The only KILLER hanged during an air raid
He was a wartime RAF man and a sexual sadist who murdered four women, and it was his fate to become...
When he was sentenced to hang at the Old Bailey for slaying evelyn Oatley, Gordon Cummins made just one column in the Mail — despite three more murder charges left to lie on file and police admitting two other women had died at his hands.
That’s because his killing spree, as horrific as that of Jack the Ripper, happened in 1942 when Britain was at war. his trial took place the same week that Singapore fell to the Japanese and two German battleships forced their way down the Straits of Dover, shooting down 15 RAF bombers and 17 fighter aircraft.
The country did not have the luxury of dwelling on an atrocity on the home front, however grim.
The Mail report of his trial, perhaps understandably, brushed over some of the grislier details. Its headline: ‘he Slew Four Women For £50’, explained that his ‘motive was money’. his motives, in fact, were far more sinister and his murders brutally sadistic. Gordon Cummins, an RAF leading aircraftman, was a sexual sadist, whose perverted killing spree took place over just six days in London.
Although the Blitz was over in the capital by Sunday, February 8, the blackout was still in force.That morning, Chief Superintendent Frederick Cherrill was called to an air raid shelter in Marylebone, where the body of pharmacist evelyn hamilton, 40, lay slumped.
her handbag was missing, along with £20, and she’d been strangled. her clothes were torn, but police thought this was due to a struggle rather than any sexual assault. Cherrill, a fingerprint expert, noted that the killer was left-handed from the bruises on her neck.
Barely 24 hours after the discovery of hamilton’s body, another victim emerged. This time the motive was far clearer. Found by two meter readers after being let into a Soho flat, the body of 35-year-old evelyn Oatley was a horrifying sight.
She had not only been strangled but so viciously mutilated that her injuries shocked experienced investigating officers.
evelyn was an actress from Lancashire pursuing her dream in the West end. her stage career never really took off and she sometimes took in men, partly to pay the bills but mostly for comfort during air raids. She favoured older gentlemen, whom she believed were less likely to be violent.
For some reason, she changed her usual rule and agreed to sleep with 27-year-old Cummins. It was a fatal error of judgment.
There was nothing to link the murders until Cherrill noticed a fingerprint on a can opener from a left-handed man. he knew then there was just one killer at work.
he and Chief Inspector edward Greeno of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, who had taken charge of the case, knew they had to act fast before he struck again.
Their hunch proved tragically correct. Just 24 hours later Cummins attacked once more.
he picked up Margaret Lowe, known as Pearl, 42, in Paddington. neighbours called her ‘The Lady’, due to her refined manners. It was believed she had turned to prostitution to pay her daughter’s school fees.
Cummins strangled her with her silk stockings and mutilated her body in her flat.
Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the pathologist examining the body when it was discovered 24 hours later, commented that the injuries were ‘quite dreadful’ and that the murderer was ‘ a savage sexual maniac’.
After the killing, Cummins let himself out quietly and returned to his shared RAF billet in St John’s Wood.
he had only just arrived in London to undergo medicals before being posted for training elsewhere.
his fellow crewmen had no idea they were sharing their quarters with a sadistic murderer.
Their only complaint against Cummins was that he was a bit pretentious. he claimed he was ‘The hon Gordon Cummins’ and affected an upper-class drawl. ‘he liked to weave mystery about his birth,’ reported the Mail during his trial, ‘and pretend he was the illegitimate son of a peer.’
He ALSO bragged of sexual conquests, despite having an adoring young wife, Marjorie, whom he had married three years before war broke out. While it was common for married servicemen to be unfaithful, especially when posted to London, Cummins’ lusts were violently abnormal. By now, he had killed three women over three nights, though only the bodies of his first two victims had been discovered at this point.
There was then a brief pause in his attacks, because Cummins was on night duty and confined to barracks. The very next evening, February 12, however, he went on the prowl.
First he bought drinks for Mary heywood, 32. he propositioned her, thrusting £30 (£1,000 today) on to the table, but she told him she was not that kind of girl.
But she did go outside with him. he pulled her into a doorway, kissed her and tried to put his hands up her skirt. When she said ‘stop’, he placed his hands around her neck and began to squeeze.
As she fell unconscious to the ground, a torchlight shone into the doorway: a passing night porter had noticed. Cummins ran off but in his hurry he dropped his gas mask, with his RAF number 525987 printed on the side.
Still desperate to sate his perverted desires, Cummins continued cruising the streets and found prostitute Catherine Mulcahy.
he tried to strangle her but she had kept her boots on. With a kick to his stomach she got him off, screaming ‘Murder!’ Cummins fled, throwing £5 at her. But that was not the end.
In Paddington he met Doris Jouannet, a bored housewife who picked up men as much for diversion as for cash. She didn’t man
age to fight him off off. He strangled her with her silk stockings.
The next morning, Doris’s husband returned and found the bedroom door locked. When police broke it down, Doris’s butchered body was revealed. About the same time, Pearl Lowe’s body was found.
By now the Press had got wind of the murders and began writing about ‘The Blackout Killer’. The police moved fast.
Thanks to Cherrill’s fingerprint expertise, the eyewitness accounts of Mary Heywood and Catherine Mulcahy, and the dropped gas mask, it didn’t take long to track Cummins down.
He denied everything, claiming another man had borrowed his gas mask. But a jury took just 35 minutes to find him guilty.
He went to the gallows protesting his innocence, even enlisting the Archbishop of Canterbury to back an appeal.
He was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s most famous hangman, in Wandsworth Prison, the only man to be hanged during an air raid.