Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[etenguy]

Yes, all the evidence in the house suggests a robbery gone wrong. Julia either said or did the wrong thing, and was brutally murdered when the robber panicked.

It's a commonplace type of crime.

The robbery evidence is not so clear cut. We only have Wallace's statement that any type of robbery took place. Monies in the house were not touched, nor Julia's bag rummaged. So even if Wallace was correct about the £4 missing - why was the box returned intact to the shelf and nothing else missing.

It may be Julia's murder was the intent. This thread and most other sources focus on was it Wallace or Parry. Perhaps her obscure past caught up with her or Wallace did it. The robbery looks possibly staged as a cover for her murder.

[etenguy]

let me ask you this:

do you think its feasable wallace could have disguised his voice enough to trick people who knew what he sounded like?

Samuel Beattie was adamant that it was not Wallace - he would not even budge from this position when pressed under oath. This is compelling evidence, he had known Wallace for years and had not a shred of doubt it wasn't him - he didn't even hedge slightly.

do you think he made the Q call?

I am satisfied that whatever happened, Wallace did not make the call.

do you think he had enough time to commit the murder and get to the tram?

When you take account of both the paperboy and the milk boy together, Wallace would have had literally a couple of minutes to commit the crime, stage the robbery, clean himself up, dispose of the weapon and change his clothes (or dress if he was naked). All of this without using any facility in the house (sinks and drains checked). We would need a very good explanation of how that was at all possible.

Do you feel him having trouble getting in the house just a coincidence (and legit) or he faked it?

The front door was bolted, so that was not faked. The back door is more problematic to explain. It may have been real or faked. I have had that happen to me - I think because I didn't fit the key in properly, in the dark it can be difficult to insert a key properly sometimes. This though, is, in my opinion, the most suspicious behaviour that points to Wallace.

whats the motive?

For Wallace, no one has found a motive. If it was Wallace, this was not a frenzied crime of passion - it was planned. And yet everyone described them as an affectionate couple and Wallace's behaviour post murder supports this. Especially the testimony that he chose not to have life extending surgery as without Julia he had nothing to live for.

[Abby Normal]

Samuel Beattie was adamant that it was not Wallace - he would not even budge from this position when pressed under oath. This is compelling evidence, he had known Wallace for years and had not a shred of doubt it wasn't him - he didn't even hedge slightly.




I am satisfied that whatever happened, Wallace did not make the call.




When you take account of both the paperboy and the milk boy together, Wallace would have had literally a couple of minutes to commit the crime, stage the robbery, clean himself up, dispose of the weapon and change his clothes (or dress if he was naked). All of this without using any facility in the house (sinks and drains checked). We would need a very good explanation of how that was at all possible.



The front door was bolted, so that was not faked. The back door is more problematic to explain. It may have been real or faked. I have had that happen to me - I think because I didn't fit the key in properly, in the dark it can be difficult to insert a key properly sometimes. This though, is, in my opinion, the most suspicious behaviour that points to Wallace.




For Wallace, no one has found a motive. If it was Wallace, this was not a frenzied crime of passion - it was planned. And yet everyone described them as an affectionate couple and Wallace's behaviour post murder supports this. Especially the testimony that he chose not to have life extending surgery as without Julia he had nothing to live for.

thanks eten. dam this case is a total goat rope. lol

[etenguy]

thanks eten. dam this case is a total goat rope. lol

Just one point of view from someone still fairly new to the case.

Never heard of that phrase before, quite colourful.

To ask you a question - why are you more inclined to suspect Wallace?

[Abby Normal]

Just one point of view from someone still fairly new to the case.

Never heard of that phrase before, quite colourful.

To ask you a question - why are you more inclined to suspect Wallace?

Thanks Eten

yes im still inlclined to suspect Wallace, but barely-Im still at 40% wallace. 3O% parry 30% someone else. but im new to the case so this could change.


reasons lean toward wallace:

historically/statistically wives are overwhelmingly killed by husbands.

Wallace does not have solid alibi

Shes killed in their home

his mac found under her

murder weapon seems to be from the home.

burglary seems possibly staged

door trouble coincidence (many killers of family members stage thngs so they arent the ones to find body or find it alone/first.)

call box /Q call coincidence (just as he would be on way to club).

No one else suspicious seen about/in the house.

Police and jury at the time thought he did it.

[etenguy]

Thanks Eten

yes im still inlclined to suspect Wallace, but barely-Im still at 40% wallace. 3O% parry 30% someone else. but im new to the case so this could change.


reasons lean toward wallace:

historically/statistically wives are overwhelmingly killed by husbands.

Wallace does not have solid alibi

Shes killed in their home

his mac found under her

murder weapon seems to be from the home.

burglary seems possibly staged

door trouble coincidence (many killers of family members stage thngs so they arent the ones to find body or find it alone/first.)

call box /Q call coincidence (just as he would be on way to club).

No one else suspicious seen about/in the house.

Police and jury at the time thought he did it.

Some interesting reasons, but I am still struck by the impossibility of the timings.

The police sent a young policeman from the house to the tram stop. At a run, he managed to cross that distance in 16 minutes - which means if Wallace could move at that speed he would have to have left his house no later than 6.50pm.

The milkboy was persuaded to agree that the time he delivered the milk was 6.31 pm and he had a short conversation with Julia who took the milk into the house. the paperboy, and originally the milk boy, thought it was later - after 6.35pm, but let's give Wallace the maximum time possible and say that Wallace killed Julia after 6.32pm and left for the tram at 6.50pm.

That gives him 18 minutes. In that time he had to undress and put his mackintosh on, kill his wife (ensuring no blood gets on him below or above what the mackintosh covered), take the money, stage the robbery, clean up (with no water), get dressed, place the mackintosh under his wife - avoiding getting any blood on him - so he can't rush too much. Then he had to dispose of the murder weapon. He would also have to have left by the back door as the front would have to have been bolted before he left. So 18 minutes doesn't seem possible to do all that.

Also, as a sickly, older man, it is unlikely he could move as fast as the young policeman, which means leaving even earlier. (say 6.45) And the chances are that the milkboy was later than the time suggested (paperboy puts it after 6.35).

Even with the maximum time the evidence allows - I can't see that he had the opportunity to commit this crime.

[RodCrosby]

Can we eliminate Wallace, aside from the fact there was no evidence against him, and the fact he continued to agonize over his loss of Julia and accuse Parry for the rest of his life - a life cut short by despair ?

Consider it this way....
If Wallace was guilty then he would have had to have planned it all, in minute detail. That much is agreed.

There were many risks in this plan. We can enumerate some of them:-

a) Wallace had to be confident he would not be seen at the phone box, nor approaching or leaving it. [Wallace was tall, distinctive and extremely well-known in the district, and the box was at a major junction of four busy roads]
b) Wallace had to be confident that Beattie - who knew him well - would not recognise his voice, and be steadfast, under later police pressure, that it was not Wallace on the line. We might add that Wallace had a distinctive non-Liverpudlian accent.
c) Wallace had to be confident not a speck of blood would attach to him when committing the brutal, "frenzied" murder, which in fact did leave blood spatter seven feet up the walls of the room.
d) Wallace had to be confident there would be no scream or thud which could alert the neighbours, and thereby fix the time of the killing.
e) Wallace had to be confident he could commit the crime at seemingly superhuman speed, in such a short time-frame that people would doubt it was possible. This all depended on the milk-boy arriving at exactly the time he did arrive, and providing Wallace with a partial 'alibi'. The problem here was that Alan Close was running considerably late that night (his bike was broken), and Wallace could not possibly have known that.
f) Wallace had to be confident he could dispose of the weapon [and not be seen disposing of it] so the Police would not find it. The only place he could dispose of it was on his route to Menlove Gardens, which of course the Police would search thoroughly.
g) Wallace had to be confident he could remain icy-calm immediately after the killing, so that no-one would suspect anything out of the ordinary had occurred. He would be meeting many tram conductors, and other people, immediately after the murder.
h) Wallace had to be confident he would have witnesses to see him enter the house on his return, else the Police might try and say he murdered Julia on his return. The Johnstons providing such witness was entirely fortuitous.
i) Even if he succeeded in all of the above, Wallace had to be confident the Police and a jury would still buy his very bizarre Qualtrough story, and acquit him.

Remember, for the plan to succeed all these probabilities are MULTIPLICATIVE. Wallace was a chess player, and a science buff. He would certainly have calculated the odds of success of such a plan. Say he estimated the chance of each step as being 90%. The overall probability of success would then be 90% raised to the power of 9, which equals 38.7%

Not good odds. Then we can ask:- "What is the probability that someone would bet their life on a 39% chance of success?"
Well, we might think a 100% chance of success would lead to a nearly 100% chance of someone taking the bet, and a 0% chance would be taken by about 0% of people. So perhaps a 39% chance of Wallace taking the bet?

So the probability of Wallace being guilty is the chance he took the bet TIMES his original estimate of getting away with it. This is approximately X%^(9*2). Where X% is 90% this leads to a 15% chance of guilt. You may think that 90% is far too high an estimate of the chance of him getting away with each of the steps listed above. If the chances, as Wallace estimated them, were more like 80% then his chance of guilt falls to less than 2%... Any lower than 80% and the probability of Wallace's guilt is infinitesimal.
What chance would YOU realistically give to YOURSELF in getting away with each of the above steps ?

Gerald Abrahams, a Liverpool lawyer and chess player, while not taking the mathematical approach, instinctively came to the same conclusion, when he wrote:-

“To any objective observer, the hypothesis which is the prosecution’s case is something so intrinsically difficult of acceptance that the defence does not seem to matter. Putting the prosecution at its highest, it leaves doubt." [According to the Evidence: An Essay on Legal Proof (London 1958)]

(and)

"Was Wallace guilty?

There are three approaches to this question:

(1) Legally, it is academic. There was no evidence against him.

(2) Personally. His acquaintances (excluding those who revel in the troubles of their “friends”) seem convinced of his innocence. The author takes the view that to vest Wallace with guilt in the circumstances is to credit him with a mental power, a skill, an agility, a cold-blooded nerveless efficiency, of which he seemed utterly incapable.

(3) Scientifically, it is a much easier hypothesis to assume another person as murderer, whose task would have been easier, mental effort less. By the principle of simple explanations Wallace was innocent." [The Legal Mind (London, 1954)]

[Abby Normal]

Some interesting reasons, but I am still struck by the impossibility of the timings.

The police sent a young policeman from the house to the tram stop. At a run, he managed to cross that distance in 16 minutes - which means if Wallace could move at that speed he would have to have left his house no later than 6.50pm.

The milkboy was persuaded to agree that the time he delivered the milk was 6.31 pm and he had a short conversation with Julia who took the milk into the house. the paperboy, and originally the milk boy, thought it was later - after 6.35pm, but let's give Wallace the maximum time possible and say that Wallace killed Julia after 6.32pm and left for the tram at 6.50pm.

That gives him 18 minutes. In that time he had to undress and put his mackintosh on, kill his wife (ensuring no blood gets on him below or above what the mackintosh covered), take the money, stage the robbery, clean up (with no water), get dressed, place the mackintosh under his wife - avoiding getting any blood on him - so he can't rush too much. Then he had to dispose of the murder weapon. He would also have to have left by the back door as the front would have to have been bolted before he left. So 18 minutes doesn't seem possible to do all that.

Also, as a sickly, older man, it is unlikely he could move as fast as the young policeman, which means leaving even earlier. (say 6.45) And the chances are that the milkboy was later than the time suggested (paperboy puts it after 6.35).

Even with the maximum time the evidence allows - I can't see that he had the opportunity to commit this crime.

Hi eten
Good points. But if wallace did it it was obviosly all planned out. He would have everything ready to go.and How long would it take to bash her head in and kill her? 1 minute? 2 minutes. You can literally swing something skriking someone at one swing per second. It would only take a few seconds to actually killer her. He may have already had the mac on over clothes, and had a towel ready to clean up. Then it would only take a couple of minutes to stage the robbery and take the murder weapon. Im thinking he could do everything in under ten minutes.

[RodCrosby]

[INTERLUDE]

"The Man from the Pru" (TV Drama, 1990)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KN4wabD-c8

Pros:
superb acting all round, and accurate characterization
generally faithful to the facts
attention to detail (the Wallace house, trams, chess club, etc. all perfectly recreated)
filmed in Liverpool, in Wolverton Street, and at St. George's Hall, where Wallace actually stood trial, and Calderstones Park and Sefton Park

Cons:
introduces Wallace/Amy and Parry/Julia sexual intrigue, for which there is absolutely no evidence.
the repeated Chinese execution scenes, which are incongruous, imho.

[/INTERLUDE]

[harry]

One account of the crime gives the distance from the house to the tram as a little under 700 yards.A fit young policeman taking 16 minutes to cover the distance would suggest a distance of at least two miles.Which was it?

As the Wallaces are claimed to have been spending the time having tea and so forth in the Kitchen,it can be presumed that room with the fire burning,would be quite warm,yet Julia is claimed to have taken a caller into the front room,which on a January evening would have been quite cold.Make sense?Of course it is possible,but my recollection of the thirties in England,is that if you invited a person into your home,you made them feel comfortable.
Two burnt matches were found near the door leading into the kitchen.Wallace on returning home ,claimed he lit a match on entering the room and then lit the right hand gas light.What happened to that expired match stick,if just the one match was used,and if Julia lit,or was in the process of lighting the gas fire when first struck,where did that match stick fall.Near the door?I doubt it.Another thing,Wallace claimed he needed light to move about,that is why he lit a match on entering,would not Julia?

Yes Abby there is quite a few thinggs that can be discussed.

[etenguy]

Can we eliminate Wallace, aside from the fact there was no evidence against him, and the fact he continued to agonize over his loss of Julia and accuse Parry for the rest of his life - a life cut short by despair ?

Consider it this way....
If Wallace was guilty then he would have had to have planned it all, in minute detail. That much is agreed.

There were many risks in this plan. We can enumerate some of them:-

a) Wallace had to be confident he would not be seen at the phone box, nor approaching or leaving it. [Wallace was tall, distinctive and extremely well-known in the district, and the box was at a major junction of four busy roads]
b) Wallace had to be confident that Beattie - who knew him well - would not recognise his voice, and be steadfast, under later police pressure, that it was not Wallace on the line. We might add that Wallace had a distinctive non-Liverpudlian accent.
c) Wallace had to be confident not a speck of blood would attach to him when committing the brutal, "frenzied" murder, which in fact did leave blood spatter seven feet up the walls of the room.
d) Wallace had to be confident there would be no scream or thud which could alert the neighbours, and thereby fix the time of the killing.
e) Wallace had to be confident he could commit the crime at seemingly superhuman speed, in such a short time-frame that people would doubt it was possible. This all depended on the milk-boy arriving at exactly the time he did arrive, and providing Wallace with a partial 'alibi'. The problem here was that Alan Close was running considerably late that night (his bike was broken), and Wallace could not possibly have known that.
f) Wallace had to be confident he could dispose of the weapon [and not be seen disposing of it] so the Police would not find it. The only place he could dispose of it was on his route to Menlove Gardens, which of course the Police would search thoroughly.
g) Wallace had to be confident he could remain icy-calm immediately after the killing, so that no-one would suspect anything out of the ordinary had occurred. He would be meeting many tram conductors, and other people, immediately after the murder.
h) Wallace had to be confident he would have witnesses to see him enter the house on his return, else the Police might try and say he murdered Julia on his return. The Johnstons providing such witness was entirely fortuitous.
i) Even if he succeeded in all of the above, Wallace had to be confident the Police and a jury would still buy his very bizarre Qualtrough story, and acquit him.

Remember, for the plan to succeed all these probabilities are MULTIPLICATIVE. Wallace was a chess player, and a science buff. He would certainly have calculated the odds of success of such a plan. Say he estimated the chance of each step as being 90%. The overall probability of success would then be 90% raised to the power of 9, which equals 38.7%

Not good odds. Then we can ask:- "What is the probability that someone would bet their life on a 39% chance of success?"
Well, we might think a 100% chance of success would lead to a nearly 100% chance of someone taking the bet, and a 0% chance would be taken by about 0% of people. So perhaps a 39% chance of Wallace taking the bet?

So the probability of Wallace being guilty is the chance he took the bet TIMES his original estimate of getting away with it. This is approximately X%^(9*2). Where X% is 90% this leads to a 15% chance of guilt. You may think that 90% is far too high an estimate of the chance of him getting away with each of the steps listed above. If the chances, as Wallace estimated them, were more like 80% then his chance of guilt falls to less than 2%... Any lower than 80% and the probability of Wallace's guilt is infinitesimal.
What chance would YOU realistically give to YOURSELF in getting away with each of the above steps ?

Gerald Abrahams, a Liverpool lawyer and chess player, while not taking the mathematical approach, instinctively came to the same conclusion, when he wrote:-

“To any objective observer, the hypothesis which is the prosecution’s case is something so intrinsically difficult of acceptance that the defence does not seem to matter. Putting the prosecution at its highest, it leaves doubt." [According to the Evidence: An Essay on Legal Proof (London 1958)]

(and)

"Was Wallace guilty?

There are three approaches to this question:

(1) Legally, it is academic. There was no evidence against him.

(2) Personally. His acquaintances (excluding those who revel in the troubles of their “friends”) seem convinced of his innocence. The author takes the view that to vest Wallace with guilt in the circumstances is to credit him with a mental power, a skill, an agility, a cold-blooded nerveless efficiency, of which he seemed utterly incapable.

(3) Scientifically, it is a much easier hypothesis to assume another person as murderer, whose task would have been easier, mental effort less. By the principle of simple explanations Wallace was innocent." [The Legal Mind (London, 1954)]

Hi Rod - I agree with your conclusion, that on balance it is highly unlikely Wallace killed his wife.

The risks are real and it seems unlikely someone planning a murder and was calculated enough to set up the Qualtrough scenario would accept that level of risk. But the existence of risk does not exclude Wallace as a suspect.

There was no evidence against him, but there was no evidence against Parry or anyone else. Yet someone killed her and the lack of evidence does not exclude Wallace either.

Your personally reasons I think do point away from Wallace being the killer.

I'm not sure the scientifically reason is accurate. It is an unsupported assertion. But even if it was accurate, the simplest or less complex explanation isn't necessarily the correct explanation.

On balance, all the reasons for considering Wallace innocent when taken together aggregate to suggest Wallace's innocence. But they fall short of discounting him altogether.

[harry]

I should have said,the distance from he house to the tram stop was 1.7 miiles.

[etenguy]

Hi eten
Good points. But if wallace did it it was obviosly all planned out. He would have everything ready to go.and How long would it take to bash her head in and kill her? 1 minute? 2 minutes. You can literally swing something skriking someone at one swing per second. It would only take a few seconds to actually killer her. He may have already had the mac on over clothes, and had a towel ready to clean up. Then it would only take a couple of minutes to stage the robbery and take the murder weapon. Im thinking he could do everything in under ten minutes.

I think to understand the time needed, we should allocate the time for each activity he would have needed to complete. Though we would need to speculate, so would not be conclusive.

The murder itself could have been over quite quickly, but with all the other factors, I think more time would be needed. The mac was not head to toe, so if he had worn his clothes, some blood would have attached above or below the mac. No blood was found on his clothes at all. No blood was found in the sinks or waste pipes, just an inconclusive spot in the toilet bowl.

Also, as Rod states, he needed to be calm after the murder, and not court suspicion. Hard to do after the first murder one commits,

[moste]

Qualtrough

When checking where the highest concentration of the name Qualtrough is :
By a country mile
West coast of Cumberland /North Lancashire including Isle of Man .
Wallace’s neck of the woods, born and raised in Millom. Most people probably have never heard of that surname, Wallace almost certainly would have!
Just thought there could be some significance there.

[moste]

Has the idea that Wallace may have murdered his wife after he arrived home from the so called hoax trip been thoroughly investigated?
Sneaking into his house through the back door, doing the deed ,cleaning himself up, then sneaking back into the back yard to feign for the Johnston’s that he had just arrived home . Since the pathologist botched the time of death, and Mrs Johnston noting that Julia was still warm, ( according to the Liverpool radio programme from 1981) I guess all this has been covered before?