Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Take a tip out of the Lawyers' handbook.

Never ask a question you don't know the answer to.

I've demonstrated that criminals/robbers sometime wear mittens.

Therefore the Wallace sneak-thief could have...

Try simple honesty occasionally. It would make a refreshing change.

I asked you specifically about sneak-thieves, not filling station robbers, not burglars, not muggers but sneak thieves. People that bluff their way into a house attempting to raise no suspicion so they can steal money.

How awkward and difficult would it have been to pick the notes out of the cash box wearing mittens?

Would it have been normal for men on business appointments to have worn mittens?

Couldn’t the killer have simply accessed a pair of gloves?

Desperate and biased as ever.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oh and I’d forgotten.

Post #573?

[harry]

Wouldn't a sneak thief do exactly that,just take the cash box and run.We are led to believe that was the objective,the money in the cash box.Why not take the box itself and leave. Then to replace the box back on the shelf.There was no sneak thief,the supposed robbery was faked by Wallace,as the police claimed.

Why not lure Julia from the house,instead of taking a chance of being discovered in the course of robbing.Of course if the suggestion is that Julia did interupt a robbery,the evidence does not support such a theory.So why kill Her?If one cannot supply a motive for Wallace killing his wife,no one has yet furnished a motive for an intruder to do so.

[RodCrosby]

Wouldn't a sneak thief do exactly that,just take the cash box and run..

Did you not read any of the professional articles I posted, about distraction robbery?

You should read some more, starting with the legal system, the adversarial system, the burden of proof, the presumption of innocence, the remit of the Court of Appeal in 1931, the outcome of the Wallace Case, etc., etc.

I'm not here to educate you. You must do that yourself...

[RodCrosby]

Oh and I’d forgotten.

Post #573?

Monomaniac really thinks I'm hanging on his every tedious word.

Yaaaaaaawn.....

How can I break this to you? I really DO have bigger fish to fry....

My theory has been accepted, published and endorsed - just as I said it would be - amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the other thread, leading one demented, obsessive Wallace-ite to publicly self-immolate, and the closure of the thread.

I rest my case.

[moste]

It was a very quiet cul-de-sac, with just one gas-lamp on each side, and in those days almost everyone "lived" at the back of the house.

Photo taken morning after the murder...

I don’t know how you could possibly know it was a QUIET cul-de-sac
I agree that front parlours were not used as much as the rear kitchen /living rooms.
Very curious thing, the none bay front bedroom windows closest to the photographer on both sides of the street are neatly bricked up.looks like about 30 houses affected, wonder what that was all about?
Opposite Wallace’s house was a young family , there is a perambulator parked against the house wall.

[harry]

Rod,
You couldn't teach me a thing.Why not stick to the questions.Why did a sneak thief murder Julia.Why not lure Julia from the house,as had been done with Wallace.?Evidence has no part in those questions.Why replace a cash box when it would have been easier to carry it away.Stop trying to shield your ignorance of the killing by quoting rules of evidence which have no part in the answer,and which it is apparent,you do not undersand.

Why did it become necessary for this imaginary sneak thief to murder Julia? Answer that for a start

[Graham]

Rod,
You couldn't teach me a thing.Why not stick to the questions.Why did a sneak thief murder Julia.Why not lure Julia from the house,as had been done with Wallace.?Evidence has no part in those questions.Why replace a cash box when it would have been easier to carry it away.Stop trying to shield your ignorance of the killing by quoting rules of evidence which have no part in the answer,and which it is apparent,you do not undersand.

Why did it become necessary for this imaginary sneak thief to murder Julia? Answer that for a start

Indeed, Harry. And so far no-one, on this or any other Casebook thread, or in any of the (few) books I've read on the subject, has come up with what I would consider to be a plausible motive for Julia's brutal killing. Maybe nearly a century on, it is not possible to establish the true motive....but I genuinely do feel it wasn't for the sake of a few quid in a cash-box.

Graham

[RodCrosby]

I don’t know how you could possibly know it was a QUIET cul-de-sac
I agree that front parlours were not used as much as the rear kitchen /living rooms.
Very curious thing, the none bay front bedroom windows closest to the photographer on both sides of the street are neatly bricked up.looks like about 30 houses affected, wonder what that was all about?
Opposite Wallace’s house was a young family , there is a perambulator parked against the house wall.

I know it because I've BEEN THERE, many times.

So have others.

"In any case, it was towards the blind end of the street, and quieter. In 1931, whoever murdered Julia Wallace by beating her to death in the front parlour figured this, too..."

"...crime buffs are still drawn to this quiet Liverpool backwater, to gaze at the Wallace house and to wonder at its secret."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/4814376/The-1931-slaying-of-a-Liverpool-housewife-remains-to-this-day-the-perfect-murder.-Roger-Wilkes-heads-north-Raymond-Chandler-felt-the-case-would-always-be-unbeatable.html

No idea about the bricks, although I noticed them. A heat loss measure?

I don't know what that object in the photo is. But the householders opposite were all aged 40+.

[RodCrosby]

...but I genuinely do feel it wasn't for the sake of a few quid in a cash-box.

Graham

Murder wasn't the object. The object was the potential £100 in the cash-box.

£6000 in today's money. The perps didn't know it would be light, because Wallace had been ill. Sh1t happens...

[Graham]

And to rain blows upon an elderly, ill woman so hard that her brain was exposed?

Graham

[RodCrosby]

Google "burglary gone wrong"...

[Graham]

Google "burglary gone wrong"...

I did - so what? How about some details about other 'burglaries gone wrong' in 1930's Liverpool?

Graham

[RodCrosby]

I don't see why that is necessary. What was special about Liverpool in the 1930s to not permit us to generalise?

How about the 1950s in Liverpool, and another stellar investigation by the Jiggery-Pokery Brigade?

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/men-hanged-double-execution-walton-14344216

[Graham]

OK - I'll make it simpler for you. Were there any other domestic burglaries around that time in Liverpool in which serious violence, potentially or actually lethal, was used by the perp(s)?

Graham