Amy Wallace, was she involved?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I also ought to add Munro wrote a letter to someone years after about the story of Wallace asking loads of people where to find "K boots" to which the person with him remarked something like "hadn't he had enough of asking strangers on the street for directions". That's another thing in Goodman's book I can therefore confirm.

That always sounded dodgy to me. Who would have seen/heard Wallace actually doing this to confirm the story? This really sounds like an invention to me to try to make William’s behaviour sound normal.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I agree that the phone call is connected to the murder,the idea being to have William out of the house on the tuesday evening.In consequence only William was in a position to be sure that requirement was met.The police were not in error on that account.William was setting up an alibi,and only William had the means to follow it through.William's problem however was threfold.One was to show cause of why Julia was killed,one to show it was done while he was absent from the house,and the other create a situation where time to commit the crime would be in doubtSo a staged robbery,where he was the only witness that something had been stolen,a phone call that that could not be directly attributed to him,and commit the crime before leaving at a quarter to seven. I would presume he knew the risks,that he would come under suspicion,and it is obvious he had the answer,which was to say little,and steadfastly deny all knowledge of murder.
Now that short summary may offer little in the way of proving Wallace did kill Julia,but that crime does remind me of a much simpler planned murder,which did not kill the victim,as intended,but left him crippled for life.It was a domestic situation,the wife having left for another man.The husband decided to kill this other man,and planned a hit run accident using someone else's car,a friends.This person also knew the risks,knew if murder was suspected he would be prime suspect,but that didn't deter him.
The victim didn't die,but later this was to give the perpetrator greater satisfaction,for as he told me,to see his ex wife pushing the victim around in a wheelchair,made him smile.
Now take all the hearsay,assumptions and ridiculous explanations away from the Wallace crime,and you have a situation that fooled very few,notably the police,prosecution,and the jury.

I think that the phone call plan only really becomes a viable one if it came from William, Harry. Too many chances of it not working otherwise. For me with William it’s an accumulation of things that point to him. Like you I find it difficult to go for the prank call theory. Not impossible of course but I’d have to say unlikely in the extreme imo.

I hope you’re well by the way Harry?

[WallaceWackedHer]

But I seem to recall that the police took the fire grate out? I seem to recall discussing this with Antony. How could they have missed it when it was in an area where someone else was able to find it?

Yep that's the claim and I believe it, though haven't seen the report of it.

It wasn't seen by cops because it was down a crevice, like a nook between the floor and wall, the workmen prized it out.

There is definitely something on the fender rails there though. Lol at the fact nobody noticed that in a century? I mean I didn't myself. Just my grandpa with his spyglass pointed it out. It is consistent with the fireplace poker's description. It's more obvious in the Murder Casebook No.25 magazine where the photo is larger sized.

My grandpa pointed out the kitchen clock time too, I didn't know then, though, that the kitchen picture was taken days after. So the mug of tea on the fireplace isn't necessarily there on the day of the crime, particularly since William had slept there unaccompanied on either the 21st or 22nd.

The photographer is perhaps the individual I have the most trash to talk about. I mean the guy goes to a MURDER SCENE and takes TWO photos in the room with the body. Any time he takes two photos in any room there's about 5 things or more missing or moved between the two photos. The bathroom shots are like a game of Spot the Difference.

He's the WORST.

[WallaceWackedHer]

That always sounded dodgy to me. Who would have seen/heard Wallace actually doing this to confirm the story? This really sounds like an invention to me to try to make William’s behaviour sound normal.

Munro definitely does not come across like a dishonest man, he's pretty candid. He speaks to Wyndham Brown a lot by letter, and various other people of course. I have a lot of correspondence I ought to eventually upload.

William had basically zero friends after he was released and so would actually spend time with people like Munro. Munro was a member of his chess club (and quite a good player, I see he got very far in the overall tournament - William was knocked out in the first match) as well, but I think I recall seeing him say he hadn't really known Wallace on a personal level until he commissioned him to act as his solicitor.

Didn't Schofield Allen (I think it was him?) visit William when he was dying in hospital? I think the man was pretty ostracized and seems to have maintained communication with lawyers etc. for some form of companionship.

He has a diary entry where he's like, elated a man in the Bromborough area actually seemed to want to be his friend.

[caz]

Please try to at least address the points. They have been made over and over and over again and the other side just says other stuff rather than addressing them.

Particularly the 21st mention when in the call transcript it wasn't even part of the original statement but was a response to being caught out and then Parry mentions in his statement he spent the night arranging a 21st and the fact Parry lied about his whereabouts that night and can be shown to have been in the perfect spot timing and distance wise to have made the call just by chance I suppose and finally the fact the caller seems to have fiddled casually for a free call fitting a conman like Parry making a casual call, not an older man plotting the murder of his wife.

Just deal with those 3. I'll leave the rest off the table for you as it may be too much to handle at once

Neither of us are likely to change our minds, but I at least address your points so you know where I stand and the reasons why I don't find them compelling enough points to lead to your conclusion, you won't do that in reverse, you just pretend they weren't said, gloss over, and repeat yourself.

I apologise, WWH. I do know the feeling, because it happens to me all the time over on a certain unmentionable topic. Nobody ever seems to want to go the extra mile to check their assumptions and suspicions against all the evidence to see if their preferred scenario makes sense when taking everything into account. It would drive me up the wall if I were the kind of person to be driven up the wall easily.

I admit I shouldn't post on this topic because I'm not 100% up to speed with all the twists and turns, but then that must surely apply to most people who post on this site! If I see something that strikes a bum note with events that are beyond doubt, I will continue to say so and take my punishment like a - person.

The 3 issues you want me to deal with are basically made up of your own assumptions and suspicions about Parry, a local ne'er-do-well who knew the Wallaces, and I get that. But as Herlock has already alluded to, 21st birthdays were always a very special and possibly the most significant landmark in family life in the early 20th century, particularly with regards to insurance policies, so the caller would naturally have made something up to that effect to make it worth Wallace's while to go out, unusually, on a Tuesday evening in the dead of winter, when he had recently had flu and his wife had a bad cold, to see a perfect stranger at an unfamiliar address, obliging him to ask for directions along the way. With no such incentive, would Wallace have bothered? Obviously he did bother, so the incentive worked, whether it was Parry playing silly buggers, or Wallace creating a credible motive for taking up Qualtrough's vague business proposition. Parry was of an age where it would not have been a huge coincidence to know someone who was coming up to 21, so it works both ways because that could have occurred to Wallace if he made the call himself, with Parry or any other young scallywag in mind as a potential fall guy. Clearly, if Wallace made the call, he'd have been careless not to think of the difficulty he would face, if there was nobody else who could reasonably have had the means, motive and opportunity to make it. The fact remains that the message was bogus, and had the effect of keeping Wallace out of the way so someone else could commit the crime, or giving Wallace a bogus alibi which could not be disproven beyond reasonable doubt. Either way, it turned out - just - to be a win-win for Wallace's neck.

Parry, being a ne'er-do-well, would not necessarily respond well to police questioning, wondering what he might rightfully or wrongfully be charged with next, depending on whether he could give an accurate account of his whereabouts at any given time, without incriminating himself. What else might he have been up to, or suspected of, on that Monday evening, which could have got him into far more trouble than if he had made that phone call as a prank? What other, more serious offences, might have happened that evening as far as he knew, for which he had no alibi? Knowing he had a rock solid alibi for the capital crime of murder on the Tuesday evening, and could not be connected with the events by any other evidence or reliable witness testimony, the phone call would not by itself have been sufficient to incriminate him. A nasty little prank, to wind up a stuffy old git, which had totally unforeseen but tragic consequences, was not a hanging offence. As this is your argument, and how you see it, you presumably agree that Parry's alibi for the Tuesday would have saved his neck regardless of whether or not he could have been fingered for the call.

Love,

Caz
X

[WallaceWackedHer]

.

I don't think Gordon could have been at the murder scene unless his accomplice is William Denison or someone else very close to the Brines. They wouldn't provide an alibi for him otherwise.

I don't think Gannon's idea is very sound because I see no way the hitman turns up then waits hours with the dead body or w.e. just for some arranged time Gordon is meant to come get him. And why is he meeting William in the alley? To say "it's done." Like why? Why is that necessary? Payment maybe if it was all "half now, half after"?

I also really have a hard time envisioning that William goes and asks TWO men to kill his wife (what if he'd asked someone and was told no? They could come forward later. This happened with actor Robert Blake). And I see no serious motive for Gordon and Marsden to take part. The motive proposed being that if they didn't do it William would tell on them for sleeping with his wife. They could just deny it if he did?

Of course there could be a hidden shared motive we don't know about. But then the alias would be stupid. It already is in all honesty. Actually the whole thing is stupid. I feel hypothetically if William called he flubbed the details by ACCIDENT like he constantly did with names, addresses, dates...

The Greenlees statement suggests the man matching the description of the man Lily Hall saw is not the killer, so not Gannon's proposed Marsden. There IS a slight difference - Lily says cap and Greenlees says felt hat, but sounds similar and the sightings must have been minutes apart.

...

I'd rather not discuss the call I really feel it's a huge distraction. Consider that there's a murder and instead of investigating the evidence of the actual murder everyone is blindsided by riddle-style thinking about this telephone message.

I'd rather pretend it didn't happen for the purpose of investigation. You know?

Because I can really deep dive the details of the murder and this is where there's actual physical evidence, forensic data, clues, (crap) photography, and so on. I think I can say where she was in the room and such.

[caz]

As far as accomplices are concerned the case for William’s guilt would certainly be strengthened if a valid one was found. You already know my objections to Parry - I find it difficult to see William trusting and why would he later go on to accuse him?

Could William have been gay? It’s certainly possible. What about Edwin? Could something have gone on? A bit creepy seeing as William looked so much like Edwin’s dad. Might William and Edwin wanted Julia out of the way? Edwin makes the call and disposes of the weapon and any bloodied clothing?

objections? With an accomplice mightn’t we have expected a more convincing robbery scene?

With an accomplice, Wallace could have done a far better job of giving himself a 100% solid alibi, leaving before the milk boy arrived for instance, and not inviting suspicion by asking so many people how to get to MGE and claiming to be a stranger to the area. An accomplice could also have used a call box further away from Wallace's house and not on any route he could have taken to the chess club. He could also have made the call after Wallace's arrival, giving him a 100% alibi for the call too. Easy to set this up so that the accomplice would give Beattie the salient details while asking for Wallace; or Wallace would ask Beattie to take a message while he was working on his next move. Accomplice in a hurry, Wallace temporarily preoccupied, message left, job done.

You don't buy a dog and bark yourself, so Wallace wouldn't have made the call and he wouldn't have left himself any window at all to be accused of the murder.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I’ve just spent around 20 minutes looking online at the subject of Blood Pattern Analysis and I have to say that I was really surprised at how much criticism it came in for from what appeared to be reputable sources.

Quotes like: “While Blood Pattern Analysis is heavily relied on in the Forensic Science Community, it’s validity is becoming questioned.”

and

”Human error is unavoidable. Because of this automated methods are becoming an experimental subject in the FS community.”

There are lots more like this with examples of errors. Papers written etc. One paper was titled:

”How An Unproven Forensic Science Spread Through The Criminal System.”

Whilst I’m certainly not suggesting that BPA is useless I think that Caz was quite correct to urge caution and not attribute the final word to this discipline.

Thank you, Herlock. It just seemed clear to me that if just one such experiment, producing an equivalent blood pattern to one from an actual murder scene, can result in no blood ending up on the person, or even the white overalls, of the 'assailant', despite having taken no particular avoidance measures, and this outcome was totally unexpected by the 'experts' concerned with deciding guilt or innocence, then there has to be reasonable doubt that the real killer would still have been covered in the blood he was spilling.

In the Wallace case, where were the bloody footprints, finger or glove prints, or any other marks left by the killer as he made his way out of the house, along floors, walls, lights, door handles etc? Why would anyone other than Wallace have taken care to avoid any, or to clean them off, and how would Wallace have had time? One explanation would be that like the woman in the white overalls, there was no blood on the killer to spread beyond the parlour.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I do think a lover of William's might be likely to attack her ferociously. Especially a jilted lover.

I could see this too, and naturally nobody was ever likely to come forward with any evidence, considering the times. Julia could even have known and tolerated a male 'friend' of his, without realising the danger of inviting him in. Hell hath no fury...

But why the bungled burglary, if murder was the intention and there was nobody who would ever connect this male friend with Wallace? Could he have feared that he may have been mentioned in Wallace's diary, making him a potential suspect?

Interesting theory, anyway. Must be some holes in it somewhere.

Love,

Caz
X

[WallaceWackedHer]

I could see this too, and naturally nobody was ever likely to come forward with any evidence, considering the times. Julia could even have known and tolerated a male 'friend' of his, without realising the danger of inviting him in. Hell hath no fury...

But why the bungled burglary, if murder was the intention and there was nobody who would ever connect this male friend with Wallace? Could he have feared that he may have been mentioned in Wallace's diary, making him a potential suspect?

Interesting theory, anyway. Must be some holes in it somewhere.

Love,

Caz
X

Why wouldn't there be a robbery setup? The entire point of faking a robbery (if that's what you believe happened) is to distract from the fact it's a murder, it doesn't matter who did it.

Anyone with a murder motive would be likely to potentially do that.

[caz]

That always sounded dodgy to me. Who would have seen/heard Wallace actually doing this to confirm the story? This really sounds like an invention to me to try to make William’s behaviour sound normal.

If true, it could even have been Wallace trying to make it sound to his companion like it was perfectly in character. Guilty or not, he nearly hanged, and he'd have been very conscious of people still privately believing he got away with murder by setting up his own wild goose chase. I imagine he'd have taken any opportunity offered to reinforce the final not guilty verdict.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Why wouldn't there be a robbery setup? The entire point of faking a robbery (if that's what you believe happened) is to distract from the fact it's a murder, it doesn't matter who did it.

Anyone with a murder motive would be likely to potentially do that.

Fair point at face value, WWH. But we do know that nobody was ever connected to this murder apart from Wallace, and his motive was not robbery.

If some unknown individual was out purely for murderous revenge against the Wallaces, they'd have been better off not making it look like a robbery, thereby leaving Wallace as the only obvious suspect. As soon as they introduce the possibility of a robbery motive, Wallace has a potential get-out clause, which a jilted secret lover would not have been inclined to give him.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thank you, Herlock. It just seemed clear to me that if just one such experiment, producing an equivalent blood pattern to one from an actual murder scene, can result in no blood ending up on the person, or even the white overalls, of the 'assailant', despite having taken no particular avoidance measures, and this outcome was totally unexpected by the 'experts' concerned with deciding guilt or innocence, then there has to be reasonable doubt that the real killer would still have been covered in the blood he was spilling.

Cheers Caz,

I also find it difficult to believe that if any blood might have flown in the direction of the window then it must have been blocked by Williams body. If it must have hit him in the face (as has been suggested) what would have been the chances of none going slightly to the left or right or above his head? But no blood spatter in that direction.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Fair point at face value, WWH. But we do know that nobody was ever connected to this murder apart from Wallace, and his motive was not robbery.

If some unknown individual was out purely for murderous revenge against the Wallaces, they'd have been better off not making it look like a robbery, thereby leaving Wallace as the only obvious suspect. As soon as they introduce the possibility of a robbery motive, Wallace has a potential get-out clause, which a jilted secret lover would not have been inclined to give him.

Love,

Caz
X

The list of people that might have just wanted to murder Julia for their own reasons would have been minute to non-existent to the police but they might have discovered that she’d had some kind of issue with the killer.

Money was ‘stolen.’ Someone homed in straight to the box but made no real effort to search elsewhere. For me it’s a pretty inescapable conclusion that this was a murder which was made to look like a robbery by a man who knew where the cash was kept and a man that Julia would have no issue with admitting to the house.

Can an you name such a person Mrs Brown?

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
In the Wallace case, where were the bloody footprints, finger or glove prints, or any other marks left by the killer as he made his way out of the house, along floors, walls, lights, door handles etc? Why would anyone other than Wallace have taken care to avoid any, or to clean them off, and how would Wallace have had time? One explanation would be that like the woman in the white overalls, there was no blood on the killer to spread beyond the parlour.

You won’t be surprised that I agree with you Caz. It might also be worth mentioning that if Wallace must have been covered in blood then an unpremeditated killer would also have been and yet he wasn’t worried about walking outside looking like an abattoir worker.