The Blackout Ripper: London's Wartime Serial Killer

By Royal Air Force recruitment photograph, 1940 or 1941. 

Wartime Blackouts and Icy Skies

February 1942

The Blitz, which had relentlessly pounded London from September 7, 1940, until May 16, 1941, was over, but it had left a grim legacy. The capital remained plunged in a total, suffocating 'blackout'—a state of mandatory near-blindness that would drag on until September 1944, before relaxing into a ghostly 'dim-out' until the war’s end.

As if the darkness were not enough, Germany began the ruthless 'Baedeker Raids.' Ordered by Adolf Hitler in retaliation for the RAF bombing of Lübeck on the night of March 28–29, 1942, the German Luftwaffe deliberately targeted historic, culturally significant English towns. These raids bypassed industrial zones to strike directly at civilian morale and heritage sites. While German bombs threatened destruction from above, an entirely different kind of monster was preparing to hunt in the pitch-black streets below.

That February was also one of the coldest months in London's recorded history. Daytime temperatures bled to a maximum of just 3°C to 4°C (37°F to 39°F), while nighttime temperatures plummeted to a bone-chilling -10°C to -15°C (14°F to 5°F). Overcast, oppressive skies choked the city, bringing intermittent sleet, snow showers, heavy frosts, and a freezing fog that swallowed the slippery, snow-slicked pavements.

The Monster in the Uniform

Into this broken, frozen metropolis, a distinct terror ripped through the West End. Between February 9th and 13th, a rapid series of gruesome murders paralysed the populace with fear. The horrific nature of the wounds inflicted upon the victims quickly earned the invisible predator a terrifying moniker: "The Blackout Ripper."

Yet, the man behind the moniker was not a visual monster. He was Leading Aircraftman Gordon Frederick Cummins, a 27-year-old rigger posted to the RAF receiving centre in Regent's Park. Born into a respectable, middle-class family in Yorkshire, the son of a school headmaster, Cummins was an educated, neatly groomed man who had married the daughter of a theatre producer just a few years prior.

To his wife and his fellow airmen, he was an ordinary service member. To his acquaintances, he was an arrogant, boastful character who put on a refined accent and lied about having aristocratic blood, earning him the nickname "The Count." But beneath the polished RAF uniform and the grand delusions of nobility lurked a vicious, sadistic predator. Armed with a hidden streak of sexual violence, Cummins used the cover of the absolute wartime blackouts to turn the freezing streets of London into his personal hunting ground.

A Week of Terror

Site of the air-raid shelter where Evelyn Hamilton's body was discovered.

Sunday, February 8th

The horror began in Marylebone. Harold Batchelor, an electrician, stepped into a street-level air-raid shelter on Montagu Place and made a gruesome discovery. Sprawled on her back across a gutter inside the shelter was the body of 41-year-old pharmacist Evelyn Margaret Hamilton. Her clothing had been violently disturbed: her skirt was hitched above her hips, her knickers pulled down to her ankles, and her blouse ripped open to expose her right breast.

Scuff marks on her shoes and a network of scratches clawed into her arms bore silent witness to her desperate, final struggle to fend off her attacker. Just outside, the contents of her handbag were found strewn carelessly across the pavement, while the bag itself lay discarded nearby on Wyndham Street. A post-mortem later revealed she had been manually strangled to death, likely by a left-handed killer.

Monday, February 9th

The predator struck again the very next day. Evelyn Oatley was found murdered inside her flat on Wardour Street. Though brutal, this crime scene yielded a critical flaw in the killer's execution: investigators discovered a solitary, damning fingerprint pressed onto a tin opener.

Tuesday, February 10th

The relentless onslaught continued the following night. Margaret Florence Lowe was slaughtered inside her flat on Gosfield Street. The sheer, shocking brutality visited upon her body echoed ghosts of the past, prompting a terrified press to compare the killer to Jack the Ripper.

187 Sussex Garden was the home of Doris Jouannet.

Wednesday, February 11th

Thirty-two-year-old Doris Elizabeth Jouannet was found at her Sussex Gardens flat in Paddington, which she shared with her husband. She had been strangled with her own scarf and her body mutilated in a striking similarity of those of Oatley and Lowe.

The Climax: A Fatal Mistake

Friday, February 13th

Cummins met Margaret Heywood in Piccadilly and although she spurned his approaches still followed him onto Haymarket, where he dragged her into a doorway and began to strangle her. Her life was saved only when John Shine, a passing delivery man, disrupted the assault by shining his torch directly into the shadows. Startled by the sudden beam of light, Cummins bolted into the darkness. But in his rush to escape, he made a fatal mistake, leaving behind his RAF-issued gas mask and duffel bag.

The entrance to Catherine Mulcahy's flat.

RAF airman Gordon Frederick Cummins headed towards Paddington, where he crossed paths with Catherine Mulcahy, who was working under the alias "Kathleen King." After a brief conversation, she agreed to take him back to her apartment on Southwick Street.

Once inside the safety of her flat, the encounter turned lethal. Cummins suddenly pinned her to the bed and wrapped his hands around her throat. But Mulcahy fought back with furious, unexpected aggression. Faced with her fierce resistance, Cummins panicked. In a bizarre, frantic exit, he thrust a £5 note into her hand and fled into the freezing night, but unknowingly left his belt in her flat.

Retribution

With Scotland Yard now in possession of the abandoned duffel bag and gas mask, the hunt was effectively over. Stamped clearly inside the gear was Cummins' unique service number: 1552097.

On the morning of Saturday, February 14th, police descended upon his RAF billet. Cummins was arrested on the spot. A search of his pockets yielded the ultimate betrayal: trinkets and items belonging to his murdered victims.

Following his arrest, both Margaret Heywood and Catherine Mulcahy bravely identified him as their assailant. Heywood later faced her attacker in court, testifying against him at his Old Bailey trial in April 1942 and securing the conviction that sealed his fate. The jury took just 35 minutes to come back with a "guilty" verdict.

On June 25, 1942, Gordon Cummins was walked to the gallows at HMP Wandsworth. In a fittingly chaotic finale, his execution took place during a live air raid, making him the only person in United Kingdom history to be hanged while sirens wailed and bombs fell overhead.

Though officially convicted of four murders, the true shadow of his crimes may stretch even further. Whispers persist that Cummins was responsible for the murder of Mabel Church, found strangled in a bombed-out house at 225 Hampstead Road on Monday, October 13, 1941, as well as Edith Eleanor Humphries, who was discovered bleeding to death in her Regent's Park home early in the morning of October 17, 1941. There may have been more victims, too.