The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes

by Odell, Robin

  Fairplay

  What might have been a perfect murder was foiled by an anonymous letter to the police urging them to look more closely into the recent death of a local man. Having been alerted, they called in detectives from Scotland Yard to help their enquiries and set about finding a poisoner.

  Forty-four-year-old Arthur Major, a lorry driver, lived with his wife Ethel and their fourteen-year-old son at Kirkby-on-Bain in Lincolnshire. Neighbours regarded them as an odd couple. Ethel was unpopular and known for being difficult, while her husband spent a great deal of time in the pub.

  On 22 May 1934, Ethel called on the local doctor to tell him that her husband had collapsed with a fit and, two days later, reported that he had died. A death certificate was issued giving epilepsy as the cause of death. Preparations were made for Arthur Major’s funeral.

  Then, on 26 May, police at Horncastle received a letter signed, “Fairplay”, which drew their attention to the recent death. The anonymous writer raised several questions, one of which was why had Arthur Major complained about the bad taste of his food and thrown it out to the neighbour’s dog which later died?

  The police were used to receiving occasional cranky or malicious letters but they acted on “Fairplay’s” warning and the coroner ordered the funeral of Arthur Major to be stopped. The corpse of the dog referred to had been buried in the garden and was exhumed for post-mortem examination. An autopsy was also carried out on Mr Major. Both dog and man were shown to have strychnine in their bodies.

  Scotland Yard officers were called in to lead the investigation into what was now a murder case. Detectives interviewed Ethel Major and learned something of the strained relationship with her husband who had published a notice in the local paper saying that he was not responsible for his wife’s debts.

  During the interview, Mrs Major was at great pains to impress on the officers that her husband’s last meal consisted of corned beef, a product she would never buy herself. It later emerged that she had sent her son to buy a tin. She did not appear to be grief-stricken over her loss. The next question was to find the source of the strychnine.

  Tom Brown, Ethel’s father, was a former gamekeeper. He said he had a small supply of strychnine that he kept in a box of which he had the only key. When he thought about it, though, he remembered there had been another key that was lost. A search of Ethel’s home produced the second key, which she kept in her purse.

  Ethel Major was tried for murder at Lincoln Assizes in November 1935. She pleaded not guilty and was defended by Sir Norman Birkett. Her defence was based on mitigating circumstances involving her abusive husband who she believed was seeing another woman. She did not give evidence.

  The jury found her guilty but made a strong recommendation to mercy. She was sentenced to death and the jury’s recommendation was not followed. Ethel Major was executed on 19 December 1935. The identity of the letter writer who precipitated the police investigation was never established.

  “I Cannot Live Without You . . .”

  Forty-seven-year-old Cecil Maltby had inherited his father’s tailoring business which he ran from a shop near Regent’s Park, London. His world had begun to disintegrate when he became bankrupt and his wife and child lived apart from him. He also took to drink but his prospects possibly looked brighter when Alice Middleton moved in with him to share the accommodation above the shop in 1922.

  Mrs Middleton was the wife of an officer in the merchant navy and it was her custom to live in lodgings when he was away at sea for a long time. With her husband in the Far East, she went to live with Cecil Maltby. As he had lost interest in his business, he was free to entertain her, which he did by taking her to race meetings.

  Alice Middleton was not seen after 15 August and, when her husband returned from his seafaring in December, he was confronted with the situation that his wife had gone missing. He reported her disappearance to the police and, in due course, officers came knocking at Mr Maltby’s door.

  Maltby would not allow the officers to enter but shouted down from an upstairs window. He said that Alice Middleton had left him and he did not know where she was. This dialogue in the street attracted the attention of neighbours, especially when Maltby’s house was put under surveillance. The story reached the newspapers and public curiosity continued to grow. The man under scrutiny made occasional appearances at an upstairs window but he declined to come down.

  The stalemate was broken after a week when a magistrate’s order was granted, allowing the premises to be entered on health grounds. On 10 January 1923, medical health officials escorted by armed police officers approached the house. Watched by a crowd of spectators, officers simultaneously broke their way into the front and rear of the premises.

  The raiding parties were greeted by the sound of a gunshot coming from the first-floor bedroom. Breaking down the door, they found Cecil Maltby lying on the bed mortally wounded by a shot he had fired through his mouth. Further revelations came when officers searched the premises and made a grisly discovery in the kitchen. In the bath, wrapped in a sheet and covered with a board, was the decomposing body of Alice Middleton.

  On the body was a note, “In memory of darling Pat, who committed suicide on 24 August 1922, 8.30 a.m.” Nailed to the bedroom door was another note, “In memory of Alice H. Middleton”, recording her suicide and asking, “. . . why did you do it? . . . I cannot live without you”, and signed, “Cecil Maltby”. Other letters were found in different parts of the house. One of these indicated that she planned to shoot herself and there was a struggle over the gun, which she succeeded in using against herself.

  Maltby wrote, “I put Mrs Middleton in the bath, and have not liked to part with the dear soul.” Medical examiners confirmed that she had died from three shots entering her body from behind. The coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of murder and of suicide against Maltby.

  “. . . Take Three Paces Forward”

  When two young robbers murdered an elderly, reclusive farmer who was rumoured to be wealthy, they came away with a few pounds and a couple of watches. What they had missed, lying on their victim’s desk, were written instructions on how to reach his savings; “From the stone doorposts of the pigsty, take three paces forward. Go three feet down”, read the note. The problem for the robbers was that it was written in Spanish.

  William Rowe was an elderly bachelor who lived on his own at Nanjarrow Farm in Cornwall in the UK. He lived frugally, rarely went out and was not keen to admit people to his farmhouse. He was respected as an astute cattle dealer and local gossip had it that he was a wealthy man.

  The rumours reached the ears of Russell Pascoe and Dennis Whitty, both in their twenties, who lived locally. In the summer of 1960, they chose a day when Rowe made one of his rare outings to Truro, and broke into his farmhouse. They found money salted away in old jars and tins and came away with £250. The police had their suspicions about who was responsible but could not bring charges as the evidence was insufficient.

  In August 1963, William Rowe suffered another break-in, this time with fatal consequences. When a cattle dealer visited the farm he found the old man lying dead in a corner of the yard. He had been severely battered and the house ransacked. Contents of cupboards and drawers were strewn about on the floor and mattresses had been torn apart in an obvious search.

  Suspecting that the attackers were local, the police focussed again on Pascoe and Whitty. It was not long before their enquiries produced results. Pascoe had parted from his wife and child and gone to live with Whitty in a caravan and with the company of three girls.

  The girls had been threatened to keep their mouths shut but under police questioning, the truth emerged. Pascoe and Whitty said they were going to do a job and armed themselves with a knife and a crowbar. When they returned, they said they had killed the farmer. Confronted with these admissions, each blamed the other.

  Their story was that they thought Rowe was absent from home and when they arrived and found lights on, they resorted to a
ruse to get him to unlock the door. On the pretext that a plane had crashed nearby, they asked to use the telephone. Rowe did not have a telephone but he opened the door to give them directions to the nearest call box. As soon as he appeared on the doorstep, he was clubbed with a crowbar. The pair ransacked the house in their hunt for money and found next to nothing. Having bludgeoned the old man, they finished him off with stab wounds to the chest and neck.

  Pascoe and Whitty were charged with murder and sent for trial. Much of the evidence involved expert medical testimony as to which weapon, the crowbar or the knife, had caused the fatal injuries. Pascoe had armed himself on the night of the attack with a crowbar while Whitty had the knife. In any event, as the law stood, if the two had acted together, each was equally guilty. This was the view of the jury, which returned a guilty verdict. Both men were sentenced to death; Pascoe was hanged at Bristol and Whitty at Winchester.

  After the trial, it emerged that William Rowe, probably prompted by the first robbery, had carefully hidden his money. But among the papers on his desk was a note written in Spanish, giving details of where to find his treasure. He had also left another clue in the form of a Teach Yourself Spanish book. When his instructions were followed, a safe buried in concrete came to light, which contained £1,500. The wily farmer had protected his savings but at the cost of his life.

  The Alias Man

  The chance recognition of a face seen on “America’s Most Wanted” television programme revealed the alias of a man sought as a murder suspect.

  Thirty-five-year-old Rosalyn Goodman disappeared during a hiking trip to the Great Smoky Mountain Park in the US in 1984. She left home in Memphis, Tennessee, driving her Volkswagen car on 23 September. She was heading for a popular scenic spot called Cades Cove where she intended to spend a few days before returning home.

  When Rosalyn failed to return from her trip and did not call home, she was reported missing. The police asked for information from the public that might enable them to reconstruct her movements. There were reports that she had been seen with a man in the vicinity of Cades Cove at the end of September.

  Three months later, deer hunters found a partly concealed body near a cabin at Cades Cove. The body had been reduced to a skeleton and there was evidence that it had been attacked by animals but no other obvious signs of violence. There was no identity on the body and initial examination showed that the remains were of a female aged around thirty. The possibility that the body was that of Rosalyn Goodman was confirmed by dental evidence.

  Forensic examination failed to establish with certainty how the woman had died, although death by strangulation was strongly suspected. Her car was found in a parking lot near Cades Cove and it had evidently been thoroughly cleaned both inside and out. With no forensic traces to help them, investigators once again appealed to the public for information.

  Four years elapsed with no progress in the investigation of Rosalyn’s death but then, in June 1988, the breakthrough came due to the alertness of an FBI agent. While watching the television programme, “America’s Most Wanted”, in Knoxville, the agent saw a face on screen that he recognized. The programme featured William Hewlett who was wanted for rape and assault in two states. While recognizing the face, the agent knew the man by another name. He made the connection to Harry Steven Mercer who was wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the Cades Cove investigation.

  At that time, the FBI did not realize that Hewlett and Mercer were the same individual. Forty-four-year-old Hewlett and his wife were an itinerant couple who worked in the restaurant trade. They moved from place to place and it was believed they had been seen in the Cades Cove area in September 1984. Investigators were keen to interview them.

  Hewlett/Mercer had form as a bank robber and he was wanted for sexual assault. While on several “most wanted” lists, he had managed to avoid arrest by constantly keeping on the move. He liked to think of himself and his wife as a kind of latterday Bonnie and Clyde.

  Eventually, Hewlett, a man with many aliases, was traced to Gulfport, Mississippi, where he was arrested. He confessed to raping and strangling Rosalyn Goodman, a crime for which he was tried, convicted and given a life sentence.

  “Crimewatch” Points The Way

  Fleeing to another continent, changing his name and adopting a new lifestyle did not prevent the British forces of justice catching up with a rapist and murderer.

  On the evening of 14 March 2003, seventeen-year-old Hannah Foster was returning home in Southampton in the UK when she was abducted. Her parents reported her missing and, two days later, her body was found in bushes by the roadside in the West End of the city. She had been raped and strangled. DNA on her clothing offered some prospect of identifying her murderer. The young woman had made an emergency 999 call on the evening she disappeared but the call was cut off.

  On 17 March, the victim’s handbag and mobile phone were found at a recycling plant in Portsmouth. They had been discarded in a bottle bank. On 26 March, the murder featured on the BBC television programme, “Crimewatch”. An appeal was made for information that might help crime investigators. One of those who responded was an employee at a food supplier in Southampton. He reported his suspicions regarding a man named Kohli who drove a sandwich delivery van for the firm.

  Kohli was not at his home but an examination of his van revealed possibly incriminating forensic traces. Using the latest technology for automatic number plate recognition and analysing the dead girl’s mobile phone data enabled investigators to place both Kohli and the victim on the motorway between Southampton and Portsmouth on 15 March.

  It was evident that Kohli had taken evasive action and it was discovered that he had left Heathrow airport on a flight to India on 18 March. He had tried to borrow money to buy a plane ticket from a friend saying he wanted to visit his mother who was ill. When the friend declined, he approached his father-in-law who lent him the money.

  An arrest warrant for Maninder Pal Singh Kohli was issued on 13 April 2003 and the tortuous process began of locating him and bringing him back to Britain. Hannah Foster’s parents travelled to India and helped to generate public interest in their quest for justice. Intense media coverage resulted in the location of Kohli who was living in West Bengal under an assumed name. Having deserted his wife and family in Britain he had married an Indian girl as part of the new life he planned to lead.

  On 15 July 2004, Kohli was taken into custody by Indian police and the slow business of extraditing him to Britain began. It would take over three years. A month after he was arrested, Kohli appeared on Indian television and admitted that he had killed Hannah Foster. “I did it. I raped her. I strangled her . . .” he said. He later withdrew his confession.

  He was finally extradited to Britain on 28 July 2007. His DNA was shown to match that found on the victim’s clothing. Kohli was tried at Winchester Crown Court in October 2008. The prosecution case was that he had accosted his victim, forced her into his van and later raped her. He strangled her to avoid being identified as a rapist, dumped her body and returned home to his family.

  Kohli’s bizarre defence was that he had been set up by the supervisor at his workplace and forced into sexual relations with a woman who happened to be Hannah Foster. The jury convicted the forty-one-year-old deliveryman of murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr Justice Keith told him, “It took a long time for you to be brought to justice, but the law finally caught up with you . . . you took her life so she would not be able to point the finger of guilt at you.”

  Case Of The Yellow String Bag

  A replica knitted yellow string bag proved to be an inspired piece of lateral thinking by a detective, which solved a murder case.

  Forty-eight-year-old Dagmar Peters, a lady of modest means, lived on her own in a hut at Kingsdown in Kent in the UK. Her elderly mother lived nearby. On 31 October 1946, Peters’ body was found at a place called Labour-in-vain Hill on the Downs close to the A20 Maidstone to London road. She had been
strangled. It was evident that she had been killed elsewhere and then dragged to the place where she was found.

  It was learned that she was in the habit of visiting her brother in London by hitching lifts on the A20. Her mother mentioned that when she left home she had with her a brown attaché case and a yellow string bag. Both items were missing. The pathological condition of the body indicated that she had remained in a seated position for some time after she was killed. Everything pointed to a roadside pick-up that had gone wrong. Police began the task of checking vehicles using the A20.

  Chief Inspector Robert Fabian took charge of the investigation. He had an idea that the missing string bag held the key to the case. He learnt that the bag had been knitted by Dagmar Peters’ sister-in-law. Would she make another one, asked Fabian? A new, distinctive yellow string bag was made and photographs of it were published in the press.

  The photograph of the bag brought an immediate response from a fifteen-year-old boy who said he had found a bag like it in Clare Park Lake three days after Peters’ body was discovered. He had given it away and the bag passed through several pairs of hands before it was retrieved. Forensic examination revealed traces of hair similar to that of the murder victim.

  Detectives guessed that the bag had been thrown into a stream which fed through a culvert under a factory and into Clare Park Lake. Narrowing their search, they found fragments of the missing attaché case. The next focus was the factory, which had taken a recent delivery of bricks from a supplier in Cambridge. With the instinct for which he was renowned, Fabian now homed in on the driver.

  The company supplying the bricks said the driver for that particular delivery was Sydney Sinclair who had since left their employ. His real name was Harold Hagger, a man with several convictions including assault. He confessed to strangling Dagmar Peters, who he alleged had tried to steal his wallet. He didn’t mean to kill her he said, he just pulled her scarf too tight around her neck.