#180 - Lena: Alone and Unloved (Paddington, W9, British)
Murder Mile UK True Crime
Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2022
⏱️ 74 minutes
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Summary
On Wednesday 22nd July 1942, the body of a woman was pulled from the water right here. She had been missing for more than a week, but no-one had reported her missing. We know her only as Lena Cunningham. How she got here, why she died, and what she was running from is still a mystery, but her death and life was a tragedy which is all too common, but should never have happened.
- Date: Wednesday 22nd July 1942 (discovered)
- Location: by the Wedlake Street footbridge, Paddington, London, England, W9
- Victims: 1 (Lena Cunningham)
- Keywords: homeless, poor, lost, coroner, suicide, murder,
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Murder Mile. |
| 0:15.5 | Today, I'm standing beside the Wed Lake Street footbridge in Paddington, W9. |
| 0:23.4 | Three roads northwest of the home of Gladys Hanrahan, one road west of the long rest of Minnie Barry, |
| 0:31.1 | and four roads north of the brutal torture in a hidebark flat by a gang of train dancers. |
| 0:39.3 | Coming soon to Murder Mile. |
| 0:47.3 | Stretching over the Grand Union Canal, |
| 0:50.3 | the Wedlate Street footbridge is a simple steel structure which lets pedestrians cross to the busy Harrow Road. |
| 0:59.0 | Being part of the city's canal system. |
| 1:02.0 | Some boaters refer to this stretch as bandit country. |
| 1:09.0 | As it's not uncommon to have your boat broken into, to be roughed up by teenage hoods, |
| 1:15.5 | chatted up by toothless crack addicts, or to crash your boat into a submerged stolen moped, |
| 1:22.9 | whilst drunks fling dog shit at your stern, and bored kids shoot at your bow with air rifles. |
| 1:31.3 | Oh yes, this is a lovely place. |
| 1:36.3 | But then again, it's not as bad as slough. |
| 1:48.1 | Hundreds of boats pass this stretch of the canal every week, |
| 1:50.8 | chugging through the murky brown churn. |
| 1:54.8 | With the bend tight and the water is shallow. |
| 2:00.5 | It's a spot notorious for causing your propeller to get fouled by rubbish in the water, whether by old ropes, bin bags, dirty rags, or sometimes a dead body. |
| 2:10.6 | On Wednesday the 22nd of July, 1942, 50 feet west of the Wed Lake Street footbridge, the body of a woman was pulled |
| 2:21.1 | from the water. We know her only as Elena Cunningham. How she got there, why she died, and who she |
| 2:33.0 | was running from remains a mystery. |
| 2:37.1 | But her death wasn't the real tragedy. |
... |
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