Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[WallaceWackedHer]

By the way, I believe the cat returned between 10:30pm and 11:30pm when the front door was opened to let an officer in the house.

The cat was acquired i.e. Julia was its second owner (after reaching an agreement with the first to look after it permanently) and it is possible that it could have spent the previous night there. I'm not sure we're going to get the answers about the cat you seek, WWH.

Where are you getting all of this information?

The cat is one of the only pieces of evidence nobody really knows anything about or has different conflicting information about. I know the cat had been mentioned in local newspapers at the time but my BNA confirmation email isn't coming through so I can't get the details.

If the cat regularly went on trips back to its original owners, why would the Wallaces have had reason for concern over its absence?

The cat is an excellent excuse to get into the home. How did it even go missing in the first place if they had no cat holes and the cat had to rely on police opening the door to get back in? Maybe Wallace himself had given it to the planned attacker to use as a way of getting into the home.

Also of importance, I'm sure you have information on this, but the Anfield burglar had apparently hit #19 Wolverton Street in December. Did you know this? I did not know the burglar had operated within such a tight district. Information is needed about all of his crimes. Were there other burglaries without forced entry for example? Could the scene at the Wallace home have been staged to resemble another scene of a housebreaker crime, to make it seem he was the culprit?

In conspiracy theories with a murder motive, it is often suggested the killer was certainly blackmailed. Could Wallace have known who the housebreaker was (considering the crimes were in such a tight area) and blackmailed him into carrying out the attack, then put together the entire scheme? Many neighbors had their locks changed but Wallace did not, adamant he trusted his neighbors. Was this trust because he knew who the burglar was and thus knew he couldn't rob his home without being exposed?

Everyone seems to know like "oh yeah there was a cat", or "oh yeah a burglar had been operating in the area", but extensive information on these aspects is severely lacking.

Look at this quote:

I had an idea that something was not quite right, and seeing that there had been in our own street only fairly recently a burglary, and one possibly eighteen months or two years ago, and a number of tragedies in the street, I was rather inclined at first to think that something of the sort might have been attempted at my own house

Notice he says STREET. Not area, not town, not district - and that he says there were a "number". Obviously crimes were supposedly rife in Wolverton Street in particular, so perhaps the culprit was someone very local, and as such the odds of Wallace finding out who it was and then using that to have him commit murder is much higher.

[ColdCaseJury]

By the way, I believe the cat returned between 10:30pm and 11:30pm when the front door was opened to let an officer in the house.

The cat was acquired i.e. Julia was its second owner (after reaching an agreement with the first to look after it permanently) and it is possible that it could have spent the previous night there. I'm not sure we're going to get the answers about the cat you seek, WWH.

[ColdCaseJury]

And Oliver is in his re-examination put it to Wallace that he only mentioned the people he had spoken to in his statements. Wallace replied Yes.

[ColdCaseJury]

I have no books with me at the moment so I can’t recall when Wallace first had to admit that he’d called on Crewe and what his reason/excuse was for not previously mentioning it but it’s a question that could be important. Why did he ‘’forget’’ knocking at Crewe’s door?

When? Wallace first stated he called at Crewe's only during the committal hearing.

Why not mention it? A good question. Goodman suggests it was because he was asked (in his statements) whom he had talked to. I suggest one obvious reason he might have omitted mentioning it, as you say, was because it raised the question of his violin lessons and his possible knowledge of the area.

When quizzed over by Hemmerde at the trial (who makes the exact point above), Wallace said he had mentioned the fact in a statement. Hemmerde showed he had not. Oliver intervened on a more technical point, and the moment was lost.

P.S. But what if Wallace only learned that Crewe was out from Crewe's testimony at the committal hearing?

[WallaceWackedHer]

A few other questions that I’d like to have pressed Wallace on would have been:

1. Didn’t you think it strange or even suspicious that Qualtrough wanted you specifically rather than just any Prudential agent?

2. Didn’t you think it strange that he chose to contact you at your chess club and how did he know that it was where you would be on that particular night?

3. Why did you walk past two tram stops to get the one near the junction of Belmont Road?

4. Why did you go upstairs rather than check the Parlour when the door was in touching distance?

5. Why did you ask Beattie if he could be more accurate on the timing of the call?

6. Why did you tell Beattie and Caird that you had been cleared of Julia’s murder when you hadn’t?

7. Why did you say ‘her mackintosh and my....’ when Julia didn’t have a mackintosh?

8. Why did you try and distance yourself from the fact that you suspected at the time that there was someone still in the house?

9. Why were you so nearly late getting to the chess club?

10. Why didn’t you try to find the location of Menlove Gardens East during the day on the Tuesday?

11. If you thought that some intruder might still have been in the house why didn’t you ask Mr Johnston to accompany you inside?

5. He offered an explanation (an unreasonable one).

6. Not sure how it would benefit him to lie about it either though... It's possible he just thought he was a suspect and that the police had been satisfied with his testimony. I don't know... Or he knew he was a suspect and wanted them (i.e. Beattie etc.) to give him information they knew or about what the police knew freely.

8. I think he may have been prone to just "going along" with police/lawyer suggestions? We see that the prosecution says HE said "whatever have they used?" which we know he didn't. He originally says he doesn't remember saying it, but then just goes along with it as though he did, saying he feels it's a natural thing to say.

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I should also like to grill him hard on the cat with:

1) When did the cat come home?

2) When did your cat first go missing?

3) When did you report it missing?

4) Was it an outdoor cat?

5) Did you have any cat holes in your home?

6) When did you first see the cat upon your arrival home?

7) How was it behaving?

8) Why didn't you mention to detectives that the cat had not been there when you left for MGE, but had appeared upon your return?

9) How do you suspect the cat had got back inside your home?

10) Do you think it's likely a cat would willingly not return home when it's very cold out with heavy rainfall? If not - what do you think prevented it from returning home?

[WallaceWackedHer]

What are the odds one of the Qualtroughs should be with the Pru? You would need to look at number of households in Liverpool at the time, possibly the districts we're talking about, and find out the proportion of Pru customers overall. It could be as much as 50% of households were with the Pru; I have no idea. This is the baseline. Again, I expect it is higher than you think.

I'm more struck by the proportion of Qualtroughs in Cumbria. But, in my view, this argument is likely to short out when one considers there was a Qualtrough in the public domain. If Parry planned the call, for example, why could he have not seen the butchers at some point and been struck by the name?

And, of course, it should be remembered that Marsden was not an agent at the time of the murder; the customer was from several years back, making me think he was difficult a customer (and intentionally chosen to get back at him) or it was a coincidence based on the fact that any of about 1000-1500 names would have a link to one of the three men via the Pru.

But this is just my view; it is one of so many pieces of evidence that everyone has to make a judgement on.

Antony I saw your forensic maths on the tram timings so maybe you could do something similar for Qualtroughs? 18 in total? 2 with the Pru? 3 agents out of X amount? 18 Qualtroughs in a population of Y amount?

He easily could have seen the shop earlier and stuck to it. But I feel it's a bad name to use if trying to genuinely convince somebody that the call is real.

Connections to the name can be made to all three. Apparently builders/a building firm working on Parry's street had that name - hearsay I read which may be true. Marsden of course had the client. Wallace grew up in an area apparently rife with them...

But what purpose does it serve someone to use a weird name? Nothing plausible that would make it beneficial over a generic one.

Nobody sane would use a name that could easily be connected to them when planning a serious crime just to "get back at them". It'd be utter madness!

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But yes perhaps trying to determine who the name links to and all this stuff about the call isn't the best way to move forward as there are too many arguments and counterarguments and there can't really be consensus... Like to me I just think, right, I'm gonna commit a murder or burglary and get away with it, let's not rely on an alias that was an ex client of mine. Or let's not pick a name that sounds so farfetched. Etc.

I would very much like to see the December 1930 Liverpool papers, as supposedly a burglary was committed on Wolverton street at that time.

[Herlock Sholmes]

A few other questions that I’d like to have pressed Wallace on would have been:

1. Didn’t you think it strange or even suspicious that Qualtrough wanted you specifically rather than just any Prudential agent?

2. Didn’t you think it strange that he chose to contact you at your chess club and how did he know that it was where you would be on that particular night?

3. Why did you walk past two tram stops to get the one near the junction of Belmont Road?

4. Why did you go upstairs rather than check the Parlour when the door was in touching distance?

5. Why did you ask Beattie if he could be more accurate on the timing of the call?

6. Why did you tell Beattie and Caird that you had been cleared of Julia’s murder when you hadn’t?

7. Why did you say ‘her mackintosh and my....’ when Julia didn’t have a mackintosh?

8. Why did you try and distance yourself from the fact that you suspected at the time that there was someone still in the house?

9. Why were you so nearly late getting to the chess club?

10. Why didn’t you try to find the location of Menlove Gardens East during the day on the Tuesday?

11. If you thought that some intruder might still have been in the house why didn’t you ask Mr Johnston to accompany you inside?

[Herlock Sholmes]

There are many questions that I’d like to have pressed Wallace on but one that intrigues me is: why didn’t Wallace mention, in any of his three statements, that he knocked on Joseph Crewe’s door on the night of the murder? He remembers details of that night well, of talking to complete strangers and visiting places that he’d never visited before, but he doesn’t mention Crewe. He mentions speaking to PC Serjeant at the bottom of Green Lane where Crewe lived. That didn’t jog his memory. Neither did the fact that he mentioned Crewe in his second statement as someone that Julia would have let into the house. Why was this? As you might expect I’m looking at this in terms of Wallace being guilty.

Did Wallace intend all along to use Crewe as part of his alibi? Crewe’s testimony would have carried some weight “”Yes, Mr Wallace turned up at my door. He was very annoyed that he couldn’t find the address that he was looking for. I told him that it didn’t exist and my wife made him a cup of tea then he left.”” Against this, Wallace would have considered that this would have gone against his suggestion of not knowing the area but he decided that it was too good an opportunity and he could easily have said that he walked unknowing into Green Lane which he gradually came to recognise and then decided on the spur of the moment to knock at Crewe’s door.

As Crewe wasn’t in he had gained no benefit from knocking the door so he decided not to mention the event thus hoping not to invite the question about his familiarity with the area. If he’d been unlucky and the police had found out and mentioned that Crewe lived in Green Lane he might have said that he’d always visited Crewe during daylight that that many roads look similar. Or that he didn’t connect the street namewith Crewe.

I have no books with me at the moment so I can’t recall when Wallace first had to admit that he’d called on Crewe and what his reason/excuse was for not previously mentioning it but it’s a question that could be important. Why did he ‘’forget’’ knocking at Crewe’s door?

[Herlock Sholmes]

To be honest I don’t think that we can advance in any direction on the name alone. We might mention the connection to Marsden and the fact that Parry might have become aware of the name through him. If Qualtrough was a difficult customer his name might have come up in general conversation with Wallace. Or Wallace might have seen the butcher’s shop and recalled the name. Anyone of them might have heard the name in an unrelated conversation or in a book or newspaper or someone might have heard 2 people talking at a tram stop. Maybe Wallace had a childhood friend called Qualtrough?

In short I think all possibilities carry equal weight and we have to remember that coincidences do occur.

[ColdCaseJury]

I don't really buy it. How many Pru agents were there? There were not very many Qualtroughs in Liverpool. What are the odds one of them should be with the Pru to begin with? IIRC 2 out of the 8 were, and both of those 2 were related to each other, and one had dealt with Mr. Marsden, sharing the same first initial as well. So you don't only have the coincidence of the name, but also the coincidence that, out of all the employees at the Pru, one of those two specifically dealt with Marsden. It's not like Wallace, Parry and Marsden were the only Prudential agents.

What are the odds one of the Qualtroughs should be with the Pru? You would need to look at number of households in Liverpool at the time, possibly the districts we're talking about, and find out the proportion of Pru customers overall. It could be as much as 50% of households were with the Pru; I have no idea. This is the baseline. Again, I expect it is higher than you think.

I'm more struck by the proportion of Qualtroughs in Cumbria. But, in my view, this argument is likely to short out when one considers there was a Qualtrough in the public domain. If Parry planned the call, for example, why could he have not seen the butchers at some point and been struck by the name?

And, of course, it should be remembered that Marsden was not an agent at the time of the murder; the customer was from several years back, making me think he was difficult a customer (and intentionally chosen to get back at him) or it was a coincidence based on the fact that any of about 1000-1500 names would have a link to one of the three men via the Pru.

But this is just my view; it is one of so many pieces of evidence that everyone has to make a judgement on.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Edit: My bad, the item missing was a "dog lash" not a "leash"... Uhhh that's probably even weirder LOL. Maybe Parry wasn't lying about Wallace being "sexually odd" after all:

[WallaceWackedHer]

Very good. A couple of things. Are cat flaps not a much more modern contraption? I may be wrong but I do think the general way of things was that cats were often put out for the night ,and not catered to so much as they are these days.
Also ,I do think that if the Puss had access to the parlour with its mistress lying dead as it was with blood seeping out everywhere, she wouldn't have been padding through it all , domestic cats will shrink back from even the scent of human blood.

Apparently you are right, people used to just cut adequately-shaped holes in their doors or walls etc. back in the day:

https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3156/did-isaac-newton-invent-the-cat-door/

So what we'd be looking for moreso is a "cat hole" lol.

And yes that is true in most cases (although of course there are exceptions and cats HAVE been known to attack intruders), but I cannot find any information on the behavior of the cat. We know it went past the open parlor to the kitchen, but we do not know as to its state of being when Wallace had entered the home. Had it been hiding? Anxious? It could potentially be gleaned from this how recent the killer had left.

I need to get access to the BNA to get details of that December 1930 Wolverton Street burglary!!!!!

[moste]

It was Mrs. Johnston who said that. Wallace did NOT say that line. Mrs. Johnston said "whatever have they used?"

The prosecution got it wrong.

Insensitive bitch then, eh?

[moste]

What is annoying me to no end, is that I can't find a picture of the back door to see if they had a cat flap installed.

Here's the front door:



No cat flap.

Here's a picture from the yard:



The door is to the right behind the drainpipe. If we could see that door and there's no cat flap, then there is absolutely no way Puss could have gotten back into the home without someone bringing her back in.

On top of that of course, as we established, it's highly likely the cat not returning home would not be of its own volition (given the weather and time of year), and that Julia was likely too sick to have gone out looking for and successfully found the cat, then you have a credible excuse to enter the home for an intruder:

Returning Puss to Julia.

But the lack of any cat flap would PROVE with absolute 100% certainty that someone brought the cat in. I do already think the cat was being held or something of that nature, given the circumstances, but I'd rather make it UNDENIABLE if possible that it hadn't just wandered in at the time of the murder by sheer coincidence.

Very good. A couple of things. Are cat flaps not a much more modern contraption? I may be wrong but I do think the general way of things was that cats were often put out for the night ,and not catered to so much as they are these days.
Also ,I do think that if the Puss had access to the parlour with its mistress lying dead as it was with blood seeping out everywhere, she wouldn't have been padding through it all , domestic cats will shrink back from even the scent of human blood.

[WallaceWackedHer]

The perculiarity that was William Wallace : It seems inconceivable to me that a man discovering his wife layed out on the parlour floor with her head smashed open and contents spilled out , should utter the words 'whatever have they used' ? This was either a complete fabrication , or there is something seriously wrong with Wallaces head! Mrs. Johnston may have thought this, but surely wouldn't have voiced this in front of her husband.

It was Mrs. Johnston who said that. Wallace did NOT say that line. Mrs. Johnston said "whatever have they used?"

The prosecution got it wrong.