You're right, it is all very strange. Just one of a number of odd behaviours that Wallace exhibited. Trying to work out what was normal for Wallace and what might be a reaction to events is quite difficult.
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** The Murder of Julia Wallace **
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Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post3. The locks pantomime; It’s hard to say for sure but all sources I’ve found or Calum contacted can offer no reason besides chance for the locks issue that night; promises by Antony to show otherwise were never followed up on. So we are to believe it is just a coincidence on this one very night his wife is murdered he has issues getting in enough to make a fuss so the neighbors come over and discover the body with him? I don’t think so.
The emboldening is my own as this is a point that I used to make strongly and regularly.
I don’t think that the case will ever be conclusively solved. There will always be doubt. I haven’t read anything about the case for a few years now so I’m totally rusty but it will always be an intriguing case. Apart from the ripper case no murder case can touch it as far as mystery and intrigue is concerned in my opinion.
"He went round to the back finding the yard gate closed but not bolted, and went up to the back door. He attempted to open it but felt as though it was fastened against him. Knocking gently on the back door he again received no answer (his neighbour Florence Johnston heard this knocking as mentioned – his “usual knock” she said). He then went round to the front door to give it one more try… Once again he could not get in and there was no response from inside the house. At this point he began to feel some level of concern and hurried round to the back for the second time where he had a chance encounter with neighbours John Sharpe Johnston and Florence Sarah Johnston, who said they were just headed out to visit a local relative of theirs named Phyllis."
So the neighbors heard WHW's “usual knock”, nothing more. They left the house for a completely unrelated reason and had a "chance encounter" with WHW as he returned to the back door a second time. WHW did attract their attention by asking “Have you heard anything unusual?”, but the neighbors chose to wait outside once WHW got the back door open. They only entered after WHW found the body.
What I find interesting is John Sharpe Johnston saying “try again and if you can’t manage it I’ll get my key”. Which sounds to me like the Johnston's had a spare key to the Wallace home. Why wasn't this ever followed up on?"The full picture always needs to be given. When this does not happen, we are left to make decisions on insufficient information." - Christer Holmgren
"Unfortunately, when one becomes obsessed by a theory, truth and logic rarely matter." - Steven Blomer
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Originally posted by Fiver View Post
Based on the linked site, that doesn't seem to be an accurate summary.
"He went round to the back finding the yard gate closed but not bolted, and went up to the back door. He attempted to open it but felt as though it was fastened against him. Knocking gently on the back door he again received no answer (his neighbour Florence Johnston heard this knocking as mentioned – his “usual knock” she said). He then went round to the front door to give it one more try… Once again he could not get in and there was no response from inside the house. At this point he began to feel some level of concern and hurried round to the back for the second time where he had a chance encounter with neighbours John Sharpe Johnston and Florence Sarah Johnston, who said they were just headed out to visit a local relative of theirs named Phyllis."
So the neighbors heard WHW's “usual knock”, nothing more. They left the house for a completely unrelated reason and had a "chance encounter" with WHW as he returned to the back door a second time. WHW did attract their attention by asking “Have you heard anything unusual?”, but the neighbors chose to wait outside once WHW got the back door open. They only entered after WHW found the body.
What I find interesting is John Sharpe Johnston saying “try again and if you can’t manage it I’ll get my key”. Which sounds to me like the Johnston's had a spare key to the Wallace home. Why wasn't this ever followed up on?
He ran into the Johnston’s entirely by chance. They only came into his yard and to his back door because William was clearly anxious (or pretending to be so)
Johnston just had the same type of lock so he offered to try his key if William’s hadn’t suddenly worked. He didn’t have a key to the Wallace’s house.Regards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
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Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View PostMaybe, and it’s only a maybe, Wallace was one of those reasonably intelligent men who just feel that they are a lot more intelligent than they actually are and that he liked the thought of creating a novel plan to fool the police? As we know, he was a second rate chess player but after he was arrested he said something in print like “I, who have pitted my brains against the best chess minds…” I’m unsure of the exact quote but it might signify a man who felt that a man of his ‘superior’ intelligence hadn’t received sufficient recognition from life. Just speculation of course.
WHW's actual self-assessment comes from his diary.
"‘6 November 1930. The tournaments [chess] are now up, and I see I am in Class Three [sic]. (This about represents my strength of play.) I suppose I could play better, but I feel it is too much like hard work to go in for chess wholeheartedly: hence my lack of practice keeps me in a state of mediocrity – good enough for a nice game, but not good enough (but no good) for really first-class play."
"The full picture always needs to be given. When this does not happen, we are left to make decisions on insufficient information." - Christer Holmgren
"Unfortunately, when one becomes obsessed by a theory, truth and logic rarely matter." - Steven Blomer
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Originally posted by Fiver View Post
That quote comes from a series of ghosted articles which appeared in John Bull in 1932.
WHW's actual self-assessment comes from his diary.
"‘6 November 1930. The tournaments [chess] are now up, and I see I am in Class Three [sic]. (This about represents my strength of play.) I suppose I could play better, but I feel it is too much like hard work to go in for chess wholeheartedly: hence my lack of practice keeps me in a state of mediocrity – good enough for a nice game, but not good enough (but no good) for really first-class play."
"Is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?"
-Edgar Allan Poe
"...the man and the peaked cap he is said to have worn
quite tallies with the descriptions I got of him."
-Frederick G. Abberline
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Originally posted by etenguy View Post
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.
I did find it odd that Wallace felt the need to go into this amount of clinical detail about how 'He' - presumably "Qualtrough" - must have entered the marital home and struck the fatal blows, after confidently sending the man of the house off on a wild goose chase. If Wallace had been an innocent pawn [sorry, but it's an apt description in the circumstances], he'd have been dwelling years later on extremely painful memories, just to add his own speculation about the events of that terrible evening, without any certainty of being right. Only if he had got away with murder would he have been able to explain what happened with genuine authority. So was he reliving his worst nightmare? Or was he living the dream - of having been there, done that and cheated the hangman?
Love,
Caz
XLast edited by caz; Today, 02:48 PM."Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov
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Originally posted by cobalt View PostHS,
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.
I try to look at this through the eyes of a man who has planned to kill his wife that evening after setting up a credible alibi for himself the night before. Sure, his plan would have relied on the milk boy not being later than usual, but would he have considered this likely if the lad was rarely if ever behind time? As a man who liked to be punctual himself, did he expect it in others and did they usually comply in his experience? If so, he'd have had a frustrating wait that evening, but he could have cancelled or postponed if he had found himself thoroughly beaten by the clock. But he went ahead and it paid off, whether he judged it right or was too determined to back out, and he was still able to leave home early enough - just - for the false alibi to work. Better in fact than if he'd had all the time he had anticipated.
But we look at this from what we know Wallace did after leaving home, when he went out of his way to make absolutely no secret of it. If the deed had taken him longer, and he'd been unable to leave home until 7pm, or even later, I have no doubt he'd have made himself a whole lot more forgettable on that outward journey - the invisible man from the Pru, no less - at least until he was close to where his intended destination ought to have been, where he could later claim to have faffed around forever, like many men I have known, trying and failing to find it himself before giving up and asking another living soul for directions. In short, he'd have needed to adapt the narrative to give himself the best chance when later questioned, and I'm not sure the differences would have been quite enough to hang him. If he was guilty, he was clearly able to conjure up all the lies he needed to tell throughout the process.
Love,
Caz
X"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov
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Originally posted by Abby Normal View Postre 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.
Either explanation sounds plausible to me: "Well I can assure you, my wife was very much alive when I was already out of the house" - or just overdoing the narrative. Saying less is generally safer if you are guilty and your neck is on the line, which is why "no comment" is the criminal's friend. Wallace also gives the convenient impression of a closeness in their relationship at the time, which I'm not entirely sure is backed up by the evidence. Much as I love my better half, who is five years my junior, neither of us would see the point in me walking down to our front or back gate just to see him off the premises - even at the height of summer here in Devon! A cheery "see ya later" from the living room, or a hug at the front door, and he's more than happy. Strange bloke that Wallace, having his much older missus accompany him to the gate in January in Liverpool.
Love,
Caz
X
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov
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Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View PostJust 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)?
If Wallace did the deed, I imagine he must have been quite put out by the milk boy's unexpected tardiness, but also arrogant enough to go ahead with his plans and adapt his behaviour as the situation required, to see the job through. Even a mediocre chess player will do the best they can with their next move.
Love,
Caz
X"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov
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Originally posted by caz View Post
This sounds about right to me, Herlock.
If Wallace did the deed, I imagine he must have been quite put out by the milk boy's unexpected tardiness, but also arrogant enough to go ahead with his plans and adapt his behaviour as the situation required, to see the job through. Even a mediocre chess player will do the best they can with their next move.
Love,
Caz
XRegards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
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I've spent some time trying to establish the tight timeline that Wallace must have been operating under- then Caz comes along and blows it to smithereens!
Her point seems a valid one to me. Wallace only has to announce himself on the streets of Menlove Gardens some time around 7.30pm which means he could have left the house as late as 7.10pm. Any passengers who remembered or recognised him (he would obviously be keeping a low profile in transit) could have said little more than that they saw him around 7 o'clock. Which suits his alibi well enough. In fact as Caz points out, Wallace could have arrived at Menlove Gardens as late as 7.45pm and claimed he had been scouting around looking for the address for some time.
So maybe the milkboy was not the potential fly in the ointment I assumed he was. Back to the drawing board.
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