Gordon Cummins

Gordon Frederick Cummins (18 February 1914 – 25 June 1942) was a British serial killer known as the Blackout Killer, the Blackout Ripper and the Wartime Ripper, who murdered four women and attempted to murder two others over a six-day period in London in February 1942.

Gordon Frederick Cummins was born in New Earswick, North Yorkshire, on 18 February 1914, the first of four children born to John Cummins and his wife Amelia (née Lee).

Cummins's father was a civil servant who ran a school for delinquent youths; his mother was a housewife.

As a child, Cummins received a private education in Llandovery, South Wales, although contemporary reports from his years at the Llandovery County Intermediate Secondary School describe his academic performance as unremarkable, with teachers later recollecting he was much more preoccupied with socializing than his studies.

Nonetheless, Cummins did obtain a diploma in chemistry at age sixteen.

After completing his schooling in 1930, Cummins attended Northampton College of Technology.

He abandoned his studies on 1 November 1932.

At age 18, Cummins moved to Newcastle, where he briefly worked as an industrial chemist.

He was dismissed from this job after five months.

In August 1933, Cummins obtained employment as a tanner in Northampton, although he was fired from this employment for poor timekeeping after thirteen months, thereafter alternating between part-time work and casual labour.

In October 1934, Cummins relocated to London and obtained a job as a leather dresser in a clothing factory, earning £3 a week.

He later trained to become a foreman at this firm.

While residing in London, Cummins developed a desire to live the life of an aristocrat.

He frequented hotels and clubs in the West End, falsely claiming to acquaintances to be the illegitimate son of a peer and also claiming to receive an allowance from this fabled individual.

To support this contention, Cummins refined his accent to imitate that of an Oxfordian, and insisted on being referred to as the Honourable Gordon Cummins.

He also frequently engaged in acts of theft or embezzlement to financially maintain this facade, and regularly bragged to colleagues of his sexual excursions with local women.

To his employers, his extravagant lifestyle impacted his work performance, and he was fired from his job on 8 February 1935.

Shortly thereafter, Cummins moved into his brother's flat in Queens Mews, Bayswater, as he considered his next career move.

In early 1935, Cummins volunteered to join the Royal Air Force (RAF).

He enlisted at the Air Crew Reception Centre in Regent's Park, London, where both serving members of the RAF and new recruits were assessed for training.

Cummins initially trained as a rigger, tasked with undertaking flight checks on aircraft.

He was regarded by his superiors as an ambitious individual, although his boastful attitude and false claims of nobility made him unpopular with his fellow servicemen, who derisively nicknamed him "the Duke".

In May 1936, Cummins became acquainted with Marjorie Stevens, the secretary of a West End theatre producer, at an Empire Air Day air show in the village of Henlow.

Following a seven-month courtship, the couple married at the Paddington Register Office on 28 December.

The couple had no children.

Initially, Cummins was stationed with the Marine and Armament Experimental Establishment at Felixstowe, Suffolk.

Between 1936 and 1939, he relocated with this military research and test organisation to Scotland.

On 25 October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Cummins was transferred to Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire.

He is also suspected of committing two earlier murders in October 1941.

He remained stationed in Dunbartonshire until April 1941, when he was posted to Colerne, Wiltshire.

At this posting, Cummins reached the junior rank of leading aircraftman, although he held aspirations to become a Spitfire pilot.

On 10 November 1941, Cummins was posted to Cornwall.

At this new posting, his braggadocio among his fellow airmen earned him the nickname "the Count".

While stationed in Cornwall, Cummins joined a Falmouth social club named the Blue Peter Club and occasionally assisted the proprietress by tending the bar.

However, he was relieved of his bartending duties within weeks when found to be serving free drinks to RAF personnel.

Shortly thereafter, the proprietress discovered that approximately £35 worth of jewellery had been stolen from her apartment.

Convicted of the murder of 34-year-old Evelyn Oatley, Cummins was sentenced to death and hanged at HMP Wandsworth on 25 June 1942.

Cummins became known as the "Blackout Killer" and the "Blackout Ripper" because he committed his murders during the imposed wartime blackout and because of the extensive mutilations inflicted upon three of his victims' bodies.

He is also known as the "Wartime Ripper" as his murders were committed at the height of World War II.

The murders committed by Gordon Cummins have been described by one Detective Superintendent within the Metropolitan Police as "by far the most vicious" he ever investigated during his entire career.