a6 murder

[Harry the Hawker]

It's all about a lost era, Harry. As you say, a wonderful site, and although I'm not a Londoner it's on my favourites list.

Graham

Indeed. Though not a Londoner as such myself, I studied there, and my parents both grew up there in the 1950s. In fact, my old man has more than likely been in a couple of those caffs (being into jazz and all), I must ask him. Cheers again for the link, really interesting stuff. I like Sinclair's writing too, White Chapel Scarlet Tracings is a really good (although not 'easy') read, particularly for Ripper buffs.

[Natalie Severn]

Indeed. Though not a Londoner as such myself, I studied there, and my parents both grew up there in the 1950s. In fact, my old man has more than likely been in a couple of those caffs (being into jazz and all), I must ask him. Cheers again for the link, really interesting stuff. I like Sinclair's writing too, White Chapel Scarlet Tracings is a really good (although not 'easy') read, particularly for Ripper buffs.

I like Iain Sinclair too-especially Scarlet Tracings.He is on at the Bishopsgate Institute on 21st October talking about London"s lost writers. I hope to go not just to hear Sinclair but also to hear about Gissing who is one of the Lost writers----Gissing has even been put forward as a possible ripper suspect because the young sex workers in Lambeth were very dear to him and he married one---to his regret.

[Graham]

I (very) vaguely know the sax-player Peter King mentioned in the Harmony Cafe thread, but not from modern jazz (which I detest)...hard to imagine that he could possibly have known Dixie France.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

He must have had a very long arm indeed to stretch across all those counties between Rhyl and London and place the gun on that bus.

Either that or he wore seven league boots!

[Natalie Severn]

I (very) vaguely know the sax-player Peter King mentioned in the Harmony Cafe thread, but not from modern jazz (which I detest)...hard to imagine that he could possibly have known Dixie France.

Graham

Interesting that the site describes Dixie France as a police informer!

[Zodiac]

But didnt Ted Bundy begin to murder when he was a young paper boy of twelve? Peter Sutcliffe was not at all liked by his fellow lorry drivers---he was a loner and few people knew anything about him. The point about Hanratty is that there was no record of any violence at all.

Hi Nats,

First, Bundy, there is no evidence that he murdered anyone prior to January 1974, when he was 27. He once claimed that he made his first attempt to kidnap a woman in 1969 and implied that he committed his first murder sometime in 1972. One psychiatrist who interviewed him said Bundy claimed to have killed two women while staying with family in Philadelphia in 1969. At one point in his death row confessions with Robert D. Keppel, Bundy said he committed his first murder in 1972. You see Bundy, like my namesake, wasn't above lying, exageration and taking credit for other peoples murders. Like I said, decietful these crims aren't they? Always changing there stories.

The "Bunday the killer paperboy" idea, is nothing more, or less, than pure speculation. Ann Marie Burr, an 8 year old girl, went missing from her home in Tacoma in April 1962. Bundy, 14, was the local paper boy. His name was only connected to the case years later, when Bundy had become the famous "Celebrity Serial Killer." She is still listed as missing and her case, sadly, remains unsolved.

As for Sutcliffe, the reason he didn't get on with a number of the other drivers was because he was the companies "star" driver. Many of the others were caught pilferring, resulting in sackings/disiplinaries etc. Some companies that used Clarks would ask for Sutcliffe by name, and wouldn't except other drivers. (Kirkstall Forge, for example). This meant that he got many of the best jobs, causing some resentment.

As for violence! His father, a very violent man himself, tried everything to "toughen the lad up a bit" but failed miserably. His two brothers Mick and Carl were both violent men. Mick was one of the most feared men in Bingley at that time. Everyone was shocked when they found out that Peter was the Ripper, because he was never the violent one. "I'm the villian in this family, not Peter!" was Micks reaction. But like I say, you really can never tell, can You?

Best wishes,

Zodiac.

[Limehouse]

Quite obviously Peter Sutcliffe was 'the violent one' because he brutally murdered and mutilated thirteen women and attempted to murder seven more. Additionally - although his first 'official' attack was in 1975 - a friend testified that he believed Peter was attacking women with snooker balls wrapped in a sock as early as 1969.

Bundy and Sutcliffe were preditory - quite different from the attack on Gregsten and Storie.

[Natalie Severn]

There is no match either over "personality types" . Peter Sutcliffe and Bundy , were both sadistic serial killers and loners .They did not present as remotely like Hanratty, who was popular and fond of company.

[Graham]

They did not present as remotely like Hanratty, who was popular and fond of company.

And who just happened to lead a life of crime culminating in the brutal murder of one person and the rape of another.

This is the Flat Earthers at their very best!

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

And who just happened to lead a life of crime culminating in the brutal murder of one person and the rape of another.

This is the Flat Earthers at their very best!

Graham

He had a criminal history of housebreaking lets be clear.No criminal history of violence of any kind.
Who makes these laws anyway? What kind of an example to young offenders without prospects did [and do ] they have from those who make and pass the laws of the land? Why should it surprise you that young offenders stay with a life of crime ,when we learn that large numbers of those who make and pass laws often live lives of deceit and crime-----like the dozens of MP"s, who used what they perceived as their inviolable position to lie,cheat and steal from the taxpayer to the tune of millions of pounds? Hanratty had a history of housebreaking not murder and rape.Its you that are the flat earthers---at their worst! Are we to assume that because they have been shown to lie,cheat and steal our money that therefore they will be likely to kill ?

[Graham]

He had a criminal history of housebreaking lets be clear.No criminal history of violence of any kind.
Who makes these laws anyway? What kind of an example to young offenders without prospects did [and do ] they have from those who make and pass the laws of the land? Why should it surprise you that young offenders stay with a life of crime ,when we learn that large numbers of those who make and pass laws often live lives of deceit and crime-----like the dozens of MP"s, who used what they perceived as their inviolable position to lie,cheat and steal from the taxpayer to the tune of millions of pounds? Hanratty had a history of housebreaking not murder and rape.Its you that are the flat earthers---at their worst! Are we to assume that because they have been shown to lie,cheat and steal our money that therefore they will be likely to kill ?

My heart bleeds!

Graham

[RonIpstone]

Was it possible that Hanratty would obtain a gun? Well he had expressed an interest in doing stick-ups and he moved in the circles where firearms could be illicitly obtained. I think that it can be said without too much controversy that it was 'on the cards' that at some stage in his criminal career Jim might try his hand as a stick-up man.

Now I do not think that the A6 Murder was committed by an experienced stick-up man for the simple reason that those experienced in the trade would concentrate on banks, post offices and building societies and would not target courting couples in ageing Moggie Minors. So with a degree of confidence we can say that the murderer had no previous form for stick-ups with guns and the violence that accompanies them. Moreover the gunman said pretty much that he was new to the stick-up game to Valerie and MG. Hanratty therefore fits the bill so far.

In the first few hours of the abduction, apart from being a gun-point, there was little that VS and MG could complain about the gunman's conduct. In the circumstances he behaved decently towards MG and VS. Again this would fit Hanratty. If murder and rape had been the intention then the gunman would have murdered and raped in the field at Dorney Reach.

The shooting of MG was either an accident or, more likely an act of self-preservation on the part of the gunman. I do not think that he would have deliberately shot the driver in the driver's seat knowing that he was going to have to drive the car shortly afterwards.

Once MG had been killed, Hanratty obviously thought that he had to kill VS to lessen the chances of being caught, but being Hanratty he did not think through the consequences from a forensic science point of view of carrying out the rape. It might have been in Hanratty's perverted mind that he was doing Valerie a favour before extinguishing her existence on earth, after all he was in his own mind irresistible to young women.

That Hanratty did not finish Valerie off again is a Hanratty trademark of botching his criminal enterprises. Nearing 25 years of age, how many of those years had been in the clink?

The A6 Murder has the Hanrattyesque provenance; a pointless stick-up gone badly wrong; Hanratty's inability to think how to get out of the situation he had masterminded until Gregsten has a go and gets shot for his troubles; the perceived necessity for the killing of VS, but as our hero had not had sex for more than 24 hours since visiting a Soho prostitute, he might as well rape her before killing her. It is all so very James Hanratty.

[jimarilyn]

My heart bleeds!

Graham

Maybe a trip to your GP is in order. I hope you don't lose too much blood, Graham. The BHF can advise anyhow.


PS. The earth where I live is very flat, especially the bowling green around the corner.

[Graham]

I've long thought that Gregsten's death was a tragic accident more than a deliberate murder - not that that makes the crime any less repugnant. It seems to me that JH probably pulled the trigger as a kind of knee-jerk reaction to what he perceived as an attack by Gregsten, using the duffel-bag. Maybe Gregsten made a genuine attempt to clobber JH, maybe he didn't; we'll never know. I think that here too is the basis for JH's constant denial of murder - he didn't [I]mean[I] to shoot Gregsten, so in his mind he wasn't guilty of deliberate murder. What was deliberate was JH's raping, and then his attempt to kill, Valerie. And yes, the crime does have the stamp of typical JH inefficiency. When he realised he wasn't going to get much out of them by way of armed robbery, he perhaps thought he'd have a bit of fun with them - maybe he intended to leave them in the middle of nowhere and pinch their car.

Graham

[Limehouse]

Was it possible that Hanratty would obtain a gun? Well he had expressed an interest in doing stick-ups and he moved in the circles where firearms could be illicitly obtained. I think that it can be said without too much controversy that it was 'on the cards' that at some stage in his criminal career Jim might try his hand as a stick-up man.

Now I do not think that the A6 Murder was committed by an experienced stick-up man for the simple reason that those experienced in the trade would concentrate on banks, post offices and building societies and would not target courting couples in ageing Moggie Minors. So with a degree of confidence we can say that the murderer had no previous form for stick-ups with guns and the violence that accompanies them. Moreover the gunman said pretty much that he was new to the stick-up game to Valerie and MG. Hanratty therefore fits the bill so far.

In the first few hours of the abduction, apart from being a gun-point, there was little that VS and MG could complain about the gunman's conduct. In the circumstances he behaved decently towards MG and VS. Again this would fit Hanratty. If murder and rape had been the intention then the gunman would have murdered and raped in the field at Dorney Reach.

The shooting of MG was either an accident or, more likely an act of self-preservation on the part of the gunman. I do not think that he would have deliberately shot the driver in the driver's seat knowing that he was going to have to drive the car shortly afterwards.

Once MG had been killed, Hanratty obviously thought that he had to kill VS to lessen the chances of being caught, but being Hanratty he did not think through the consequences from a forensic science point of view of carrying out the rape. It might have been in Hanratty's perverted mind that he was doing Valerie a favour before extinguishing her existence on earth, after all he was in his own mind irresistible to young women.

That Hanratty did not finish Valerie off again is a Hanratty trademark of botching his criminal enterprises. Nearing 25 years of age, how many of those years had been in the clink?

The A6 Murder has the Hanrattyesque provenance; a pointless stick-up gone badly wrong; Hanratty's inability to think how to get out of the situation he had masterminded until Gregsten has a go and gets shot for his troubles; the perceived necessity for the killing of VS, but as our hero had not had sex for more than 24 hours since visiting a Soho prostitute, he might as well rape her before killing her. It is all so very James Hanratty.

Who had Hanratty expressed an interest in doing stick-ups too? One of the many reliable witnesses for the prosecution?

As you say - most master criminals would have selected a post office or bank. Hanratty's criminal past reveals that he did not generally deal with 'small fry' properties. He selected large houses where the pickings were rich and where he perceived the people would be insured. He also chose empty properties - he was not in the business of creeping around at night when people were asleep so I do not thinkl that this attack has the hallmark of Hanratty at all.

I certainly do not think murder and rape were the initial objectives of the gunman and this is what makes the crime so hard to understand. It seems motiveless.

I agree that having killed Gregsten it was necessary to kill Valerie and the gunman had probably already made up his mind to kill her when he raped her and probably thought that the rape would go undetected if the vicitm was dead.