
Speaker 1: actress and a dancer, and you want her so much
Speaker 1: to succeed. She's not a good time girl. I think
Speaker 1: there's an inherent loneliness there, and she's trying to find
Speaker 1: out who she is and what she wants. Michael has
Speaker 1: retraced the route widowed and bankrupt Margaret Lowe would have
Speaker 1: taken selling sex in the area. She walks the perimeter,
Speaker 1: the filthy square mile, as they call it around Soho.
Speaker 1: But the secretive aloof woman that others dubbed the Lady
Speaker 1: seemed an especially reluctant participant in the trade. Weighed down
Speaker 1: with grief for her former married life and always afraid
Speaker 1: of losing her daughter. And it's almost as if she
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be there, but she knows that she
Speaker 1: has to be. I find it tragic, but also I
Speaker 1: understand her. I understand why she's holding onto those few
Speaker 1: moments of her past, especially her daughter. Who she loves,
Speaker 1: and she wants her past to return, the good past.
Speaker 1: North of Hyde Park, Michael takes his tour groups into
Speaker 1: the world of Doris Joanne, the provincial girl without a
Speaker 1: father who counted societal prejudice against so called bastards by
Speaker 1: never backing down, never taking orders, and always cutting a
Speaker 1: striking figure. She's stylish. Everyone always looked at her and
Speaker 1: you could see her coming. She always looked immaculate. Michael,
Speaker 1: pounding the pavements amid the traffic and bustle of modern
Speaker 1: London does in real life what we've tried to do
Speaker 1: in audio over the series, give those long dead women
Speaker 1: a chance to reach across the decades and be heard.
Speaker 1: Michael's guiding ethos also sums up what we've tried to
Speaker 1: do in Bad Women, and we think his words are
Speaker 1: a fitting way to draw this season to a close.
Speaker 1: Sodd Gordon Frederick Cummings. He's an asshole. I hate him.
Speaker 1: He's arrogant. He does not deserve to live, and I
Speaker 1: hate to say that about anyone. Whereas the women, I
Speaker 1: fell in love with them, every single one of them.
Speaker 1: I sympathized with them, what they were about, what their
Speaker 1: struggle was, the amount of times have done a live
Speaker 1: presentation then burst into tears because I think when you
Speaker 1: see the victims not just as name age collection of injuries,
Speaker 1: but you learn about all the quirks in their life,
Speaker 1: You learn about the sadness, you learn about the joy.
Speaker 1: It makes them real and whole, and you kind of
Speaker 1: want to meet them and hope, hope that they survive,
Speaker 1: but you know that they won't. Bad women. The Blackout
Speaker 1: Ripper is hosted by me Hallie rubin Hold and me
Speaker 1: Alice Fines. It was written and produced by Alice Fines
Speaker 1: and Ryan Dilley, with additional support from Courtney Guarino and
Speaker 1: Arthur Gomperts. Kate Healy of Oakwood Family Trees aided us
Speaker 1: with genealogical research. Pascal Wise Sound designed and mixed the
Speaker 1: show and composed all the original music. The show was
Speaker 1: recorded at Wardoor Studios by David Smith and Tom Berry.
Speaker 1: You also heard the voice talents of Ben Crow, David Glover,
Speaker 1: Melanie Gutridge, Stella Halford, Gemma Saunders and Rufus Wright. Much
Speaker 1: of the music You Had was performed by Edgarchan, Ross Hughes,
Speaker 1: Christian Miller and Marcus Penrose. They were recorded by Nick
Speaker 1: Taylor at Porcupine Studios. Pushkin's Ben Holiday mixed the tracks
Speaker 1: and you heard additional piano playing by the great Berry
Speaker 1: Wise Hi Berry. The show also wouldn't have been possible
Speaker 1: without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Heather Fane, Carlie Migliori,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, and Daniella Lukhan. We'd
Speaker 1: also like to thank Michael Buchanan Dunn of the Murder
Speaker 1: Mile podcast, Lizzie McCarroll, Katherine Walker at the Royal Pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: Society and the Earb Historical Society. Bad Women is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. Please rate and review the show
Speaker 1: and spread the word about what we do and thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.