Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[Herlock Sholmes]

"I went to the phone and a man's voice - a gruffish voice but of a man sure of himself, a strong voiced man - enquired for Mr. Wallace and asked would he be there."
Samuel Beattie, statement, 1931

Goodman (1987) adds the words "strong and gruff, ready of utterance, confident, definite in knowing what to say, peremptory" to Beattie's description.

"Dick [Parry] was one hell of a character. Used to get a lot of people's backs up. Had an incredibly arrogant manner on the telephone. Bit of a handicap really because that was his job: switchboard operator."
Phil Roberts (undertaker), 1980

More irrelevant quotes?

And yet you ignore ‘the voice of an older gent.’


I’ll mention again...if Parry really was Liverpool’s answer to Lawrence Olivier or Mike Yarwood why didn’t he wait until Wallace arrived at the club to talk to him personally. Only then would he be confident that Wallace would go to MGE. As you are always resorting to the ‘you win some you lose some’ point of view when faults are pointed out then please apply here. Wallace suspects its Parry on the phone...Parry puts down the phone....so what.

[Herlock Sholmes]

. For all the above reasons, I think we can narrow the field of potential Qualtrough callers to either Wallace or Parry. Please let me know if you think there is an error, omission, over statement of what we know or logical flaw in this reasoning.

I could narrow the field even further Eten

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thank you everyone for humouring me by going through the factors surrounding the Qualtrough phone call again. Rod and Herlock have championed different theories about who made that call and I was finding it difficult to decide which was the stronger theory as Rod and Herlock argue their cases well and evidence their arguments from what information we have. I read other posters who like me were finding it difficult to decide which theory to support, if either of them.

As you can probably tell from this post’s opening paragraph, I am nearly at the point of providing a third theory of events around the phone call, which I think fully incorporates the evidence we have. Before I make a complete fool of myself by describing that theory, it relies on some reasoning we have covered in this thread previously. I would find it useful to have those assumptions tested to see if they hold water, before I feel confident enough to post my version of the call (which is not entirely original – building on theories already discussed in the thread).

Earlier in this thread, we reached a consensus (almost unanimous) that the two potential callers was either Wallace or Parry. We reached that conclusion for the following reasons, I believe:
* whoever made the call had to have good reason to expect Wallace to be attending the chess match on Monday evening. (Both Parry and Wallace could be demonstrated to expect this to be the case – though only Wallace would have known for sure). - Agreed.
* we had to explain why the crime was committed on Tuesday rather than Monday (when Wallace was at the chess match) – we decided it was either someone who knew the haul was likely to be larger on Tuesday (so intimate with Wallace’s premium arrangements) if robbery were the motive (Parry) or to provide the police with a reason to suspect someone other than Wallace (if Wallace were guilty of wanting to murder his wife). In either case, there was a need to either establish a reason for Wallace to be out for the evening or to try and ensure Wallace was out for the evening. We struggled to identify anyone other than Parry or Wallace who had knowledge of the premium routine. - Agreed. The obvious point for Wallace of course is that he couldn’t have killed Julia whilst he was at the chess club.
* we connected the Qualtrough call to the crime and by doing this eliminated an opportunistic crime based on someone observing Wallace leaving the house and so chancing their luck on a burglary. There is an outside possibility that the call and the crime were not connected and it was merely a coincidence of timing. While I consider this unlikely in the extreme (and I believe the majority of posters to the thread agree), there is at least one poster who believes this should be explored more fully. Agreed. The chances of the call and the murder being unconnected have to be vanishingly small in my opinion.
* the targeting of the cash box during the crime suggests that the criminal knew where the premiums were stored. We struggled to identify anyone other than Parry or Wallace (or Julia I guess, but being the victim and female we are sure she did not make the call) who had this information. Agreed. I can’t recall offhand whether Marsden might also have known.

For all the above reasons, I think we can narrow the field of potential Qualtrough callers to either Wallace or Parry. Please let me know if you think there is an error, omission, over statement of what we know or logical flaw in this reasoning. Agreed. It’s not 100% but it must be close.

Thank you.

Well summed up Eten.

[OneRound]

...

For all the above reasons, I think we can narrow the field of potential Qualtrough callers to either Wallace or Parry. Please let me know if you think there is an error, omission, over statement of what we know or logical flaw in this reasoning.

Thank you.

Hi Eten - whilst either Wallace or Parry are strong favourites in my book to have made the Qualtrough call , I wouldn't totally exclude other fringe candidates and thus feel your conclusion is a bit of an overstatement.

IF Parry was involved, his role might have been confined to plotting the crime and so it could have been his accomplice who made the call. Whilst it seems a bit of a waste of Parry's acting and voice throwing abilities not to have made the call, we know nothing of such an accomplice and how much he might have done in the build up to the crime.

Similarly, I raised again in post #1633 of 19 January the possibility of Wallace and an accomplice of his being responsible for Julia's murder. Whilst I don't champion this scenario, it still hasn't been blown out of the water for me. Rod raised some issues but the post generally seemed to pass without comment amidst much unconnected squabbling going on at the time. As I'm therefore not yet prepared to rule out Wallace having an accomplice, I'm also not prepared to rule out at this stage that it was his accomplice who made the call.

Another point. Parry's knowledge of Wallace and where Wallace kept his firm's money understandably puts Parry under the spotlight. However, can we say with confidence that no others had the same knowledge? If not, I'm reluctant to restrict the field as to who might have made the Qualtrough call. Admittedly, the spotlight on Parry gets brighter with Parkes' 'recollections'. Even if what Parkes said in his radio interview is not believed, it doesn't automatically follow that Wallace was guilty or that Parry was innocent or that someone else wasn't responsible.

Plenty of splinters for me from all that fence sitting but that's my take here!

Regards,
OneRound

[ColdCaseJury]

More irrelevant quotes?

And yet you ignore ‘the voice of an older gent.’ I’ll mention again...if Parry really was Liverpool’s answer to Lawrence Olivier or Mike Yarwood...

Mike Yarwood! Wallace would be a better mimic!

[etenguy]

Hi Eten - whilst either Wallace or Parry are strong favourites in my book to have made the Qualtrough call , I wouldn't totally exclude other fringe candidates and thus feel your conclusion is a bit of an overstatement.

IF Parry was involved, his role might have been confined to plotting the crime and so it could have been his accomplice who made the call. Whilst it seems a bit of a waste of Parry's acting and voice throwing abilities not to have made the call, we know nothing of such an accomplice and how much he might have done in the build up to the crime.

Similarly, I raised again in post #1633 of 19 January the possibility of Wallace and an accomplice of his being responsible for Julia's murder. Whilst I don't champion this scenario, it still hasn't been blown out of the water for me. Rod raised some issues but the post generally seemed to pass without comment amidst much unconnected squabbling going on at the time. As I'm therefore not yet prepared to rule out Wallace having an accomplice, I'm also not prepared to rule out at this stage that it was his accomplice who made the call.

Another point. Parry's knowledge of Wallace and where Wallace kept his firm's money understandably puts Parry under the spotlight. However, can we say with confidence that no others had the same knowledge? If not, I'm reluctant to restrict the field as to who might have made the Qualtrough call. Admittedly, the spotlight on Parry gets brighter with Parkes' 'recollections'. Even if what Parkes said in his radio interview is not believed, it doesn't automatically follow that Wallace was guilty or that Parry was innocent or that someone else wasn't responsible.

Plenty of splinters for me from all that fence sitting but that's my take here!

Regards,
OneRound

Thanks OneRound

The caller would not only need to know about the premium arrangements, and where the premiums were stored but also about Wallace being due at the Chess club (which Wallace states he kept completely to himself).

Given you other comments, might I then suggest we can, with a relatively high degree of confidence, state that the caller was either Wallace or Parry (or an associate working with either Wallace or Parry).

[ColdCaseJury]

I'm therefore not yet prepared to rule out Wallace having an accomplice, I'm also not prepared to rule out at this stage that it was his accomplice who made the call.

OneRound

If the Collaborator (Wallace has a collaborator, Parry has an accomplice, just so I don't confused, OneRound!) made the call, could the alibi at the chess club been better planned and executed? Would Wallace have trusted anyone else with this key aspect of the plan?

Is the collaborator the killer? If so, why did Wallace return home at 6pm on the night of the murder?

If the collaborator is not the killer, why did Wallace need a collaborator for the call?

I'm not saying these are "deal breakers" but I think they need to be addressed in any plausible Collaborator theory.

[ColdCaseJury]

Given you other comments, might I then suggest we can, with a relatively high degree of confidence, state that the caller was either Wallace or Parry (or an associate working with either Wallace or Parry).

I would say, definitely to the above. Anyone else - Johnston or unknown perp from Julia's past, say, - has to know about his chess habits and schedule, cash box etc and that is very unlikely unless they are working with Wallace or Parry. I don't think Marsden knew enough about the chess/schedule, but he could have gleaned that from Parry, I guess.

[moste]

Hi Eten - whilst either Wallace or Parry are strong favourites in my book to have made the Qualtrough call , I wouldn't totally exclude other fringe candidates and thus feel your conclusion is a bit of an overstatement.

IF Parry was involved, his role might have been confined to plotting the crime and so it could have been his accomplice who made the call. Whilst it seems a bit of a waste of Parry's acting and voice throwing abilities not to have made the call, we know nothing of such an accomplice and how much he might have done in the build up to the crime.

Similarly, I raised again in post #1633 of 19 January the possibility of Wallace and an accomplice of his being responsible for Julia's murder. Whilst I don't champion this scenario, it still hasn't been blown out of the water for me. Rod raised some issues but the post generally seemed to pass without comment amidst much unconnected squabbling going on at the time. As I'm therefore not yet prepared to rule out Wallace having an accomplice, I'm also not prepared to rule out at this stage that it was his accomplice who made the call.

Another point. Parry's knowledge of Wallace and where Wallace kept his firm's money understandably puts Parry under the spotlight. However, can we say with confidence that no others had the same knowledge? If not, I'm reluctant to restrict the field as to who might have made the Qualtrough call. Admittedly, the spotlight on Parry gets brighter with Parkes' 'recollections'. Even if what Parkes said in his radio interview is not believed, it doesn't automatically follow that Wallace was guilty or that Parry was innocent or that someone else wasn't responsible.

Plenty of splinters for me from all that fence sitting but that's my take here!

Regards,
OneRound

The only way I can see Wallace having an accomplice is, If that person was his brother. Since I am pretty much assured by others that this is impossible, then I think the notion of it being anyone else is dead in the water. I did consider Parry as an accomplice but...nah!

[cobalt]

It’s hard to see Wallace having a collaborator for a number of reasons, the timing of the phone call being an obvious one as CCJ has pointed out. Wallace was not a man able to offer much in the way of financial inducement either. That leaves us with the fantastic scenario of Wallace as a Moriarty of crime, a man who enticed a murderous attack on his wife by a criminal on the promise of a £100 pay off from the box on the shelf, knowing full well there would only be a paltry sum therein. The murderer could hardly complain to the police he had been duped into being a cheapskate assassin.

More seriously, Parry could not really have entered the house unless his intention was both murder and theft. Julia would have let Parry into the house no doubt, but his unexpected appearance combined with the missing money would have raised obvious suspicions and falls well short of a cleverly planned robbery.

If a person, presumably an accomplice of Parry’s, gained entry under the guise of being Qualtrough then it really required Julia to have heard the name from Wallace before he left. Qualtrough could not arrive too early, otherwise Julia would presumably have told him to turn tail and perhaps intercept her husband before he began his odyssey to Menlove Gardens. The optimum time to arrive would have been around 7.30; too late to return himself to his fictitious address, and not an unreasonable amount of time to make small talk with Julia and await the return of her husband. Long enough also for Qualtrough to find a way of rifling the tin of money before slipping out the back door into the winter night, much to the bewilderment of Julia. That seems a reasonably well planned burglary, with the missing money only being discovered when Wallace returns home and the police subsequently chasing a phantom.

Except it did not seem to happen like that. If this was a burglary which went wrong it is unclear why Julia was killed not in the kitchen but in the parlour.

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
If a person, presumably an accomplice of Parry’s, gained entry under the guise of being Qualtrough then it really required Julia to have heard the name from Wallace before he left. Qualtrough could not arrive too early, otherwise Julia would presumably have told him to turn tail and perhaps intercept her husband before he began his odyssey to Menlove Gardens. The optimum time to arrive would have been around 7.30; too late to return himself to his fictitious address, and not an unreasonable amount of time to make small talk with Julia and await the return of her husband. Long enough also for Qualtrough to find a way of rifling the tin of money before slipping out the back door into the winter night, much to the bewilderment of Julia. That seems a reasonably well planned burglary, with the missing money only being discovered when Wallace returns home and the police subsequently chasing a phantom.

Another point for consideration Cobalt concerns timing and the known actions of Parry.

Your suggestion that ‘Qualtrough’ wouldn’t have wanted to call at number 29 too soon after William had left is entirely sensible. He would have needed to have been not too early so as to possibly allow Julia (already reluctant to admit a stranger) to suggest that he might catch up with William but not too late to leave himself too little time to commit the robbery.

It would have been reasonable therefore that Parry and his accomplice would have had a ‘latest time’ to get out without the possibility of bumping into a returning William. William actually returned at 8.45 as we know after a persistent search for MGE. Parry couldn’t have relied on such a rigorous search and so William might easily have returned sooner. So without claiming any exactness we might reasonably suggest that he could have been back 15-30 minutes earlier as far as Parry might have known. So it’s plausible to suggest that Parry would have told his accomplice to be out of there by 8.15ish.

It was part of the plan for Parry then to pick up the accomplice in his car at a prearranged location nearby.

Parry, as we know, was at the Brine’s house until 8.30. We would then have expected him to have driven straight to the spot to pick up his accomplice but Parry then drives to the Post Office to buy cigarettes and a newspaper. A matter of 5 minutes. So does he then go to pick up his accomplice as arranged? No he remembered that he had to go to Hignett’s Garage to pick up his accumulator battery. Shall we say 10 minutes? (possibly even longer) Could neither of these trivialities have waited? This takes us to around 8.45 as an approximation. Why would Parry leave his accomplice kicking his heels for any length of time (possibly 30 minutes or more.)

He’s then told by his accomplice that things went badly wrong and that Parry was now implicated in a murder. Enough to panic anyone and yet Party goes on to visit the Williamson’s and then goes to see his girlfriend with her mother there too. They all said that Parry behaved entirely normally.

Parry’s actions on the night of the murder just don’t speak of a man who was following a plan. Rather of a man having a perfectly normal evening.

[etenguy]

Except it did not seem to happen like that. If this was a burglary which went wrong it is unclear why Julia was killed not in the kitchen but in the parlour.

Indeed Cobalt. Given MacFall's evidence at the trial about the blood splatter pattern and the burnt Mackintosh, together with the poorly staged attempted burglary scene, I think whatever happened, Julia was not killed because she interupted someone stealing from the cash box.

[OneRound]

If the Collaborator (Wallace has a collaborator, Parry has an accomplice, just so I don't confused, OneRound!) made the call, could the alibi at the chess club been better planned and executed? Would Wallace have trusted anyone else with this key aspect of the plan?

Is the collaborator the killer? If so, why did Wallace return home at 6pm on the night of the murder?

If the collaborator is not the killer, why did Wallace need a collaborator for the call?

I'm not saying these are "deal breakers" but I think they need to be addressed in any plausible Collaborator theory.

Hi CCJ - thanks for your post. I feel some, if not all, of your queries and doubts are covered in my posts of #1633 and #1673 of 19th and 20th January but I'm happy to try and further clarify aspects concerning the collaborator now.

It'll probably help (me anyway!) if I juggle the order of your questions and also give a bit of explanatory introduction.

I'm not going to die in a ditch insisting that Wallace and a collaborator were responsible for Julia's murder. However, my belief is that if Wallace bore any responsibility, it must have been in conjunction with someone else. For me, too much rules him out having physically killed his wife; in particular, the lack of time available to him and the absence of any blood stains on him.

Thus, in this scenario, the collaborator is the killer.

I further speculate that Wallace returned home at 6pm on the night of the murder so that he could pave the way at the last minute for Julia to look out for a particular visitor and to let him in if he should arrive (which he would obviously would in this plan) before Wallace returned. It would be essential that Wallace only tell Julia just before he left so she would have no opportunity to mention the expected visitor to anyone. To confirm, the visitor is the killer as pre-planned with Wallace.

As per some of the possibilities I flagged to Eten and in connection with this scenario, the caller to the chess club could have been either Wallace or the collaborator. The advantages to Wallace of the collaborator making the call are: (1) that he (Wallace) would not not have entered the phone box and risked being seen there; and (2) as it wasn't him (Wallace) making the call, there was no possibility of his voice being recognised by whoever took the call at the club. As Wallace is trusting the collaborator to kill Julia in where this is all going, I have no issue with Wallace entrusting him to make the call.

That theory espoused, I readily acknowledge that I'm not tempted to put a shedload of dosh on it being the answer to what actually happened. However, I don't see it as totally implausible.

One particular weakness for me which I fully acknowledge is that Wallace always seems to come across as a solitary individual - would he really know and be able to arrange for someone else to kill Julia for him?

That question asked and being unanswered, it has to be recognised - at least by those suggesting Wallace did it or might have done it - that there are things about Wallace that we do not know. In particular, what was his motive? I appreciate no motive for Wallace needs to be proved to allege his guilt but those doing so have to acknowledge that not all about the man has ever come out.

Add to all that - as stated and illustrated in my post of #1633, Wallace's actions before, around the time (but not then at the murder scene) and after the murder were odd and perhaps suspicious. That all gives me atm at least some possibility of Wallace and a collaborator.

If pushed, I would say that Rod's theory holds the most water (although I wish he would present and sell it less forcibly at times) but it still leaves doubts for me about Wallace's conduct and makes me wonder as to whether he and another might just have been involved.

Best regards,
OneRound

[ColdCaseJury]

Parry, as we know, was at the Brine’s house until 8.30. We would then have expected him to have driven straight to the spot to pick up his accomplice but Parry then drives to the Post Office to buy cigarettes and a newspaper. A matter of 5 minutes. So does he then go to pick up his accomplice as arranged? No he remembered that he had to go to Hignett’s Garage to pick up his accumulator battery. Shall we say 10 minutes? (possibly even longer) Could neither of these trivialities have waited? This takes us to around 8.45 as an approximation. Why would Parry leave his accomplice kicking his heels for any length of time (possibly 30 minutes or more.)

I would point out that Brine and Denison said Parry left "about 8:30 pm" without any indication of how they fixed the time (unlike the Lloyd statements) or what they had been doing for three hours. Did Parry have supper there? And none of the others in Parry's alibi confirmed any of his movements (the police appear not to have asked or, if they did, these are no longer in the record).

That does not say its untrue, of course. I'm just pointing out it was never cross-checked.

In my reconstruction of the Accomplice scenario, I have Qualtrough turning up at just before 7:30 pm, but I agree it still leaves a long time for the pick-up, as you say.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Good points Antony.

Another thought. Again this isn’t a cast iron point for or against it’s simply an observation.

Julia Wallace was born in the Victorian era and lived through the Edwardian. From what we know of her she was a very quiet, reserved and somewhat retiring type of person. It’s been said that she was ‘old fashioned.’ As I’ve said before we know that people from that time were far more sensitive of rumour, reputation and scandal than we are today.

As William had left by the back door no neighbour could have known that Julia was alone in the house. But in 1931, after dark, wouldn’t it have been more likely for the man of the house to have answered the door? Might not any neighbour observing unseen from across the road, and who saw Julia answering the door and admitting an unknown man, have thought this slightly amiss. More to the point might not a sensitive Julia have been aware and worried about this possibility (especially as she would have had to have had a conversation with the man which might have taken up to a minute.) This time might have increased the chances of this conversation being seen. And even if a neighbour hadn’t assumed that she was alone in the house Julia knew that William would have returned later by the front door. If the same neighbour had seen William return they would have known that Julia had been alone in the house with a strange man for a considerable length of time.

Might this not have added to Julia’s reluctance to admit a strange man to the house?