Unsolved London Murders by Jonathan Oates

Author:Jonathan Oates
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: TRU000000: TRUE CRIME / General
ISBN: 9781783037209
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2009-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Did Frederick Field Kill Annie Upchurch? 1931

There was no doubt that this case was going to be a bit of a stinker.

As Spilsbury’s first biographer noted, ‘The 1930’s are particularly rich in notorious cases from the seamy side of life in the West End.’ Although the murder discussed here was officially unsolved, there is a strong possibility that the killer was known.

Frederick H L Field, aged 27 and born in Tenterden, Kent, in 1903, was employed as a sign writer by Messrs Hilder & Co., sign contractors of Great Pulteney Street. He was a married man and lived in Sutton. He and his manager, Douglas W L Bartrum, went, on 2 October 1931, to an empty shop premises on Shaftesbury Avenue. They needed to gain access to the place in order to carry out some repairs to water pipes in the flat above. Unfortunately they did not have the keys and the place was locked. However, they were able to force open a wooden door at the rear of the premises on New Compton Street.

Bartrum saw something on the passageway floor and later remarked, ‘It looked like a wax model’. His colleague thought that it looked more like a corpse, which indeed was the case. Bartrum told Field to fetch the police, which he duly did. Field found PS Ferridge on duty at Bloomsbury Street and told him, ‘Sergeant, will you come round the corner? There’s a woman in a shop, and I think she is dead.’ Senior officers were soon being assembled and Chief Inspector Sharpe, who was getting ready to go on holiday to the seaside, rang Superintendent George Cornish and demanded his presence at Shaftesbury Avenue. He recalled: ‘Well, the hunt had started when I got there.’

The body was that of a partially unclothed unknown young woman. She was wearing a green dress, which had been provided by a firm in Bear Street, Leicester Square, and which had been pulled up behind her head. Her silk jumper had been used as a gag. Her watch had stopped at 8.20. From marks on the floor, it seemed that she had been dragged along by the feet for some yards to her present position. Her cloth belt had been used to strangle her. A woman’s hat lay under her corpse. Her handbag was missing and there was no sign of the keys to the premises. It was presumed that robbery was the motive, especially after it was stated by Mary Davis, housekeeper at the deceased’s lodgings, that she had had £4 in her handbag, as well as a ring and a cigarette case.

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