Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways

by Oates, Jonathan

  Although she had hoped to take the 4 pm fast train to Gatwick, she just missed it. Instead, she took the stopping service to Victoria. This left at 4.06 pm. It was a three-unit electric car, with two carriages to each unit. Frederick Horton, a ticket collector, recalled her boarding it and sitting in a compartment in the first carriage behind the engine. Once ensconced in the compartment she sat with her back to the engine and began to read. At 4.30, the train stopped at Littlehampton and Albert Isaac, the new driver, saw her there. The next stop was Horsham and Mary Bishop recalled seeing her alone there at 5.07 pm. The train left at 5.12.

  So far, her journey had been entirely predictable and ordinary. Mary Bishop sat in the compartment behind Patricia’s. She later recalled, ‘During the journey, my attention was drawn to something happening on the train. I heard a muffled scream and a thud carry from behind where I was sitting.’

  At 5.33, and after several more stops, the train was at platform 2 of Gatwick Airport station. Frederick Manwell, motorman, got out of the train and saw that all was not well. Along with Joseph Quigley, a porter, they entered Patricia’s compartment. They could see her lying there, but did not suspect what had really happened at first. Manwell later explained, ‘I went across to give assistance and I lifted her and then discovered blood under her head. She was lying on the same side of the coach as the girl had been sitting that I saw at Horsham’. He called the station foreman and Quigley stood by the compartment door as all the train’s passengers were required to leave the unit, which was shunted away, and they were asked to board the rest of the train, which proceeded to Victoria. The police and a doctor were called.

  That evening, Leslie Ward had the unenviable task of officially identifying his daughter’s corpse at Redhill Hospital. It was not a pleasant sight. Dr Basil Raeburn made out the death certificate. On the following day, Dr Arthur Mark, a Harley Street pathologist, examined the body and found bruises and a number of stab wounds, one to the neck and others to the left side of the chest. One of the latter had been fatal, having pierced a lung and then the heart. There was also a wound to the back of the left hand, probably where the victim had tried to defend herself. All these injuries had been caused by a knife and they had not been self-inflicted.

  Patricia’s belongings were found scattered over the next few days. PC John Bevan found a lady’s leather purse at the Three Bridges railway station at 8.45. John Davey, a schoolboy, found a handbag in River Mole Wood, not far away. Timothy Maslem found Patricia’s medical card a mile from the same station. It was presumed that the killer left the train at this station, which is between Horsham and Gatwick.

  Yet there were few clues to the killer’s identity. No one saw anyone leave or enter the compartment. Although there was plenty of bloodstains, the only fingerprints were those of the victim. Nor could any weapon be located at the scene. The motive was obscure, too, because no one was known to have a grudge against Patricia. Her former husband was safely accounted for, and in any case, the divorce had been reasonably amicable and they had not seen each other since. Although the victim’s clothes had been disarranged and her knickers had been tugged at, there was no sign of any sexual interference or attempt at the same. She did not have much money on her – perhaps about £2 at the most. His identity was obscure. A nurse did see a man later that evening (at about 6.30 pm) at Brighton station with a bandaged hand, but this man could not be traced. Another witness, Ernest Tallintyre, saw a man with light brown hair in the same compartment as the victim, but could provide no further information.

  Detective Superintendent John Place was put in charge of the case. He appealed to anyone who had been at Three Bridges station that evening to come forward with any relevant information. WPS Pamela Lopez was dressed as Miss Woolard on 7 September and took the same route in order to try and jog people’s memories. An identikit picture of the wanted man, based on the description of the man with the bandaged hand at Brighton, was shown on television on the following day. There were 80 reports of sightings of such a man. In the next few months, police spoke to 15,000 people.

  Mrs Gale was questioned. She said that Patricia ‘did not mention any other person, either that she was going to meet, or whom she had seen. Miss Woolard never mentioned any men friends.’ She added, ‘She was looking particularly attractive and seemed very happy.’ Her husband was also questioned. He said, ‘Patricia was generally a clean living girl, both physically and morally and was fairly reserved, and in my opinion, is not the sort of girl who would invite the attention of men friends.’

  Earlier that evening, in a house on Clymping Road, Ifield, Sussex, between 5.50 and 5.55, one Michael Robert Stephen Gills, a 32-year-old labourer, arrived home. Roger Boseley-Yemm, who was engaged to his step-daughter, was in the house and recalled, ‘I noticed he had a spot of blood on his vest. He put the shirt to soak in water, and I knew he washed his vest.’ He said he felt unwell. On the following day, the two men read about the murder in their morning newspaper. Yemm said that Gill did not talk about it.

  Next day, Detective Inspector Basil Morris called at the house. He wanted to talk to Gills. Why was this? It was not that there was any evidence to link Gills, or indeed, anyone, to the crime. However, Gills was a known criminal and it is routine police work to check up on anyone of this type in the locality of a major crime (Ifield is only a bus ride away from the Three Bridges station, where the killer presumably alighted).

  Gills’s background was not a happy one. Born in Poplar on 27 October 1933, he had got on well with his father, a docker and once regular soldier. But his father died when he was 6 and his mother remarried within a year. Gills suffered from nightmares, nail biting and bed wetting. Relations between mother and son were poor. Evacuation to Banbury in 1939 proved traumatic for the young lad and he turned to petty crime, stealing a bicycle when he was 10. From then on, his life was one of crime, imprisonment (eight short terms from six months to two years) and short spells of employment. Most of his crimes were theft and burglary. However, a spell in Borstal showed that he was not averse to threatening others with a knife. He was deemed hardworking, but moody, with a violent temper and capable of injuring anyone who obstructed him. His jobs included a spell in the Royal Artillery from 1951 to 1954, but he was discharged in Egypt for lack of discipline and was uninterested in military matters. He also worked in mills and factories, as a porter, labourer, lorry driver and machine operator, but his time keeping was poor and gaol sentences tended to terminate his legitimate employment.

  Gills’s relations with women were mixed. He was very bitter towards his mother, who, he claimed, had disowned him at 13. However, he married one Catherine Amelia in October 1962, and he treated her like a surrogate mother (she was ten years his senior). He lived with her and her daughter, Elaine Brooke. Their life seemed normal enough and in 1965 she was pregnant.

  From 1963, his crimes changed in character. Hitherto they had not been against the person. Now he began to assault women. One attack was on Jean Plaisted at Bognor on 14 July 1965; she had been pushed to the ground and threatened with a knife. The attacker ran off in the direction of the caravan park (Gills and family were holidaying there). Indeed, when the police questioned him in September 1965, he was actually on bail pending a court hearing for an assault on a woman at Crawley (and had in fact only been released from prison in July 1965). His probation officer referred to him as ‘basically an inadequate and immature person, strongly dependent on support and approval’. Dr Neustatter labelled him ‘an aggressive psychopath with paranoid tendencies’. He had also changed in outward behaviour – up to 1963 he was swaggering and aggressive, afterwards he was nervous and quiet in appearance.

  It was alleged that Gills was not at work on the day of the murder, but he denied this. He said, ‘I was there. I was at the back of the works all the time because I didn’t feel well.’ He also said he had injured his hand that day at work, but there was no evidence that that had happened there. The police also saw him later that month. They tri
ed to ascertain his movements on the day of the murder. It soon emerged that, despite his vagueness and prevarications, he had not been at work that afternoon. Gills tried to pretend he had been in the paint room, hence no one seeing him. Yet the room was locked and a colleague said, ‘There is over £1000 worth of paint in here. I keep it locked all the time except when I was in there.’ A policeman concluded, ‘I understand now that you say you were not at work after all, but went down to Brighton station.’

  Apparently he had caught a train to Brighton in order to see the film, Fanny Hill. Unable to view it, because it would mean returning home late and his wife would worry, he walked around town and had some cups of tea. Returning to the station, he met an old work friend of his, an Italian whom he called ‘Poppa’, and whose real name was Orlando Lazzaro. The two men lived near to one another and so they caught a train just before 4 pm from Brighton and later changed at Three Bridges for Crawley. The two then parted and Gills took a bus home. The police searched his home, but could find nothing incriminating, and had his clothes sent to the police laboratory. Nothing conclusive could be found. There was no evidence he was ever on the same train as Patricia, as no one saw him either enter or leave. There was certainly nothing that they could charge him with this time. In any case, he was soon found guilty of the Bognor assault and given two years in gaol.

  The inquest was held at Reigate on 14 January 1966. The verdict was murder by person or persons unknown. It looked as if this would be another unsolved murder.

  However, in June 1966, events took a dramatic turn. Gills contacted the investigating officers and asked that they visit him. They did on 6 June and he told them what had happened. Gills explained that he had left work on 3 September at 12.45, collecting his wages as he did so. He had taken a bus to Crawley and then a train to Brighton as already stated. Whilst there, he purchased a sheath knife with a six inch blade, ‘because I intended to use it on a bloke whom I had some trouble with whilst in Wandsworth’. After having missed the film at the Continental as already mentioned, he went back to the railway station. He met his Italian acquaintance and they caught the 3.58 train from Brighton. They changed at Crawley station and took a train to Three Bridges, where both alighted (at 4.38), but instead of going home from there, Gills went to the other platform and took a train (at 4.42) back to Horsham, arriving there at 4.56. He then waited for the train to Victoria.

  When the train arrived, he went along the platform, looking into the compartments. He caught a glimpse of Patricia. According to him:

  In there was a young woman. She was sitting by a big basket, in the corner near the door. I sat in the corner on the opposite side. She was wearing a white coat, a dress, the colour of which I can’t remember. She was aged about 26–30 years and attractive looking. She also had with her an off white attaché case and a handbag. During the journey she was reading a book. Whilst reading it, she kept looking up now and again and it seemed like she was looking at me. It seemed that I was onto a good thing, so I then moved up the seat and sat opposite her. Nothing was said until we got to Faygate, when I asked her ‘What about it?’ at which she sort of snubbed me, and turned her nose up in the air. All along she had been showing plenty of leg, and did not bother to cover them up. At this I got annoyed because in my earlier life I had been, at 13 years old, disowned by my own mother, and had been snubbed and not treated fairly by other women. They had treated me as though I had something wrong with me, or that I was a ‘leper’. And all the bitter hate and resentment that I had for women came to a head. Then I asked her something again, the exact words I cannot remember. She put the book down, looked straight at me and answered back. Here again, I cannot remember what was said, but I know it was not a very nice reply. At this I stood up in front of her. She said, ‘Go away. Leave me alone or I will pull the cord and report you to the police.’ I then grabbed hold of her to stop her pulling the cord. We struggled for a short while, at which she gave a short scream. I then pulled out the knife and stabbed her twice on the left side. Where exactly I do not know as she was twisting and turning. She was then sitting down when this happened. She screamed again. A lot louder this time. I know that at this point I had gone past the point of no return. I do not remember what happened between this and stabbing her in the throat. She fell to the floor, I tried to push her under the seat.

  Gills then got off at the next station, the Three Bridges (at about 5.30), taking her handbag and the attaché case. He washed himself at the toilet at the station platform. He hid the purse there and then, on leaving, threw the case and the handbag into the stream. He caught a bus to Langley Green and went home; the newspaper in which he had wrapped the knife was left on the bus. He hid the knife among old paintbrushes at home. Eventually he broke up the knife and hid its parts in bushes not far from his home.

  He concluded his statement thus:

  I know it is rather late to say I am sorry, but I never had any intention in the first place of committing this crime. Whilst this is a serious crime, things did get out of my control. For which I am heartily and truly sorry for I am not trying to put all the blame on the woman, but if she had not led me on I would never have got into the situation which I did. I would like to say once again that I am very sorry for. Especially to her parents.

  There was some question as to what he thought about women in general.

  Gills stated ‘You know I have never had a fair deal from a woman except my wife. Even my own mother threw me out when I was only 13 and she didn’t want to know me.’ Chief Inspector Stothard asked him, ‘Do you hate women?’ Gills replied, ‘I do them that snub me and stick their noses up in the air.’ Stothard then asked, ‘Did you travel on the train where the murder was committed?’ Gills answered, ‘You know I did.’

  One possibility, of course, was that this confession was a tissue of lies, based on reading newspaper reports and with the intention of gaining a little cheap notoriety. Prisoners do make such false confessions. Yet the police did not think this was the case, for a number of reasons. First, an examination of bus and train times showed that Gills’s journey as he described it was perfectly possible. Secondly, Gills stated that Patricia was reading a book, a fact not stated in the press. Thirdly his approach to Patricia was said to have occurred at Faygate and that agreed with Mrs Bishop’s statement. Fourthly, Gills said he struck her on the hand, and that he stabbed her in the throat with a knife – the press did not mention the cut to the hand and had said that her throat had been cut. There were no inconsistencies in his story. Finally, the location of Patricia’s belongings was where he stated.

  There was some question over Gills’s mental state. Dr Lotinya was senior medical officer at Wandsworth prison. He assessed Gills as ‘emotionally an unstable person, abnormally impulsive and egocentric, who is unable to learn from experience and who, having failed to develop normal moral and social standards, cannot conform to accepted social usage’. He thought that Gills was fit to plead, but that his abnormal mind had substantially impaired his mental responsibility at the time of the offence. Gills was tried at the Surrey Assizes held at Kingston upon Thames on 27 October. He pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter. Although cleared of murder, he was found guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. The judge admitted, ‘your mind was greatly disturbed by mental troubles’. His sentence was 15 years, to run concurrently with his existing two-year sentence for assault.

  Gills was an unpleasant character and it was Patricia’s fatal misfortune to meet him – entirely by chance – on the Gatwick train. Once Gills was in the same compartment as her, or probably almost any young woman, the outcome was probably inevitable. Perhaps the only fortunate aspect to this case is that Gills confessed in the following year, because had he not done so, this murder would almost certainly have remained unsolved. If that had been the case, perhaps Gills would have killed again.

  21

  Other Railway Crimes, 1897–2008

  The railway crimes already recoun
ted are not the only ones in British crime history. There have been many more and it is impossible to cover them all in much details. Here is a synopsis of some of them.

  The first female victim, 1897

  Elizabeth Camp was aged 33, and planned to marry Edward Berry, a Walworth fruiterer. She worked in the Good Intent Tavern, on East Street, Walworth. She was deemed a reliable employee and seemed a very ordinary young woman. That is, until Thursday 1 February 1897.

  She spent the afternoon of her day off in Hammersmith and then Hounslow, with her two married sisters. On entering a second class carriage at Hounslow station at 7.42 that evening, her sister warned her that ‘the third class is safer for women’. Ignoring this well-meant advice, Elizabeth travelled on this stopping service to Waterloo, in order to meet her fiancé.