As he approached, Tyler saw that the vehicle in question was a dark coloured Ford Anglia estate car, registration 341 KHO and there were two men inside; one in the driver’s seat and one in the front passenger seat. Tyler asked them what the problem was and the driver replied that he thought he was out of petrol.
Constable Tyler wanted to know more and asked the driver for his name. He said he was John Edison but gave no reply when asked for the vehicle’s registration number. Satisfied that something wasn’t quite right here, Tyler then turned to the passenger who said he was John’s brother. Neither man could produce any documents or identification so Tyler demanded that they accompany him back to the station. The Ford was secured and both men then climbed into Constable Tyler’s car. There, Tyler told the men that he was not satisfied with their explanation, believed that the vehicle they were driving might well be stolen and said that he was calling for help from the Hampshire Constabulary.
The company car used by Kenneth Giles and stolen by John De Lara. The car was also used to dump Giles’ body.
The two men were escorted back to the Town Quay police office from where Constable Tyler did indeed ring for assistance. It wasn’t very long before Constable Alfred Edmunds arrived and, after some questioning by both Tyler and Edmunds, the two men finally gave their correct names. The driver of the car identified himself as John Henry De Lara and his passenger was indeed his brother, Owen William De Lara. They were then asked who the car they had been driving actually belonged to and John said that he had seen it outside the Horse and Groom pub in East Street, with the keys in the ignition, and had simply taken it. They were then told that they would be taken to the Civic Centre police station whereupon, within the space of a few minutes, both of the De Laras asked to use the toilet.
At 3.30am, Constable Geoffrey William Flowers arrived at the Town Quay station and assisted Constable Edmunds to take the prisoners to the Civic Centre. Before they left, Flowers was given a pair of gloves, which John had said he didn’t need anymore and had thrown into a bin. It was believed that these gloves might be evidence in any case that might develop.
The Civic Centre. It was here that the De Lara brothers were interviewed and later charged.
It was also before the De Laras were taken in that two searches were organised. Constables Flowers and Tyler first searched the Ford Anglia. They found a wallet underneath the driver’s seat which contained two £5 notes and two £1 notes. Then the two officers searched the toilet which the two brothers had both used. In the cistern they discovered a gold watch and a man’s ring.
By 4.30am, both prisoners were in the parade room at the Civic Centre police station. Detective Constable Edward David Roberts was given all the details thus far, and received the items which Constable Edmunds had brought with him. By now, both men had been searched and amongst the items found on them was a bunch of keys, a Dunhill lighter, and an empty cigarette case. These, along with the wallet, pair of gloves, the watch and ring, were all entered into evidence.
A further interview took place and John De Lara admitted that he had taken the car at around 11.30pm. Outlining his movements of the previous evening he said he had been to a few public houses including the Beehive and the Nags Head. He had not actually gone inside the Horse and Groom but had seen the car outside and taken it. He had then gone to pick up his brother Owen, by which time it was midnight or perhaps even 12.30am, and they had driven around the city. At first, he denied knowing anything about the watch and the ring found in the cistern at the police station but eventually admitted he had left them there, claiming that he had found them in the car.
Still the questioning continued and Constable Roberts explained that he was concerned about the owner of the car. The officers did not believe that John had found the car with the keys in the ignition and felt that he might have attacked the owner in order to steal his car. Then, suddenly, John altered the entire line of the investigation by announcing: ‘He’s dead.’
John went on to make a full statement part of which read: ‘I was in the Horse and Groom. I was only drinking small browns like. I went to the toilet and I saw two queers in the bar.’
‘At half-ten I walked down the road towards Edwin Jones [a local shop] when he picked me up in his car and asked me if I wanted a lift. He took me home and I asked him in for a cup of coffee. While I was in the kitchen he came in and touched me up. Something went click and I went berserk.’
The kitchen at 92, Wimpson Lane, Millbrook, where Kenneth Giles was attacked and killed by John De Lara.
John went on to say that he had torn the electric flex from an iron, and used it to strangle his victim. He had then dumped the body somewhere in the New Forest, on a side road close to Lymington.
Once all these details had been taken down in writing, John was placed into a police car with Detective Constable Roberts and Detective Constable Ballard in an attempt to find the location of the body dump. Somewhere along the A35, between Totton and Ashurst, John said he thought they had gone left up ahead and recalled driving past a pub named the Swan. This establishment was just past Lyndhurst but, despite the best efforts of the two officers, no trace of the car owner could be found.
By now, the keeper of the stolen vehicle had been identified. Kenneth John Giles lived at 5 Ascupart House, Bevois Valley, Southampton with his common law wife, Caroline Margaret. Though the couple were not actually married, Caroline had changed her name, by deed poll, and she had lived as Kenneth’s wife for some fourteen years.
Another view of the kitchen in Wimpson Lane.
When Caroline was interviewed she told the police that Kenneth had been born on 19 August 1912, at Exmouth. He worked as a shipping manager for Wilmot Packaging and the car in question had been a company car. Caroline went on to say that she knew that Kenneth had homosexual tendencies and at one stage, she had left him for a period of eighteen months because of this. She also stated that, despite being together for so long, she had never had sexual intercourse with him. Turning to the night in question, Sunday, 27 July, Caroline said that Kenneth had left home at around 7.00pm to go to the Highfield pub. He had the company car with him at the time and she would have expected him to return no later than midnight.
The use of the car was confirmed by Wilfrid Sandiford, the works manager for Wilmot’s of Salisbury Road, Totton. He confirmed that Kenneth Giles had worked for the company since 30 August 1962. Part of his duties involved a good deal of travel and he had been allowed to use various company cars for this purpose. Since the summer of 1967, the car allocated to him was a blue Ford Anglia registration 341 KHO and Kenneth had had exclusive use of that vehicle since 14 May 1969.
At this stage, John De Lara had admitted that he strangled Kenneth Giles and then dumped his body but what had the involvement been of Owen, his brother? Officers began speaking to John’s neighbours at Wimpson Lane, Millbrook. Leslie Colin Dear lived in flat 86 with his mother and their sitting room was directly underneath John De Lara’s flat at 92. Leslie reported that at around 11.00pm on 27 July, he had heard a loud noise, coming from the flat above. It sounded like furniture being thrown onto the floor and Leslie assumed that John had come home drunk and knocked something over.
Frank James Cousins lived at flat 90 and some half an hour after the noise had been heard by Leslie Dear, Frank was heading to bed when he drew back the curtains in his lounge. Looking down into the street he saw a blue Ford parked on the footpath. The following morning, the car had gone.
Of more import perhaps, was the testimony of Lilian Gorton who lived in flat 84. She had retired for the night at some time between 10.30pm and 11.00pm on 27 July but after some time she was woken by a noise outside her window. Lilian got out of bed and looked outside. She saw three men leaving the flats together, but one of them was being carried by the other two. She assumed that he was drunk and the others were helping him home. She recognised one of the men as the man who lived at number 92, John De Lara and at one stage, one of the men said: ‘Don’t d
rop it now. Don’t drop it now.’ From this evidence, it appeared that Owen had taken an active part in the disposal of Kenneth’s body.
To check on this, officers spoke to Patricia Joyce De Lara, Owen’s wife at their home, 14 Oslo Towers, Weston, Southampton. She explained that she and Owen had been married for four and a half years but had no children yet. Indeed, Owen was due to take some medical advice soon, on the possibility of having a family.
Referring to the weekend she told officers that her husband’s birthday was 24 July whilst her brother’s was 25 July. For that reason, they had spent the weekend at her brother Walter’s house but had returned to Oslo Towers at around 11.30pm on 27 July. They had had something to eat and were watching television when there was a knock on the front door. Owen went out to answer it and Patricia could hear raised voices in the hallway. She went out to see who had called at this time of night to find John, who looked extremely upset.
Patricia asked John what the matter was and was shocked to hear him say that he had just ‘… strangled a bloke’. He pleaded with Owen to help him get rid of the body and Owen, quite correctly, said that he would go to the police with John and explain what had happened. John would have none of it and said: ‘No, I’ll get life.’ Patricia made some coffee and, after some discussion, Owen agreed to help and the two brothers left the house together in the early hours of 28 July.
Meanwhile, the search for the missing man’s body continued. By speaking to both John and Owen, the police were able to narrow down the area they were referring to. The area around Lyndhurst was visited again and eventually the two brothers spotted a grass verge they recognised. At one stage, John had reversed onto the verge, which was at the edge of a driveway and it was here, in Ornamental Drive, Bolderwood, that officers finally found the bracken-covered body of Kenneth Giles. John De Lara was now charged with murder and his brother Owen with assisting an offender.
The lane leading to the spot where Kenneth Giles’ body was finally discovered. Notice the police officer guarding the location.
The trial of the two men opened on Tuesday, 2 December 1969, before Mister Justice Fisher and a jury of nine men and three women. The case for the prosecution was outlined by Mr Peter H R Bristow, assisted by Mr Robert Hughes, whilst John was defended, on the murder charge, by Mr Ian Starforth Hill and Mr Richard Bain. Owen was defended by Mr Raymond Stock and Mr David Owen Thompson.
After the various police witnesses had been heard, Caroline Giles repeated her story of Kenneth having left home on the night of 27 July. The following evening she had been taken to the mortuary where she made a formal identification of the body. She had also identified various items as ones belonging to Kenneth. These included the watch and ring recovered from the cistern in the police station toilet and the wallet found on John De Lara.
The body of Kenneth Giles in situ. Only bracken covering the body has been removed.
June Stewart was a part-time barmaid in the Horse and Groom public house, and had been for the past fifteen years. She knew all of the regular customers quite well and was behind the bar on 27 July from 7.00pm until around 10.30pm. At some time between 9.00pm and 9.30pm, a customer she knew as John had come into the bar. He had sat in his usual seat and chatted for a time with Dennis Jones, one of the barmen. June had known John for some time and also was aware that he was a homosexual. John, of course, was Kenneth John Giles, who had apparently preferred to use his second name when frequenting public houses around the city.
Confirmation could be given of the approximate time that Kenneth’s body had been dumped in Ornamental Drive. Bertie Benjamin Smith was a head keeper in the New Forest and lived in a cottage at the top of a long driveway. On the night of 27 July, he had gone to bed at midnight. He slept soundly but was woken by the sound of a car engine being revved very hard, in his driveway. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was some time after 2.00am. The noise died down and Bertie went back to sleep. The following morning he found vehicle tracks on the grass verge which separated his cottage from the main road.
The initial medical examination and the subsequent postmortem had been carried out by Dr Peter Pullar. He reported marks of a double ligature around the neck of the dead man indicating that a thin material had been wound around the throat twice before being tightened. An object such as the electric flex collected by the police, could have made those wounds. Dr Pullar confirmed that the cause of death was strangulation by means of a ligature.
Carole Ann De Lara was John’s estranged wife and now lived at 9 Redbridge Towers, Millbrook. She told the court that she and John had married on 20 December 1965 at which time, John was in the army. The couple had two children: Anthony who was now three and Amanda Jane who was eighteen months. John, however, was not the father of the youngest child.
Carole went on to explain that on 31 May 1967, at Munster in Germany, John had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment by an army court martial for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage. With another soldier he had broken into the Other Ranks Club and damaged beyond repair a juke box, two games machines and some bar furniture. As for the assault charges, apparently John had goaded a much smaller man in his unit, sometimes rousing him from his sleep and forcing him to engage in boxing practice against his will.
Whilst John was serving his sentence in Germany and just before he was due to be released, Carole had found the flat at 92 Wimpson Lane and had moved in there on 10 January 1968. John had returned home and joined his family ten days later, on 20 January. Immediately he had obtained work as a labourer at Montague Meyer Limited but that job didn’t last very long, John being dismissed soon afterwards. He then found employment as a packer at Dimplex.
There were, however, some marital problems. As Carole had already explained, Amanda was not John’s child. She had had a brief relationship whilst he was in prison and, whilst she had been confined to hospital during her daughter’s birth, Carole had discovered that John had been entertaining a sixteen-year-old girl at their flat. They had words about this and, in the heat of the argument, John had hit her. Carole had then gone to live with her mother for a short time but soon returned to Wimpson Lane.
The couple argued again in June 1969 during which John banged Carole’s head into the larder door two or three times. As a result of this and the continued strained relationship, Carole returned to her mother’s house on 5 July and had been there ever since.
In the event, on the second and final day of the trial, after all the prosecution evidence had been heard, Owen De Lara changed his plea to guilty on an amended charge. That charge was now: ‘That on July 28th last, at Southampton, after John De Lara had committed an arrestable offence, knowing or believing him to be guilty of the offence or some other arrestable offence, without lawful authority or excuse, assisted John De Lara to take the body of Kenneth John Giles from 92 Wimpson Lane and to conceal the same at Bolderwood, near Lyndhurst, with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution of John De Lara.’ For that offence, Owen would eventually receive a sentence of eighteen months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years.
As for John De Lara, after an absence of four hours, the jury could only return a majority verdict. Eleven members of the jury agreed that he was guilty of murder whilst one dissented. As a result, John was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of ten years. He appealed against that sentence almost a year later, on 12 November 1970, but his plea was dismissed and the sentence was confirmed.
Chapter 13
History Repeating Itself Stephen Michael Marley 1973
In October 1947, the Union Castle ship Durban Castle left Capetown in South Africa, bound for Southampton. Somewhere along the journey, James Camb disposed of the body of Gay Gibson, only to find himself charged with her murder. Then, in September 1973, another ship, the Rotherwick Castle, another vessel of the Union Castle line, also left Capetown, bound for Southampton and once again, one of the passengers would never get to complete
her journey, and another man would face a charge of murder.
There was in fact one big difference between the ships in these two stories. The Durban Castle had been a passenger ship but the Rotherwick Castle was a cargo ship and as such, she was not entitled to take passengers. This, however, did not deter two young friends; Michelle Kirkwood and Linda Von-Waltzleben, who decided to become stowaways in South Africa.
The Rotherwick Castle on which Michelle Kirkwood met her death at the hands of Stephen Marley.
The ship was docked at Capetown from 1–4 September 1973. During that time there was a small party thrown by the crew and four South African girls were invited on board to join the festivities. Two of these girls were Michelle and Linda, both of whom earned their living as prostitutes, their ‘pitch’ being the waterfront. The two girls had been on the ship a few times before whilst it was in port, but this time they decided that they didn’t want to leave. So it was that when the Rotherwick Castle left port on 4 September, Michelle and Linda hid themselves in the cabin of one of the crew; Stephen Michael Marley.
On 21 September, the ship docked in Southampton. Marley, and another member of the crew, Anthony Turner, then smuggled Linda off the ship and out of the dockyard, after which she was given a lift to Basingstoke railway station. As for Michelle Kirkwood, she was nowhere to be seen, for she had never completed the journey to England.
On the day after the Rotherwick Castle had docked, 22 September, Linda Von-Waltzleben made her mind up to hitchhike to Herne Bay, where Stephen Marley lived. She was fortunate in quickly obtaining a lift from James Francis Gaitens, a consultant biologist who lived in Sittingbourne. He agreed to take Linda as far as his home town and dropped her off at the railway station that afternoon, after first giving her his contact details in case she needed further help. Later, Linda telephoned Mr Gaitens, saying she had got lost, and as a result he picked her up, took her to his house, introduced her to his wife, and all three then had dinner together. It was during that meal that Linda told him that Marley had dumped Michelle’s body over the side of the ship.
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Southampton Page 12