The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes

by Odell, Robin

  Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent, was one of the businessmen Litvinenko met in London. The Foreign Office requested his extradition from Russia. The Director of Public Prosecutions believed the evidence was sufficient to bring a charge of murder. In May 2007, the Russian authorities refused and there were some tense diplomatic exchanges between the two countries.

  The facts were that a murder had occurred on British soil involving poisoning with a dangerous substance. Three thousand scientists and health officials worked on the follow up to Litvinenko’s death. Over 700 people were tested for radiation and seventeen were found to be contaminated. The circumstances of Litvinenko’s death remain unsolved.

  A Signature Bullet

  Described as the nation’s favourite television broadcaster, Jill Dando was shot dead on the doorstep of her London home on 26 April 1999. Her murder was a high-profile crime and the chilling manner in which it was carried out shocked the public.

  The thirty-seven-year-old presenter of BBC television’s Crimewatch programme returned to her home in Fulham, London, after shopping locally. She was killed with a single shot fired at close range to the head. The close discharge of the weapon muffled the noise of the shot but eyewitnesses saw a man running down the street after the incident.

  The silent nature of the shooting, the custom-made bullet fired from a smooth-bore weapon in an execution-style killing led to speculation about the perpetrator’s motive. The weapon was never recovered but the spent cartridge case found at the crime scene indicated a 9mm semi-automatic handgun firing a “signature” bullet. This led to suggestions that Jill Dando might have been murdered in an underworld revenge attack as the result of one of the crime probes which she pursued on television. Other theories were that she was killed by a lone stalker or by a politically-motivated hit man.

  Rewards were offered for information that would lead to the killer and, just over a year after the murder, the police arrested an unemployed man who lived less than half a mile from Dando’s home. He was forty-seven-year-old Barry George, a man with a history of personality disorder. He was a fantasist who had learned to use weapons at a gun club.

  The evidence linking George to the shooting consisted of a minute particle of firearm residue lodged on his coat, which was similar to forensic traces found on the victim. This piece of evidence was controversial and remained so throughout Barry George’s trial and re-trial.

  Pleading his innocence, he was tried at the Old Bailey in 2001. The particle of firearm residue was crucial to the prosecution case, especially as eyewitnesses who had seen a man running in the street after the shooting did not pick out George on an identity parade. Doubts were voiced about his ability to carry out an execution-style killing using a customized weapon. Nevertheless, on 2 July 2001, by a majority verdict, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

  While there might have been satisfaction in some quarters that the killer of a high-profile personality had been brought to justice, there were concerns elsewhere about the safety of the verdict. George’s appeal was heard in August 2002 and dismissed. A commentator at the time remarked that it was a prosecution in which there was no murder weapon, no witness to the shooting, no confession and no motive.

  Consistently claiming his innocence, George won the right to a retrial. This took place at the Old Bailey in June 2008. The jury was told that he was a man fascinated with guns and in the habit of stalking local women. During questioning by the police he had made no secret of his fantasies which included pretending to be a member of the SAS and using the names of various personalities.

  It was acknowledged that George had a personality disorder and he also suffered from epilepsy. He was supported in court by a clinical psychologist who helped him to understand the proceedings. When the judge rejected the case for the forensic evidence based on the gunshot particle, the prosecution argued on the basis of circumstantial evidence. After deliberating for two days, the jury brought in a not guilty verdict and after eight years in prison, Barry George was a free man. That re-ignited the question, “Who killed Jill Dando?” One of the theories was that a Serbian hit man was sent to London to exact revenge for the NATO bombing of the Radio Television Serbia building in Belgrade on 23 April 1999.

  Murder In The Vatican

  Five shots were fired in the Vatican on 4 May 1998, but no one heard them apart from the victims. Captain Alois Esterman, Commander of the Swiss Guard, and his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, were shot dead. A third fatality was Lance-Corporal Cedric Tornay who had also been shot.

  The Vatican semi-official daily, L’Osservatore Romano, published a report of the shootings on its front page. Pope John Paul II wrote a letter of condolence to Captain Esterman’s parents. The official line was that Tornay, in a “fit of madness”, shot Esterman and his wife and then committed suicide. His motive was that his superior had denied him the award of a medal to which he was entitled. Tornay left a letter for his mother which mentioned the refusal to give him the medal.

  This quick explanation led to a great deal of comment and controversy. Conspiracy theories abounded. There were suggestions that Esterman had been killed as part of a power struggle inside the Vatican and that evidence had been tampered with. One theory had it that Tornay was made a victim by conspirators who killed him and placed his body in the Esterman’s apartment to stage a double-murder followed by a suicide.

  Stories circulated that Tornay was gay and in a relationship with Esterman. This led to opposition to Esterman’s appointment as head of the hundred-strong corps of Swiss Guards. He was told to reject Tornay whose response was one of revenge. Other theories were that Esterman had worked for the Stasi, East Germany’s secret intelligence service, and had been caught up in the murky world of spying. For good measure, there were allegations about rivalries and bullying in the Swiss Guard barracks. One thing that all these theories had in common was a lack of corroborating evidence.

  The Vatican report in February 1999 mentioned that Tornay had a cyst on the brain that affected his behaviour. Tornay, a Swiss national, had been buried in Martigny. His mother had already shed doubt on the authenticity of the letter she received from her son in which he said he had been refused his medal, the only thing he really wanted. In 2002, Tornay’s mother released details of a new post-mortem carried out in Lausanne. This recorded that there was no cyst on the brain and claimed that he had not committed suicide. He had been killed by a 7mm bullet, not the usual calibre issued to the Swiss Guards. This inspired newspaper headlines proclaiming, “Not suicide but assassination”.

  There was a flurry of books building on some of the theories about the three deaths. Then, in 2005, lawyers acting for Tornay’s mother petitioned the Swiss courts to open a murder enquiry. Despite the Vatican’s efforts to close the case, the events of 4 May 1998 remain open to explanation.

  Supergun

  As he stepped out of the lift to walk to his sixth-floor apartment on the evening of 22 March 1990, Dr Gerald Bull was shot dead. An assassin fired five bullets into the back of his head. No one at 28 Avenue François Folie in Brussels heard the shots. The assassin was never caught.

  Bull’s body was found by a woman friend visiting him that evening for dinner. When the news broke, there was a flurry of diplomatic activity and excitement among the intelligence agencies of several countries. Dr Bull, a Canadian engineer and innovator, was the controversial designer of a supergun with an immense range.

  Within weeks of Bull’s death, British newspapers were full of stories about parts for a supergun manufactured by British firms and destined to be shipped to Iraq. Metal tubes had been loaded aboard a freighter at Tees Dock for shipment to the port of Qasr in Iraq. HM Customs and MI6 were involved in enquiries and documents were seized from the engineering companies that had manufactured the tubes. Some experts believed these were components for a 40-metre gun barrel, while Iraqi sources said they were simply pipes for the petrochemical industry.

  The House of Commons staged an i
ll-tempered debate on the issue and there were claims, counter-claims, denials and conspiracy theories. The undeniable fact was that an acknowledged designer in the field of artillery development had been gunned down by an assassin using a 7.65mm pistol.

  Bull was a brilliant, if controversial figure. He was the youngest person ever to receive a doctorate from Toronto University and for ten years he worked on armaments research funded by Canada and the US. He had set up a test firing facility in Barbados to launch rocket-driven projectiles into space. This was of enormous military significance and, if theory could be put into practice, offered a cost-effective way of launching satellites.

  In 1967, government funding dried up, so Bull established his own Science Research Corporation in the US. He was irritated by what he believed was a rejection of his ideas by western governments and turned his attention to South America, South Africa, China and Iraq. He developed the GS howitzer, a gun with a range of 40 km (25 miles) for South Africa.

  When plans for a supergun emerged, with orders from Iraq, alarm bells began to ring in several countries. With a projected range of 1,000 km (620 miles), a supergun located in Iraq would bring Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey within range.

  It was believed that Dr Bull had been warned that Mossad, the Israelis’ secret intelligence service, wanted to kill him. An Egyptian nuclear scientist had been mysteriously murdered in Paris in 1980 and Israel had made it plain that they would not stand back and allow Iraq to develop nuclear and long-range weapons. For its part, Mossad suggested that Dr Bull had been killed by the Iraqis when they discovered his CIA connections.

  “This Somewhat Strange Story”

  On 18 June 1982 a man met an untimely end suspended from a rope under Blackfriars Bridge, London.

  Sixty-two-year-old Roberto Calvi was found by a postman on his way to work at 7.30 a.m. He had been suspended by his neck with a metre-length of rope. His pockets were filled with stones and bricks weighing 5 kg (11 lb). His passport and a wallet containing £7,000 in different currencies were intact. A post-mortem concluded that Calvi had died of asphyxiation by hanging.

  Enquiries into the dramatic death of God’s Banker, as he was known, revealed the complex inner workings of the international banking system. Many murky secrets were uncovered and unsolved mysteries pinpointed. Calvi had had close financial ties with the Vatican and, the day before he died, he was stripped of his powers as head of Banco Ambrosiano. The bank crashed in 1982 with debts of over £700 million ($1.3 billion). There were allegations of fraudulent dealings and Calvi was under investigation in Italy for false accounting and exchange control violations.

  The inquest into Calvi’s death, held in London in July 1982, concluded that he had killed himself. This verdict did not quell the speculation about the man and what had led up to his death. It was known that he had connections with the Sicilian banker, Michele Sindona, who had been convicted of fraud in the US. It was Sindona who had introduced Calvi to the intricacies of financial manipulation.

  Members of Calvi’s family were not satisfied with the inquest verdict. They believed he had been murdered to prevent him from revealing the identity of major players in the banking underworld. In March 1983, a second inquest was held into Calvi’s death during which witnesses spoke about plots to kill him. It was believed that he had been trying to set up a deal to repay Banco Ambrosiano’s debts. The second inquest recorded an open verdict in what Lord Chief Justice Lane described as, “This somewhat strange story.”

  For the next few years, Calvi’s name was rarely out of the news. The Prime Minister of Italy, Bettino Craxi, suggested in 1984 that the banker’s death might be connected with criminals operating within the banned P2 Masonic lodge. In 1989 a court in Milan ruled that Calvi’s death was murder. In 1992, Calvi’s family commissioned a forensic report confirming their belief that he had been murdered.

  In June 1998, an Italian judge ordered the exhumation of Calvi’s body to establish whether the cause of death was suicide or murder. There were hopes that fingernail scrapings might help determine whether Calvi had loaded his pockets with bricks. In 2002, investigators in Italy recovered a safety deposit box in the Milan branch of Banco Ambrosiano that contained documents possibly shedding new light on the affair.

  In July 2003, it was reported that Italian prosecutors had concluded Calvi was murdered and suspected the involvement of four people. Their belief was that Calvi was killed by the Mafia for mishandling its money. The four were put on trial in Rome in March 2004 when new evidence was put forward seeking to show that Calvi was involved in laundering treasury bonds stolen by the Mafia in 1982.

  In June 2007, the Court in Rome decided there was insufficient evidence to convict those accused and they were all acquitted. The prosecution reconstruction of Calvi’s death was that he had been lured from his London home and strangled before being taken by boat to Blackfriars’ Bridge where his body was suspended. This scenario was rejected by the judges.

  More than twenty years after the event the mystery of Roberto Calvi’s death remains. Commenting on the affair, Licio Gelli, the former master of the P-2 lodge, said, “It is not up to us to deliver judgments. Only God will be able to tell the truth.”

  “. . . Cold, Calculating And Evil . . .”

  A retired businesswoman and property owner hired a contract killer to eliminate the woman she saw as a rival for the affection of the man she loved.

  Fifty-seven-year-old Kathleen Calhaem lived at Cheddar in Somerset in the UK and harboured an obsessive love for her solicitor, Kenneth Pigot. She became jealous of the wife of Pigot’s best friend, fellow solicitor, Hugh Rendell. Pigot and Shirley Rendell were involved in a long-standing affair. Calhaem saw Shirley Rendell as a rival and resorted to following Pigot and spying on him. She wanted to move in with him but he rejected this approach.

  In October 1982, Calhaem hired a private detective to follow Pigot and report on his activities. The man she selected for this task was Julian Zajac, a twenty-nine-year-old foundry worker from Avonmouth, Bristol. In his spare time, under the name Julian Jones, Zajac ran a detective agency which he called Eagle Investigations.

  In due course, Calhaem told Zajac that she wanted him to get rid of Shirley Rendell. She agreed to pay him £10,000; half the money up-front and the remainder after the task was completed. On 23 February 1983, Zajac stole a car from his employer and drove to the Rendell home at Yatton. He had prepared the way by telephoning first to make sure that Shirley Rendell’s husband was not at home. He sat outside the house in the car drinking vodka to steady his nerves. Then, claiming to be delivering a package, he gained entry to the house.

  Armed with a shotgun, knife and hammer, he attacked Shirley Rendell, clubbing her with the hammer and then stabbing her in the throat. Zajac was arrested after a mutual acquaintance came forward to tell the police that he had tried to enlist his help as an accomplice. Later, Zajac told him that he had attacked Shirley Rendell.

  Zajac was tried for murder at Birmingham Crown Court in September 1983. He admitted going to the Rendell home but said his intention was to commit robbery. He said he lost his head when Shirley Rendell put up resistance and tried to reassure her that his only motive was robbery. He hit her with the hammer, then panicked and stabbed her through the throat. Zajac said he was sorry for what he had done and would assist the police in bringing a prosecution against the woman who hired him. Of Kathleen Calhaem he said, “I feel she is such an evil person . . . she made me feel like a schoolboy.” Mr Justice Stephen Brown passed down a life sentence.

  Calhaem was tried at Winchester Crown Court in January 1984. She denied the charge. Zajac was the chief prosecution witness and he clearly implicated Calhaem who had paid him to carry out the killing. She did not give evidence. Described as “cold, calculating and evil”, the jury took four hours to decide that she was guilty of hiring a man to commit murder on her behalf. She was sentenced to life imprisonment.

  A Yellow Jaguar

  The murder victim was
given a distinctive yellow car as a means of identifying her as the target for the gunman who killed her.

  Alan Palliko, a former police officer in Los Angeles, created a macho image for himself. He was dedicated to physical fitness, had a succession of girlfriends and loved cars and guns. He vowed that he would make his first million by the time he reached the age of thirty-five.

  He married Katherine Drummond in 1964 but the marriage was soon under strain due to his constant philandering. In August 1965, Katherine was badly injured in a hit-and-run incident and, a few months later, she was attacked by Palliko while she sat in her car. He attempted to strangle her and passers-by heard him say, “I’m going to kill you”. When his assault created too much public attention, he ran off. Katherine decided not to press charges but she asked for a divorce.

  Around this time, Palliko was in a renewed relationship with Sandra Stockton, whom he had married in 1960 and subsequently divorced. On the evening of 11 December 1966, Sandra’s husband, Henry Stockton, was shot dead in his home by intruders as he watched television. Questions began to be asked when it was discovered that Sandra was his main beneficiary and stood to gain a substantial sum from the insurance pay-out.

  Officers investigating the murder found that Sandra had bought a .22 calibre pistol earlier in the year and enquiries led to Alan Palliko. As the murder investigation dragged on, Palliko became the owner of The Grand Duke bar in Burbank and he moved in to a luxury apartment nearby. He also acquired a new girlfriend, Judy Davis, a swimming pool instructor, whom he married in March 1968. The marriage was full of tension from the very beginning and was destined to be shortlived.