** The Murder of Julia Wallace **

[Abby Normal]

Nice post Colbalt, but can I pick up on one point in it (above).

Wallace himself explained how the murder took place (though suggesting it was someone else's actions) in an article in John Bull published on May 21 1932. His version makes more sense in terms of the burning mackintosh (IMHO) than if someone had been naked and wearing the mackintosh.

The link to the article is : https://www.williamherbertwallace.co.../jm_Oooks.jpeg
which is on the site Herlock refered to in an earlier post (The Julia Wallace Murder Foundation - https://www.williamherbertwallace.com ) - which is an excellent, comprehensive and informative site.

The extract pertinent to this point is reproduced below:

He followed my wife into the sitting-room, and as she bent down and lit the gas-fire he struck her, possibly with a spanner. The implement of murder was never discovered.

He had now to kill her. To strike her again while she lay on the floor and him standing over her would mean the upward spurting of blood.

Two strides took him into the lobby, where he had observed my mackintosh hanging, and he held it as a shield between him and her body while he belaboured her to death.

She must have been felled as soon as she lit the fire and before she could regulate the flow of gas. It would have been at full blaze, and as he bent at the fireplace the flame set light to the mackintosh.

Then he would see that the bottom edge of her skirt was burning, and, throwing the mackintosh down, he must have dragged her away from the fire and on to part of the coat, leaving her in the position I found her.

interesting. but why would an intruder care if she caught on fire?hes already killed/ killing her. and you would think and outside intruder a fire on her body would be ideal actually. but not so for a killer who knows hes gotta still live there.

[Herlock Sholmes]

interesting. but why would an intruder care if she caught on fire?hes already killed/ killing her. and you would think and outside intruder a fire on her body would be ideal actually. but not so for a killer who knows hes gotta still live there.

Good point Abby

[Herlock Sholmes]

A point about why a guilty William chose the method that he did. He was trying to give the impression that this was a robbery that turned into a murder so wouldn’t a bludgeoning have been more in keeping with that? I’m not trying to set myself up as an expert on criminal psychology because I’m certainly not one but I’d suggest that strangling is a more ‘personal’ method for murder. A way of killing someone close that you have reason to hate and wish dead, perhaps the culmination of an argument. Or a way of killing by someone who gained sexual gratification from the act. A blow with a blunt instrument is more in keeping with a robbery but this was overkill. It’s not a nice thought but how difficult could it be for a man to kill a 73 year old woman with a heavy blunt object. One blow to the head..two? Were the extra blows incompetence, panic or pent up rage? I favour the latter.

Another point is the location of the body. If she was killed because the thief was caught in the act then surely she would have been killed in the kitchen? Some theories have the killer taking her into the parlour where she suddenly panics causing him to kill her but this makes little sense to me. What would have been the point? She’d seen him. So why didn’t William killer her in the kitchen to make it seem more like she caught a burglar in the act? It’s a fair question. I think that this might point again to William trying to implicate Parry by pointing out that there was no way that Parry could have taken the money and gotten away with it because Julia knew him. So he killed her in the parlour before going for the cash box.

[Fiver]

If Wallace was trying to create an alibi, then he needed his wife to be seen alive late enough that he could not have killed her and still made it to places he was seen. That depended on something WHW had no control over, the milk boy's arrival time. The milk was supposed to be delivered around 6PM, before WHW returned home that day. and much too early to provide WHW with an alibi in any case.

According to neighbors, the milk boy had been delivering any time between 6pm and 7pm. If the milk was delivered between 6pm and 6:30pm, WHW would have had no alibi. If the milk was delivered between 6:45pm and 7pm, it would have been delivered after WHW would have to have already left home, based on the places and times that he was seen. WHW would only have an alibi if the milk was delivered between 6:30pm and 6:45pm.

According to milk boy Allan Close, he made the delivery and picked up the empties from Julia Wallace some time between 6:30pm and 6:45pm, the only time frame that would give WHW an alibi. Close's coworker, Elsie Wright, said she saw Close at about 6:40pm, shortly before he entered Wolverton Street to deliver to the Wallaces and their neighbors. Elsie Wright had never met WHW, but her statement reinforces that Julia Wallace was alive at 6:40pm to 6:45pm.

Wright also said that before talking to the police, Allan Close said he had seen Julia Wallace alive at about 6:45pm and that Close also stated the time in front of Kenneth Caird, Douglas Metcalf, and Harold Jones. Caird confirmed this. Jones confirmed this, adding that he heard Close tell the police that Julia Wallace was still alive at 6:45pm. Metcalf also confirmed what Close said, adding that he heard Close tell the police that Julia Wallace was still alive at 6:45pm. Paperboy Allison Wildman said he saw Close at the Wallace's door between 6:35pm and 6:40pm.

Based on all of these, it seems Julia Wallace was still alive between 6:40pm and 6:45pm. There's a lot more to it than just the milk boy's statement and WHW had no way of knowing, let alo9ne controlling, that all of these teens would give him alibi.

[Herlock Sholmes]

William could never have envisioned an alibi for the time of the murder because that would have meant convincing someone that they had seen Julia alive after he’d left the house. What he wanted to convince the police of was that he hadn’t made the phone call because they would naturally have assumed that killer and caller were one and the same. So his plan was for the police to think that a Mr X made the call to get William out of the house. He couldn’t kill Julia until after Alan Close had been because that would have meant that Julia was dead and it might have led to Close telling the neighbours that he’d had no response from number 29 causing them to become concerned and going to check on her etc.

If Close had arrived at 6.30 it wouldn’t have affected William’s plan. He’d have still killed her and left. We have to remember that William stepped down from his final tram at 7.20 leaving himself just 10 minutes to find an address in a very large area that, according to him, he was completely unfamiliar with. A slightly careless attitude by William or was he forced to leave the house later than he’d expected? I’d go for the latter - because Alan Cross was late arriving. I’d suggest that he had reckoned on arriving 10 minutes or so earlier.

(So he was late arriving at the chess club and he cut it fine for his search - William has always struck me as methodical, by-the-book, a bit of a plodder but reliable. The kind of man who was never late?)

You probably know that I believe that William used the mackintosh to prevent himself getting covered in blood. This was the second part of the plan in my opinion. It would be believed that if William had done it then he’d have been covered in blood requiring a time consuming clean up operation. If the police factored in the time for this clean up then they would have serious doubts about whether he would have had enough time available. Actually Close did William a favour by turning up late because he narrowed the window of time available creating additional doubt in people’s mind. We can’t be certain of his arrival time though. I’d suggest 6.40 as a reasonable approximation. Maybe a bit earlier; maybe a bit later?

[cobalt]

HS,

Your thoughts on timing are in line with my own although I remain an agnostic regarding Wallace's guilt. But if he were guilty, then like you I think he would have wished around 30 minutes to commit what was a planned deed. That wouldn't give him a cast iron alibi of course but since no pathologist could later determine time of death to within an hour it would allow him to claim Julia was alive when he left at 6.50.

I disagree with AN that the milkboy is irrelevant to the evidence; as Fiver details there is plenty of corroboration for Alan Close's timing of 6.30 at the earliest. That gives 20 minutes for the murder and clean up which is certainly possible, but anything after 6.40 seems out of the question to me. That would mean Wallace had to alter his plan and compress his so clever scheme into a very small time period, for he could hardly set off for Menlove Gardens after 7pm without it later looking ultra suspicious.

I see the mackintosh as the more irrelevant detail. The murderer did not cover Julia's head and hit over the top of it to create a shield which in my opinion would be the instinctive thing to do if avoiding blood spray was the intention. More likely she had it on her shoulders, having answered the door or and it fell as she was struck. It's curious that Wallace highlighted the mackintosh as shield theory in his 'John Bull' article since if anything it points the finger of suspicion at him!

As a practical experiment, try holding a mackintosh to protect yourself in one hand while striking a pumpkin that is lying on the floor and you will see how unnatural and difficult it is to do so. You risk losing your balance as well. If the mackintosh is at floor level- necessary to protect your shoes- then it's easy to actually trip over it as you deliver the blows.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Cobalt,

I have tried the mackintosh experiment but not with a pumpkin and found it pretty easy tbh. If you reverse the coat, put your right arm through the left sleeve and hold up the rest of the coat with your left the only part left vulnerable would be your right hand (if you wore no glove) and the top half of your head. I had William doing this from a position of kneeling alongside the prone Julia.

I don’t think that there was any chance of her wearing it around her shoulders for a few reasons. 1) Her own coat would have been on the same rack and she didn’t own a mackintosh so she couldn’t have mistaken it for hers. 2) William had taken off the mackintosh at lunchtime to put on another coat because it was wet with rain. So a wet coat hanging for five or so hours in a cold hallway (no heating) was likely to have still been damp by that time. 3) When William had left earlier Julia had walked outside down to the back gate with him without feeling the need of a coat over her shoulders so why put one over her shoulders just to open a door for what she would probably expected to have been a very few seconds duration? 4) How could a woman have a coat over her shoulders, fall forward onto the floor, with the coat becoming bunched up beneath her. It was said at the time that it looked as if it had been deliberately placed there.

If you remove the necessity for a clean up all `William would really have needed was around three or four minutes imo. If a clean up was needed, and it’s possible that he got a few specks on him (if we consider the possibility of him accidentally transferring blood to the bank note upstairs) then how long could that have taken? Two minutes?

Looking at the murder in very general terms Cobalt I look at it this way - Parry had an alibi so he definitely wasn’t the killer. There’s no evidence that this was a real robbery (no search/small reward etc) so the robbery gone wrong doesn’t work. Murder by someone else is off the charts unlikely as who would want to kill the inoffensive Julia Wallace just for the sake of killing her? So what do we have let? Only William and his behaviour was incredibly suspicious.

[cobalt]

Slipping the right arm through the left sleeve of the reversed mackintosh makes a lot more sense, so thanks for that observation. Striking from a kneeling position doesn't generate much power though- as most boxers will tell you the punching power comes mainly from the hips, legs and also the toes. But if Wallace had a spanner or the like to strike with, no doubt the power would be sufficient to ensure death.

The detail provided by Wallace- of his wife seeing him to the back gate as he left- was a dangerous detail to provide if untrue. I would have thought any of his next door neighbours might have been looking out of a rear window and remembered seeing Wallace walk down to the gate on his own. If Wallace was guilty it was a totally unnecessary lie to provide to the police which might have exposed him as almost certainly a murderer.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes there was certainly a risk of that but William would probably have seen it as remote (why would anyone be looking out of their back window into the dark yards and alley? That kind of thinking) or perhaps that times could have been disputed if someone had come forward? He did miss an opportunity though of adding that Julia had a mackintosh around her shoulders which might have added weight to any future suggestion that she might have been doing the same when she was murdered.

I just checked - William actually returned for lunch at 2.10 and took off his wet raincoat, putting on a different coat to go back out at 3.15. That means that by the time that Julia went to the door the wet mackintosh had been hanging in a cold hallway for around four and a half hours. I just cant imagine her bothering to put on a damp, cold mackintosh just to briefly answer the door.

[Abby Normal]

If Wallace was trying to create an alibi, then he needed his wife to be seen alive late enough that he could not have killed her and still made it to places he was seen. That depended on something WHW had no control over, the milk boy's arrival time. The milk was supposed to be delivered around 6PM, before WHW returned home that day. and much too early to provide WHW with an alibi in any case.

According to neighbors, the milk boy had been delivering any time between 6pm and 7pm. If the milk was delivered between 6pm and 6:30pm, WHW would have had no alibi. If the milk was delivered between 6:45pm and 7pm, it would have been delivered after WHW would have to have already left home, based on the places and times that he was seen. WHW would only have an alibi if the milk was delivered between 6:30pm and 6:45pm.

According to milk boy Allan Close, he made the delivery and picked up the empties from Julia Wallace some time between 6:30pm and 6:45pm, the only time frame that would give WHW an alibi. Close's coworker, Elsie Wright, said she saw Close at about 6:40pm, shortly before he entered Wolverton Street to deliver to the Wallaces and their neighbors. Elsie Wright had never met WHW, but her statement reinforces that Julia Wallace was alive at 6:40pm to 6:45pm.

Wright also said that before talking to the police, Allan Close said he had seen Julia Wallace alive at about 6:45pm and that Close also stated the time in front of Kenneth Caird, Douglas Metcalf, and Harold Jones. Caird confirmed this. Jones confirmed this, adding that he heard Close tell the police that Julia Wallace was still alive at 6:45pm. Metcalf also confirmed what Close said, adding that he heard Close tell the police that Julia Wallace was still alive at 6:45pm. Paperboy Allison Wildman said he saw Close at the Wallace's door between 6:35pm and 6:40pm.

Based on all of these, it seems Julia Wallace was still alive between 6:40pm and 6:45pm. There's a lot more to it than just the milk boy's statement and WHW had no way of knowing, let alo9ne controlling, that all of these teens would give him alibi.

what if he planned to kill her after milk boy came. whats the big wup?

[Herlock Sholmes]

William could never be certain about what time he got home. On the night of the murder he estimated that he finished up with his last customer at around 5.45 and arrived home at around 6.05.

[cobalt]

HS,

Your reasoning regarding Julia wearing the raincoat is certainly persuasive. If the attacker did use the mackintosh in the manner you suggest then that could hardly have been the reaction of a opportunistic thief. Everything points to Wallace.

However you have identified the problem in respect of Wallace offering up the information about his wife escorting him to the back gate. It only has any advantage to him if he mentions her wearing the mackintosh which I don't think he did. Therefore he might as well have said she bade him farewell at the back door of the house, not the gate. I agree it's unlikely a neighbour would at 6.50pm been looking out over his dark backyard but he had no way of knowing this for sure. And if he had turned round to check for lights in a neighbouring bedroom that would have effectively nailed him had he been seen doing so alone.

AN,
The milkboy is crucial to Wallace's time frame, if guilty. He cannot kill her before the milkboy arrives without arousing grave suspicion in the aftermath. I assume Julia normally dealt with the milk so if the milkboy received no reply or Wallace himself answered the door then that would undermine his clever plan. (I think there is a fanciful theory that the extremely tall Wallace disguised himself as his wife to fool the lad. He must have been a better actor than Parry if he managed that. )

Nor can Wallace leave the house much later than 6.50pm without attracting suspicion as to why he ran the risk of arriving at his notional appointment in Menlove Gardens late. So he was forced by circumstance to kill after the milkboy arrived (6.30pm at the earliest but probably later) but before 6.50pm. You asked 'So what?' Well, if the milkboy had arrived just before 7pm then Wallace would have had to commit the murder then leave too late for his Menlove Gardens gig, and that would have raised suspicion given his apparent punctiliousness. The milkboy's unknowable time of arrival drives a cart and horse though the notion that Wallace planned the murder meticulously. The time of the milkboy's arrival was a wild card that Wallace could not control.

[Abby Normal]

HS,

Your reasoning regarding Julia wearing the raincoat is certainly persuasive. If the attacker did use the mackintosh in the manner you suggest then that could hardly have been the reaction of a opportunistic thief. Everything points to Wallace.

However you have identified the problem in respect of Wallace offering up the information about his wife escorting him to the back gate. It only has any advantage to him if he mentions her wearing the mackintosh which I don't think he did. Therefore he might as well have said she bade him farewell at the back door of the house, not the gate. I agree it's unlikely a neighbour would at 6.50pm been looking out over his dark backyard but he had no way of knowing this for sure. And if he had turned round to check for lights in a neighbouring bedroom that would have effectively nailed him had he been seen doing so alone.

AN,
The milkboy is crucial to Wallace's time frame, if guilty. He cannot kill her before the milkboy arrives without arousing grave suspicion in the aftermath. I assume Julia normally dealt with the milk so if the milkboy received no reply or Wallace himself answered the door then that would undermine his clever plan. (I think there is a fanciful theory that the extremely tall Wallace disguised himself as his wife to fool the lad. He must have been a better actor than Parry if he managed that. )

Nor can Wallace leave the house much later than 6.50pm without attracting suspicion as to why he ran the risk of arriving at his notional appointment in Menlove Gardens late. So he was forced by circumstance to kill after the milkboy arrived (6.30pm at the earliest but probably later) but before 6.50pm. You asked 'So what?' Well, if the milkboy had arrived just before 7pm then Wallace would have had to commit the murder then leave too late for his Menlove Gardens gig, and that would have raised suspicion given his apparent punctiliousness. The milkboy's unknowable time of arrival drives a cart and horse though the notion that Wallace planned the murder meticulously. The time of the milkboy's arrival was a wild card that Wallace could not control.

hi cobalt
very well explained i see the conundrum..Thanks! yes i can see his problem if milkboy arrives very late and he kills her later than planned. then wallace has to explain why did he left so late for a scheduled appointment. and of course the suspicion would be... well because he was busy killing her!

however, it seems thatwhat actually happened was simply that milkboy arrived early enough for wallace to carry out his plan. imho i think he could have killed her, staged the robbery and got out the door in ten minutes at most. probably quicker actually.

re saying his wife saw him to the back gate. sounds like bs story to me. see her husband to the door but why go out with him to the gate? makes no sense . sounds like hes trying to embellish his wife being alive at the time, either that or hes made a minor mistake by over egging the pudding.

what id like to know is how in tje hell does an innocent husband who knows his wifes been bludgeoned to death near the fire place, where the possible murder weapon was, not put the blindingly obvious together and realize the poker is missing and tell the police. the maid has to tell them. cmon.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Just for general information the Police did numerous trials and worked out that 6.50 was the latest that William could have left the house that night to catch the first tram that he actually caught. This got him to Menlove Gardens West at 7.20 leaving him just 10 minutes. I can’t remember the size but I remember finding out that it was a very sizeable area so even 10 minutes appears to me to have been cutting it fine for a 7.30 meeting. I think it’s safe to say that William was a conscientious type. Punctuality would have been a sign of professionalism for him. I think that it’s also safe to say that in those days punctuality was seen as more important than today. Many saw lateness as a sign of disrespect. Was William expecting Julia to have been dead just after 6.30 (scuppered by a late Close)?

[Herlock Sholmes]

HS,

However you have identified the problem in respect of Wallace offering up the information about his wife escorting him to the back gate. It only has any advantage to him if he mentions her wearing the mackintosh which I don't think he did. Therefore he might as well have said she bade him farewell at the back door of the house, not the gate. I agree it's unlikely a neighbour would at 6.50pm been looking out over his dark backyard but he had no way of knowing this for sure. And if he had turned round to check for lights in a neighbouring bedroom that would have effectively nailed him had he been seen doing so alone.
.

That’s a good point Cobalt. I’m convinced of William’s guilt but, as you say, why lie about walking to the gate and risk a neighbour saying: “well I was looking out of my bedroom window and I saw William leave but his wife wasn’t with him.”

My only suggestion might be that maybe that’s what usually happened?