a6 murder

[babybird67]

thanks

One matter needs to be cleared up on the boards. As a rule, Casebook Admin does not comment on posters who have been banned or otherwise removed from the site. However, because of the particulars of this situation, we wish to make it clear that the poster Reg1965 WAS NOT deleted because of any “threat of violence” against another poster. The claim was made in regards to post #2961 where Reg1965 made a comment about his “brother” looking through the Brighton phonebook (for Victor). Posters can look at the post and the posts leading up to it themselves and make up their own mind regarding the actual seriousness of the “threat”. However, it should be made clear that the argument between the two posters was NOT a factor in Reg1965 being removed from the site.

There will be no further discussion or comment from us regarding this situation.

Thank you for that clarification of the issue, Stephen.

[Victor]

Now, this is where the complications arise. This is interpretation of the result, which has itself not changed, the 6 people had traces of nitro-glycerine on their hands.

Which is where people who accept that explanation are perfectly entitled to ask "Please provide an alternative explanation for the observed results", which in the Birmingham Six is "The nitro-glycerine came from playing cards"

Hi Tony,

Sorry, I should have said "traces of the breakdown products of nitro-glycerine on their hands" and "The breakdown products of nitro-glycerine came from playing cards". It was a stupid mistake, but critical.

KR,
Vic.

[Limehouse]

The problem with this for me, Vic, along with acknowledging the extreme implausibility of an 'adventitious match' on two exhibits which also match eachother, is the corroboration of the results by the original evidence.

You have the witness identification, not just by VS, who was there, and ought to know better than anybody who attacked her, but the further two witnesses who later saw JH in the car, who both, i believe, picked JH out at an ID parade.

You have the lack of verifiable alibi and the fact that JH himself knowingly and willingly gave a false alibi to start with...if he had a verifiably true alibi, why would that be necessary?

You have the fact that the rapist's blood type matched JH (ok, it was common, but along with all the other evidence, it does start to build up the picture of guilt to my mind).

You have the gun/handkerchief and these items being left precisely where JH habitually left things, by his own admission.

The DNA results are not standing alone by any stretch of the imagination; they fit perfectly into the evidence regarding the case that was previously known to the Jury back in 1961.

We have to look at the whole picture...it speaks volumes to my mind.

Skillet and Towler did, indeed pick Hanratty out at an identity parade. By their own admission, they caught a 'glimpse' of the man driving the Morris Minor that morning. This was on 23 August. Hanratty was not identified as a suspect until at least a month afterwards. The identity parade at which the two men picked out Hanratty was hel on 11 October. In the papers the previous day was the information that the gunman wore a 'dark blue suit'. On the parade, every man except Hanratty was wearing light clothing. He stood out like a sore thumb. The men who caught a glimpse of the killer ON THE NIGHT OF THE CRIMES, (ie in the garage) did not pick him out on the indentity parade.

The gun and hankerchief could easily, very easily, have been placed in that place deliberately, just because it could be established that Hanratty habitually di this with unwanted items from burglaries. No court would have convicted a man on that evidence alone.

I want to know, where are the wintesses that saw Hanratty en route to the cornfiled? Where are the witnesses that saw him lurking in the vacinity of the cornfiled?

[Victor]

Skillet and Towler did, indeed pick Hanratty out at an identity parade. By their own admission, they caught a 'glimpse' of the man driving the Morris Minor that morning.

Hi Julie,
Blackhall and Skillett were in a sort of chase for 5-10 minutes though, hardly a "glimpse", and very memorable circumstances from the detailed description of events. The corroborating description of Gregsten's aunts car makes this even more significant.

The men who caught a glimpse of the killer ON THE NIGHT OF THE CRIMES, (ie in the garage) did not pick him out on the indentity parade.

True if you believe Harry Hirons actually served them. Also the rural location makes the possibility of the gunman being seen before the crime less likely.

The gun and hankerchief could easily, very easily, have been placed in that place deliberately,

Again true, but explaining how whoever "planted" the gun and hanky got hold of both items isn't simple and involves some sort of pre-planned conspiracy, which given the conspicuous lack of planning I pointed out a few pages back is highly unlikely.

I want to know, where are the wintesses that saw Hanratty en route to the cornfiled? Where are the witnesses that saw him lurking in the vacinity of the cornfiled?

True again, but was there any lurking? If the gunman stumbled across the car and decided to "hijack" it on the spur of the moment, then the window of opportunity is small.

The alleged sighting of Alphon by Foggerty-Waul is very dubious to me, especially as there was no ID parade for him.

KR,
Vic.

[Tony]

Skillet and Towler did, indeed pick Hanratty out at an identity parade. By their own admission, they caught a 'glimpse' of the man driving the Morris Minor that morning. This was on 23 August. Hanratty was not identified as a suspect until at least a month afterwards. The identity parade at which the two men picked out Hanratty was hel on 11 October. In the papers the previous day was the information that the gunman wore a 'dark blue suit'. On the parade, every man except Hanratty was wearing light clothing. He stood out like a sore thumb. The men who caught a glimpse of the killer ON THE NIGHT OF THE CRIMES, (ie in the garage) did not pick him out on the indentity parade.

The gun and hankerchief could easily, very easily, have been placed in that place deliberately, just because it could be established that Hanratty habitually di this with unwanted items from burglaries. No court would have convicted a man on that evidence alone.

I want to know, where are the wintesses that saw Hanratty en route to the cornfiled? Where are the witnesses that saw him lurking in the vacinity of the cornfiled?

Hello Julie,

You could also have added that Mr Acott had received reported sightings of the car miles away from Redbridge and he also ‘put aside’ the mileage log which showed it had done another 200 miles that day.

Of course that did not serve his purpose as neither did John Kerr’s notes.

Tony.

[Graham]

Hi guys,

just a couple of comments:

1] Harry Hirons was clocking on a bit and I think he admitted that he could never be 100% sure he fuelled the Minor.

2] I have never ruled out the possibility that France had something to do with obtaining the gun, either directly or indirectly, and that in something of a panic JH gave it back to him 'for disposal'. Probably irrational, but leaving the gun on the bus rather than chucking it into the Thames was also irrational, if JH himself actually did that.

3] I rather favour the idea that JH hadn't long been in possession of the gun, hence his pocketful of bullets, when he hi-jacked the car. Maybe he'd collected it from someone fairly local (maybe someone France put him onto, cf: above). All speculative, of course.

4] I've walked the area around the cornfield, and I think (not 100% sure) that it is (or maybe was) possible to reach the actual spot from the main A4 road via lanes and across the fields without touching Marsh Lane itself. Again speculative, but such a route would miss the famous cottages on Marsh Lane itself. (Every time I think about the actual abduction spot it reminds me of the day I walked from Taplow Station to the cornfield and back again...nearly did me in!)

5] I think Sherrard felt that Foggerty-Waul, who was something of an eccentric, was another who wanted "in on the act". Leonard Miller definitely thinks so. That Brighton sighting of who he claimed was Alphon always struck me as being a bit suspect...

Cheers,

Graham

[Victor]

Of course that did not serve his purpose as neither did John Kerr’s notes.

Hi Tony,

You mean the mysterious notes about the shot woman "Mary" that he gave to a policeman that he couldn't remember or identify.

KR,
Vic.

[NickB]

I want to know, where are the wintesses that saw Hanratty en route to the cornfiled? Where are the witnesses that saw him lurking in the vacinity of the cornfiled?

I still think this is being looked at in the wrong way.

The question is not: “If you were lurking around the cornfield, what is the chance you would be noticed?” The answer to this may well be over 50%.

The question is: “If you were lurking around the cornfield and had been noticed, what is the chance you would proceed with a hold-up?” The answer to this is 0%.

[caz]

You have the fact that the rapist's blood type matched JH (ok, it was common, but along with all the other evidence, it does start to build up the picture of guilt to my mind).

Hi bb,

This is actually more significant than the conspiracy theorists would have us believe, because blood group A is virtually as common as group O in the UK, and for every person who shared the rapist's blood group, there would have been roughly two who didn't, ie roughly two-thirds of the population would not have had group O.

The supposed framing process would have come unstuck right from the start if Hanratty had been among the significant majority who did not have group O. The petty crooks doing the framing could hardly have checked the two blood groups involved, even if they had appreciated how vital it would be for them to match, let alone anticipated that the hankie and Valerie's smalls would both oblige with a perfect Hanratty DNA match 40 years down the line.

And still no reasonable explanation from anyone for how we ended up at this point, with the specific DNA findings, if someone else was the gunman and rapist. How do all the elements come together and work so damned well? A mixture of incredibly lucky and devilishly clever and wicked conspiracists from different generations working independently?

The special pleading on the ripper threads is nothing compared to what goes on here.

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

The supposed framing process would have come unstuck right from the start if Hanratty had been among the significant majority who did not have group O. The petty crooks doing the framing could hardly have checked the two blood groups involved, even if they had appreciated how vital it would be for them to match, let alone anticipated that the hankie and Valerie's smalls would both oblige with a perfect Hanratty DNA match 40 years down the line.

Hi Caz,

Hanratty had a blood donor card that was discovered by his family many years later which showed he was rhesus negative. So someone must have known his blood group whilst he was alive.

It doesn't help explain the DNA matches though.

KR,
Vic.

[babybird67]

hi Julie

No court would have convicted a man on that evidence alone.

But you are talking about evidence 'alone': the whole point of my last post was to point out that we should be looking at the whole picture and how all the evidence appears to stack up, completed by the convincing results of the DNA testing.

I want to know, where are the wintesses that saw Hanratty en route to the cornfiled? Where are the witnesses that saw him lurking in the vacinity of the cornfiled?

As far as i am aware, nobody was seen doing these things, yet we still had an abduction there: a crime was committed! The above argument seems to imply that if nobody was seen committing a crime, nobody can be convicted of it? When i say nobody of course i am buying into the strange approach of completely discounting the actual witness testimony which DOES quite firmly place Hanratty there....that of Valerie Storie. Why is her account of what happened to her and who did it to her so difficult to accept? In a trial where so many people called were known liars, one of the very few citizens with no criminal record, no reason to lie etc is continually having to defend her choice of identification, even AFTER the DNA results vindicated that choice in 2002, yet we are still here, inexplicably to my mind, suggesting she still got it wrong.

At some point we have to accept, she was there, yes, she could have been mistaken, but she was not: defence counsel accept the right man was convicted, appeal counsel and therefore presumably the remaining Hanratty family accept Alphon "could not have been" the A6 murderer; either someone totally off the radar was responsible, in which case you either have to accept, as Caz has pointed out so eloquently, an amazing two generation conspiracy theory to frame Hanratty, or, there has to come a point where looking as objectively and disapassionately at the evidence as we can, we have to conclude that the EVIDENCE confirms the view that Hanratty was guilty.

If we had DNA linking a suspect to the Ripper murders, how many convoluted twists and turns would we be using to try to exonerate that suspect? Or would we be finally accepting that the mystery had been solved?

My box of goodies from Graham has arrived this morning...some books and a documentary...so i shall be digging into those and learning even more about the case quite soon.

And a big THANK YOU to Graham!

[babybird67]

hi Caz

And still no reasonable explanation from anyone for how we ended up at this point, with the specific DNA findings, if someone else was the gunman and rapist. How do all the elements come together and work so damned well? A mixture of incredibly lucky and devilishly clever and wicked conspiracists from different generations working independently?

Your posts on this issue have been eloquent, logical, convincing, superb. I am a great admirer of them! You say everything so well, so clearly. Well done.

[Victor]

If we had DNA linking a suspect to the Ripper murders, how many convoluted twists and turns would we be using to try to exonerate that suspect? Or would we be finally accepting that the mystery had been solved?

Hi Jen,

Are you referring to Patricia Cornwell and her Sickert theories?

Enjoy the books... Foot is a far easier read than Woffinden, and was written first too.

KR,
Vic.

[babybird67]

haha Vic

no, i wasnt referring to Sickert, as the only thing the suspect DNA might link Sickert too, doubtfully imo, is a letter, which can not be proven to have any link to the actual murders...and i believe Sickert was in France at the time of some of the murders anyway.

Yes i think i shall read Foot first, then Woffinden, then Miller. Exciting times! The end of my ignorance is nigh!

[Victor]

2] I have never ruled out the possibility that France had something to do with obtaining the gun, either directly or indirectly, and that in something of a panic JH gave it back to him 'for disposal'. Probably irrational, but leaving the gun on the bus rather than chucking it into the Thames was also irrational, if JH himself actually did that.

3] I rather favour the idea that JH hadn't long been in possession of the gun, hence his pocketful of bullets, when he hi-jacked the car. Maybe he'd collected it from someone fairly local (maybe someone France put him onto, cf: above). All speculative, of course.

Hi Graham,

Do you think that it's possible that the gun was France's and he stored it in the airing cupboard, and Hanratty stole it on the Monday before heading off to the Vienna?

As I speculated last week?

KR,
Vic.