a6 murder

[Graham]

I'd be happy to see anything posted that gets this thread rolling again, so I for one very much look forward to what Dupplin Muir has to say.

Didn't our very own Tony make a broad hint recently that he'd got something earth-shattering to say? Come on, Tone...cough.

Cheers,

Graham

[NickB]

This is one of the few crimes on this forum where further first hand information is still possible.

After the Court Of Appeal decision, the Mail on 11-May-2002 reported of Valerie Storie:
“She even said she might return to the ‘copious notes’ and piles of paper that have accumulated over the years and write her own book about her nightmare.”

[SteveS]

After the Court Of Appeal decision, the Mail on 11-May-2002 reported of Valerie Storie:
“She even said she might return to the ‘copious notes’ and piles of paper that have accumulated over the years and write her own book about her nightmare.”

full article @

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-113967/Hanratty-victim-vindicated.html

thnx
Steve

[Andrew]

The Probate Office

Dear All,
I went to the Probate Office last Tuesday and obtained a copy of Peter Alphon’s last will and testament. Amongst the domestic residue and cherished chattels just one line caught my eye:
Quote: ‘I leave my -38- cleaning kit and shoulder holster to Mr M. Clark’.

And then I woke up.

Actually I did go there on Tuesday (not just in my dreams), but without result and I’d like to take this opportunity to complain bitterly about the ridiculous user-hostile computer system, the unhelpful staff and the airport-style security precautions. Using their IT system is like programming a 1983 Sinclair Spectrum. When it displays ‘no results found’ you have no idea if it’s working at all. IF I THOUGHT IT WERE POSSIBE TO GET A BOMB PAST SECURITY THEN I’D BLOW THE PLACE UP MYSELF (I’m shouting).
Regards
Andrew

[SteveS]

Dear All,
I went to the Probate Office last Tuesday and obtained a copy of Peter Alphon’s last will and testament. Amongst the domestic residue and cherished chattels just one line caught my eye:
Quote: ‘I leave my -38- cleaning kit and shoulder holster to Mr M. Clark’.

And then I woke up.

Actually I did go there on Tuesday (not just in my dreams), but without result and I’d like to take this opportunity to complain bitterly about the ridiculous user-hostile computer system, the unhelpful staff and the airport-style security precautions. Using their IT system is like programming a 1983 Sinclair Spectrum. When it displays ‘no results found’ you have no idea if it’s working at all. IF I THOUGHT IT WERE POSSIBE TO GET A BOMB PAST SECURITY THEN I’D BLOW THE PLACE UP MYSELF (I’m shouting).
Regards
Andrew

Nice one Andrew
But didn't you misread Alphon's last wish as being "I leave my -32- cleaning kit and shoulder holster to Mr W. Ewer"

Thnx
Steve

[NickB]

The police interviewed Peter Alphon again in March 1994, according to The Independent (although they do not name him).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/new-move-in-hanratty-murder-case-1372318.html

[BLACKWOOD]

The Witnesses In Redbridge

Again possibly covering old ground.

I have never read in any of the developments of the case whether Trower, Blackhall, Skillett have been interviewed since 1962.

From memory I think that one of them was adamant that Hanratty was not the driver of the murder car.

Are they still alive and available to consult.?

Come to that the same applies to Roy Langdale, the prisoner who claimed that Hanratty confessed.

Is he still alive and has anybody spoken to him since 1962?

[Graham]

The police interviewed Peter Alphon again in March 1994, according to The Independent (although they do not name him).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-1372318.html

The article says that "the man" (obviously Alphon) sent a greetings card to Janet Gregsten. Well, a typical Alphon gesture, IMHO. Maybe by 1992 he could no longer afford to make extensive phone-calls to all and sundry, and used the Royal Mail instead. A nutter.

Cheers,

Graham

[Sara]

I.e., Hanratty saw the car and decided that a stick-up would be an easy way to make a bit of profit. How wrong he was....

Evenin' All
I see tings are still rumbling on here in te same old way, with a few new names and faces to add to the fun. Wy, Victor is even still shooting down in flames anyone who attempts to address the numerous anomalies in the case, inc by insulting them (and innocent witnesses such as John Kerr!) without adding anything positive whatsoever...... ho hum!

Graham, can I point out again that there is NOTHING to suggest that Hanratty was in a cornfield near Slough that night, except VS's very dubious - and belated - identification?

Alphon, on the other hand, was positively identified as being in the pub used by VS and MG, earlier that evening. In addition, A witness, a maid or receptionist at the Vienna, had also said that she had seen a pair of gloves on Alphon's suitcase - this in AUGUST. She'd noticed them just because it was so odd, in mid summer. It's agreed there were no prints on the gun because the rapist/murderer was *wearing gloves*

Is it not too much of a coincidence that Alphon should not only be staying in the same hotel as Hanratty, but also be in Slough that very same evening? - an area moreover which he knew well, and Hanratty knew not at all?

I do feel with all the minutiae in this case, we sometimes overlook the bleedin' obvious.

Going back to another topic:
Vic's casting aspersions on John Kerr's testimony, earlier in the thread, is a bit pathetic. There are photos of Kerr arriving at the inquest (google for pics, they are in the Getty collection). He was a very staid and serious looking young man, who as an Oxford student would be totally accustomed to taking accurate notes as a matter of course.

The fact his notes - the first witness statement made on the spot - vanished in the keeping of te police, speaks volumes to me; the fact the police tried to disguise this by producing a falsified version, speaks even more. The young man, who looks a very staid and studious type, had no axe to grind. I'm sure his testimony was reliable.

VS on the other hand contradicted herself more than once. And she has kept a very good deal to herself. I personally don't consider her a reliable witness: she was traumatised, crippled, in grief, and under huge pressure - from the police, media, and possibly her own family. All that can do odd things to the memory.

She almost certainly suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, a kind of fever of the mind which follows such violent shocks, in which the event/s go round and round in the mind but are oten embroidered by the imagination, and even dreams, making it sometimes impossible after weeks or even months to separate what really happened from what gets fixed in the mind.

[Re destruction of inconvenient evidence: The police are still doing this kind of thing btw: a top QC in my family was fuming only last year when a notebook, required as evidence in a big corruption case, went 'missing' out of the police evidence files. The case was lost largely because if that]


I've only read up to about page 360 so I have another hundred pages to catch up on, since I last posted (in the spring). These are just a few thoughts which have occoured as I've been reading through.

[Sara]

PS Since I last posted my keyboard has got even worse and the Hh key is very unreliable!!
So even more typos than before, sorry

[caz]

Vic's casting aspersions on John Kerr's testimony, earlier in the thread, is a bit pathetic...

How about the viciously cruel and totally unwarranted aspersions you are casting on the actual victim's testimony, Sara?

John Kerr never even saw Valerie's rapist; she had to listen to this man's voice for hours, see her lover shot dead by him, not knowing if she would be next, then have him inside her before he shot her and left her for dead.

If such an ordeal makes the only surviving witness inherently unable to identify their attacker reliably, it's a wonder any of the bastards are ever convicted.

I'm sorry, but the real stretch here is that in order to keep insisting that Valerie got it wrong because she wasn't thinking straight, effectively hanging an innocent man (which would make her almost as bad as the gunman, if he had killed an innocent man while not thinking straight) you also have to claim that the DNA evidence indicated the guilt of an innocent man. What trauma were the scientists suffering when they gave their testimony?

Valerie and the DNA evidence are in good company as far as I'm concerned. I really don't see how prolonging Valerie's agony like this can possibly be in the interests of fair play and justice, in the absence of any new evidence indicating that Hanratty could not have been the gunman after all, or that someone else definitely was. Nothing at present shows him to have been innocent of this crime - nothing. What about some fair play for the victim?

I think Alphon's little greeting card gesture puts him beyond contempt, but it doesn't make him a rapist and killer - nowhere near. In fact it is just another typical sign of a particularly nasty type of trickster, who craved attention and got it by continuing to latch on to this horrendous case.

Let the poor woman have some peace, even if Alphon couldn't leave her alone.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Sara,

I get tired of all this aggression, but...

Graham, can I point out again that there is NOTHING to suggest that Hanratty was in a cornfield near Slough that night, except VS's very dubious - and belated - identification?

The law, JH's solicitor, and a whole lot of people including myself consider that VS's evidence was sound.

Alphon, on the other hand, was positively identified as being in the pub used by VS and MG, earlier that evening.

Absolute nonsense.

Graham

[Victor]

Evenin' All

Evenin' Sara,

Victor is even still shooting down in flames anyone who attempts to address the numerous anomalies in the case

I certainly hope I've been shooting down in flames all misinformation, like:-

(and innocent witnesses such as John Kerr!)

I don't think I've ever implied that John Kerr wasn't innocent. I have mentioned how reliable he is when he states things like VS name was Mary, which undoubtedly casts doubt upon his reliability when he says he gave his note to a policeman and not a journalist or other officials present. I certainly trust VS evidence a huge amount more.

Alphon, on the other hand, was positively identified as being in the pub used by VS and MG, earlier that evening.

That is unproven, Mary Lanz was inconsistent on that point.

Vic's casting aspersions on John Kerr's testimony, earlier in the thread, is a bit pathetic. There are photos of Kerr arriving at the inquest (google for pics, they are in the Getty collection). He was a very staid and serious looking young man, who as an Oxford student would be totally accustomed to taking accurate notes as a matter of course.

Accurate notes like "The victim's name is Mary"? Kerr has a track record of innaccuracy.

The fact his notes - the first witness statement made on the spot - vanished in the keeping of te police, speaks volumes to me; the fact the police tried to disguise this by producing a falsified version, speaks even more.

It's unproven that the police were ever in possession of Kerr's notes, only Kerr's testimony indicates that and it is unverified and uncorroborated. And then you compound the innaccuracy by smearing the police for doing what was asked and untaking a thorough investigation and trying to locate something that might possibly be his note.

VS on the other hand contradicted herself more than once.

Can you provide one piece of evidence to confirm this? Something significant and verifiable like a first-hand account of Valerie saying her rapists' eyes were amything other than blue.

And she has kept a very good deal to herself. I personally don't consider her a reliable witness: she was traumatised, crippled, in grief, and under huge pressure - from the police, media, and possibly her own family. All that can do odd things to the memory.

Are you really implying that no victim of crime should ever be believed? I think you've just set the cause of victim support groups back several decades.

Unbelievable.

KR,
Vic.

[jimarilyn]

Hi Sara

It's good to see you back posting. You add much to the debate and your excellent input has been missed . You bring a breath of fresh air back to this thread.

[jimarilyn]

The police interviewed Peter Alphon again in March 1994, according to The Independent (although they do not name him).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-1372318.html

Thanks for that revealing link Nick, I hadn't come across that Independent article before.
So sometime during 1993 Alphon sent a greeting card to Janet. Makes you wonder how he would know where she was living 32 years after the A6 murder. I wonder if he ever sent a greetings card to Valerie Storie also. I don't suppose we will ever get to know what was written on the card. Perhaps it is significant that towards the end of her life (she died from a heart attack in January 1995) Janet became convinced that Hanratty was innocent of the murder of her husband. Could this belief have had something to do with what was written on that card ?