Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[OneRound]

The collaboration theory is fanciful piffle. As if the milquetoast Wallace had the connections to hire a hitman to brain his old lady. I think it's a vain attempt to reconcile Wallace's guilt with the timings. i.e. If Wallace was too pressed for time to commit the murder and cover his tracks, it stands to reason he hired someone else to do it.

No, Harry, the collaborator theory is an attempt to show the only way I believe Wallace could have been guilty. It does not mean he was although I appreciate that is probably far too subtle for you.

OneRound

[Harry D]

No, Harry, the collaborator theory is an attempt to show the only way I believe Wallace could have been guilty. It does not mean he was although I appreciate that is probably far too subtle for you.

OneRound

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Either Wallace did it, or he was innocent. The accomplice is a non-starter.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There was no evidence against Wallace. We know that because
a) the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction, which, under law, they could not have done if there was any evidence, and the specific interjections of Branson LJ and Hewart LCJ indicate that conclusively.
b) (hopefully) our own analytical abilities would agree with the above, and admit there was nothing inconsistent with Wallace being a victim of circumstance (and poor Police work). All the theories and suspicions we may have don't alter that.
c) although not evidence, we could add that the theory Wallace did it is so intrinsically implausible (requiring him to survive nine-rounds-of-russian-roulette after resolving to proceed with such a plan in the first place) that rationality impels us to look for any sign of a more plausible solution.

Utter nonsense of course. Blinkered thinking that I don’t even think that you believe yourself. Wallace is transparently obviously the likeliest candidate. All you’ve done is taken a strong feeling that Parry the criminal ‘must have been guilty’ in some way, realised that he couldn’t actually have done it, and invented an accomplice. Again, a scenario is not a solution.

Happily, and unsurprisingly, there is a considerable amount of actual circumstantial evidence (circumstantial evidence is often the only evidence, and the best evidence) for another solution.

a) Parry was spotted by Wallace in the chess room itself in November 1930. "He wasn't playing chess", noted Wallace, dryly.
Yes, he had a legitimate reason for being there too. He was a member of a dramatic society that rehearsed there. If he hadn’t been seen there it would have been surprising.
b) according to Lloyd, Parry made a flying visit only minutes after the phone call, the phone box being a mere two minute drive from her home.
A rather loud....so what!
c) according to Lloyd, Parry later returned, after an unexplained 8-mile jaunt into central Liverpool to a point close to the chess club.
And that proves...what? Nothing.
d) Parry lied to the Police all about b) & c)
Or Parry might have simply been mistaken. Again this is a call to accept that Parry the cunning planner was, on the other hand, also the world’s stupidest man. Why would he knowingly give a false alibi knowing that it would be so easily disproven? I believe that Lloyd was interviewed a week later? Wouldn’t the master criminal at least have gone to see her to ensure that she confirmed his alibi?
e) according to Lloyd and Parry himself, Parry was thinking about a "21st birthday" party on the night of the murder. The hoax caller to the Chess Club had also stressed a "21st birthday" the night before. Parry was a known actor and scammer, both in and out of phone boxes.
There is absolutely nothing in the evidence to suggest that Parry knew about the party beforehand. This, on the face of it, appears to be another piece of sleight of hand by Wallace defenders. They give the impression that Parry went to the Williamson’s ‘to’ discuss a party when the reality is that he went to the Williamson’s ‘and’ discussed a party. A bit like the deceit where we were led to believe that Parry threatened Parkes into silence until we found out that it was a lie.
f) Parry's movements on the murder night - shortly after the murder - bear hallmarks of deception (independent forensic linguistic practitioners list factors that can be applied to his statement), or are implausible or unsupported. Parry's statement nevertheless indicates he was out and about in his car between
8.30pm and 9.00pm on the murder night, 'accumulating' 3 unsupported alibis.
Quite a staggering reversal of the truth. Nothing about Parry’s action suggest a plan. He was ‘supposed’ to pick up the accomplice at a nearby location after the ‘robbery.’ And yet we have Parry at 8.30 driving off to buy cigarettes and a newspaper. Then he remembers his accumulator battery and drives off to Hignett’s Garage whilst the accomplice is kicking his heels in some park for half an hour! Unsupported alibis!! The four people at the Brine’s support each other. Unfortunately they didn’t film the evenings proceedings! Why would they lie? Any tiny evidence of them lying....no! And the other two, the Post Office And Hignett’s. They weren’t checked but was Parry supposed to look into his crystal ball and decide that. Is it believable that, on the night of a murder, Parry would give two easily disprovable alibi’s? Of course not. Itsdesperate nonsense.
g) Parkes, supported in part by Dolly Atkinson, indicates that Parry made an agitated visit to Atkinson's garage, late on the murder night, desperate to have his car washed.
Whatever reason Dolly Atkinson said what she did it must surely be agreed that Parkes statement is utterly unbelievable. Again Parry is painted as suicidally stupid.
h) Mrs. Ada Cook gave a signed statement that Parry's parents had attempted to enlist her parents in smuggling Parry out of the country, immediately after the murder.
Even though, according to you, Parry hadn’t committed the murder, and could in absolutely no way be tied to the murder. It’s like a movie script.
i) In 1966, Parry indicated to Goodman that he could say more, but would not - "not for £2000" - and that he had promised his father he would not, while also indicating he kept an eye on developments in the Wallace case.
Parry keeping Goodman dangling on a hook I know something big but I’m not telling you. Goodman was a sucker.

Given all of the above, and the evidence presented from the crime plan, and the crime scene itself, what can be abduced as the most plausible solution?

Firstly that Richard Gordon Parry obviously played no part in the evenings events. Secondly that William is overwhelmingly the likeliest suspect.

If you have to resort to Parkes and Cook and talk of birthday parties then you’re on even shakier ground than I thought. Try looking at a man that was actually at the crime scene. The only man who could be 100% sure that the plan would proceed successfully. (And before you pipe up about Russian roulette I’m not talking about getting eventually caught I’m talking about the MGE plan) A man whose strange behaviour shouldn’t be ignored or denied. Whether on his MGE odyssey or at the magic door or the avoidance of the Parlour. Or the fact that he acted like a Vulcan at his wife’s murder scene. Or that he tried to give the impression that there was someone in the house and was then caught out trying to deny it. A man who hung around waiting for Beattie and Caird and then told a blatant lie about being cleared by the police. And there’s more...

[Herlock Sholmes]

So you also admit to a scenario where another killer could have done the same.
Julia attacked while holding the mac...

No. How could you possibly deduce that from what I wrote?

For the record, I don't think there is any evidence that Julia possessed a mac of her own (or at least no evidence as to where it might be)

Wallace said that he’d never seen Julia wearing one.

We also know there was no light in the hall where Wallace's mac hung.

No excuse for not wearing her own coat. With her eyes closed she could have felt the difference between a mackintosh and her own coat.

Strange post.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How could Wallace know - assuming he was capable of such a traceless murderous feat (a HUGE ask in itself) - that the milk-boy would arrive at a time which permitted Wallace to also arrive at the corner of Menlove Gardens West at exactly the same time an innocent Wallace would have arrived?

Or, if he didn't know (obviously), what are the chances that events just fell that way?

Moreover, what are the chances someone would plan an 'alibi' on events just happening to fall that way - else he would have no alibi at all?

[Oh, and we know that at least 8 other rounds of russian-roulette are required for this scheme to work]

What are the chances of someone planning [and getting away with] a murder which depends on nine-rounds-of-russian-roulette?

It’s been a while......

Another utterly meaningless graph.

And a piece of parroting (nine rounds of Russian roulette) in the same post.

Come on Rod. In your next post try for a treble and add a ‘disinformation’ or Maybe even a ‘logical fallacy’ or even better another bit of Latin.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So it would logically follow then , If Parry was the killer and he was wearing the mac over his suit to shield from blood,the blood splatter on the mac would obviously point to a murderer wearing the mac,pointing to Parry.You see what I mean, it doesn't take us anywhere does it? Unless Parrys access to the mac on the hook in the hall was not available to him.
The blood splatter on the mac doesn't incriminate one individual over another ,does it ? Just trying to see it from an impartial prospective, like the police would,

No one on here as fat as I’m aware is promoting Parry as the killer. It’s being suggested however that an accomplice was. An accomplice would have killed on the spur of the moment and so wouldn’t have planned to use protection.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The collaboration theory is fanciful piffle. As if the milquetoast Wallace had the connections to hire a hitman to brain his old lady. I think it's a vain attempt to reconcile Wallace's guilt with the timings. i.e. If Wallace was too pressed for time to commit the murder and cover his tracks, it stands to reason he hired someone else to do it.

I go for Wallace alone but why is everyone assuming that the scenario involving Wallace and a collaborator has the collaborator doing the killing? There are things that a collaborator might hypothetically have done to remove some of the doubts that are mentioned about Wallace. Timings, disposal of weapon to name two.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Unless something can be proved impossible then it remains possible. If someone says that Wallace couldn’t have been the killer then they’re simply not being honest. I would be equally guilty of that if I said that Rod’s theory was impossible and that it couldn’t have happened. Of course it could. I just don’t believe that it did.

I personally don’t promote Wallace and a collaborator but......’what’s good for the goose....’

If we can assume an accomplice for Parry (without having any actual proof of his existance) to hypothetically explain events, due to the fact that we know that Parry couldn’t have killed Julia, why can’t we do the same for Wallace? Are there different rules to the game for Wallace?

The only real difference is that we have to accept that it would have been far easier for Parry to have found a willing accomplice that Wallace simply due to their respective associates.

[etenguy]

The only real difference is that we have to accept that it would have been far easier for Parry to have found a willing accomplice that Wallace simply due to their respective associates.

Although Parry was an associate of Wallace, so might other undesirables have been? However, for the Wallace plus collaborator theory I think it is more likely we would need the collaborator to be a family member (and we know it cannot be his brother) or someone with a close personal connection. Given what we know of Wallace, I believe it would need to be someone in whom he had immense trust. Though like you, if Wallace was the killer, I am inclined to believe he did it alone.

[Abby Normal]

So it would logically follow then , If Parry was the killer and he was wearing the mac over his suit to shield from blood,the blood splatter on the mac would obviously point to a murderer wearing the mac,pointing to Parry.You see what I mean, it doesn't take us anywhere does it? Unless Parrys access to the mac on the hook in the hall was not available to him.
The blood splatter on the mac doesn't incriminate one individual over another ,does it ? Just trying to see it from an impartial prospective, like the police would,

but it makes more logical sense, given the circs, that the husband would have put on the mac to shield from blood splatter rather than an intruder

[Abby Normal]

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Either Wallace did it, or he was innocent. The accomplice is a non-starter.

agree. if Wallace had an accomplice that did the actual murder, then there is absolutely no need for the q call/MGE nonsense-just have him killer her when hes at the chess club or work etc.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock - It seems to me that the fact that Wallace already had an alibi for Monday nights (the chess club) doesn't evaporate quite as easily as you want it to. In your theory, Wallace is planning the murder in advance--it is not a crime of 'passion.' But if Wallace was involved, then on some level, he was risking substituting a perfectly 'natural' reason for being out of the house at night (chess), for one that is odd, mysterious, and would clearly raise questions...I mean, really, he is flitting around town looking for a non-existent person. No one in their right mind would believe the police would not question such a story. It is 'too clever by half.' Nor would this imaginary customer alibi be more 'airtight' or convincing than if he had simply bashed the missus before heading off for chess on Monday and then staged a break-in. The window of opportunity for success and the 'time of death' estimate would have been precisely the same in both scenarios, and since burglars aren't required to know what is inside the houses they enter, it adds nothing material to his plan to stage this convoluted Qualtrough alibi...

Unless...

The only way this unnecessary complication might makes sense to me, is if Wallace was deliberately planning to implicate Parry. Is that your theory? That he suspected that the young man Parry was carrying on romantically with the considerably older Julia, so plotted to 'kill two birds with one stone'? Kill her, and make it look like her lover did it?

I think it is entirely possible that, in the age of Agatha Christie, people are over-processing this crime to make it appear more clever than it actually was. Psychologically, they like the idea of a chess player dreaming up a perfect murder. But I know of a case from the 19th Century where a couple was lured from their home on a bogus errand, so their house could be plundered. But, in that case, things also went quickly pear-shaped; the woman came back from the bogus errand too early, and was murdered. Outwardly, it has the same appearance as the Wallace murder... but it wasn't a cleverly concocted homicide; it was just a burglary gone wrong. The culprits were clearly the burglars who had sent her on the wild goose chase. Perhaps it could be argued that the theoretical burglar in this current case was not aware that Wallace had a wife that would be home.

[moste]

Hi Herlock - It seems to me that the fact that Wallace already had an alibi for Monday nights (the chess club) doesn't evaporate quite as easily as you want it to. In your theory, Wallace is planning the murder in advance--it is not a crime of 'passion.' But if Wallace was involved, then on some level, he was risking substituting a perfectly 'natural' reason for being out of the house at night (chess), for one that is odd, mysterious, and would clearly raise questions...I mean, really, he is flitting around town looking for a non-existent person. No one in their right mind would believe the police would not question such a story. It is 'too clever by half.' Nor would this imaginary customer alibi be more 'airtight' or convincing than if he had simply bashed the missus before heading off for chess on Monday and then staged a break-in. The window of opportunity for success and the 'time of death' estimate would have been precisely the same in both scenarios, and since burglars aren't required to know what is inside the houses they enter, it adds nothing material to his plan to stage this convoluted Qualtrough alibi...

Unless...

The only way this unnecessary complication might makes sense to me, is if Wallace was deliberately planning to implicate Parry. Is that your theory? That he suspected that the young man Parry was carrying on romantically with the considerably older Julia, so plotted to 'kill two birds with one stone'? Kill her, and make it look like her lover did it?

I think it is entirely possible that, in the age of Agatha Christie, people are over-processing this crime to make it appear more clever than it actually was. Psychologically, they like the idea of a chess player dreaming up a perfect murder. But I know of a case from the 19th Century where a couple was lured from their home on a bogus errand, so their house could be plundered. But, in that case, things also went quickly pear-shaped; the woman came back from the bogus errand too early, and was murdered. Outwardly, it has the same appearance as the Wallace murder... but it wasn't a cleverly concocted homicide; it was just a burglary gone wrong. The culprits were clearly the burglars who had sent her on the wild goose chase. Perhaps it could be argued that the theoretical burglar in this current case was not aware that Wallace had a wife that would be home.

This is a thought provoking post and when talking of killing two birds with one stone, I have touched on this scenario before, and its where I am at with my thinking . Thinking too hard when trying to assess situations tends to over complicate an otherwise straight forward series of events. Take the Mac. 'Wallace wearing the Mac' at the time of the murder fits the bill. He probably completely underestimated the amount of mess it would cause, and knowing it would totally incriminate him by just leaving it lying around he stuffed it under his wife's body removing the obvious spatter/spray evidence as suggested by H S in the past.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock - It seems to me that the fact that Wallace already had an alibi for Monday nights (the chess club) doesn't evaporate quite as easily as you want it to. In your theory, Wallace is planning the murder in advance--it is not a crime of 'passion.' But if Wallace was involved, then on some level, he was risking substituting a perfectly 'natural' reason for being out of the house at night (chess), for one that is odd, mysterious, and would clearly raise questions...I mean, really, he is flitting around town looking for a non-existent person. No one in their right mind would believe the police would not question such a story. It is 'too clever by half.' Nor would this imaginary customer alibi be more 'airtight' or convincing than if he had simply bashed the missus before heading off for chess on Monday and then staged a break-in. The window of opportunity for success and the 'time of death' estimate would have been precisely the same in both scenarios, and since burglars aren't required to know what is inside the houses they enter, it adds nothing material to his plan to stage this convoluted Qualtrough alibi...

Unless...

The only way this unnecessary complication might makes sense to me, is if Wallace was deliberately planning to implicate Parry. Is that your theory? That he suspected that the young man Parry was carrying on romantically with the considerably older Julia, so plotted to 'kill two birds with one stone'? Kill her, and make it look like her lover did it?

I think it is entirely possible that, in the age of Agatha Christie, people are over-processing this crime to make it appear more clever than it actually was. Psychologically, they like the idea of a chess player dreaming up a perfect murder. But I know of a case from the 19th Century where a couple was lured from their home on a bogus errand, so their house could be plundered. But, in that case, things also went quickly pear-shaped; the woman came back from the bogus errand too early, and was murdered. Outwardly, it has the same appearance as the Wallace murder... but it wasn't a cleverly concocted homicide; it was just a burglary gone wrong. The culprits were clearly the burglars who had sent her on the wild goose chase. Perhaps it could be argued that the theoretical burglar in this current case was not aware that Wallace had a wife that would be home.

Hi Roger,

For me the important point is that by creating the plan he introduced the possibility of someone else being involved. Someone that Beattie and Harley heard on the phone. A tangible suspect. If Wallace had simply gone to chess, something that he didn’t do every single week, the police would have been left with a killer who randomly hung around and saw Wallace go out. Yes Wallace would have known that the police would question the plan so Wallace leaves a trail of witnesses who apparently saw him genuinely searching for MGE. He talked to his friend Caird and told him that he was unsure whether he’d go or not. He asks for his own address when talking to Beattie.

I don’t for a minute think that Parry was ‘carrying on’ with Julia however I do think it possible that Wallace might have had him in mind as a potential scapegoat. Someone that he could dangle in front of the police with no risk to himself. A thief who knew Wallace’s business arrangements and where he kept the cash and best of all, as he knew that Julia wouldn’t let just anyone into the house, someone that Julia might have let in. Unfortunately, as it turned out for Wallace, Parry had an unshakeable alibi for the time of the murder.

I do take your point about overcomplicating or even overthinking but we do have to explain the fact of the Qualtrough phonecall. I think that the events surrounding and during the call favour Wallace over Parry. Wallace was the only person that we know who might have had a reason for wanting Julia dead and the only one who knew her closely enough to generate the energy and anger required for such a brutal attack. Wallace was at the scene and had the opportunity to kill Julia. If the plan had been created by anyone else it could have fallen at the first hurdle by any of half a dozen ways and it relied on a massive, unpredictable slice of luck to get the killer past Julia into the house. None of these issues exist if it was Wallace. Wallace for me is the simplest choice. No leaps of faith or unnamed mystery men are required. Yes there are doubts of course but on the whole it had to be Wallace in my opinion.

[RodCrosby]

It's just another round in the nine-rounds-of-russian-roulette plan, supposedly thought out and proceeded with by Wallace.

Even if he succeeds with the mechanics of the phone-call, the murder and the disposal of the weapon, etc. he draws suspicion with an unnecessary shaggy-dog story about Qualtrough, which the Police and a jury indeed felt was "too good to be true." A better plan might have been to make the call before the previous chess game, and ignore it, explaining to the Police "I discovered the address and the person were false so didn't bother going." It might still have been useful to Wallace, as indicating there was someone out there who wished to do him harm. As I've said repeatedly, Wallace's alibi for the murder didn't depend on Qualtrough; it depended on Close (with its own set of difficulties and improbabilities)

As for trying to implicate Parry, he might as well have tried to implicate a random person from the phone-book. He could not know he would not have an alibi. Wallace would surely have tried to lay a better trail of evidence pointing to Parry, other than simply naming him, after the event, as one of many who might have been admitted to the house...