The Murder of Julia Wallace (1931) - Full DPP case files

[WallaceWackedHer]

Redaction: Antony has a better version in his book. John Bull articles were ghostwritten, in Wallace's memoirs he says he believes his wife had indeed worn it even though he had never known her to ever do such a thing.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Yeah it seems he's saying here he doesn't believe she had regulated the fire meaning it would be at full blaze setting light to things:

http://www.williamherbertwallace.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/jm_Oooks.jpeg

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

I know that I always appear to be the wet blanket but.....

I accept that because of the fire grate and the burns to the skirt and mackintosh that these three things are in all probability linked but it doesn’t automatically follow that Julia was struck as she was attending to the fire. Im 54 and when I was younger in the 70’s gas fires took a fair while to heat up. I’m sure Al would agree that it often seemed like ages until the room felt like the fire was actually on. We had it tough in the old days WWH So I’d have expected it to have taken a fair while to have heated up enough so that a skirt could have been singed on the grid. If it was anything like our old fire you could still touch the grid with your hands after it had been on for 5 minutes! So all I’m saying is that it’s difficult for me to see how the fire got hot enough quickly enough to cause the damage to her skirt. So this suggests to me that the fire had been on for a while when William...errr I mean the killer struck.

Seriously though this point isn’t made to strengthen the case as it doesn't point to anyone particular.

Good point Herlock. They took a while to get up to heat, they also cooled down rapidly. For the record, I'm not that old, but I grew up in Scotland, and we were a decade behind. And I was poor by Scottish standards.

[WallaceWackedHer]

I've commissioned a VERY good colourizer to colourize the crime scene photos. She's VERY good:

http://www.laizkuczynski.com

[WallaceWackedHer]

How could Wallace have known that she hadn’t regulated the fire? Wasn’t the fire regulated by the same knob used to turn it on and off?So if it was in the ‘off’ position because the fire had been turned off then he wouldn’t have been able to tell if it had been regulated? Would he?

Because the gas has to be turned on, then the fire lit, then the knob used again to tune it.

If he's innocent then it's just a theory, but still, considering he actually used that fireplace he might have reason for thinking that... If he's guilty then as far as I'm concerned that John Bull article is EXACTLY how the crime was committed down to the letter, as I said before I'd view it as a veiled confession.

I think he's saying she hadn't regulated it because things got burned (in other words, implying if she had, then it wouldn't have got burnt).

[WallaceWackedHer]

I know that I always appear to be the wet blanket but.....

I accept that because of the fire grate and the burns to the skirt and mackintosh that these three things are in all probability linked but it doesn’t automatically follow that Julia was struck as she was attending to the fire. Im 54 and when I was younger in the 70’s gas fires took a fair while to heat up. I’m sure Al would agree that it often seemed like ages until the room felt like the fire was actually on. We had it tough in the old days WWH So I’d have expected it to have taken a fair while to have heated up enough so that a skirt could have been singed on the grid. If it was anything like our old fire you could still touch the grid with your hands after it had been on for 5 minutes! So all I’m saying is that it’s difficult for me to see how the fire got hot enough quickly enough to cause the damage to her skirt. So this suggests to me that the fire had been on for a while when William...errr I mean the killer struck.

Seriously though this point isn’t made to strengthen the case as it doesn't point to anyone particular.

No it seems you're right, I heard the suggestion from Gannon before and I think it makes sense. A grid wouldn't go from cold to burning in milliseconds.

But I'm just going by what McFall said. I'm not familiar with these fires at all but if she hadn't "regulated" it would that mean the flames would be full blast? Would that make any difference (for example, could the flames catch something alight through the gaps in the grid)? How long would it take do you expect (like a random ballpark) for it to be hot enough to burn something if the flames are on full. Or how long would something need to be in contact with it?

The thing is, the fire having already been on doesn't match the forensic suggestion.

They're saying she's sitting in that chair... And okay fine, but then the killer is where to hit her in that position for the spray to go where it did? In a VERY odd position, especially because we can see where he WASN'T standing from where the splashes hit the wall. He'd be like, crouching by the armchair near the photos like Bob from Twin Peaks.

So I don't like that suggestion. And I also don't think she could fall into that fire from the chair. Too far away...

If the unabridged trial has nothing to disprove the seat was clean, then maybe it's actually the killer who is sitting on the chair. But McFall says Julia is "too low to be standing"... So what's she doing exactly?

If the fire's already lit, has she gone to perhaps turn the heat up or down?

Is McFall just completely wrong (realistically likely, given how incompetent he is).

[Herlock Sholmes]

How could Wallace have known that she hadn’t regulated the fire? Wasn’t the fire regulated by the same knob used to turn it on and off?So if it was in the ‘off’ position because the fire had been turned off then he wouldn’t have been able to tell if it had been regulated? Would he?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I know that I always appear to be the wet blanket but.....

I accept that because of the fire grate and the burns to the skirt and mackintosh that these three things are in all probability linked but it doesn’t automatically follow that Julia was struck as she was attending to the fire. Im 54 and when I was younger in the 70’s gas fires took a fair while to heat up. I’m sure Al would agree that it often seemed like ages until the room felt like the fire was actually on. We had it tough in the old days WWH So I’d have expected it to have taken a fair while to have heated up enough so that a skirt could have been singed on the grid. If it was anything like our old fire you could still touch the grid with your hands after it had been on for 5 minutes! So all I’m saying is that it’s difficult for me to see how the fire got hot enough quickly enough to cause the damage to her skirt. So this suggests to me that the fire had been on for a while when William...errr I mean the killer struck.

Seriously though this point isn’t made to strengthen the case as it doesn't point to anyone particular.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Hmm, this deserves further intense thought. I'll get some acid...

HA! You know, I would honestly recommend it if it didn't last so goddamn long. It makes your mind work SOOOOOO fast and hard that after a couple of hours it feels like you've run the London marathon five times over. And nothing stops it...

One of my fascinations aside from stuff like this is the malleability of the human mind and personality. Experimenting with personality-altering substances and very carefully documenting the affects. I have a bunch of biopsychology and psychology university textbooks. Such an amazing topic to me.

But yeah it really does...

Check the blood spray:





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What we are told by McFall, is that this splatter is from the first strike.

Julia's "killing blow" wound:

https://i.imgur.com/CkPZruf.png

Now what McFall's trying to tell us, is that Julia is sitting on the armchair with her head turned a little left... Well that seems impossible to me the layman, for the spray to go there because the killer would have to be stood in a REALLY odd place. Or alternatively, he said Roland Oliver might be right that she was stooping to the fire when struck - or getting up from the fire.

Roland Oliver's suggestion seems more logical, correct?

But try to picture it. Because the wound is on JULIA'S left. HER left. So the killer is standing to the left too then, right?

Because of the gas knob being on the right of the actual fire - then we know she's already seen to the knob, she's lit the fire with a match, she's then looked left for some reason... Wallace believes it was before she had regulated the fire... So she's lit it, turned her head left, and was struck... If he's wrong then she's turned the knob and then turned her head left, either way.........

---

But anyway remember WHY McFall thought she was in the chair. A lack of spray on the seat of the chair. I will need to check the trial yet again to make sure this was not disproved.

But what if it's not JULIA sitting on the chair. What if someone ELSE is sitting on the chair.

Julia has turned her head left, perhaps to talk to this man who is sitting there on that chair, and then he's hit her. What do you think?

So many possibilities.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hmm, this deserves further intense thought. I'll get some acid...

[WallaceWackedHer]

Can't offer any more on this, but just a thought, lighting on the right side, kneeling, right foot flat, left knee down, any blow is going to send her to the left. The natural position would have the left knee on the floor. If there was even a moment's reaction, a blow to the left of the head would still result in all the effort going through the right leg, hence falling left. Just my opinion.

You might be right but it depends on how much "up and down" it is as opposed to "right to left". Imagining some baseball tier bat swing totally horizontal, I don't think ANY positioning of the knees and feet etc. would change that it would follow that direction.

But the wound is hard to determine. It does look much more downward than horizontal. It also makes SENSE it would be almost completely downwards.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Can't offer any more on this, but just a thought, lighting on the right side, kneeling, right foot flat, left knee down, any blow is going to send her to the left. The natural position would have the left knee on the floor. If there was even a moment's reaction, a blow to the left of the head would still result in all the effort going through the right leg, hence falling left. Just my opinion.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Wallace, I'm certainly not an expert and this type of fire is vintage, but from the little I gather from the advert you posted, the fake coal stays in place, the grate at the bottom is removed and it's lit from the very bottom. I had one, newer admittedly, but it lit the same from ground level so you had to be almost prone to light it. It looks like the gas lights low and heats the fake coal above. These were a pain, clumsy things to light.

That's helpful, even that small tidbit. So Julia would probably have to be legitimately down on her knees to light this? Or is it possible she might have done it by simply stooping down? Did she have arthritis? (Just wondering if she had any mobility issue as my grandma would not get down on her knees since she'd have a hard time getting back up).

But okay so anyway...

She's managed to turn on the gas by the knob on the right - this has to be done for the fire to even be lit. She's then managed to strike a match and light the fire evidently, and from what you're saying this is a somewhat clumsy affair, so we might imagine it taking about a minute (considering you said you have to hold it for at least 30 seconds to avoid it automatically turning off as a safety feature - albeit not sure if fireplaces THAT old would have such safety feature)... But still let's call it 30 seconds to a minute...

Either way we see she has indeed lit the fireplace successfully.

Now, the knob for this fireplace is on the right. Her next move should be to go for that knob to regulate the fire is that right? So she's reaching across to the knob which is on the right.

I keep going back to the morgue photos because it really helps. But from that wound, I think it's very unlikely she would be hit in that specific position because the left of her head is right by the fireplace. The assailant is of course going to be in a position better suited to strike the right side or back of her head.

So these are the two possibilities and correct me if I'm wrong:

1. McFall is wrong, Julia's head was facing the complete opposite direction. She was going to regulate the fire when she turned her head left and back towards the parlour doorway, and was then struck by an assailant. The direction of the force sends her into the fireplace. Her feet we're chucked onto the opposite side of the room, he's just wrong.

2. McFall is right, which seems more likely on the face of it, since he's an actual forensic professional and I'm some random man on the internet so my opinion should probably be ignored LOL. But okay, so in McFall's version, she has regulated the gas, and as she's gone to get up she's been hit exactly where you see in the morgue photos by someone standing over her, and crumpled into the fire.

---

Just me personally, the wound is quite tricky to determine anything from. Because when someone tells me someone's been hit THAT HARD (so hard to literally cave her skull into her brain) on the LEFT of her head, it makes no sense to me at all how she then FALLS to to the left.

I just think like... If a car hit you on the right side of your body you'd go flying off to the left wouldn't you?

It's a direction of force kind of thing...

It DOES seem to be more "downward" and Julia might have been getting up on one knee using her hands for leverage or something hence still falling left.

But that's the series of events. It has to be...

Match box retrieved -> Gas knob on the right of the fireplace turned on -> Match struck -> Fire lit -> Gas regulated -> Attempt to get up or turn head -> Struck down -> Fallen into the now lit fireplace.

I think Wallace in John Bull suggested Julia had not yet regulated the fire. If he's innocent you might be thinking "well what does his opinion matter?", but he would know how that particular fireplace worked. He may have had some reason to believe it could not have been regulated if burning like that occurred... And in that case I think she's either neglected to regulate the gas, or turned her head upon hearing a sound before she went for the knob and was struck.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Wallace, I'm certainly not an expert and this type of fire is vintage, but from the little I gather from the advert you posted, the fake coal stays in place, the grate at the bottom is removed and it's lit from the very bottom. I had one, newer admittedly, but it lit the same from ground level so you had to be almost prone to light it. It looks like the gas lights low and heats the fake coal above. These were a pain, clumsy things to light.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Hi Wallace, all the old gas fires we had had to be held "on" for about 30 seconds or there about or they shut off as a safety measure. They're also tricky buggers and never light first time, so you'd be on your hands knees swearing at it.

Oh very interesting... In fact, the more info you can give on this the better, every tiny tidbit of info about old time gas fires would be vital.

I think what I wrote above is how it happened. Looking at that wound you can see it's a "top down" type of attack. I think she was at the time doing something with the knob for the fire after lighting it, turned her head left and back (as in, to look towards where the parlour door would be) and she's been struck. That makes perfect complete sense now that she would go into the fire from there.

It never made sense she would fall in there from the armchair.

It would mean though, that I, a complete layman, am arrogantly arguing with the opinion of a forensic expert who did this job for a living lmao. Because he thinks her head is facing left. Hang on... I think I need to revise my thinking here...

I've always found this exceptionally complicated... Bear with me while my slowass brain grinds its gears.

Let me get a bigger photo of the detective mag pic and I'll try to make a photo illustrating the event.