Ruth Ellis

[Graham]

I came across this article at www.copperknob.wordpress.com - it's a synopsis of a book by Monica Weller purporting to prove that Ruth Ellis was mixed up with Stephen Ward and the Profumo Scandal, and didn't actually fire the shot(s) that killed David Blakely. I don't know whether to look into this a little more deeply or just laugh out loud.

Anyone else come across this theory?

Cheers,

Graham

[Tom_Wescott]

That's nothing. There's one crank with a book who claims Stephen King shot John Lennon, and was doing so on behalf of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[jimornot?]

I came across this article at www.copperknob.wordpress.com - it's a synopsis of a book by Monica Weller purporting to prove that Ruth Ellis was mixed up with Stephen Ward and the Profumo Scandal, and didn't actually fire the shot(s) that killed David Blakely. I don't know whether to look into this a little more deeply or just laugh out loud.

Anyone else come across this theory?

Cheers,

Graham

Hi Graham

I read the book she refers to some time ago and had pretty much forgotten it till this reminder. If I recall correctly I think it was an Ok read but not much more than that. I do remember now Ruth Ellis' sister writing of meeting with Albert Pierrepoint and finding him rather sinister / peculiar.

interestingly for a short while, one of Pierrepoint's relatives - she was his great niece I think, certainly had the surname - worked at the same organisation as i did. She was rather senior to me and my colleagues and not one of us had the audacity to ask about him. It was well before this book came out but either way, another missed opportunity.

if I still have the book and come across it, I'll send it on. I fear though I gave it away

all the best

viv

[Graham]

Hi Viv,

it seems that the theme of the book is that Dr Stephen Ward was a double-agent working for both MI5 and the KGB, and he was a dab-hand at recruiting young, naive, uneducated women to his cause - ref: Christine Keeler - and that he'd been doing this since the late 1940's. The book also seems to suggest that Ruth had been brainwashed, and that on the night of David Blakely's murder she was driven to the Magdala by Desmond Cussen who effectively put a gun in her hand while he himself shot Blakely. The book says that Ruth's hands had been shrivelled by arthritis at an early age, and she simply could not have held and fired a Smith & Wesson .38. She was hanged as the result of an Establishment plot, etc., etc., to eliminate a person who could bring down the Government, etc., etc.

Do I buy this?

Do I hell.

Cheers,

Graham

[Limehouse]

An interesting claim but very far-fetched in my opinion. I do think there was a lot of recruitment of reasonably attractive and somewhat articulate young women to the 'high class' sex trade all through the early twentieth century. By 'high class' I mean the clients were establishment types and would hardly cruise the streets looking for any old tart.

To me, having taken an interest in the Ruth Ellis story many years ago, it struck me that she was obsessed by Blakely and that she shot him in a fit of emotion. It seems as simple as that. She accepted her guilt and her punishment and that was that.

The real tragedy in the story was the fate of her children who both died young and tragically.

[sdreid]

Ellis basically thought she could exploit Blakely for a move up the ladder and couldn't handle it when she realized the ploy wasn't going to happen. The guy did game her to some degree also but it wasn't a capital crime.

[louisa]

I am in agreement with Limehouse. In France it would have been called a crime of passion and Ruth would not have been executed.

I have read a couple of books about Ruth Ellis, one by her sister (Miriam somebody?). The sister sounds rather neurotic to me and didn't like Pierrepoint because he only answered one of her letters.

Ruth Ellis lived in various flats in and around London. Strangely enough she lived - for a while - in the road my school was in - in Franciscan Road, London, then she moved to another road that I know well, Cotmandene Crescent in Orpington, Kent. I used to work very near there.

She had a man friend named Cussons who gave her the gun on the day she shot Blakely. He also drove her there.

[miss marple]

i agree with Limehouse. Ruth was obsessed by Blakeney even though he was violent towards her, she had also miscarried a baby, shortly before the murder, Her mental state was unstable and Cussons was certainly an accessory.

I also think that extenuating circumstances were not allowed at the time of her trial. Someone can give me information on this. There is no crime of passion in English law [ as in France] in which extenuating circumstances can be used.

Pierrepoint turned against capital punishment as he got older, he realised hanging people did not stop murder, its worth reading his autobiography.

Miss Marple

[louisa]

I read Pierrepoint's autobiography. He said that he was against hanging because it was basically just 'pure revenge'. That's rather rich for someone who made a good living at it for most of his life!


Off the subject slightly.....you can never really trust autobiographies because they are going to leave out anything which puts them in a bad light. The best books to read are unauthorised bios.

I've just been reading the book by Prof Keith Simpson. A biography full of self aggrandissment and self praise. Full of envy and nasty digs against Sir Bernard Spilsbury (who achieved greater fame and a Knighthood).

Simpson ends his book by giving some personal opinions. He thinks that prostitutes, drunks who fall downstairs and drug takers who get killed deserved to die because they will never lead useful lives in society.

[Magpie]

They used to have the rope used to hang Ellis on display at the Westgate Museum, I believe. Does anyone know if it's still there?

[louisa]

That's a bit macabre.

[Jeff Leahy]

I must admit I'm surprised at some of these comments.

Cussens conection to Stephen Ward seems fairly well established.

And no matter how you look at the evidence the chances of Ruth Ellis picking off four shouts from the John and wesson gun seems beyond belief.

Ellis was clearly not telling the truth but either protecting someone or in fear of something..

Interesting that she turns up in london 1949 (about the same time as Hannah Tailford) and has an interest in movies:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Lady+godiva+rides+again&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=SN1XT-aNAsnc8AOG_JHnDg&ved=0CEEQsAQ&biw=1710&bih=891

She appears in 'Lady Godiva rides again 1951' as does Dina dors and Joan Colins....

Now if I could doiscover a Hannah Tailford connection that would be interesting

Yours Jeff

PS and before some starts with the Stephen Ward was innocent routine I also dug up this:


Another in the porn game was Freddie Reid, who went off with Joe Thomas's wife when for a brief spell the three of them were jointly engaged in strike action. I never met him. but according to Joe he had been sincere enough until he was blacklisted for his strike activities and then turned to despicable methods of earning a living. There are many crimes the blacklisters have to answer for, and perhaps one day they will. In this case some of them at least did.
In the course of his profession, perhaps independently or as an agent for Bobby, he had met Dr Stephen Ward. Ward was an osteopath and a sex fetishist. His talents, and from all accounts he was quite a gifted conversationalist, led him to mix with the highest circles in the land, and pander to the rich and famous. Royalty, Cabinet Ministers, pop stars, foreign diplomats, foreign spies, rent boys and girls, all came into Ward's net. Some of the porn merchants acted for him both as outlets and supplies. He seems to have been a drug dealer and a pimp.

[Henry Flower]

Jeff, more importantly; my first girlfriend was named 'Ruth Ellis'. Not only did she not shoot me, she was absolutely gorgeous. She was a farmer's daughter, and she used to feed the lambs from milk bottles. Do you remember the scene in Polanski's Tess where Natassja Kinski is milking a cow?

Fantastic girl. Seriously experimental.

[Jeff Leahy]

I know polanski's film well , saw it at the cinema when it was first released..

But I'm not quite sure were your girlfriend fits into Ruth Ellis's murder? or Vicki Martins come to that..

Yours Jeff

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Why is it every criminal case has to have some intrigue entangled within?
We have Hanratty .. who is innocent because he ''said so.''
We have the more then one shooter in the Kennedy assassination , when we all know ''Lee-Harvey did it''.
We have Hitler escaping to Argentina, when we all know he committed suicide in the bunker on 30TH April 1945.
We have the suggestion that Frederick Deeming was JTR, when everyone knows he was not[ TV last night] although the female DNA on the reverse of the stamp is an insight.
And now we have Ruth Ellis who in the presence of witnesses,shot her lover, are we suggesting that the smoking gun taken off her, by a police officer was the result of a ingenious mime.
And the list goes on .
Everyone loves a mystery, but lets not invent one, when the truth is obvious.
Regards Richard.