Do you think William Herbert Wallace was guilty?

[louisa]

Louisa- Where to begin.

Although Wallace was often down to play matches, he just as often didn't turn up to them. So no one could rely on the chess club match schedule as a certain way to know Wallace's whereabouts.

Parry may not have known that Wallace didn't always turn up for his matches. It he had failed to turn up for a great many I think he would have been barred.

As to the other issues which you see as making Parry guilty:

He was a thief- but there was no theft.

There was a theft. Four pounds, which was Parry's weekly wage.

The blood supposedly on items in his car- this story comes from a third party and dates from the 1980's. The reliability of it is suspect. There WERE no bloody items found in his car.

I'm not so sure about that.

In answer to your question "Why would an innocent person give a false alibi?"- it happens all the time. The reason being that they are guilty of or hiding SOMETHING, just not the murder.

You don't need to be a "ham actor" to make the Qualtrough call- Parry wouldn't have needed to disguise his voice. It's Wallace himself who may have needed to do that.

And finally, there are likely many others Mrs. Wallace would have gladly answered the door to when her husband was out- not least of which the neighbours and the milk boy. Are they all equally suspect?

You're clutching at straws. Parry would definitely have wanted to disguise his voice and he was confident enough to have done so, having done some acting work.

Yes there were others that Julia may have been happy to answer the door to. But it's a bit of a coincidence that Parry used to come round when Wallace was out, for a bit of 'singing'.

Parry is a bit more of a likely suspect than the milk boy or the neighbours don't you think?

And a guilty person is far more likely to give a false alibi than an innocent one.

Each thing on it's own is insignificent. But when put together leads to a lot more circumstantial evidence than Wallace was convicted on.

[ColdCaseJury]

ColdCaseJury- Thanks! Yes, the Wallace case has always fascinated me. It's the mundane domestic setting and the woman murdered in her own home that most interests me. When I first saw the crime scene photos of the interior of 29 Wolverton Street I was hooked. It's not often you get such a direct glimpse into an ordinary dwelling of that time- probably not much different from all the other homes in that street. Except this home has become something else far more intriguing because murder has intruded and interrupted its stolid domesticity.
That was the initial thing that got me interested. I have researched other related cases- my PhD isn't exclusively about the Wallace case. And no, I'm not doing a degree in criminology. It's critical and cultural theory. Although a lot of my work intersects with criminology and history of crime.

My first degree, by the way was almost exclusively on JTR. Go figure. I think there should be more women like me writing about and researching these aspects of criminological history, which have for so long been, with few exceptions, the preserve of males.

Cheers for asking!

I hope you don't mind me asking another question: what was the question you were seeking to answer that made you investigate the Wallace case?

Yes, many more opinions and perspectives are usually better. And this is a preserve of male writers, generally. A pioneer of female crime writers was possibly Yseult Bridges, but I have issues with her work!

[louisa]

Also, we have to assume that Wallace was a genius at murder.
But couldn't stage a simple robbery?

Good point.
.

[John G]

Caz- As I've explained before, I'm only putting forward the opinions of Drs McFall and Pierce- NOT as MY opinion, but merely as evidence. We can agree or disagree with them, but that is the evidence we have to work with in this case.

Having said that- consult any textbook on forensic science as relates to establishing time of death and you will see that gastric contents which are still recognizable and are undigested indicate a time of death 0-2 hours after consumption. As Mrs Wallace's gastric contents conform to this, I can estimate that she died not long after consuming her last meal of tea and scones. That's all I can say about that.

I'm afraid this is completely wrong and unsupported by authority. Determining time of death by gastric contents cannot achieve this level of accuracy. For instance, if 50% of the volume of the last meal remains in the stomach there is a 98% likelihood that the last food intake was between 1 and 10 hours ago, clearly a very wide margin: see Troger et al (1987).

[John G]

Louisa- Where to begin.

Although Wallace was often down to play matches, he just as often didn't turn up to them. So no one could rely on the chess club match schedule as a certain way to know Wallace's whereabouts.

Likewise, the Qualtrough call was a clumsy and unreliable way to ensure Wallace would be out and Julia would be at home alone. There was no way to know if Wallace would even take the bait, or whether he would find out the address was bogus and not go at all. It was impossible to know if he was leaving the house by which exit and for how long. And why choose the area of Menlove Gardens- why not choose an address which would lure Wallace further away so as to give the murderer more time to commit his crime?

No- as the prosecution pointed out, "The wrong address is essential to the course of evidence for an alibi". Wallace was familiar with that area as he was taking music lessons there. His immediate supervisor at work, Mr. Crewe, lived in that vicinity- why didn't he call on him FIRST and ask about the Menlove Gardens East address? As the prosecution put it to him "...You never said until today you called at Mr. Crewe's. Of course, you realize now the importance of the point that you were quite near your superintendent, who knew the district well, and yet you asked everybody else instead of going to see him?"

As to the other issues which you see as making Parry guilty:

He was a thief- but there was no theft.
The blood supposedly on items in his car- this story comes from a third party and dates from the 1980's. The reliability of it is suspect. There WERE no bloody items found in his car.

In answer to your question "Why would an innocent person give a false alibi?"- it happens all the time. The reason being that they are guilty of or hiding SOMETHING, just not the murder.

You don't need to be a "ham actor" to make the Qualtrough call- Parry wouldn't have needed to disguise his voice. It's Wallace himself who may have needed to do that.

And finally, there are likely many others Mrs. Wallace would have gladly answered the door to when her husband was out- not least of which the neighbours and the milk boy. Are they all equally suspect?

Where to begin indeed. Wallace never claimed that he wasn't familiar with the general area, or that he didn't know where Menlove Gardens was: he just hadn't heard of Menlove Gardens East. Thus, in a conversation with Caird, when considering his proposed route, he stated, "I think the most direct route would be to go into town then take the tram to Menlove Gardens."

I consider it highly unlikely that Beattie wouldn't have recognized Wallace's voice, particularly as the Qualtrough conversation was fairly protracted.At the very least I would have expected him to say, "it could have been Wallace."

Of course Parry would have needed to disguise his voice if he was the killer, or involved in a conspiracy. This is because Beattie could subsequently be asked, by the police, if he recognized Parry's voice. Moreover, according to Parkes' evidence he had a history of making hoax calls. Parry also had a possible connection to the name "Qualtrough": he was a friend of Marsden, and one of Marsden's clients was a joiner called RJ Qualtrough.

Choosing an address that would lure Wallace further away would mean that it would be less likely that Wallace would attend the meeting, although selecting any address would be a calculated gamble, as there would be no guarantee he would go.

[John G]

Parry may not have known that Wallace didn't always turn up for his matches. It he had failed to turn up for a great many I think he would have been barred.



There was a theft. Four pounds, which was Parry's weekly wage.



I'm not so sure about that.



You're clutching at straws. Parry would definitely have wanted to disguise his voice and he was confident enough to have done so, having done some acting work.

Yes there were others that Julia may have been happy to answer the door to. But it's a bit of a coincidence that Parry used to come round when Wallace was out, for a bit of 'singing'.

Parry is a bit more of a likely suspect than the milk boy or the neighbours don't you think?

And a guilty person is far more likely to give a false alibi than an innocent one.

Each thing on it's own is insignificent. But when put together leads to a lot more circumstantial evidence than Wallace was convicted on.

Of course, the question isn't whether Julia would be prepared to answer the door, but whether she would be prepared to invite the person inside.

[louisa]

Of course, the question isn't whether Julia would be prepared to answer the door, but whether she would be prepared to invite the person inside.

Yes, of course.

I wonder why she didn't tell her husband that Parry used to sometimes visit when he was out?

[John G]

Yes, of course.

I wonder why she didn't tell her husband that Parry used to sometimes visit when he was out?

That's a very good question Louisa. There was no mention of the "musical interludes" in Wallace's diary, for example. Could Parry and Julia have been having an affair?

[AmericanSherlock]

But that would entail leaving an evidence trail, i.e. notepaper and handwriting, which 'Mr. Q' may have thought the police would be able to trace.



Yes, Wallace was a chess player, but he was a rubbish one. Wasn't somebody quoted as saying "if Wallace was to be hanged at all then it should have been for his abominable chess playing"?



Really? Even after talking to Parry on his doorstep and getting an unfavourable impression?

I haven't read the reasons behind why RWE would think that Wallace was guilty but from what I have read (so far) I would say that Parry was by far the most likely culprit.

He belonged to a dramatic society that had it's HQ in the City Cafe building so Parry was likely to have seen the noticeboard with Wallace's name written on it, due to play a match on the Monday night.

Parry was a ham actor and could put on different voices.

Parry's gave a false alibi for the night of the murder. Why would an innocent person do this?

The blood found on items in Parry's car at Parkes Garage.

Julia knew and trusted Parry and would have let him into the house if he had knocked.

And most telling of all....Parry was a known thief and was always short of money.

.

1. That's assuming a murder plot, if it was a robbery plot only, then Qulatrough would have more important things to worry about, like how he would get away with the robbery with Julia there; if he wasn't prepared to murder Julia, then he would know they would eventually discover a robbery, and it would be obvious what had happened with WHW coming back from the fake address. The robbery plot doesn't compute and Qualtrough creating an elaborate scenario with the goal of murdering Julia or at least the willingness to does not make sense at all. What does make sense is a planned murder where Qualtrough is Wallace...

2. I agree and playing chess doesn't make people devious. I'm a pretty poor chess player myself , but the point I think was less about the chess and more the fact that Wallace's alibi seemed to good to be true...i.e. contrived. I thought it was interesting that this was the personal opinion of the judge who summed up (correctly imo with the evidence given at the trial) for acquittal. Because, I agree with him.

3. RWE changed his mind after Murphy's book, in which new information was made available. Parry had an alibi for the night of the murder with 5 separate people there at the house of Olivia Brine thru 8:30 PM. It can be argued that all were lying, or that he left earlier than stated, but the fact is he had an alibi nonetheless that covered him for the time of the murder. Lily Lloyd's alibi was for the night of the phone call, which she retracted after being jilted. This is a major piece that Goodman etc. had wrong (as does the movie Man from the Pru) and the Radio City productions, the Final Verdict book etc... Parry HAD an alibi the police were satisfied with and it was NOT from Lily Lloyd. This does not mean she was lying when she retracted it, it is possible he lied when questioned about the night of the phone call, people lie all the time if they don't have an answer to police questioning or to make their alibi seem more airtight; it does not mean they are guilty. Similarly, one could ask why did Parry's parents want him out of the country if he was innocent, again the cloud of suspicion is enough to create desperation.

Parry was also examined at the police station the night of the murder (interview started before Midnight and ended after) and he was examined very closely including under fingernails and found to be totally free of blood or signs of distress anywhere. It could be argued of course that he had time to clean up before the interview etc..., however the point here is not that this absolutely proves his innocence, rather that the narrative that there was a
"conspiracy of silence" against Wallace and to exonerate Parry unfairly seems false. Wallace himself discovered the body, smeared blood on the notes etc..so he actually had an excuse to have some blood on him when the police came. It was only on his journey that he had to be visibly free of blood.

As far as John Parkes story, I picked up in 1 book on the subject that Parry told the police Parkes was mentally slow and he was joking about it after hearing about the murder. That seems more likely to me than Parry wearing a fisherman's outfit with thigh high boots as Parkes recounts, which means that Parry went over to the Wallace's that night with the intention of committing pre-meditated murder. Highly unlikely imo.

Parry strikes me as a rogue, and probably someone who had sociopathic tendencies. Your typical low level conman with enough requisite charm in his youth to pull of a few things here and there, but ultimately a criminal failure. I seriously doubt he committed the perfect murder.

[louisa]

1. That's assuming a murder plot, if it was a robbery plot only, then Qulatrough would have more important things to worry about, like how he would get away with the robbery with Julia there; if he wasn't prepared to murder Julia, then he would know they would eventually discover a robbery, and it would be obvious what had happened with WHW coming back from the fake address. The robbery plot doesn't compute and Qualtrough creating an elaborate scenario with the goal of murdering Julia or at least the willingness to does not make sense at all. What does make sense is a planned murder where Qualtrough is Wallace...

2. I agree and playing chess doesn't make people devious. I'm a pretty poor chess player myself , but the point I think was less about the chess and more the fact that Wallace's alibi seemed to good to be true...i.e. contrived. I thought it was interesting that this was the personal opinion of the judge who summed up (correctly imo with the evidence given at the trial) for acquittal. Because, I agree with him.

3. RWE changed his mind after Murphy's book, in which new information was made available. Parry had an alibi for the night of the murder with 5 separate people there at the house of Olivia Brine thru 8:30 PM. It can be argued that all were lying, or that he left earlier than stated, but the fact is he had an alibi nonetheless that covered him for the time of the murder. Lily Lloyd's alibi was for the night of the phone call, which she retracted after being jilted. This is a major piece that Goodman etc. had wrong (as does the movie Man from the Pru) and the Radio City productions, the Final Verdict book etc... Parry HAD an alibi the police were satisfied with and it was NOT from Lily Lloyd. This does not mean she was lying when she retracted it, it is possible he lied when questioned about the night of the phone call, people lie all the time if they don't have an answer to police questioning or to make their alibi seem more airtight; it does not mean they are guilty. Similarly, one could ask why did Parry's parents want him out of the country if he was innocent, again the cloud of suspicion is enough to create desperation.

Parry was also examined at the police station the night of the murder (interview started before Midnight and ended after) and he was examined very closely including under fingernails and found to be totally free of blood or signs of distress anywhere. It could be argued of course that he had time to clean up before the interview etc..., however the point here is not that this absolutely proves his innocence, rather that the narrative that there was a
"conspiracy of silence" against Wallace and to exonerate Parry unfairly seems false. Wallace himself discovered the body, smeared blood on the notes etc..so he actually had an excuse to have some blood on him when the police came. It was only on his journey that he had to be visibly free of blood.

As far as John Parkes story, I picked up in 1 book on the subject that Parry told the police Parkes was mentally slow and he was joking about it after hearing about the murder. That seems more likely to me than Parry wearing a fisherman's outfit with thigh high boots as Parkes recounts, which means that Parry went over to the Wallace's that night with the intention of committing pre-meditated murder. Highly unlikely imo.

Parry strikes me as a rogue, and probably someone who had sociopathic tendencies. Your typical low level conman with enough requisite charm in his youth to pull of a few things here and there, but ultimately a criminal failure. I seriously doubt he committed the perfect murder.

Thanks for all that info, Sherlock.

I don't think I have the book by Murphy. I thought I had it somewhere but I haven't found it amongst my collection, which if you saw it you would understand why.

When I read Murphy's book I will be better informed and will give an opinion, for what it's worth.

Are you saying you think Wallace committed the murder?

[caz]

Caz- As I've explained before, I'm only putting forward the opinions of Drs McFall and Pierce- NOT as MY opinion, but merely as evidence. We can agree or disagree with them, but that is the evidence we have to work with in this case.

Having said that- consult any textbook on forensic science as relates to establishing time of death and you will see that gastric contents which are still recognizable and are undigested indicate a time of death 0-2 hours after consumption. As Mrs Wallace's gastric contents conform to this, I can estimate that she died not long after consuming her last meal of tea and scones. That's all I can say about that.

Hi Penny,

That's fine. We got there in the end. I think we can all agree with your estimate that she died not long after eating her last meal - so between the tea and scones and when she was found dead. But that's not what you had 'explained before' in previous posts addressed to me. Not by a very long chalk.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Parry strikes me as a rogue, and probably someone who had sociopathic tendencies. Your typical low level conman with enough requisite charm in his youth to pull of a few things here and there, but ultimately a criminal failure. I seriously doubt he committed the perfect murder.

Hi AS,

The thing is, our light-fingered Parry struck Wallace the same way - and this was before he was allowed into the Wallace household and shown exactly where the takings were kept. Wallace was by all accounts a careful man and he wasn't a stupid one. So why did he put temptation Parry's way like this? Was he already working on a plan to commit the perfect murder himself and let the blame fall naturally on the perfect suspect - Parry?

Look at the salient points people use to point the finger at Parry. How many of these were known to Wallace when he named him to the police as someone Julia would readily have invited in? If he even wondered for a moment that the oily Parry may have been sniffing round his flattered wife, that would provide one heck of a motive for killing her and hoping to see Parry hang for it. But he'd have had to be careful not to over-egg the pudding himself, but hope the police would see for themselves the potential for Parry as Qualtrough. Evidently their enquiries failed to turn up any hard evidence for this, or for Parry committing the murder, and Wallace could not have done anything about it if the police were satisfied with Parry's alibi for either night.

Love,

Caz
X

[Penny_Dredfull]

I'm afraid this is completely wrong and unsupported by authority. Determining time of death by gastric contents cannot achieve this level of accuracy. For instance, if 50% of the volume of the last meal remains in the stomach there is a 98% likelihood that the last food intake was between 1 and 10 hours ago, clearly a very wide margin: see Troger et al (1987).

John G- I'm afraid your issue is not with me- it's with every forensic science text book I've ever consulted.

[Penny_Dredfull]

Parry may not have known that Wallace didn't always turn up for his matches. It he had failed to turn up for a great many I think he would have been barred.



There was a theft. Four pounds, which was Parry's weekly wage.



I'm not so sure about that.



You're clutching at straws. Parry would definitely have wanted to disguise his voice and he was confident enough to have done so, having done some acting work.

Yes there were others that Julia may have been happy to answer the door to. But it's a bit of a coincidence that Parry used to come round when Wallace was out, for a bit of 'singing'.

Parry is a bit more of a likely suspect than the milk boy or the neighbours don't you think?

And a guilty person is far more likely to give a false alibi than an innocent one.

Each thing on it's own is insignificent. But when put together leads to a lot more circumstantial evidence than Wallace was convicted on.

Louisa- I'm sorry, I don't agree with a single thing here, and I don't find these assertions to be supported by any hard, factual evidence. You're certainly welcome to your opinion, and I don't mean any disrespect.

I agree with the comments above made by AmericanSherlock concerning the unlikely possibility of Parry being the murderer. I also just don't understand why the continual focus on Parry. I don't see why he in particular should be singled out as THE suspect to the exclusion of other possibilities. The so called evidence for him being the killer is to me so forced and so speculative that it would never hold up in court.
IF there was such a damning case to be that Parry was the real murderer and their "innocent' client was facing the hangman - WHY didn't Wallace's defense pursue that angle? If there was a really good case to be made against Parry, if their client was a scapegoated and innocent man whose life was at stake, would they have remained silent?
And as for the "theft"- what theft? Wallace, the prime suspect claimed that the four pounds was taken but we only have his word for it. All the other money and valuables in the house were left alone. The police considered the scene to be staged to look like a theft gone wrong.
Concerning the Qualtrough call- there are too many logical problems with that, which I have already addressed in previous posts. The idea of what voice was on the other end is the least of the problems. You don't have to be an actor to disguise your voice in a phone call, anyway. Heck, even I can do that! And if the people you're phoning don't know your voice anyway, what's the big deal?
I have challenged anyone here to put forward any direct evidence that Parry is the murderer and I haven't seen any yet. Many point their fingers at him, but none of the actual evidence does.

[louisa]

Hi AS,

The thing is, our light-fingered Parry struck Wallace the same way - and this was before he was allowed into the Wallace household and shown exactly where the takings were kept. Wallace was by all accounts a careful man and he wasn't a stupid one. So why did he put temptation Parry's way like this? Was he already working on a plan to commit the perfect murder himself and let the blame fall naturally on the perfect suspect - Parry?

Look at the salient points people use to point the finger at Parry. How many of these were known to Wallace when he named him to the police as someone Julia would readily have invited in? If he even wondered for a moment that the oily Parry may have been sniffing round his flattered wife, that would provide one heck of a motive for killing her and hoping to see Parry hang for it. But he'd have had to be careful not to over-egg the pudding himself, but hope the police would see for themselves the potential for Parry as Qualtrough. Evidently their enquiries failed to turn up any hard evidence for this, or for Parry committing the murder, and Wallace could not have done anything about it if the police were satisfied with Parry's alibi for either night.

Love,

Caz
X

If we assume for a moment that Wallace was the murderer then we really need to be taking everything he said with a large pinch of sodium chloride. That includes him saying that Gordon Parry knew that the Wallaces kept cash in the tin on the top shelf.

Wallace stated Parry used to come to the house for musical evenings, yet according to the Johnston's son (who lived with them) the Johnstons never heard anything and I presume the walls would have been thin between the parlours, probably 4.5 inches of brickwork.

Wallace stated that Julia would have admitted around 18 different people if they had knocked at the door. We're taking his word for that.

And there's the problem of the gas lamp and the fire. Why would Parry have turned off the fire before leaving the room? Why would he have turned off the gas lamps before leaving the room? The fire had to have been turned on because the mackintosh, and Julia's skirt, were burned.

Is it the kind of thing Wallace might have done, out of habit, turning the fire and light off?

And when he first entered the room he went to the right hand gas jet to light it, which would have meant stepping over his wife's body. Why would he not have simply lit the gas nearest to him, the left hand one?