A6 -location of scene and 2nd appeal

[propatria27]

I've just been looking at this blog -http://pemmusing.wordpress.com/2012/...dshire-murder/ and it has this interesting quote, seemingly provided by JH regarding one of the passengers he sat near on the train journey to Liverpool on 22 August 1961:

One man looked like a ‘clerky gent.’ according to Hanratty.


‘I watched him and studied his dress closely as I am interested in the way people dress. He had very fine nylon stockings and shiny shoes with pinstripe trousers and a briefcase (like Mr. Kleinman’s.) He had very fine reading glasses which he put over his ordinary spectacles to read some papers. He had a gold pen too, and a gold watch, a beautiful watch which he wore on his right arm. He had initialled gold cuff links too. He smoked a black pipe. He had the inside seat. First I sat on the other side, then I changed seats so that I was sitting next to him.’

Hanratty said the gent was making notes and he wore a black barathea jacket. He had a briefcase and pad which could be turned over at the top. He was wearing black shoes which were shinier at the toe than on the upper part. He was sitting with his legs crossed. The man had a pair of glasses and he also had a separate lens which could be joined onto the first pair to save him having two separate pairs of glasses.


‘The man had his sleeve cut short to show the white cuff and he had gold cufflinks and there was an initial on them, but I could only make out an ‘E.’’

(Interestingly, BW omits the detail about the letter 'E' from his 1997 hardback page 122).

Now compare the description of the cufflinks to a quote from BW 1997 hardback page 96/97 regarding the haul from a burglary he commited in Harrow on 12th August 1961:

"a solitaire ring; seven eternity rings, some ruby with surrounding pearls; a gentleman's ring; six sets of gold cuff-links with the initial 'E' on them.....". He also stole a black barathea jacket from the burglary in Stanmore that also had a pair of striped trousers as part of the set, but which he didn't take, but the whole outfit would have been similar to those he described as being worn by the gent on the train.

Pete

[Natalie Severn]

Pete, a great deal of doubt has been cast on the method by which Hanratty was convicted -the prosecution case omitted more of the background to the murder than it revealed.Nothing was known for example about the self confessed 'psychic ' revelations of William Ewer regarding supposedly 'intuiting' that Hanratty was the murderer long before the police ---by September 1st 1961 in fact ie according to Dorthy Morrell ,the flower shop lady ,who remembers Ewer coming into her shop the very next day Sept 2nd f-almost the same day the description of the gunmans eyes changed from brown to light blue in the national police description-for more about the 'amazing coincidences' of William Ewer and co see pages 380-383 -BW 1997 hardback!!! Moreover nothing was known by the jury about Janet Gregsten's distress that Mike Gregsten was about to move out of the marital home and had just taken a lease out on a flat in Maidenhead -and that he and Valerie wanted to be together [ he had discussed both divorce from Janet with a solicitor and re-marriage with Valerie that Summer] .It seems people dont subject , to anything like the same scrutiny, the number of extraordinary coincidences that litter this case-only the words of Hanratty get that scrutiny it appears.
The DNA scientific evidence is likewise blindly accepted as at the 2002 appeal despite all the evidence being destroyed by the process itself, despite there being no peer group validation ,a great deal of global disquiet in the scientific community regarding the absence of monitoring of laboratory procedures ,the huge probability of contamination in the absence of the most stringent sterility requirements for storage alone of LCN DNA testing - the scientific witnesses having a direct financial interest in giving the right result The case is full of circumstantial 'nothing'-and coincidental nonsense---.Where was any 'independent ' impartial witness who stood next to the prosecution's forensic scientist ,Jonathan Whitaker ,in the laboratory? Just because he said so does not make it so.

[Graham]

Bullets In Car

Hi all,

Re: Norma's list of police forensic findings, I'm surprised to read that two bullets were found in the car, as I always understood that two cartridge cases were found, per Paul Foot.

There was much discussion a long time ago on the Forum regarding what happened to the bullets that killed MG, and it seemed to be accepted that the driver's window was open (presumably because it was hot inside the car) and the bullets flew out of the window into the countryside. If the finding in the car were bullets, I'm intrigued to know how one came to be on the floor and the other in the glove pocket, by which I assume is meant the pocket on the door. I'd have thought that two .38 bullets fired point-blank would, after exiting poor MG, have cause significant damage to the interior of the car had they not in fact flew through the open window. I don't recall reading of any bullet damage being reported during the forensic inspection of the car, plus how come the bullets ended up in different places in the car? Does anyone have any ideas about this? Also, after passing through tissue, would a bullet retain any such tissue or blood? Obviously I'm not very well up on ballistics, but if bullets they were, then to my mind it adds to the mystery already surrounding the forensic evidence (or lack of it) in the car.

This kind of reminds me a little bit of JFK, and the long-debated tracks of the bullets that hit him and Connolly.

G

[Stevo7395]

Graham and Julie and Pete, have a look at Norma's book, very well written and put together, Julie I think you said you were in Peterborough down the road from us but we should all meet for a beer and go to the scene.I stopped there yesterday in a laybye and entrance to Maulden wood and I think a bit further up is where it took place. I'm quite a deep person and sat there thinking and trying to put some logic to it all but VS and MG would have been taken a back by the forest either side of the A6.....for middle England it's a beautiful spot like the North Downs are in Surrey on the A24. Anyway, hope you are all well guys and have a cracking weekend !

[Natalie Severn]

Thank you so much Stevo---by the way Julie herself contributed a fine essay to the book which added information and thoughts on the A6 --- in fact everybody on this whole thread on the A6 contributed to it in some way -even though I may sometimes have a different interpretation of some of the material posted etc-
What a great idea to all meet at some point! Excellent idea!

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Graham,
Interesting points you raise here.The information I posted was from a chap at the Whitechapel Society who prefers to remain anonymous but looks in on the A6 thread from time to time.
It is an A3 photocopy of the statement of witness Lewis Charles Nickolls,director of the Metropolitan Police Laboratory.

I think they were definitely 'bullets' and not cartridge cases since Mr Nickolls refers , in number 42 ,to an 'envelope containing two cartridge cases found in the 'Vienna' Hotel.
We already knew this of course .
But it looks like Paul Foot made a mistake over the bullets found inside the car calling them cartridge cases.
I found it slightly puzzling that under the heading
'Property relating to Alphon,'
found at no 52 dated 26th September 1961 -2 bullets received from a Dr Keith Simpson. This is followed by no 53 [again under property of Alphon] One Knife!
Alphon though, at this point ,September 24th, was dropped from the A6 murder inquiry because VS had failed to identify him , but was still in custody in Brixton prison until 29th September regarding the the Meike Dalal case .He was only released after his two friends who sold Old Moore's Almanac identified him at Brixton Prison....

[Natalie Severn]

Inventory

Here is almost the the entire inventory from witness statement Nickolls.I have omitted the half dozen or so items received re VS only comprising 7 items and included were her undergarments.

[Limehouse]

The cartridges cases revisited

Hi everyone,

I have been searching for the piece I wrote concerning the cartridge cases and finally located on my hard drive at work.

I have reposted it below because the gun, bullets and cartridge cases have been part of the debate with new posters recently.

Here are my notes reproduced below (some of which appear in Norma's book - hope I am not breaching copywrite Norma!)

The cartridge cases were found by a General Manager of the hotel group, who was appointed on 8 August to oversee the general running of the four hotels in the group. He was carrying out an inspection of the premises with the manageress of the hotel when he noticed a piece of fabric hanging down from underneath a chair in room 24. As he moved the chair a .38 cartridge case fell onto the floor. The manageress found a second cartridge case towards the back of the chair. The police were contacted because another guest who had stayed at the hotel on the night of 22 August (Peter Louis Alphon, who booked in as , Frederick Durrant) had been the focus of original enquiries concerning the A6 crime.

Alphon was subsequently eliminated from the enquiry when Valerie Storie failed to select him from an identity parade but the police were, naturally, convinced that as spent cartridge cases from the crime had been found in room 24 of the Vienna Hotel, the person responsible for the crime must have had a connection with that hotel. Their attention turned to Hanratty who, as J Ryan, had booked into the hotel on the night of 21 August and slept in room 24.

The obvious question to ask concerning the discovery of the spent cartridge cases is why did it take almost three weeks to find them when they were sitting on a chair close to the bed? Following Hanratty’s departure from the hotel on the morning of 22 August, the bed linen was changed by Mrs Galves (the hotel manageress) and Mrs Snell (a hotel assistant) and they had to move the chair to make up the bed. (Lord Russell, 1965) Why didn’t these ladies discover the cartridge cases when they were found so easily a few weeks later?

The second question concerning the presence of the cartridge cases in room 24 is why a man intending to commit armed robbery in the future would be so careless as to leave the cartridge cases in the room in the first place? As they were spent cartridge cases they must have been fired from the gun and were not discharged during loading. Therefore, the person who left them must either have discharged the gun in the room or discharged it elsewhere and collected up the spent cartridges. Remember, according to the prosecution, these cases were left in the room BEFORE the crime. The argument of the court is that the gun was fired in order to test it.

Now, if the gun was fired to test it, because the gunman was unsure if it worked or how effective it was, then it is highly unlikely the gunman would fire it in a hotel room where it might be heard and/or cause damage. In the unlikely event that the gun WAS fired in the hotel room and was not heard, the gunman would immediately dispense with the ejected cartridges - not leave them lying on a chair. Again, if the gun was fired in the hotel room, where is the evidence of damage to hotel furnishings or fabrics?

Much more likely is the scenario whereby the gunman takes the gun somewhere remote and tests it there. In that scenario the gunman is unlikely to be returning to the hotel and therefore cannot, carelessly or otherwise, leave the cartridges in the hotel. However, it is possible that the gunman tested the gun somewhere remote before he booked into the hotel. In that case, the gunman is hardly likely to have gathered up the cartridges and taken them with him.

Let's return to the chair. If the spent cartridges had 'rolled' out from a bag or jacket owned by the gunman onto the chair, they would have been discovered the next day when the chair was moved to make the bed. They could not have become 'trapped' between the back of the chair and its fixed cushion because it would have taken some force for them to slip between the back of the chair and its fixed cushion. Had they become trapped and therefore unseen, they would not have simply rolled out when the chair was examined closely by the general manager some weeks later.
It is much more likely that someone else fired that gun to get those cartridges to plant evidence at an appropriate time if needed.

The gun used in the crime was, as has been stated, found by a cleaner underneath the back seat of a 36A bus garaged at Rye Lane, New Cross in London on the evening of 24 August. The gun, along with some ammunition, was found underneath a hankerchief. The prosecution case was that, not only did Hanratty habitually use this space underneath the seat of a bus as a hiding place for unwanted loot but, that this bus travelled along Sussex Gardens, close to the bottom of Sutherland Avenue, the location of the Vienna Hotel. However, according to the evidence of Edwin Cooke, the cleaner who found the weapon and five boxes of ammunition, the weapon could not have been there before 24 August as a thorough examination of the bus had been carried out on the previous evening. The gun and ammunition had to have been hidden on the bus sometime during the day of 24 August, two days after the shooting.

My point is, what has the location of the hotel to do with the bus route given the sequence of events described above? Is it alleged that Hanratty abandoned the car on the morning of the 23 August on the east side of London and then returned close to the Vienna Hotel on the west side a day later to board a bus in order to abandon the weapon? Is that likely?


As you can imagine, I feel strongly that these cartridge cases were planted.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Julie,
Yes, Andy and I were only discussing last night the people who connected James Hanratty to the crime and we came up with four people"

1] Alphon: It was Alphon who on August 27th 1961 having aroused the suspicions of guests because of his agitated behaviour at the Alexandra Court Hotel where he had moved from the Vienna Hotel where he had booked in on the fatal night 22/23rd nd August

2] William Nudds who since leaving prison on August 5th 1961 had worked at the Vienna Hotel as an assistant manager.It was Nudds who claimed in his 1st and 3rd statements to Police that Hanratty had asked him the way to Queensway and had been told to take the 36A bus.[In his second statement he dropped the stuff about the 36A bus and concentrated on implicating Alphon instead].

3] Charles 'Dixie' France who told police Hanratty had told him the back seat of a bus was a good hiding place .Both the Nudds statement and France's were very damaging to Hanratty as the gun had been found on a 36A bus under the back seat.

4]William Ewer: brother -in -law of the dead man Michael Gregsten in his statement of May 1971 admitted that it was himself -not Janet Gregsten,who had informed police about a man named 'Ryan' who he claimed 'looked just like' the newly released [altered] description of the suspect .[This was definitely on September 1st 1961 as a record was kept by the flower shop lady in Swiss Cottage who had shown the police the detail of the transcation-of flowers to be sent from Ryan to Mrs Hanratty at her address . Dorothy Morrell, along with other shopkeepers nearby, distinctly remembered William Ewer coming into her shop asking about the man and telling him 'Ryan's [Hanratty's ] name and the name and address of his mother, Mrs Hanratty in Sycamore Grove.

Each of these people ,one way or another, put Hanratty in the frame.

[propatria27]

Natalie, regarding the scanned list you posted, there is one entry that I don't properly understand:

On 25th August, Det Sgt Parrish of 'L' Division, Peckham handed over the revolver, containing 6 rounds, a handkerchief and 5 boxes of ammunition

On 1st September, Det Sgt Long of the City of London Police, Snow Hill, handed in "an number of boxes of .38 ammunition, wrapped in a piece of material".

Do we have an explaination for the items handed in by Det Sgt Long? Are they the same boxes of ammunition handed in on 25th August? Is the piece of material the handkerchief? Why would the City of London Police have these items? Are they even related to the crime or were they sent in because they are the same calibre as the murder weapon?

Regards,

Pete

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Pete,
I honestly have no idea! But they are all under the term:

STATEMENT OF WITNESS

[that witness being Lewis Charles NICKOLLS-who was then the director of the met police lab-and the schedule commences on the date of 24th August 1961 with items under the heading of

Property from scene

1.six cartridge cases [ etc etc]

+ they are all from the met's police laboratory ,New Scotland Yard .

and the entire 4 page schedule is signed L.C. Nickolls

so presumably these items all relate to the same crime

I don't have the results of his examination and only have a rough idea what his findings were-----

[Natalie Severn]

Natalie, regarding the scanned list you posted, there is one entry that I don't properly understand:

On 25th August, Det Sgt Parrish of 'L' Division, Peckham handed over the revolver, containing 6 rounds, a handkerchief and 5 boxes of ammunition

On 1st September, Det Sgt Long of the City of London Police, Snow Hill, handed in "an number of boxes of .38 ammunition, wrapped in a piece of material".

Do we have an explaination for the items handed in by Det Sgt Long? Are they the same boxes of ammunition handed in on 25th August? Is the piece of material the handkerchief? Why would the City of London Police have these items? Are they even related to the crime or were they sent in because they are the same calibre as the murder weapon?

Regards,

Pete

Sorry this should have been used to answer your points [ -see above my answer] Pete.I am about to go to Wales so in a bit of a hurry-I am sure you can make some sense of it though
cheers
Norma

[caz]

Does anyone else think it is strange that a killer would travel all the way from the murder scene in a car full of his victim's blood with the gun still in his possession? If it was always his intention to rid himself of the gun after the crime, why take it all the way to London and risk being caught with it? There must have been countless places he could have stopped and disposed of the gun in the early hours of the morning in a remote spot with no one much about.

If you consider the witness statements of those who believe they saw Hanratty driving erractically near to Redbridge, would a killer really be so reckless as to be seen swerving across lanes, grinning madly at fellow drivers in a car splattered with blood and a gun in his possession?

Hi Julie,

I agree it all sounds very strange, nevertheless this is what the killer apparently did, so we're stuck with it.

But why would this be any kind of argument against Hanratty, acting alone and using a gun for the first time to commit murder and rape? What sort of an argument would it be for anyone else as the gunman - for example a smarter or more experienced operator, who had planned a nasty surprise for the courting couple, perhaps on instructions from, or with the knowledge and assistance of others? Would we have seen such a catalogue of ineptitude from anyone but a man on his own and well out of his criminal depth?

If others were in on this, and were happy with the individual they were sending to that cornfield to act on their behalf, I'll eat my hat. It would be like commissioning Mike Barrett to fake a Jack the Ripper confession and not expecting him to make a thorough pig's ear of it.

Oh and if the murder car went through a thorough cleaning job, it was particularly clever and selective of those involved to only get rid of every last trace of the guilty party, while leaving other innocently placed fingerprints and so on to be picked up and identified. How on earth did they know, back in 1961, with nothing but cleaning materials, whose evidence they would be destroying and whose might be left behind?

But as Graham and others have said, it wasn't a ghost in that car with the victims, but a man of flesh and blood, so the failure to pick up any traces attributable to the gunman tells us nothing at all about who he was or who he wasn't. However, if they found two used bullets inside the car, that were compatible with the gun found on the 36A bus, wrapped in Hanratty's hanky, that provides the only solid evidence to put any suspect in that car.

The kind of conspiracy, or clever planning by one individual, that would have been needed to set up Hanratty in this way, makes the gunman's distinctly odd behaviour during and immediately after his crime look even odder and less likely - unless this was all part of the cunning plan to make it look like Hanratty's bungling. They could have confused the issue even further if only he too had looked a little bit like Sydney Tafler.

Love,

Caz
X

[propatria27]

There is another possible explanation for the gunman retaining the weapon - he could have discovered it at an address that was either burgled or that he was familiar with and he needed to return it before it was discovered missing. It doesn't necessarily follow that the gunman bought or hired the weapon - that in itself is risky as you introduce other people into the scenario and they may talk.

I also don't believe the car was cleaned - there was too much potential evidential material left behind i.e. the 2 bullets, blood clots, the blanket that covered the front seat. Frankly, even the whole car - why not take it to a field and burn it? Or to a scrap yard and get it crushed?

Regards,

Pete

[EddieX]

Hello All.

A very interesting thread and case.

It is a few years since I read Paul Foot and Bob Woffinden's books, so I am a bit rusty, but here goes.

I think the best estimate of the time of murder was that it happened before 4.00 am and at about 7.00 am the murder car was sighted travelling west a couple of miles east of where it was eventually abandoned in Redbridge. One would have expected the gunman to have made a bee-line for a tube station to the north of London, and abandoned the car there, rather than travel to the east of London and approach from that direction.

This aspect has always puzzled me. Has as why the gunman must have abandoned the car and took the gun with him so as to leave it the next day on the bus. I can only think that in the cold light of day the gunman must have realised that which he did not at the time of the murder, towit that the gun any ammunition would be highly incriminating.