** The Murder of Julia Wallace **

[cobalt]

I think the problem with the mackintosh is that it was not used to limit the blood spray. The natural instinct would have been to cover the victim's head with the mackintosh and unleash a lethal assault. But this did not happen. The blows were struck, according to testimony at trial, directly on to the head: That is, not through the canvas material of the mackintosh. but directly on the head. So why bring the mackintosh?

This is why the police were perplexed and Wallace was actually asked at trial: 'Did you sometimes play music naked in a mackintosh with your wife?'

He had the presence of mind to ask, 'WHAT!!'

And quite rightly so. If Wallace's account was dubious then the prosecution case was clutching at straws.

[Abby Normal]

The mackintosh should not have been in the parlour- the 'posh' room in British culture at that time- and the police were alive to this from the start. Any repairing, drying or ironing would have been carried out in the kitchen. Wallace, like the police, expressed puzzlement as to why the mackintosh was in the parlour.

They asked Wallace if the mackintosh was his and he was hesitant at first then confirmed it was, by identifying two patches that had been made to the garment. Wallace had, before the police arrived, acknowledged it was his mackintosh to the Johnstons so it might seem odd that he did not confirm this immediately to the police. However confirming something to the police is a more serious business than making an observation to a neighbour.

Wallace's testimony at trial is to my mind a credible account of what an innocent man would have been thinking when unable to enter his own house. At first he thought his wife had gone out to post a letter. Then he thought she might have retired to bed feeling unwell. His suspicion of an intruder relied on his discovering that the front door (at the second time of asking) was not merely locked but actually bolted as well. There was no reason for his wife to have done this hence his suspicion of foul play, heightened by unease about the wild goose chase over in the Menlove area.

The jury clearly believed that the implausibility of the Qualtrough story, his apparent alibi seeking in Menlove Gardens and the elaborate pantomime with the locked doors rendered his account untrue. But you cannot hang a man on suspicion, especially since at no time was Wallace caught out lying. There was no obvious motive and no incriminating forensics so the decision to overturn the guilty verdict was surely correct.

hi cobalt, all

is there any chance the mac could have been used by the killer to throw on her after the initial blow knocked her down and out..to shield blood splatter?? it would explain it being bundled under her, and burnt:

the killer whacks her with the iron when shes in front of the fire she falls, he throws the mac on her/ over her head, a part of it /her skirt catches fire, he puts it out, continues beating her, the mac comes off and he pushes it under her with the iron. or she rolls over it whatever.

im not sure if the mac points in any direction re an intruder vs wallace. either one might have wanted to use it to cover blood splatter.

[cobalt]

The mackintosh should not have been in the parlour- the 'posh' room in British culture at that time- and the police were alive to this from the start. Any repairing, drying or ironing would have been carried out in the kitchen. Wallace, like the police, expressed puzzlement as to why the mackintosh was in the parlour.

They asked Wallace if the mackintosh was his and he was hesitant at first then confirmed it was, by identifying two patches that had been made to the garment. Wallace had, before the police arrived, acknowledged it was his mackintosh to the Johnstons so it might seem odd that he did not confirm this immediately to the police. However confirming something to the police is a more serious business than making an observation to a neighbour.

Wallace's testimony at trial is to my mind a credible account of what an innocent man would have been thinking when unable to enter his own house. At first he thought his wife had gone out to post a letter. Then he thought she might have retired to bed feeling unwell. His suspicion of an intruder relied on his discovering that the front door (at the second time of asking) was not merely locked but actually bolted as well. There was no reason for his wife to have done this hence his suspicion of foul play, heightened by unease about the wild goose chase over in the Menlove area.

The jury clearly believed that the implausibility of the Qualtrough story, his apparent alibi seeking in Menlove Gardens and the elaborate pantomime with the locked doors rendered his account untrue. But you cannot hang a man on suspicion, especially since at no time was Wallace caught out lying. There was no obvious motive and no incriminating forensics so the decision to overturn the guilty verdict was surely correct.

[Herlock Sholmes]

HS,

The theory of Julia wearing or draping the mackintosh over her shoulders has been pretty well discounted in your earlier posts. And by Wallace as well!

However Julia would hardly have decided to dry the garment at around 7 o'clock since Wallace had arrived back a bit wet around 1.30. Surely she would have done this a lot sooner? And used something like a meshed fireguard to drape the damp coat across?

Ironing the mackintosh might have been a possibility but there seems to be no evidence of an iron or ironing board being taken out for this purpose. And given Julia's reported lack of domestic application, I doubt she would have gone to that bother for one item: there was no evidence of other clothing being collected to be ironed that I have read of.

As stated previously I don't accept the idea that Wallace, if guilty, would have relied upon such a weak story as an intruder bursting past him when he returned. It makes a nonsense of the Qualtrough subterfuge in terms of timing and undermines Wallace's entire scheme, if such it was.

As a cultural aside, the mackintosh cements the image of Wallace's lower middle class lifestyle as a dull but worthy 'Man from the Pru' whose hobbies were chess and chemistry. The fact it was found next to his dead wife in the parlour, a place where she and Wallace enjoyed musical evenings, is a flourish that could not be bettered by any novelist. Imagine, horror of horrors, if the suspected husband been a lorry driver who enjoyed a game of dominoes at the local pub and his wife, who enjoyed listening to popular music on the radio, was found next to a donkey jacket. The case loses all its intrigue.

To be honest Cobalt I tend to think that William wouldn’t have been too concerned about any possible explanation for its presence as long as the police didn’t see that it was used by him (ie with blood spatter) they might have just thought “well, women do stuff with clothing, wash, dry, repair etc. They move stuff around. So what?” Kind of thing.

I certainly take your point about the ‘intruder’ suggestion. He did appear reluctant to admit that he’d suspected that there was someone in the house though as Eten has just said. This seems a bit strange to me although proof of nothing of course. It’s difficult to provide an alternative explanation though.

[etenguy]

HS,As stated previously I don't accept the idea that Wallace, if guilty, would have relied upon such a weak story as an intruder bursting past him when he returned. It makes a nonsense of the Qualtrough subterfuge in terms of timing and undermines Wallace's entire scheme, if such it was.

Cobalt

You make a good point, and yet Wallace did put forward the idea that the thief/murderer was in his house when he returned home, just as weak for the same reason. He did back away from this story at the trial and was quite keen to put some distance between himself and the idea, but ended up being hounded to making the admission. He probably realised the weakness of the story quite quickly but just a bit too late.

[cobalt]

HS,

The theory of Julia wearing or draping the mackintosh over her shoulders has been pretty well discounted in your earlier posts. And by Wallace as well!

However Julia would hardly have decided to dry the garment at around 7 o'clock since Wallace had arrived back a bit wet around 1.30. Surely she would have done this a lot sooner? And used something like a meshed fireguard to drape the damp coat across?

Ironing the mackintosh might have been a possibility but there seems to be no evidence of an iron or ironing board being taken out for this purpose. And given Julia's reported lack of domestic application, I doubt she would have gone to that bother for one item: there was no evidence of other clothing being collected to be ironed that I have read of.

As stated previously I don't accept the idea that Wallace, if guilty, would have relied upon such a weak story as an intruder bursting past him when he returned. It makes a nonsense of the Qualtrough subterfuge in terms of timing and undermines Wallace's entire scheme, if such it was.

As a cultural aside, the mackintosh cements the image of Wallace's lower middle class lifestyle as a dull but worthy 'Man from the Pru' whose hobbies were chess and chemistry. The fact it was found next to his dead wife in the parlour, a place where she and Wallace enjoyed musical evenings, is a flourish that could not be bettered by any novelist. Imagine, horror of horrors, if the suspected husband been a lorry driver who enjoyed a game of dominoes at the local pub and his wife, who enjoyed listening to popular music on the radio, was found next to a donkey jacket. The case loses all its intrigue.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Cobalt/Eten

Another suggestion (and that’s all that it is) is that instead of someone rushing past him at the gate which can’t have been the case (explained above by Cobalt) maybe Wallace’s plan was to have the door open just as he got there on the second visit and a mysterious figure rushed past him, running out of the gate into the dark? Or even that someone rushed past him after he’d entered the house.

[Herlock Sholmes]

HS,

Your logic of Wallace trying the back gate on 'the off chance' works well, but as ever logic sheds little light on what actually happened in the Wallace case.

Interestingly, Wallace was offered something of an 'off ramp' at trial when it was suggested his wife Julia might have walked beyond the back gate and walked some distance with him along the back alley. (Some have suggested this was to search for her missing cat which, true to the spirit of the case, suddenly turned up inexplicably after her death.) This offered Wallace, if guilty, two marvellous opportunities. One, his wife was wearing the mackintosh across her shoulders. And two, some person unknown slipped through the unbolted back gate and entered the house in her temporary absence.

But at trial Wallace would have none of it! He specifically denied she had on a mackintosh (he was never asked what she actually did wear) and absolutely refuted the notion she ever moved beyond the back gate, despite both of these suggestions working in his favour. If Wallace was guilty he had mastered the art of knowing that a lie is best shrouded in truth.

I remember that I once wrote a bit of a list (never posted I don’t think) of possible missed opportunities by William; ways that he might have improved his plan. As you point out, he could have mentioned that she had a mackintosh around her shoulders when she supposedly escorted him to the back gate which would have planted the idea that Julia was in the habit of doing that thus providing a reason for the presence of the mackintosh in the parlour. But maybe we are all guilty at times of overthinking this; it’s an easy habit to fall into. Would William have really been bothered about ‘why’ the apron was there? As the fire was on in the parlour might William have perhaps thought that someone might have thought “maybe she’d took the damp mackintosh into the parlour to put it over the back of a chair in front of the fire?” Or “maybe she’d took was intending to iron it because when it got damp it had become badly creased?” Maybe William just thought that no one would spend too much time wondering why the mackintosh was there and, to be fair, he was right. They didn’t.

[cobalt]

HS,

Your logic of Wallace trying the back gate on 'the off chance' works well, but as ever logic sheds little light on what actually happened in the Wallace case.

Interestingly, Wallace was offered something of an 'off ramp' at trial when it was suggested his wife Julia might have walked beyond the back gate and walked some distance with him along the back alley. (Some have suggested this was to search for her missing cat which, true to the spirit of the case, suddenly turned up inexplicably after her death.) This offered Wallace, if guilty, two marvellous opportunities. One, his wife was wearing the mackintosh across her shoulders. And two, some person unknown slipped through the unbolted back gate and entered the house in her temporary absence.

But at trial Wallace would have none of it! He specifically denied she had on a mackintosh (he was never asked what she actually did wear) and absolutely refuted the notion she ever moved beyond the back gate, despite both of these suggestions working in his favour. If Wallace was guilty he had mastered the art of knowing that a lie is best shrouded in truth.

etenguy,

I think the back door was locked on the night of the murder as per usual, albeit the back gate was not bolted as normal. The front door was locked as usual but in addition bolted (according to Wallace), the latter being unusual since Wallace was expected to return through there. It is a classic three card trick and if Wallace pulled it off he was a far better card or chess player than we want to acknowledge.

Your theory about Wallace imagining an assailant run from the property has ben discounted on two grounds. One, how did the guilty man manage to open the locked back door and then lock it behind him? And second, why did the crafty Qualtrough (perhaps of Wallace's fertile imagination) not act a lot sooner given the time frame he had opened up with a bogus call? Qualtrough had a two hour time frame to operate within whether his motive was theft of murder: such a crafty man would not be so dilatory in his timing as Wallace must have understood. At trial Wallace quite convincingly conveyed the notion that an intruder might still be on the premises but was able to explain, with the benefit of hindsight, why this was unlikely to be so.

Again we have a three card trick, this time in regards to time: past, present and future. They are integral to how we view the world and, if guilty, Wallace played them off against each other to great effect.

[etenguy]

I wonder if the difference in normal arrangements for door locking tells us anything.

Normally when Wallace was out at night the back door would be locked and the gate bolted. Neither was the case on the night of the murder. Normally Wallace would enter through the front door of an evening, so it would not normally be bolted as it was on the night of the murder. So who is most likely to have wanted the change.

If Mr Q was the murderer he would probably leave by the back door as it was more discreet and so that would explain why it was not locked nor the gate bolted when Wallace returned, but it is hard to find a reason for Mr Q to bolt the front door. It has been said it was to stop Wallace coming home and finding him there but I find this unlikely as if Mr Q set up the phone call, he would know that he had a good amount of time after Wallace left. Also, Mr Q would probably not want to impede an exit in case he needed a quick getaway and that was his only option at that time.

If William was the murderer, then he might want the front door bolted so he had an excuse to go to the back door and play act the door locked/opening routine to ensure he was not alone when the body was found. If so, I think he was going to suggest the murderer was in the house when he got home (as in fact he did to start with) and both doors were locked so the murderer would not be caught in the act. I think he would have gone on to suggest the murderer left throught the back door when Wallace returned to the front. Perhaps he had intended to say he saw someone running off, but the Johnstones appeared at just the wrong time to allow him to say that and hence he dropped that part of his plan, adapting to the circumstances as they unfolded. Now of course the whole door bolted and lock jamming just seems suspicious and works against Wallace.

[Herlock Sholmes]

William certainly stated that he always returned by the front door if it was after dark so he should certainly have expected it to have been locked. If he’d have said that he’d heard her bolt it then there would have been no real point in going to try it. If asked why he tried the back gate though he could perhaps have fallen back on “well I thought I’d try it on the off chance that Julia had forgotten to put the bolt on.” By saying that he couldn’t recall whether he’d heard her bolt it or not he leaves the question open. As if, on occasion, Julia forgot to lock it.

[cobalt]

I've made a few points about locked gates and doors in recent posts so in the interests of accuracy I re-read Wallace's answers during the trial.

Wallace did not commit himself as to whether Julia bolted the back gate or not. He was pushed quite hard on this point in the dock: the prosecution claimed he had stated to police on the night of the crime that he had actually heard Julia do this. At trial Wallace denied he had used these words and restricted himself to saying that he was not aware whether she had: he did not hear her do so, therefore was uncertain on the matter.

Apology for an earlier comment I made about Wallace noticing the back gate was unbolted on his return: I did not appreciate that this was the only route into the rear of his premises therefore he was bound to have been aware of this fact before his attempts to unlock the back door. And on this first sojourn to the rear of his house Wallace stated that he peered through a window and was unable to see a light from the kitchen which he thought he should have been able to do. So his self-described conduct was far less suspicious than what I outlined in an earlier post.

Or maybe not! If Julia bolting the back gate behind him was the standard procedure, why would Wallace have gone round to the back of the property after being unable to open the front door? He must have assumed it was bolted and from the photos I have seen, the walls would have been insurmountable to the gangly, unhealthy Wallace. It's as if Wallace knew the back gate was unbolted and there is only one way that he would have known that.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I assume this is the dividing wall between the Wallace and Johnston houses. Happy to be corrected.

It is Cobalt. The Holme’s lived at number 27 to the left of the Wallace’s and the Johnston’s lived to the right at number 31.

[Abby Normal]

This was very convenient for Wallace, that he should pass the back door of his neighbours just as they were leaving for the evening. He couldn't have known that would happen and yet that gives him the witnesses when finding the body. If the Johnstones had left 30 minutes earlier, the whole door and lock issues would not have been seen by anyone and Wallace would have found Julia alone. This being the case, that Wallace would not know his neighbours would conveniently come out, there is no reason for the door lock issue to be played up by Wallace, which leads me to wonder whether the issues Wallace faced with the door that night were real.

i see it tje other way. his plan was probably to act locked out , amd if no one saw him going back in forth, his next step would be to start knocking on neighbors doors looking for help. i bet he was ecstatic his neighbors came out just then.

and poof... he suddenly can get in. how convenient.

[etenguy]

Cheers etenguy. Crossed post.

This was very convenient for Wallace, that he should pass the back door of his neighbours just as they were leaving for the evening. He couldn't have known that would happen and yet that gives him the witnesses when finding the body. If the Johnstones had left 30 minutes earlier, the whole door and lock issues would not have been seen by anyone and Wallace would have found Julia alone. This being the case, that Wallace would not know his neighbours would conveniently come out, there is no reason for the door lock issue to be played up by Wallace, which leads me to wonder whether the issues Wallace faced with the door that night were real.