On June 7th, 2001, two men died violently in south London within hours of each other in incidents police quickly linked to the same gang fight. Twenty-three-year-old Donovan Williams was shot dead in a flat in Streatham, while thirty-five-year-old John Dickinson, also known as “Little-John” or “Short-man,” was found fatally stabbed in the grounds of Mayday University Hospital in Thornton Heath.
The violence erupted around six p.m. that evening during a gang fight involving up to eight men in Streatham. Donovan Williams, who was from Brixton, was found dead inside a flat on Barrow Road when police arrived at the scene. He had been killed by gunshot wounds.
Approximately an hour later, John Dickinson was discovered in the grounds of Mayday University Hospital (now Croydon University Hospital) at around seven p.m. He had suffered a stab wound to his leg and died shortly afterward. Dickinson, described as five feet four inches tall, stocky, and of Jamaican origin, had entered the UK in September 2000 and was living in the Kennington area. His recent movements were largely unknown to investigators.
Police believed John had been directly involved in the earlier Streatham fight and was stabbed during or immediately after it. He was transported to the hospital in a blue Mercedes Compressor. Officers later recovered the vehicle and appealed for information about a blood-stained man seen leaving it at the junction of Norbury Crescent and Dunbar Avenue.
The Metropolitan Police’s Operation Trident, the unit specializing in black-on-black gangster crime, led the investigation. Five men were arrested in connection with the incident and bailed pending further inquiries. Detectives released an artist’s impression of John Dickinson in an effort to trace his relatives and any personal effects, as they had limited information about his life in the UK.
Detective Inspector Mick Latham of Operation Trident said at the time: “We don’t know where he’s been living and we need to contact his family and those people who knew him because he may have personal effects which need to be returned.”
Despite early arrests and the clear link between the two deaths, no charges were ever brought in either case. Both killings are listed among the Metropolitan Police’s unsolved murders from the 2000s, with John Dickinson’s death officially recorded as occurring in Thornton Heath and explicitly connected to the earlier shooting of Donovan Williams in Streatham.
Both cases remain unsolved more than two decades later.
Crime Immemorial 