The attack on Swedish housewife Mrs Meike Dalal on Thursday, September 7th 1961

[Sherlock Houses]

Unfortunately, as it later transpired, it seemed that for reasons of his own Tony was having a little joke, and he made up the whole exchange. In fairness to him, he probably did it to demonstrate what a daft notion it would have been had Hanratty actually agreed that the hankie was his and dropped himself even further into the mire. Trouble is, Tony did it rather too well.......

Tony was an honest bloke, he was not an inventor and made it quite clear whenever he was jesting. Have you not considered the possibility that Tony had access to the full trial transcript and was quoting from it ?

[Alfie]

Struth !! I have definitely heard it all now.

It's called grammar. It's not all that difficult to understand.

[Sherlock Houses]

To me, Tony is saying that dark eyes cannot be blue, implying that blue eyes cannot be dark. Yet Hanratty's eyes were said to be a 'much darker blue' than the shade Valerie is said to have meant when describing the killer's eyes.

I'll leave you with that thought... and hope someone can make sense of it.

As is your wont you have chosen to twist another poster's [this time Tony]words to suit your own agenda. You have even forgotten what you've written in a recent post where you claim that Tony said blue eyes can only ever be pale.

Tony claimed no such thing. He wrote dark eyes are not blue eyes by any stretch of the imagination and I completely agree with him as I feel sure 90% of people would too (there always seems to be the contrary 10% doesn't there ?).

Ask any normal person on the street what DARK EYES mean and I bet the overwhelming majority of them would say brown or black eyes.

[Graham]

For SH's benefit, basically to put another little nugget of information within his grasp, the idea that the handkerchief found with the gun was personalised came from a former poster called Tony, who was actually a Hanratty supporter. He posted what many of us, myself included, took to be a genuine courtroom exchange between Hanratty and the prosecution. Unfortunately, as it later transpired, it seemed that for reasons of his own Tony was having a little joke, and he made up the whole exchange. In fairness to him, he probably did it to demonstrate what a daft notion it would have been had Hanratty actually agreed that the hankie was his and dropped himself even further into the mire. Trouble is, Tony did it rather too well.......

Graham

[caz]

Wrong yet again caz. Tony never maintained any such thing. Not to worry though as I feel almost sure you'll get something correct one of these days.

Here is what I was thinking of, and you were the one quoting Tony...

I've located Tony's post [#3268] from the old A6 thread.
This was what he had to reveal...........

Hello Graham,

I quote you from your post 3267:
“Not a lot of evidence to point to the A6 killer having brown eyes....is there?”

The first identikit picture compiled solely by Valerie and which looked remarkably like Mr Alphon, despite your own doubts about this was compiled and aided by the identikit expert.
As Vic says it was in black and white, I think they still may be nowadays, but the ‘coach’ would have explained to her the procedure. She had not done one before.
As you know there are different types of hair, noses, lips ears and such like. But colour is a feature even though it is in black and white; such as for the colour of the hair
Similarly eye colours can be selected and the ‘coach’ has to explain exactly what colour codings are referred to with the hair, lips and eyes.
There are 104 codings for eyes. E10 illustrates blue eyes. Valerie chose E49 which depicts dark eyes.
Dark eyes are not blue eyes by any stretch of the imagination.
Can you let me know how Valerie, very shortly after the murder when her memory was freshest, chose E49 eyes to be published to help in the search for the killer?
She simply must have told the expert coach the man had dark or brown eyes and not blue.

Tony.

To me, Tony is saying that dark eyes cannot be blue, implying that blue eyes cannot be dark. Yet Hanratty's eyes were said to be a 'much darker blue' than the shade Valerie is said to have meant when describing the killer's eyes.

I'll leave you with that thought... and hope someone can make sense of it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sherlock Houses]

I'd say the meaning depends on whether or not a hyphen is included: icy-blue = pale blue; icy blue = blue eyes with an icy expression.

Struth !! I have definitely heard it all now.

[caz]

The anti-Hanratty mob have recently renamed us Hanrattyistas Derrick to distinguish us possibly from the Sandanistas in Nicaragua.

In effect what they would have us believe is that James Hanratty, after his dastardly deeds in the Morris Minor, then picked up a couple of empty cartridge cases and hurried back to the Vienna Hotel which he had vacated about 18 hours before the A6 murder. Being an accomplished housebreaker he then broke into room 24, where he had spent the night before the murder, and placed the said two empty cartridge cases on a chair in order to incriminate himself in the murder. They would soon be found and he wouldn't have to wait long before police came looking for him. How was the daft melt to know that no hotel staff would bother to clean the large bedroom for another 19 days ?? He had a back-up plan to get caught though, he wasn't that daft. He would hop on a nearby 36A bus to put the murder gun, bullets and personalised hankie underneath the back seat of the top deck. He'd told his great pal Dixie France a couple of weeks earlier that that was where he put unwanted paste from his burglaries. It would only be a day or so before they would be discovered and surely Dixie would put two and two together and with a little luck know it was him who put them there. Dixie being a well known police informer would then be able to point the police in his direction. He'd soon be in the cosy warmth of a welcoming police cell. Voila !!

Have you just had a long liquid lunch, SH?

I realise this wasn't meant to be your finest or most serious post on the subject, but when you described the hankie as 'personalised', what did you have in mind? There is no evidence that it could have been identified as Hanratty's in 1961 from the snot on it, so while he would not have incriminated himself by using it, neither would anyone else have incriminated him by taking it and planting it with the gun, so what would have been the point?

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Surely the next to biggest load of old guff ? It's my experience that a sense of the Monty Python ridiculous is needed on this forum to combat the ridiculous premise that James Hanratty was the A6 murderer.

Mr. Shy, locked houses

Ooooh, you're a proper caution you are, Mister Hearses!

Graham

[caz]

Remind us all please of where I stated that Valerie Storie described the eyes as pale blue.

You didn't. I never said you did. That was what I was asking for, as I thought I had made obvious, but obviously not obvious enough.
Here we go again:

I then asked for a source for her actually 'saying so' (ie using the word 'pale'), not caring who might be able to provide one. But I figured it wouldn't be you...

...Now - finally - Del has mentioned 'pale' and offers a source for Valerie saying so as late as January 24th. Better than nothing I suppose.

Your argument was - and is - that when Valerie used the word 'icy', in conjunction with 'large' and 'saucer-like', she could only have been referring to the shade and meant 'pale', rather than 'cold as ice', 'hard as ice', 'flinty', 'impersonal', 'psychopathic' - take your pick. I merely sought some confirmation from Valerie herself (not the dictionary definition of what shade icy-blue eyes would be) that you were guessing correctly and not merely presuming. What's so wrong with that? I thought your whole beef with the case against Hanratty was that too many presumptions were made without sufficient evidence to back them up.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sherlock Houses]

I've been having a little lay-off from posting, just sitting back and reading with varying degrees of credulity what other folk care to place on the boards. Interesting stuff, by and large. But I have to say, Mr Shylock Houses, your last post is the biggest load of old guff I've read in a long time. I can only hope it was said with your tongue stuck firmly in your cheek.......

Graham

Surely the next to biggest load of old guff ? It's my experience that a sense of the Monty Python ridiculous is needed on this forum to combat the ridiculous premise that James Hanratty was the A6 murderer.

Mr. Shy, locked houses

[Sherlock Houses]

And I think it was Hanratty defender Tony - quoted from an old post over on the 'Rebooted' thread - who maintained blue eyes can only ever be pale anyway, so I'm not sure how that would help matters!

Wrong yet again caz. Tony never maintained any such thing. Not to worry though as I feel almost sure you'll get something correct one of these days.

[Graham]

I've been having a little lay-off from posting, just sitting back and reading with varying degrees of credulity what other folk care to place on the boards. Interesting stuff, by and large. But I have to say, Mr Shylock Houses, your last post is the biggest load of old guff I've read in a long time. I can only hope it was said with your tongue stuck firmly in your cheek.......

Graham

[Sherlock Houses]

There is no evidence against Hanratty that cannot be plausibly explained by another scenario, especially the gun and room 24.

The anti-Hanratty mob have recently renamed us Hanrattyistas Derrick to distinguish us possibly from the Sandanistas in Nicaragua.

In effect what they would have us believe is that James Hanratty, after his dastardly deeds in the Morris Minor, then picked up a couple of empty cartridge cases and hurried back to the Vienna Hotel which he had vacated about 18 hours before the A6 murder. Being an accomplished housebreaker he then broke into room 24, where he had spent the night before the murder, and placed the said two empty cartridge cases on a chair in order to incriminate himself in the murder. They would soon be found and he wouldn't have to wait long before police came looking for him. How was the daft melt to know that no hotel staff would bother to clean the large bedroom for another 19 days ?? He had a back-up plan to get caught though, he wasn't that daft. He would hop on a nearby 36A bus to put the murder gun, bullets and personalised hankie underneath the back seat of the top deck. He'd told his great pal Dixie France a couple of weeks earlier that that was where he put unwanted paste from his burglaries. It would only be a day or so before they would be discovered and surely Dixie would put two and two together and with a little luck know it was him who put them there. Dixie being a well known police informer would then be able to point the police in his direction. He'd soon be in the cosy warmth of a welcoming police cell. Voila !!

[caz]

You're a great hair-splitter aren't you ? Look in any decent dictionary [Oxford English Reference Dictionary or Collins English Dictionary to name but two] and you will discover [if you didn't already know] that icy-blue equates to very pale blue.

Now icy-blue can only mean very pale blue? If that's what Valerie meant, where does she say 'very' pale blue eyes? Not that it's particularly relevant, since normal people don't tend to communicate using only strict dictionary definitions. She should have been asked for the exact shade of blue she meant when she was alive. And I think it was Hanratty defender Tony - quoted from an old post over on the 'Rebooted' thread - who maintained blue eyes can only ever be pale anyway, so I'm not sure how that would help matters!

Love,

Caz
X

[OneRound]

OR

How what all happened? The stitch up of James Hanratty or the A6 murder?

Del

No need to be coy, Del. My question here was as wide and contains as many parts as you want it to. I don't know if you regard ''the stitch up of James Hanratty'' as something planned (at least in part) before the A6 murder or something that followed separately.

In certain respects, you and I are on similar ground in that we feel the case for Hanratty's guilt was not properly established at trial. Where we are poles apart is in your belief in Hanratty's innocence. That though doesn't stop me being interested in your opinions.

Best regards,

OneRound