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Criminalia

The Unsolved Murder of Jean Townsend

Criminalia

Shondaland Audio and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.41.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Twenty-one-year-old Jean Townsend's body was discovered the morning of September 15, 1954, around 7 a.m., in an empty lot just 600 yards from where she lived on Bempton Drive in South Ruislip. She had spent the evening at a party with friends at a nightclub called the Pyramid Club, not far from her work in London's West End -- but she never made it home.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, what's up y'all? This is Eric Andre.

0:01.7

I made a podcast called Bombing about absolutely tanking on stage.

0:06.6

I tell gnarly stories, and I talk to friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways.

0:12.2

Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life.

0:14.7

Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she dumped on stage and threw a big haymaker punch to my nose.

0:27.4

Listen to bombing with Eric Andre on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:34.5

Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with IHeartRadio.

0:59.9

In September of 1954, Jean Townsend was living with her parents on Bempton Drive in South Ryslip, an area of West London in the borough of Hillingdon. She worked as a theatrical costume

1:06.1

designer and seamstress in London's West End and was developing a highly respectable reputation.

1:13.7

She was described as having been a, quote, friend of stage and to actors.

1:18.7

The director of the company she worked for called her, quote, a very sweet girl, intelligent

1:23.9

and charming. It sounds like things were really taking off for this young woman

1:28.8

until one night when she was killed on her way home from a social event,

1:34.4

who was responsible for her death, remains a mystery still today.

1:39.0

Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky.

1:41.7

And I'm Holly Fry.

1:43.6

Gene's body was discovered the morning of September 15th,

1:47.1

around 7 a.m. on an empty lot to the north side of Victoria Road, right near its intersection with Angus Drive.

1:54.8

And she was only about 600 yards from home. Her body was found in tall grass, but it was noted by those first to the scene

2:03.3

that the part of the grass that was usually very tall, over six feet tall in some areas, was flattened.

2:11.3

Maybe considered authorities she had been dragged there. Scotland Yard quickly put Detective

2:17.3

Superintendent Paul Richardson in charge of

...

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