The Handsome Sadist

The handsome blonde man claimed to be a former officer in the South African Air Force. But Neville Heath was one of the most sadistic killers in British criminal history.

It was after 2 p.m. on 20 June 1946, and the “Do Not Disturb” sign was still hanging on the door handle of Room 4 of the Pembridge Court Hotel in Notting Hill, London. The chambermaid, anxious to finish her rounds, knocked at the door. There was no response. She peered through the keyhole, but could see nothing in the darkened room. She waited a while, and then sought out the hotel’s assistant manager, Mrs Alice Wyatt.

Mrs Wyatt let herself into the room with her pass key and drew back the curtains. One of the beds in the twin-bedded room was empty; in the other, someone was apparently asleep under the blankets. Mrs Wyatt pulled the bedclothes a few inches to one side and uncovered the head and shoulders of a young woman. Her eyes were wide open, and her skin bore the unmistakable blue tinge of death. Mrs Wyatt backed out of the room, ran downstairs and called the Notting Hill Gate police station in nearby Ladbroke Grove.

Ten minutes later, Sergeant Fred Averill arrived at the scene. He pulled back the bed covers to reveal the gruesome sight; the naked, trussed and grotesquely mutilated body ofa dark-haired young woman.

Distinctive lash marks

Averill checked the room thoroughly but could see no sign of violence or robbery. The woman’s clothes were neatly folded over a chair; her rings were still on her fingers and her handbag still contained her purse, cash and a wartime identity card showing her to be Margery Aimee Brownell Gardner.

The victim’s body – for this was undoubtedly a murder – was removed to Hammersmith Mortuary where Dr Keith Simpson, the Home Office pathologist, conducted a post-mortem. “Even without the lash marks,” Simpson wrote in his report, “the girl’s injuries were appalling,”

The lash marks Simpson referred to had been made with a leather riding whip with a distinctive diamond-pattern weave. “If you find that whip,” said Simpson “you’ve found your man.” Nine of the wounds were on the back between the shoulder blades, two across the breasts and abdomen, and two on the forehead.

Death itself, however, had not resulted from Miss Gardner’s appalling injuries, but from suffocation. Simpson thought this could have resulted from either a gag, or from the victim’s face being pressed into a pillow.

The police, meanwhile, were making good progress in their hunt for the killer. Superficially, the case looked fairly straightforward. On Sunday 16 June, five days before the murder, Room 4 of the Pembridge Court Hotel had been let to a man who signed the register as Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs N. G. C. Heath, and given an address in Hampshire.

Superintendent Thomas Barratt, heading the case, soon established that N. G. C. Heath was in all probability Neville George Clevely Heath, a 29-year-old ex-air force officer who had been cashiered by both the RAF and the South African Air Force for fraud and other offences ‘prejudicial to good order and military discipline’. He also had a civilian criminal record that stretched back almost 10 years. He had never, however, been arrested or convicted of a violent or sexual crime.

The victim, 31-year-old Margery Gardner, was also known to police. She had recently abandoned her husband and child in Sheffield and had been scratching a living as a part-time film extra. She was known to associate with the London demi-monde of thieves, pimps and black-marketers, who knew her by the nickname of ‘Ocelot Margie’ for the fake-fur coat she always wore.

Searching for the suspect

Superintendent Barratt’s first job was to find Heath. He issued a bulletin describing Heath as: “29 years old, five feet 11 ½ inches tall, fresh complexion, blue eyes, square face, broad forehead and nose, firm chin, good teeth, military gait.”

Barratt had also obtained a photograph of Heath from his home in Wimbledon, but he was in two minds as to whether to release this to the newspapers or not. It would obviously improve their chances of achieving a speedy arrest; but since identification would be a critical issue at any future trial, the widespread publication of Heath’s likeness could well be seen as prejudicial. He had to weigh this risk against the risk of having a vicious killer on the loose. In the end he withheld the photograph and, as a direct result of this decision, another young woman was destined to meet a horrible death.

By the time Barratt’s bulletin had been issued, Neville Heath was registered under his own name at the Ocean Hotel in the resort town of Worthing. He had travelled down to the South Coast on the morning of 21 June, hours before Margery Gardner’s mutilated body had been discovered.

The purpose of Heath’s trip was to meet up with Yvonne Symonds, another of the many women in his life. Yvonne was the same woman who had spent the previous Saturday night in Room 4 of the Pembridge Court Hotel registered as ‘Mrs N. G. C. Heath’.

By the time Heath and Yvonne sat down to dinner in the Blue Peter Club in Worthing on the evening of 21 June, Heath knew the police must be looking for him. He decided to pre-empt the situation by confiding in Yvonne. “Yvonne, there’s been a nasty murder in London,” he said. “It took place in the room we stayed in last weekend. I knew the girl. She was with some man called Jack. They had nowhere to stay so I gave them the key.”

Heath was extremely plausible and Yvonne took everything he said at face value. After dinner, Heath, ever the gentleman, walked Yvonne home, kissed her on the cheek and returned to the Ocean Hotel.

Anxious phone call

The following morning, Heath received an anxious phone call from Yvonne. Her parents had read the Sunday newspapers that the police wanted to interview him on a matter of urgency.

“Yes,” said Heath, calmly, “I thought they would … I’ve got a car and I’m driving back to London to sort things out. I’ll probably give you a ring this evening.”

But he didn’t return to London and Yvonne Symonds was fortunate enough never to see Neville Heath again.

On Monday morning, 24 June, a letter landed on Superintendent Tom Barratt’s desk at Scotland Yard. It was post-marked Worthing and began: “Sir, I feel it is my duty to inform you of certain facts in connection with the death of Mrs Gardner at Notting Hill Gate …“ Heath went on to relate a more elaborate version of the story that he had told to Yvonne Symonds two days earlier. He had lent his room to Mrs Gardner and a friend called Jack, a man of approximately 30 years of age, five feet nine inches tall with a slim build, dark hair and a small moustache. Heath claimed to have returned to his room at about 3 a.m. and found Margery Gardner already dead. He had panicked and had run away.

The police hunt for Heath moved to Worthing, but their search of his room at the Ocean Hotel yielded only an RAF uniform and some medals. It was obvious that he was long gone.

Over the next few days, scores of false sightings of Neville Heath were reported to Scotland Yard. He had been seen in London, Hampshire, Wiltshire, even in Dublin.

New identity

In reality, Neville Heath was comfortably ensconced in the Tollard Royal Hotel in Bournemouth, where he was registered under the unlikely name of ‘Group Captain Rupert Brooke’.

A week later, Heath was strolling down the promenade when he picked up Doreen Marshall, a pretty 20-year-old former Wren, who was staying at Bournemouth’s Norfolk Hotel, recuperating from a bad dose of flu. Heath, with his good looks and easy manner, had no difficulty in persuading her to join him for tea at the Tollard Royal.

Tea became dinner and Heath probably assumed he was on to a good thing. After dinner, however, Doreen said she wanted to get back to her hotel. Heath persuaded her to take coffee in the writing room, where they were joined by fellow guests, a Miss Parfitt and a Mr and Mrs Phillips. When they had finished their coffee, Doreen asked Mr Phillips if he would order her a taxi, but Heath intervened, saying that he would walk his guest home, and, at about 12.15 a.m. they left the Tollard Royal together.

On Friday 5 July, two days after Doreen Marshall had dined with Heath, Ivor Relf, the manager of the Tollard Royal, received a call from the manager of the Norfolk Hotel. He was concerned about one of his guests, a young woman from Pinner, who had apparently disappeared.

Concerned manager

Relf mentioned the call to Heath. Could the missing girl possibly be the same girl who had dined with him on Wednesday evening? Heath was certain she could not. Relf, however, was unconvinced and suggested that Heath should get in touch with the police. Heath had no read option but to agree.

Introducing himself as Group Captain Rupert Brooke, Heath telephoned Detective Constable George Souter at Bournemouth police station. Souter suggested he come down to the station to look at some photographs and Heath agreed to do so.

Heath appeared to be completely at ease as he confirmed that the girl in the police photographs were one and the same person. He claimed that, on the night in question, he had walked her part of the way to the Norfolk Hotel and then returned to the Tollard Royal.

Heath was just leaving the police station, when Charles Marshall, Doreen’s father, and Mrs Cruickshank, Doreen’s elder sister, walked in. Mrs Cruickshank bore a striking resemblance to Doreen and her appearance shocked Heath to the core. He broke into a cold sweat and started to shake. After a few seconds he recovered his composure and offered Doreen’s family a few words of comfort.

But the moment of panic had not gone unnoticed by Detective Constable Souter, who suddenly remembered where he had seen this man before. “Isn’t your name Heath?” he asked.

“No,” said Heath.

Setting the trap

Souter, still friendly and polite, pretended to accept Heath’s word for it, but added that he looked very like the picture of the man whom the police were looking for in the Margery Gardner case. Heath agreed. Yes, people had commented on the likeness.

The trap was sprung. Since the Heath photograph had been withheld, the only people in Bournemouth who knew what Neville Heath looked like were the police and Heath himself.

Heath was detained until 9.45 p.m. that evening, when Detective Inspector George Gates of the Hampshire police arrived. After a few minutes with his suspect, Gates said: “I am satisfied that you are Neville George Clevely Heath and I am going to detain you pending the arrival of officers of the Metropolitan Police.”

“Oh, all right,” Heath muttered, apparently unconcerned. He was more worried about being cold than he was about the police, and asked if he could fetch his sports coat from his room at the Tollard Royal. Gates went personally to collect the jacket and, in one pocket, he found a left luggage receipt issued at Bournemouth West railway station. In the order pocket he found the return half of a first-class ticket from Waterloo to Bournemouth – a ticket that later proved to have been issued to Doreen Marshall.

Gates went to Bournemouth West station and redeemed Heath’s suitcase from the cloakroom. It contained a few items of clothing, a blood-stained scarf and a leather riding whip with a diamond-pattern weave, the very whip which Dr Keith Simpson had predicted would be the killer’s undoing.

The following morning, Neville Heath appeared in West London Magistrates Court and was charged with the murder of Margery Gardner.

Within hours of Heath’s London court appearance, a woman’s body was discovered in a clump of rhododendron bushes at Branksome Chine, Bournemouth. Naked except for her left shoe, the woman was covered with a pile of her own clothing. She had been dead for some days. Her throat had been cut and there were bruises on the head. Her right nipple had been bitten off and there were jagged cuts the length of her torso. Her hands were also cut in such a way as to suggest that she had tried to fight off her assailant. The search for Doreen Marshall was over.

In 1946, English law dictated that a person could only be tried for one murder at a time. So although Heath had been charged with both killings, the Crown decided to proceed with the stronger of the two cases, the murder of Margery Gardner.

When the trial opened on 24 September 1946, the case against Neville Heath was so overwhelming that the defence pinned all their hopes of cheating the gallows on proving their client insane. Heath’s barrister produced an expert witness, Dr William Henry Hubert, who had diagnosed Heath as being periodically insane. Anthony Hawke for the prosecution, however, anticipating this line of defence, had experts of his own. Dr Hugh Grierson, Senior Medical Officer at Brixton Prison, took the stand and testified that, in his opinion, Heath was a sadist but sane. His view was endorsed by Dr Hubert Young, Senior Medical Officer at Wormwood Scrubs.

Convincing medical evidence

On balance, the argument presented by the two prison doctors proved the more convincing, and it took the jury less than an hour to reach their ‘guilty’ verdict.

On the morning of 16 October, huge crowds gathered outside Pentonville Prison. Inside, Neville Heath sat calmly in his cell and, when the public executioner Albert Pierrepoint arrived, Heath was reported to have said: “Come on boys, let’s get on with it.” Later, when offered the traditional glass of whisky to steady his nerves, he joked: “While you’re about it, you might make that a double.”

End