Do you think William Herbert Wallace was guilty?

[AmericanSherlock]

Have you ever looked or called for anyone in a darkened, rarely-used room before checking more likely possibilities? Thought not...
There were two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Checking the lab, while upstairs, was reasonable and rational before heading for the only remaining possible room downstairs...

Of course Wallace didn't know his wife was dead! He was an innocent man, and every action of his is consistent with innocence [aside from the sheer impossibility of him committing the deed]
...

OLIVER: What I am putting to you is that everything in that
room is consistent with a knock at the front door, and the
admission of someone, and the visitor being taken into
the parlour ?
Supt. MOORE: It is quite possible.
...

OLIVER: When you say you think it was six o’clock, it might
have been four o’clock in the afternoon or might have
been eight o’clock ? — And there were other factors as
well.
So it follows she might have met her death at any hour
within this time that night ?

Dr. PIERCE: Yes.
....

Mr. Justice WRIGHT: ...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.

Justice Wright himself thought Wallace was guilty and said so when interviewed years after the trial. This is on record in multiple places. He simply summed up for acquittal as was reasonable with the evidence presented at the time.

You continue to acquit yourself remarkably poorly here.

[RodCrosby]

This case has baffled experts for years. It’s amazing that you can be so confident that you’ve ‘solved it,’ I’m not certain that Wallace was guilty but he certainly gave a good impression with his strange behaviour. A calm and reasoned approach is required and even then the solution isn’t apparent. You seem to be desperate to be the one that’s cracked it. Many Ripperologist with ‘suspects’ make the same noises I’m afraid.

There is logical, circumstantial and even testimonial evidence for everything I have stated. You need to study the case a little more...

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don’t claim to be the ‘expert’ that you so obviously regard yourself as. It’s also an advantage that you know that I’ve never checked a darkened room and so we can add ‘omniscience’ to that expertise. What I’m trying to do is take a reasonable, balanced view of this most difficult of cases rather than just deciding that I’ve solved it then colouring every judgement with that supposition. This case isn’t ‘solved’ and it’s unlikely that it ever will be.
Ive never said that Wallace was definitely guilty or that Parry was definitely innocent. What I’m saying is that it’s almost impossible to be sure of everything. What I’m also saying is that Wallace’s actions raise reasonable doubts. Some of my doubts/questions are these (they are also well known)

How many people would continue looking for Menlove Gardens East despite being told, 3 times at least, that it didn’t exist. I’d say that 99 people out of 100 would have gone home straight after being told by a policeman that it didn’t exist. Yet Wallace’s trudges on as if he’s in search of the Holy Grail.

Despite your strange logical twist to make your point I’d say again that 99 people out of 100 would have checked all the downstairs rooms first before going upstairs to check rooms which included a room that Julia would never have entered. I seem to recall (I’m not near any books at the moment) that the Johnston’s saw a light in his lab for quite a while(was it a minute?) so what was he doing in there?

How many people would, of their own volition, return to the room where his wife had been bludgeoned to death, and start poking around?

How many ‘burglars’ would steal from a cash box and then considerately put it back on it’s high shelf. Your point about the burglar not wishing to be caught is a bit of a howler. Surely you can’t think that Parry intended to steal the cash without killing Julia (who do you feel would have been the only suspect for any missing cash?)

Isn’t it strange that the same or similar amount that was missing from the cash box was found upstairs in a jar with a blood smears. Which is likeliest: Parry steals the cash from downstairs but decides that he doesn’t want the cash in the bedroom? Or that a police officer would be so careless and stupid as to walk around a crime scene transferring blood? Or that Wallace, in a panic of having committed a murder and trying to set up a robbery in tight time constraints, doesn’t notice that he still has a spot of blood on his had that he transfers?

Why did Wallace badger Beattie about getting his times right if he wasn’t trying to confirm his own prearranged alibi?

Doesn’t it at least give cause for doubt that a doctor, a nurse, the char woman and one other (I think) stated that the Wallace marriage wasn’t the ‘rosy affair’ that Wallace and others pictured it.

Why didn’t the meticulous Wallace check a directory during the day, before he set out, to find out where exactly Menlove Gardens East was?

Why didn’t a burglar/Killer simply enter the house whilst Wallace was on his rounds? Why the elaborate plan?

The phone box was conveniently, of all phone boxes existing in Liverpool, 400 yards from Wallace’s house.

The char women said that an iron bar and a poker were missing. If this is true then it surely points more to Wallace as it’s unlikely that a prospective burglar/killer wouldn’t bring a weapon, just hoping to find on in situ?

Again I’m not saying that Wallace was definately guilty. He may not have been but I cant understand how anyone can ignore these, and other doubts. To say that he was definately innocent is to just dismiss offhand anything that contradicts a theory.

Resorting to snide comments isn’t debate by the way.

[RodCrosby]

I don’t claim to be the ‘expert’ that you so obviously regard yourself as. It’s also an advantage that you know that I’ve never checked a darkened room and so we can add ‘omniscience’ to that expertise. What I’m trying to do is take a reasonable, balanced view of this most difficult of cases rather than just deciding that I’ve solved it then colouring every judgement with that supposition. This case isn’t ‘solved’ and it’s unlikely that it ever will be.
Ive never said that Wallace was definitely guilty or that Parry was definitely innocent. What I’m saying is that it’s almost impossible to be sure of everything. What I’m also saying is that Wallace’s actions raise reasonable doubts. Some of my doubts/questions are these (they are also well known)

How many people would continue looking for Menlove Gardens East despite being told, 3 times at least, that it didn’t exist. I’d say that 99 people out of 100 would have gone home straight after being told by a policeman that it didn’t exist. Yet Wallace’s trudges on as if he’s in search of the Holy Grail.

Despite your strange logical twist to make your point I’d say again that 99 people out of 100 would have checked all the downstairs rooms first before going upstairs to check rooms which included a room that Julia would never have entered. I seem to recall (I’m not near any books at the moment) that the Johnston’s saw a light in his lab for quite a while(was it a minute?) so what was he doing in there?

How many people would, of their own volition, return to the room where his wife had been bludgeoned to death, and start poking around?

How many ‘burglars’ would steal from a cash box and then considerately put it back on it’s high shelf. Your point about the burglar not wishing to be caught is a bit of a howler. Surely you can’t think that Parry intended to steal the cash without killing Julia (who do you feel would have been the only suspect for any missing cash?)

Isn’t it strange that the same or similar amount that was missing from the cash box was found upstairs in a jar with a blood smears. Which is likeliest: Parry steals the cash from downstairs but decides that he doesn’t want the cash in the bedroom? Or that a police officer would be so careless and stupid as to walk around a crime scene transferring blood? Or that Wallace, in a panic of having committed a murder and trying to set up a robbery in tight time constraints, doesn’t notice that he still has a spot of blood on his had that he transfers?

Why did Wallace badger Beattie about getting his times right if he wasn’t trying to confirm his own prearranged alibi?

Doesn’t it at least give cause for doubt that a doctor, a nurse, the char woman and one other (I think) stated that the Wallace marriage wasn’t the ‘rosy affair’ that Wallace and others pictured it.

Why didn’t the meticulous Wallace check a directory during the day, before he set out, to find out where exactly Menlove Gardens East was?

Why didn’t a burglar/Killer simply enter the house whilst Wallace was on his rounds? Why the elaborate plan?

The phone box was conveniently, of all phone boxes existing in Liverpool, 400 yards from Wallace’s house.

The char women said that an iron bar and a poker were missing. If this is true then it surely points more to Wallace as it’s unlikely that a prospective burglar/killer wouldn’t bring a weapon, just hoping to find on in situ?

Again I’m not saying that Wallace was definately guilty. He may not have been but I cant understand how anyone can ignore these, and other doubts. To say that he was definately innocent is to just dismiss offhand anything that contradicts a theory.

Resorting to snide comments isn’t debate by the way.

Almost all the answers to your questions have been given repeatedly on this thread.

I'll answer the first question (again), and leave you to research the rest.

a) His fellows at the Chess Club had given him directions to where Menlove Gardens East might be. Not one, including some who lived nearby, said "it doesn't exist"
b) The tram conductor, Thompson, gave him directions to where he thought Menlove Gardens East might be... [We could add that Wallace had similar conversations with two other conductors, Phillips and Angus. They too were unaware that Menlove Gardens East didn't exist...]
c) Even a woman coming out of a house in Menlove Gardens North gave him directions to where Menlove Gardens East might be (!)
d) Once he had been told authoritatively by the policeman that the address didn't exist, he did the reasonable and rational thing before returning home. Seek out a directory to see if there was any Qualtrough at all living in the district. [We may speculate that had he found one, dogged Wallace would have gone to that address.]

You can only find any of this remotely suspicious if you choose to apply different standards to WH Wallace than you would apply to the people mentioned in a), b) and c) which, of course, is unreasonable... We also have Goodman's and others experiments which demonstrate that Wallace's behaviour was quite natural.

And you seem terminally confused about what I am saying, in any case.
Parry didn't kill Julia - the accomplice did, while Parry was sitting a stone's throw away in Olivia Brine's house.!

All the evidence and logic supports this hypothesis.

The killer's escape route.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8wNZWYSW1uvelFVeUt5cXc5YUE/view

[AmericanSherlock]

It appears discussion has been shut down again by this fool. How unfortunate. 1 bad Apple can really ruin the lot.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Utter nonesense!

Wallace was an intelligent man. No one that he knew or spoke to, even Mr Deyes, who lived in that area, had heard of Menlove Gardens East. Anyone, and I mean anyone in that position might have felt it a little strange. The obvious solution would have been (again to an intelligent man like Wallace or even a not very intelligent man) to have a look in a directory before setting out to look for a street that no one has heard of. Why can you not accept this obvious fact. Obviously because you’re dogmatic pro-Wallace bias doesn’t allow you that luxury.

How the hell can you question my knowledge when you say things like ‘once he had been told authoritatively by a policeman that the address didn’t exist he did the reasonable and rational thing before returning home. Seek out a directory..’What an utterly blatant twist of the facts to fit your theory. Staggering in fact! No, the reasonable thing to do after being to ‘authoritatively by a policeman that...,’ the thing that anyone would have done, would have been to go straight home. Why after being told by a policeman would he bother trudging on to a post office then another shop.

I’m not ‘terminally confused’ as you seem to be terminally biased. Was Wallace a distant relative of yours?

None of the questions that I posed earlier have been satisfactorily answered so you duck them by saying ‘do some research.’ What a cop out.

Simply pointing to an author that concurs with you about Wallace’s behaviour is pretty weak as there are other authors who have the opposite opinion. Just picking opinions and facts that suit you isn’t analysis.

And you can often tell the weakness of someone’s case when they have to resort to insults. AS was right.

[RodCrosby]

Oh dear, another baby throwing their toys out of the pram when their positions are shown yet again to be ill-founded, wrong-headed or unreasonable...

I just laugh, and move on.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oh dear, another baby throwing their toys out of the pram when their positions are shown yet again to be ill-founded, wrong-headed or unreasonable...

I just laugh, and move on.

Well you’re consistent at least. You’ve even reversed things in that pathetic reply. Anything to suit your point.

You’re the one having the babyish strop just because the adults have shown your arguments for what they are. No reply to my comment about your ridiculous ‘caught in the act’ comment I see

Unless you had trouble reading it I have stated all along that I am (unlike you) open and unbiased on the subject. Wallace may indeed be completely innocent. But I and millions of others are unsure as there is evidence on both sides. Unlike you, of course, and your Holmes-like brilliance. Seeing everything that the rest of us can’t conceive. If you ditch your aggressive superiority complex for any length of time then maybe, just maybe, you could engage in a debate instead of just stroppily tossing out insults and avoiding answering questions with pointless statements like ‘go and research more.’

There’s only one person that’s lowered the standard of debate on this thread and it ain’t me

Oh, and on behalf of everyone else on here, please feel free to ‘move on.’

[Herlock Sholmes]

Moving on (hopefully)

On the subject of Qualtrough’s voice. The three women at the telephone exchange described it as ‘quite ordinary.’ Gladys Harley said ‘it seemed like the voice of an elderly gentleman.’ Yet Samuel Beattie described it as ‘strong and gruff..’

Is the deduction too obvious:

Wallace in his own voice to complete strangers at the exchange but in a ‘gruff’ voice to Beattie who would recognise his normal voice.

If it was Parry he would have had no need for two voices as Beattie didn’t know him from Adam.

[RodCrosby]

"Is the deduction too obvious:"

Not any kind of "deduction", but desperate theorizing about a subject outside your competence.
Shock horror: three different people (of at least two different social backgrounds) describe, in their own different subjective human language, a brief telephone conversation (different words spoken to each person).... well... DIFFERENTLY !

How do we describe perceived vocal qualities?
The short answer: not very well. The average person easily recognizes familiar or famous voices, yet would have difficulty describing them in words. Language has not been as well developed for vocal characteristics as it has for appearance. People can be tall, bald or wrinkled, but how do we describe how they sound?

Despite their training, vocologists and voice researchers also disagree about exact descriptions of vocal qualities.

http://www.ncvs.org/ncvs/tutorials/v...l/quality.html

Try focusing on the actual evidence of the case.

[Herlock Sholmes]

By that you mean stop highlighting things that contradict your entrenched opinion.
It is a pertinent point. I didn’t say that it proves Wallace’s guilt because as I’ve said before, unlike you, I’m not biased. The three operators you would expect would know what a ‘gruff’ voice sounds like. None of them said that the voice sounded gruff. Beattie specifically said gruff. So this could, and I’m only saying could, indicate that ‘Qualtrough’ used a different voice (possibly his own) for the operators and a different one (possible a put on one for Beattie.) That’s not ridiculous it’s an obvious possibility that anyone being unbiased would at least consider. And so, if true, what could we make of it? Again a possibility is that Wallace would have had no need to disguise his voice to the operators but he would if he wanted to fool a man that knew him.

I’ll happily leave it to anyone impartial to tell me if that statement is anything other than a reasonable, possible suggestion.

Most debaters would calmly propose an alternative. But not you of course. More arrogant insults about the subject being outside my competence. I’ll return your suggestion...try focusing on the evidence and not just the bits that support your theory. I get the impression that you’re not a man that likes to be contradicted! Find yourself in lots of arguments to you?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I make a point of never having any prejudices, and of following docilely where fact may lead me

Cracking joke by the way

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s also noticeable that there’s no proper response to my post #1461.

Why? Because even you must realise what nonesense your previous comment about the directory was!

[RodCrosby]

"By that you mean stop highlighting things that contradict your entrenched opinion."

You've highlighted nothing except your own lack of analytical rigour, and preference instead for fancies and prejudice...

I have never had an "entrenched opinion" on anything. For over 25 years, on and off, I studied this case, without reaching any firm conclusion.

Then I was the first person to notice several things, which led me, solely through inductive and abductive reasoning, to the Correct Solution.

Despite my challenge here for over six months, no-one has put so much as a scratch on my Correct Solution. Just unappetising pathologies revealed by some self-imagined Sherlock_Mini-Mes...

No matter. This thread stands witness as how not to approach such a subtle and evidentially-evolving case as the Wallace Case.

Reasonable minds elsewhere have now scrutinised and passed favourable judgment on the Correct Solution... Watch this space.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The ego has landed!

Read your words:

) The accomplice killed Julia when rumbled, after rifling and replacing the cash-box, as planned, while her back was turned.

So the plan was that the accomplice, under some pretence, convinces Julia to let him in (we assume that she would only have done this if she had known him....as per Wallace himself)
He then attempted to steal the cash without Julia knowing (by obvious inference then without the need to kill her)

She catches him in the act and he kills her.

So the plan was basically to steal the cash without her knowing and scarper?

So what happens next Rod?

Wallace comes home. Probably doesn’t check the box until the next day (as the burglar has considerately put it back on the high shelf) when he finds the cash missing.

What does Wallace do?

‘Did You take any money Julia?’ Hardly.

Has anyone else been in the house?

Yes, Mr X

Allow me to congratulate you on your brilliant reasoning