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

[WallaceWackedHer]

William placing them as suspects when they have no involvement means he certainly has a death wish. It's sheer dumb luck Parry fudged his call night alibi in that case.

If you want to get away with murder you don't tell police that there's about 3 people who could have committed the crime.

I believe him about the financial irregularities based on the fact that he said the same of Parry and it turned out he was being honest...

The R. J. Qualtrough is a strong connection. He might have picked the name himself to frame Marsden but again it's death wish territory. Apart from that there isn't any actual connection to Marsden. And Parry may well have heard the name through Marsden.

I'd be more inclined to believe he knew he was screwed and threw his accomplices to the wolves as a hail Mary to get away with it. He would know they have no alibi and he's F-d anyway, they're gonna be all like "it was all William's idea!" but I doubt the police would believe them. Even if they did, he was going down anyway, so he hasn't lost anything.

I think though... That he's a controlling and overprotective husband - but innocent of murder.

[Herlock Sholmes]

, I feel like a person such as Marsden was the one who came and was admitted by Julia, and that he's the killer.

The problem of course is that there’s not a smidgeon of evidence to connect Marsden to the crime. He was just about to marry into a good family. We have no reason for suspecting that he was in any way short of cash. He had no history of criminality whatsoever. It was only Wallace that talked of ‘financial irregularities.’ Gannon found zero evidence of this though. So there’s simply nothing to connect him to the case except that he’d had a client called Qualtrough. Marsden is a name and nothing more.

We have Wallace giving a list of people that Julia would have let in. For everyone it’s just a case of name, who they were and where they lived. Not only does he write a long paragraph on Parry including his financial irregularities but in his much shorter paragraph on Marsden he talks of rumours of financial irregularities and pointedly describes him as ‘very plausible.’

Im fairly convinced that William deliberately set up the crime to look like it was committed by someone that knew the house and the financial arrangements. He then dangled two likely lads under the police’s noses and hoped. Lets remember, we only have William’s word that Julia would only have let in certain people. It’s also strange that Wallace didn’t mention suspecting Parry during the investigation (maybe he felt that the police might think that he was deliberately using him to deflect attention from himself) and yet, after his acquittal, he becomes convinced of his guilt. This is strange. He’d received no new information. The police had investigated and exonerated him. It’s not as if Wallace had hired a detective to look into Parry. So why was he so convinced?

I think Wallace was p*ss*d off that his efforts to drop Parry in it hadn’t worked. Plus, as some people still felt him guilty, he needed a fall guy.

Parry and Marsden were names on a piece of paper put there by William to benefit William.

imo of course.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And you also can't expect anyone to NOT expect to be drenched

Are you really suggesting that it’s impossible to protect yourself from blood spatter?

[Herlock Sholmes]

.for Parry to have no involvement you have to ignore a fake alibi

And for Wallace to have been innocent we have to ignore his lie about being ‘a complete stranger’ in the area. We have to forget that he ‘forgot’ to tell the police about visiting Crewe’s house in his interviews and statements. We have to forget that Wallace said that the front door was bolted and yet the evidence of Mrs Johnston and PC William’s shows that it almost certainly wasn’t. We have to ignore William’s deeply suspicious hassling of the tram conductors and an Inspector. We have to ignore that William ignored person after person who all told him that MGE (we can also ignore the excuse that he was desperate for a commission as 24 hours earlier he was completely indifferent to the idea.) We also have to ignore the coincidence of the backdoor defeating William for the first and only time in 16 years. We have to ignore the fact that only William could have benefitted from turning the lights out.

There are so many things that we have to come up with excuses for to exonerate William.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Where has this lung infection come from? I can’t recall seeing it mentioned anywhere?

Julia's words, she said she had bronchitis on the day of her death.

[Herlock Sholmes]

and call John Parkes not only an exaggerator but complete liar.

Id say that he was one or the other. Probably the latter.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. . Julia has been spitting blood from a lung infection, p

Where has this lung infection come from? I can’t recall seeing it mentioned anywhere?

[WallaceWackedHer]

Hi Herlock,

I finally caught up with all the Wallace posts and have several observations to make as time allows. Firstly, I had coincidentally been wondering if William was the 'street angel, house devil' type when I read your post. Here is my latest take on the case, for what it’s worth:

IF Wallace was guilty...

...the motive really shouldn’t be a sticking point. Nobody knew the true nature of the relationship he had with his wife. Not even Julia could have known if he was harbouring a secret wish to do her in, while giving everyone the impression that he was perfectly contented. IF he killed her, there is very little doubt in my mind that he planned it alone and carried it out alone. He was surely too intelligent and cautious to risk involving a dodgy character like Parry in his scheme. How could a man like that be trusted to play along and never tell? If it was true that Parry was fond of Julia, it would have been insane for Wallace to try and talk him into being an accomplice to her murder. Ditto anyone else who knew the couple. A refusal would have been disastrous for Wallace and an open invitation to blackmail him.

On balance, I would say that if Wallace COULD have murdered his wife, he probably did. He was always going to be the prime suspect if he could not be eliminated, or if nobody else could be found guilty. That is a very long way from saying his conviction was safe. It wasn’t. There wasn’t nearly enough evidence against him for that. Nothing connected him directly to that horrific scene in the parlour. So Wallace could have gambled on the jury acquitting him on the grounds of reasonable doubt, which they should have done. His appeal put that right, but it doesn’t follow that he was innocent. He had a very good chance with the reasonable doubt defence because of the considerable two-hour window in which the murder might have been committed while he was out and about gathering witnesses. He would surely have appreciated the difficulties in pinpointing time of death precisely enough to incriminate him and only him. If her estimated time of death could have been any later than 7pm, that was reasonable doubt, right there.

I do think a guilty Wallace could have seen it as the ultimate game of chess, which, if he won, would give him the satisfaction of getting away with the perfect murder and being free to live out his remaining days without the burden of this much older woman, who was described by one witness as ‘dirty’. She apparently did little in the way of keeping herself or the house clean and tidy, and appears to have been a bit of a hypochondriac, while her considerably younger husband had a genuinely life-threatening health condition. If he lost, he knew his days were numbered anyway, and the hangman would make the end mercifully quick and relatively painless. Either outcome would elevate him from the colourless, unremarkable life of an insurance salesman to the fame or infamy involved in the endlessly fascinating study of murder. Maybe he wanted his wife to die in such a brutal fashion for this very reason. Where was the challenge in quietly poisoning her and getting a ‘natural causes’ verdict, due to her age and lack of suspicious circumstances? It would be odd if Wallace was totally unaware of his wife’s real age, so did he lie about it after her murder, to conceal the huge age gap between them? That would be a black mark against him, whether it contributed to his motive or he was worried the police would think so.

I also find it odd that when Wallace returned from his fruitless trip to Menlove Gardens, and the Johnstons saw him trying to enter the house, he made a point of saying to them: “I have been out since a quarter to seven”. Who says that?? What relevance was he attaching to that precise time and why would he need the Johnstons to know? Was it so they would appreciate he hadn’t just nipped out, but had been away long enough for a terrible crime to have been committed in his absence? He couldn’t be certain at that point that several witnesses, all strangers to him, would confirm that Wallace had spoken to them during that absence. In this context I don’t find it the least bit strange that an address was chosen that didn’t exist. The object was for Wallace to be out of the house long enough, vainly trying to find the place, regardless of who committed the crime. Not so good if he could have gone there and found it straight away without anyone’s help. Incidentally, I can’t see any relevance in 25 being chosen because it’s an odd number, as WWH suggested. Since the street itself didn’t exist, it could have been any number. The only possible relevance might be that ‘Qualtrough’ was familiar enough with the Menlove Gardens area to make sure the number was not too high to be credible.

Things get even odder back inside the house, when the Johnstons saw Wallace reach for the cash box to inspect it, just after he had found his wife in the parlour with her head smashed in. I’d hate to think of my husband checking to see what cash might have been taken, if he’d just come home to find me dead and bloody on the floor! Was this also for the Johnstons’ benefit, so they would assume he was genuinely checking for signs of a burglary? It was pretty convenient, after all, that the lone ‘Anfield Housebreaker’, as well as some particularly nasty gangs of thieves and thugs, were operating in the area at the time, any of which Wallace might have hoped the police would connect to this crime without spelling it out. He needn’t only have had Parry in mind as a scapegoat, because he knew Julia would have invited him in. Two or more gang members could have served as the strangers she would not have admitted, because they could have gained access anyway, using skeleton keys and leaving no signs of forced entry. If he lied about the front door being bolted against him, that’s another black mark.

Going back to Wallace’s precisely stated departure time of a quarter to seven, I can see why he would not have mentioned that night’s milk delivery to the police. IF he was guilty, he knew he’d been able to do the deed and leave for his bogus 7.30 appointment before it would have been suspiciously late to be seen by the first witness on his outward journey. So it could have been riskier to draw attention to the milk boy and his timing, as if he had a reason for holding a stopwatch over the lad, when he was supposed to be preparing to leave the house on business and his wife was the one who took in the milk anyway. If he’d been innocent, would he even have recalled this routine delivery, let alone appreciated its potential significance? Probably not, if Close had been and gone a good ten minutes before Wallace claimed to leave the house. And he couldn’t risk lying about the time, and putting it any later, in case this could be contradicted by more than one witness, including Close. That would be yet another black mark. So it could have done him more harm than good to mention it up front.

BUT, if Close had made his delivery as late as 6.45, or just a minute or two before, and Wallace was therefore innocent, I cannot believe he would NOT have remembered, when being quizzed by the police as the obvious suspect, the milk boy’s knock on the door, and Julia taking in the milk, virtually coinciding with him putting on his coat and being seen off on the bogus mission by his still very much alive wife. Bearing in mind his perfect recall, when informing the Johnstons that he had left Julia alive at precisely “a quarter to seven”, it beggars belief that it could have completely slipped his mind if the milk boy had also seen her alive around the same time. If he had mentioned that first, and others had then corroborated his timing, he’d almost certainly have put himself in the clear. So for me, Close must have come quite a few minutes earlier than 6.45, and Wallace either didn’t think any more about it if he was innocent, or he had been on tenterhooks, waiting to strike as soon as the wretched boy had gone and the coast was clear. That was why Close was so important in my view – not to provide an alibi after the fact. Wallace couldn’t have known if Close would deliver early, at his usual time, late or not at all. All he knew was that the milk would be due at some point, and he couldn’t have the boy knocking while he was whacking Julia, or immediately afterwards. If he was innocent, it was terribly unfortunate that he didn’t leave for Menlove Gardens in better time, considering he was so unsure about how he was going to find the right address and would need to use the tongue in his head. Had he left just a minute or two before the milk was delivered, he’d have avoided being the last known person to see his wife alive. IF he killed her, that was the one thing he could do nothing about.

Before the murder, and acting alone, Wallace would have relied on the movements and reactions of several people before he could go ahead with the plan. On the Monday he relied on nobody arriving at the phone box and waiting to use it while he was calling the chess club; Beattie not recognising his voice and asking what his game was; and nobody at the club telling him the address definitely didn’t exist. On the Tuesday he relied on Julia not taking to her bed with that bad cold, and Close not delivering the milk too late. Only Wallace could control his own moves, and he could have abandoned the game at the first obstacle to winning it, and right up until he was ready to inflict the first blow. If anyone else had made that phone call to get Wallace out of the way, so a crime could be committed in his house while his wife was home alone, they would have had absolutely no control over whether he would even get the message, let alone play along with it. For Wallace it would mean going out on another dark winter’s evening the very next day, having recently recovered from the flu, while his wife had a bad cold. He didn’t know who Qualtrough was, or how to find his address, or whether it would be worth his while financially when he got there.

I might just possibly have seen Parry, or someone like him, making that call in an attempt to lure Wallace out of the house, if he knew a gang member or two who were up for another spot of burglary and could give them the tip about the cash box in return for a share of the spoils. If Wallace then failed to leave the house, the thieves could simply abandon the plan and go looking elsewhere. But if the caller knew Julia would be at home, and had any feelings for her at all, it wouldn’t work for me. Parry would surely not have been so naive as to imagine it would not end badly for this vulnerable woman, being at the mercy of a thug who wasn’t there to play nicely.

IF Wallace did it, and was a bit of a control freak where Julia was concerned, he could easily have ordered her into the parlour after the milk had been delivered, to dry his mackintosh in front of the gas fire while he was getting ready, so he could take it with him to MGE in case it began to rain again. I don’t think it’s natural for a woman to put a mackintosh over her shoulders to answer the door if she keeps a coat in the hall. Julia didn’t need it to keep herself dry and it wouldn’t have provided much warmth. While she was busy following her husband’s instruction, he could have pounced on her and inflicted the first blow, which was thought to be fatal. The blood spray would have ceased when the heart stopped pumping, so as long as the initial spray was directed away from himself, he could have used the mackintosh as a shield for the subsequent blows and avoided getting the red stuff on himself. In a similar historic bludgeoning case, involving similar blood spray in the room, a modern forensic reconstruction was done using animal or fake blood, to see if the suspect could have killed the female victim without getting covered in blood himself. It had been argued that this would have been impossible and therefore the man must have been innocent because no blood was found on him. The reconstruction, for the tv programme Murder, Mystery & My Family, was carried out by a scientist wearing white overalls and taking no particular precautions. She didn’t get a speck of blood on her, proving it was indeed possible that the suspect was guilty after all. Not evidence that he was, but he couldn’t be eliminated on that basis alone. So I’m afraid if anyone is still arguing that it was impossible for no blood to have been found on Wallace if he was guilty, they are simply mistaken. It also makes perfect sense that Wallace would have moved the body and his mackintosh away from the fire to prevent the house being set on fire. Would anyone else have bothered? In fact it might have done them a bit of good to have the whole place burned to the ground along with all the evidence they might otherwise have left behind.

Apologies for the long post, so I’ll leave it there for now. I might have some more thoughts after the weekend...

Love,

Caz
X

Parry doesn't need to know what he's ringing for. After the deed is done, he's now essentially an accomplice to murder and would be terrified to come forward. Same in a robbery scenario, I don't think he wanted Julia killed - the plan is to keep her busy while things are looted and the thugs leave with her none the wiser. I don't think he for a second thinks these people will beat her to death, I also don't think he's the "ringleader" in any case, I think he's an upper class drama-club boy trying to pretend he's a gangster who's in desperate need of money.

Intuitively although it makes less sense, I feel like a person such as Marsden was the one who came and was admitted by Julia, and that he's the killer.

If you're saying there's no way the two could have been in on it together then that's strong for innocence, because for Parry to have no involvement you have to ignore a fake alibi with a match on timing, and call John Parkes not only an exaggerator but complete liar.

The oddities are exactly what paints a picture of guilt. He's literally incriminating himself, but without coming home to a dead wife things would seem weird rather than insidious. The Johnstons are apparently innocent yet there's nobody saying it's suspicious or proof of guilt that they told Wallace to go upstairs after they've seen from outside he checked upstairs, and when there's a dead body lying there... And some accounts have Johnston asking Wallace if anything is missing before taking down the cash box (most actually), and there are coins on the floor to clue any observer into the fact that something could be missing there. Johnston asked Wallace how much money had been taken, Wallace didn't volunteer it.

The behavior of the Johnstons in the house is actually weirder than Wallace's, but few people use this against them. The prosecution actually tried to use THEIR words against Wallace "whatever have they used?".

What you're saying about Close doesn't make sense. Apparently he's trying to beat the clock, if Alan is the only person to corroborate that Julia wasn't dead by 10 past 6 he has no alibi if Close doesn't come forward. He doesn't need to say "Alan came at ___" he just has to say, when asked who was the last person to see Julia alive, that it might have been the milk boy.

And you also can't expect anyone to NOT expect to be drenched. In a plan the one he's spent ages concocting has so many fail points as to make it a bad one. Julia has been spitting blood from a lung infection, poison wouldn't have been checked for unless it's mega obvious... So it does get into the territory where it's like, he has to be doing it to create intrigue for future generations.

Which seems bizarre...

I don't know what was done with the jacket I'm just going by Mrs. Johnston saying she thought that was the case, because remember only the Johnstons and Wallace saw the original positioning. And maybe some officers? The crime scene photograph completely altered the position of the body.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I finally caught up with all the Wallace posts and have several observations to make as time allows. Firstly, I had coincidentally been wondering if William was the 'street angel, house devil' type when I read your post. Here is my latest take on the case, for what it’s worth:

IF Wallace was guilty...

...the motive really shouldn’t be a sticking point. Nobody knew the true nature of the relationship he had with his wife. Not even Julia could have known if he was harbouring a secret wish to do her in, while giving everyone the impression that he was perfectly contented. IF he killed her, there is very little doubt in my mind that he planned it alone and carried it out alone. He was surely too intelligent and cautious to risk involving a dodgy character like Parry in his scheme. How could a man like that be trusted to play along and never tell? If it was true that Parry was fond of Julia, it would have been insane for Wallace to try and talk him into being an accomplice to her murder. Ditto anyone else who knew the couple. A refusal would have been disastrous for Wallace and an open invitation to blackmail him.

On balance, I would say that if Wallace COULD have murdered his wife, he probably did. He was always going to be the prime suspect if he could not be eliminated, or if nobody else could be found guilty. That is a very long way from saying his conviction was safe. It wasn’t. There wasn’t nearly enough evidence against him for that. Nothing connected him directly to that horrific scene in the parlour. So Wallace could have gambled on the jury acquitting him on the grounds of reasonable doubt, which they should have done. His appeal put that right, but it doesn’t follow that he was innocent. He had a very good chance with the reasonable doubt defence because of the considerable two-hour window in which the murder might have been committed while he was out and about gathering witnesses. He would surely have appreciated the difficulties in pinpointing time of death precisely enough to incriminate him and only him. If her estimated time of death could have been any later than 7pm, that was reasonable doubt, right there.

I do think a guilty Wallace could have seen it as the ultimate game of chess, which, if he won, would give him the satisfaction of getting away with the perfect murder and being free to live out his remaining days without the burden of this much older woman, who was described by one witness as ‘dirty’. She apparently did little in the way of keeping herself or the house clean and tidy, and appears to have been a bit of a hypochondriac, while her considerably younger husband had a genuinely life-threatening health condition. If he lost, he knew his days were numbered anyway, and the hangman would make the end mercifully quick and relatively painless. Either outcome would elevate him from the colourless, unremarkable life of an insurance salesman to the fame or infamy involved in the endlessly fascinating study of murder. Maybe he wanted his wife to die in such a brutal fashion for this very reason. Where was the challenge in quietly poisoning her and getting a ‘natural causes’ verdict, due to her age and lack of suspicious circumstances? It would be odd if Wallace was totally unaware of his wife’s real age, so did he lie about it after her murder, to conceal the huge age gap between them? That would be a black mark against him, whether it contributed to his motive or he was worried the police would think so.

I also find it odd that when Wallace returned from his fruitless trip to Menlove Gardens, and the Johnstons saw him trying to enter the house, he made a point of saying to them: “I have been out since a quarter to seven”. Who says that?? What relevance was he attaching to that precise time and why would he need the Johnstons to know? Was it so they would appreciate he hadn’t just nipped out, but had been away long enough for a terrible crime to have been committed in his absence? He couldn’t be certain at that point that several witnesses, all strangers to him, would confirm that Wallace had spoken to them during that absence. In this context I don’t find it the least bit strange that an address was chosen that didn’t exist. The object was for Wallace to be out of the house long enough, vainly trying to find the place, regardless of who committed the crime. Not so good if he could have gone there and found it straight away without anyone’s help. Incidentally, I can’t see any relevance in 25 being chosen because it’s an odd number, as WWH suggested. Since the street itself didn’t exist, it could have been any number. The only possible relevance might be that ‘Qualtrough’ was familiar enough with the Menlove Gardens area to make sure the number was not too high to be credible.

Things get even odder back inside the house, when the Johnstons saw Wallace reach for the cash box to inspect it, just after he had found his wife in the parlour with her head smashed in. I’d hate to think of my husband checking to see what cash might have been taken, if he’d just come home to find me dead and bloody on the floor! Was this also for the Johnstons’ benefit, so they would assume he was genuinely checking for signs of a burglary? It was pretty convenient, after all, that the lone ‘Anfield Housebreaker’, as well as some particularly nasty gangs of thieves and thugs, were operating in the area at the time, any of which Wallace might have hoped the police would connect to this crime without spelling it out. He needn’t only have had Parry in mind as a scapegoat, because he knew Julia would have invited him in. Two or more gang members could have served as the strangers she would not have admitted, because they could have gained access anyway, using skeleton keys and leaving no signs of forced entry. If he lied about the front door being bolted against him, that’s another black mark.

Going back to Wallace’s precisely stated departure time of a quarter to seven, I can see why he would not have mentioned that night’s milk delivery to the police. IF he was guilty, he knew he’d been able to do the deed and leave for his bogus 7.30 appointment before it would have been suspiciously late to be seen by the first witness on his outward journey. So it could have been riskier to draw attention to the milk boy and his timing, as if he had a reason for holding a stopwatch over the lad, when he was supposed to be preparing to leave the house on business and his wife was the one who took in the milk anyway. If he’d been innocent, would he even have recalled this routine delivery, let alone appreciated its potential significance? Probably not, if Close had been and gone a good ten minutes before Wallace claimed to leave the house. And he couldn’t risk lying about the time, and putting it any later, in case this could be contradicted by more than one witness, including Close. That would be yet another black mark. So it could have done him more harm than good to mention it up front.

BUT, if Close had made his delivery as late as 6.45, or just a minute or two before, and Wallace was therefore innocent, I cannot believe he would NOT have remembered, when being quizzed by the police as the obvious suspect, the milk boy’s knock on the door, and Julia taking in the milk, virtually coinciding with him putting on his coat and being seen off on the bogus mission by his still very much alive wife. Bearing in mind his perfect recall, when informing the Johnstons that he had left Julia alive at precisely “a quarter to seven”, it beggars belief that it could have completely slipped his mind if the milk boy had also seen her alive around the same time. If he had mentioned that first, and others had then corroborated his timing, he’d almost certainly have put himself in the clear. So for me, Close must have come quite a few minutes earlier than 6.45, and Wallace either didn’t think any more about it if he was innocent, or he had been on tenterhooks, waiting to strike as soon as the wretched boy had gone and the coast was clear. That was why Close was so important in my view – not to provide an alibi after the fact. Wallace couldn’t have known if Close would deliver early, at his usual time, late or not at all. All he knew was that the milk would be due at some point, and he couldn’t have the boy knocking while he was whacking Julia, or immediately afterwards. If he was innocent, it was terribly unfortunate that he didn’t leave for Menlove Gardens in better time, considering he was so unsure about how he was going to find the right address and would need to use the tongue in his head. Had he left just a minute or two before the milk was delivered, he’d have avoided being the last known person to see his wife alive. IF he killed her, that was the one thing he could do nothing about.

Before the murder, and acting alone, Wallace would have relied on the movements and reactions of several people before he could go ahead with the plan. On the Monday he relied on nobody arriving at the phone box and waiting to use it while he was calling the chess club; Beattie not recognising his voice and asking what his game was; and nobody at the club telling him the address definitely didn’t exist. On the Tuesday he relied on Julia not taking to her bed with that bad cold, and Close not delivering the milk too late. Only Wallace could control his own moves, and he could have abandoned the game at the first obstacle to winning it, and right up until he was ready to inflict the first blow. If anyone else had made that phone call to get Wallace out of the way, so a crime could be committed in his house while his wife was home alone, they would have had absolutely no control over whether he would even get the message, let alone play along with it. For Wallace it would mean going out on another dark winter’s evening the very next day, having recently recovered from the flu, while his wife had a bad cold. He didn’t know who Qualtrough was, or how to find his address, or whether it would be worth his while financially when he got there.

I might just possibly have seen Parry, or someone like him, making that call in an attempt to lure Wallace out of the house, if he knew a gang member or two who were up for another spot of burglary and could give them the tip about the cash box in return for a share of the spoils. If Wallace then failed to leave the house, the thieves could simply abandon the plan and go looking elsewhere. But if the caller knew Julia would be at home, and had any feelings for her at all, it wouldn’t work for me. Parry would surely not have been so naive as to imagine it would not end badly for this vulnerable woman, being at the mercy of a thug who wasn’t there to play nicely.

IF Wallace did it, and was a bit of a control freak where Julia was concerned, he could easily have ordered her into the parlour after the milk had been delivered, to dry his mackintosh in front of the gas fire while he was getting ready, so he could take it with him to MGE in case it began to rain again. I don’t think it’s natural for a woman to put a mackintosh over her shoulders to answer the door if she keeps a coat in the hall. Julia didn’t need it to keep herself dry and it wouldn’t have provided much warmth. While she was busy following her husband’s instruction, he could have pounced on her and inflicted the first blow, which was thought to be fatal. The blood spray would have ceased when the heart stopped pumping, so as long as the initial spray was directed away from himself, he could have used the mackintosh as a shield for the subsequent blows and avoided getting the red stuff on himself. In a similar historic bludgeoning case, involving similar blood spray in the room, a modern forensic reconstruction was done using animal or fake blood, to see if the suspect could have killed the female victim without getting covered in blood himself. It had been argued that this would have been impossible and therefore the man must have been innocent because no blood was found on him. The reconstruction, for the tv programme Murder, Mystery & My Family, was carried out by a scientist wearing white overalls and taking no particular precautions. She didn’t get a speck of blood on her, proving it was indeed possible that the suspect was guilty after all. Not evidence that he was, but he couldn’t be eliminated on that basis alone. So I’m afraid if anyone is still arguing that it was impossible for no blood to have been found on Wallace if he was guilty, they are simply mistaken. It also makes perfect sense that Wallace would have moved the body and his mackintosh away from the fire to prevent the house being set on fire. Would anyone else have bothered? In fact it might have done them a bit of good to have the whole place burned to the ground along with all the evidence they might otherwise have left behind.

Apologies for the long post, so I’ll leave it there for now. I might have some more thoughts after the weekend...

Love,

Caz
X

Well this is uncanny.

It was only a matter of hours ago that I was thinking of former regular posters on the Wallace case and naturally I thought of you. And here you are! Welcome back to Wallace Land Caz

No need to apologise for the long post (a complaint on that subject would be a bit rich coming from me) as its always good to hear your thoughts.

Unsurprisingly I see nothing to disagree with in your comments.

The points about Close are interesting. Might he not have mentioned Close in case (or even in the hope that he didn’t come forward?) After all, he only came forward because he was told to do so by his friends. If he hadnt have mentioned it to them though who can say whether he’d have said anything at all. Wallace arrived at his destination with only 10 minutes to spare to look for an address in an area that he was, according to him, a complete stranger. This has always seemed a bit tight for me considering the picture we have of Wallace as a meticulous, everything by the book type character. Discovering that the milk boy was late may have given the police a reason for this “ahh, he was delayed from setting out because the milk boy was late and he couldn’t kill her until he’d gone.” This also causes a conflict for me when we ask why he didn’t simply check a directory during the day on Tuesday to eliminate all doubts about how to get to 25 MGE?

The “I’ve been out since 6.45” comment certainly seems forced. It’s certainly superfluous. Some things just don’t sound right, but of course we can’t be certain.

I’d certainly have a poor opinion of Mr Brown if you were lying seriously injured or dead and he was busy checking the contents of the cash box! (Of course you have huge vault at Brown Towers)The general impression of Wallace being rather cold and detached might simply have been because he was a cold and detached person. Someone capable of murder perhaps.

I can recall mentioning in the past the possibility that the mackintosh was drying over a chair. Wallace might have told Julia that he’d intended to wear it that evening. I wouldn’t mind seeing that episode of Murder, Mystery and My Family again. I recall that we discussed the similarities at the time. You don’t happen to recall any of the names involved do you Caz, so that I can try to locate it?

By the way, I’d heartily recommend the series to other posters if you haven’t already seen them. There are a few episodes on YouTube.

Possibly another coincidence to add to the re-appearance of Caz is that I’ve just clicked on one episode which might actually be the one that Caz mentioned. I don’t have time to watch it now though as I’m heading out.

Good to hear from you Caz

[caz]

It is quite clear though, that William is the one who wears the pants in the relationship. He has total dominance over that woman which can be seen from statements like the one given by Antony's NHS friend, and some in books I've read some months ago which I can't remember (but amounted to saying that Julia would avoid having friends and rush back to her Wolverton Street prison)... And even in statements by others about Wallace's "concern" for her (like not wanting to leave her home alone), which if you read between the lines actually means he's controlling and overprotective.

If anyone has a motive to murder it would be Julia against William.

Wallace thinks of Julia almost as a prized possession. She's truly whipped.

But WWH, you are describing precisely the kind of man who so often ends up destroying the woman he professes to love. Control is all about power, not love and affection. Partners who are controlled in this way for any length of time can often lose their ability to see it, or the will to fight back. The ultimate control is murder. The ultimate power would be to do it and get away with it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

TV Reader's Digest - Britain's Most Baffling Murder Case (1956) video uploaded:

https://www.williamherbertwallace.com/videos/britains-most-baffling-murder/

Nice to see an accurate reconstruction of the case.

I wonder why they changed so much?

Enjoyable to watch though. I’d never seen this one before. Thanks for posting it WWH

[caz]

An interesting snippet from Antony on the Wallace’s relationship. It was emailed to him before Christmas by an NHS Doctor who had read his book.


“I treated Julia Wallace’s old neighbour whose back yard door faced the Wallace’s back yard door, Im assuming she lived in Richmond Park. This lady was in her 80s 20 years ago and was still very bright when I dealt with her. I asked her about the murder and she mentioned that she remembered the police taking the body out of the Wallace’s back yard in a coffin with bright arc lights and a tarpaulin over the back door. The neighbour knew Mrs Wallace however there was quite an age gap between the two of them. They did have a mutual friend whose name was Mrs or Miss Lamb who was younger than Julia but older than the neighbour. Mrs/Miss Lamb would have a coffee with both parties, though separately. Mrs lamb told the neighbour that Julia would often say “I need to get home before William gets home”. The neighbour describes William as a “street angel, house devil”, her words not mine and that Mrs Lamb got the impression that if Julia wasn’t scared of William she was wary of him.”

This should, at the very least, give us pause for thought before blithely accepting that the Wallace’s were Ken and Barbie.

Hi Herlock,

I finally caught up with all the Wallace posts and have several observations to make as time allows. Firstly, I had coincidentally been wondering if William was the 'street angel, house devil' type when I read your post. Here is my latest take on the case, for what it’s worth:

IF Wallace was guilty...

...the motive really shouldn’t be a sticking point. Nobody knew the true nature of the relationship he had with his wife. Not even Julia could have known if he was harbouring a secret wish to do her in, while giving everyone the impression that he was perfectly contented. IF he killed her, there is very little doubt in my mind that he planned it alone and carried it out alone. He was surely too intelligent and cautious to risk involving a dodgy character like Parry in his scheme. How could a man like that be trusted to play along and never tell? If it was true that Parry was fond of Julia, it would have been insane for Wallace to try and talk him into being an accomplice to her murder. Ditto anyone else who knew the couple. A refusal would have been disastrous for Wallace and an open invitation to blackmail him.

On balance, I would say that if Wallace COULD have murdered his wife, he probably did. He was always going to be the prime suspect if he could not be eliminated, or if nobody else could be found guilty. That is a very long way from saying his conviction was safe. It wasn’t. There wasn’t nearly enough evidence against him for that. Nothing connected him directly to that horrific scene in the parlour. So Wallace could have gambled on the jury acquitting him on the grounds of reasonable doubt, which they should have done. His appeal put that right, but it doesn’t follow that he was innocent. He had a very good chance with the reasonable doubt defence because of the considerable two-hour window in which the murder might have been committed while he was out and about gathering witnesses. He would surely have appreciated the difficulties in pinpointing time of death precisely enough to incriminate him and only him. If her estimated time of death could have been any later than 7pm, that was reasonable doubt, right there.

I do think a guilty Wallace could have seen it as the ultimate game of chess, which, if he won, would give him the satisfaction of getting away with the perfect murder and being free to live out his remaining days without the burden of this much older woman, who was described by one witness as ‘dirty’. She apparently did little in the way of keeping herself or the house clean and tidy, and appears to have been a bit of a hypochondriac, while her considerably younger husband had a genuinely life-threatening health condition. If he lost, he knew his days were numbered anyway, and the hangman would make the end mercifully quick and relatively painless. Either outcome would elevate him from the colourless, unremarkable life of an insurance salesman to the fame or infamy involved in the endlessly fascinating study of murder. Maybe he wanted his wife to die in such a brutal fashion for this very reason. Where was the challenge in quietly poisoning her and getting a ‘natural causes’ verdict, due to her age and lack of suspicious circumstances? It would be odd if Wallace was totally unaware of his wife’s real age, so did he lie about it after her murder, to conceal the huge age gap between them? That would be a black mark against him, whether it contributed to his motive or he was worried the police would think so.

I also find it odd that when Wallace returned from his fruitless trip to Menlove Gardens, and the Johnstons saw him trying to enter the house, he made a point of saying to them: “I have been out since a quarter to seven”. Who says that?? What relevance was he attaching to that precise time and why would he need the Johnstons to know? Was it so they would appreciate he hadn’t just nipped out, but had been away long enough for a terrible crime to have been committed in his absence? He couldn’t be certain at that point that several witnesses, all strangers to him, would confirm that Wallace had spoken to them during that absence. In this context I don’t find it the least bit strange that an address was chosen that didn’t exist. The object was for Wallace to be out of the house long enough, vainly trying to find the place, regardless of who committed the crime. Not so good if he could have gone there and found it straight away without anyone’s help. Incidentally, I can’t see any relevance in 25 being chosen because it’s an odd number, as WWH suggested. Since the street itself didn’t exist, it could have been any number. The only possible relevance might be that ‘Qualtrough’ was familiar enough with the Menlove Gardens area to make sure the number was not too high to be credible.

Things get even odder back inside the house, when the Johnstons saw Wallace reach for the cash box to inspect it, just after he had found his wife in the parlour with her head smashed in. I’d hate to think of my husband checking to see what cash might have been taken, if he’d just come home to find me dead and bloody on the floor! Was this also for the Johnstons’ benefit, so they would assume he was genuinely checking for signs of a burglary? It was pretty convenient, after all, that the lone ‘Anfield Housebreaker’, as well as some particularly nasty gangs of thieves and thugs, were operating in the area at the time, any of which Wallace might have hoped the police would connect to this crime without spelling it out. He needn’t only have had Parry in mind as a scapegoat, because he knew Julia would have invited him in. Two or more gang members could have served as the strangers she would not have admitted, because they could have gained access anyway, using skeleton keys and leaving no signs of forced entry. If he lied about the front door being bolted against him, that’s another black mark.

Going back to Wallace’s precisely stated departure time of a quarter to seven, I can see why he would not have mentioned that night’s milk delivery to the police. IF he was guilty, he knew he’d been able to do the deed and leave for his bogus 7.30 appointment before it would have been suspiciously late to be seen by the first witness on his outward journey. So it could have been riskier to draw attention to the milk boy and his timing, as if he had a reason for holding a stopwatch over the lad, when he was supposed to be preparing to leave the house on business and his wife was the one who took in the milk anyway. If he’d been innocent, would he even have recalled this routine delivery, let alone appreciated its potential significance? Probably not, if Close had been and gone a good ten minutes before Wallace claimed to leave the house. And he couldn’t risk lying about the time, and putting it any later, in case this could be contradicted by more than one witness, including Close. That would be yet another black mark. So it could have done him more harm than good to mention it up front.

BUT, if Close had made his delivery as late as 6.45, or just a minute or two before, and Wallace was therefore innocent, I cannot believe he would NOT have remembered, when being quizzed by the police as the obvious suspect, the milk boy’s knock on the door, and Julia taking in the milk, virtually coinciding with him putting on his coat and being seen off on the bogus mission by his still very much alive wife. Bearing in mind his perfect recall, when informing the Johnstons that he had left Julia alive at precisely “a quarter to seven”, it beggars belief that it could have completely slipped his mind if the milk boy had also seen her alive around the same time. If he had mentioned that first, and others had then corroborated his timing, he’d almost certainly have put himself in the clear. So for me, Close must have come quite a few minutes earlier than 6.45, and Wallace either didn’t think any more about it if he was innocent, or he had been on tenterhooks, waiting to strike as soon as the wretched boy had gone and the coast was clear. That was why Close was so important in my view – not to provide an alibi after the fact. Wallace couldn’t have known if Close would deliver early, at his usual time, late or not at all. All he knew was that the milk would be due at some point, and he couldn’t have the boy knocking while he was whacking Julia, or immediately afterwards. If he was innocent, it was terribly unfortunate that he didn’t leave for Menlove Gardens in better time, considering he was so unsure about how he was going to find the right address and would need to use the tongue in his head. Had he left just a minute or two before the milk was delivered, he’d have avoided being the last known person to see his wife alive. IF he killed her, that was the one thing he could do nothing about.

Before the murder, and acting alone, Wallace would have relied on the movements and reactions of several people before he could go ahead with the plan. On the Monday he relied on nobody arriving at the phone box and waiting to use it while he was calling the chess club; Beattie not recognising his voice and asking what his game was; and nobody at the club telling him the address definitely didn’t exist. On the Tuesday he relied on Julia not taking to her bed with that bad cold, and Close not delivering the milk too late. Only Wallace could control his own moves, and he could have abandoned the game at the first obstacle to winning it, and right up until he was ready to inflict the first blow. If anyone else had made that phone call to get Wallace out of the way, so a crime could be committed in his house while his wife was home alone, they would have had absolutely no control over whether he would even get the message, let alone play along with it. For Wallace it would mean going out on another dark winter’s evening the very next day, having recently recovered from the flu, while his wife had a bad cold. He didn’t know who Qualtrough was, or how to find his address, or whether it would be worth his while financially when he got there.

I might just possibly have seen Parry, or someone like him, making that call in an attempt to lure Wallace out of the house, if he knew a gang member or two who were up for another spot of burglary and could give them the tip about the cash box in return for a share of the spoils. If Wallace then failed to leave the house, the thieves could simply abandon the plan and go looking elsewhere. But if the caller knew Julia would be at home, and had any feelings for her at all, it wouldn’t work for me. Parry would surely not have been so naive as to imagine it would not end badly for this vulnerable woman, being at the mercy of a thug who wasn’t there to play nicely.

IF Wallace did it, and was a bit of a control freak where Julia was concerned, he could easily have ordered her into the parlour after the milk had been delivered, to dry his mackintosh in front of the gas fire while he was getting ready, so he could take it with him to MGE in case it began to rain again. I don’t think it’s natural for a woman to put a mackintosh over her shoulders to answer the door if she keeps a coat in the hall. Julia didn’t need it to keep herself dry and it wouldn’t have provided much warmth. While she was busy following her husband’s instruction, he could have pounced on her and inflicted the first blow, which was thought to be fatal. The blood spray would have ceased when the heart stopped pumping, so as long as the initial spray was directed away from himself, he could have used the mackintosh as a shield for the subsequent blows and avoided getting the red stuff on himself. In a similar historic bludgeoning case, involving similar blood spray in the room, a modern forensic reconstruction was done using animal or fake blood, to see if the suspect could have killed the female victim without getting covered in blood himself. It had been argued that this would have been impossible and therefore the man must have been innocent because no blood was found on him. The reconstruction, for the tv programme Murder, Mystery & My Family, was carried out by a scientist wearing white overalls and taking no particular precautions. She didn’t get a speck of blood on her, proving it was indeed possible that the suspect was guilty after all. Not evidence that he was, but he couldn’t be eliminated on that basis alone. So I’m afraid if anyone is still arguing that it was impossible for no blood to have been found on Wallace if he was guilty, they are simply mistaken. It also makes perfect sense that Wallace would have moved the body and his mackintosh away from the fire to prevent the house being set on fire. Would anyone else have bothered? In fact it might have done them a bit of good to have the whole place burned to the ground along with all the evidence they might otherwise have left behind.

Apologies for the long post, so I’ll leave it there for now. I might have some more thoughts after the weekend...

Love,

Caz
X

[WallaceWackedHer]

Surely the fact that they found no evidence of lung disease points to the fact she had no more than a cold.

Any form of unhappiness could provide a motive especially as we can’t know what William was thinking at the time. Motive is quite simply a non-existent issue here. As the evidence points fairly obviously to William as the killer a motive certainly existed. We have people that saw the Wallace’s at close hand saying that they weren’t a happy/loving couple. It’s hardly surprising that in front of friends and acquaintances the Wallace’s might have intentionally presented a front. After all, you’ve suggested that he could have been domineering, controlling and over protective (which a good friend like Caird didn’t detect.)

Also we have the age issue. Many people whittle a bit off their true age, usually for reasons of vanity. But 16 years?! It’s quite a staggering amount. Julia is actually old enough to have been William’s mother! We can’t prove this of course but imagine what effect might the discovery of this fact have had on a loveless marriage? Consider a husband with an illness which he might reasonably have expected very few years of life remaining?

What? Who didn't find a lung infection? Julia told the baker's boy she had a lung infection.

I don't think they're both unhappy I think it's the way William is, he's emotionally cold/distant and people who encounter him are going to view him as uncaring and callous. His entire life philosophy is to expect nothing out of life. He had the same exact job and round for a decade; humdrum seems to be something he's comfortable with. He plays chess with by the book strategies, everything he does exudes that uptight bookish character. I should imagine he's content.

If anyone wasn't content it would have been Julia. But she seems to clearly have bent over to adopt the "stoic" booky life of her husband, and I think she's done this without force - just submitted due to her nature. She's from an even older time so probably the values of being a housewife and to give control to your husband is probably something that was more of a "thing" for her.

Wallace was told he had months to live many, many times throughout his life. We don't have evidence he was recently told that though (but has been told so years prior). People have to pretend he's analyzing his urine in his lab lol.

The case against him is weak and unfounded. The burglary seems staged, that is a mark against him (or at least someone who knows her well) for sure.

What I could maybe see happening but it would require Parkes to be lying, is that the attack on Julia was not premeditated - but he realized after killing her that he could implicate the man he figured was behind the prank call, or simply go out to this meeting and pretend someone broke in while he was out even if he thought it was a real meeting...

Seeing that body there, it just strikes me as a sudden violent attack. The hit being on the front of the head seems to support that too. It doesn't really make much sense in premeditation, since the obvious thing would be to hit her on the back of the head as she's lighting the fire unless he hesitated a lot... The positioning of the hit and some other things about the events strike me strongly as a momentary act of violence.

As the caller the case against him, well, there isn't one. There is not any evidence at all to say that even if he's guilty the caller has to be him and not someone he put up to it. Evidence supports another man calling moreso.

As the killer the case against him is supported by only one piece of evidence in the form of his jacket. Nothing else suggests even if he's guilty it was he himself who murdered her, and the time of death with stomach contents etc, it's suggestive of a later time. Wallace would have to have worn gloves which would need to be incinerated we must recall that aspect.

There are even eyewitness accounts that suggest the involvement of more than one person... And if he's sooo reliant on time he would have brought up the milk boy to police... So I think the police were proven wrong in their idea he did it by himself. It's not possible for any reasonable man to say it's not more likely someone else placed the call at least, and with certain other aspects like the timing the Johnstons heard thuds is more consistent with a later time of killing too...

The Holmes heard a "body fall to the floor" but they heard that while Alan was at the door of 29 before it closed on him again, so unless he is being deceptive this cannot be possible (he says Julia spoke to him when she came back to the door).

And then the framing of Parry... Either Wallace is the luckiest man to walk the planet for it to work sooo perfectly in his favour by sheer coincidence, or Parry is involved and Wallace could be innocent or guilty.

Although the burglary looks staged, "no forced entry" must be discounted because that was the norm for robberies at the time. And I think it looks like an aborted burglary as much as it does a staged one with that aside. AKA I think Julia's been hit and then the robbery ends when everyone figured what's happened.

I think purely by the character of these people and the dynamics between them, I think neither Wallace nor Parry would murder Julia, or willingly take part in a plot that involves her murder... I think Parry is involved in a robbery plot, and I think his scumbag pals did her in... If Parkes was lying - but intuitively I trust what he's saying - I might think he pranked William and William decided if he went out on his trip he could pretend someone broke in while he was away... I could see Wallace then because a domestic abuse type sudden attack may have taken place... It does NOT look like a premeditated murder to me when I look at the body.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Shortly before her death Wallace had called Curwen on the phone because Julia was spitting blood and he thought she might have pneumonia. It's likely she did have some kind of lung disease or infection on the day she died, which should have been taken into account because it speeds up rigor (like old age). I would have thought Curwen would have been able to give a more substantial statement, especially since she visited him the night before her death.

To be frank, the bad comments refer mainly to "indifference". The same air of "indifference" that would prejudice the police/McFall against him during their investigation, and the jury against him on his trial. It's clear he's a man who comes across as very callous in almost all situations, including when it comes to his own impending death.

I'd say Mr. Jones' comment is the worst, where he says Julia felt she'd lowered herself by marrying an insurance agent.

It is quite clear though, that William is the one who wears the pants in the relationship. He has total dominance over that woman which can be seen from statements like the one given by Antony's NHS friend, and some in books I've read some months ago which I can't remember (but amounted to saying that Julia would avoid having friends and rush back to her Wolverton Street prison)... And even in statements by others about Wallace's "concern" for her (like not wanting to leave her home alone), which if you read between the lines actually means he's controlling and overprotective.

If anyone has a motive to murder it would be Julia against William.

Wallace thinks of Julia almost as a prized possession. She's truly whipped.

Surely the fact that they found no evidence of lung disease points to the fact she had no more than a cold.

Any form of unhappiness could provide a motive especially as we can’t know what William was thinking at the time. Motive is quite simply a non-existent issue here. As the evidence points fairly obviously to William as the killer a motive certainly existed. We have people that saw the Wallace’s at close hand saying that they weren’t a happy/loving couple. It’s hardly surprising that in front of friends and acquaintances the Wallace’s might have intentionally presented a front. After all, you’ve suggested that he could have been domineering, controlling and over protective (which a good friend like Caird didn’t detect.)

Also we have the age issue. Many people whittle a bit off their true age, usually for reasons of vanity. But 16 years?! It’s quite a staggering amount. Julia is actually old enough to have been William’s mother! We can’t prove this of course but imagine what effect might the discovery of this fact have had on a loveless marriage? Consider a husband with an illness which he might reasonably have expected very few years of life remaining?

[WallaceWackedHer]

I might have to look into this to see actually how many. I see Caird. The Johnston’s had been in the house three times but never when the Wallace’s were together. I could be wrong but I think there’s a possibility that a bit of exaggerating and assuming has gone on over the years. After all, the Wallace’s were hardly the Kardashians.

Shortly before her death Wallace had called Curwen on the phone because Julia was spitting blood and he thought she might have pneumonia. It's likely she did have some kind of lung disease or infection on the day she died, which should have been taken into account because it speeds up rigor (like old age). I would have thought Curwen would have been able to give a more substantial statement, especially since she visited him the night before her death.

To be frank, the bad comments refer mainly to "indifference". The same air of "indifference" that would prejudice the police/McFall against him during their investigation, and the jury against him on his trial. It's clear he's a man who comes across as very callous in almost all situations, including when it comes to his own impending death.

I'd say Mr. Jones' comment is the worst, where he says Julia felt she'd lowered herself by marrying an insurance agent.

It is quite clear though, that William is the one who wears the pants in the relationship. He has total dominance over that woman which can be seen from statements like the one given by Antony's NHS friend, and some in books I've read some months ago which I can't remember (but amounted to saying that Julia would avoid having friends and rush back to her Wolverton Street prison)... And even in statements by others about Wallace's "concern" for her (like not wanting to leave her home alone), which if you read between the lines actually means he's controlling and overprotective.

If anyone has a motive to murder it would be Julia against William.

Wallace thinks of Julia almost as a prized possession. She's truly whipped.