Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[ColdCaseJury]

THE HS Scenario (Continued)

HS,

I think the staging of the robbery is more plausible after the murder. Let's handle it then. I have now added the crucial minute and most distinctive aspect of your proposed scenario - that the mackintosh ignited before the attack.

6:35PM. According to his trial testimony, David Jones delivers the Echo to No. 29. He sees no lights on (there is a deep fanlight window above the front door) or hears no one inside. He also sees no one else in Wolverton Street.

Inference 1: Julia and William Wallace are in the kitchen with the hall door closed.

Inference 2: Given testimony of teenagers (and broadly consistent with both Holmes and Johnston), Alan Close had not yet arrived to deliver milk.

6:36PM. Julia retrieves the Echo and takes it back to the kitchen to read.

Justification: The newspaper was found on the table by her seat - open at the centre pages, I believe.

6.37PM. Alan Close knocks on the door of No. 29. He leaves a can of milk on the doorstep and goes to No. 31. Julia retrieves can, leaves the front door open but closes the vestibule door, and returns to the kitchen to fill her milk jug. Close returns to No. 29. James Wildman is at No. 27 delivering a paper. He looks across and sees Close with the door of No. 29 wide open.

As Julia returns to the front door, Wallace enters the front room and lights the gas lamp.

Assumption: The vestibule door was closed, allowing Wallace to enter the front room unseen by Close.

6:38PM. Julia opens vestibule door and hands the empty can to Close, with whom she exchanges a few words. The front door closes. Pretending to check his appearance in the mirror, Wallace asks Julia to bring him his mackintosh.

6:39PM. Wallace asks Julia to light the fire in the front room [P1]. Wallace helps light the fire [P2]. As he does so, the mackintosh he is holding falls onto the fire clays and ignites [P3]. The flames on the mackintosh are extinguished.

6:40PM. Wallace picks up the iron bar on the hearth... TO BE CONTINUED.

I have highlighted three premises in 6:39, as I understand the proposal to be. I think we can ask questions of each.

P1. Why is the fire being lit? Wallace is going out and Julia is in the warm kitchen reading the newspaper. The front room is used sparingly for musical evenings and entertaining visitors (and the evidence we have supports this). More importantly, Wallace can strike without the fire being lit.

P2. Why does Wallace get involved? The fire is lit by turning on the gas and lighting a match. Perhaps Wallace lights it... but back to P1.

P3. The fire clays are recessed into the wall inside the chimney breast. He would have to stand right on the hearth and right by the fire as it is being lit. The only way I can see Wallace draping the mackintosh in the fire is if he did it deliberately. I concede it is an oddity in any scenario, but this one is quite hard to reconcile with general experience.

Of course, I may have misread your proposal. Or we can amend it.

In my opinion:

a) The burnt mackintosh implies the front room fire was lit
b) The front room fire was lit only if there was (i) a visitor or (ii) a musical evening.

The only way I can think of supporting P1 is if Wallace told Julia he was meeting Qualtrough and then was going to return with him. But - again - why strike when the fire was lit? As soon as Julia turns and bends down - bang! First blow before she even turns on the gas and the blood splatter would have been to the right of the fireplace (as I believe that's where the regulator was - I will need to check this point).

[Herlock Sholmes]

HS,

I think the staging of the robbery is more plausible after the murder. Let's handle it then. I have now added the crucial minute and most distinctive aspect of your proposed scenario - that the mackintosh ignited before the attack.

6:35PM. According to his trial testimony, David Jones delivers the Echo to No. 29. He sees no lights on (there is a deep fanlight window above the front door) or hears no one inside. He also sees no one else in Wolverton Street.

Inference 1: Julia and William Wallace are in the kitchen with the hall door closed.

Inference 2: Given testimony of teenagers (and broadly consistent with both Holmes and Johnston), Alan Close had not yet arrived to deliver milk.

6:36PM. Julia retrieves the Echo and takes it back to the kitchen to read.

Justification: The newspaper was found on the table by her seat - open at the centre pages, I believe.

6.37PM. Alan Close knocks on the door of No. 29. He leaves a can of milk on the doorstep and goes to No. 31. Julia retrieves can, leaves the front door open but closes the vestibule door, and returns to the kitchen to fill her milk jug. Close returns to No. 29. James Wildman is at No. 27 delivering a paper. He looks across and sees Close with the door of No. 29 wide open.

As Julia returns to the front door, Wallace enters the front room and lights the gas lamp.

Assumption: The vestibule door was closed, allowing Wallace to enter the front room unseen by Close.

6:38PM. Julia opens vestibule door and hands the empty can to Close, with whom she exchanges a few words. The front door closes. Pretending to check his appearance in the mirror, Wallace asks Julia to bring him his mackintosh.

6:39PM. Wallace asks Julia to light the fire in the front room [P1]. Wallace helps light the fire [P2]. As he does so, the mackintosh he is holding falls onto the fire clays and ignites [P3]. The flames on the mackintosh are extinguished.

This is a slight variation as I had Wallace calling Julia to bring him the mackintosh. I can understand though the need to address the lit fire.

6:40PM. Wallace picks up the iron bar on the hearth... TO BE CONTINUED.

I have highlighted three premises in 6:39, as I understand the proposal to be. I think we can ask questions of each.

P1. Why is the fire being lit? Wallace is going out and Julia is in the warm kitchen reading the newspaper. The front room is used sparingly for musical evenings and entertaining visitors (and the evidence we have supports this). More importantly, Wallace can strike without the fire being lit.

Might Julia have simply decided to pass an hour or so playing the piano until William returned?

Might she have been a little put out by William having to go out? Could William’s response have been “look, ill only be an hour or so. Well have our musical evening when I get back?”

It’s also been suggested somewhere else that maybe William had told Julia that he’d decided not to go to MGE and that the fire was being lit in preparation for a musical evening. This would have meant that Wallace went to fetch the mackintosh himself (possibly after the first blow?)

P2. Why does Wallace get involved? The fire is lit by turning on the gas and lighting a match. Perhaps Wallace lights it... but back to P1.

P3. The fire clays are recessed into the wall inside the chimney breast. He would have to stand right on the hearth and right by the fire as it is being lit. The only way I can see Wallace draping the mackintosh in the fire is if he did it deliberately. I concede it is an oddity in any scenario, but this one is quite hard to reconcile with general experience.

If the fire was already lit (by William or Julia) and Julia entered with the mackintosh and stood next to William couldn’t she have simply dropped the mackintosh onto the fire as she saw William raise the iron bar to strike the first blow? He hits Julia and rather than falling backward (head toward the door) maybe she simply ‘crumpled.’ Her legs gave way and she went downward (aswe often see boxers do) onto the fire?

Of course, I may have misread your proposal. Or we can amend it.

In my opinion:

a) The burnt mackintosh implies the front room fire was lit
b) The front room fire was lit only if there was (i) a visitor or (ii) a musical evening.

or,

c) Julia either believed that they were going to have a musical evening

or,

d) Julia intended to play the piano.

The only way I can think of supporting P1 is if Wallace told Julia he was meeting Qualtrough and then was going to return with him. But - again - why strike when the fire was lit? As soon as Julia turns and bends down - bang! First blow before she even turns on the gas and the blood splatter would have been to the right of the fireplace (as I believe that's where the regulator was - I will need to check this point).

It’s certainly easy to get tied up in knots trying to justify every single points when so much will never be known. I’ll add a ‘What if’...just for the sake of it.

What if the lighting of the fire was Wallace’s method for getting Julia into the Parlour? What if, when Wallace returned from work, he said to Julia “oh, I saw Amy today and she said that she’d be coming round to see you tonight. Edwin’s (was that his nephew’s name?) coming to. They’ll be here around 7.30.”

The complications are endless !

[cobalt]

If Wallace was guilty then he surely created one of the greatest red herrings in history with his Qualtrough phone call. But it was a trick he could pull only once, and having played his joker so to speak, he was committed to pursuing his murder plan within a narrow time frame the following day. In theory Wallace could have killed Julia anytime between 6.05pm when he arrived home, and 6.50pm - the latest possible time he left on his search for Menlove Gardens East. However in practice, his window of opportunity was much less.

Wallace’s plan is highly dependent on the arrival of the milk boy, for to establish a strong alibi it is necessary for Julia to be seen by this lad. Therefore Wallace’s hands are tied until the boy knocks on the door. If Wallace strikes early and then answers the door himself - presumably an unusual occurrence- then his alibi is undermined. If he is unable to answer the door (because he is attacking his wife at the time) this is even more suspicious. Worst of all he answers the door after the attack, bloodstained in his plastic mackintosh.

Apparently the milk boy arrived at the house later than he normally did that evening. Therefore the cold, calculating Wallace must have been panicking that his plan was falling apart, for he was committed to leaving the house by 6.50pm at the latest to make his 7.30pm meeting with Qualtrough look credible. By 6.30pm he must have been fearing that the milk boy was delayed or maybe ill and not coming at all. In such an event he would really have had to abandon his devious scheme, a scheme he would never be able to utilise on a second occasion.

I do not think a man capable of laying such a false trail, avoiding blood staining, and disposing of the murder weapon so successfully would have placed so much reliance on the movements of a delivery boy.

[ColdCaseJury]

The complications are endless !

HS, they are indeed. All I'm trying to do is examine your expedited Wallace scenario. I suggest you (or we) must choose the most plausible scenario, that's all.

I think the most plausible is that Wallace suggested they were to have a musical evening (indeed I use this ruse in the Wallace reconstruction in my book). However, this does not necessitate him nipping into the front room while Close calls and, I suggest, is inconsistent with him asking for his mackintosh.

If you agree, we now have:

6:38PM. Julia opens vestibule door and hands the empty can to Close, with whom she exchanges a few words. The front door closes. Julia returns to the kitchen.

6:39PM. Wallace persuades Julia that they should have a musical evening together. Julia agrees to get the front room ready.

6:40PM. Julia enters the front room, strikes a match and lights the gas lamp to the right of the fire. She bends down to turn on the gas and lights the fire. The fire ignites.

6:41PM. Using his mackintosh as a rough shield, Wallace rushes into the room, picks up the iron bar and hits her over the head, knocking her unconscious.

[RodCrosby]

Yawn... why do people who know the SQRT(f***-all) about this case waste their lives on a pointless, pathological obsession?

Amy Wallace had been at Wolverton Street on the murder afternoon.
She had also been (with son Edwin) on the previous Sunday evening.
She had also said then that she would be calling on the Tuesday to check if Julia was well enough to go to the theatre later in the week, for which Amy had purchased tickets.
On the Tuesday afternoon:-

"She wanted to me to stay for tea but I refused because I had no time to stay..."

So we are expected to believe that Wallace, the mad genius, had gone ahead with his nine-rounds-of-russian-roulette plan, making the Qualtrough call on the Monday night, in the full knowledge that Amy Wallace might still be in the house on the Tuesday evening...


Then we have Alan "Goldilocks" Close, randomly arriving at just the precise time for Wallace to go into his superhuman-killing-machine routine, yet still arrive at the corner of Menlove Gardens West at exactly the time he would have arrived if he was perfectly innocent...

[ColdCaseJury]

If Wallace was guilty then he surely created one of the greatest red herrings in history with his Qualtrough phone call. But it was a trick he could pull only once, and having played his joker so to speak, he was committed to pursuing his murder plan within a narrow time frame the following day. In theory Wallace could have killed Julia anytime between 6.05pm when he arrived home, and 6.50pm - the latest possible time he left on his search for Menlove Gardens East. However in practice, his window of opportunity was much less.

Wallace’s plan is highly dependent on the arrival of the milk boy, for to establish a strong alibi it is necessary for Julia to be seen by this lad. Therefore Wallace’s hands are tied until the boy knocks on the door. If Wallace strikes early and then answers the door himself - presumably an unusual occurrence- then his alibi is undermined. If he is unable to answer the door (because he is attacking his wife at the time) this is even more suspicious. Worst of all he answers the door after the attack, bloodstained in his plastic mackintosh.

Apparently the milk boy arrived at the house later than he normally did that evening. Therefore the cold, calculating Wallace must have been panicking that his plan was falling apart, for he was committed to leaving the house by 6.50pm at the latest to make his 7.30pm meeting with Qualtrough look credible. By 6.30pm he must have been fearing that the milk boy was delayed or maybe ill and not coming at all. In such an event he would really have had to abandon his devious scheme, a scheme he would never be able to utilise on a second occasion.

I do not think a man capable of laying such a false trail, avoiding blood staining, and disposing of the murder weapon so successfully would have placed so much reliance on the movements of a delivery boy.

I make a similar point in my book, too, and ask: "Does a chess enthusiast play dice with murder?"

I think a counter would be, he was reasonably sure that the milk boy would call, and he had planned a contingency. However, what Wallace could never have foreseen is whether Julia would be indisposed at the time Close called. Or what if the milk boy called earlier before Wallace arrived home? I guess the response would be: the plan fails. Yet, the motivation for murder is far greater than, say, a motivation for a robbery. If failure was not an option, then these objections to the plan have greater force.

[RodCrosby]

"There was no point against him which did not seem to be too weak or break down.
There were a number of points which might have told against him but when you analysed them each one broke down at some stage."
Lord Wright of Durley, 1958

There was no evidence against Wallace then. There is none now.

There IS fresh evidence against another person, which of course leads to the correct solution...

[Herlock Sholmes]

"There was no point against him which did not seem to be too weak or break down.
There were a number of points which might have told against him but when you analysed them each one broke down at some stage."
Lord Wright of Durley, 1958

There was no evidence against Wallace then. There is none now.

There IS fresh evidence against another person, which of course leads to the correct solution...

No there isnt. Not then or now. You can’t even prove the accomplice existed therefore it is not a solution as you so wrongly claim.

I repeat....a scenario is not a solution.

[RodCrosby]

The circumstantial and witness evidence, and logic speak for themselves...

[Herlock Sholmes]

I make a similar point in my book, too, and ask: "Does a chess enthusiast play dice with murder?"

I think a counter would be, he was reasonably sure that the milk boy would call, and he had planned a contingency. However, what Wallace could never have foreseen is whether Julia would be indisposed at the time Close called. Or what if the milk boy called earlier before Wallace arrived home? I guess the response would be: the plan fails. Yet, the motivation for murder is far greater than, say, a motivation for a robbery. If failure was not an option, then these objections to the plan have greater force.

Id say that if Alan Close had turned up with the milk at the same every week for the last year say then Wallace would be justified in having a high level of confidence that he would have done so again. Wallace would undoubtedly have started to panic (despite his Stoicism) when Close didn’t arrive on time.

I think it unlikely that Close would have called before Wallace arrived home as that would have meant that he’d have called around 30 minutes earlier than usual. Deliveries like that tend to be at the same time, give or take a few minutes every week so that customers can ensure that they’re available. Julia of course would have been expecting the milk at that time as she did every week. For Julia to have been indisposed at the time of the call would therefore have been something that no planner could have predicted or thought likely.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The circumstantial and witness evidence, and logic speak for themselves...

Yes, they say “Wallace did it.”

[RodCrosby]

Only to random obsessives on the internet, who have no grasp of the facts or logic...

[cobalt]

If the milk boy had not seen Julia Wallace it would not completely destroy Wallace’s version of events; but I doubt there would be so many of us around, over 80 years later, arguing strongly for his innocence. Alan Close’s corroborated sighting of Julia seems to me one of these rare pieces of evidence in the case which speaks exclusively on behalf of Wallace. Not to the total exclusion of Wallace as the murderer I accept, but it tilts the balance of probability very heavily in his favour.

Quite a bit of thinking has gone into the caller's choice of the name ‘Qualtrough.’ Any significance in the choice of initials ‘RM?’ Or could it have been the name ‘Alan’ or even ‘Aaron’ misheard on the phone?

[RodCrosby]

Parry's first name was Richard, as we know, and his accomplice's began with "M"?

Just a thought...

[etenguy]

Might she have been a little put out by William having to go out? Could William’s response have been “look, ill only be an hour or so. Well have our musical evening when I get back?”

It’s also been suggested somewhere else that maybe William had told Julia that he’d decided not to go to MGE and that the fire was being lit in preparation for a musical evening. This would have meant that Wallace went to fetch the mackintosh himself (possibly after the first blow?)!

Hi Herlock - sorry to interject again - but I thought this part of the scenario might have been simpler.

I am not aware that we have any reason to suppose Julia knew anything about Qualtrough or Wallace's intended trip to MGE. If Wallace had said nothing about this, then he might simply have suggested the musical evening as he might on any other night. Of course, there is then the mackintosh.

There has been a fair bit of speculation of how the mackintosh and Julia's dress came to be burnt - whichever scenario or murderer one favours. If Wallace was using the mackintosh to protect against blood stains on his clothing and was holding it in the way you described in previous posts, then does the following sound plausible to you?

Wallace suggests a musical evening (or Julia does). Julia bends to light the fire in preparation and does light the fire. While she is doing that Wallace grabs his mackintosh, enters the parlour and grabs the weapon, hitting out at Julia as she begins to stand. She grabs the mackintosh as her legs give way pulling it under her and onto the fire as she falls, burning both the coat and singeing her dress. It needs a little finessing - but I hope some of that is useful to inform your scenario building.