Jack the Stripper Victims

Case background and investigation

The Hammersmith nude murders were a series of six killings of women in west London in 1964 and 1965, according to Wikipedia. The victims, who worked as prostitutes, were found undressed, and the press gave the unidentified killer the name Jack the Stripper. Wikipedia and the Chiswick Herald list the six generally accepted victims as Hannah Tailford, Irene Lockwood, Helen Barthelemy, Mary Fleming, Frances Brown and Bridget O'Hara. Most were in their twenties or about 30; published ages vary slightly between sources.

Hannah Tailford's body was found on the Thames foreshore near Hammersmith Bridge on February 2, 1964, and Irene Lockwood's on the shore at Duke's Meadows, Chiswick, on April 8, 1964, according to Wikipedia and the Chiswick Herald. Helen Barthelemy was found in an alley in Brentford on April 24, 1964, and Mary Fleming in Berrymede Road, Chiswick, on July 14, 1964. Frances Brown, who also used the name Margaret McGowan according to Crime and Investigation, was found in a car park off Hornton Street, Kensington, on November 25, 1964. Bridget O'Hara was found on the Heron Trading Estate in Acton on February 16, 1965.

Most of the women had been strangled, according to the Chiswick Herald and Crime and Investigation. Crime and Investigation reports that investigators found tiny flecks of paint on several of the later victims and that the condition of Bridget O'Hara's body suggested it had been kept somewhere warm before it was left on the estate. Wikipedia notes that two earlier deaths, those of Elizabeth Figg in 1959 and Gwynneth Rees in 1963, are sometimes linked to the series, but they are not counted among the confirmed six.

Detective Chief Superintendent John du Rose of Scotland Yard led the investigation, which Wikipedia and the Chiswick Herald say involved interviewing roughly 7,000 people. Crime and Investigation reports that the paint evidence led detectives to the Heron Trading Estate and that du Rose publicly suggested his list of suspects had been narrowed down. After the O'Hara killing the murders stopped.

No one was ever charged. According to Wikipedia, du Rose later said he believed the killer was a security guard who had worked on the estate and who, according to Crime and Investigation, took his own life before he could be questioned; that man was never charged or tried, and other writers have put forward different theories. Wikipedia reports that much of the forensic evidence has since been lost or destroyed, and the case remains officially unsolved.