The Black Butterfly

Real Survival Stories is the brand-new show from Noiser hosted by John Hopkins. Hear true stories of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary survival situations. Stranded in the desert. Lost in the jungle. Marooned in the mountains. Shipwrecked on the high seas. You'll hear from individuals who had everything against them. But even then, they refused to give in… New episodes Thursdays. Listen for free wherever you get your podcasts or at noiser.com Podfollow: https://podfollow.com/real-survival-stories  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Noiser, Detectives Don’t Sleep is the new podcast that takes you beyond the police tape to shadow the real detectives who worked history’s most intriguing cases. In this taster episode, we’re in the Bahamas in 1943. One of the wealthiest men in the islands, Sir Harry Oakes, has been murdered - bludgeoned and burned in his mansion. The prime suspect is Oakes’s son-in-law, Count Alfred de Marigny. But Oakes’s daughter Nancy refuses to believe in her husband’s guilt and hires New York-based PI Ray Schindler to clear de Marigny’s name. Ray flies to the paradise island of New Providence and gets straight down to work, interviewing witnesses, following up clues, and piecing together the circumstances of Oakes’s death. Before long, he finds himself drawn into a complex mystery straight from the pages of a classic whodunnit. Part Two of Murder in Paradise is live now on the Detectives Don’t Sleep podcast. If you enjoy this taster episode, search ‘Detectives Don’t Sleep’ in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes every Tuesday. Or, listen at noiser.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Thursday, April 24th, 1975, a group of six well-dressed men let themselves into the Bank of America in London's Mayfair. They had one intention: to break into the vault and make off with over 8 million pounds worth of gold, valuables and cash. Little did they know that the inside man who'd helped them set up the job would also be a part of their downfall. Scotland Yard's Intelligence Division, and the detectives from the Flying Squad were about to make history, turning the criminals against each other as they chased each one of them down and tried to recover the record-breaking haul. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On November 7th, 2000, a professional gang of thieves attempted an audacious robbery in London. Their target: the largest flawless diamond collection in the world. Its location: the Millennium Dome in Greenwich. It's an outrageous plan, but can these crooks really steal such a prize, in broad daylight, from such a public place, and make their escape? Not if Scotland Yard has anything to do with it. The plot reads like something from a Bond film — speedboats, firearms, ram raids, and elaborate undercover surveillance. With limited information to go on, it's a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, or rather cops and robbers. In the end, timing will be everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On October 17th, 1898, a most daring theft took place on a train at Paris’s Gare du Nord station. In the blink of an eye, and in broad daylight, a priceless collection of jewels was taken from under the nose of their owner — the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland. The culprit was one of the most cunning, lightest-fingered crooks in Europe. The original gentleman thief. Unparallelled in his abilities, he was a man known to both the law, and the underworld world only by his alias — Harry 'the Valet'.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

June 23rd, 1946. Police Constable Arthur Collins was at home with his wife Marjorie in Warwick, England. Whilst getting ready for bed, he heard the sound of shattering glass. He put on his uniform and rushed out into the night without hesitation. That decision would cost him dear. Unknown assailants would beat him within an inch of his life using his own truncheon. If it weren’t for the heroic intervention of his wife, it would’ve almost certainly been a murder. In the aftermath of the bloody attack, local cops only had one lead: the scrap of cloth Marjorie had ripped from the attacker’s jacket. Warwick Police called in Scotland Yard for what would be the final case of the incomparable Robert Fabian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On a sunny August day in 1966, on a quiet street near Wormwood Scrubs Common, an unmarked police car flagged down a battered blue Vanguard to ask about a missing tax disc. What happened next was the brutal slaying of three police officers in the line of duty, which became known as the Braybrook Street Massacre. Under the guidance of Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Chitty, officers of Scotland Yard carried out the largest manhunt of the century in an attempt to find one of the cop-killers who had gone on the run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In October 1946, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson - were staying at Ednam Lodge, in the genteel countryside on the outskirts of London. The royal visit alone was enough to cause a press frenzy, but when the Duchess's collection of priceless jewels was stolen in broad daylight, the ensuing furore was quite something else altogether. Naturally, the very best from Scotland Yard were brought in to investigate the high-profile, audacious theft. With their sights set on capturing the most successful jewel thief of his generation, detectives were led on a merry dance through London and the surrounding countryside. But could they finally bring the enigmatic and elusive character known only as Johnny the Gent to justice and recover the Windsor jewels? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was an ordinary Sunday evening in February, 1939, in London's brightly lit West End. Legendary detective, Robert Fabian, known to all as Fabian of the Yard, was enjoying a quiet duty at Vine Street Police Station. Or so he thought. When a musician stumbled into the station, screaming bloody murder, Fabian became entangled in a shadow-play of sleaze, vice and violence. A beautiful singer known as The Black Butterfly had been found brutally murdered in her flat, lying in a pool of her own blood, her killer still on the loose. The cunning inspector had nothing to go on except for a shred of black foil and the vague mention of a man in a nightclub offering the victim drinks. Fabian knew he had to move fast. Or else, risk the knife man striking again... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In December 1970, Julian Sessé, the long-serving butler to Granada TV Chairman, Lord Bernstein, was found brutally murdered in his basement flat in Belgravia. With little hope for a successful investigation, and two murder cases already on their books, local police quickly handed the case to Scotland Yard. Evidence gathered from the flat revealed that the elegant 65-year-old butler was in the habit of picking up younger men and entertaining them at his home. He was discreet and private in these affairs, and his personal acquaintances were equally secretive. Was his killer a stranger or a friend? And how would detectives trace him if no one was willing to talk? It fell to Detective Chief Superintendent John “Ginger” Hensley to crack the case of the Peer's Butler. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices