by Odell, Robin
Justice was swift in the 1870s and the jury deliberated for a mere thirty minutes before finding the defendants guilty. The pair in the dock wilted on hearing the verdict and four policemen were required to keep them upright to hear Mr Justice Hargreaves pass sentence. Condemning them to death, he referred melodramatically to the time “when the dark waters of ocean and river shall give up their coffined millions to the voice of God”.
Nichols, aged thirty, and Lester, aged twenty, fulfilled their appointment with the hangman at Darlinghurst Gaol on 18 June 1872.
“Here’s My Marker”
The kidnapper and murderer of a priest buried his victim on a sandy beach, marking the spot with a scarf, so that he could report the discovery as his “civic duty”.
On the night of 2 August 1921, a man wearing driving goggles to protect his identity, appeared at the priest’s house next to the Church of the Holy Angels at Colma near San Francisco. The man asked the housekeeper if she would fetch the priest as he needed his services to attend a dying man. Father Patrick E. Heslin responded to the summons and he drove off into the night with the stranger. He was not seen alive again.
When sixty-year-old Father Heslin failed to return home, his housekeeper notified the church authorities and the police were alerted. Within a few days, the Church received a typewritten ransom note demanding $6,500. A huge search was under way to locate the missing priest when a second ransom note was received. This repeated the earlier demand for money and the note read, “Fate has made me do this,” adding, with emphasis, “the father is not yet DEAD.”
On 10 August, the Archbishop received an unexpected visitor who told him he thought he knew where the missing priest was. He related his claim to the police telling them that Father Heslin had a man who fried flapjacks watching over him. This seemingly mad utterance made sense when someone recalled a seaside advertisement at Salada Beach which showed a man tossing flapjacks over a camp fire. The eccentric individual who had imparted this information was William A. Hightower. He was something of a Walter Mitty character who had worked at mostly menial jobs but claimed to be an inventor.
Hightower went with the police and a search team armed with shovels to Salada Beach. He directed them to a particular area in the sand. Pointing to a black scarf, he said, “Here’s my marker”. They found the body of Father Heslin who had been beaten and shot.
Clearly knowing too much for his own good, Hightower was charged with murder. A search of the room he had been using in a San Francisco hotel produced the typewriter on which he had written the ransom notes. Further enquiries established that he had pawned the .45 revolver used to shoot the priest.
There was great public outrage at the violent death of Father Heslin and demands for his killer to face the death penalty. Hightower was sent for trial and found guilty of murder. His sentence was life imprisonment at San Quentin where he worked in the kitchens, having once been a baker, and produced a newsletter written in his quirky style.
Questions about his sanity were lost in the storm of protest over the killing of a priest lured from his home on what he believed to be an errand of mercy. Hightower came from a poor background and his dreams of making money from his inventions never materialized. His motive for murder was financial gain.
“I Got His Identity Card And Name”
A police officer dying in the street after being shot recorded the name and address of the murderer in his notebook before expiring.
On 13 February 1948, PC Nathaniel Edgar was working in plain clothes as part of a drive to curb a spate of housebreaking incidents in the Southgate area of London. He had been following a suspect in the vicinity of Wades Hill. At around 8 p.m. he stopped and questioned a man who responded by drawing a revolver and firing three shots at the policeman.
Local residents found the wounded constable lying in the street and called for help. A patrol car arrived at the scene. Edgar told them, “The man was by the door. I got his identity card and name. He shot me in the legs with three shots. The pocket book is in my inside pocket.” In it the dying PC had recorded the details “M or (Mr) Thomas Donald, 247 Cambridge Road, Enfield, BEAH 257/2.” He became unconscious and died in hospital later that night of the wounds he had received in his right upper leg.
The police had no difficulty identifying Donald Thomas, an army deserter who had been on the wanted list since October 1947. He was not at his home in Enfield but was located at lodgings in Clapham. Being a deserter had made him wary and he spotted the police when they arrived in a wireless car. But he was not quick enough to evade their tackles when they burst into his room and he attempted to pull a gun from under a pillow.
The man was quickly overpowered and dispossessed of his loaded pistol. “That gun’s full up and they were all for you,” he told the arresting officer. A search of his room produced several rounds of ammunition, a truncheon and a book entitled Shooting to Live with the One-Hand Gun. This was an instruction book written by two army commandos on the use of the pistol by security forces. Bullets test-fired from Thomas’s Luger pistol matched those found in the dead policeman’s body.
Thomas had left school at the age of fourteen and was generally regarded as a bright boy. He fell into bad habits and spent time at an approved school before being called up for military service in January 1945. He deserted within two weeks and spent two years on the run before the military police caught up with him. After a period of detention, he deserted again.
He was tried for the murder of PC Edgar at the Old Bailey in April 1949 and found guilty. He was sentenced to death but escaped the hangman’s clutches because the death penalty was suspended for five years following a vote on capital punishment in the House of Commons. Thomas was therefore given a sentence of life imprisonment. As Sir Harold Scott, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, put it, this decision was, “viewed with critical feelings by police officers”.
“Omar Killed Me”
When Ghislaine Marshal, a wealthy widow, was fatally stabbed in her apartment in Nice, in France, she managed to write the name of her murderer on a door using her own blood. She died around midday on 23 June 1991, leaving a clue that proved to be not as straightforward as it seemed.
Sixty-three-year-old Madame Marshal lived in a luxury apartment with a swimming pool in the grounds. Her daily routine was to take a walk in the garden in the morning and then settle down in her home to solve the newspaper crossword. This routine was a clue in itself.
On the day she was murdered, Madame Marshal, despite being stabbed, dragged herself to the boiler room in the basement. There, on the back of the door, using her finger and the blood from her wounds, she wrote, “Omar m’a tuer” – Omar killed me. Omar Raddad was the part-time gardener and he had been working at a nearby villa on the day of her death.
Raddad denied committing the crime and gave a detailed, timed account of his movements. Police put the time of death at between 12.00 and 12.30 p.m. when, according to his account, Raddad was riding his moped home for lunch. This was not corroborated, but he was seen when he returned an hour later to continue working in the garden. At about 1.30 p.m. he spoke to the owner of the property where he was working who found him to be his usual self. He was generally regarded as a good worker and had no criminal record.
The key to the murder was the message on the door accusing Omar of murder. But herein lay an enigma, because the words as written contained a fundamental spelling error. “Omar m’a tuer” is grammatically incorrect and should have been written as “Omar m’a tué”. Experts pondering the message, asked would Madame Marshal, an avid crossword fan, have made such a fundamental mistake?
The question produced many theories. One camp argued that Madame Marshal was forced to accuse Omar by her attacker and she left a clue in the spelling error. Another school of thought was that she simply made the error in her dying moments. Mystery was heightened when the maid told police that her employer received a telephone call on the eve of her death and that she was given the next
day off.
The police investigation was faulty from start to finish. Madame Marshal’s handbag from which money had been stolen was not tested for fingerprints, her body was cremated prematurely and there were inaccuracies about the time of death in official reports. Comparisons were made with the bungling film detective, Inspector Clouseau.
Omar Raddad was charged with murder and appeared on trial in January 1994. He denied the charge. A strong defence was mounted on his behalf by Maître Jacques Verges. The evidence against the Moroccan gardener was circumstantial, apart from the accusatory message, which the prosecution claimed was “absolute proof of his guilt”. On 2 February, Omar Raddad was found guilty and sent to prison for a term of eighteen years.
He served only four years of this sentence, being pardoned in 1998, following high-level intervention by the French and Moroccan governments. Raddad demanded a retrial to clear his name.
From Information Received
An anonymous letter sent to the police, followed by a public guarantee of protection for the sender, led to the arrest of a murder suspect.
The Cameo Cinema in Liverpool in the UK was the scene of a fatal shooting on the evening of 19 March 1949. About 9.30 p.m., a masked man armed with a revolver burst into the manager’s office where Leonard Thomas and John Catterall were counting the takings. Six shots were fired which brought the box-office cashier running to the office together with the doorman. They were pushed aside by the masked gunman who told them to stand back. He was wielding a gun menacingly, so it was no time for bravery. They followed his instructions and he fled down the emergency stairs and out into the street.
The two men who had been quietly counting the money lay on the floor mortally wounded and the takings were missing. Unaware of the drama being enacted behind the scenes, the cinema audience continued to watch the evening film.
After an investigation lasting six months, the police were no nearer solving the Cameo Cinema murders when a breakthrough came by chance. An anonymously written letter was received offering information to the police in exchange for guaranteed protection. A further stipulation was that acceptance of the terms should be confirmed by an acknowledgment published in the Liverpool Echo. The police complied by inserting a notice in the paper which stated, “Letter received. Promise definitely given.”
The outcome was the arrest of twenty-seven-year-old George Kelly, a small-time Merseyside gangster, and his accomplice, George Connolly, also in his twenties. They were charged jointly with the murder of Leonard Thomas. Connolly’s part in the fatal shooting was to keep watch in the street outside the cinema while Kelly committed robbery. In the event, as soon as he heard shots being fired, he ran off in panic.
The two men were tried at Liverpool Assizes in January 1950. Legal history was made when Rose Heilbrun KC led the defence on behalf of Kelly. This was the first occasion in a British court when a woman led in a murder case. After a trial lasting thirteen days, the jury could not agree and a verdict was not possible.
A re-trial was ordered which took place in the following month when the two defendants were tried separately. Kelly was again represented by Rose Heilbrun but, on this occasion, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Mr Justice Cassels sentenced Kelly to death. No evidence was offered against Connolly on the murder charge and, following the judge’s direction, the jury found him not guilty. He had pleaded guilty to conspiring with Kelly to carry out the robbery at the Cameo Cinema and of stealing fifty pounds. For these convictions he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
George Kelly was executed at Walton Prison on 28 March 1950, just a year after the cinema murders. Fifty-three years later, in an extraordinary turn of events, his conviction was judged a miscarriage of justice. The case was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2003 and, on appeal, three judges decided that George Kelly was an innocent man.
Central to the appeal was information which came to light in police files in 1991 when a researcher found a statement, not disclosed at the original trial, in which another man confessed to the crime. In light of this new evidence the convictions of both Kelly and George Connolly were overturned.
Both men had consistently protested their innocence during their trial for the murders at the Cameo Cinema. Connolly died in 1997 without knowing that he had been exonerated.
A Dead Man Speaks
Joseph Williams, tried and acquitted of murder, gloated about how he had cheated the hangman and made a confession that remained a secret until his death twelve years later.
On 21 May 1939, Walter Dinivan, a wealthy retired businessman, was found unconscious and badly injured at his home at Branksome, Bournemouth in the UK. He died the next day in hospital from severe head wounds. It appeared that he had been attacked with a hammer and an attempt had also been made to strangle him.
Examination of the crime scene revealed no signs of forced entry to the house, suggesting that Dinivan knew his attacker. The safe in the drawing room had been emptied and a watch and rings taken from the dead man. The crime scene was a treasure trove of clues. On a side table were a bottle of beer and two glasses, one of which bore a thumb print. On the floor was a paper bag which might have been used to wrap a hammer and a number of cigarette butts were strewn about.
Regular visitors to the house had their fingerprints checked but no match was found with the impression on the beer glass, Local enquiries were fruitful, with reports that Dinivan had a friend who called on him, it was believed with the intention of borrowing money. The visitor was sixty-nine-year-old Joseph Williams who had a reputation for pleading poverty but, since Dinivan’s death, seemed to have come into some money.
Williams, a former soldier, was out of work and lived a squalid life. When questioned, he admitted calling on Dinivan a few days before he died and borrowing five pounds. He explained his recent free spending as the result of a win on the horses.
The murder investigation focussed on the cigarette butts found at the crime scene and the possibility of testing saliva traces for blood-grouping. It was discovered that the smoker had a rare blood group shared by just three per cent of the population.
Williams was the prime suspect and, by devious means, detectives collected a cigarette butt he had discarded in a pub and sent it for laboratory testing. Williams, it seemed, belonged to the same three per cent as the smoker at the crime scene. A search of his home produced a supply of paper bags identical to the one found near Dinivan’s body. When Williams’ thumb print matched that on the beer glass, the police lost no time in charging him with the murder.
When he appeared on trial at Dorset Assizes Williams loudly and aggressively maintained his innocence but a conviction on forensic evidence seemed assured. But to the consternation of the police and prosecution, the jury found him not guilty and he walked free.
Twelve years later, Williams died of natural causes and the following day, his confession to murder was published in a national newspaper. He was interviewed by a journalist on the day of his acquittal. Over a whisky he toasted “. . . the hangman who had been cheated of a victim” and made a full confession which had remained secret until his death.
“Forgive Me . . .”
Besotted with his love for another man’s wife, William Pettit took her life away with a dagger inscribed with the words, “I cut my way.”
Pettit, a twenty-seven-year-old labourer from Eltham in south London, lodged with Mr and Mrs Brown. René Brown was old enough to be his mother but he believed he was in love with her. He had a history of violent behaviour and convictions for petty crime. When his attentions towards René Brown became a nuisance, he was told to leave their house. In his anger, he broke one of the windows.
Some time later, in mid-September 1963, a woman’s body was found in a field near Chislehurst in Kent. Identified as René Brown, wife of a civil servant with her home in Eltham, she had been killed with a single knife thrust to the heart.
At the Coroner’s inquest, Mr Brown stated that he knew who
had killed his wife and named William Pettit. He also said that he was consulting a medium with a view to establishing Pettit’s whereabouts. The police had other ideas and made history by having the missing man’s description and photograph broadcast on television. Pettit thereby contributed a footnote in the annals of crime.
The television transmission was preceded by a great deal of soul-searching as to the ethics involved. The appeal for information came after the national news and before a magic show. A detailed description of Pettit was given, stating his height, sallow complexion and dark brown bushy hair. His clothes were described and nothing was left out regarding his appearance, including his sunken cheeks and cleft chin. The transmission, delivered with gravitas by John Snagge, and accompanied by a photograph of the wanted man, produced a huge response. There were hundreds of calls from viewers who claimed to have seen Pettit. All of this was backed up by massive coverage in the press.
Most of the sightings of the wanted man came from people in the London area and, indeed, that was where he was eventually found – to be precise, in the City of London. He lay dead in a bombed building near Cannon Street. The identity card in his pocket confirmed his name. Next to his body was a scribbled note, reading, “Forgive me for what I have done. I could have gone on living with Mr and Mrs Brown but not without Mrs Brown. I love her. I love her. I love her.”
A post-mortem revealed that Pettit was suffering from an advanced form of tuberculosis. That is what may have killed him and death was given as probably due to natural causes. The pathologist estimated that he had died between four and six weeks prior to the discovery of his body. That implied he was already dead before the groundbreaking media appeal was launched to find the wanted man.