Julie Wallace

[sdreid]

Thanks Marko! My efforts had been unsuccessful finding that. I thought perhaps it was because Marsden was still alive although he would have to be 100 or so.

In the next days, I will put your informations in the thread I have on this case over on www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=7642 with due attribution, that is if you don't beat me too it or object.

[Marko]

Thanks Marko! My efforts had been unsuccessful finding that. I thought perhaps it was because Marsden was still alive although he would have to be 100 or so.

In the next days, I will put your informations in the thread I have on this case over on www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=7642 with due attribution, that is if you don't beat me too it or object.

No of course not Stan

[louisa]

I have to admit that I haven't read this entire thread but the Wallace case is a fascinating one. A real whodunnit.

I'm going from memory now because it's been a while since I read the book but Wallace did name somebody called Young as the person he suspected of murdering Julia. Young used to occasionally pay the Wallaces social visits and they would have sing-songs around the piano.

Young's part in the affair was hushed up because he had friends and family in high places.

Whenever I think about this case I can't help but wonder why somebody would chose a name like Qualtrough. Would it be because it's a very unusual name.....and if so....why would that be necessary?

[Marko]

I am currently writing a book on this case. I have to say I don't want to say too much about it at the moment...

Yes, Wallace named Stan Young. He was named by Wallace as someone who would be admitted to the house by Julia but I think you might be getting him mixed up with Richard Gordon Parry. It was supposed to be Parry that had the sing songs at 29 Wolverton Street but I don't believe it for a second. None of the neighbours ever attested that they heard music from there. Certainly not of an afternoon. The whole idea that 'Parry' did it is a nonsense.
Even when the 'Who Killed Julia?' radio programme aired and subsequent Wilkes book saw publication I thought it a nonsense.
Yes, police believed at the time that the name 'Qualtrough' was given by Wallace as it was unusual and would be remembered in his enquiries in Menlove Gardens.

[sdreid]

I see that the Wiki article says the case against Parry is much stronger than that against Wallace. That is not my opinion obviously.

The Amy Wallace angle doesn't seem to get much play except in The Man From the Pru.

[Marko]

I see that the Wiki article says the case against Parry is much stronger than that against Wallace. That is not my opinion obviously.

The Amy Wallace angle doesn't seem to get much play except in The Man From the Pru.

I agree with you Stan - it is not my opinion either. I wouldn't put any faith in Wiki

Yes, the possibility of there being some sort of tryst between Wallace and Amy seems extremely unlikely and perpetuated by the TV movie Man from the Pru. While it is a so-so adaptation it is not a patch on the docu-drama that mesemerised me in 1975 - Who Killed Julia Wallace? The only person that I know of that saw it was Russell Johnston's daughter Fiona, who I spoke to back in January. It was great to finally speak to someone else who was likewise terrified on that Autumn/Fall night back in 1975!!

[louisa]

Hello Mark

Yes, I was getting confused with Parry. Parry was the person whom Wallace suspected of being the murderer.

The problem that I have with the idea that Wallace himself killed his wife is just that he doesn't seem the type of person who could get into the kind of rage required for the act. I know that people can get angry very quickly and do things they regret, but we are supposed to believe that this murder was pre-planned and if it was, then it would have been carried out calmly and cold bloodedly. I can't see Wallace being that type of person. Also, he wouldn't have had a lot of time.

However.....would someone really go to lengths, and ask quite so many people, the way to an address? And then told 'No that address doesn't exist - still continue looking for it?

[Marko]

Hi Louisa

Yes, the time limit is what the whole of it hinges on...

I suppose what goes on underneath a person is something we can never know for sure. I was on a radio programme commemorating the 80th year of the murder back in January and the radio host said to me that Wallace didn't look like a murderer. A very dangerous statement to make! I suppose one would never think Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Fred West were sadistic murderers on looks. That is the frightening thing about a psychopath.

I have always questioned the method used in Julia's death and always wondered if Wallace did want to kill his wife, why would he use such an error-laden way of dispatch? It was fraught with so many things that could have gone wrong.

Yes, you're right - his persistent questions in Menlove Gardens/Allerton seemed out of character and highly suspicious.

Best

Mark

[louisa]

Hi Mark

I absolutely agree that Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer don't look like killers. (What does a killer look like anyway?). This is precisely how they managed to lure people into having a false sense of security and trusting them. Ted Bundy was good looking and had personality and charm (even the judge himself - after passing the death sentence - said something like 'You take care of yourself son' (or similar). Ted Bundy could have had his pick of girls anyway, but he didn't want those type of relationships - he just enjoyed killing.

Wallace on the other hand, if indeed he was the killer, didn't need looks or charm to entrap a victim. His victim was his own wife. This is why I really don't think he had the personality (not that I knew him of course!) to commit murder. He seemed too mild mannered. However, as you have said, looks can deceive.

Another rather strange thing about the Wallace murder was that the murderer replaced the lid on the money box and put it back on it's high shelf. This sounds like somebody methodical who was used to taking the box down and putting it back. An automatic reaction maybe, of somebody who is short of time and isn't thinking things through. That action could, of course, point to Wallace himself.

[sdreid]

It was great to finally speak to someone else who was likewise terrified on that Autumn/Fall night back in 1975!!

I did not even "hear" of the case until 1981.

As far as The Man From the Pru goes, I like it very much.

[Penny_Dredfull]

Julia Wallace

I'm coming back to this case after some years, but I still find it as intriguing as ever. The first book I read was The Killing of Julia Wallace, and I watched The Man From The Pru just last night, as it so happens ,for the very first time. I'm sure there was a considerable amount of poetic license taken- the implication of Wallace having some kind of affair with his sister-in-law, for example- another reminder how dramatized versions of crimes are not to be relied upon as entirely factual. But it was certainly entertaining to watch. Why is the 1930's always portrayed as so BROWN?!
But here are some more pertinent questions that occur to me when reviewing this case:

1) So now we know that Julia was actually 72 at the time of her death and NOT 52- ie she was 17 years older than her husband. That means when they married he was 36 and she was a 52 year old childless spinster who was certainly not likely to produce children. It may seem a bit odd to us now but would have been even stranger in 1911 when they married. Why would a man his age marry a woman like that? Was Wallace, the odd man with so many hobbies that didn't include his wife, a closet homosexual who used the marriage as a respectable cover?
2) Why would a supposedly innocent man accused of savagely murdering his wife and facing the hangman's noose NOT fight harder for himself, but instead be so resigned to his fate? Does this point to his guilt/complicity?
3) How do we know that the amount taken from the box in the kitchen, supposedly by the murderer, was four quid? If we only have Wallace's word for that then we have to wonder- did it actually contain more, ie a payment left for the killer Wallace hired to off his wife- Parry?
Just throwing a few thoughts out there- what do you think?

[Limehouse]

1) So now we know that Julia was actually 72 at the time of her death and NOT 52- ie she was 17 years older than her husband. That means when they married he was 36 and she was a 52 year old childless spinster who was certainly not likely to produce children. It may seem a bit odd to us now but would have been even stranger in 1911 when they married. Why would a man his age marry a woman like that?

A woman 'like that'? Well - if she could pass for 52 when she was 72 she must have looked quite good at 52 when she married.

I agree it may have been more unusual for a woman to marry a much younger man in those days but they were described by most who knew them as 'devoted' so it may well have been a love match.

[Penny_Dredfull]

Julia Wallace

I know some of us, in our more liberal and permissive age, don't find such a disparity in ages shocking. We are used to the idea of "toy boys" and "cougars" and couples who remain intentionally childless. I was only pointing out that sensibilities in 1911 and even 1931 were very different from our own, and for a 36 yr. old man to marry a woman 17 yrs. his elder- no matter how good she looked- would certainly have been considered remarkable. Unless he was marrying for money, of course, and that wasn't the case here.

[Limehouse]

Did he know she was that much older do you think?

[Jason]

my uncle to this day still lives in wolverton st, on the same side, about 10 houses down. I remember him scaring the bejesus out of us as kids about the wallace place ...my sister, cousins and i used to play outside the house, daring each other to look in window or over the wall of back yard....house was empty when he moved in back in early 80s....used to say that new owners were weird for living there !!