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Alan John Vigar

Age: 23

Sex: male

Date: 19 Feb 1962

Place: 29 St Georges Drive, Pimlico, London

Alan John Vigar was found naked with his hands bound behind back and strangled at his ground floor flat at 29 St Georges Drive, Pimlico on 20 February 1962.

His murder was connected to the murder of Norman Rickard who was found in a similar condition.

He had been a television wardrobe boy for ITV.

He was last seen by a police sergeant who had been in the house next door walking towards his flat with a tall slim man who was said to have had 'classic features' and to have been extraordinarily well dressed.

His inquest returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.

The police sergeant that saw the man earlier with Alan Vigar said that he would recognise the man again. He said that he had been on plain clothes duty on 19 February 1962 sitting in the ground floor front room of 27 St Georges Drive. He said that he had been looking out of a bay window which covered the whole of Warwick Way and could see towards Eccleston Square.

He said that he saw Alan Vigar and the other man come along at about 9.50pm from the direction of Eccleston Square, walking diagonally towards 29 St George's Drive. he said:

I had a good look at both of them and took a note of this other man. This other man was about 5ft 10in in height, slim, extraordinarily well-built with fair to blonde hair, clean shaven and he had classic features. I could recognise him again.

The police sergeant then explained that the men passed out of his view and that he didn't see whether they entered 29 St George's Drive. He noted that he had known Alan Vigar for about 12 months but had never spoken to him.

Alan Vigar was found by the resident housekeeper. She said that she had been there for the previous ten years and that Alan Vigar had been there for the previous 18 months. She said that she had found him a 'very nice man indeed' and described him as the best tenant in the house. She noted that she only saw one of his men friends.

When the Coroner asked the housekeeper whether Alan Vigar had ever talked to her about his sexual interests, she replied, 'No, he did not'.

She noted that a lady called for him once but that she thought that it had been his mother.

She added that about two weeks earlier that a man called and left a message for Alan Vigar, but that the man didn't go upstairs. She said that she had never heard any kind of disturbance coming from his room.

She said that she went to his room at about 11.15am on 20 February 1962 to vacuum-clean the carpet and to dust, noting that she knocked at his door, but got no reply, and thought that he had gone out to work as normal, and so she opened the door with a pass key.

She said that when she went in she thought that there was something strange as his bed was not made, noting that he used to make his own bed, and that she found all the bedclothes bunched up together.

She said that she then saw a towel across the top of the bed and felt a bit scared and that when she moved the towel she saw Alan Vigar's face discoloured and pressed down into the pillow and that she could see that he was dead.

She said that she then went downstairs and fetched the owner of the house.

She noted that she didn't notice anything else unusual in the room because she didn't stay there long enough.

Seh said that the last time she saw Alan Vigar alive was at noon on 19 February 1962 when he left his room. She said that he told her not to bother with his room because he had been away for the weekend. She said that he had been with his friend and had been wearing his camel-hair short coat.

She explained that her room had been some distance from Alan Vigar's room and that it was separated by a flight of stairs. She said that she had been in her room all that Monday evening and didn't hear a thing, but noted that Alan Vigar had always been very quiet and that she had never previously heard him.

She said that after she told the landlady what she had seen that the police were called.

A police constable said that he received a message whilst in his radio car that there had been an attempted suicide at 29 St George's Drive and that he arrived there with two other officers and an ambulance crew and saw Alan Vigar lying face downwards in the pillow. He added that he noticed a piece of cloth under his neck and a towel under his forehead.

At that stage a detective that had been sitting in the well of the court untied a plastic bag and produced a sleeveless cotton vest, which the police constable said was the piece of cloth he found and put it across his throat to demonstrate how he found it on arrival at the flat.

He said that when he pulled the bedclothes back that he saw that Alan Vigar's hands were tied together behind his back with what appeared to be a dressing gown cord. The dressing gown cord was also produced at the inquest, it being coloured red, blue and yellow.

The police constable noted that the room had been very dark at the time as the electric light had not been working because the plug had not been fixed to switch on the bed-side lamp. However, he noted that the room had been in perfect order and that Alan Vigar's clothes had been neatly folded over the back of two fireside chairs and that there was no indication of there having been a struggle.

The pathologist said that he arrived at the scene at 2.30pm and found that Alan Vigar's left wrist was tied above his right wrist behind his back. He said that he thought that his death had occurred between 1am and 4am, but that if one allowed for a 25% margin that the time could have been between 11pm and 5am.

He said that he found two ligature marks, three quarters of an inch apart round his throat and that he found bloodstains on the pillow, indicating an asphyxial death. He also found some small abrasions on his shoulder that he said could have bene caused by a finger nail.

He said that the post mortem revealed some irregular marks around his throat, the lower one being 7 inches long and the other 6¼ inches long, and suggested that they could have been made by the vest.

The pathologist then demonstrated with the vest, with the assistance of the Coroner's officer, who held up his wrist, how the vest could have been pulled round Alan Vigar's throat like the reins of a horse. He noted that it would not have needed to have been tied to have caused death and that his death had been due to strangulation by a ligature.

When the Coroner asked the pathologist whether he had found anything to suggest a homosexual mode of life, the pathologist replied, 'No, I did not'.

He went on to say that he didn't think that the tying of Alan Vigar's hands could have been done by himself.

When the pathologist was asked whether he thought that the ligature marks could have been self-inflicted, he replied that they could not have been without some elaborate apparatus that would have been found in the room. The Coroner then noted:

In other words these marks must have been inflicted by somebody else.

To which the pathologist replied, 'Yes'.

A man that had lived in Gosberton Road in Balham, said that he had been with Alan Vigar on the eve of his murder. He said that he had been a foreman acetylene burner and had known Alan Vigar for about a year. Before he gave his evidence the Coroner told him that if any questions were asked that he thought might tend to make him consider that he had committed the offence that he had the right not to answer.

The man then said that he had called for Alan Vigar at 9,30am on 19 February 1962 and that they had gone out at 10am to visit a hatter's in Knightsbridge, Victoria and Piccadilly after which they went to a coffee house in the Haymarket. He said that whist they were at the coffee house that Alan Vigar had wanted to speak privately to a friend and they had parted for five minutes, but that they had been in the coffee house for about an hours.

He said that during the afternoon they strolled around and then went to Knightsbridge before finally parting outside a cinema in Leicester Square.

He said that he tried to telephone Alan Vigar between 7pm and 8pm but that he got no reply.

When he was asked whether Alan Vigar frequently made friends with men that he met in various place, the man replied that Alan Vigar was always interested in meeting people.

When the Coroner asked him, 'From your knowledge of him and, generally speaking, would you say his interest were primarily homosexual?', the man replied, 'No I would not'.

When he was asked, 'Do you think he was interested in women, the man replied, 'Some women'.

When the Coroner suggested, 'If we said he was of homosexual inclination, would that cover it?', the man replied, 'Yes'.

A Grenadier Guardsman said that he had known Alan Vigar for six months and that they had met in some of the clubs in London.

He said that he last saw him alive at 8.20pm on 19 February 1962 at Piccadilly Station and that they had been together there for about three quarters of an hour and that they had gone round the subways to Ward's Irish House and to Leicester Square Station where they parted, noting that they had been walking and talking all the time.

He told the Coroner that he was aware of Alan Vigar's sexual interests. He said that when they parted that Alan Vigar had had some drink but that he was otherwise all right. He said that Alan Vigar had not been worried or frightened and had told him that he was going to meet somebody.

Alan Vigar's brother, a shipping clerk that had lived in Oak Road, Westerham in Kent, said that Alan Vigar visited him in Westerham twice a month and that the last time he saw him was on 18 February 1962.

He said that Alan Vigar used to have the Monday's off and would work Saturdays and Sundays at the television studios.

The detective superintendent stated that the cord found at 29 St George's did not belong to either of Alan Vigar's two dressing gowns, but that the vest had been his.

He said that the police had taken 1,000 statements and that 1,500 people had been interrogated. He noted that certain articles of clothing were found to be missing from Alan Vigar's room, including two leather jackets. He added that the only money found was some coppers and that it was possible that some money was also missing. He said that other property found to be missing was an electric razor, a cigarette case and the keys to his room.

When the Coroner summed up at the inquest, he said that the strangulation, if they took into account the tying of the hands and the nature of the marks on his neck, must have been done by somebody else.  however, he noted that Alan Vigar must have been a party to the first part of the occurrence.

He said that whilst it was true that a person that had been in the room had carried out the assault on Alan Vigar, that it was far more probable that he had quite willingly submitted to being tied up, possibly in the nature of sexual play, and that the strangulation had been inflicted on him later.

He noted that whether it had been some kind of perverted play that had got out of hand, it was impossible to say.

The jury spent five minutes considering their verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see find.galegroup.com

see National Archives - MEPO 2/10748

see "Similarities In Four Murders." Times [London, England] 22 Feb. 1962: 6. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.

see Belfast Telegraph - Saturday 24 February 1962

see Belfast Telegraph - Thursday 22 February 1962

see Marylebone Mercury - Friday 25 May 1962