The Blackout Ripper PT 2

Summary

Buried Bones — “The Blackout Ripper PT 2”

Podcast: Buried Bones
Hosts: Kate Winkler Dawson (Journalist/True Crime Author), Paul Holes (Retired Cold Case Investigator)
Episode Date: April 22, 2026
Topic: The Blackout Ripper, Gordon Frederick Cummins — Part 2

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Episode Overview

This episode is the gripping conclusion to the two-part examination of London’s “Blackout Ripper” case. Journalist Kate Winkler Dawson and forensic investigator Paul Holes dissect the 1942 series of murders that paralyzed wartime London as the Blitz raged overhead. They delve into the investigation, forensic breakthroughs, and the violent, escalating compulsion of Gordon Cummins, drawing connections to other infamous cases and reflecting on the challenges of historic policing, evidence, and the vulnerability of marginalized women during this era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recap & Context of the Case

• The “Blackout Ripper” murders occurred during the London Blitz of 1942. The city, under blackout, was particularly vulnerable.
• Victims included women, some sex workers and some not, most attacked indoors and subjected to gruesome post-mortem mutilation.
• The nickname echoed Jack the Ripper due to the brutality and media sensationalism.
• Paul Holes praised Kate’s succinct recap of the case and initial investigation.

  “No, absolutely...you’re a huge step closer to identifying who dropped that gas mask during the assault on Mary.” — Paul (05:10)

2. Breakthrough Clue: The Gas Mask

• After an interrupted assault on a survivor (Mary Greta Haywood), the assailant left behind a gas mask in a military haversack, labeled with RAF regimental number 52597 (06:31).
  • Investigators moved immediately to trace it through military records.
  • Paul highlights the investigative value:

    “You know, the military, they keep meticulous records...you are a huge step closer to identifying who dropped that gas mask during the assault on Mary.” — Paul (06:31)

3. Another Assault and Increasing Frenzy

• 30 minutes before police try to contact the RAF, another young woman (Catherine Mulcahy, 22) survives an attack.
• The assailant solicits her for sex, attacks her in her flat, but she escapes after a struggle, and he tries to placate her with money (10:04).
  • Shows escalation and risk-taking (compulsion):

    “There’s a brazenness that is...what strikes me about this scenario. You’d think he’d be nervous...he’s just going right back to work.” — Paul (08:36)

4. Suspect Identified: Gordon Frederick Cummins

• The RAF trace reveals Cummins as the gas mask owner.
• Interview and search turn up incriminating items: a RAF bag, watch, cigarette case, and a comb.
• Cummins claims to remember nothing, blames drunkenness, but inconsistencies and physical injuries (scabs on left hand) raise suspicions (16:19–21:57).
  • Kate notes:

    “He does not at first talk about the second incident with Catherine, which happened the same night...they’re kind of just like letting him sort of spill out what he wants to spill out.” — Kate (18:33)

5. Pattern, Victims, and Survivors

• Police learn Cummins often solicited sex workers, sometimes letting them go if a bodyguard is present, suggesting opportunism and risk assessment (21:57).
• First victim, Evelyn Hamilton, was not a sex worker—raising questions about his initial targeting behavior and later escalation/method refinement (22:00–24:34).
• Kate contextualizes sex work in wartime London:

  “There are a lot of part-time sex workers...They don’t want to be in sex work necessarily.” — Kate (23:31)

6. Escalation: Gruesome Murders Continue

• Murders become more violent and mutilations more savage:
  • Margaret “Peggy” Lowe found on February 13, 1942, with severe abdominal and genital mutilations, weapons left at the scene, and indications of both pre- and post-mortem injuries (24:34–30:03).
  • Forensic pathologist Bernard Spilsbury ties mutilations to moments either as the victim was dying or just after.
  • Discussion links these patterns to “defeminization” fantasies and escalation (29:42–30:15).

7. Media Sensation and Name “Blackout Ripper”

• Details leak to the press, comparisons made to Jack the Ripper. The shock echoes across the city, stoking fear and public outcry (41:00).

8. Forensic Evidence and Souvenirs

• Police find “souvenirs” (trinkets, monogrammed items) from the victims in Cummins’s quarters (41:00–43:36).
• Paul clarifies:

  “We call those souvenirs.” — Paul (42:33)

• Multiple pieces of evidence, witness identifications, fingerprint matches tie Cummins to three of the four killings, as well as the attempted murders.

9. Trial and Legal Process

• Cummins is tried only for the murder of Evelyn Oatley due to British rules (single-case trials for capital offenses at the time) (53:30).
• Fingerprint evidence is attacked by the defense (for its subjective “pattern matching”), but Cummins’s inconsistent stories, witness testimony, and the physical evidence prove overwhelming.
• Verdict: Guilty, sentenced to hanging, executed within weeks (61:01).

  “That’s swift justice.” — Paul (61:01)

10. Broader Reflections and Comparisons

• Paul contextualizes Cummins among sadistic killers and discusses the incident frequency, sexualized mutilation, and the psychology behind such acts (61:29–63:14).
• Recalls similar cases (Black Dahlia, Samuel Little), and emphasizes the vulnerability of sex workers and the sanitized nature of public reporting on such crimes.

  “You have to understand there are men out there who are hunting you, you are prey...” — Paul (62:30)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the gas mask clue:

  “It’s a major clue. You know, that’s the logical next step...they keep meticulous records.” — Paul Holes (06:31)

• On escalation and compulsion:

  “There’s a brazenness that is, I think, what strikes me about this scenario...he’s just going right back to work.” — Paul Holes (08:36)

• On forensic findings:

  “Some of the mutilations on this victim happened while she was alive.” — Kate Winkler Dawson (30:03)

• On signature behaviors:

  “If these cases were all happening today...these types of behaviors...is in part how you can link cases together.” — Paul Holes (39:17)

• On courtroom strategy:

  “When he’s making that type of definitive statement, that’s awesome...prosecutors love to put that in front of a jury.” — Paul Holes (48:33)

• On victim vulnerability:

  “A lot of them would not have been this vulnerable had they not lost, you know, husbands...that’s what I learned.” — Kate Winkler Dawson (63:14)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Event | |-----------|-------------------------------------------| | 03:10 | Case recap & summary by Kate | | 05:23 | The gas mask lead explained | | 07:08 | Discovery of new survivor (Catherine) | | 10:04 | Catherine’s assault described; the assailant’s compulsion discussed | | 16:19 | Police trace gas mask to Gordon Cummins | | 24:34 | “Inside the mind” — victim targeting and patterns | | 28:28 | Spilsbury’s autopsy, perimortem injuries discussed | | 36:39 | Additional victim found: Doris, and scene details | | 39:17 | Forensic linkages between cases | | 41:00 | Media coverage and “Blackout Ripper” moniker| | 43:35 | Cummins’s “souvenirs” and investigation | | 51:01 | Cummins’s shifting alibis and confession tactics | | 61:01 | Cummins executed after swift trial outcome |

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Thematic Reflections from Hosts

Vulnerability and Social Context

• The hosts highlight the complicated lives of women during the Blitz, many forced into precarious circumstances, and how these conditions increased predator risk.

Forensic Evolution and Case Building

• Paul provides insight on how modern forensics would approach the case and why the evidence (trinkets, fingerprints, confessions, eyewitnesses) was more than enough for a conviction, while also criticizing “pattern matching” methods.

Serial Homicide Psychology

• Discussion of postmortem mutilation, compulsion, ritual escalation, and comparisons to both Jack the Ripper and American serial killers.

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Conclusion

The Blackout Ripper episode offers an intricate look at a lesser-known but shockingly brutal wartime serial killer. Kate and Paul examine not just the events, but the evolution of criminal investigation and forensic science, as well as the tragic circumstances of the vulnerable women targeted. The show ends with a sobering reminder about predator psychology and the inadequate societal protection for those most at risk.

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For further reference:

• Main Source: “The True Story of the Blackout Ripper” by Simon Reed (35:48)
• See evidence and photos: @buriedbonespod on Instagram

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Transcript

[Paul Holes]

This is exactly right.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

[Paul Holes]

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Each week I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

[Paul Holes]

And I weigh in. Using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

[Paul Holes]

Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is buried bones.

[Paul Holes]

Hi, Kate.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Hey, Paul. How's it going?

[Paul Holes]

It is going good. I've been thinking about this London case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I'm gonna now tell you this case because probably some folks have recognized it. So this is called the Blackout Ripper case because we've talked about the blackouts.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And I don't know if these actually happened during a blackout. I. Some must have. But that. That's what this case is called. So I can do a real quick summary for us. So we're in 1942, in the middle of the Blitz in London. Most of the city is gone. There are still people there. And we have so far two murder victims. One is a woman named Evelyn. She's 50, she's a pharmacist, and she is found strangled with no evidence of sexual assault. But we know what that means. In between two air raid shelters, outside in the public. And then we have a second victim who is probably about a 30 minute walk away from the first victim. She is a known sex worker. She's found inside her flat and she has been mutilated, sexually mutilated, as well as her throat cut. So we've got some clues and then we've got this assault that happens. Thank goodness. There's a porter who intercepts and we have outside of in an alleyway, a woman who had gone on kind of a mini date, had a drink with a man. He starts to attack her. She fights him off and he starts to strangle her. The porter interrupts this and the man takes off and he leaves behind a key clue, which is a gas mask, which everybody had during the blitz in London. But it was inside a handbag, essentially, or a shoulder bag that a man might carry. And so now we have Scotland Yard saying maybe this is our first clue. Now, based on your memory, did I do a pretty good wrap up there?

[Paul Holes]

No, absolutely. And I think you ended by saying that the guy's name is on the gas mask or on the bag that the gas mask was inside of. Is that right?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, so there's something as important, which is the detective examines this gas mask that's left behind in Mary Greta Hayward's case, the one who gets away. And it's in a bag, it's called a haversack. But it's a, you know, a shoulder bag essentially, and it has a label on it that this bag belongs to the Royal air Force, the RAF, RAF regimental number 52597. And it's printed on this bag. And inside where this gas mask was, also there was a watch that has a worn out strap. You know, this is an identifier for them. It's a piece of military equipment. Mary had said she thought the man was an airman, but she wasn't sure. She wasn't able to really identify this part. So, you know, their next thing is they're going to go to the Royal Air Force and trace this number to figure out who owns this bag and who owns the gas mask. And I know kind of one of the things you're going to say is it doesn't mean that this is the guy, but it is a clue, right?

[Paul Holes]

Oh, it's a major clue. You know, that's the logical next step that you have to take. You know, the military, you know, they keep meticulous records. So, you know, I'm confident the investigators are going to be able to get to at least who was assigned that particular gas mask, you know, and they'll contact that person. That person may say, yeah, that, that went missing, you know, three days ago or something. But you are a huge step closer to identifying who dropped that gas mask during the assault on Mary.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

30 minutes before the detective makes the call to the Royal Air Force about the gas mask in the previous assault, there is a call about another assault and another survivor. So this woman is 22 years old, her name is Catherine Mulcahy, and she says she was approached by an airman in Piccadilly.

[Martha Stewart]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

He offers her two pounds for sex work. She agrees to five pounds, which is about $400 today. I mean, that to me just seems incredible in 1942, but, but that was the deal. So this is, you know, Catherine is a sex worker and they get into a taxi and they go to her flat. So now we're talking about two women who operate out of their personal flats and her flats in Paddington. They get there at 11 o' clock that night of the 12th. So at 9:45pm, the guy is scared away from potentially killing Mary, Greta Haywood, who escapes. And now by 11 o', clock, he is in a taxi and getting out at Catherine's flat in not such a far away, far flung place. But doesn't this seem a little frenetic to you to barely get away from assaulting one woman and then immediately approach the Same situation.

[Paul Holes]

Well, it shows a level of compulsion that he's under at this moment in his life. You know, he's carrying out these homicides and quite frankly attempt homicide on Mary. I mean, he was strangling her when he got run off. So it's. The pace that he is operating at is somewhat unusual for sure. However, it just speaks to the compulsion. I'm wondering what's going on in his life, his personal life, his work life. It sounds like he's Air Force. Are there some stressors that are potentially contributing to this level of compulsion and the prolific nature of his attacks? So it's not. I think what's surprising is, you know, being run off and possibly being seen by this porter in Mary's case. And he turns right back around and is now out trolling for victims and approaching Catherine, you know, for sex, you know, with an offer for sex. So there's a brazenness that is, I think, what strikes me about this scenario. Because you'd think he'd be nervous, oh, I almost got caught. And he would lay low. And he's not, he's just going right back to work.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let me tell you what happens with Catherine. They get to her flat, they get into bed, they start to have sex. He slams both of his knees into her stomach and he starts to strangle her. She is fighting for her life, she's kicking at him, and she finally gets him off of her and she runs into the dark hall of her apartment building and she's screaming, screaming. Luckily, there's a neighbor that hears her and opens the door. And this guy, the airman, follows her quietly and he says, I'm sorry, I drank too much. He picks up his clothing from inside the flat, then he throws her a five pound bill that is worth $400 today. And he walks out the door.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, again, this is where he's not necessarily either comprehending the risk to himself as a result of this victim being able to escape, or he thinks, hey, we had an agreement. I maybe got a little carried away. And by paying her, you know, she's not going to, you know, get the, the police involved in this, this attack, you know. But, you know, one of the things that I had mentioned previously was, you know, was he only going after women who turned him down? Well, obviously with Catherine, she is cooperating, you know, it's for money. And you know, some of these offenders, you know, these, they have a, a, we call missionary offenders, they have a mission, you know, and so, you know, guys that are going after sex workers in their mind, you know, they're justifying their attack on these women is because these women are doing something evil, you know, and so is that something that's going on inside, you know, this particular offender? We'll see how this plays out.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

The serial killer, John Reginald Christie from my first book, he did the same thing. He would bring home part time sex workers and he would have them inhale like a gas basically, you know, to help their throats because they all had bronchitis and the gas was attached to the back of the tap of his stove. So it knocked them out. And then he had to, he was kind of a physically weak guy. He had to use pantyhose to strangle them most of the time. And then he would sexually assault them during strangulation and then he would bury them in the garden. And there was just no kind of like explanation. He had murdered a co worker in this exact time period. But after that it was pretty much all, you know, part time sex workers at his, at his own flat. And so, you know, it's so risky but you know, whatever. Common sense eludes a lot of serial killers, I think.

[Paul Holes]

Well, they're the ones that get caught too, right?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. Yep, yep.

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[Paul Holes]

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, look at your last photo that I have in this packet. This is the gas mask. And we're about to find out who the owner of this gas mask is, but we don't know yet if this is the guy or if he just had this stolen from him.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, this, this photo is almost it's hard to really see the totality of the gas mask, but in essence this looks like the a gas mask where you you in essence, it's a black rubber mask that has, you know, the circular types of lenses, you know, to be to allow the wearer to to look Out. And then it appears that it probably has that long tube that the canister attaches to that is the filter for the toxic gases. But most certainly if somebody has this style mask on, they could not be identified. Their face can't be seen at all.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

No, absolutely. And if you go to Portobello Road in London, which is one of my favorite places to visit, this is where I get the men from. In the back my, you know, Vanity Fairman that I've told you so much about as the of part Portobello Road, they sell those masks.

[Paul Holes]

Oh, they do.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You know that you can just. Yeah, from, from the 1940s and a lot of World War II stuff. But the masks are there. And I remember freaked out when I saw them at first. Yeah, but, but you know, so the. So yeah, you're right. It would have completely. Not only scared the crap out of most people, but it would. Could have completely obscured their identity. But they were also so used to it because everybody had those and it was prudent to wear them in certain times during.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and, and maybe he's just keeping the gas mask of the uncertainty of when an attack is going to come. He's obviously approaching these women in restaurants, you know, some of these women in restaurants and they see him, they see his face, they hear his voice, they're interacting with him. So he's not trying to hide who he is initially. But maybe the gas mask is something that, let's say during the escape, as he's leaving the crime scene, he's throwing the gas mask on or has it available in order to try to prevent witnesses from seeing who he is as he's trying to get back home.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, so they are dealing with Katherine's case, which sounds like it's connected. They are figuring out who owns that gas mask. And the Royal Air Force says that the owner of that bag is a 27 year old airman. His name is Gordon Frederick Cummins. And you know, they see him, they get him in the interview room, they search him, they find a couple of things. A cigarette case with a yellow band, a comb with some missing teeth that don't have significance yet. So this is what he says? He says, I don't remember a thing. I was totally drunk with a bunch of other servicemen. We wandered over to this restaurant where he solicited for $2,000. You know, Mary, he had a lot to drink there. He left with some woman. I don't even remember who it was. Mary. And after that he doesn't know what happened. He said about 2:30 in the morning, he regains his senses. And he said, oh, no, I violated the curfew. And they're supposed to be in Airmen. Supposed to be in by midnight. And then he goes back to where he lives, which is a bunkhouse around Regent's park area, which is where the very first attack on Evelyn took place. The pharmacist. So he's there around 4am and there is, you know, obviously some inconsistency. And he does not at first talk about the second incident with Catherine, which happened the same night at 11pm so they're kind of just like letting him sort of spill out what he wants to spill out. And what they're trying to do right now is just nail him down for Mary, because that's the gas mask. Where the gas mask appeared was in Mary's case. He says, write down your recollections. And Gordon does. And they're looking at him in his left hand. Remember the theory? His left hand has scabs all over it. And he says, oh, yeah, I injured it on a plane engine, which is very possible. But they still charge him with assault. And now that Catherine, the second victim that night, has told her story, the detective is connecting these two. And, you know, this. This all sort of like starts to swirl around the sex worker community. And there is another sex worker who comes forward. She said she took a client who matches Gordon's description exactly. She took him back to her apartment later in the day when they discovered our first victim, Evelyn, February 9th. So if this is our guy, right, he kills Evelyn in the early morning. The pharmacist, in the early morning hours. The police discover her later that day. He solicits she says, yes, this woman goes back, takes him back to her flat. They have sex. Nothing bad happens. At first I thought, what? But it's because he noticed that she had a bodyguard. There was a guy, her bodyguard, that was hiding behind a blanket, who was watching all of it to make sure she was okay.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And so that's why we presume nothing

[Paul Holes]

happened to this woman, the very first victim, Evelyn Hamilton. Is there any indication that she was doing any sex work at all? She's just the professional pharmacist. Right.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You got it? Yep. Now, her friend said that she was supposed to have dinner with somebody the night before. We don't have details on who that person was. I don't know if it was Gordon or whoever this killer is, but. No. No evidence of sex work.

[Paul Holes]

Okay. Yeah. Because now after that case, it appears that all these other women he's at least approaching soliciting for sex. Does he do that in that very first case? And she turns him down and now he's following her back home and just does a blitz attack out there in an area where he can't really spend much time with her without risk of actually being seen. And so that first experience, assuming that's his first, first case, you know, that may have been a learning opportunity, if you will. And he, he alters his approach with these women, though.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

It's.

[Paul Holes]

It's such an odd thing to just start hitting women up, you know, soliciting them for sex at restaurants. You're going to get caught eventually, you know, so. And you said he was 22?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

27. He's 27.

[Paul Holes]

27, okay, 27.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And he's married. We're going to find out more in a second.

[Paul Holes]

All right.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So what's interesting about what I had learned about sex work during this time period in London was there was not an easy way to distinguish who was in the sex industry and who wasn't. It's not like what you would think about Times Square with the tiny skirts, you know, in the 80s that, like the Times Square serial killer that we talked about, there are a lot of part time sex work women who are trying to get jobs in munitions factories. They're trying to do other things. They don't want to be in sex work necessarily. So my thought was that he approached Evelyn Hamilton for like, what I think what you had said for thinking that she was a sex worker, although she's in her 50s. She was 50. And not that that would have been unusual, but, you know, that is a little riskier, if that's what even happened. Or he asked her on a date and that's who she was supposed to have dinner with that night. We don't know.

[Paul Holes]

Or he could have blitzed her while she was walking home and decided that wasn't going to be the way that he wanted to do it moving forward because it didn't work out for him.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Right, Yep, you're right. Okay, so we now are on February 13th. February 13th is when they track down Gordon Cummins and they interview him about the assault on Mary. And Catherine's assault had also just happened too, the night before. So on the 13th, he's in custody and the police later that afternoon get a call to Gosfield street in Fitzrovia, another part of London. A neighbor was concerned about one of the tenants, a woman, and they said that there was a package that had been sitting out for several days. And this was unusual. It would have been a good idea, it would have gotten stolen. But an officer kicks in the door and finds a woman's body on the bed. This is very, very graphic. I'm just warning people. Under the blood soaked bed sheets, there's a woman who is naked, legs apart, knees bent. She has a silk stocking knotted so tightly around her neck that it has left bruises. And the other stocking was laying on the floor next to the bed. And she is severely mutilated. There is a 5 inch wound across her abdomen that exposes her intestines and cuts through her uterus. There is a deep gaping wound about 10 inches long that tears the right side of her inner thigh. Above her vagina there is a ragged cut. There are five other cuts that stretch from the pubic area to just beyond her vagina. And pushed six inches into her vagina is a wax candle. There is a used condom tossed in the blood that is pooled between her legs. There are actually multiple weapons. There's a blue handled bread knife, there's a black handled table knife, a yellow handled table knife, another one. And a small but sharp white handled vegetable knife that lies next to her groin. And they are all covered in blood. And there is a metal poker with a broken handle in between her legs. This is so freaking brutal, man. I mean, that's brutal.

[Paul Holes]

And does Spillsbury do the autopsy in this case?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

He does, he does. And I have information on that. We have the prerequisite detective from Scotland Yard who comes and does the fingerprinting and all of that stuff. And there's a bottle of stout that's there. He takes the fingerprints off that. There's a drinking glass on the mantel. And we have an identification. She's 43, her name is Margaret, but everybody calls her Peggy Lowe. And she has been a sex worker for 15 years so that she could put her child through schooling, good schooling.

[Paul Holes]

What happened to Peggy was what was going to happen to Catherine and by Kath and Mary and Mary. Now Mary is a little bit different because she resists while outside, you know. So you see the pattern when he gets these women indoors, like with the second case, Evelyn Oatley, where he does the postmortem mutilation, the defeminization, and that's what it sounds like he's doing with Peggy. And that's where I'm kind of curious to see does Spilsbury, you know, determined that these wounds were post mortem. And so he's being consistent in terms of that part of his Behavior.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So this is what the autopsy says. Spilsbury says that unlike the previous three victims, he believed that Peggy had been beaten before she was strangled and mutilated. And there are large bruises on the back of her head, on her lower left jaw, on her left shoulder, and on her left knee. And her right temple has a faint bruise, and her shin is lightly bruised in two places.

[Paul Holes]

I would say that that's possibly, you know, the injuries he's inflicting as he's trying to overpower her and she's fighting back, you know, so now he's having to step up the level of violence in order to get her under control. You know, that is more, you know, sort of the. The unpredictable dynamics that these offenders are confronted with and aren't necessarily being expressed as something that they need to do to satisfy their inner compulsions. The cutting on Peggy's body, that's where I'm curious. Are those cuts determined to be post mortem, which would be consistent with the Evelyn Oatley post mortem injuries.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Here it is. The mutilations inflicted on low. On our last victim surpass the savagery, is what Spillsbury is saying. Then those are the murderer. That he had inflicted on Evelyn Oatley. Some of the mutilations on this victim happened while she was alive.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Although very close to death is what. Now, I don't know if Spilsbury is able to determine that or not, but he says she was at the end of her life when he was doing this stuff. But that she felt it.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. You know, and that may be. He may be able to. Spillsbury may be able to come to that conclusion by correlating the wounds with the types of blood patterns on her body or at the crime scene, showing that per his experience, he would expect to see so much bleeding to have occurred. And he doesn't see it. You know, we have. Everybody's heard postmortem after death. And then there's anti mortem before death. But then there's this in between time perimortem, in which the pathologists can say she could have been alive, she could have been dead. She was in the process of dying when these injuries were inflicted. And that's what it sounds like to me. He can't definitively say anti mortem or postmortem. And she was strangled, you said, as well.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Strangled? Yes. Silk stocking knotted so tightly around her neck that it left.

[Paul Holes]

Okay. And for the serial predator that does ligature strangulation, the most common form of ligature is something like the silk stocking or pantyhose. This is the imagery that they would see in their, you know, the true detective magazines back in the day. It is, it is part of their fantasy is to utilize that type of women's garment in order to do the strangulation. Right now I would say with the information that this sounds very consistent with the second case, Evelyn Oatley, he may have applied that stocking and then is now starting to cut through her body and he's experimenting. Why is he using four different knives? You know, so that's, that's just part of him getting up and seeing what he can do with, with, with each type of blade. So he's in the process of, I think, really escalating. You know, this is what he wants to do and he just needs to be able to get these women isolated inside where now he can spend time to do this type of, of crime, this type of mutilation on the women's bodies.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I want to take a quick note and give a lot of props to one of our main sources here. There's an author named Simon Reed, and he wrote a great book called in the The True Story of the Blackout Ripper. And you know, it was a really good source. I always like to really pick out the important ones here. This is the same freaking night that we're talking about now. February 13, 7:30 in Sussex Gardens, there's a constable who gets a call from a man named Henry Zuani. He is very upset because he went to his wife's flat and he was alarmed. Now, before you ask, they were, it sounds like separated and she had her own flat. One of the reasons why they were separated is because she started doing sex work.

[Paul Holes]

Okay.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And he said no. He goes to go see her and there's still a morning milk delivery on the front porch. He goes in the flat because he had a key. There were unwashed dishes in the sink and the bedroom door is locked. And so that's why he calls the constable. And the constable breaks through the exterior bedroom window, climbs in and this is a really bad scene. This is as bad as the others. Okay. This is a woman named Doris. She's 32 and she is lying diagonally across two blood soaked twin beds. There is one silk stocking ligature that's tied around her neck. And there's another one that's kind of draped over her right leg. The left side of her face and her right cheek are scratched. Her left breast is mutilated by a 4 inch long slice. A half inch cut partially separates her left nipple from the underlying breast tissue. Okay. There is a deep five and a half inch gash that travels from her navel to her vagina. Her left groin is wounded by another 6 inch cut. And there is a 3 inch slash that cuts the left side of her vagina. There are two used condoms on the floor. One is empty, one has semen. There's a bloody razor on a table in the corner. There's a cigarette butt and an ashtray. And the bedroom clock is frozen at 8. I don't know if that's significant or not. And there is two spots that are missing on this dusty table. Two objects that apparently somebody took and someone. If Doris had money, it's gone because the purse is essentially empty. And that is that scene.

[Paul Holes]

Any information if these, these incisions to Doris body postmortem.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So Spilsbury. So you want to get right to Spilsbury. Fingerprints, you know, we've got the fingerprint guy trailing behind all of these cases. So we have Spilsbury and the autopsy happens on the 14th on Valentine's Day. The next day, 2:30. He says that the 4 inch slice under Doris left breast is actually the result of two deep knife cuts. The wounds on her left thigh and her breast were inflicted as she lay dying of strangulation. The other wounds were likely made after death. And he finds no semen on or inside of her body. But there's semen in the condom.

[Paul Holes]

Sure, yeah. So it's identical to the previous victims. You know, he's in essence in his mind he has killed Doris. He's put the silk stocking around her neck, tied it tightly. You know, she is literally unconscious. And even though her heart, there may still be some blood pressure as she's laying there. You now he's cutting into her body and. And look where he's focusing the breasts, the genital area. And remember, we did the episode on Black Dahlia. And again, with. With Black Dahlia, you have a true sexual status because he's doing much of that mutilation while she's alive. In this case, this guy is doing it perimortem. In his mind, he may be thinking she's dead. You know, so he's not getting that. He doesn't have that need to hear them scream as he's cutting into them. You know, he's. And fight and, you know, and inflicting that. That type of torture. So. But he is doing that defeminization. And, you know, this is if. If, you know, if these cases were. Were all happening today, these types of behaviors is in part how you can link cases together. You have an offender that is doing sort of, you know, his signature, you know, in essence, postmortem mutilation of the. The female anatomy. So that's where London probably, even though it's a big city, probably has not experienced this type of series in quite some time. You know, so this is where now the investigators are going to go. Well, we all of a sudden have a bunch of women being mutilated, likely going to be the same guy.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. And you stepped right into. My next point was now the media catches onto this because there's four murders and the police are starting to release the details and how gruesome they are. This, of course, reminds everybody of Jack the Ripper, which was, if you do the math, 12, I mean, just 50 something years ago. There are people still alive who remember Jack the Ripper when this is happening. And that's how we get that moniker, the Blackout Ripper. So we are going to. The morning of February 14th, Gordon Cummins is arrested and he is transported to the West End Central Police Station. Within a few hours, that's when the autopsy of Doris will happen. So this is all happening so quickly. I mean, we started the 9th and now we're ending on the 14th. And four murders, two assaults, and then probably a third almost with the sex worker who had the guard standing by. Okay. The detectives look at his quarters in Regent's Park. So there are essentially trinkets everywhere. He's got something that says dj, which is from Doris, his last victim. It's a fountain pen. He has a crumpled shirt and a belt with some red stains on them, which they would assume is blood. And there's sort of like a list I'll tell you about in A little bit of more things. Just know that he collected trinkets from.

[Paul Holes]

It seems like every victim, we call those souvenirs.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You know, you correct me every time, and I always think, I gotta make a note about that. I know trinkets. Okay, you're right. Souvenir. So I will make sure I remember the next time they talked to his wife, Marjorie, who says, this is B.S. none of this is happening. There's no way. His fellow cadets say, this guy is great. He's kind of cocky, he's a little brash, but he's not dangerous. And he's risky is what they say. But as in, like, he'll go out drinking and break curfew when he's not supposed to. And the family. His family says he's never had any kind of violent behavior whatsoever. We know the answer to this. Every time I read a story where the family goes, he would have never or she would have never done this over this. Over this amount of money. And it's like, what is in their head is not what you will think is reasonable. And I would believe anybody could do anything. So there everybody is in disbelief. He doesn't show this kind of character. Right?

[Paul Holes]

Yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. Alibis. This is a lot about logbooks where the airmen are supposed to mark down when they exit, when they leave, you can guess how this goes. You know, they cover for each other, or sometimes they forget it's done in pencil. And you can erase pencil. I mean, none of this works. So his alibis for any of this are not reliable. So on the 16th, they search garbage cans outside of his barracks. And there's a rubber boot soles. The theory was that he discarded them because it was snowing on the first night with Evelyn Hamilton. And there were prints in his kitchen. There is a white metal cigarette case in the cupboard with the initials LW that is with, you know, one of the monikers for one of the women there. So there's just a lot of stuff that when we talk about the victim's families, they say, oh, yeah, Evelyn Oatley sometimes went by Lynn Award. And, you know, there are this. Just this list of stuff that he's picking up. And I know none of that is going to be surprising to you at all, so will you do me a favor and go through what we have on Gordon at this point and whether this would be enough to take to trial today?

[Paul Holes]

Well, I think, you know, first and foremost, you have the gas mask. And the gas mask, I think you said did come back to belonging to Gordon Cummings. It did all right, and that was, you know, dropped at an attack location. You have a living witness who probably gave a description of the man that attacked her. And I'm assuming that description fits Gordon Cummings. You have another living victim, Catherine, who is also going to be able to give a description. And I'm sure that description fits Gordon Cummings. Now, when you get into his residence and are doing a search, you are finding belongings from homicide victims inside his residence. You know, this is all adding up as now it's like, oh, okay, this guy is not only responsible for these, these attacks on these surviving victims, but he is also mutilating these other women that are found in their flats. So, you know, the case is starting to build up. You have a, you described as a very competent latent examiner that is going to these crime scenes and processing the crime scenes, so probably is developing fingerprints and they would possibly have matched some of those fingerprints back to Gordon, you know, and of course today there'd be DNA all over the place, you know, in these, in these cases. But they don't have that. Back in 1942, you know, Gordon makes admissions about the attack on Mary. So he's in his own words, telling law enforcement, yeah, I was with a woman, but I was drunk. I don't remember anything. But that is an admission. So, you know, so the case, this is an easy, easy case. Yes. There is sufficient probable cause in order to be able to charge Gordon with, I think, all the cases, except maybe Evelyn Hamilton, unless they find fingerprints on that flashlight that was, you know, in the trench or by the, you know, air raid shelters. But this is a, you know, right now this is a good case and I think they're going to have more than what you've told me.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let me tell you first what his explanations are. So, you know, they have the, the souvenirs and all of that. But when the detective interviews Cummins, he does not ask for an attorney, which would have been an option. And he says, so he's going to tick through all of his alibis here. He says he spent the whole day on February 8, which is the night that Evelyn Hamilton, the first victim, was supposed to go to dinner with somebody. And he said he spent that whole day with his wife and his sister in law and he went back to his barracks just before 10:00pm I mean, so that's not an alibi. He's saying these things straight out and just saying, here's my explanation. Ticket or leave it. Because he's not staying with his wife. He has to stay at the Barracks. So, you know, maybe he's relying on the sign in, sign, sign out sheet, but on the night of Evelyn Oatley's murder, he and another cadet solicit sex in Piccadilly. But he was too drunk to act on anything is what he says. And I will tell you, that Air Cadet Sampson says, that was B.S. i was not involved in anything like that. I was not with him. You know, all of that.

[Paul Holes]

Gordon's digging himself into his own grave. You know, this is. This is what you want during an interview, is you want him to make, you know, definitive statements like this. I was with so and so. Okay, what. What are the investigators going to do? They're going to go talk to so and so. And quite frankly, you know, it may sound cruel, but you're going to put jeopardy on this. This other person going, you know, this is a homicide investigation. Do you want us to look more closely at you thinking you had involvement? And that guy's going to go, oh, no, it was all Gordon. Right. You know, so when. When he's making that type of definitive statement. That's awesome. Because now law enforcement, they go and they try to corroborate or they try to refute that statement. And now the prosecutors love to put that in front of a jury.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. And he just keeps kind of going with it. I mean, he's admitting to being at the restaurant where Mary was, but. But, you know, he said, I'm sorry. You know, I. I don't remember what happened after that. Same thing with Catherine. I don't remember. I mean, he literally apologized to her. He says, I was soliciting sex. Oftentimes what it seems like he's saying is I was soliciting sex, and I don't remember who that was or, you know, I was too drunk to do anything. He's not flat out. It doesn't seem like he's denying a lot of this stuff. He says that on February 12, which was when Margaret Lowe and Doris were murdered, he was at a military marching parade. He was in, you know, so lots of witnesses. But he said he and a friend ate dinner and drank at this restaurant, and that's where he met Mary. Like I was saying, he had a few more brandies and some whiskey. And then he says they went back to her flat and had sex. Mary's story was that did not happen. We went and had a drink and then went back to the restaurant, and that's when he attacked me. He says, I never went to Peggy Lo's flat. I was never in Sussex. Where Doris was murdered. And he said he might have gone to a flat on Waldorf street where Evelyn oatley lived on February 9th. So he is digging. I mean, I don't know if he's trying to be clever or what he. If he's given up or what's happening, but he has roundabouts admitting that he's, at least in these areas, soliciting, you know, sex workers during some of this time period.

[Paul Holes]

That's a common ploy that suspects use, is that they know they've been out in public, so they have to account for witnesses saying, yeah, you know, Gordon, I saw Gordon over here. You know, so they're. They're having to feed that. And in essence, they are placing themselves. Gordon is placing himself in locations where he's crossing paths with the victims. Now he's trying to say, I was only there doing innocent activities. You know, I'm not the killer. But it's still golden in terms of, you know, building a case that eventually is going to be, you know, thrown. You know, that information is going to be out there in front of the jury. I mean, imagine Mary, you know, being a witness getting on the stand and the prosecutor saying, can you point out the man who was strangling you that night? And she points at Gordon Cummings.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. And I would say this with more evidence. Their fingerprint guy, thank goodness he was there. They match Gordon's fingerprints to fingerprints from Peggy's apartment. The can opener that was the weapon in Evelyn's apartment. There were no usable prints from Doris Place when the milk was left out, and not from Evelyn Hamilton's. And so, you know, they aren't able to get fingerprints in those cases. He's charged with the murders of Evelyn Oatley, the second victim, Peggy and Doris. There's not enough evidence to charge him. In Evelyn Hamilton's case, they had already arrested him for the attack on Mary because that was the connection to the gas mask. So here's the thing that is interesting that happens when you are, you know, kind of going through this. The criminal justice system in the uk, at least in this time period, is you only go on trial for one at a time. If that's. So he's only going to go on trial for one of these murders, and then, you know, it will be a capital case, because the UK didn't abolish the death penalty until my case came along where they thought that the serial killer in my case had sort of framed an innocent man. And so the death penalty is still very much around. It's Hanging. And you know, you've got, so this evidence and you've got now the cadet, air cadet Sampson saying, you know, we did not look at sex workers, we didn't do any of that kind of stuff.

[Paul Holes]

Well, I think, I think that that's an interesting legal process. It's only one case being tried at a time. You know, over here in the United States, there sometimes is a strategy that is similar to that. Instead of charging, you know, the, the defendant with everything that they've done, you hold a couple of cases back in case, let's say he gets acquitted on the cases put that you've, you've charged and prosecuted him for, you still have other cases as backups to go after him on, you know, so I, I don't know if, you know, the English process, the British process is, you know, if there's a such a thing as double jeopardy, that's what we have here in the United States.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, I had learned about this with the first book in the 1952 book, because the supposed wrongful conviction, which I think now people aren't quite sure this was a wrongful conviction. It was a man named Timothy Evans who was first confessed and then arrested and put on trial for the murder of his wife and his baby. And they had both been strangled. He happened to live in a building with a serial killer that nobody knew about who was John Reginald Christie. So what they decided to do with Timothy Evans is they could only put him on trial for one. They went with the little girl's case, Geraldine, because he and his wife had fought so viciously, both of them, that they were afraid that if they charged him and put him on trial for her case, there would be some sort of justifiable self defense homicide, you know, and, and so they felt like they could tie the case better to the little girl. So they had to make those kinds of decisions. I mean, you know, what's the best strategy and all of that and really risking, you know, and he was convicted and he was executed. And then later on when they start digging up bodies in Reallyton Place, that's the discovery is, oh, no. How could a wife murderer live in the same building as a serial killer? That's impossible. No, it's not. In 1952, there were, you know, serial abusers everywhere in that area of London. And so, you know, I don't know. You know, in my book I make a pretty good case for why I think Timothy Evans actually did murder his own wife and child. And her brother, her brother wrote a book and said he did it. It was not a serial killer. He did it. So anyway, and actually that brings up another point. You know, in that book, the wife and the child were strangled. And in the case of John Reginald Christie and the sex workers I told you about and his wife, they were all strangled too. And so that was the. Oh, it's a big connection, but we both know that. I mean, it's the cheapest weapon out there, strangulation, you know, manual strangulation. And so that it just didn't. That didn't surprise me either. I don't think that makes it a strong connection. You know, I don't know. It was a complicated case.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. Well, strangulation is frequently used by predators because they like to feel and be up and close with their victims. Every now and then you run into somebody that prefers to shoot their victims, but that's relatively rare. It's typically going to be strangulation or the use of a knife. They want to feel that. In fact, Samuel Little, he talks about how when he would strangle his victims, he liked to, you know, feel them swallow. That would make them do that swallowing action because. So he could feel their neck and the way that, you know, the, the muscles and everything was moving during that process. These guys are, are weird. And there's a lot of bad guys out there that do this type of thing.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. Well, this might not be done here because Scotland Yard is remembering a couple of other cases from the previous year that they think were probably connected. So this is four months earlier, and I'll just go through these quickly. This is a victim, October 13, six months earlier. Her name was Maple Church and she was found strangled to death in her own lingerie in a bombed out house in Hempstead. And she worked as a clerk by day, and then she worked at a West End canteen at night. She's not a sex worker, but she's in that world at night. She had been strangled by a man who had more power in his left arm than in his right. And I'm assuming it's from bruising, you know, and I don't know if Spilsbury did the autopsy on this. She was partially undressed and slashed in several different places and robbed. Okay, so there's that one. And then there's a woman named Edith Humphries, which happened a few days after that. She was 48. She was a fire station cook. She was strangled and beaten in her Regent's park home, which is where he lived. Also. Her skull was fractured, her jaw was broken. There was a Stab wound that penetrated her brain after manual strangulation failed to kill her. Her throat was slit. And they say left handed killer also. So they're just saying, you know, that this is two other cases that could belong to him. He doesn't go on trial for these though.

[Paul Holes]

No, and I mean entirely possible that, you know, Cummings is, is responsible. I just having my own experiences trying to, you know, tie a known serial killer to other unsolved cases only to discover, no, there's other serial killers working in the same area at the same time doing the same thing. You know, that's. So that's where I'd give a little bit of pause, you know, to those, those earlier cases. Just saying there's a possibility it could be somebody else. I'm not liking the whole, oh, it's somebody who's left handed, you know, and I. If they're seeing some sort of something consistent in terms of the bruising on the neck, that may have more to do with how the offender is actually doing the strangulation than what his handedness is.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So to wrap this up, he goes on trial for Evelyn Oatley, the second victim, the end of April. So this is quick, this is two months after all of this starts. There's a little bit of a delay. The jury saw an incorrect display so they had to dissam, they had to disassemble this jury and get another one. So the basic case, you know, for the prosecutor, you can imagine we found all of these souvenirs. We have witnesses. He doesn't have a good alibi anywhere. You know, there's like a litany of things. The defense attorney attacked the fingerprints and said, so this is bad fingerprint evidence. This is pattern matching, which we've talked about before. It's subjective. It's not sticking into a computer like we might today. It's subjective. This guy is wrong. He takes the stand. I have no idea why, but when he's cross examined, he says that he lied about his alibi the night of Evelyn Oatley's murder. And you know, because the log books were found to be wrong, he says that he was intimidated by the police to confess. The jury doesn't believe it and he is found guilty after 35 minutes of Evelyn Oatley's murder. And he is given the death penalty. And by June he is dead, hanged.

[Paul Holes]

That's swift justice.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

There it is. Nobody wants to mess around. So, I mean, what a story. And this is a, this is a. There are documentaries that have been made about this story. It is A lot about, like, the vulnerability of these women taking this strange man back to their flat and, you know, just being so vulnerable. And then, of course, you know, if you're looking at Gordon Cummings and what he did to these women, we don't know much about him. And that's okay with me.

[Paul Holes]

You know, I think what, what strikes me about Gordon Cummings and, and these cases is the, the frequency, you know, that, that really stands out now. The, you know, the mutilation of the, of the victims. You know, of course it's a, it's a horrific crime, but this is not unique to Cummings, you know, and this is having worked to these types of cases now for over 30 years. You know, this is where I, I have taught at classes where there are women that are looking for, you know, tips on how to keep themselves safe. And yeah, I tell them, you have to understand that there are men out there who are hunting you, you are prey, and you need to, you know, protect yourselves as, as much as you possibly can. And what you read about in the media about what happens to victims of predators, it is so sanitized. You do not want to be a victim of these types of predators because it is, it can be horrific. It absolutely can be. So Cummings, you know, this whole, you know, the Blackout Ripper, you know, it's Jack the Ripper. You know, there's a certain almost a salacious aspect to that type of moniker, but because of what he was doing to the victims, it is very, very much in line with the Jack the Ripper and what he was doing to the sex workers. I can't remember exactly everything Jack the Ripper did, but he is mutilating these women's probably after death. And that's where it's very different than a sexual sadist who is torturing women before he kills them.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, I mean, this definitely reminded me, in a very bad way of Black Dahlia, because that was such a hard case for you and I to talk about. So. Yeah, I mean, interesting case. I always am excited to talk about cases about really vulnerable groups of which we know sex workers are part of that group, and also talk about the circumstances that these women were in this particular time period. A lot of them would not have been this vulnerable had they not lost, you know, husbands. And not a lot of people really just didn't feel like they had another option. And that's what I learned. So. So next week, no serial killers, I hope. Oh, maybe we'll have a. I don't know. Who knows? We don't know. It's all. I don't even know.

[Paul Holes]

You always keep me on my to, so I just. I'll just sit back and wait to hear what the details on the next case are.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Wait to hear what I hit you with. Okay, Paul, well, I will see you next week.

[Paul Holes]

Awesome. Thanks Kate.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Paul Holes]

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com buriedbones sources our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi, research by Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

[Paul Holes]

Our theme song is by Tom Breyvogel.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac, executive

[Paul Holes]

produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook buriedbonespod.

[Paul Holes]

Kate's most recent book, all that Is Wicked A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind is available now.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And Paul's best selling memoir, Unmasked My Life Solving America's Cold Cases is also available now.

[Paul Holes]

Listen to Barry bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Martha Stewart]

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[Paul Holes]

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[Martha Stewart]

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[Paul Holes]

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[Paul Holes]

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