SERIAL killer “Jack the Stripper” may finally have his identity revealed as one of his six victim’s sons has said he knows who did it.
It is one of the UK’s most chilling unsolved serial killer cases and it left half a dozen sex workers dead, dumped stripped of their clothes across west London.
6
6
6
As evidence increasingly points towards a single suspect, a child of one of the victims has urgently pleaded the Metropolitan Police to re-investigate the cold case.
Frances Brown was found dead and stripped naked in a Kensington car park on 25 November, 1964.
Her son, Frank, can’t remember a time when his mum’s murder did not dominate his life as he was just six months old when she was killed.
He feels the victims’ families have been robbed of justice and that one suspect is undoubtedly the killer.
Frank told MailOnline that he’d always wanted to find out what had happened to his mum but that conversations surrounding the case had only recently opened up.
He added that while previously he used to accept the view of the police and found it easier to do so, he wants the force to look at the case again as the “families deserve it.”
Frank’s mum was one of six sex workers murdered over a two-year period in the 1960s in what became known as the Hammersmith nude murders.
Despite being led by Scotland Yard chief superintendent John Du Rose, nicknamed “five day John” due to his perceived ability to solve murders in just five days, the murder case eventually went cold.
But for Frank, he believes he knows the identity of the killer for sure, claiming he was “100 per cent convinced” the murderer was Harold Jones.
Jones, of Abertillery, Wales, had been convicted for the murder of two young girls in the 1920s.
He was aged just 15 when he killed 8-year-old Freda Burnell, although he was later acquitted due to limited evidence.
But just two months later, he lured 11-year-old Florence Little to his parents’ home before hitting her over the head with a piece of wood, slitting her throat, and hiding her body in the attic.
After pleading guilty, he was sent to Wandsworth Prison where he also admitted to the murder of Freda before being later released in 1941 aged 35.
Jones’ involvement in the Hammersmith murders case was looked into in a 2019 BBC documentary Dark Son: The Hunt For A Serial Killer.
David Wilson, a criminology professor at Birmingham University, led the investigation which found many similarities between Jones and Jack the Stripper.
They also found he had been living under the name of Harry Stevens, with links to an industrial estate where police believed the bodies had been kept before being discarded in the River Thames.
This evidence led them to seek a cold case review from the Met, citing Jones as the prime suspect, although the families are still no closer to confirmation more than five years later.
‘TERRIBLY DARK SECRET’
Jack the Stripper’s first murder victim is generally believed to have been Hannah Tailford, 30, who was found dead by the River Thames in Hammersmith in February 1964.
On April 8, Irene Lockwood was found completely naked slightly further up the riverbank in Chiswick – she had been pregnant at the time.
16 days after that, Scottish-born Helen Barthelemy was found dead in a Brentford alleyway.
May Fleming’s body was discovered outside a garage forecourt in Chiswick in July.
Frances Brown was found in November in a Kensington car park, after last being seen alive by a fellow sex worker getting into a client’s car in October.
The final victim, Bridget O’Hara, was found dead near a storage shed behind the Heron Trading Estate in Acton in February, 1965, after being declared missing since January.
Both Bridget and Helen’s bodies were found with flecks of industrial paint, with the latter’s also showing signs of being stored in a warm environment.
Two earlier murders have also been linked by some investigators to Jack the Stripper.
Elizabeth Figg was found dead on 17 June 1959 in Duke’s Meadows, Chiswick, close to the River Thames – at the time the area was known for being frequented by prostitutes.
Gwynneth Rees’ almost entirely naked body was also discovered on 8 November 1963 on Townmead Road, Mortlake, in a household refuse disposal site.
Harold Jones’ daughter, who anonymously spoke in the 2019 documentary and was completely unaware of her father’s past, described him as “an unassuming family man” who kept a “terribly dark secret” until his death.
A spokesperson from the Metropolitan Police said: “While no unsolved murder investigation is closed, there are currently no active lines of enquiry in relation to these murders.
“If anyone has fresh information that they believe could assist police, they are asked to call 101 or make contact via our website.”
6
6
6
