Who was serial killer named Jack the Stripper? Chilling tale of monster who slaughtered 8 women & is still on the run
DUMPED in scrubland with her dress torn at the waist, the horrific details of Elizabeth Figg’s murder were hard to stomach.
She had been strangled to death in an area known as lover’s lane in Chiswick, West London, with her underwear and shoes missing.
While the brutal nature behind her killing was enough to strike fear into any Londoner, Elizabeth was the first of up to eight women strangled to death by a serial killer known as Jack the Stripper.
The monster bore chilling similarities to his Victorian namesake – targeting only sex workers in the dead of night.
And just like Jack the Ripper, the serial killer was never caught.
The disturbing tale of the so-called Hammersmith Nude Murders began on June 17, 1959, when police on a routine patrol in Duke’s Meadows found Elizabeth’s body.
Her dress was torn at the waist and she had been dumped on a towpath next to the River Thames.
Elizabeth’s parents and roommate identified the 21-year-old through a post mortem photo.
Police believed the prostitute had been murdered in her car by a client, who removed her shoes and underwear, before dumping the body.
Despite a witness hearing a scream that night and seeing a car’s headlights, there was no major development for another four years.
In November 1963, Gwynneth Rees was found dead at the Barnes Borough Council refuse disposal site in Mortlake – just one mile from where Elizabeth’s body had been discovered.
The 22-year-old had also been strangled and was naked except for a single stocking on her right leg.
Several of her teeth were missing in what was to become a gruesome calling card of the serial killer.
At first the two brutal killings were not linked but it is now believed both women were the first victims of Jack the Stripper.
The monster did not strike again for another three months when mum-of-two Hannah Tailford was discovered by the River Thames in Hammersmith.
Like her tragic predecessors, the 30-year-old had been strangled and several of her teeth were missing.
Hannah’s underwear had been stuffed in her mouth during the February 1964 horror.
But police did not believe a serial killer was at large until Irene Lockwood’s murder in April that year.
The 25-year-old was discovered on the same stretch of river and had also been strangled.
She was naked and tragically pregnant at the time of her death.
A huge manhunt was launched as women grew terrified of walking the streets of London alone.
This fear was compounded even more when – just two weeks after Irene was killed – Helen Barthelemy was found dead.
Helen, 22, was dumped in an alleyway in Brentford and was missing her front teeth.
Investigators combing the scene were able to find their first piece of solid evidence when they discovered flecks of paint used in car manufacturing.
Police believed these likely came from the killer’s workplace and began focusing on businesses nearby in a bid to stop him.
These paint flecks were also found on the naked body of 30-year-old Mary Fleming.
Mary, whose front teeth were also missing, had been found dead on July 14, 1964, in nearby Chiswick.
The killer’s seventh victim Margaret McGowan was found in November that year in Acton.
The 21-year-old – also known as Frances Brown – was a high-end sex worker whose clients included politicians and businessmen.
She had testified alongside Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davis during the infamous Profumo affair scandal.
Her death provided further clues when a friend told police Margaret had been picked up by a man in either a Ford Zephyr or Zodiac.
But the development was not enough to stop the killer striking once more – this time targeting Irish immigrant Bridgit O’Hara.
She was discovered in a storage shed behind the Heron Trading Estate in Acton in February 1965.
Bridgit had gone missing the month before and her body had the same paint flecks as Mary and Helen.
Remarkably, officers were able to trace these to a covered transformer just yards from where she was found.
Police became convinced they had found the suspect‘s lock-up store where he would kill his victims before dumping their bodies.
They were so adamant they had almost cracked the case that officers called a press conference to announce the net was closing in.
This revelation appeared to startle the killer, who stopped his gruesome spree.
One of Scotland Yard’s top detectives, John Du Rose, led the huge manhunt, which involved hundreds of police officers.
All 7,000 workers on the Heron Industrial Estate were quizzed and plain-clothed cops worked through the night recording number plates and patrolling the area.
The Met believed their suspect was a smaller man as all his victims had been petite women.
During the course of the investigation, four men were put in the frame as Jack the Stripper.
Kenneth Archibald, 57, walked into Notting Hill police station and confessed to killing Irene.
He stood trial for murder but retracted his admission and pleaded not guilty.
Without any evidence to link him to the crime, Archibald was cleared by a jury.
Chief Inspector Du Rose believed the killer was a Scottish security guard named Mungo Ireland.
Was the 'David Beckham of the 50s' behind sex murders?
SLUMPED in the back-seat of his silver Citroen DS19 sports car which was parked in its usual spot behind his Soho nightclub, boxing legend Freddie Mills lay dead – blood pouring from the hole in his right eye where he’d been shot.
A fairground rifle lay next to his limp, lifeless corpse – but was this death a suicide, or a sly murder set up by a gangster mob who got away with it?
It’s a mystery that has gripped the nation for more than 50 years – what happened to the famous boxer, who was pals with the Kray twins, had his own TV show and owned the busiest nightclub in London?
While an inquest into his death ruled he’d committed suicide, his friends and family have never believed it was that straightforward, and rumours about him being murderer Jack The Stripper – who killed six women and threw their naked bodies into the Thames – have never gone away.
Following his death, allegations emerged that national treasure Freddie led a double life and was in fact the serial killer.
It is claimed he then arranged his own assassination rather than face justice.
In his book, The Secret Life Of Freddie Mills, former Sun crime reporter Michael Litchfield claims Freddie admitted the the murders of six young women in the early 1960s.
According to this theory, Freddie then organised his own death, paying the Kray twins £1,000 to have one of their hitmen assassinate him.
He had worked at the Heron Trading Estate but took his own life in 1970 when police uncovered the connection.
Ireland had told his wife in a note “I can’t stick it”, adding: “To save you and the police looking for me I’ll be in the garage.”
Although even police believed Ireland could have been behind the grisly killing spree, research suggests he was in Scotland when Bridget was murdered.
One of the more bizarre theories was that boxing champ Freddie Mills was Jack the Stripper.
The known criminal was even reportedly put in the frame by the Kray twins and other gangsters who bore a grudge.
Freddie died in 1965 – around the same time as the Hammersmith Murders stopped – but he was never treated as a suspect by police.
Convicted murderer Harold Jones was also offered up as a potential name for the serial killer due to chilling similarities between his own crimes and the deaths of the eight Stripper victims.
Jones was just 15 when he first struck – strangling eight-year-old Freda Burnell in the back of his family’s shop before dumping her body.
He then lured 11-year-old Florence Little into his family home in Wales and killed her too.
Jones was jailed for 20 years and moved to West London – living just four streets from both Hannah Tailford and Bridget O’Hara.
In another eerie coincidence, the double killer worked at the Heron Industrial Estate where the storage lock-up was.
Jones was diagnosed with bone cancer around the time the spree stopped and died in 1971 – but he wasn’t considered a potential suspect for another 30 years.
Despite the clues, it is clear that just like his evil namesake, the identity of Jack the Stripper may never be uncovered.
