a6 murder

[Tony]

Well a very warm welcome back to you Larue the instigator of this thread, and thank you so much for that,

A brilliant post if I may say so.

You might want to see my recent post regarding the experiment that I also carried out with my wife in the car when I tried to establish her eye colour. Then again perhaps not.

Anyway looking at your two photographs of the lay-by one thing strikes me:

If the car was facing down hill as you say, and I think that is generally accepted by all, then Mike would have been sat in the driver’s seat which would have been close to the middle of the lay-by which appears to be a two lane lay-by.
When Valerie and the gunman pulled Mike out of the car did they carry him right around the car?
From your photos I think I can see an incident tent right at the top of the lay-by where the body was placed and the cut hedge is seen behind meaning he must have been either dragged out of the passenger seat or taken from the driver’s seat and carried right around the car.

Why was this?

Also do you know what the two objects are beside the body?

I also agree with you that if a car came from behind (that is down the hill) how could it have illuminated the gunman’s face? The only possible explanation is that Valerie saw the face while she was in the front seat through the rear view mirror but she could only have done that if she had either been in the driving seat or had adjusted the mirror so that the passenger seat occupant could see behind. Both seem a bit far fetched to me. She could have meant that a car coming from the front lit up the man’s face. I think she got a bit mixed up quite a lot really and when you look at her evidence in total it really is a wonder how the prosecution succeeded.

Tony.

[Limehouse]

Evening everyone,

Welcome back La Rue. Magnificent post.

One of the items beside the body is a hoop-handled wicker basket. They were very popular at the time. The other item looks like a light-weight jacket or cadigan. But what of the 'duffle bag' - the one that had the laundry in? Was it left in the car?

[burkhilly]

Can I welcome La Rue back too - that post is excellent. It's so good to see the stalwarts back on the thread.

[Graham]

how could another car come up from behind in a dead end layby??? and how could a car's headlamps light up a man's face from behind him?, if he was sitting in the rear seat facing forward, and the observer was in the front facing backward??? the man's head would have been in silhouette

I too have pondered this. I think what Valerie means is that the car was at the end of the layby and facing south; that she was still sitting in the passenger seat looking back at Hanratty who was in the rear seat; a car then came along the A6 going north - that is, behind Valerie, and illuminated Hanratty's face. However, if he was still wearing his 'outlaw-style' handkerchief I find it hard to understand how she could identify him. I think it has to be assumed that when she saw his face in the light of the headlamps he'd taken his hankie off - she did say that he kissed her, which he couldn't do whilst still wearing it.

according to my latest source of information, until august 31st Valerie Storie had consistently told police that the killer had deep-set brown eyes. On august 31st she was transferred to guy's hospital, london. While she was in the ambulance, bedfordshire police issued a new description of the killer. The man now had large, icy-blue, saucer-like eyes. That's quite a significant change of description.

Valerie's very first statement (to John Kerr) just stated that her attacker had 'big staring eyes' without mentioning any colour. Likewise, after being interviewed in hospital by DC Gwen Woodin, who passed her notes to DS Rees, Valerie just referred to her attacker as having 'big eyes'; again no mention of colour.

Having said all that, I do agree that the identification evidence at Hanratty's trial was flimsy, to say the least. But the jury were confronted with a very seriously-injured woman who was being described as a heroine - who are they going to believe? Her, or someone who was a petty crook now accused of murder and rape? Yet for all that - and I don't want to pack too many statements into one post - I still seriously believe that had Hanratty stuck to his Liverpool Alibi and not introduced the Rhyl Alibi, he would have had a fairly good chance of being acquitted. Important though it was, I don't think the identification evidence actually swung the jury to convict.

Cheers,

Graham

[Sara]

I'm missing Vic tremendously also, perhaps not as much as you and Reg though. I really admire the empathy he feels for the likes of Hanratty and the arch criminal Mrs Grace Jones to name but three. You'll never hear Vic calling Hanratty a lying, thieving, murderous scumbag.

Hor hor, no accounting for taste!
I get driven off by some of the regular posters on here

Miss you all, look in from time to time but have run out of anything new to say lately

[larue]

hi all

thank you all for your words of welcome, but Tony, i cannot claim to be the instigator of this thread, i only assisted in it's rebirth after the server crash.

as Limehouse correctly observed, there is a wicker basket, and what certainly looks like a jacket. there is a thrid object a bit further away from the body. i guess it to be a photographer's bag, as the photo appears to have been taken before the screens were put up.

[larue]

A brilliant post if I may say so.

you may

You might want to see my recent post regarding the experiment that I also carried out with my wife in the car when I tried to establish her eye colour. Then again perhaps not.

i already have Tony. i have been following this thread constantly, even though i have not been posting, as i feel i had nothing further of interest to add. that changed recently upon the aquisition of another book that set me thinking aboot the i.d. [ i can clearly remember hoping that your eyes would not turn suddenly black, if you get my meaning!?]

i did smile a wry smile to myself, as your 'experiment' was running at much the same time as i was staring at my wife's eyes, and wondering how good a description i could have given, had i not known their color.

i concluded such a description is virtually impossible

[jimarilyn]

An excellent and extremely perceptive post Larue (#3645) and a warm welcome back to this thread. As Tony aptly points out you were responsible for reviving this thread after the big crash early last year (many thanks again for saving so many of the posts from the original thread).

The photo showing Michael Gregsten's dead body is intriguing. It is taken from a position pointing south, the same direction the car would be pointing in after doing a u-turn in the lay-by. I know it's not easy gauging distances from photographs, but it seems to me that the spot where Michael Gregsten was shot (the top end of the lay-by) is less than 200 yards from the house shown in the background of the first photo. If so, it is difficult to believe that the occupants of that house (or even approaching motorists) would be unable to hear the loud sound of approximately 10 bullets being fired in the still of a warm summer's night when windows are likely to be open.

Michael Gregsten's and Valerie Storie's bodies were found lying next to each other near the top end of the lay-by, so it seems rather puzzling that the police were pictured using metal detectors so far away. Did they think that the gunman might have thrown any empty cartridge cases out of the window as he was driving away from the scene ?

regards,
James

[Graham]

Being a rural district, gunfire at night (or around the clock, for that matter) wouldn't be viewed as remarkable. And I don't think that the report of a pistol would carry very far, anyway, and would probably have been attenuated by being inside the car, and by undergrowth, trees, etc., reference the out-of-the-car shots. I recall reading about The Somme, when an old soldier said that when advancing on the enemy they never heard the machine-guns until they got very close - within yards, in fact. They could see the muzzle-flash and hear the bullets whine past them, but couldn't hear the actual gunfire.

Last year I happened to see the police and forensic people combing a street in Birmingham after a shooting. They did the entire street with metal-detectors, dogs, walking and looking, brooms, the lot, in fact, when the shooting was in the front yard of a house. Their way of being thorough, I guess. Maybe the police in the A6 lay-by did think that the gunman might have thrown the gun plus cartridges out of the window as he drove off.

Cheers,

Graham

[jimarilyn]

Hi Graham,

You're probably correct in thinking that it was just a case of the police being thorough. A bit strange all the same.

The second photo of Larue's is from Professor Keith Simpson's book, I wonder if he, himself actually took that photo ? About five or six yards to the right of Mike Gregsten's body (not seen in Larue's photo) there is another unidentified object ( a large stone perhaps ??). The position of the photographer I'd guess is approximately where the Morris Minor would have been at the time Miss Storie dragged Mike's body from it. The RAC call box can be seen in the background of the full photograph by the way.

regards,
James

[Andrew]

The 'jimarilyn' video on youtube faithfully reproduces the wicker basket and jacket. Those metal detectors are actually army mine detectors and I think that some of the people present look like service personnel.
Regards
Andrew

[JIMBOW]

Google map of Rhyl

Here's a link to a Google map of Rhyl (don't think there's any problem re propriety when simply posting a link that's publically available):- http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&tab=wl (Note, after the fact:- enter 60 Kinmel Street, Rhyl in the 'Search' line, the link seems to only take you to Google Map itself).

It shows Kinmel Street, S.Kinmel Street behind, River Street (not very far away towards the promenade) and does indeed confirm that the railway station is close behind Kinmel Street.

Regards,
Jim

[Victor]

Myths

Hi all
My missus drew my attention to this a little while back but I was doing other stuff and put it to one side.
But I looked at it today and was shocked to find out about something called the chimera!

I would think from this that we don't know everything there is to know about human DNA!

Hi all,
I had a couple of weeks off and am saddened to see the repetition of old myths concerning the case, but happy that a number of people have posted again.

Chimera although interesting are basically two (or more) individuals fused into one, and therefore have 2 (or more) seperate but specific and unchanging DNA profiles. Each sample taken can give one profile, or the other, or a mixture of both. It's completely irrelevent to how Hanratty's semen came to be on VS underwear.

what are the odds of such a passing car appearing just at the right moment to light up the man's face?

Have none of you sat in a car in the early hours in the middle of the countryside? Cars occasionally pass by and light up the area, sometimes even at the right time and not just when you are in your most compromising pose!

A more significant effect by far would be that VS eyes would have acclimitised to the low light levels and the passing headlights would be too BRIGHT rather than not bright enough.

I still seriously believe that had Hanratty stuck to his Liverpool Alibi and not introduced the Rhyl Alibi, he would have had a fairly good chance of being acquitted. Important though it was, I don't think the identification evidence actually swung the jury to convict.

I agree with Graham, without the Rhyl alibi there's no Grace Jones (master criminal, bond girl, molestor of chat show hosts and due to appear at Devil's Dyke Festival this year) and the associated fiasco.

KR,
Vic.

[JIMBOW]

Have none of you sat in a car in the early hours in the middle of the countryside? Cars occasionally pass by and light up the area, sometimes even at the right time and not just when you are in your most compromising pose!

I'd agree with Vic on this. Leaving aside the question of just how the Gregsten car was positioned (as covered in some recent posts), I don't think it at all unlikely that a car would have passed by and illiminated the area, even in the wee small hours in August 1961.

Jim

[larue]

The second photo of Larue's is from Professor Keith Simpson's book, I wonder if he, himself actually took that photo ? About five or six yards to the right of Mike Gregsten's body (not seen in Larue's photo) there is another unidentified object ( a large stone perhaps ??).
regards,
James

hi jimarilyn

take another look at that photograph, then at my post #3651