Book tells of York-born killer’s reign of terror (From York Press)

Book tells of York-born killer’s reign of terror

9:51am Wednesday 11th January 2012 in Books By Mike Laycock, Chief reporter

Police photograph of Gordon Cummins following his arrest

THE reign of terror inflicted by a York-born mass murderer in war-torn London during the Blitz has been revealed in a new book.

Gordon Cummins, who was born and brought up in York before moving away in his teens, strangled and mutilated four women in four days 70 years ago, and tried to murder two others.

Author Winston Ramsey has discovered that Cummins was born in New Earswick on February 18, 1914.

His birth certificate shows his parents were Amelia Cummins, formerly Lee, and assistant schoolmaster John Cummins, who lived in the village.

Mr Ramsey’s new book, Scenes Of Murder: Then And Now, dubs Cummins the “Blackout Ripper”, and compares the fear he sparked to the panic-ridden days of 1888, when Jack the Ripper was on the loose in the East End.

It says that after being earmarked for RAF pilot training, Cummins was being processed through an Air Crew Reception Centre in St John’s Wood when the murders started.

The book says: “There was no inkling of the orgy of murder which was to follow when, in the early hours of February 9, 1942, the body of chemist’s assistant Evelyn Hamilton was found strangled in an air-raid shelter in Montagu Place, Marylebone.”

The other victims were prostitute Evelyn Oatley, whose body was found with a severe wound to the side of her throat; Margaret Lowe, known locally as Pearl; and prostitute Doris Jouannet.

Cummins was finally caught out after leaving a gas mask, with his air force number, in a doorway when interrupted in his attack on another woman.

The book reproduces a letter from Cummins to his wife Marjorie, in which he vehemently protests his innocence.

Efforts to spare him from hanging were joined by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote to the then Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, to say a number of people who had watched the case closely had been “disturbed and dismayed” by his murder conviction, feeling the evidence was “extremely precarious”.

But the Home Secretary refused to intervene and Cummins, who had been dismissed from the RAF, was executed as a civilian by hangman Albert Pierrepoint, on June 25, 1942.

• Scenes Of Murder: Then And Now is published on February 15, price £39.95. For more information, visit afterthebattle.com, email hq@afterthebattle.com or phone 01279 418833.