Freddie Mills - Death

Death

On 24 July 1965 he was found shot in the head in his car, parked in a cul-de-sac behind his nightclub. He died later in the Middlesex Hospital. He had told the nightclub staff that he was going for a nap in his car, something that he often did. A week or two previously he had borrowed a rifle from a friend who ran a shooting gallery. Although the rifle was not in working order when borrowed, it had apparently been repaired and was found in the car alongside him. The coroner’s inquest heard that the angle of the bullet was consistent with a self-inflicted wound, and the inquest ruled that he had committed suicide.

Mills was buried in Camberwell New Cemetery, South London. Among the pallbearers were Jack Solomons, the boxing promoter and Henry Cooper, British heavyweight champion. His grave has a marble boxing glove on it, beneath which is an urn containing a real boxing glove.

At the time of his death he was heavily in debt to a crime syndicate, which led him to be both depressed and in fear of his life. Following his death, several lurid theories sprang up: such as that Mills, married with children, had been arrested in a public toilet and charged with indecency, or that his suicide had been staged by Chinese gangsters who were seeking to take over his club. There was even a story that he was about to be revealed as a serial killer, nicknamed Jack the Stripper.. In 2002, a book about Miller was to come out, with allegations that he killed 8 women and had a homosexual relationship with singer Micjhael Holliday and possibly also with Ronnie Kray .