Do you think William Herbert Wallace was guilty?

[AmericanSherlock]

Defendant, how do you plead for drunk and disorderly, flashing yourself in public and scaring away children?

"Just buy the book, folks"

[Herlock Sholmes]

For the four thousand six hundred and eleventh time Rod.


DO YOU EVER INTEND TO PROPERLY ANSWER THE VERY SPECIFIC QUESTION THAT IVE ASKED!!!

[AmericanSherlock]

For the four thousand six hundred and eleventh time Rod.


DO YOU EVER INTEND TO PROPERLY ANSWER THE VERY SPECIFIC QUESTION THAT IVE ASKED!!!

The answer will be in the book

Seriously, one usually doesn't see this level of evasion apart from presidential debates

[RodCrosby]

And now the SCREAMING starts...

By their psychoses shall ye know them...


Fear not. Sanity in the form of the best book on the case will be along soon...

[AmericanSherlock]

Groucho Marx is off the reservation folks ...

Anyway Apparently the actual new book coming out is going to show it was indeed possible for Wallace to have made it to the chess club on time.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And now the SCREAMING starts...

By their psychoses shall ye know them...


Fear not. Sanity in the form of the best book on the case will be along soon...

And there we have it...... Deja-vu.

The increasingly childish Brother Rod of The Blessed Order Of The Holy St. William slithers and wriggles and hopes that no one will notice that he won’t answer the question. Every single time he’s confronted with an uncomfortable fact his yellow streak comes out in full bloom and out come the babyish comments about trolls, stalkers, reasoning, crashing and burning blah blah blah...yawn yawn.

And why won’t he answer such a simple question? Obviously because he’s wrong...yet again.

So, a piece of advice Rod. Call a meeting of your imaginary supporters, build an imaginary bonfire and burn your imaginary book.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Silence.......

[AmericanSherlock]

Silence.......

On the day of the resurrection, he is praying to Saint William, an innocent prophet who we have malignantly besmirched

[Herlock Sholmes]

On the day of the resurrection, he is praying to Saint William, an innocent prophet who we have malignantly besmirched

He’s probably kneeling at the shrine as we speak

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ok, let’s look at something else. My suggestion (and that’s all that it was) that Wallace might have disposed of the weapon in an ash bin.


“ile it in the ash-bin.... [you know, the one behind the 1000 locked gates that Wallace tried before finding one randomly unlocked after dark; the ash-bins the Sanitation Dept. routinely searched for items of non-ash; the same Sanitation Dept. the Police specifically recruited to look out for the murder-weapon; the ash-bin Wallace himself suggested...]”

About the ‘locked gates.’ It’s difficult to see how Brother Rod can know for certain that all gates were locked? (Then again, over-confidence isn’t something that he exactly suffers a deficiency in.) We’ve all read history. We’ve all spoken to old people who are only too willing to remind us that ‘we never needed to lock our doors and gates in my day.’ These were more innocent times. Agreed, the Anfield Housebreaker was on duty, but even today people arent always rigorous about security. It’s surely nonsense to say that all gates would have been locked. We might even suggest that if Wallace had been planning this crime for a long time he might have regularly checked a few gates on his way home in the dark in the back alley? He might therefore noted the houses that regularly left their gates open. Would this have involved a risk of Wallace being caught in someone’s yard? Yes, a very small one. But that still can’t completely count this out. It would only have taken a few seconds as the ash bins, one assumes, would be near to the gate as they were embedded in a wall to be emptied from the other side.
Even if it had been discovered in an ash bin Wallace could have easily said ‘well the murderer put it there, not me.’ Even if it had been discovered in his own ash bin it wouldn’t have been evidence against Wallace (as long as he’d worn gloves of course.)

Brother Rod also says that the bins were routinely searched for items of non-ash. And I believe him (there’s a first time for everything ) But how thoroughly did they search the vast quantities of ash that they must have collected? Can we be sure they sieved through every drop? Surely a gargantuan and time consuming task? If they did, and it can be proved that they did, then it would be unlikely that the weapon had been so disposed.

And so...

Was it impossible for Wallace to have dropped the weapon into an ash bin....no, I don’t think that it was.

Is it impossible for an iron bar to have remained undiscovered amongst the tons of ash collected (especially when you factor in how conscientious would every employee be when rummaging through ash)..... without knowing more about the levels of the search made it would appear to me that it wasn’t.

Am I saying that Wallace definitely put the weapon in an ash bin....no. I’m saying that it was possible.

An interesting point about Wallace suggesting it.

We know that killers often feel superior. They’ve outsmarted the police.

Wallace not only suggests that the killer used the mackintosh as a shield but he also suggests an ash bin as a means of disposal. Did he know something

[Herlock Sholmes]

Let’s talk about luck.

I can’t recall this point being mentioned before but it might have been.

After the murder it would be assumed that the police would have gone house to house asking residents if they’d seen or heard anything or anyone strange. How lucky then was our sneak-thief that not one person came forward. Let’s remember that this was only between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening, not midnight or the esrly hours. Of course this wasn’t Park Lane but we would expect there to have been people around. The milk boy and paper boy had only just gone. Kids playing in the street or returning home. Men going off to the pub. Women looking out of their windows. Women chatting to neighbours. Not one single person reported seeing a stranger in the street.

Then we have the Johnston’s who even heard Wallace knocking on the back door with his hand. One would assume the Wallace’s had a front door knocker and yet they didn’t hear anyone knock. Neither did the neighbours on the other side. Then we have to factor in our sneak-thief leaving. And so he was either incredibly lucky or non-existent.

Now a very obvious point. When police investigate a murder, for some strange reason, they tend to place great weight on being able to place the killer at or near to the scene of the crime. Only one person can be placed at the scene of the crime. They don’t tend to invent imaginary figures to make things fit.

And finally, we know that the evidence for a robbery is almost non-existent with money left untaken, bags left unsearched and no evidence of a genuine search for cash or valuables. And so when we combine that with the brutal level of violence used to kill Julia we are on safe ground when we say that a modern police force would have fixed their attention almost solely on William

Leaving aside obsessive bias, a colossal ego and an almost pathalogical level of protectiveness toward Wallace we can see that there really is only one suspect. And we can name him

[RodCrosby]

"...was Wallace guilty?

There are three approaches to this question:

(1) Legally, it is academic. There was no evidence against him.

(2) Personally. His acquaintances (excluding those who revel in the troubles of their “friends”) seem convinced of his innocence. The author takes the view that to vest Wallace with guilt in the circumstances is to credit him with a mental power, a skill, an agility, a cold-blooded nerveless efficiency, of which he seemed utterly incapable.

(3) Scientifically, it is a much easier hypothesis to assume another person as murderer, whose task would have been easier, mental effort less. By the principle of simple explanations Wallace was innocent."

Gerald Abrahams [Liverpool barrister and chess-player] in The Legal Mind (London, 1954)

“To any objective observer, the hypothesis which is the prosecution’s case is something so intrinsically difficult of acceptance that the defence does not seem to matter. Putting the prosecution at its highest, it leaves doubt.”

Gerald Abrahams [Liverpool barrister and chess-player] in According to the Evidence (1958)

The Correct Solution, on the other hand, is not "so intrinsically difficult of acceptance." It is, in fact, merely an ingenious variation on an everyday crime, to "any objective observer"

The Judge himself, of course, was just such an objective observer...

"The evidence is quite consistent with some unknown criminal, for some unknown motive, having got into the house and executed the murder and gone away... If there was an unknown murderer, he has covered up his traces."
Mr. Justice Wright in Rex v Wallace

And that is before we even start to look at the new evidence which supports the Correct Solution...

"There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically... Let me see if I can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result."
Sherlock Holmes in A Study In Scarlet (1887)

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Correct Solution, on the other hand, is not "so intrinsically difficult of acceptance." It is, in fact, merely an ingenious variation on an everyday crime, to "any objective observer"

The Judge himself, of course, was just such an objective observer...



And that is before we even start to look at the new evidence which supports the Correct Solution...

"There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically... Let me see if I can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result."
Sherlock Holmes in A Study In Scarlet (1887)

Not only had Rod won the prizes for the most childish post and most biased post and most illogical posts he has now added the most meaningless post to his haul of achievements. What a waste of space.

No questions answered as ever. He thinks that no one notices. Ahhhhh.

Wallace by a country mile

[AmericanSherlock]

Let’s talk about luck.

I can’t recall this point being mentioned before but it might have been.

After the murder it would be assumed that the police would have gone house to house asking residents if they’d seen or heard anything or anyone strange. How lucky then was our sneak-thief that not one person came forward. Let’s remember that this was only between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening, not midnight or the esrly hours. Of course this wasn’t Park Lane but we would expect there to have been people around. The milk boy and paper boy had only just gone. Kids playing in the street or returning home. Men going off to the pub. Women looking out of their windows. Women chatting to neighbours. Not one single person reported seeing a stranger in the street.

Then we have the Johnston’s who even heard Wallace knocking on the back door with his hand. One would assume the Wallace’s had a front door knocker and yet they didn’t hear anyone knock. Neither did the neighbours on the other side. Then we have to factor in our sneak-thief leaving. And so he was either incredibly lucky or non-existent.

Now a very obvious point. When police investigate a murder, for some strange reason, they tend to place great weight on being able to place the killer at or near to the scene of the crime. Only one person can be placed at the scene of the crime. They don’t tend to invent imaginary figures to make things fit.

And finally, we know that the evidence for a robbery is almost non-existent with money left untaken, bags left unsearched and no evidence of a genuine search for cash or valuables. And so when we combine that with the brutal level of violence used to kill Julia we are on safe ground when we say that a modern police force would have fixed their attention almost solely on William

Leaving aside obsessive bias, a colossal ego and an almost pathalogical level of protectiveness toward Wallace we can see that there really is only one suspect. And we can name him

Hi Herlock, some good points. We have not only bad luck for Wallace if innocent but good luck for another killer if guilty... another point would be the Johnston's heard the milk boy knock at the door but no one else.

A certain poster should really stop quoting "the judge" one who thought Wallace should be acquitted, but also remarked that he was probably guilty. Which is our EXACT position. When this was pointed out, "poster x" claimed it was a poorly sourced quote, however a full quote is in Jonathan Goldman's (who argued for Wallace's innocence himself!) book.

[AmericanSherlock]

Not only had Rod won the prizes for the most childish post and most biased post and most illogical posts he has now added the most meaningless post to his haul of achievements. What a waste of space.

No questions answered as ever. He thinks that no one notices. Ahhhhh.

Wallace by a country mile

You're reasoning syntheticslly, but not analytically