A former Sun crime reporter claims boxer Freddie Mills (above) was ‘Jack the Stripper’, who killed six women in London during the 1960s
The murders of six young women, whose strangled, naked bodies were dumped on wasteground in west London, horrified 1960s Britain.
The serial killer, dubbed Jack the Stripper, was never found, but now a journalist claims he has compelling evidence it was British world champion boxer-turned-actor Freddie Mills, who was a Freemason.
He believes that Mills admitted his guilt to the Scotland Yard detective – and fellow Freemason – in charge of the investigation.
Former Sun crime reporter Michael Litchfield advances his theory in a compelling new book. Below is a preview of The Secret Life Of Freddie Mills.
The first body, that of 30-year-old Hannah Tailford, was found by the River Thames at Hammersmith in February 1964.
Hannah, who had been strangled, was left with several teeth missing and the underwear she had been wearing wedged down her throat.
This grim discovery sparked a string of similar cases. Five more women, all prostitutes, who were throttled and dumped on the Thames foreshore.
The sadistic killer, who knocked the women’s teeth out while they were still alive and in many cases sexually assaulted them, has never been brought to justice.
The first body, that of 30-year-old Hannah Tailford (left), was found by the River Thames at Hammersmith in February 1964. Irene Lockwood (right), 25, was found in April on the same stretch of riverbank where Hannah’s corpse had been dumped
Several weeks later, passers-by came across the body of 22-year-old Helen Barthelemy (left) in an alley. In July, just up the river at Chiswick, the remains of Mary Fleming, 30, were found in a garage forecourt. The corpse of a fifth victim, Frances Brown (right), 21, was discovered in Kensington during November the same year
But former Sun crime reporter Michael Litchfield says he has identified the fiend responsible, alleging the murderer was Freddie Mills, a British world champion boxer.
Litchfield’s sensational claim is that Mills admitted his guilt to the detective in charge of the probe before having himself assassinated by the Kray twins to escape justice.
Bournemouth-born Mills had been a suspect in the Metropolitan Police investigation into the so-called Hammersmith Nude Murders, but his guilt was never proved.
Any hope of gaining a confession for the killings appeared to disappear when he was found shot dead by the wheel of his car in an apparent suicide.
Officers discovered the corpse of Bridget ‘Bridie’ O’Hara near an industrial estate in Acton
But we will return to that later.
Long before the boxer became a subject of interest to the police investigation, the second body appeared.
Irene Lockwood, 25, was found in April on the same stretch of riverbank where Hannah’s corpse had been dumped.
Several weeks later, passers-by came across the body of 22-year-old Helen Barthelemy in an alley. She had been strangled just like the previous two victims.
Then, in July, just up the river at Chiswick, the remains of 30-year-old Mary Fleming were found in a garage forecourt.
The corpse of a fifth victim, Frances Brown, 21, was discovered in Kensington during November the same year.
With five women all killed by strangulation, and all left naked in the same manner, it was now clear police were hunting a serial killer.
By this point, police were investigating hundreds of potential suspects, but officers had never considered Mills as a suspect.
This map shows where some of the known victims’ bodies were found – highlighting their geographical proximity. The bodies of two other women, Gwyneth Rees and Elizabeth Figg, were also found in the area
And there appeared to be no reason why they should suspect anything.
Mills, a former milkman, was a widely respected public figure, admired as a model of sporting prowess after taking the boxing world title in July 1948.
This led to a lucrative career on the celebrity circuit, which saw him present BBC music show Six-Five Special and star in numerous films.
The scene by the River Thames in Hammersmith where Hannah Tailford’s body was found
But detectives were beginning to look beyond his public persona as a national sporting hero to find a far more seedy character.
It was becoming clear that Mills had regularly dabbled in the darker underside of London life.
The registration number of the boxer’s Citroen Cadillac had been logged several times in the red-light districts of west London.
More worryingly, prostitutes were handing in reports to police that Mills had behaved violently at a sado-masochistic orgy he held at a friend’s luxury apartment.
One of these accounts described in Litchfield’s book, regarding his behaviour during an act of oral sex, is highly disturbing and too graphic to recount here.
These lurid reports meant the much-loved boxer was being actively examined by police around the time a sixth woman was found in February 1965.
Officers discovered the corpse of Bridget ‘Bridie’ O’Hara at an industrial estate in Acton.
Detective Superintendent Bill Baldock and his team of officers searching for a body, which was later identified as Helen Barthelemy
In common with the other victims, she was completely naked. Police believe most of the victims were sexually assaulted.
With the Met running out of promising leads, and intense pressure exerted by a horrified press and public, a new mind was brought into the mix.
Scotland Yard Chief Superintendent John Du Rose took over as head of the police investigation around the same time O’Hara was discovered.
Scotland Yard Chief Superintendent John Du Rose (above) took over as head of the police investigation around the same time O’Hara was discovered
According to Litchfield, this move was instrumental for Mills, as he shared a secret in common with Du Rose that the boxer would be able to exploit to his advantage.
The two men were Freemasons, and both boxer and detective knew each other before their paths crossed in the early months of 1965.
Clearly fearing he would be dropped as lead detective if anyone found out, Du Rose did not share this fact with his superiors.
By this point, Mills must have felt the noose tightening around him, as police pieced together the evidence to reveal a fuller picture of his character.
It was then, according to Litchfield, that the champion boxer made an astonishing decision.
Believing he could trust a fellow Freemason to keep his word, Mills made contact with Du Rose and arranged to meet him at the secretive order’s London HQ.
Here, among the grand decor of the lodge on Great Queen Street, the boxer is said to have confessed to killing all six women.
Trusting his fellow Mason, Mills did not think to check for a tape recorder – which Du Rose had used to record the entire conversation.
The men then struck a deal.
Police with a tracker dog during a search of the area where a naked body of a woman, later identified as Helen Barthelemy, was found
In return for Mills’ admission, Du Rose would help him enter a plea for the charges to be dropped from murder to manslaughter on the grounds he did not intend to kill.
Then, after a few days of getting his ‘house in order’, Mills would hand himself in to a London police station.
But as it would soon become clear, the boxer intended to do nothing of the sort.
Policemen guard a spot on the edge of a North Acton playing field where Bridget O’Hara was discovered
According to Litchfield’s sources, the prize-fighter left the meeting to visit the Kray brothers, whom he had got to know during his boxing career.
There, in what the author thinks was a cowardly bid to evade justice, Mills offered the brothers £1,000 for them to organise a hit man to gun him down.
After agreeing to Mills’ terms – the death would be quick and he would not be told of the time before – the Krays split the cash and gave the rest to 24-year-old Jimmy Moody.
Mills then borrowed a .22 calibre FN automatic rifle from a friend by pretending it was for a fancy dress party – a move he hoped would make his death look like suicide.
With the grubby arrangement completed, Mills dropped the money at a nightclub and left the rifle in his car boot. Then he waited for his fate.
It came quickly – on July 25, he was found dead in his car, with the fairground rifle between his knees.
A post-mortem by Professor Keith Simpson found the lethal shot had shattered his skull and left no exit hole. He concluded there was no evidence of foul play.
Believing he could trust a fellow Freemason to keep his word, Mills made contact with Du Rose and arranged to meet him at the secretive order’s London HQ. Here, the boxer confessed he had killed all six women, according to Litchfield. Right, a police identikit image of the suspect
As Litchfield explains in his book: ‘Freddie’s death was suicide by proxy, murder by appointment and self-financed.
‘Yes, Mills paid a hit man to kill him because he couldn’t bring himself to do it himself.’
The whole incident was recounted to the author through a police source, Bob Berry, who in turn heard it from gangster Frankie Fraser.
The Secret Life of Freddie Mills tells a thrilling tale, and one that Litchfield says he has kept a secret for many years due to the risk of legal action.
Litchfield remembers pitching the story to his editor at The Sun, who scoffed, ‘Even the Krays would sue us’.
Freddie Mills in the 1952 thriller Emergency Call (pictured with Carry On stalwart Sid James). Mills was found dead in his car, with a fairground rifle between his knees, on July 25, 1965
But what of the other great mystery, the fate of Du Rose’s tape recording that confirmed Mills’ guilt?
In the author’s opinion, this was destroyed by the officer, who feared being exposed to public humiliation if his secret arrangement with Mills was ever made public.
The lack of conclusive evidence in the case has meant that thousands of names have been put forward as the potential Jack the Stripper over the previous decades.
Now, 52 years since his death, Mills is still remembered as a sporting idol rather than a murderer of incredible callousness.
But if this book achieves its aim, that will soon change.
The Secret Life of Freddie Mills by Michael Litchfield is published in paperback by John Blake Publishing on September 7, price £7.99.