It’s our Christmas crime compendium, and yes, we’re wrapping South London horror in tinsel again.

Before we get into the cases, there’s a bit of festive nonsense. Questionable Christmas cracker jokes, South London takes on classic Christmas films, and the usual gentle chaos as we attempt to bring some cheer to stories that absolutely do not deserve it.

This year’s main case takes us back to Victorian South London, to Christmas Eve 1836. Hannah Brown was fifty, hardworking, and quietly getting on with life. She believed she was days away from a Christmas Day wedding and a new life abroad. Instead, she was walking straight into one of the most disturbing murders of the era.

What followed unfolded across the Twelve Days of Christmas and shocked London. A crime rooted in deception, money, and manipulation, carried out behind closed doors while the rest of the city celebrated.

Then there's the story of Anastasia Voldina at the hands of yet another man (we know not all men), two stories hundreds of years apart but hauntingly similar!

Thank you for spending part of your Christmas with us. We hope you’re warm, fed, slightly tipsy if that’s your thing, and not listening alone on a dark street.

Happy Christmas from us both, and we’ll see you on the other side 🎄

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

In this episode, we tell the story of Destiny Lauren, a woman whose death in Kentish Town in November 2009 was entirely preventable.

After a brief catch-up that takes in missed episodes, pre-Christmas chaos, questionable food choices and the kind of rambling only we can manage, the conversation shifts to a far more serious place.

Destiny was 29 years old. She was a daughter, a sister, and a woman living openly and authentically with the support of her family. She was careful and routine-driven, taking steps to protect herself while working in a world that already carried risk. On the night she was killed, she followed those routines. She did nothing reckless. She did nothing wrong.

Her killer, Leon Anthony File, travelled from Catford to Kentish Town while out on licence, despite a known history of serious violence. What happened that night was not unpredictable or random, but the result of repeated failures to manage a clearly identified risk.

We focus on who Destiny really was, the life she was trying to build, and the systems that failed her. This episode is about dignity, accountability, and a woman who deserved far more than the fate she was given.

Sources include

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

Three deaths. One family. One quiet corner of South Croydon that suddenly found itself at the centre of a mystery that felt more like a Victorian thriller than the suburbs in the 1920s.

In this episode we dive into the strange chain of events that hit the Sidney and Duff families after three relatives died with the same unexplained symptoms, months apart. Doctors brushed it off, neighbours whispered, and life carried on. But once the Home Office ordered exhumations, everything changed. Each body showed clear signs of arsenic poisoning.

No intruder. No confession. No charges. Almost a century later, the Croydon Poisoning Mystery still sits in a very uncomfortable grey area.

We walk through the family tensions, the red flags and the unanswered questions — all sprinkled with our usual chaos, including the saga of the noise-cancelling headphones that turned Morrisons into sensory deprivation, whether stroking someone’s arm is science or just creepy, a full rant about eight-year-olds with teenage attitudes, and the ongoing diplomatic crisis caused by that comment about cheap suits.

Sources include:

https://beardyhistory.com/2025/08/10/unsolved-arsenic-murders-in-croydon
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/53486769#:~:text=,Croydon%20%28England
https://www.insidehook.com/adventure/hidden-venom-famous-unsolved-poisonings
https://beardyhistory.com/2025/08/10/unsolved-arsenic-murders-in-croydon
https://insidecroydon.com/2022/01/08/did-the-south-croydon-poisoner-really-get-away-with-murder/
https://historywiki.therai.org.uk/index.php?title=Edmund_Creighton_Duff
https://www.everand.com/book/897323633/Poisonous-Lies-The-Croydon-Arsenic-Mystery-Great-Unsolved-Murders-of-the-20th-Century
https://forum.casebook.org/forum/social-chat/other-mysteries/6176-the-croydon-poisonings

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)