Life for a London prostitute has always been fraught with risks. Ten years before Peggy Richards was killed at least a dozen other prostitutes were murdered. At that time Dora Lloyd was working the West End streets although she had convinced her landlady that she was an actress. In the early morning of Sunday, February 21st, 1932, she picked up a young man and took him to a house.
The only other occupant of the house later told police that he had heard a strange gurgling sound coming from the room below, then heard a door bang. When he went to investigate he found Mrs. Lloyds body on the bed.
Two days later another prostitute picked up a man in Piccadilly Circus. As they got into a taxi other prostitutes surrounded the vehicle, shouting, Its him! Hes the man who killed Dora! The cabbie drove on, and the man got out in the Strand. Later the cabbie found the man again in Leicester Square and challenged him.
Its not the first time Ive been identified as that girls killer, he replied, and strode off.
Was he the killer in fact? The taxi drivers description of him did not tally with the one who went off with Dora Lloyd. So could all those girls have been wrong?