While the hacking scandal is dominating the news, it’s worth remembering a gruesome south London murder 24 years ago. Daniel Morgan, a 37 year-old private investigator, was hacked to death with an axe in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham. His brother Alastair believes that Daniel was killed to stop him …
Author archives: murdermap
At the Scene of a Murder
The murder scene is now a stock image of TV and film. A dishevelled detective arrives, crouches down over a dead body, spots something everybody else missed and then makes a smart comment to amuse the audience. With the viewer hooked, the music kicks in and it’s on to the title sequence. You don’t really …
Mapping the Ratcliffe Highway Murders
This year is the 200th anniversary of the Ratcliffe Highway murders, when seven people were killed in a gratuitous frenzy in the space of 12 days. But while 19th century Londoners would have recoiled at the mention of John Williams and his crimes, they probably mean little to the city’s present day inhabitants. Likewise the …
Sam Hallam: A Miscarriage of Justice?
There’s a famous quote from the film Shawshank Redemption, when the main character Andy Dufresne tells another prison inmate: ‘Everybody in here’s innocent. Didn’t you know that?’ So when a young man convicted of murder steps forward and strongly protests his innocence, it’s often hard to keep an open mind. It’s still harder to accept …
Off the Map: The case of James Smith
On the morning of December 4, 2010, the body of 28 year-old James Smith was found at an electricity substation near Penge West railway station in south London. The postmortem revealed he had been electrocuted. A murder investigation was launched by the British Transport Police and the incident was added to the murder map. James …