Amy Wallace, was she involved?

[WallaceWackedHer]

As would a button in the ashes. Burning can take ages. Fires can burn out leaving Wallace arriving back with a kitchen fire with a half burnt pair of trousers. Not a single solitary chance. If he had massive time yes. Under time pressure no.

Wallace used the mackintosh. It’s the only explanation. Wallace was guilty. I’m bored with excuses and misdirection. I’m tired of manipulations. We’ve got to the stage where we immediately assume dishonesty in the police but simply ignore it when we have Roland Oliver in black and white lying to Judges. But hey, it doesn’t matter as long as we can exonerate Wallace. I’ve lost interest in bashing my head against a brick wall of twisted logic and bias. Im absolutely despondent about this thread. I’ve no more interest in talking about Teflon William Wallace.

He's not the Teflon Don, I suggested a way in which he might have done it like a page ago. Is the brick wall of twisted logic and bias your own or was that aimed at me? Just wondering because only one person spent about 5 pages arguing for a completely disproven 6.30 arrival time, suggestions of near-jogging milk boys (which are possible but to claim as probable with no evidence is bunk), lying witnesses, "mistaken" Parry accidentally mixing up Monday and Friday (the silly goose), and has never ever considered any possibility other than the one first suggested by the almighty police force who we must all remember to bum at least once daily...

Give it to me Detective Moore! Oh yes! That's the spot! Cuff me daddy!



I have a real fireplace just like the olden days. I suggest you find one, take a crappy old shirt you hate, get a strong blaze going, then chuck the shirt in there. Come back after 2 hours and see what's left of it. The answer: Nothing (at the VERY least nothing discernible as having ever been a shirt). This is good for the argument for how it might have happened in a guilt scenario, I thought you would be rather pleased at a guilt suggestion.

The kitchen fire was still burning when he arrived home you understand. That's a minimum 2 hour blaze. You think a shirt and trousers is surviving that and coming out the other end still looking like a shirt/trousers (more likely reduced to complete ash)? Please I BEG you to try it and then see for yourself.

[caz]

Yeah well that's why I wrote allegedly, but also here we see the unbelievable extremity of bias. He can't possibly be telling the truth because he's OBVIOUSLY the killer. No alternative can even be considered. Therefore clearly his word is certainly unreliable.

It's insanely ridiculous.

I agree, WWH - so why did you write that? You even emphasised an OBVIOUSLY there, in a sentence entirely made up of your own words.

All I said was that a suspect's word is by definition unreliable without independent supporting evidence. In other words, if you are seeking to build a case against a burglar, using Wallace's claim that there was never any cash in the house when unoccupied, you need some other support for that claim, because IF [IF IF IF] Wallace may not have been the innocent flower you seem intent on painting him, and could have been lying to save his neck, his word alone is not good enough. If you can't get your head round this basic concept, then I do wonder if true crime is really your bag. Imagine this Q & A:

Q: "Why would a burglar lure you away, Mr Wallace, knowing your wife would still be at home?"

A: "Because if she wasn't at home, there would be no cash to steal. We always take everything with us when we are both out."

Q: "And how would a burglar know this?"

A: "Mmmm.... because we make no secret of it?"

I hope you were not seriously arguing the above in Wallace's defence, because it's patent nonsense.

If he didn't kill Julia then he may well be telling the truth, which then means the home can't be robbed if completely unoccupied.

While the first part is perfectly logical, the rest of it is not. If only Wallace knew his house couldn't be robbed when unoccupied, then only Wallace could have been Qualtrough, planning for his wife to be the victim of an apparent burglary:

BERTIE BURGLAR aka QUALTROUGH: I know the Wallace house can't be robbed when it's empty, because Wallace advertises the fact. So I'll have to do it while his wife is there, after luring him away.

Again, that would be patent nonsense.

Do you realize that if Alan Close didn't give his statement then William would have been executed? That does require foresight on his behalf to realize the importance of it of course, which he may not have.

But what about when Wallace was fighting for his life and then sentenced to death? What about his ghost-written memoirs after he rightly won his appeal? What about in his final days, when saying "We won, didn't we?" He clearly never did cast his mind back, or grasp the importance of a milk boy seeing Julia alive at 6.45, just as he was about to leave for MGE, despite Close's statement, so was the man an idiot? Or is the truth that nobody but Wallace did see Julia alive as late as 6.45, because Close had delivered the milk earlier - too early to make that crucial difference between what was or wasn't physically possible? There is no getting round this. If Wallace had known for a fact that the milk delivery had virtually coincided with his own departure, he'd have made a right old song and dance about it when he first learned about Close's statement, if not before. And his memoirs could have consisted of a single sentence: "Close - Case closed."

The whole idea start to finish, at least singulalry, is rather ridiculous - to imagine that people actually think in this way when planning a crime. And it DOES all come down to the fact he plays chess. Not even one book does not make mention of it, the judge mentioned it as the reason he's probably guilty, every contemporary publication, newspaper article, magazine, mentioned it... They have images of this Gary Kasparov tier man across a chess board from Detective Moore or whatever.

I get that, but with Qualtrough being anyone other than Wallace, and the address not existing being no accident or coincidence, we are still left with a Mr Q whose mind had to be devious enough to come up with the whole MGE plan in the first place, which was designed to keep Wallace outdoors and guessing for as long as possible, while his wife was alone with the Holy Grail that was the cash box. It's either/or. It's Wallace the wily, chess playing wife killer or Charlie the cryptic crossword compiling crook.

Actual genius high IQ killers like Leopold and Loeb , or chess masters, commit murders not much better than the average man.

I rest my case. This murder was not especially clever, but Wallace would not have needed to be a genius to pull it off. He just needed that element of reasonable doubt, which allowed for someone else to have done it, and he got that in the end - rightly so in my view. So he was clever enough to have done the job. But that's not saying much compared with Qualtrough the burglar. He could have knocked spots off Wallace in the brainbox department, succeeding in framing the simple insurance salesman without even trying, and getting clean away with the crime, even after Wallace won his appeal and tried to identify the real killer.

Love,

Caz
X

[jmenges]

the almighty police force who we must all remember to bum at least once daily...

Give it to me Detective Moore! Oh yes! That's the spot! Cuff me daddy!

According to the Major Rules we have all agreed to, if you cannot discuss a theory without resorting to ridicule you might be prohibited from commenting on those threads.
If this debate doesn’t raise its level of discourse quickly you might very well see a ban on any further discussion of this case.

JM

[caz]

By the way I think the SAME reason is why they didn't check the tram for the chess night. I DON'T believe this was an "oversight", I think they purposefully did not check it because if it turned out he took the tram he said he did their entire case against him would fall apart.

This is a very, very flimsy case and so to jeopardize it like that would have left them with no leads. All because they made ANOTHER false assumption: That the caller MUST be the very same person who killed Julia. This is CLEARLY false logic and another reason why the investigation was such a failure.

In that case, WWH, Wallace and his defence team must have missed a trick. The defence should have looked more closely at his claimed journey on chess night. If it could have been established that he didn't go near that phone box he'd have been off the hook if the police and prosecution continued to assume the caller MUST also have been the killer. So it looks like the defence could find no evidential support for Wallace's claimed movements around the time of the phone call, or he was the one who didn't press the matter for whatever reason. Either way, I agree that it's a crying shame if he was telling the truth.

Love,

Caz
X

[WallaceWackedHer]

I agree, WWH - so why did you write that? You even emphasised an OBVIOUSLY there, in a sentence entirely made up of your own words.

All I said was that a suspect's word is by definition unreliable without independent supporting evidence. In other words, if you are seeking to build a case against a burglar, using Wallace's claim that there was never any cash in the house when unoccupied, you need some other support for that claim, because IF [IF IF IF] Wallace may not have been the innocent flower you seem intent on painting him, and could have been lying to save his neck, his word alone is not good enough. If you can't get your head round this basic concept, then I do wonder if true crime is really your bag. Imagine this Q & A:

Q: "Why would a burglar lure you away, Mr Wallace, knowing your wife would still be at home?"

A: "Because if she wasn't at home, there would be no cash to steal. We always take everything with us when we are both out."

Q: "And how would a burglar know this?"

A: "Mmmm.... because we make no secret of it?"

I hope you were not seriously arguing the above in Wallace's defence, because it's patent nonsense.



While the first part is perfectly logical, the rest of it is not. If only Wallace knew his house couldn't be robbed when unoccupied, then only Wallace could have been Qualtrough, planning for his wife to be the victim of an apparent burglary:

BERTIE BURGLAR aka QUALTROUGH: I know the Wallace house can't be robbed when it's empty, because Wallace advertises the fact. So I'll have to do it while his wife is there, after luring him away.

Again, that would be patent nonsense.



But what about when Wallace was fighting for his life and then sentenced to death? What about his ghost-written memoirs after he rightly won his appeal? What about in his final days, when saying "We won, didn't we?" He clearly never did cast his mind back, or grasp the importance of a milk boy seeing Julia alive at 6.45, just as he was about to leave for MGE, despite Close's statement, so was the man an idiot? Or is the truth that nobody but Wallace did see Julia alive as late as 6.45, because Close had delivered the milk earlier - too early to make that crucial difference between what was or wasn't physically possible? There is no getting round this. If Wallace had known for a fact that the milk delivery had virtually coincided with his own departure, he'd have made a right old song and dance about it when he first learned about Close's statement, if not before. And his memoirs could have consisted of a single sentence: "Close - Case closed."



I get that, but with Qualtrough being anyone other than Wallace, and the address not existing being no accident or coincidence, we are still left with a Mr Q whose mind had to be devious enough to come up with the whole MGE plan in the first place, which was designed to keep Wallace outdoors and guessing for as long as possible, while his wife was alone with the Holy Grail that was the cash box. It's either/or. It's Wallace the wily, chess playing wife killer or Charlie the cryptic crossword compiling crook.



I rest my case. This murder was not especially clever, but Wallace would not have needed to be a genius to pull it off. He just needed that element of reasonable doubt, which allowed for someone else to have done it, and he got that in the end - rightly so in my view. So he was clever enough to have done the job. But that's not saying much compared with Qualtrough the burglar. He could have knocked spots off Wallace in the brainbox department, succeeding in framing the simple insurance salesman without even trying, and getting clean away with the crime, even after Wallace won his appeal and tried to identify the real killer.

Love,

Caz
X

Yes quite correct they might not know they did that (empty the house of cash). Maybe someone who knew them well, but yes I would say there's a good possibility it would not be known to many at all. So they may expect to have been able to go there when the two were out together, albeit in a robbery scenario it's put forward by both the prosecution and the defence that it would make sense to strike on a Tuesday night due to the collection schedule.

He didn't care about the milk boy evidently, as I did say. If Alan Close had never given his testimony then William would have been executed. Hence this does not make sense. He would have been hanged if not for that testimony so clearly it was of utmost importance but he didn't mention it at all. He didn't say Alan came at 6.40, or anything, he didn't mention ANYONE, so without Alan coming forward there is zero time alibi.

I am quite sure William did not act alone for quite a few reasons, if he's guilty as I repeated a few times there's an OBVIOUS attempt to frame one SPECIFIC person (as well as many other things I could dive into). I don't think this is something anybody would do, not when you're getting it down to the point of "well only he knew where the box was and would be admitted by my wife and knew where I played chess". You know... Totally eliminating a number of potential suspects the police may have investigated... Because it wasn't "well this guy's kinda dodgy and my wife would let him in", it was more like "NOBODY except him or Marsden could have done this", that's essentially what we get from his second statement to police.

He is just going ALL IN on Gordon Parry and everything seems to fit down to the chess board notice. Which is why I like Waterhouse's idea from The Insurance Man. Then Parry is questioned and has to BS about where he was on the telephone night. I don't think it's a coincidence or a mistake. If he's guilty I think he did this because he knew he could pin it on Gordon and he knew he could do it because he knew he made the telephone call.

The name or address is not vital for creation of an alibi at all if it's all coming down to "impossible timing", it only matters when his wife is last seen alive, when he leaves his house, and when the body is discovered. If the entire alibi hinges upon timing then that is the only thing needed to get away with it. The client name I am entirely positive is supposed to be R J Qualtrough, and the address I remain unsure in regards to whether or not it is fake on purpose. If Gordon is the caller it is possible he messed up the details... I saw it in one place that when Beattie said "East" Wallace said "West" which would imply he's expecting "West" AKA advanced knowledge of what the message ought to be... Albeit most publications have it as him saying "Menlove Gardens, is that Menlove Avenue?" rather than the West/East thing.

I think it's interesting that a lot of things coincide with the recent break-ins, including the Menlove Gardens address which had been burgled one month prior, and a few days within 19 Wolverton Street.

[WallaceWackedHer]

In that case, WWH, Wallace and his defence team must have missed a trick. The defence should have looked more closely at his claimed journey on chess night. If it could have been established that he didn't go near that phone box he'd have been off the hook if the police and prosecution continued to assume the caller MUST also have been the killer. So it looks like the defence could find no evidential support for Wallace's claimed movements around the time of the phone call, or he was the one who didn't press the matter for whatever reason. Either way, I agree that it's a crying shame if he was telling the truth.

Love,

Caz
X

Yep I'm sure the defence did it for the same reason - they were afraid they would get an answer they didn't like.

[WallaceWackedHer]

We may be in for some new information:



This person knew one of the associates of the housebreaking gang I mentioned on my site.

[caz]

Caz he asked for directions to MGE not MGW. If the street had existed I'm sure the conductors would have been able to help him more than they did.

Yes, I know that. I thought I had made that crystal clear. MGE did not exist, so MGW would naturally be the next best option for anyone advising Wallace when he asked for MGE. Even if someone absolutely knew there was no MGE, they would not immediately think Wallace had been tricked, but would suggest a mistake had been made and he could try the other Menlove Gardens.

He knew it was somewhere off Menlove Avenue thanks to chess buddies and knew how to get there. He knew it would be one of the stops along there he needed.

That's why it was a clever plan, regardless of who the caller was. It allowed Wallace to set off in the right direction, knowing that no matter how many people he might ask for help along the way, he could end up fannying about forever, searching in vain for an address which sounded totally genuine but wasn't.

I'll get back to you with some thoughts I had recently on the fire, the mackintosh and the lights. That's if the thread is still here when I return. Be good.

Love,

Caz
X

[moste]

As would a button in the ashes. Burning can take ages. Fires can burn out leaving Wallace arriving back with a kitchen fire with a half burnt pair of trousers. Not a single solitary chance. If he had massive time yes. Under time pressure no.

Wallace used the mackintosh. It’s the only explanation. Wallace was guilty. I’m bored with excuses and misdirection. I’m tired of manipulations. We’ve got to the stage where we immediately assume dishonesty in the police but simply ignore it when we have Roland Oliver in black and white lying to Judges. But hey, it doesn’t matter as long as we can exonerate Wallace. I’ve lost interest in bashing my head against a brick wall of twisted logic and bias. Im absolutely despondent about this thread. I’ve no more interest in talking about Teflon William Wallace.

Growing up in the houses built in south manchester in the 1920s, we had an open fire in the living room. Our Mum would order 4 bags of Bituminous coal, and a bag of nutty slack , bags were 1 cwt = (112 pounds) Nutty slack was much cheaper , hence after a real blazer was going after about an hour ,we could carefully shovel on nutty slack every once in a while , and still keep a mad hot blaze going.However on a few occasions , we’d get a roasting off Dad for rushing the process, and the slack would choke out the fire before it had chance to get cracking ,so to speak . You know where I’m going with this ? The act of burning clothing on an open fire is not as straight forward as one might imagine, a few things have to be considered. Victorian open grates in terraced houses were typically small,
chimney size in the late Victorian era had been greatly reduced, and were not kept swept as often as they should have been .The build up of ash/clinker under the grate is also a factor. I would suggest therefore that burning a great wad of clothing would be very foolish ,where time was of the essence.Not only could even a healthy fire be choked out, but also the room could be filled with smoke. For this reason I believe this way of destroying evidence would not have been an option.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Growing up in the houses built in south manchester in the 1920s, we had an open fire in the living room. Our Mum would order 4 bags of Bituminous coal, and a bag of nutty slack , bags were 1 cwt = (112 pounds) Nutty slack was much cheaper , hence after a real blazer was going after about an hour ,we could carefully shovel on nutty slack every once in a while , and still keep a mad hot blaze going.However on a few occasions , we’d get a roasting off Dad for rushing the process, and the slack would choke out the fire before it had chance to get cracking ,so to speak . You know where I’m going with this ? The act of burning clothing on an open fire is not as straight forward as one might imagine, a few things have to be considered. Victorian open grates in terraced houses were typically small,
chimney size in the late Victorian era had been greatly reduced, and were not kept swept as often as they should have been .The build up of ash/clinker under the grate is also a factor. I would suggest therefore that burning a great wad of clothing would be very foolish ,where time was of the essence.Not only could even a healthy fire be choked out, but also the room could be filled with smoke. For this reason I believe this way of destroying evidence would not have been an option.

Hang on, regarding the fireplace I see you mentioned a grate, I was thinking of an actual open fireplace if you know what I mean. I think that's what the kitchen one was.

The kitchen fireplace was burning still when Wallace got home, so had he killed her without assistance it was burning for at least 2 hours (probably a little more since I doubt it was lit seconds before she died), which seems like it had been healthily ablaze for quite some time.

Is that still not a good option in an open fire? I do not refer to the living room fire. Just curious because you said grid.

[WallaceWackedHer]

The woman got back in touch with me RE: the housebreakers. The one she knew was Patrick Garland. He was quite an outlier, just committed crimes with a guy who much later committed a crime with David Martin who is in the gang I mentioned:




This was years after 1931.

The man she knew only broke into shops (Garland), and in the particular case I mentioned which he was charged for, was with George Overen who seemingly knew David Martin but when the two became acquainted (before or after Julia's death) I do not know. Apparently his kids relished in their father's bad boy image, and ended up in jail themselves. They never mentioned the Wallace case.

[moste]

Yes, I know that. I thought I had made that crystal clear. MGE did not exist, so MGW would naturally be the next best option for anyone advising Wallace when he asked for MGE. Even if someone absolutely knew there was no MGE, they would not immediately think Wallace had been tricked, but would suggest a mistake had been made and he could try the other Menlove Gardens.



That's why it was a clever plan, regardless of who the caller was. It allowed Wallace to set off in the right direction, knowing that no matter how many people he might ask for help along the way, he could end up fannying about forever, searching in vain for an address which sounded totally genuine but wasn't.

I'll get back to you with some thoughts I had recently on the fire, the mackintosh and the lights. That's if the thread is still here when I return. Be good.

Love,

Caz
X

This is the thing with the situation with Menlove gardens east as I see it. Once on the third tram and being told by the conductor that’ the car has a stop on Menlove Avenue near Menlove Gardens west ( as I’ve mentioned gardens west opens onto Menlove Ave.) and the conductor and any passengers he may want to question have told him they don’t know of any gardens east . He now becomes suspicious, and knocks on any of the first houses he comes to just a couple of minutes from alighting the tram .with one or two people confirming he is indeed on a journey to nowhere, he finally checks in with 25 Menlove Gardens west ,where, assuming there was someone home ,would confirm that there was no Qualtrough at this address, and they’ve never heard of Gardens east. So he can now take it that he’s been duped, and heads for home. Round trip away from Julia ,about 50 minutes. But no, ‘alibi obsessed Bill’ continues on round the Gardens right down Green Lane, calling in at his now familiar bosses house and on to visit with a cop and two shops before giving up.TOO suspicious by far.

[moste]

Quote: Hang on, regarding the fireplace I see you mentioned a grate, I was thinking of an actual open fireplace if you know what I mean. I think that's what the kitchen one was.
The kitchen! Of course the kitchen ,you wouldn’t be able to burn clothes on a gas fire! LOL.
The Grate yes , it’s what the burning coals rest on, and the ash falls through the bars onto the floor of the fire place. I thought you mentioned you had one?

[moste]

PS. If the fire was built up really good at say,6 20 pm. By 8 45 pm it would be nearly out ,so Mrs. Johnston’s must have just managed to stoke it back up again, without having to start from scratch ,cleaning out, newspaper, and wood sticks etc I think she actually said ‘We’ll build the fire up William’ must have caught it in time.

[WallaceWackedHer]

Quote: Hang on, regarding the fireplace I see you mentioned a grate, I was thinking of an actual open fireplace if you know what I mean. I think that's what the kitchen one was.
The kitchen! Of course the kitchen ,you wouldn’t be able to burn clothes on a gas fire! LOL.
The Grate yes , it’s what the burning coals rest on, and the ash falls through the bars onto the floor of the fire place. I thought you mentioned you had one?

Yeah I do, I think I'm gonna have to go check my fireplace rn as we speak LOL I've never noticed it before. Since its first use I guess it just has all ash 'n' stuff everywhere and I've never really examined it. I HATE the thing it makes the house too hot even in mid winter.

However if I were to throw a shirt in there and the fire lasted 2 hours, I am very confident it would be adequately disposed of. At the least I don't suspect there would be any way you could tell it ever used to be a shirt. This thing gets bloody hot... And it has a door you shut like the Wallace's kitchen one if you check the crime scene photos.