Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast dedicated to missing
people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime. Today we're going to be
exploring the case of the murder of eighteen year old John Biankee, who in
January nineteen nineteen was murdered by an unknown perpetrator while he was just walking down
the road. The strangeness of the murder and the little known evidence that is
available truly makes this case a mystery, and this was one of the reasons
that I wanted to cover it, as well as the fact that I do
love the research that comes with a historical case. This episode contains some descriptions
that listeners may find distressing, so listener discretion is advised. The area of
walker Gate is located in the east of the city of Newcastle. In twenty
eleven, there was around nine thousand, five hundred people living there. It's
a relatively small area of the city, making up less than four percent of
the population. During the late Victorian era, Walkergate was well known for its
hospital. Walkergate Hospital was built in eighteen eighty eight and was originally built as
an isolation hospital for people with infectious diseases. This is how it commonly got
its name as the walker Gate Fever Hospital. The hospital was situated on Benfield
Road, and during World War One it was also used for military use,
and two adjoining pavilions were added onto the hospital to treat soldiers. These were
reportedly in use until nineteen seventy nine, when they were then demolished. The
walker Gate Hospital was a well known place in the area and it was here
that twenty six year old Elizabeth Phillipson worked in nineteen nineteen. Elizabeth lived in
the area of Thornton, a village between the areas of Blackpool and Fleetwood.
Her family had moved to this area around twenty seven years earlier, when Elizabeth's
father got a new job as a joiner at the salt works in the area.
They had moved from Hibburn in Newcastle, and this is where some of
the families still lived in nineteen nineteen. Elizabeth often visited her family in the
area and would travel up at the weekends. It was during one of these
occasions that Elizabeth found her self employment at the Walkergate Fever Hospital, working as
a laundry maid. Elizabeth seemed to enjoy her job working there, and it
meant that she could see her family more often, including her an uncle and
her cousin John Bianche. Elizabeth spent her time working visiting family, and also
reportedly had a fiancee who was a soldier working overseas. I have, however,
only heard of this information from one source. On the twenty fifth of
January nineteen nineteen, Elizabeth had spent the afternoon and evening with her cousin John
and her uncle. John was eighteen years old and working as a drillers apprentice.
Elizabeth would later state that she had arrived on the ferry at around five
pm that evening and that John had come to meet her. She said that
she went back to her uncle's house and that she went to church with John
and went for a walk with him and another man named Robert Brown, Elizabeth's
uncle and John's father. Later said that they all had supper together and then
he left the home around nine pm that evening. Elizabeth stated that her and
John then left shortly before ten o'clock. Elizabeth to get to work, and
John offered to take her to the hospital. Elizabeth said that they were laughing
and joking on their way there, and that they were relaxed in a later
account, she said that as they were walking, they passed a couple who
were walking the other way. She said that she then spotted at all what
she described as well made man in the distance. She said that she mentioned
to John when she saw him, I wonder if that's that man from Benton
Road. This was in reference to the fact that she had heard that two
of the nurses who worked at the hospital had been molested and assaulted by a
man on Benton Road, and another employee had also been followed along the same
stretch of path. The way that the man looked already made her suspicious of
this person who appeared to be lurking in the dark. It would appear that
Elizabeth was right to be suspicious that evening and along that particular stretch of road.
As the pair were walking along and were around four to five yards from
the man that they had just spotted, he suddenly lurched forward from behind a
hedge, and a loud bang was heard. The bang reverberated through the street,
and a man named Charles Finlayson heard it from where he was stood.
Charles had just passed John Biankee and Elizabeth Phillipson on the road only a minute
or two before, and he later explained that he knew a gunshot when he
heard it. He ran back to where he thought the noise had come from,
and it was at this point that he spotted Elizabeth running back towards him.
Elizabeth then headed towards John Biankee's home on Chapel Row and found her uncle,
telling him, oh, uncle John has been shot. Before police assistance
was sought, with Sergeant Russell gaining the report that someone had been shot.
During this time, John had been taken to Charles Finlayson's house so that he
could have tained some medical help. A doctor McGregor took a look at John
before he was later taken to the Royal Infirmary at Newcastle. John had been
shot in the left side of his stomach, and it would appear that the
bullet had passed through him, his clothing and his coat. This was important
as the doctor thought that at this point John may have been in no danger
from his wound. Elizabeth was also injured. She had quite a large caught
on her left eye, and she later explained that the man who had shot
John had then lunged forward and with the butt of the gun, had hit
her on the face. While her hat took the brunt of the hit,
she was still cut above the eye. The man had then run off.
This had been on what seemed to be a random attack upon innocent people who
were simply walking along the road. John's family were horrified by what had happened
and hoped that he would pull through. While John was being treated at the
hospital, police attempted to try and locate any evidence that could help them figure
out who had committed this random and awful crime. Elizabeth provided a description of
the man that she had seen, which was helpful. He was reportedly a
tall, well built, broad shouldered and around five feet eight inches tall.
He was around twenty six years of age and was wearing a dark overcoat and
a light cap. This was useful to the investigation, but it didn't point
the police to the exact perpetrator. There was some evidence left behind at the
scene which may help figure out what happened. When police assessed the scene,
they found the gun that had been used to shoot John. The gun was
a Webley Scott self loading pistol marked nineteen seventeen. The gun and several cartridges
were recovered, which all bore a government stamp. This gun matched the bullet
that had been extracted from John's body. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Brunton Angus stated that
he extracted a revolver bullet from a wound below John's left nipple. The bullet
had effected no other Organs except his spleen. Finding the gun that had been
used in the attack was a step forward in the investigation, and police hoped
that it would help narrow down who may have committed this crime. They did
get a lead from the recovery of the gun. It turned out that this
particular weapon had been illegally taken from one of the HM ports in the northeast.
This indicated that whoever had been using the gun had some sort of access
to these ports and was able to get hold of a weapon like this.
The gun was described as having a piece of black composition on the right bottom
side. Some of this had broken off. It was hoped that someone would
recognize it and come forward with information. There was also more evidence that had
been left behind at the scene. A piece of rope around seven feet long
and a quarter of an inch in diameter was recovered. It had a bowline
knot on one end. It was thought that this had something to do with
the crime, However, the connection was unclear. It's reported that this type
of cord was often used by the Navy, so could it have come from
the port like the gun had. This crime was callous and violent, and
it was very confusing as to why someone wanted to harm John or Elizabeth.
It seemed that they may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time,
and this became even more tragic when on the twenty eighth of January it
was announced that John Bianche had succumbed to his injuries and had passed away.
This came as a shock for everyone, given that it was initially thought that
he may pull through. This must have been devastating to his family, and
the random and awful crime was incomprehensible to them. Police were doing everything they
could to try and track down the perpetrator, however, it was proving difficult.
While they did have evidence, this evidence did not point to any one
person in particular. Many people worked in ports in the Northeast or had access
to them, and so the profile they were looking for could fit many local
men. They issued a reward of fifty pounds, which was around two thousand
pounds in today's money for anyone with information that could help them find John's killer.
There were some theories in the case, with one of them being that
this may have been a case of mistaken identity and that the perpetrator thought that
they were someone else. If this was the case, then it makes it
all the more tragic. At an inquest into John's death in February nineteen nineteen,
the coroner addressed the lack of evidence that the police had in the investigation.
During his summing up, he said that the police had no other evidence
to produce for the jury in relation to this outrage and tragedy. He reportedly
said that the duty of the jury was quite plain in terms of this case.
John had simply been walking along the road when he had been shot by
a man who was still unknown to authorities. The jury didn't even retire to
consider the verdict in this case. They announced a verdict of willful murder.
This was clear to everyone. John had been murdered in cold blood are almost
point blank range. This was a heartless crime and it shocked to the community
where it happened. John was a young man who had his whole life ahead
of him, and he had now had it cut short due to the actions
of a killer. Police began trying to assess what the motive was for this
crime. They probed whether this could have had anything to do with Elizabeth.
It's reported that they looked into her life and any previous love interests that could
have had a grudge against her. Despite looking into this angle, they could
find no evidence that anyone in Elizabeth's past had anything to do with this.
They also began looking into the area where John and Elizabeth had been walking that
evening. It has often been referred to as a lover's lane where couples would
go together, and police even theorize that this could have been the work of
a religious fanatic who disagreed with couples go out together and had turned his rage
on them. Again, there was no real evidence to prove this hypothesis.
With this lack of concrete evidence, John's murder case began to stall and little
could be done to progress the investigation. With this, the case grew cold
and remained unsolved. Unfortunately, this is the way that the case remains to
this day, one hundred and four years later. The murder of John Bianche
has never been solved, and this is such a tragedy for a life cut
so short. Despite the time that has elapsed, his case has not been
forgotten in the area that he lived, and particularly will not have been forgotten
by his family, his mother, father, and six siblings whom he lived
with at the time. In twenty nineteen, on thee hundred year anniversary of
his murder, Chronical Live did an article bring John's case back to the forefront
of people's minds. This is, of course, a case that probably now
will never be solved. However, the senseless nature of this crime made me
want to cover it because there does seem no rhyme nor reason behind it,
and the fact that someone was shot at point blank range while walking in the
street is quite an unusual crime for this time and for the UK in general.
Why did someone do this, who were they and where did they go
after? This was the perpetrator of the same man who had been following and
assaulting women who worked at the hospital. All it makes me think is if
this person was willing to shoot someone in the street, then they were clearly
dangerous. Were they responsible for any other crimes that we simply do not know
of? This is the scary part of this case. For me as they
were never brought to justice. John Biankee did not deserve to die that evening,
and this is something that is clear. Thank you for listening to today's
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I'm and this has been unseen paste tie inste