Gordon Cummins

Convicted of the murder of 34-year-old Evelyn Oatley, Cummins was sentenced to death for her murder and was hanged at HMP Wandsworth on 25 June 1942.

The following January, having accrued over 1,000 hours of flight experience, he appeared before the Royal Air Force selection board to take an aviation exam. His exemplary performance earned him a transfer to the Air Crew Receiving Centre in Regent's Park, where he was to be stationed with 300 other men. Cummins was ordered to report for duty at 10 a.m. on 2 February 1942.

Cummins is known to have murdered at least four women and to have attempted to murder two others over a period of six days in February 1942. He is also suspected of murdering two further women in October 1941. The majority of his known victims were women whom he encountered in or near to West End pubs and clubs and who engaged in prostitution—typically with servicemen.

On Sunday 8 February 1942, Cummins left an RAF establishment in St John's Wood to visit his wife at the flat they rented in Southwark. He borrowed a £1 note from his wife (the equivalent of approximately £60 as of 2023), explaining that he intended to visit the West End for a "night on the town". Cummins left his home shortly after 6:30 p.m.

On the evening of 13 February 1942, Cummins accosted a young married woman named Margaret Heywood in Piccadilly. After sharing a drink and a sandwich at the London Trocadero, the two walked in the direction of Haymarket. Heywood later stated that, at this point, Cummins became "unpleasantly forward" toward her: pushing her into a doorway near Piccadilly Circus and groping her waist as he attempted to persuade her to accompany him to a nearby air raid shelter. Heywood consented to a single kiss before informing Cummins she did not know of any nearby air raid shelters, stating, "In any case, I wouldn't go in one with you." Cummins then began fondling Heywood, who remonstrated against his actions as she struck at his wrists and pushed his hands away from her body, then attempted to leave. In response, Cummins seized her by the throat and pushed her back into the doorway. Heywood was then strangled into unconsciousness as Cummins repeatedly muttered the words, "You won't".

The trial of Gordon Cummins for the murder of Evelyn Oatley began at the Old Bailey on 24 April 1942. He was tried before Mr Justice Asquith Cummins entered a plea of not guilty to the charge against him; the clerk then informed the jury: "The prisoner at the bar, Gordon Frederick Cummins, is charged upon indictment with the murder of Evelyn Oatley on the tenth day of February this year. To this indictment he has pleaded that he is not guilty. It is your charge to say, having heard the evidence, whether he be guilty or not."

Following his conviction, Cummins was held in a condemned cell at Wandsworth Prison, to await execution. He voiced no concern over his predicament, although he did lodge an appeal against his conviction. His appeal was rejected by the Lord Chief Justice in early June 1942.

Gordon Cummins was executed by Albert Pierrepoint at Wandsworth Prison on 25 June 1942. Contemporary news reports indicate Cummins was given a glass of brandy to calm his nerves. He then walked stoically to the scaffold, flanked by two warders, without offering any resistance. The entire execution process lasted less than two minutes. Cummins's execution was conducted during a German air raid upon London. He is the only convicted murderer in British criminal history known to have been executed during an air raid.

On 10 November 1941, Cummins was posted to Cornwall. At this new posting, his braggadocio among his fellow airmen earned him the nickname "the Count". While stationed in Cornwall, Cummins joined a Falmouth social club named the Blue Peter Club, and occasionally assisted the proprietress by tending the bar. However, he was relieved of his bartending duties within weeks when found to be serving free drinks to RAF personnel. Shortly thereafter, the proprietress discovered that approximately £35 worth of jewellery had been stolen from her apartment. Although both the proprietress and local police suspected Cummins of committing this theft, no evidence was found to prove his guilt.

Cummins is suspected of committing his first two murders in October 1941. His first suspected victim was a 19-year-old clerk named Maple Churchyard, who was murdered on 13 October. Churchyard is known to have frequently engaged in casual sexual relations with servicemen. Her nude body was found by workmen in a bombed house on Hampstead Road the day after her murder. She had been strangled to death with her own camiknickers by an individual described by the pathologist who examined her body as being a left-handed individual, as the bruising around Churchyard's neck indicated her murderer had more strength in his left hand than his right. In addition, her handbag had been emptied, with several contents missing. Churchyard had not been sexually assaulted. Her death is believed to have occurred at approximately 9:15 p.m.

Charges relating to the other three Blackout Killer murders remained on the file. Scotland Yard investigators later stated they strongly believed Cummins had murdered all four women, in addition to the two women murdered in October 1941 while he had been stationed in Colerne prior to his November 1941 posting to Cornwall.

The day prior to her murder, Hamilton had resigned from her position managing a Hornchurch chemists, which had experienced financial hardships due to the onset of the war, and travelled to London via train. At 6:40 p.m. on 8 February, she is known to have informed a Mrs. Maud Yoxall of her plans to leave London and travel to Lincolnshire the following day, as she had been offered a manageress position at a pharmacy in Grimsby. She was last seen alive by a waitress at the Maison Lyons Corner House in Marble Arch shortly before midnight, drinking a glass of white wine to celebrate her 41st birthday. The location of her body led investigators to conclude she had been either accosted or attacked as she walked back to her boardinghouse in the early hours of the following morning. Hamilton's post-mortem revealed she had been manually strangled by a left-handed individual. She had not been sexually assaulted or mutilated, although numerous small cuts and scratches had been inflicted to her right breast and a cut measuring one inch had been inflicted to her left eyebrow.

Initially, Cummins was stationed with the Marine and Armament Experimental Establishment at Felixstowe, Suffolk. Between 1936 and 1939, he relocated with this military research and test organisation to Scotland. On 25 October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Cummins was transferred to Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire. He remained stationed in Dumbartonshire until April 1941, when he was posted to Colerne, Wiltshire. At this posting, Cummins reached the junior rank of leading aircraftman, although he held aspirations to become a Spitfire pilot.

All of Cummins's known murders and attempted murders were committed during the city's imposed wartime blackout conditions, imposed in September 1939. By the time of his 1942 arrest, Cummins had neither a previous criminal record nor a known history of violence.

While residing in London, Cummins developed a desire to live the life of an aristocrat. He frequented hotels and clubs in the West End of London, falsely claiming to acquaintances to be the illegitimate son of a peer and also claiming to receive an allowance from this fabled individual. To support this contention, Cummins refined his accent to imitate that of an Oxfordian, and insisted on being referred to as the Honourable Gordon Cummins. He also frequently engaged in acts of theft or embezzlement to financially maintain this facade, and regularly bragged to colleagues of his sexual excursions with local women. To his employers, his extravagant lifestyle impacted his work performance, and he was fired from his job on 8 February 1935. Shortly thereafter, Cummins moved into his brother's flat in Queens Mews, Bayswater, as he considered his next career move.

In early 1935, Cummins volunteered to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). He enlisted at the Air Crew Reception Centre in Regent's Park, London, where both serving members of the RAF and new recruits were assessed for training. Cummins initially trained as a rigger, tasked with undertaking flight checks on aircraft. His superiors considered Cummins to be an ambitious individual, although his boastful attitude and claims of nobility made him unpopular with his fellow servicemen. These false claims to hail from an aristocratic background earned Cummins the derogatory nickname "the Duke". In May 1936, he became acquainted with Marjorie Stevens, the secretary of a West End theatre producer. The two first met at an Empire Air Day air show in the village of Henlow. Following a seven-month courtship, the couple married at the Paddington Register Office on 28 December. The couple had no children.

Jouannet was known to only occasionally resort to street level prostitution. She had married her husband—who had previously been a client of hers—in November 1935, and had remarked to other West End prostitutes that she would only sell sexual favours when she needed "a few extra shillings" to supplement the money given to her by her elderly husband, who managed a hotel in Sloane Square. She would engage in prostitution when her husband slept overnight at the hotel, as his employment frequently required him to do.

At age 18, Cummins moved to Newcastle, where he briefly worked as an industrial chemist. He was dismissed from this job after five months. In August 1933, Cummins obtained employment as a tanner in Northampton, although he was fired from this employment for poor timekeeping after thirteen months, thereafter alternating between part-time work and casual labour. In October 1934, Cummins relocated to London, obtaining a job as a leather dresser in a clothing factory, earning £3 a week. He later trained to become a foreman at this firm.

Lowe was a widowed mother of one who hailed from Southend-on-Sea. Following the death of her husband in 1932, Lowe had sold the family fancy-goods business. She later enrolled her daughter in a boarding school before relocating alone to London, where she obtained employment as a house cleaner in 1934. Shortly thereafter, using the alias Peggy Campbell, she began to engage in prostitution, although every third weekend, Barbara would travel to London from Southend via train to visit her mother, and Lowe would devote her weekend to social activities such as visiting the cinema and local landmarks with her daughter.

Gordon Frederick Cummins (18 February 1914 – 25 June 1942) was a British serial killer known as the Blackout Killer, the Blackout Ripper and the Wartime Ripper, who murdered four women and attempted to murder two others over a six-day period in London in February 1942. He is also suspected of committing two earlier murders in October 1941.

Gordon Frederick Cummins was born in New Earswick, North Yorkshire on 18 February 1914, the first of four children born to John Cummins and his wife Amelia (née Lee). Cummins's father was a civil servant who ran a school for delinquent youths; his mother was a housewife. As a child, Cummins received a private education in Llandovery, South Wales, although contemporary reports from his years at the Llandovery County Intermediate Secondary School describe his academic performance as unremarkable, with teachers later recollecting Cummins was much more preoccupied with socializing than his studies. Nonetheless, Cummins did obtain a diploma in chemistry at age sixteen. After completing his schooling in 1930, Cummins attended Northampton College of Technology. He abandoned his studies on 1 November 1932.