Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[APerno]

OK I am confused.

According to two posts Wallace does try 25 Menlove Gardens West and is turned away, so why not try 25 Menlove Avenue?

If he had such faith that the message was correct and couldn't be Menlove Avenue, then he wouldn't have tried 25 Menlove Gardens West, would he?

Wallace is there to make money, and despite his faith in the message taker, he is willing to go out of his way and check-out "west" anyway. So when he sees 25 Menlove Avenue, Mrs. Mary Grant in the directory, why doesn't he knock there as well, and ask if a R. M. Qualtrough is possibly letting a room there?

Wallace was there to make money and salesmen seldom leave any stone unturned, especially if they already invested 40 minutes looking. It seems to me if he had faith in the call (and the prospect of a sale) he would knock on every door in the neighborhood with a "25" & "Menlove" on it.

It is not unreasonable to think that with there actually being a Menlove Gardens West/North/South people might get into the bad habit of referring to Menlove Ave as "east" even though it wasn't its proper name.

[RodCrosby]

OK I am confused.

According to two posts Wallace does try 25 Menlove Gardens West and is turned away, so why not try 25 Menlove Avenue?

If he had such faith that the message was correct and couldn't be Menlove Avenue, then he wouldn't have tried 25 Menlove Gardens West, would he?

Wallace is there to make money, and despite his faith in the message taker, he is willing to go out of his way and check-out "west" anyway. So when he sees 25 Menlove Avenue, Mrs. Mary Grant in the directory, why doesn't he knock there as well, and ask if a R. M. Qualtrough is possibly letting a room there?

Wallace was there to make money and salesmen seldom leave any stone unturned, especially if they already invested 40 minutes looking. It seems to me if he had faith in the call (and the prospect of a sale) he would knock on every door in the neighborhood with a "25" & "Menlove" on it.

It is not unreasonable to think that with there actually being a Menlove Gardens West/North/South people might get into the bad habit of referring to Menlove Ave as "east" even though it wasn't its proper name.

Menlove Avenue and Menlove Gardens were, then as now, completely different streets.

One is a bustling thoroughfare, the other a quiet, secluded backwater.

Why wouldn't Wallace try Menlove Gardens West, considering he had walked right past it? Then he walked down North and South, but discovered they were all even numbers. At the bottom of North he realised that Green Lane was across the road, where his supervisor lived. So he went there and knocked, but Crewe was out at the pictures with his wife.

It sounds like you wouldn't be satisfied unless Wallace had camped out for the night, and resumed his search the next morning!

But he had another reason for giving up, after walking about 1.3 miles in total over some 40 minutes, and finally finding via the directory that there was no householder named "Qualtrough" anywhere in the district.

He was uneasy and had some inkling that "all was not quite right" with this goose-chase, and decided he should head home.

Why is any of this remotely suspicious, given the character of Wallace, and the mores of 1931?

Every damn thing Wallace did can be turned into a "heads we win, tails you lose" coin-trick.

For years we have been told it was 'suspicious' Wallace kept on looking too long...
Now it's 'suspicious' he gave up too easily!

(and there's no mileage in people thinking the Avenue was East. The policeman was categorical in distinguishing the three-legged Gardens from the Avenue)

[RodCrosby]

You are a collater of information...nothing more.

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
- A Scandal in Bohemia


"Data! Data! Data!" I can't make bricks without clay."
"I am glad of all details, whether they seem to you to be relevant or not."
- The Adventure of the Copper Beeches


"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
"Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details."
- A Case of Identity


"You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles."
- The Boscombe Valley Mystery

[APerno]

Menlove Avenue and Menlove Gardens were, then as now, completely different streets.

One is a bustling thoroughfare, the other a quiet, secluded backwater.

Why wouldn't Wallace try Menlove Gardens West, considering he had walked right past it? Then he walked down North and South, but discovered they were all even numbers. At the bottom of North he realised that Green Lane was across the road, where his supervisor lived. So he went there and knocked, but Crewe was out at the pictures with his wife.

It sounds like you wouldn't be satisfied unless Wallace had camped out for the night, and resumed his search the next morning!

No, none of that, I am just sticking my toe in the water with some questions.

But he had another reason for giving up, after walking about 1.3 miles in total over some 40 minutes, and finally finding via the directory that there was no householder named "Qualtrough" anywhere in the district.

Yes, that is why I suggested he might check to see if he was renting a room.

He was uneasy and had some inkling that "all was not quite right" with this goose-chase, and decided he should head home.

Why is any of this remotely suspicious, given the character of Wallace, and the mores of 1931?

Every damn thing Wallace did can be turned into a "heads we win, tails you lose" coin-trick.

For years we have been told it was 'suspicious' Wallace kept on looking too long...
Now it's 'suspicious' he gave up too easily!

I wasn't looking to make such a concluding statement, just reacting to the post that suggested he would walk away when he saw the name Mary Grant coupled with the post that said he 'had faith in the messenger's ability to get it right' yet he still checked out the 'west' address.

(and there's no mileage in people thinking the Avenue was East. The policeman was categorical in distinguishing the three-legged Gardens from the Avenue)

The police getting it right doesn't rule out the populace, in common usage, miss labeling the street, but regardless that was an added on speculation, so ignore it.**

If I'm a salesman and believed in the message, I try every door with Menlove and 25 on it, but as you stated above, I am ignorant of the distance between the two streets. I thought one post suggested it was only three houses away, I probably misread

** Down here in Florida we have a (quite large) suburb of Miami called Hialeah. Hialeah functions with two sets of street addresses, one county, one local and a person's usage usually denotes their relationship to the area; an outsider can easily find himself spun around and knocking on doors.

Anyway this has been an interesting debate/read, thank you.

[RodCrosby]

OK, I'm sorry I appeared a little brusque.

The problem with this case is that in the absence of any positive evidence whatsoever that Wallace committed the crime, some people are reduced to forcing Wallace to apply some kind of 20/20 hindsight to himself prospectively, as events are unfolding around him.

From their armchairs they can safely say "why did/didn't he do that?", "why left, and not right?", "why longer, and not shorter?", "why the front, rather than the back?", etc. when it's clear they would happily argue the exact opposite if it could insinuate Wallace's guilt (and they don't even notice that indeed it could! ...rendering such observations valueless)

There is nothing Wallace did that an innocent victim of circumstance might not have done.

And the theory (for that is all it ever was) that he murdered his wife has such evidential and logical difficulties attached to it, that common sense encourages us to look first for any trace of a simpler, more mundane solution...

And to clarify the point about 25 Menlove Avenue. It was just a policeman's random "helpful" suggestion. But by the time Wallace heard of it, he'd been walking around for nearly 30 minutes, retracing his footsteps, covering well over a mile, and 25 Menlove Avenue was right back where he had started, now some 1/3 mile distant by the shortest route. He might well have 'toyed' with the idea of going there, but after inspecting the directory, decided this job wasn't worth a candle... If he had gone, the Wallaceites would of course claim it was more mere delaying tactics, and 'alibi-building'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. Why is any of this remotely suspicious, given the character of Wallace, and the mores of 1931?

Every damn thing Wallace did can be turned into a "heads we win, tails you lose" coin-trick.

The problem is the exact opposite in fact. Extraordinary lengths are gone to to exonerate Wallace whilst any amount of twisting is done in an attempt to shoehorn Parry into the frame. No matter what Wallace does, no matter how suspiciously he behaved excuses are made. Even when he told a blatant lie excuses are made. The words ‘he panicked’ have only to be added to any alleged behaviour of Parry or his non-existent accomplice and it’s seen as a reasonable excuse.

‘He panicked’.......and blabbed unnecessarily to the worst possible person whilst leaving a bloody mitten in his car to be found.

‘He panicked’......and needlessly (and potentially incriminatingly) carried away a weapon covered in Julia’s blood and brains.

‘He panicked’......and was so terrified by a frail 70 year old woman that he bludgeoned her brains out despite the fact that he knew that he was always identifiable by Julia.

And as well as being panicked into killing Julia The Phantom went around calmly and pointlessly turning off lights.

But then he was back to ‘panicking’ as he made no effort to steal any money or valuables to make up for his poor haul.

Parry was also concerned enough with achieving his goal of a sizeable cash haul that he created a plan which would have involved; recruiting an accomplice willing to take all of the risks whilst he drank tea with the Brine’s in safety and with an unshakeable alibi; checking Wallace’s tram routes so that he could gauge how much of a ‘window of opportunity’ the accomplice would have; watching Wallace to make sure that he’d left for MGE; come up with the plan to get The Phantom into the house past a very wary and reticent Julia.

And yet, unsurprisingly in this down-the-rabbit hole-world, whenever we point out the flaws in this plan Rod’s response is ‘so what. He was having a punt. You-win-some-you-lose-some!’ This is barely creditable. That he went to all that trouble but didn’t really care whether they succeeded or not.

Imagine the conversation:

Parry: “After I’ve made the phone call Wallace will tell Julia about Qualtrough which means that she’ll let you in when you show up claiming to be him.”

The Phantom: “Err...what if he doesn’t mention Qualtrough?”

Parry looks blank

Parry: “Err...well he might.”

The Phantom: “ So I’m turning up at their house on the remote off-chance that he just might happen to mention the name Qualtrough.”

Parry: “ Stranger things have happened.”

Can anyone unbiased seriously call this a plan? Something that absolutely, 100% hinges on a complete unknown. A coin toss? I’m sorry but it’s nonsense. Even if by some serious piece of luck Wallace did mentionthe name Qualtrough to Julia it’s still not certain he would have let her in. It’s simply not a workable plan. No one would think it was.

And when you add the 7 or 8 ways that it could have failed at the phone call stage then we know that this plan is little more than a joke.

The only way that the culprit could have been certain that the plan would get Wallace out of the house was if Wallace created and acted it out. And there was no need for anyone to bluff their way into the house because Julia was dead less than 5 minutes before Wallace left for the non-existent Menlove Gardens East where he acted as if he was searching for the source of the Nile rather than a house in an area that he wasn’t completely unfamiliar with. And where he showed more persistence than Indiana Jones searching for the lost Ark.

[etenguy]

OK, I'm sorry I appeared a little brusque.

The problem with this case is that in the absence of any positive evidence whatsoever that Wallace committed the crime, some people are reduced to forcing Wallace to apply some kind of 20/20 hindsight to himself prospectively, as events are unfolding around him.

There is nothing Wallace did that an innocent victim of circumstance might not have done.

You are of course quite right to say there is nothing Wallace did that an innocent victim of circumstance might not have done.. The same could be said of Parry (with the exception of Parkes' evidence - which is extraordinary but cannot be completely ignored).

While there is nothing Wallace did that an innocent victim of circumstance might not have done - there were a number of things he did/was involved with, which was, well, shall we say unusual, not conclusive evidence of guilt, but a rather strange set of behaviours/circumstances - ie:
* his constant over detailed explanation of his search to a wide number of people
* the issue of the doors and their locks when he returned home
* the pattern of his search within the house when he returned
* his lack of any knowledge of the poker and iron bar (even though men would have left such things to women then, it is unlikely he would not know they owned a poker)

[moste]

Menlove Avenue and Menlove Gardens were, then as now, completely different streets.

One is a bustling thoroughfare, the other a quiet, secluded backwater.

Why wouldn't Wallace try Menlove Gardens West, considering he had walked right past it? Then he walked down North and South, but discovered they were all even numbers. At the bottom of North he realised that Green Lane was across the road, where his supervisor lived. So he went there and knocked, but Crewe was out at the pictures with his wife.

It sounds like you wouldn't be satisfied unless Wallace had camped out for the night, and resumed his search the next morning!

No, none of that, I am just sticking my toe in the water with some questions.

But he had another reason for giving up, after walking about 1.3 miles in total over some 40 minutes, and finally finding via the directory that there was no householder named "Qualtrough" anywhere in the district.

Yes, that is why I suggested he might check to see if he was renting a room.

He was uneasy and had some inkling that "all was not quite right" with this goose-chase, and decided he should head home.

Why is any of this remotely suspicious, given the character of Wallace, and the mores of 1931?

Every damn thing Wallace did can be turned into a "heads we win, tails you lose" coin-trick.

For years we have been told it was 'suspicious' Wallace kept on looking too long...
Now it's 'suspicious' he gave up too easily!

I wasn't looking to make such a concluding statement, just reacting to the post that suggested he would walk away when he saw the name Mary Grant coupled with the post that said he 'had faith in the messenger's ability to get it right' yet he still checked out the 'west' address.

(and there's no mileage in people thinking the Avenue was East. The policeman was categorical in distinguishing the three-legged Gardens from the Avenue)

The police getting it right doesn't rule out the populace, in common usage, miss labeling the street, but regardless that was an added on speculation, so ignore it.**

If I'm a salesman and believed in the message, I try every door with Menlove and 25 on it, but as you stated above, I am ignorant of the distance between the two streets. I thought one post suggested it was only three houses away, I probably misread

** Down here in Florida we have a (quite large) suburb of Miami called Hialeah. Hialeah functions with two sets of street addresses, one county, one local and a person's usage usually denotes their relationship to the area; an outsider can easily find himself spun around and knocking on doors.

Anyway this has been an interesting debate/read, thank you.

Well that's a shame I quite liked his input!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Rod

. There is nothing Wallace did that an innocent victim of circumstance might not have done.

And there’s nothing that Parry did on that Tuesday night that suggests a man taking part in a plan. Especially one that led him to discover that he was now implicated in a brutal murder and might now be facing the gallows.

Apart from the Parkes fairy story of course which should be cast into the dustbin of crime history.

Parry took no part in these events and there’s no creditable evidence that he did. It’s simply been a case of ‘lets accuse the low-life petty criminal Parry to exonerate the kindly, silver-haired gentleman Wallace.’ A totally misplaced mission. And the ironic part is that Parry is only connected with the case because Wallace named him in the first place and possibly even tried to set him up to take the blame.

[moste]

OK I am confused.

According to two posts Wallace does try 25 Menlove Gardens West and is turned away, so why not try 25 Menlove Avenue?

If he had such faith that the message was correct and couldn't be Menlove Avenue, then he wouldn't have tried 25 Menlove Gardens West, would he?

Wallace is there to make money, and despite his faith in the message taker, he is willing to go out of his way and check-out "west" anyway. So when he sees 25 Menlove Avenue, Mrs. Mary Grant in the directory, why doesn't he knock there as well, and ask if a R. M. Qualtrough is possibly letting a room there?

Wallace was there to make money and salesmen seldom leave any stone unturned, especially if they already invested 40 minutes looking. It seems to me if he had faith in the call (and the prospect of a sale) he would knock on every door in the neighborhood with a "25" & "Menlove" on it.

It is not unreasonable to think that with there actually being a Menlove Gardens West/North/South people might get into the bad habit of referring to Menlove Ave as "east" even though it wasn't its proper name.

Good points here . By the time Wallace met the policeman he had walked the length of Green ave. about three or four blocks. However in all of his earnest questioning (I have it that he talked with a minimum of NINE people on the matter)he must have known of the proximity of 25 Menlove Av. and for the reasons you outline would certainly have tried there.
Incidentally Studying the neighbourhood of Beatties home, he would without doubt have known of the menlove triangle , and would almost certainly have advised Wallace thus.' I'm fairly sure that Menlove Gardens east doesn't exist, you might want to check into that address further before journeying across Liverpool.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Good points here . By the time Wallace met the policeman he had walked the length of Green ave. about three or four blocks. However in all of his earnest questioning (I have it that he talked with a minimum of NINE people on the matter)he must have known of the proximity of 25 Menlove Av. and for the reasons you outline would certainly have tried there.
Incidentally Studying the neighbourhood of Beatties home, he would without doubt have known of the menlove triangle , and would almost certainly have advised Wallace thus.' I'm fairly sure that Menlove Gardens east doesn't exist, you might want to check into that address further before journeying across Liverpool.

The best that Beattie could say was that “ It has to be near Menlove Avenue, doesn’t it?”

[cobalt]

It’s simply been a case of ‘lets accuse the low-life petty criminal Parry to exonerate the kindly, silver-haired gentleman Wallace.’


That is incorrect. Parry came from very influential people, in fact one of the suspicions which underlies the case is that his family were able to pull strings on his behalf.

The key witness is the milk boy. His evidence can be corroborated by others and was offered to the police within 24 hours of the murder, when his recall of events was fresh in his memory. He had actually spoken to the victim, whom he knew, and saw her alive as late as 6.35 according to any sensible interpretation of the times. Probably later in actual fact.

The optimum time for Wallace to leave on his odyssey was probably around the time he actually did. It gave him around 10 -15 minutes to hone in the address he had been given from an area he knew only in general.


In truth, there was no case to answer for Wallace, whatever happened. If we remove the persiflage of the phone call to the chess club, and Wallace acting like the Ancient Mariner every time he sees a policeman near Menlove Gardens, the residual facts are he did not have time to kill his wife, clean up his person, dump the weapon, and make it to the tram. He had no motive either, by the way apart from that of any other husband.

[Graham]

It’s simply been a case of ‘lets accuse the low-life petty criminal Parry to exonerate the kindly, silver-haired gentleman Wallace.’


That is incorrect. Parry came from very influential people, in fact one of the suspicions which underlies the case is that his family were able to pull strings on his behalf.

The key witness is the milk boy. His evidence can be corroborated by others and was offered to the police within 24 hours of the murder, when his recall of events was fresh in his memory. He had actually spoken to the victim, whom he knew, and saw her alive as late as 6.35 according to any sensible interpretation of the times. Probably later in actual fact.

The optimum time for Wallace to leave on his odyssey was probably around the time he actually did. It gave him around 10 -15 minutes to hone in the address he had been given from an area he knew only in general.


In truth, there was no case to answer for Wallace, whatever happened. If we remove the persiflage of the phone call to the chess club, and Wallace acting like the Ancient Mariner every time he sees a policeman near Menlove Gardens, the residual facts are he did not have time to kill his wife, clean up his person, dump the weapon, and make it to the tram. He had no motive either, by the way apart from that of any other husband.

I only visit this thread very occasionally these days, as it gives me a headache; but your post, Cobalt, is one of the most sensible I've read in recent weeks. Parry was most certainly not 'low-life', even though he might have gone off the rails, and I agree that it was almost certainly family influence that he wasn't under as severe a police scrutiny as he should have been. And you are correct: the milk-boy is the key, which seems to have been overlooked at the time, and by many commentators since.

Another thing: and I ask this for about the zillionth time: if it is believed that Wallace really was the murderer, can someone, please, seriously, tell me what his motive for killing Julia was? Simple enough question, isn't it?

Graham

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s simply been a case of ‘lets accuse the low-life petty criminal Parry to exonerate the kindly, silver-haired gentleman Wallace.’


That is incorrect. Parry came from very influential people, in fact one of the suspicions which underlies the case is that his family were able to pull strings on his behalf.

I’m aware of Parry’s background Cobalt but the fact remains that he was a petty criminal. My use of the phrase ‘low life’ wasnt meant to suggest Parry’s background but how he might be viewed with regard to his criminal background.
Perhaps ‘unsavoury character’ might have been a better description?

The key witness is the milk boy. His evidence can be corroborated by others and was offered to the police within 24 hours of the murder, when his recall of events was fresh in his memory. He had actually spoken to the victim, whom he knew, and saw her alive as late as 6.35 according to any sensible interpretation of the times. Probably later in actual fact.

The optimum time for Wallace to leave on his odyssey was probably around the time he actually did. It gave him around 10 -15 minutes to hone in the address he had been given from an area he knew only in general.

I’m a little confused by this part of your post. If Close left at say 6.37 this gave Wallace a full 13 minutes to kill Julia and leave the house (as 6.50 was shown to be the latest possibletime that he could have left his house in time to catch his first tram.)

In truth, there was no case to answer for Wallace, whatever happened. Simply not true I’m afraid. If we remove the persiflage of the phone call to the chess club, I’m unsure why you want to ‘remove’ the phone call which points to Wallace more than Parry?and Wallace acting like the Ancient Mariner every time he sees a policeman near Menlove Gardens, he only saw one policeman who told him that MGE didn’t exist, the residual facts are he did not have time to kill his wife, he had ample time, the killing of Julia could have taken no more than a minute, clean up his person, which might not have been necessary if he’d have taken precautions, dump the weapon, why assume that he dumped the weapon before he got to the first tram? He could have dumped it anywhere along his journey (time was irrelevant)and make it to the tram. He had no motive either, by the way apart from that of any other husband. Nurse Wilson and Dr Curwen both stated that the Wallace’s didn’t have a happy marriage. Wallace’s former colleague Mather had an extremely negative opinion of Wallace and his wife. His sister-in-laws said that he was condescending towards his wife. As I’ve said before motives can fester beneath the surface. Remember how many murders have occurred only for people to say “they seemed such a happy couple” or “he seemed such a nice man.”

Wallace is in actual fact the only suspect. Parry has an alibi counting him out as the murderer. The ‘prank’ theory is ludicrous. The nympho Julia theory is laughable. All we are then left with is a phantom, unnamed accomplice that we cannot even prove existed. Parry’s actions on the Tuesday evening of the murder speak of a man going about a very normal evening and not a man taking part in a plan. Even after he’d found out the shocking news that he was implicated in a murder and might be facing the gallows he tootles off to the Williamson’s and then to visit his girlfriend acting perfectly normally. How do we arrive at a guilty Parry from this vacuum.

We are then expected to believe that 3 hours after the murder Parry (who couldn’t have been expecting an immediate visit from th police) drives over to Atkinson’s Garage where he’d previously been caught rifling through drawers in a room where they’d kept money and so wasn’t exactly a valued customer! He then proceeded to get his car washed by a man who neither liked or trusted him and had told him so to his face. In that 3 hours he’d apparently managed to get rid of one mitten but had decided to keep the bloody one in his car which Parkes found leading Parry to spill the beans telling him that it could lead him to the gallows. Then, completely without prompting, he tells him where he’d hidden the weapon. At no time by the way does he warn Parkes to keep his mouth shut. Parkes later tell the police who, despite the fact that the story would have been simplicity itself to check by looking down the drain, do absolutely nothing.

Parkes then waits 50 years to tell this story. According to one of the Atkinson brothers I believe (or it may have been the sister) this story was common knowledge around the yard amongst family and friends. And yet, with so and so telling you-know-who and then you-know-who telling Fred in the pub, not once over the ensuing 50 years does this story seep out of the apparently hermetically sealed Atkinson’s Garage. And without this tissue of nonsense the Accomplice theory (and Parry’s involvement evaporates.)

[Herlock Sholmes]

I only visit this thread very occasionally these days, as it gives me a headache; but your post, Cobalt, is one of the most sensible I've read in recent weeks. Parry was most certainly not 'low-life', even though he might have gone off the rails, and I agree that it was almost certainly family influence that he wasn't under as severe a police scrutiny as he should have been. And you are correct: the milk-boy is the key, which seems to have been overlooked at the time, and by many commentators since.

Another thing: and I ask this for about the zillionth time: if it is believed that Wallace really was the murderer, can someone, please, seriously, tell me what his motive for killing Julia was? Simple enough question, isn't it?

Graham

Graham are you completely unfamiliar with the idea of a motive festering beneath the surface. Why do you think every crime needs to be so neat and tidy. Tell me Jack The Rippers motive?