Since the railways first began in 1825, there have been some grisly murders associated with the network. On September 27, 1825, George Stephenson's new engine, Locomotion No. 1, hauled the first passenger train on the pioneering Stockton and Darlington line. Here is a look at five notorious cases of death on the tracks.
The Railway Rapists
In the early 1980s, a series of women were raped near railway stations across north London. Then, in 1985, the body of 19-year-old Alison Day was found dumped in the River Lea after she had gotten off a train at London's Hackney Wick station. She had been raped and strangled. The following year, 15-year-old Maartje Tamboezer was murdered near Horsley Station in Surrey, and then TV secretary Anne Lock, 29, near Brookmans Park Station in Hertfordshire. Both were raped and killed in a similar manner.
Police became convinced all the crimes were linked. They called in a profiling psychologist who believed the killer was probably a semi-skilled worker aged 25 to 30, living in Kilburn, north-west London, and interested in martial arts. He was likely to keep souvenirs of his victims. Out of a list of 2,000 suspects, police finally found a match: John Duffy. He was 28, a martial-arts-loving former railway carpenter from Kilburn, who had once been charged with raping his estranged wife. At Duffy's home, police found evidence linked to the victims. He had kept 33 of their door keys. He was convicted of murder and rape in 1988, and eventually his murderous accomplice, David Mulcahy, was convicted in 2001.
The First Railway Murder
A hat left behind at the scene led police to the killer of Thomas Briggs, the first victim of a murder on a British train. The body of the 69-year-old banker was found next to the tracks near Bow in east London after he had been attacked on a train just before 10 p.m. on July 9, 1864. In the bloodied carriage compartment from which Briggs had been thrown, police found a beaver hat that did not belong to Briggs. But the top hat Briggs had been wearing was missing, along with his gold watch and chain. The suspect, Franz Müller, 24, was found guilty and publicly hanged outside Newgate Prison that November.
Who Was the Railway Ripper?
Hotel manager Deborah Linsley was violently murdered—stabbed 11 times—on March 23, 1988, while traveling between Petts Wood and Victoria Station in south London. Despite the crime happening in the middle of the afternoon and 70 other people being on board, the killer escaped unnoticed. Just one passenger reported hearing screams. A porter found the 26-year-old's bloodied body in a carriage compartment. No murder weapon was found. DNA of the culprit was recovered from blood at the scene but has never matched anyone, despite police believing the murderer was a serial offender. A £20,000 reward has also failed to help solve the cold case.
Wanted Poster Debut
When a disheveled man named Percy Lefroy Mapleton arrived at Preston Park Station in Brighton on the afternoon of June 27, 1881, he was covered in blood and claimed to have been attacked. Police were suspicious, but he was released. Shortly afterward, bullet marks and blood were found in a carriage on the train he had traveled in. Then the corpse of former bakery boss Isaac Gold was found by workers inside Balcombe Tunnel on the same route of the train Mapleton had taken. The victim had been shot, stabbed, and thrown from the train. Short of cash, Mapleton had robbed and killed the 64-year-old. Pioneering "Wanted" posters using a composite picture of the suspect were posted. Mapleton, 21, was soon caught, convicted of murder, and hanged in Lewes prison later that year.
Tunnel Terror
At 10:55 p.m. on September 24, 1905, railway worker William Peacock made a horrific discovery inside Merstham Tunnel in Surrey: a woman's horribly mutilated body. She was eventually identified as 22-year-old bookkeeper Mary Money from London, but only via the laundry number 245 on her underwear. Suicide was initially suspected, but ruled out when a scarf was found stuffed down her throat. A guard on the line reported seeing a woman matching her description struggling with a man on a train on the night in question. But no suspect could be found, and the case remains unsolved. Mysteriously, however, in 1912, her brother Robert murdered several members of two families in Eastbourne and then took his own life, after leading a bizarre double life with a pair of sisters.
