April 17, 2025 • 32 mins
During the blackout nights of WWII London, under the haunting wail of air raid sirens and the devastation of the Blitz, one of the city’s most chilling true crimes was quietly buried beneath the rubble. In this episode, we uncover the twisted tale of Rachel Dobkin, whose dismembered and burned body was discovered in a bombed-out chapel in 1942. As Londoners struggled through nightly raids and rationing, someone used the chaos of war to commit murder—and almost got away with it.
For further information on my latest book Wartime London’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’: The Crime Spree of Betty Jones and Karl Hulten please visit https://prashganendran.com/the-cleft-chin-murder/
Prefer to watch on YouTube? Check out the video version here
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🎧 Listen to my other podcast Curious Britain
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🙏 Thank You!
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Music:
Unusual Suspects
Sources:
Ancestry
Murderous History London Blitz Killer, Channel 5
Evening Despatch - Thursday 27 August 1942
Daily Mirror - Saturday 12 September 1942
Daily Express - Wednesday 18 November 1942
Daily Herald - Friday 20 November 1942
Derby Daily Telegraph 23 November 1942
Daily Mirror - Tuesday 24 November 1942
Daily News 24 November 1942
For further information on my latest book Wartime London’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’: The Crime Spree of Betty Jones and Karl Hulten please visit https://prashganendran.com/the-cleft-chin-murder/
Prefer to watch on YouTube? Check out the video version here
💡 Support me on Patreon to get ad-free episodes
https://www.patreon.com/prashsmurdermap
💰 Make a one-off contribution
Every little bit helps! If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so via PayPal here: https://www.paypal.me/prashsmurdermap
🎧 Listen to my other podcast Curious Britain
Explore the mysteries, folklore, and forgotten stories of Britain. Listen now: https://linktr.ee/curiousbritainpodcast
🙏 Thank You!
Your support means the world to me and helps keep Prash’s Murder Map alive. I truly appreciate it!
Music:
Unusual Suspects
Sources:
Ancestry
Murderous History London Blitz Killer, Channel 5
Evening Despatch - Thursday 27 August 1942
Daily Mirror - Saturday 12 September 1942
Daily Express - Wednesday 18 November 1942
Daily Herald - Friday 20 November 1942
Derby Daily Telegraph 23 November 1942
Daily Mirror - Tuesday 24 November 1942
Daily News 24 November 1942
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Air raid sirens wailing in the night like a banshee's
harbinger of death, pitch dark skies without a glimmer of
light escaping through thickly woven blackout curtains, search lights slicing
the sky, and the distant rumble of anti aircraft guns.
(00:30):
These were just some of the sights and sounds of
World War II on Britain's home front. But the onset
of war didn't mean that the country's other troubles ended.
Amongst the chaos of the global conflict, criminals continued to operate,
selling black market goods, looting bombed out buildings, and sometimes
(00:54):
committing murder. It was Friday, seventeenth of July nineteen forty
(01:23):
two and laborer Ben Marshall was looking forward to finishing
work for the day. His job cleaning up debris in
the bombed out Vauxhall Baptist Chapel in South London was
grueling and he had struggled to gain entry to the
chapel cellar, but had eventually managed to access it via
the warehouse next door. World War II had been raging
(01:48):
for almost three years by now, and Ben paused for
a moment to catch his breath. As he surveyed the rubble,
remembering the day that conflict had broken out on first
of September nineteen thirty nine. Those fateful words uttered by
Neville Chamberlain on the radio two days later marked the
(02:09):
point of no return and were permanently burnt into the
minds of everyone who heard them on one of those
rare days in history, when everyone young and old would
forever remember what they were doing at the moment when
life changed forever.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I am speaking to you from the Cabinet room to
Tin Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin
ended the German government a final note stating that unless
we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were
(02:53):
prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a
state of war would exist between us. I had to
tell you now that no such undertaking had been received,
and then consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
At first, not much had happened on the home front
during the eerily quiet period which became known as the
Phony War. Blackout regulations had been in place long before
any bombs were dropped, meaning that all windows and doors
were covered at night to prevent any escaping sliver of
(03:41):
light which could guide enemy planes to their targets. Street
lamps were dimmed or switched off entirely, while vehicle headlights
were fitted with shrouds. Anyone breaking blackout regulations received a
step fine, and the number of accidents rose dramatically as
(04:02):
the population navigated the unnerving darkness. Rationing of clothes, food
and petrol proved a continual frustration, with women queuing for
hours every day clutching their ration coupons to buy their
share of scarce produce to feed their families. Husbands, fathers, sons,
(04:25):
and brothers were sent to fight on the front lines,
while wives, mothers, daughters and sisters joined the women's branches
of the services, worked in factories, on farms, as air
raid precautions wardens, and even as codebreakers. The Blitz added
(04:50):
to people's woes. Between September nineteen forty and May nineteen
forty one, a sustained bombing campaign in which over fifty
f one thousand high explosive bombs and many more small
but ruinous incendiaries battered England's capitol, dropped by hundreds of
German planes for more than fifty consecutive nights, The industry
(05:16):
and docks of the East End suffered badly, but nowhere
was safe. Even Buckingham Palace and historic landmarks were hit,
while Saint Paul's Cathedral were set ablaze but famously survived,
its spire rising high as a symbol of defiance amid
clouds of smoke and dust. Other cities also suffered bombing raids,
(05:41):
but London was one of the most dangerous places to be.
Forty thousand British people were killed during the Blitz, around
half of whom were Londoners, and one point four million
people in the city were made homeless. Terrified people hud
in air raid shelters, mourning the loss of homes and families,
(06:04):
but there was a feeling of camaraderie and Blitz spirit,
a determination never to give in. Phyllis Warner, a teacher
living in Bloomsbury who kept a journal during this period, wrote.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
One of the oddest things about our everyday life is
its mixture of ruthless horror and everyday routine. I pick
my way to work past the bomb craters and the
shattered glass, and sit at my desk in a room
with a large hole in the roof, next to a
house reduced to matchwood. Housewives are giving prosaic orders to
(06:43):
the baker and the milkman. Nobody seems to mind the
day raids, which do little damage. It is the nights
which are like a continuous nightmare from which there is
no merciful awakening. Yet people won't move. I know that
I'm a fool to go on sleeping in central London,
(07:04):
which gets plastered every night, but I feel that if
others can stand it, so can I.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now. In July nineteen forty two, the Blitz had been
over for more than a year, and although bombs still fell,
the frequency had reduced, and Londoners were already attempting to
rebuild the flattened parts of the Capitol. Ben Marshall was
one of those engaged in this gargantuan task, and as
(07:36):
he shoveled dirt and rubble in the airless cellar, he
spotted a paving slab leaning against the wall. He pushed
it aside, the edges grinding noisily against the stone flooring,
then stepped back in dismay. Partially hidden behind the slab
(07:56):
with the decomposing remains of a human being, Marshall called
out to his foreman who came to inspect the grizzly
find It was common to find bodies or severed limbs
in the wreckage of buildings, but this one was unusual,
(08:18):
as the laborers couldn't help noticing that it didn't look
like the other bomb victims they had seen. The naked
corpse had been dismembered, with the arms cut off at
the elbow and the legs cut off at the knee.
The head was separated from the rest of the body,
and the flesh had been entirely burnt away. A few
(08:40):
hairs remained on the skull. The body was examined by
Home Office pathologist doctor Keith Simpson at Souwock Mortuary, who
established that it was a female aged between forty and fifty,
about five foot one inches in height, with brown hair
turning gray. A small area of bleeding and damage around
(09:04):
the thyroid cartilage had occurred while the woman was still alive,
indicating that she had been strangled. Agreeing with the labourer's
initial misgivings, Dr Simpson was convinced that this was not
a bombing victim, it was a case of murder. Traces
of lime were also found on the remains, suggesting that
(09:27):
someone had tried to expedite decomposition. DNA profiling was not
yet possible, and fingerprints couldn't be taken as the skin
had been destroyed by fire, so the only way for
police to identify the victim was to trawl through the
missing person files for all women of a similar age
(09:49):
who had been reported missing around the time that death
had taken place. Dr Simpson felt she had been deceased
for around twelve to eighteen months, bowering it down to
the spring of nineteen forty one. There were hundreds of
names in the missing person's register, so Divisional Detective Inspector
(10:11):
Frederick Hatton and Detective Inspector Joseph Keeling of the Metropolitan
Police decided to focus on women living in the vicinity
of the chapel. It was no easy feat, as police
numbers had been cut by twenty eight percent with young
and active officers deployed to fight in the war, and
(10:31):
although most people came together to do their bit to
help the Allies to victory, there were some who took
advantage of the chaos to operate under the radar. With
crime rising by fifty seven percent since the beginning of
the war. Despite these challenging conditions, detectives were undeterred and
(10:52):
eventually came up with a name. Rachel Dobkin Nae Dubinsky,
seemed to fit the facts. Rachel Dubinski was born in
August eighteen ninety two in Mile End to father Barnet,
a hat manufacturer, and mother Sarah. Barnet and Sarah had
(11:16):
fled persecution in Russia after the assassination of Czar Alexander
the Second, an event which led to the scapegoating of Jews.
They arrived in Whitechapel before moving to nearby bethnal Green
and then Shoreditch, and had four children, Rachel the eldest,
followed by Nathaniel, Mary and Polly. Later, Nathaniel became a
(11:40):
lady's hat maker like his father, while Polly worked as
a shorthand typist and then as a bookkeeper. Rachel two
joined her father in the hat making business. On Friday,
eleventh of April nineteen forty one, forty nine year old
Rag Rachel failed to arrive at her mother's house for dinner.
(12:04):
This was highly unusual as it was a family routine
to eat together every night. Concerned her sister Polly went
to Rachel's flat the next morning and let herself in
with a spare key, finding the bedsheets undisturbed, suggesting she
hadn't slept there the night before. Polly reported her missing
(12:27):
and provided a photo of her sister, but was disappointed
by the police's lack of effort to find Rachel. She
visited them several times, explaining that Rachel struggled with her
mental health and had spent time in a hospital under observation.
Polly placed the notice in the newspaper asking for information
(12:48):
about her sister's whereabouts, and even visited a medium, Madame Nerva,
handing the clairvoy into scarf and jumper belonging to Rachel.
As Madame Nerva slipped into a trance, she clutched her
throat in terror, making terrifying choking noises, but was unable
(13:08):
to speak. Desperate for answers, Polly visited another spiritualist who
claimed to see Rachel in a hot room and said ominously,
there is passing out a sudden death. Eventually, the police
had made inquiries and discovered Rachel's handbag at a post
(13:31):
office in Guildford, Surrey. Inside were rail tickets dated the
day after her disappearance, and detective speculated that she had
run away to start a new life or had committed
suicide there the trail had gone cold. When detective Inspectors
(13:53):
Hatton and Keeling read the notes from the police file,
they began to have doubts that the body really was
Rachel do particularly as her bag had been found more
than thirty miles away soon after her disappearance. But pathologist
doctor Simpson became obsessed with proving the identity of the
burnt and dismembered woman, so he contacted Mary Newman, a
(14:17):
forensic photographer Guy's hospital, sending her X rays of the
skull and a photograph of missing Rachel Dobkin. When Newman
superimposed Rachel's face onto the X ray image, it was
obvious that the two were a perfect match. Forensic photography
(14:38):
was still in its infancy, although it had been used
once before at the trial of murderous doctor Buck Ruxton
in nineteen thirty six, but Simpson didn't want to take
any chances that the identification wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.
He contacted every dentist in a five mile radius of
(14:59):
Rachel's home and finally found the practice she was registered with.
They still had her dental records, and after comparing them
to the teeth belonging to the corpse, Simpson conclusively proved
that the body was that of Rachel Dobkin. One question
had been answered, but several remained. Who had killed her
(15:23):
and why? And how did a handbag end up in
Guilford containing rail tickets dated the day after she went missing.
Detectives spoke to Rachel's sister, Polly, and learned more about
the murdered woman's life, as well as the person who
might have wanted her dead. When Rachel Dubinski was twenty eight,
(15:52):
she met a dark haired, well built man named Harry
Dobkin through a marriage broker, as it was common in
the Jewish community at that time for parents to arrange
spouses for their children. The pair married in the autumn
of nineteen twenty at bethnal Green Synagogue and moved into
a house at three o two Kennington Lane, the same
(16:14):
road as the burnt out chapel where Rachel's body was
later discovered. The relationship was acrimonious and they fought constantly,
separating after just a few weeks, Rachel had already fallen pregnant,
and by the time their son, Stanley was born in
June nineteen twenty one, Harry was working away at sea
(16:37):
as a third class steward on a Counart ocean liner.
He visited Rachel and his son when he was on leave,
but each time he would hit his wife, leaving her
with a black eye, then slope off to stay at
his parents' house a few miles away. Harry was summoned
(16:58):
to the Old Street Police Court for failing to provide
for his family, and was ordered to pay Rachel one
pound a week for the upkeep of their son, but
spent six weeks in prison for falling behind with the payments.
Divorce was not only an expensive option, but still carried
a stigma at that time, so he chose to remain married,
(17:20):
even though it meant finding money for the weekly payments,
which he tried to dodge at every opportunity. After leaving prison,
he took a job with the White Star Line and
stayed at sea for ten years. When he returned, he
claimed that Rachel's parents offered him eight pounds to reconcile
(17:41):
with his wife, and the unhappy couple lived together again
for a short time. Harry accused Rachel of hiding his
seamen's discharge papers while she suspected that he had taken
her brooch and reported him to the police. He was
a ready listed on suspicion of theft, but the case
(18:02):
was dismissed and he returned to live with his parents.
In nineteen thirty five, someone set a fire on Rachel's
doorstep with an oily rag and paper, but no damage
was done and the perpetrator was never found. Two years later,
Rachel was hospitalized after being beaten by Harry and developed
(18:24):
anxiety and depression. By nineteen thirty nine, Rachel was unable
to work due to injuries inflicted by her husband's constant
assaults and was surviving solely on his unreliable maintenance payments.
Harry was now working as a street trader, making and
selling aprons, and their son Stanley, now eighteen, was earning
(18:49):
a wage as a custom shipping clerk. On eighth of
April nineteen forty one, forty nine year old Rachel visited
me medium Hilda Nerva, seeking guidance for her uncertain future,
as she was still out of work and felt heavy
hearted and hopeless. During the session, Madame nervous expression changed
(19:14):
when she touched her client's wedding ring. Shadows cast by
the flickering candle flame danced across her sorrowful face as
she warned Rachel in a lugubrious tone, you were about
to meet someone new. Don't go. I see sadness in
your future. Three days later, Rachel disappeared and was never
(19:38):
seen alive again, and in a strange coincidence, her sister
would visit the same medium in hope of receiving a
clue from Beyond as to her whereabouts. Police located a
witness who had seen Rachel on Friday, eleventh of April
nineteen forty one, a cafe owner who reported seeing mister
(20:01):
and Missus Dobkin drinking tea together. When questioned, Harry Dobkin
admitted to visiting the cafe with his wife, but insisted
he went to work afterwards at his market stall. Several
other witnesses confirmed seeing him at work that afternoon, but
knowing how badly he treated Rachel, her sister Polly, was
(20:23):
convinced he was somehow involved. The investigation was initially based
on the assumption that Rachel Dobkin had been among the
one hundred and fifty thousand Londoners trying to make her
way to an air aid shelter when the siren went off,
and had been waylaid in the darkness by someone with
(20:46):
murderous intentions. Detective Inspectors Hatton and Keeling decided to re
examine the chapel where the body was found, noticing that
it had not only been bombed, but gutted by fire,
which they assumed was caused by the Luftwaffers. Devastating incenduries,
they unnursed the records and learned that a fire had
(21:09):
been burning for over an hour on Tuesday, fifteenth of
April nineteen forty one, before being reported at three thirty
a m. However, the bomb damage had been caused earlier
and there were no explosives dropped on the area that night,
so something else must have started the fire, which experts
(21:30):
believed originated in the cellar. The investigators were surprised that
the fire had been allowed to burn for so long
without being extinguished. Throughout World War II, fire watchers were
stationed on the roofs of buildings or other high vantage
points to help them quickly spot and report smoke and flames.
(21:54):
Smothering any fires in their assigned areas with sandbags, buckets
of water, or stirrup pumps. Hatton and Keeling new firewatchers
worked and lived in the vicinity of the chapel, so
why hadn't they responded sooner On the night of the blaze.
Records confirmed there had been a fire watcher and duty
(22:17):
at the time based in the warehouse next door to
the chapel. He had started his role as a firewatcher
just a week earlier, and his name was Harry Dobkin. Curiously,
Harry had apparently not spotted the fire right next door
to his location, and it was a police constable on
(22:38):
his beat who alerted the fire brigade. Wondering why the
local firewatcher had not already done so, Hatton and Keeling
reinterviewed the fire brigade, who remembered Harry Dobkins's presence at
the scene and insisting he had tried to put the
fire out, adding the strange remark, I didn't do it.
(23:02):
Coupled with the fact that they now had a positive
identification of the body as Rachel Dobkin and evidence of
the abusive marriage, the constabulary had enough to bring Harry
in for questioning. When they picked him up at his
parents' house at twenty one Navarino rode Dawston. Harry took
(23:23):
a piece of paper out of his pocket and, with
no prompting, wrote down that he had nothing to do
with killing his wife. This struck the detectives as peculiar,
as at this point they hadn't even mentioned their reason
for asking him to accompany them to the station, nor
had they said the word murder. Had An and Keeling
(23:45):
took their suspect of visit the wreckage of the chapel,
hoping to elicit a memory or confession. Dobkin denied ever
going into the cellar, but a passing local police constable
overheard the conversation and said, I know you. I've seen
you going to that cellar before. Harry Dobkin was arrested
(24:09):
on Thursday twenty seventh of August nineteen forty two and
charged with the murder of his wife sixteen months previously.
When officers searched his home, they found train tickets which
exactly matched the ones found in the victim's handbag in Guilford,
suggesting that after killing his wife he had deliberately bought
(24:29):
two sets of train tickets traveled out of London, then
planted one of the tickets in her bag to suggest
she had left the city. Dobkin was tried at the
Central Criminal Court, also known as the Old Bailey, on
seventeenth November nineteen forty two. It too had suffered bomb
(24:51):
damage during the Blitz, which had forced the public gallery
to close, leaving just a few benches available at the
back of the court for spectators behind the l large
glass wall of the dock. Dobkin pleaded not guilty, and
his defense barrister F. H. Lawton, criticized the forensic photography
methods used to identify the body as missus Dobkin. He
(25:15):
tried to race further doubt by mentioning that the victim's
height was five foot one, but Rachel's own sister had
said she was five foot three when she placed the
missing Persons advert in the newspaper. But Crown Prosecutor Lawrence
Byrne's soft voice and calm demeanor masked the shrewd astuteness
(25:35):
that quashed Lawton's efforts to suggest the deceased was simply
an air aid victim. Burne explained to the court that
based on the evidence, Harry Dobkin had strangled his wife
on the evening of Good Friday, eleventh of April nineteen
forty one, dismembered her body, then hidden it in the
(25:56):
bombed out chapel. At some point he had poured lime
over the body in the belief it would decompose faster,
and when it did not, he had lit a fire
in the early hours a Tuesday, fifteenth of April, in
an attempt to permanently erase his crime. Dobkin maintained his innocence,
(26:19):
alleging that police officers had threatened him while writing a
statement and urged him to confess. He also claimed that
one of the police officers had recited a poem to
him called the Wills of Justice, which ran, though the
mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.
(26:42):
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
In response to this literary reminder that justice is always
done eventually, whether in this life or the next, Harry
apparently equipped you make a better hangman than a poet.
(27:05):
When prosecutor Burne asked him when he had ceased to
have any affection for his wife, Dobkin admitted on the
day I was married. He added, I always try to
avoid her. I never wanted to see her again. After
eleventh of April, the jury of seven, reduced from the
(27:26):
usual twelve due to wartime conditions, were presented with the
picture of Rachel's face superimposed on a picture of the
skull in the cellar witnessed testimony that Harry had been
seen with his wife shortly before her death, and the
damning catalog of abuse and missupport payments. In his summing up,
the judge, Justice Rotessley advised the court that the identification
(27:50):
methods were sound and the jury could hardly expect the
victim's legs to have been cut off if she had
been the victim of a bombing raid. He reminded the
jury Dobkin had stood watching the fire burn for about
an hour without calling the brigade. You may ask yourselves
why a firewatcher, of all people, should have done this.
(28:16):
After twenty minutes deliberation, the jury found Harry Dobkin guilty.
Before sentence was passed, the defendant rose in the dock
and read some remarks aloud from a piece of paper,
claiming that the chargers had been invented, and he had
been roughly treated by the police. He displayed no emotion
(28:38):
as he was sentenced to death. On the cold, foggy
morning of Wednesday, twenty cent January nineteen forty three, Dobkin
was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. The post mortem of the
executed man was conducted by doctor Keith Simpson, who later
in the decade would examine the body of one of
(28:59):
the victims of sadistic sex killer Neville Heath, as well
as a victim of acid bath murderer John George Haig.
He became one of Britain's leading forensic pathologists after Bernard Spilsbury,
practicing for forty years. Detective Inspectors Keeling in Hatton retired
(29:21):
at the end of the war just a couple of
years after the Dobkin case. Rachel's elderly mother, Sarah, tormented
by the brutal death, believed that her daughter was trying
to communicate with her from beyond the grave, as she
often heard unexplained knocking sounds and was woken by her
voice at night. Eerily. One of the psychics Polly visited
(29:46):
had been close to the truth, having mentioned a hot
room and a sudden death. Although Madame Nerva had been
mistaken when she warned Rachel not to meet someone new,
as the threat came instead from someone she knew all
too well. The inscription on Rachel Dobkins's gravestone reads peace
(30:10):
to her dear soul, and it is to be hoped
that any other victims will also find peace, as this
case leaves us to wonder how many others may lie
beneath London streets and old bombed out buildings, the manner
of their violent deaths masked by the effects of war.
(30:35):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Pressure's Murder Map.
If you enjoy true crime cases from this period in history,
you might be interested in my new book, Wartime London's
Bonnie and Clyde, The Crime Spree of Betty Jones and
Carl Hulton, which will be published by Pen and Sword
in late twenty twenty five. This reckless crime spree, set
(30:59):
against the backdrop of Wartime London's dark, smoky, bomb damaged streets,
culminated in twenty two year old Carl Holton and eighteen
year old Betty Jones shooting dead a private car hire
driver named George Edward Heath on seventh of October nineteen
forty four. Writing the book has been an incredibly challenging
(31:21):
yet rewarding project which my wife and I worked on together,
visiting archives across England to uncover previously unpublished information about
this often forgotten case. We're thrilled to present the first
comprehensive objective account, which reveals new information about the two killers,
Betty Jones and Carl Holton, their childhoods, and what became
(31:45):
of the surviving member of this compelling criminal duo after prison.
We reveal for the first time what Betty did after
her time in jail, her new name, new husband, and
the second chance at life she carved for herself as
she sought redemption. We were privileged to trace and communicate
(32:05):
with her daughter, who kindly shared memories and information with
us to help us better understand Betty's personality. In the process,
she too, learned things from us that she hadn't known
about her mother's life. I'll keep you updated when we
have a confirmed to release date, but I'll leave a
link to my website in the show notes if you'd
(32:26):
like to read more about it for now. Thank you
so much for your support, and I'll see you again
soon for another episode of Pressure's Murder Map.
Air raid sirens wailing in the night like a banshee's
harbinger of death, pitch dark skies without a glimmer of
light escaping through thickly woven blackout curtains, search lights slicing
the sky, and the distant rumble of anti aircraft guns.
(00:30):
These were just some of the sights and sounds of
World War II on Britain's home front. But the onset
of war didn't mean that the country's other troubles ended.
Amongst the chaos of the global conflict, criminals continued to operate,
selling black market goods, looting bombed out buildings, and sometimes
(00:54):
committing murder. It was Friday, seventeenth of July nineteen forty
(01:23):
two and laborer Ben Marshall was looking forward to finishing
work for the day. His job cleaning up debris in
the bombed out Vauxhall Baptist Chapel in South London was
grueling and he had struggled to gain entry to the
chapel cellar, but had eventually managed to access it via
the warehouse next door. World War II had been raging
(01:48):
for almost three years by now, and Ben paused for
a moment to catch his breath. As he surveyed the rubble,
remembering the day that conflict had broken out on first
of September nineteen thirty nine. Those fateful words uttered by
Neville Chamberlain on the radio two days later marked the
(02:09):
point of no return and were permanently burnt into the
minds of everyone who heard them on one of those
rare days in history, when everyone young and old would
forever remember what they were doing at the moment when
life changed forever.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I am speaking to you from the Cabinet room to
Tin Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin
ended the German government a final note stating that unless
we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were
(02:53):
prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a
state of war would exist between us. I had to
tell you now that no such undertaking had been received,
and then consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
At first, not much had happened on the home front
during the eerily quiet period which became known as the
Phony War. Blackout regulations had been in place long before
any bombs were dropped, meaning that all windows and doors
were covered at night to prevent any escaping sliver of
(03:41):
light which could guide enemy planes to their targets. Street
lamps were dimmed or switched off entirely, while vehicle headlights
were fitted with shrouds. Anyone breaking blackout regulations received a
step fine, and the number of accidents rose dramatically as
(04:02):
the population navigated the unnerving darkness. Rationing of clothes, food
and petrol proved a continual frustration, with women queuing for
hours every day clutching their ration coupons to buy their
share of scarce produce to feed their families. Husbands, fathers, sons,
(04:25):
and brothers were sent to fight on the front lines,
while wives, mothers, daughters and sisters joined the women's branches
of the services, worked in factories, on farms, as air
raid precautions wardens, and even as codebreakers. The Blitz added
(04:50):
to people's woes. Between September nineteen forty and May nineteen
forty one, a sustained bombing campaign in which over fifty
f one thousand high explosive bombs and many more small
but ruinous incendiaries battered England's capitol, dropped by hundreds of
German planes for more than fifty consecutive nights, The industry
(05:16):
and docks of the East End suffered badly, but nowhere
was safe. Even Buckingham Palace and historic landmarks were hit,
while Saint Paul's Cathedral were set ablaze but famously survived,
its spire rising high as a symbol of defiance amid
clouds of smoke and dust. Other cities also suffered bombing raids,
(05:41):
but London was one of the most dangerous places to be.
Forty thousand British people were killed during the Blitz, around
half of whom were Londoners, and one point four million
people in the city were made homeless. Terrified people hud
in air raid shelters, mourning the loss of homes and families,
(06:04):
but there was a feeling of camaraderie and Blitz spirit,
a determination never to give in. Phyllis Warner, a teacher
living in Bloomsbury who kept a journal during this period, wrote.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
One of the oddest things about our everyday life is
its mixture of ruthless horror and everyday routine. I pick
my way to work past the bomb craters and the
shattered glass, and sit at my desk in a room
with a large hole in the roof, next to a
house reduced to matchwood. Housewives are giving prosaic orders to
(06:43):
the baker and the milkman. Nobody seems to mind the
day raids, which do little damage. It is the nights
which are like a continuous nightmare from which there is
no merciful awakening. Yet people won't move. I know that
I'm a fool to go on sleeping in central London,
(07:04):
which gets plastered every night, but I feel that if
others can stand it, so can I.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now. In July nineteen forty two, the Blitz had been
over for more than a year, and although bombs still fell,
the frequency had reduced, and Londoners were already attempting to
rebuild the flattened parts of the Capitol. Ben Marshall was
one of those engaged in this gargantuan task, and as
(07:36):
he shoveled dirt and rubble in the airless cellar, he
spotted a paving slab leaning against the wall. He pushed
it aside, the edges grinding noisily against the stone flooring,
then stepped back in dismay. Partially hidden behind the slab
(07:56):
with the decomposing remains of a human being, Marshall called
out to his foreman who came to inspect the grizzly
find It was common to find bodies or severed limbs
in the wreckage of buildings, but this one was unusual,
(08:18):
as the laborers couldn't help noticing that it didn't look
like the other bomb victims they had seen. The naked
corpse had been dismembered, with the arms cut off at
the elbow and the legs cut off at the knee.
The head was separated from the rest of the body,
and the flesh had been entirely burnt away. A few
(08:40):
hairs remained on the skull. The body was examined by
Home Office pathologist doctor Keith Simpson at Souwock Mortuary, who
established that it was a female aged between forty and fifty,
about five foot one inches in height, with brown hair
turning gray. A small area of bleeding and damage around
(09:04):
the thyroid cartilage had occurred while the woman was still alive,
indicating that she had been strangled. Agreeing with the labourer's
initial misgivings, Dr Simpson was convinced that this was not
a bombing victim, it was a case of murder. Traces
of lime were also found on the remains, suggesting that
(09:27):
someone had tried to expedite decomposition. DNA profiling was not
yet possible, and fingerprints couldn't be taken as the skin
had been destroyed by fire, so the only way for
police to identify the victim was to trawl through the
missing person files for all women of a similar age
(09:49):
who had been reported missing around the time that death
had taken place. Dr Simpson felt she had been deceased
for around twelve to eighteen months, bowering it down to
the spring of nineteen forty one. There were hundreds of
names in the missing person's register, so Divisional Detective Inspector
(10:11):
Frederick Hatton and Detective Inspector Joseph Keeling of the Metropolitan
Police decided to focus on women living in the vicinity
of the chapel. It was no easy feat, as police
numbers had been cut by twenty eight percent with young
and active officers deployed to fight in the war, and
(10:31):
although most people came together to do their bit to
help the Allies to victory, there were some who took
advantage of the chaos to operate under the radar. With
crime rising by fifty seven percent since the beginning of
the war. Despite these challenging conditions, detectives were undeterred and
(10:52):
eventually came up with a name. Rachel Dobkin Nae Dubinsky,
seemed to fit the facts. Rachel Dubinski was born in
August eighteen ninety two in Mile End to father Barnet,
a hat manufacturer, and mother Sarah. Barnet and Sarah had
(11:16):
fled persecution in Russia after the assassination of Czar Alexander
the Second, an event which led to the scapegoating of Jews.
They arrived in Whitechapel before moving to nearby bethnal Green
and then Shoreditch, and had four children, Rachel the eldest,
followed by Nathaniel, Mary and Polly. Later, Nathaniel became a
(11:40):
lady's hat maker like his father, while Polly worked as
a shorthand typist and then as a bookkeeper. Rachel two
joined her father in the hat making business. On Friday,
eleventh of April nineteen forty one, forty nine year old
Rag Rachel failed to arrive at her mother's house for dinner.
(12:04):
This was highly unusual as it was a family routine
to eat together every night. Concerned her sister Polly went
to Rachel's flat the next morning and let herself in
with a spare key, finding the bedsheets undisturbed, suggesting she
hadn't slept there the night before. Polly reported her missing
(12:27):
and provided a photo of her sister, but was disappointed
by the police's lack of effort to find Rachel. She
visited them several times, explaining that Rachel struggled with her
mental health and had spent time in a hospital under observation.
Polly placed the notice in the newspaper asking for information
(12:48):
about her sister's whereabouts, and even visited a medium, Madame Nerva,
handing the clairvoy into scarf and jumper belonging to Rachel.
As Madame Nerva slipped into a trance, she clutched her
throat in terror, making terrifying choking noises, but was unable
(13:08):
to speak. Desperate for answers, Polly visited another spiritualist who
claimed to see Rachel in a hot room and said ominously,
there is passing out a sudden death. Eventually, the police
had made inquiries and discovered Rachel's handbag at a post
(13:31):
office in Guildford, Surrey. Inside were rail tickets dated the
day after her disappearance, and detective speculated that she had
run away to start a new life or had committed
suicide there the trail had gone cold. When detective Inspectors
(13:53):
Hatton and Keeling read the notes from the police file,
they began to have doubts that the body really was
Rachel do particularly as her bag had been found more
than thirty miles away soon after her disappearance. But pathologist
doctor Simpson became obsessed with proving the identity of the
burnt and dismembered woman, so he contacted Mary Newman, a
(14:17):
forensic photographer Guy's hospital, sending her X rays of the
skull and a photograph of missing Rachel Dobkin. When Newman
superimposed Rachel's face onto the X ray image, it was
obvious that the two were a perfect match. Forensic photography
(14:38):
was still in its infancy, although it had been used
once before at the trial of murderous doctor Buck Ruxton
in nineteen thirty six, but Simpson didn't want to take
any chances that the identification wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.
He contacted every dentist in a five mile radius of
(14:59):
Rachel's home and finally found the practice she was registered with.
They still had her dental records, and after comparing them
to the teeth belonging to the corpse, Simpson conclusively proved
that the body was that of Rachel Dobkin. One question
had been answered, but several remained. Who had killed her
(15:23):
and why? And how did a handbag end up in
Guilford containing rail tickets dated the day after she went missing.
Detectives spoke to Rachel's sister, Polly, and learned more about
the murdered woman's life, as well as the person who
might have wanted her dead. When Rachel Dubinski was twenty eight,
(15:52):
she met a dark haired, well built man named Harry
Dobkin through a marriage broker, as it was common in
the Jewish community at that time for parents to arrange
spouses for their children. The pair married in the autumn
of nineteen twenty at bethnal Green Synagogue and moved into
a house at three o two Kennington Lane, the same
(16:14):
road as the burnt out chapel where Rachel's body was
later discovered. The relationship was acrimonious and they fought constantly,
separating after just a few weeks, Rachel had already fallen pregnant,
and by the time their son, Stanley was born in
June nineteen twenty one, Harry was working away at sea
(16:37):
as a third class steward on a Counart ocean liner.
He visited Rachel and his son when he was on leave,
but each time he would hit his wife, leaving her
with a black eye, then slope off to stay at
his parents' house a few miles away. Harry was summoned
(16:58):
to the Old Street Police Court for failing to provide
for his family, and was ordered to pay Rachel one
pound a week for the upkeep of their son, but
spent six weeks in prison for falling behind with the payments.
Divorce was not only an expensive option, but still carried
a stigma at that time, so he chose to remain married,
(17:20):
even though it meant finding money for the weekly payments,
which he tried to dodge at every opportunity. After leaving prison,
he took a job with the White Star Line and
stayed at sea for ten years. When he returned, he
claimed that Rachel's parents offered him eight pounds to reconcile
(17:41):
with his wife, and the unhappy couple lived together again
for a short time. Harry accused Rachel of hiding his
seamen's discharge papers while she suspected that he had taken
her brooch and reported him to the police. He was
a ready listed on suspicion of theft, but the case
(18:02):
was dismissed and he returned to live with his parents.
In nineteen thirty five, someone set a fire on Rachel's
doorstep with an oily rag and paper, but no damage
was done and the perpetrator was never found. Two years later,
Rachel was hospitalized after being beaten by Harry and developed
(18:24):
anxiety and depression. By nineteen thirty nine, Rachel was unable
to work due to injuries inflicted by her husband's constant
assaults and was surviving solely on his unreliable maintenance payments.
Harry was now working as a street trader, making and
selling aprons, and their son Stanley, now eighteen, was earning
(18:49):
a wage as a custom shipping clerk. On eighth of
April nineteen forty one, forty nine year old Rachel visited
me medium Hilda Nerva, seeking guidance for her uncertain future,
as she was still out of work and felt heavy
hearted and hopeless. During the session, Madame nervous expression changed
(19:14):
when she touched her client's wedding ring. Shadows cast by
the flickering candle flame danced across her sorrowful face as
she warned Rachel in a lugubrious tone, you were about
to meet someone new. Don't go. I see sadness in
your future. Three days later, Rachel disappeared and was never
(19:38):
seen alive again, and in a strange coincidence, her sister
would visit the same medium in hope of receiving a
clue from Beyond as to her whereabouts. Police located a
witness who had seen Rachel on Friday, eleventh of April
nineteen forty one, a cafe owner who reported seeing mister
(20:01):
and Missus Dobkin drinking tea together. When questioned, Harry Dobkin
admitted to visiting the cafe with his wife, but insisted
he went to work afterwards at his market stall. Several
other witnesses confirmed seeing him at work that afternoon, but
knowing how badly he treated Rachel, her sister Polly, was
(20:23):
convinced he was somehow involved. The investigation was initially based
on the assumption that Rachel Dobkin had been among the
one hundred and fifty thousand Londoners trying to make her
way to an air aid shelter when the siren went off,
and had been waylaid in the darkness by someone with
(20:46):
murderous intentions. Detective Inspectors Hatton and Keeling decided to re
examine the chapel where the body was found, noticing that
it had not only been bombed, but gutted by fire,
which they assumed was caused by the Luftwaffers. Devastating incenduries,
they unnursed the records and learned that a fire had
(21:09):
been burning for over an hour on Tuesday, fifteenth of
April nineteen forty one, before being reported at three thirty
a m. However, the bomb damage had been caused earlier
and there were no explosives dropped on the area that night,
so something else must have started the fire, which experts
(21:30):
believed originated in the cellar. The investigators were surprised that
the fire had been allowed to burn for so long
without being extinguished. Throughout World War II, fire watchers were
stationed on the roofs of buildings or other high vantage
points to help them quickly spot and report smoke and flames.
(21:54):
Smothering any fires in their assigned areas with sandbags, buckets
of water, or stirrup pumps. Hatton and Keeling new firewatchers
worked and lived in the vicinity of the chapel, so
why hadn't they responded sooner On the night of the blaze.
Records confirmed there had been a fire watcher and duty
(22:17):
at the time based in the warehouse next door to
the chapel. He had started his role as a firewatcher
just a week earlier, and his name was Harry Dobkin. Curiously,
Harry had apparently not spotted the fire right next door
to his location, and it was a police constable on
(22:38):
his beat who alerted the fire brigade. Wondering why the
local firewatcher had not already done so, Hatton and Keeling
reinterviewed the fire brigade, who remembered Harry Dobkins's presence at
the scene and insisting he had tried to put the
fire out, adding the strange remark, I didn't do it.
(23:02):
Coupled with the fact that they now had a positive
identification of the body as Rachel Dobkin and evidence of
the abusive marriage, the constabulary had enough to bring Harry
in for questioning. When they picked him up at his
parents' house at twenty one Navarino rode Dawston. Harry took
(23:23):
a piece of paper out of his pocket and, with
no prompting, wrote down that he had nothing to do
with killing his wife. This struck the detectives as peculiar,
as at this point they hadn't even mentioned their reason
for asking him to accompany them to the station, nor
had they said the word murder. Had An and Keeling
(23:45):
took their suspect of visit the wreckage of the chapel,
hoping to elicit a memory or confession. Dobkin denied ever
going into the cellar, but a passing local police constable
overheard the conversation and said, I know you. I've seen
you going to that cellar before. Harry Dobkin was arrested
(24:09):
on Thursday twenty seventh of August nineteen forty two and
charged with the murder of his wife sixteen months previously.
When officers searched his home, they found train tickets which
exactly matched the ones found in the victim's handbag in Guilford,
suggesting that after killing his wife he had deliberately bought
(24:29):
two sets of train tickets traveled out of London, then
planted one of the tickets in her bag to suggest
she had left the city. Dobkin was tried at the
Central Criminal Court, also known as the Old Bailey, on
seventeenth November nineteen forty two. It too had suffered bomb
(24:51):
damage during the Blitz, which had forced the public gallery
to close, leaving just a few benches available at the
back of the court for spectators behind the l large
glass wall of the dock. Dobkin pleaded not guilty, and
his defense barrister F. H. Lawton, criticized the forensic photography
methods used to identify the body as missus Dobkin. He
(25:15):
tried to race further doubt by mentioning that the victim's
height was five foot one, but Rachel's own sister had
said she was five foot three when she placed the
missing Persons advert in the newspaper. But Crown Prosecutor Lawrence
Byrne's soft voice and calm demeanor masked the shrewd astuteness
(25:35):
that quashed Lawton's efforts to suggest the deceased was simply
an air aid victim. Burne explained to the court that
based on the evidence, Harry Dobkin had strangled his wife
on the evening of Good Friday, eleventh of April nineteen
forty one, dismembered her body, then hidden it in the
(25:56):
bombed out chapel. At some point he had poured lime
over the body in the belief it would decompose faster,
and when it did not, he had lit a fire
in the early hours a Tuesday, fifteenth of April, in
an attempt to permanently erase his crime. Dobkin maintained his innocence,
(26:19):
alleging that police officers had threatened him while writing a
statement and urged him to confess. He also claimed that
one of the police officers had recited a poem to
him called the Wills of Justice, which ran, though the
mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.
(26:42):
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
In response to this literary reminder that justice is always
done eventually, whether in this life or the next, Harry
apparently equipped you make a better hangman than a poet.
(27:05):
When prosecutor Burne asked him when he had ceased to
have any affection for his wife, Dobkin admitted on the
day I was married. He added, I always try to
avoid her. I never wanted to see her again. After
eleventh of April, the jury of seven, reduced from the
(27:26):
usual twelve due to wartime conditions, were presented with the
picture of Rachel's face superimposed on a picture of the
skull in the cellar witnessed testimony that Harry had been
seen with his wife shortly before her death, and the
damning catalog of abuse and missupport payments. In his summing up,
the judge, Justice Rotessley advised the court that the identification
(27:50):
methods were sound and the jury could hardly expect the
victim's legs to have been cut off if she had
been the victim of a bombing raid. He reminded the
jury Dobkin had stood watching the fire burn for about
an hour without calling the brigade. You may ask yourselves
why a firewatcher, of all people, should have done this.
(28:16):
After twenty minutes deliberation, the jury found Harry Dobkin guilty.
Before sentence was passed, the defendant rose in the dock
and read some remarks aloud from a piece of paper,
claiming that the chargers had been invented, and he had
been roughly treated by the police. He displayed no emotion
(28:38):
as he was sentenced to death. On the cold, foggy
morning of Wednesday, twenty cent January nineteen forty three, Dobkin
was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. The post mortem of the
executed man was conducted by doctor Keith Simpson, who later
in the decade would examine the body of one of
(28:59):
the victims of sadistic sex killer Neville Heath, as well
as a victim of acid bath murderer John George Haig.
He became one of Britain's leading forensic pathologists after Bernard Spilsbury,
practicing for forty years. Detective Inspectors Keeling in Hatton retired
(29:21):
at the end of the war just a couple of
years after the Dobkin case. Rachel's elderly mother, Sarah, tormented
by the brutal death, believed that her daughter was trying
to communicate with her from beyond the grave, as she
often heard unexplained knocking sounds and was woken by her
voice at night. Eerily. One of the psychics Polly visited
(29:46):
had been close to the truth, having mentioned a hot
room and a sudden death. Although Madame Nerva had been
mistaken when she warned Rachel not to meet someone new,
as the threat came instead from someone she knew all
too well. The inscription on Rachel Dobkins's gravestone reads peace
(30:10):
to her dear soul, and it is to be hoped
that any other victims will also find peace, as this
case leaves us to wonder how many others may lie
beneath London streets and old bombed out buildings, the manner
of their violent deaths masked by the effects of war.
(30:35):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Pressure's Murder Map.
If you enjoy true crime cases from this period in history,
you might be interested in my new book, Wartime London's
Bonnie and Clyde, The Crime Spree of Betty Jones and
Carl Hulton, which will be published by Pen and Sword
in late twenty twenty five. This reckless crime spree, set
(30:59):
against the backdrop of Wartime London's dark, smoky, bomb damaged streets,
culminated in twenty two year old Carl Holton and eighteen
year old Betty Jones shooting dead a private car hire
driver named George Edward Heath on seventh of October nineteen
forty four. Writing the book has been an incredibly challenging
(31:21):
yet rewarding project which my wife and I worked on together,
visiting archives across England to uncover previously unpublished information about
this often forgotten case. We're thrilled to present the first
comprehensive objective account, which reveals new information about the two killers,
Betty Jones and Carl Holton, their childhoods, and what became
(31:45):
of the surviving member of this compelling criminal duo after prison.
We reveal for the first time what Betty did after
her time in jail, her new name, new husband, and
the second chance at life she carved for herself as
she sought redemption. We were privileged to trace and communicate
(32:05):
with her daughter, who kindly shared memories and information with
us to help us better understand Betty's personality. In the process,
she too, learned things from us that she hadn't known
about her mother's life. I'll keep you updated when we
have a confirmed to release date, but I'll leave a
link to my website in the show notes if you'd
(32:26):
like to read more about it for now. Thank you
so much for your support, and I'll see you again
soon for another episode of Pressure's Murder Map.
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