Ghosts & Gallows

by Paul Adams

  Louisa Merrifield was one of only two women to be executed at Strangeways Prison during the twentieth century; the other, forty-three-year-old Margaret Allen, went to her death four years before, in January 1949. No doubt the notoriety that the ‘Blackpool Poisoner’ obtained during her eleven-day trial has meant that the female apparition alleged to have been seen in the prison on occasions over the years has been identified as her rather than that of her predecessor to the gallows, Mrs Allen. Reports of a short woman dressed in black walking on the landing near to the former condemned cell (later used as part of the clinic attached to the prison hospital) apparently reached a peak during the early 1980s, and in 1981 she was reportedly seen by two people – a prisoner and a hospital officer – collectively, accompanied by a sudden drop in temperature. Today the official line from HMP Manchester, given to me in a letter from the Governor in response to an enquiry made during the course of researching for this book, is that no hauntings are currently known from the prison, which would also rule out the other ghost associated with Strangeways, that of the apparition of a man carrying a briefcase and thought to be former hangman John Ellis, a troubled man who committed suicide in 1932 after carrying out several executions at Manchester in the preceding two decades.

  The tragedy of humankind’s ceaseless violence towards itself is apparent in the many cases that have formed the subject matter of this book, but our final case is perhaps the most tragic of all: that of the young delinquent Derek Bentley, hanged in January 1953 for his part in the shooting of a London policeman, Sidney Miles, at a warehouse in Croydon on 2 November the previous year. Bentley, aged nineteen and described as being ‘illiterate and educationally sub-normal’, had accompanied another teenage youth, sixteen-year-old Christopher Craig, who modelled himself on American gangster figures like Al Capone and John Dillinger and hated the police; three days before their arrest at Croydon, Craig’s brother, twenty-six-year-old Niven Craig, an armed robber, had been given a sentence of imprisonment at the Old Bailey. Craig and Bentley’s attempted robbery went wrong when they were seen climbing over the factory gates and the police were called. During a scuffle, Derek Bentley was arrested but Craig climbed onto the roof of the building, where he fired several shots, one of which hit PC Miles in the head, killing him instantly. The teenagers were tried at the Old Bailey in December 1952. Bentley performed poorly in the witness box and together with his companion was found guilty of murder, despite it being Craig who had fired the fatal shot. The real impetus behind Bentley’s notorious exclamation ‘Let him have it, Chris’, that he shouted while under arrest by officers and which featured prominently in the trial, has become one of the most debated sentences in British crime. Due to his age, Christopher Craig was imprisoned while Bentley was sentenced to death, although the jury gave a recommendation for clemency. This was dismissed by the Court of Appeal and Bentley, amidst much public protest, kept a deadly appointment with Albert Pierrepoint and Harry Allen at Wandsworth Prison on 28 January 1953. Craig served ten years’ imprisonment and was released in 1963.

  In the years that followed their son’s death, Bentley’s family lead a persistent campaign to clear his name. It was not until 1993 that Derek Bentley received a posthumous Royal Pardon for the death sentence passed forty years before; the Court of Appeal finally quashed his murder conviction in 1998. Before then his parents were reported to have left his bedroom at their house in Colliers Wood untouched and exactly as it was during the time that Bentley lived there. It was also reported that the same room was haunted regularly by his presence: bedclothes were disturbed, the family heard footsteps, and his dog seemed to acknowledge his former owner, howling on occasion as if announcing his arrival. Following the death of Bentley’s father William in 1974, it was alleged that their parish priest had in one instance fallen into a mediumistic trance and had channelled his dead son and spoken in his voice.

  At the beginning of this book, the analogy between criminal detective work and scientific psychical research – both exact and demanding disciplines – was highlighted, and the cases in this book have given some indication of the continuing British fascination with eerie stories of ghosts and gallows. A growing increase in the credibility of psychic detection and the continuing involvement of mediums in police work, particularly cases of murder, may result at some future time in a solution to more than individual crimes, but also to the mysteries of the paranormal world that continue to intrigue and fascinate us all. At that point, it will be possible to look at the cases we have discussed here in an entirely different light, as they will form a body of compelling evidence for the reality of an unseen world, as well as hidden faculties of man, that cannot be summarily dismissed out of hand. In Britain the gallows may have gone, but the ghosts, it seems, will always be with us …

  BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

  Ansari, Hasan Moiz, Islam and the Paranormal (iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2006)

  Archer, Fred, Ghost Detectives: Crime and the Psychic World (W.H. Allen, London, 1970)

  Baker, Phil, The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life & Times of Dennis Wheatley (Dedalus Ltd, Sawtry, 2009)

  Barbanell, Maurice, This is Spiritualism (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1959)

  Begg, Paul, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History (Pearson Education Ltd, Harlow, 2005)

  Bilton, Michael, Wicked Beyond Belief (Harper Collins, London, 2003)

  Burn, Gordon, ‘ … somebody’s husband, somebody’s son’: The Story of Peter Sutcliffe (Heinemann, London, 1984)

  Carlin, Francis, Reminiscences of an Ex-Detective (Hutchinson & Co., London, 1927)

  Cohen, David, Price and his Spirit Child ‘Rosalie’ (Regency Press, London, 1965)

  Connell, Nicholas & Stratton, Ruth, Hertfordshire Murders (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003)

  Dahl, Ludwig, We Are Here: Psychic Experiences (Rider & Co., London, 1931)

  Duke, Winifred (Ed.), The Trials of Frederick Nodder – The Mona Tinsley Case (William Hodge & Co. Ltd, London, 1950)

  Eddleston, John J., Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopaedia (Metro Publishing, London, 2002)

  Evans, Stewart & Skinner, Keith, Jack the Ripper: Letters From Hell (Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2001)

  Fielding, Steve, The Executioner’s Bible (John Blake, London, 2008)

  Fletcher, Tony, Memories of Murder: The Great Cases of a Fingerprint Expert (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1986)

  Fortune, Dion, Psychic Self-Defence: A Study in Occult Pathology and Criminality (Rider & Co., London, 1930)

  Gaute, J.H.H. & Odell, Robin, The Murderers’ Who’s Who (George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, London, 1979)

  Gaute, J.H.H. & Odell, Robin, Murder Whereabouts (Harrap Ltd, London, 1986)

  Gibbs, Dorothy & Maltby, Herbert, The True Story of Maria Marten (East Anglian Magazine, Ipswich, 1949)

  Goodman, Jonathan (Ed.), The Supernatural Murders: Classic True-Crime Stories (BCA, London, 1992)

  Haeri, Shaykh Fadhlalla, The Elements of Islam (Element Books Ltd, Shaftesbury, Dorset, 1993)

  Haining, Peter, Maria Marten – The Murder in the Red Barn (Richard Castell Publishing Ltd, Plymouth, 1992)

  Hallam, Jack, The Ghosts’ Who’s Who (David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1977)

  Harris, Melvin, Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth (Columbus Books, London, 1987)

  Holohan, Christine & McHugh, Vera, A Voice from the Grave: The Unseen Witness in the Jacqui Poole Murder Case (Maverick House, Dunshaughlin, 2006)

  Jackson, Robert, Francis Camps: Famous Case Histories of the Most Celebrated Pathologist of our Time (Hart-Davis MacGibbon Ltd, London, 1975)

  Jones, Nella & Davenport, Shirley, Ghost of a Chance: The Life Story of a Psychic Detective (Pan Books Ltd, London, 1982)

  Jones, Nella & Bruce, Mandy, Nella: A Psychic Eye (Ebury Press, London, 1992)

  Lane, Brian, The Encyclopedia of Occult and Supernatural Murder (Headline Book Publishing, London, 1995)

  Lindley, Charles, Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book (Geoffrey Bles Ltd,
London, 1936)

  Lucas, Norman, The Child Killers (Arthur Barker Ltd, London, 1970)

  McCormick, Donald, The Red Barn Mystery: Some New Evidence on an Old Murder (John Long, London, 1967)

  Newton, Toyne, The Demonic Connection (Blandford Press, Poole, 1987)

  Pollack, Jack Harrison, The Amazing Story of Croiset the Clairvoyant (W.H. Allen, London, 1965)

  Price, Harry, Fifty Years of Psychical Research (Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd, London, 1939)

  Roberts, Estelle, Forty Years a Medium (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1959)

  Rogo, D. Scott, The Haunted House Handbook (Tempo Books, New York, 1978)

  Roughead, William, Twelve Scots Trials (William Green & Sons, Edinburgh, 1913)

  Scott, Sir Walter, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (J. Murray, London, 1830)

  Stemman, Roy, Spirit Communication (Piatkus Books Ltd, London, 2005)

  Symonds, John, The Great Beast (Rider & Co., London, 1951)

  Tabori, Cornelius, My Occult Diary (Rider & Co., London, 1951)

  Underwood, Peter, Haunted London (George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, London, 1973)

  Ibid., The Ghost Hunters: Who They Are & What They Do (Robert Hale Ltd, London, 1985)

  Wheatley, Dennis, The Time Has Come … The Memoirs of Dennis Wheatley: Officer and Temporary Gentleman 1914-1919 (Hutchinson, London, 1978)

  Ibid., The Time Has Come … The Memoirs of Dennis Wheatley: Drink and Ink 1919-1977 (Hutchinson, London, 1979)

  Wilson, Colin & Pitman, Patricia, Encyclopaedia of Murder (Arthur Barker Ltd, London, 1961)

  Wilson, Colin & Seaman, Donald, Encyclopaedia of Modern Murder (Arthur Barker Ltd, London, 1983)

  Wilson, Colin, The Psychic Detectives (Pan Books, London, 1984)

  Ibid., A Criminal History of Mankind (Granada Publishing, London, 1985)

  Ibid., The Mammoth Book of Murder (Robinson, London, 2000)

  Wilson, David, A History of British Serial Killing (Sphere, London, 2009)

  Wilson, Ian, The After Death Experience (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1987)

  Wilson, Richard, Scotland’s Unsolved Mysteries of the Twentieth Century (Robert Hale, London, 1995)

  PLATES

  The lonely Clachen of Inverey, photographed in the early years of the twentieth century, over 150 years after the death of Sergeant Davies. (Author’s collection)

  Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), who published an account of the ghost of Arthur Davies in the 1830s. The great Scottish novelist felt the story of the haunting was an invention. (The Walter Scott Digital Archive)

  The execution of William Corder outside Bury Gaol on 11 August 1828.

  A death mask of William Corder, perpetrator of the infamous Murder in the Red Barn – other surviving relics include a section of his pickled scalp and a published account of the murder bound in Corder’s own skin. (St Edmundsbury Borough Council)

  English ghost-hunter Robert Thurston Hopkins (1884-1958) examining one of the haunted Warbleton Priory skulls. Thurston Hopkins’ father at one time owned the death’s head of William Corder. (Peter Underwood Collection)

  Robert James Lees, photographed in the studio of Philips and Lees at Ilfracombe sometime between 1911 and 1925. (Stephen Butt)

  Ernest ‘Bill’ Dyer, whose crime of murder was revealed by the eerie dreams of his victim’s mother. (Author’s collection)

  Eric Tombe (right) photographed with the young Dennis Wheatley in the years immediately following the First World War. Wheatley described Tombe as ‘a crook of the first order’ but revered his memory all his life. (Charles Beck)

  The entrance to The Welcomes, photographed in 2011. (Paul Adams)

  The graveyard of St Odhrain’s chapel on Iona, the last resting place of the troubled Netta Fornario. (Donald Whannel)

  Harry Price (1881-1948), English ghost-hunter extraordinaire, demonstrating a séance room controlling device in the late 1920s. (Author’s collection)

  Judge Ludwig Dahl and his daughter Ingeborg, the main players in the Norwegian Spiritualist murder trial. (Author’s collection)

  Estelle Roberts (1899-1970), in her distinctive black cloak, gives a platform demonstration in front of a packed hall. Through her spirit guide ‘Red Cloud’, she seemingly made contact with the spirit of the murdered Mona Tinsley. (Sunday Pictorial)

  Child-killer Frederick Nodder, hanged for the murder of Mona Tinsley in December 1937. (Author’s collection)

  The front page of the Daily Mirror for 7 June 1937, reporting the discovery of Mona Tinsely’s body in the River Idle. (Chris Hobbs)

  Doris Harrison, the victim in the ‘Body in the Cupboard’ case, and (inset) her husband Francis Harrison. (Author’s collection)

  Number 11 Dagmar Gardens, Kensel Rise, where a whispering ghost revealed a brutal murder. (Paul Adams)

  Dutch super-psychic Gerard Croiset (1909-1980), known as the ‘Wizard of Utrecht’. The clairvoyant received many calls both day and night from the parents of missing children. (Henri Croiset)

  Pat McAdam, who went missing in February 1967. Her body has never been recovered. (Author’s collection)

  Anne Noblett – her bizarre ‘Deep Freeze Murder’ remains unsolved. (Paul Heslop)

  A modern view of the derelict pig farm at Marshalls Heath Lane, Wheathampstead, said to have been haunted by the ghost of Anne Noblett during the 1970s. (Paul Adams)

  Face of Evil – the front page of the Daily Express for 30 April 1981, showing Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe returning from the Old Bailey after being charged with thirteen murders. (Author’s collection)

  Article from the Daily Mirror for 21 November 1980, showing the Yorkshire Ripper predictions of psychic Nella Jones. (Author’s collection)

  Clairvoyant Suzanne Padfield, photographed in the Paralab in the early 1970s. Through remote viewing she was able to reveal information about the Moscow ice rink murder. (Author’s collection)

  Number 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley, photographed shortly before its demolition in 1987. (Richard Lee-Van den Daele)

  Hawley Harvey Crippen and his mistress Ethel Le Neve in the dock at Bow Street Police Court. (Author’s collection)

  Jacqueline Poole, who seemingly communicated information to medium Christine Holohan in the days following her death in 1983. (Author’s collection)

  Kousar Bashir, the tragic twenty-year-old victim in the Oldham exorcism case. (Author’s collection)

  Ethel Major, hanged for poisoning her husband on 19 December 1934. Her ghost is said to haunt Hull Prison to this day. (Steve Fielding)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PAUL ADAMS was born in Epsom, Surrey in 1966 and has been interested in the paranormal since the mid-1970s. Employed as a draughtsman in the UK construction industry for nearly thirty years, he has worked in three haunted buildings but has yet to see a true ghost. As well as the history of psychical research, his main interests at present are in materialisation mediumship, and the physical phenomena of Spiritualism. He has contributed articles to several specialist paranormal periodicals and acted as editor and publisher for Two Haunted Counties (2010), the memoirs of Luton ghost-hunter Tony Broughall. He is also co-author of The Borley Rectory Companion (2009) and Shadows in the Nave (2011) along with Peter Underwood and Eddie Brazil, and has recently completed Haunted Luton, where he has lived since 2006. Paul is also an amateur mycologist and viola player.

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in 2012

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2012

  All rights reserved

  © Paul Adams, 2012

  The right of Paul Adams, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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