Who Killed Freddie Mills? New Documentary.

No evidence that I know of ,of Mills having anything to do.with the Jack the Stripper murders ,the poor guy just got his name thrown in to the mix.A little like prince Eddie of the Royal family and the original Jack the Ripper .

 

I've read all the Mills books of the past and have the 2 new ones too. the first one of which is literally parroted by a man who today had both the money & the time to do a real good job, yet he merely repeated all the past stuff, offered nothing new, adding nothing at all, and just had a go trying to capitalize off the name Mills...

the second one Freddie Mills, Serial Killer is far better written and more insightful of the times of Mills life after boxing.

written by a reporter who was an active part of London's dealings. He was privy to both sides of it's underbelly. Do I think Mills was the Killer - I have NO Idea, I remain neutral on the matter, but it is a good book and I'm sure the documentary will be too.

Nice to see the past revived on the screen compared to a hype portrait of the likes of Ali played by Will Smith. Boxing Documentaries like Ken Burn's Jack Johnson, this fellas book and hopefully this Mills doc, I'll take any day over the hype and sensationalised lead up and packaged entertainment that is forced on us for every fight, fighter and failed attempted at selling today, while forgetting there was/is a rich past.

Tune in, hopefully it will be excellent!

 

Mills was never in the frame for the murders.

 

The suggestion that Freddie Mills was Jack the Stripper apparently came from gangster Frankie Fraser, who supposedly said it to policeman Bob Berry, who told The Sun crime reporter Michael Litchfield. Litchfield subsequently wrote a book called The Secret Life of Freddie Mills. Litchfield claims Mills was a mason and confessed the murders to Scotland Yard Chief Superintendent John Du Rose. It should be stressed that the detective in charge of investigating the death of Mills, Nipper Read, dismissed Freddie Mills as a suspect. Read said that confusion could have arisen from the fact that the police’s main suspect at that time was also a former boxer in his forties who committed suicide in 1965 - a man named Mungo Ireland.

 

Why would Mills being a Mason have any importance?
Mills made no such confession to anyone. Read, reinvestigating Mills death said."When I first heard this outrageous rumour I was lecturing at the Police Academy at Wakefield and I was horrified.These rumours were outrageous ,for there was no justification for any suggestion that Freddie was in any way a suspect in the investigation.
I said then as I do now with as much force as I can that Freddie Mills was never in any way involved in the investigation" Leonard Read in conversation with James Morton for his biography ,"Nipper Read".
Paint flecks found at the scenes of the murders a sample that matched was found outside a paint spray shop on the Heron Factory Estate in Acton.
The police began investigating the inhabitants of the estate,[there were 7000 of them,]a married Putney man killed himself,leaving a note saying he was unable to stand the strain any longer .There was no evidence to put the man in the frame.
The police thought they had enough circumstantial evidence to make a case.
The man worked as night security for a company which used small black vans with a white logo which matched the reported sighting of a vehicle at the scene of the murder of one of the girls.
The man had legal access to the West Point Trading Estate where the body of another of the victims was found.
The man was due in court the day after his suicide for failing to stop at the scene of an accident.Du Rose who had put WPc's on the streets dressed as prostitutes to decoy the murderer was convinced enough to call off the decoy operation.No more murders that could have been committed by the "Stripper" occurred after the man's death.

 

Mills being a serial killer is just an urban myth that was allowed to spiral. I think it was Jimmy Tippet (who was a gangster or something) who also jumped on this bandwagon and claimed that research he had undertaken into London's criminal underworld of the sixties led him to believe Mills was Jack the Stripper. As you say, there's not much substance to it when you examine the evidence (and far more believable alternative explanations). Mills being Jack the Stripper is like those books about Hitler escaping from his bunker in 1945 and living in Argentina. It's nonsense but there is a market for this stuff.

 

"The suggestion that Freddie Mills was Jack the Stripper apparently came from gangster Frankie Fraser"

"Mills was a mason and confessed the murders to Scotland Yard Chief Superintendent John Du Rose."

Just as a foreigner who is not privy to the inner workings of British society,

if the confession was made to a Scotland Yard Superintendent, why would a gangster be in the know about it? Are gangsters typically intimates of Scotland Yard officials? Just wondering, because this chain of proof certainly looks odd to an outsider.

 

This stuff is all crosscut and jumbled together from various tittle tattle books and articles and doesn't really mean anything or have much basis in reality. I don't think Scotland Yard's relationship (clearly embellished by Jack the Stripper conspiracy theories concerning Freddie Mills) with criminal figures is any different from other police forces around the world.

 

A man who has made a career out of trading on sensationalist stories, and whatever notoriety he might once have had.