a6 murder

[Limehouse]

Hi John,

The 'official' reason for MG and VS being in a car in a field together that night was to plan a car rally for their fellow colleagues.

MG and VS's realtionship was played down in the media, partly, I believe, to avoid MG's family humiliation. However, it was an 'open secret' that MG and VS were having a relationship.

Their relationship only becomes significant if one suspects that the killer was not simply wandering around the countryside with a gun and a huge amount of bullets in the hope of finding something or someone to rob, but was actually there for a purpose related to MG and VS's relationship.

[P.L.A]

Hi

Paragraph 113 of the appeal verdict probably helps:

The knickers arrived at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory (MPL) on 23 August 1961 where they were examined by Dr Nickolls, the director and his assistant, Henry Howard. They were found to be stained with seminal fluid in the area of the crotch and at the back for five inches upwards from the crotch. Vaginal fluid from Valerie Storie was also present. There were smaller quantities of seminal fluid of blood group AB assumed to have come at some earlier stage from Michael Gregsten. Although the laboratory records are not dated, the notes are numbered sequentially and we are confident that the knickers were examined almost immediately and in any event no later than 23 September 1961 when the notes show that certain samples taken from Peter Alphon were examined at the laboratory. The handkerchief came to the laboratory on 25 August, was screened for blood and semen and, none being found, seems to have been put to one side.

My guess is that the pair of lovers hadn’t got round to sex on the night of the abduction. This is backed up by the car being just inside the field when the gunman approached, and, according to the survivor, the couple being in the front seats at this time.

Don’t know how often and well Storie washed her underwear or how long discharges still take place after sex has taken place.

All rather indelicate.

I seem to remember that the two were said to be examining maps whilst they had their drinks in the Old Station Inn (not 100% sure of this). Maybe they actually were still planning a rally at the time of the abduction – with sex being anticipated for later in the evening.

I believe Alphon’s claim was made in his 1964 book, Murder Vs. Murder. If this account was true, my guess is that Gregstens sample would not have been described as being in smaller quantities, probably from an earlier act.

Peter

[P.L.A]

Oops

Hi

Must have been drunk. The 1964 publication “Murder Vs. Murder” was of course by Jean Justice. In the book, the author claims Alphon told him he had forced the couple to have sex in the car whilst he watched.

There was no detail of who was where in the car whilst this is supposed to have happened.

Peter

[caz]

As a woman, who became a woman at the end of the sixties, I can vouch for the fact that VS would not have been reluctant to tell the police if MG's semen had really got on her knickers as a result of the rapist forcing the lovers to have sex while he watched.

And a question for the men, because I honestly don't know the answer: how likely is it that you could 'perform' with the girlfriend and ejaculate inside her while a stranger was threatening you both - even if (or especially if) you feared your life might depend on it?

Sounds to me like a surefire recipe for dampening anyone's ardour.

Love,

Caz
X

[simon]

Good point Caz. I think that voyeurism may well have been the motive, and might explain why the ordeal went on so long....(i.e waiting for MG to be ready)...but I doubt there could have been a successful conclusion - so to speak.

Regards,
Simon

[Alfie]

Still trawling through past posts and I came across one from SteveS posted on October 21 2010 in which he advises Babybird

There you go dear. Knock yourself out. Again.

.

I think SteveS is 'channeling' the banned Reg.

Regards

Alan

[Alfie]

Sorry, that should have read 2009, not 2010.

Alan

[SteveS]

I think SteveS is 'channeling' the banned Reg.

To Alfie (Alan or whatever your name is)

Oh dear.

I'm researching the main outline of the A6 murder since it comes up peripherally in a work I'm writing - a sort of travel piece.

I don't know who you are, what you are actually writing, or for what audience it is to be aimed.

Then suddenly I see this ridiculous nonsense (your quoted accusation above) posted openly on the main thread!

I also see that you have cowardly disabled the ability to receive PM's from other members.

I don't know what your agenda is pal but you have now completely compromised any integrity you may have built up in the few weeks that you have been here.

You are a nark and not to be trusted.

[Alfie]

Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

[larue]

I don't know what your agenda is pal but you have now completely compromised any integrity you may have built up in the few weeks that you have been here.

can we please not go down this road again? far be it from me to want to be involved in this kind of exchange, but Steve, i have to say that the words 'pot', 'kettle' and 'black' spring readily to mind...

[larue]

so many questions, so few answers...

extract from a communication with the author of 'Wigs and Wherefores'

there are a couple of statements in this book that i find puzzling. are they just 'figures of speech' or do they have deeper significance. i though i would aks the question and find out, so, i aksed the author...


It turned out that evidence was retained, frozen, to await the new technology that was eventually used: Valerie Stone's knickers; Hanratty's handkerchief.
[Page 103]

The evidence that confirmed Hanratty's guilt, so far as the appeal process is concerned, is the DNA. But who would have thought that, for 31 years, the police would have kept, on ice, Valerie Storie's knickers and the handkerchief that wrapped the gun? Or exhumed him for DNA matches?
[Page 104]

to me, both these statements seem to imply that the police knew that there would be, at sometime in the future, a test which would do what the D.N.A test appeared to do, and that the evidence was retained, suitably stored in anticipation of such a test. Can this be true? Was the advent of the forensic D.N.A test forseen as far back as 1962? And is there evidence from other trials of the same period, similarly stored, waiting for a D.N.A test?


The third item of interest is the statement:

The evidence that confirmed Hanratty's guilt, so far as the appeal process is concerned, is the DNA.

‘so far as the appeal process is concerned’. Does this imply that there is some other group of people or official body that the D.N.A does not satisfy, apart from possibly, the surviving members of the Hanratty family?

the author kindly returned my email, with suprising speed, but did not reference any of my questions, though she did say that

'The enigmatic turn of phrase used in the book perpetuates the uncertainty in the minds of those who have queries.'

i find this in itself interesting, especially as it was her enigmatic turn of phrase

so there you have it. or rather you don't. as the christian god spake unto moses, 'keep taking the tablets'.

[larue]

Hi larue,

Well some posters in the past have suggested that Alphon was the rapist and claimed that he had forced the couple to have sex while he watched. Others pointed out that Valerie could have said virtually anything about her ordeal because there was nobody to confirm or deny it - except of course, there was Alphon if (the biggest 'if' in the world) he was there. The implication was that Alphon may have correctly described something that only Valerie and the rapist could have known.

Others observed that Valerie would have been naturally reluctant in that day and age to admit to having naughties in the car with her married lover, hence all the "rally" talk and what have you. Then came the speculation that Valerie was the one who was keen on a more private place in which to meet the gunman's perverted demands.

But I can't see that any of this really adds up, and my point was that the police would have got round to asking Valerie, not if she had intercourse with Michael, but when. And the answer - which none of us know - would have had a bearing on Alphon's credibility if he went on to claim something that clearly didn't match Valerie's version of events. There would have been no reason for her to lie if all her sexual activity that night had been carried out under threat from the gunman. So I think it's safe to say that Valerie gave the police one account, Alphon was full of it and gave another, and this whole line of speculation will lead nowhere.

Love,

Caz
X

thanx Caz, i think i see where you are coming from.

vs would have had to tell the police about her consentual sex with mg, lest the police assume there were two rapists...

i certainly agree with

and this whole line of speculation will lead nowhere

[larue]

It's too easy to read the evidence and dismiss it as either inaccurate or inconsequential, without trying to understand the effect that evidence had on the jury which, when all is said and done, is what really matters at any trial.
Graham

hi Graham

good point, well made.

as i've said before re english trials, perry mason thay ain't. the thing is, or should i say, the 'fing is, to convince the jury not to discover the true culprit. and as you say, the jury were duly convinced...

[larue]

by the way, can someone kindly refresh my memory, or educate me regarding the tale of 'planning a rally'? was there any support for this tale, like maps, a compass, notebooks with potential routes sketched out etc etc, being found in the car, or in the cornfield. or anywhere else for that matter. i personally would have thought that planning a rally would be better done at a desk or table with the map spread out, rather than the cramped interior of a moggie minor in the gathering dusk. all i can recall of the car's interior content is vs's basket and a duffel bag containing laundry. who's laundry, i wonder? before or after cleaning?

i guess from the underwhelming response, that that's a 'no' then?

[jimarilyn]

August 22nd 1961, James Hanratty's accent. Nudds's and Olive Dinwoodie's testimony.

Hi,

We are all probably aware that William George Nudds was more than a little prone to telling porkies. His detailed and thorough second statement to the police (made on Sept 21st 1961), however, has the ring of truth to it. In my opinion anyway. It was made about a week before the name J. Ryan (James Hanratty) entered the police frame as a suspect.

Nudds described J.Ryan (Hanratty) and Frederick Durrant (Alphon) very accurately. He recollected that :-

a] Both had dark coloured hair.
b] Ryan had a quiff.
c] Durrant was about five or six years older than Ryan.
d] Durrant was about two inches taller and slightly bigger in build.
e] Durrant had no accent.
f] Ryan had an accent, possibly Irish.
g] Both were more or less dressed in equivalent clothes.
h] Durrant carried a suitcase.
i] Ryan carried a brown hold-all and a portable radio with shoulder strap.

I believe it is very important to note that Nudds is recalling, that on the morning of August 22nd 1961, J. Ryan's hair is dark in colour (dovetailing with what other witnesses stated) and had a noticeable quiff (It was not slicked back with hair-cream or brushed back) and was carrying a brown hold-all and a portable radio with shoulder strap (which Hanratty was very fond of) and spoke with what he thought was an Irish accent.

Approximately 7 hours later that same day (Tuesday August 22nd) J.Ryan (Hanratty) said he paid the left-luggage attendant (at Liverpool's Lime Street Station) one shilling to leave his pigskin hold-all there for safe keeping.

Approximately one hour later Mrs Olive Dinwoodie encounterd a man in the sweet shop she served in. This man asked her for directions to a Carlton or Tarleton Street/Road/whatever. She testified that this man was Hanratty. She found it difficult to understand his dialect (he obviously was not a native Liverpudlian} and thought he was Scottish or perhaps Welsh or something like that. He spoke with accent that was not readily familiar to her ear.

So here we have two independent witnesses [William Nudds and Olive Dinwoodie] who describe James Hanratty on the 22nd of August 1961 as speaking with an accent that seemed reminiscent of Irish or Scottish or Welsh. Not distinctively English in tone anyhow. This is very interesting, as James Hanratty senior was a born and bred Irishman. My guess is that James Hanratty junior had acquired from his parents [ his mother, Mary, was from the North East of England] an accent that was a mixture of Irish and Cockney. The Irish and Scottish accents are often mistaken for each other.

The Liverpool/Rhyl alibi remains very strong.