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Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper

S2 E4: "Lita Ward" the Soho Girl

Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper

Pushkin Industries

History, True Crime

4.61.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Though married to chicken farmer Harold, Evelyn Oatley has given up on rural life and returned to live in seedy Soho under her showgirl alias "Lita Ward". The coming of war has meant a boom time for those selling entertainment, liquor and sex to the servicemen flooding the area. It is in this world of dancing and drinking that Evelyn lives.

But beneath a fun-loving facade, Evelyn is lonely. Her male callers help stave off this sense of isolation, but only temporarily. And it’s while working that she’ll meet a cruel and sadistic killer and take him back to her apartment.

Sources:

Iglikowski-Broad, Vicky. ‘The Shim Sham Club: “London’s Miniature Harlem”’, The National Archives, 5 February 2020.

National Fairground and Circus Archive, ‘The Second World War’, The University of Sheffield, July 2015.

Sladen, Chris. ‘Holidays at Home in the Second World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2002.

Walkowitz, Judith R. Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

A 34-year-old man was found bleeding to death on the street.

0:03.6

This man was Anthony Virgilio, Tony, to his friends.

0:07.3

Calvin Jones would spend 30 years in prison for Tony's murder.

0:11.0

And for 30 years, Calvin Jones would call my house and speak to my father.

0:15.7

What did my dad have to say to a convicted murderer?

0:19.2

When my dad died, he left behind a question.

0:22.2

Was he responsible for killing Tony Virgilio from Sonoro and Tenorfoot TV, the estate?

0:28.0

Listen to the estate wherever you get your podcasts.

0:36.8

Pushkin.

0:45.8

Evelyn Oatley often brings men, friends, back to her tiny Soho apartment.

0:50.7

Some were stooped in grey, like middle-aged Bertram, a bespectacle gentleman who limped,

0:59.9

thanks to an old war wound.

1:02.1

Others were athletic and tall, like Jeff, the polite and shy aviator,

1:08.0

with what sounded like an American accent.

1:13.2

These visitors were invariably well-mannered and considerate.

1:16.8

They were friends, or at least they behaved in a friendly manner.

1:21.8

But the Canadian soldier, raging in Evelyn's flat right now, is certainly not a friend.

1:34.5

The row pierces their thin partition walls and carries up the stairwell of 153

1:40.0

Warder Street. Sarah Middleton lives in a room one floor above.

1:48.2

When Sarah enters Evelyn's room, Evelyn's standing her ground,

1:52.8

refusing to give the furious young soldier a penny.

1:56.4

She's a full-foot shorter than the towering Canadian private,

...

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