Unsolved London Murders

by Jonathan Oates

  There were other accusations, as in every unsolved murder case. One was two years after the murder, when George Ford accused Morris Herman of the crime. Albert Norris was also accused by an anonymous letter writer. Yet Norris was in Watford when the murder occurred and the police suspected that the writer was Violet Graham of Hornsey, who had once lived with Norris and, following his departure, wanted to get him into trouble. No further action was taken against either man. As the police report concluded, ‘Nothing however, has so far come to light that has caused me to alter my opinion that the information received on the night of 29th March 1932, to the effect that Alfred Philpotts and another were implicated in the crime, is right.’

  It was also believed that Philpotts’s accomplice was a man called ‘Mush’. This man was identified as Jack Rogers and was arrested on 27 May 1932. Yet he claimed that he was stealing from the mayor of Ealing on the evening of the Croydon crime. Another man was identified as Mush, too. This was James Fox, but he claimed he knew nothing of the murder and was at Harringay races on the night in question.

  Yet another suspect was William Browne, who was a known criminal. He had robbed and attacked Mrs Jackson at her house in Wickham Road, Croydon, on 22 February 1932. He was subsequently jailed for burglary on 25 July that year. He said he could not recall his movements on the night of the crime, but thought he might have been playing whist with his girlfriend’s family that evening. Miss Bramma, his girlfriend, corroborated his story. The police concluded, ‘We are satisfied that he was not in any way implicated in the murder.’

  The police conclusion was as follows:

  Enquiries have been continued into this case and I have kept in touch with informants but no further evidence has been collected against Alfred Philpotts and the man known as Mush with whom he has assorted at the time of the murder has not been traced.

  It is impossible to know who killed Miss Emberton. Philpotts may have been guilty as the police suspected. But as they admitted, there was no evidence against him. The two thieves clearly had not had murder on their mind when they went to the house in Addiscombe Road, as they went unarmed, and one of them probably used the truncheon found there to assault the unfortunate housekeeper as she interrupted their crime. They must have thought they had a clear passage once Miss Emberton let them in and then left the house to do some shopping. However, something made her return home before visiting any shops. Perhaps she had suspicions of her own and thought she could deal with the situation, and she was a confident woman – unfortunately for her.

  CHAPTER 16

  Whose Body? 1935

  We were able to tear the sack open, and then we found a body inside.

  Murder automatically creates one mystery. Who was responsible? But in some cases there is more than one question of identity. Who has been killed? There were several cases in the nineteenth century in which bodies, or parts of them, were found in London. They were never identified and their killers went equally unknown. Sometimes it is difficult enough to find the killer, but if the victim is unknown as well, then the task can become well nigh impossible, and deliberately so on the killer’s part. To render a corpse unidentifiable means disfigurement or dismemberment, often because otherwise the link between killer and victim would be all too obvious, at least in the mind of the guilty. Their disposal, though, also presents problems, for if they are placed or buried somewhere which might associate them with the killer, then the latter has failed. Therefore, an anonymous location is often chosen, such as a river, canal, a train or a railway station. In 1934, two corpses had been deposited in trunks at Brighton railway station and perhaps that gave the murderer/s in this chapter an idea of how to dispose of their victim.

  Just before 2 pm on 25 February 1935, James Eves, a carriage cleaner, was about his work on the recently arrived train from Hounslow into Waterloo. He discovered a parcel wrapped in brown paper, measuring 20 inches by 9 inches, under a seat in a third-class compartment and then went with it to the lost property office. He said to his colleague there, John Cooper, ‘Have a look at this. It moves at one end – feels like toes to me.’ They examined the parcel and found it was blood-stained. Inside the parcel, within a layer made up of pages from Sunday newspapers, were a pair of human legs, from the knees down. They contacted the railway police at once. PC James Mullin was the first to arrive.

  The train had left Hounslow at about 1.20 pm, and had been the stopping service, with stops at Isleworth, Brentford, Kew Bridge, Chiswick, Barnes Bridge, Barnes, Putney, Wandsworth Town, Clapham Junction, Queen’s Road and Vauxhall (the same route as that taken by Elizabeth Camp in 1897, when she was bludgeoned to death by person or persons unknown, a case recounted in the author’s Unsolved Murders in Victorian and Edwardian London). The journey usually took about 36 minutes. There were so many stations at which miscreants could get on and alight. The coach in which the remains were found had been in service all the morning on that same circular route. It was removed to the Durnsford Road sidings at Wimbledon Park at about 7 pm that day. These were strictly guarded until the police could complete their examination, which was led by Chief Inspector Donaldson. He asked other police stations in the district to keep a look out for the rest of the corpse.

  It was soon found that the legs were probably those of a man, perhaps aged between 20 and 50. Death had probably occurred very recently. Spilsbury was also called in. There were no marks on the legs. The shape of the toes suggested that the man had been wearing tight-fitting footwear. The man might have been about five feet nine or ten inches tall, judging by the legs. The limbs, however, had been severed after death; possibly as recently as two days prior to their discovery. The cutting had probably been carried out by someone with anatomical knowledge.

  Train leaving Waterloo Station, 1926. Author’s collection

  Bloodstains were found on the floor of the railway compartment where the parcel had been found, and this flooring was cut away and taken for further examination. Detectives also examined the wrappings as well as the remains inside them. The newspaper in which they were enclosed was a Daily Express of 21 September 1934 and another one for 20 January 1935. Part of the front page of one of the newspapers had been cut away by a sharp knife, perhaps to remove a potentially incriminating name or address.

  Railway staff along the route were also questioned. Ewes recalled that the compartment in which the parcel was found had been occupied by a working man in his forties, about five feet eight inches tall, but apart from the coincidence of him sitting in that compartment, there was nothing to connect him to the parcel. In any case, he was only noticed by Ewes because he had just entered the compartment ready to travel on the train and, had he been responsible for the parcel, he would surely have left as soon as he could. Left-luggage rooms were searched. A locked dressing case at Waterloo was examined, though it contained ordinary belongings only. A pair of gloves was found on a train at Chertsey, and the stains thereon may have been blood.

  Waterloo Station. John Coulter’s collection

  Railway staff at Hounslow station recalled seeing a group of three men there at about 1 pm. One of these was carrying a brown parcel and it was he who boarded the train, the others seeing him off, shouting ‘So long’. It was believed that these men were Welsh miners. Thomas Soane described the three:

  I think all three of these men would be about 27 to 30, one of them was wearing a brown suit and I remember that his right trouser leg was very much frayed round the bottom. I think they were clean shaven, but of unkempt appearance.

  Llewellyn Williams, the ticket clerk at Hounslow, described the man who bought the ticket as aged 22 or 23, five feet ten, clean shaven, with ginger hair and wearing a brown suit and a cloth cap. He also recalled that one of his companions said ‘You’ll find your way from Clapham Junction to Charing Cross allright.’

  Could these have been the wanted men? Or was it a coincidence that one of them was on the same train at the same time as the gruesome parcel?

  There was a sequ
el to the story. In the following month, on 19 March, four Brentford boys, Peter Emptage, Ronald Newman, John Dean and Fred Smitheman, were playing by the side of the Grand Junction Canal near Brentford, whilst on their way to Green Pond to look for frogspawn. Whilst at the canal, they watched a rat swimming and then they saw a sack following a barge. As the sack floated by the canal bank, they used sticks to remove the sack from the canal and examined it, being seen by William Webb, a bargemaster, who also recalled seeing the sack by a lock on the canal. One of two men who passed by remarked to the lads, of the sack, ‘Little boys like you should be put in it’. Peter Emptage described their discovery thus:

  I did not know what was inside it, but we thought it might have been a pig or something like that tied up. We were able to tear the sack open, and then we found a body inside. I was frightened and ran for a policeman. I could not find one, and so sent another boy on a bicycle to Brentford to Brentford police station.

  Frank Heath of Southall was also a witness to the discovery and he recalled:

  I heard shouts and on looking over the embankment saw a policeman climbing the slope leading to the towing path. There were four boys on the towing path and half in the water was a large sack with one end open. I hurried down and joined the policeman and saw that inside the sack was the trunk of a man. I could see that the head had been severed. The arms had been cut off at the elbow. From the shape of the body the legs must have been severed at the thigh.

  Reporters and photographers rushed to the scene, before more police arrived and maintained a rigorous guard, until Donaldson arrived. He had the body removed to the Brentford Mortuary, which was a ‘grim little building’ in the council depot beside burning slag heaps.

  It was a human male torso, which included the upper arms; the lower arms being cut off at the forearm in the same way as the legs had been dissected. Spilsbury concluded that the torso was part of the same body as the legs found at Waterloo. He also found a number of long female hairs on the torso, which certainly did not belong to its owner, nor to those who found the corpse. Another question concerned the location of the rest of the body, which was presumably disposed of after the legs had been found. There were some injuries to the torso, perhaps caused by a barge knocking against it. There was no sign of cause of death.

  The wrappings which surrounded the trunk were also investigated, but to little avail. This part of the corpse was wearing a brown woollen vest. It had been made by Harrott & Co., of Aberdeen, a firm of hosiers, who had also sold them in London since 1932. The sack was one of Ogilvie’s, flour merchants from Montreal, whose London agents were located at Fenchurch Street. This particular sack had been made in Canada in 1929 and had once contained flour.

  Initially it was thought that the sack might have been thrown from a train crossing the bridge over the canal, presumably by the same man or men who concealed the parcel with the legs on the same train. Experiments were made to see if this was feasible, but it was concluded that, though possible, such an act was difficult. Furthermore, the possibility of a heavy object floating upstream was unlikely. It was, perhaps, a very local crime: a piece of paper in the sack had the word ‘ford’ on it.

  In order to find the rest of the body, the canal was dragged with nets and detectives walked along the banks to search the canal using long poles. This took several days, but produced nothing positive. A curved dagger was unearthed, but it was thought that this had nothing to do with the crime.

  As ever, a number of messages were sent to the police following their pleas for assistance. Some were anonymous, such as one which alleged a corpse had been buried near an allotment on Ditchling Road. Another said the victim was a man engaged to marry a 26-year-old Irish girl near Brighton, and had been killed by a young married man of a good social position from Withdean, near Preston.

  Acton Town Station, 2008. Author’s collection

  Anyone seen with a brown parcel became an object of suspicion. William Bashford, a chauffeur at Whytetleafe station saw a man with a brown parcel at 6 pm on 24 February. The man was aged between 28 and 30, five feet eight, with a dark complexion and clean shaven. He had broad shoulders and dark brown hair and was wearing a fawn-coloured overcoat and had a grey trilby hat. He took a train for Victoria. Edward Linegar, a Willesden hair dresser, saw a well-spoken man, with auburn hair, who seemed in a nervous condition on 27 February. He had been using a washing basin and there was a bloodstain on his trouser leg. Two coloured men were seen at Acton Town station with suitcases. A man with a brown parcel was seen on a bus at Aldgate. And there were many other men spotted with brown parcels at this time.

  Carl Eric Alven, a surgeon of Cambridge, also came under suspicion. He had left the country in March and applied to join the French Foreign Legion. Hs wife could not recall his movements between 21 and 25 February. The police went to Dunkirk to question him. He had had injuries on his hands which suggested he had been recently involved in a fight. He was also found to carry a scalpel, though as he was a surgeon this is not too surprising. Alven said that he left home because of ‘domestic trouble’; not with his wife, but with his father-in law. He declared that he was in London on 27 February and a friend had given him a knife there. He said the marks of his face were the result of his sparring with a friend outside a pub.

  There were also suggestions and queries about the victim, too. Alfred Johnson told the police about Laurence Lenton, a female impersonator, who had once asked him for a pair of special shoes in 1919, which might well have caused the pinching of the feet. Frances Beaumont went to see the remains in case they were those of his father, and concluded they were not. Walter Beaumont, aged 42, of Palmer’s Green, had disappeared on 31 December 1934. He was depressed and had become involved with a desperate crowd. Alexander Andrews of Coulesdon reported that his son, the 25-year-old Frank, who had been employed as a bank clerk until 15 February, had gone missing.

  A more pertinent observation was made in the Middlesex Independent, but again, it merely pointed out the difficult nature of the problem, rather than offering a solution:

  The difficulties the police have to face in this case are many – not the least being Brentford’s large section of that might be termed ‘floating population’. These are men who are working or have worked on the roads and in factories who live in lodging houses and are difficult to trace. It may well be that the victim came from amongst that section of the population.

  A few items which might have been clues were unearthed, but probably were not. William Charles Witts found male clothing in a parcel in a Brentford allotment. These were socks, a top shirt and an undervest. Charles Jones found a knife at the junction of Finsbury Park and Endymion Road, possibly dropped by somebody from a passing car. He took this to Hornsey police station. Two days after the trunk was found at Brentford, a head was found in a rubbish dump at South Ealing, yet this turned out to be a false lead, because on medical examination it was found to be that of an animal.

  Three people claimed they had other relevant information. John Kettle of Hounslow reported on 24 February he had heard a gunshot. Marjorie Dudley, a schoolgirl, said that she saw a motor boat near Barnes on 28 February, and the men in it put something over the side. A sack was seen in the canal by the Fox Pub, Hanwell, on 17 March. Perhaps a more relevant witness was a woman who lived in Boston Gardens, Brentford. She told the police:

  Between three and five weeks ago, I noticed from the back of my house which overlooks White Horse Island, and the canal backwater, a man walking through the undergrowth of the island, carrying a sack on his back. At the time I took little notice, for it was morning and I was tidying up bedrooms. The man, who was of medium height, was dressed in a light coloured raincoat, but he was too far off for me to describe him.

  The inquest began at Southwark Coroner’s Court on 10 April. In view of the fact that this was not a conventional inquest, when a known and whole corpse is examined, jurors were asked to inquire into a case ‘touching certain human remains’. Many medical s
tudents attended. Evidence was initially given by those, both railway employees and the four lads, who had found the parts of the body. Donaldson said that he did not connect this discovery with the Brighton Trunk mystery. Spilsbury told the court why he thought the remains belonged to the same man. He said:

  Both are the remains of men. Both show good muscular development, and the hairs in both cases are light in colour. Both are freckled, and both show complete absence of indications of previous disease and on both there is practically a complete absence of blood.

  He added that the man was aged between 40 and 50, and about five feet ten inches tall.

  The inquest was concluded on 18 May. An open verdict was given, meaning that no one could ascertain whether this was murder, manslaughter, accident or suicide. The coroner’s concluding questions are perhaps worth considering:

  Why was the parcel containing the two limbs pushed right back under the seat of the carriage so that it would not be noticeable? If we have a parcel, we do not normally push it right under the seat. It was not noticed until after the carriage cleaner found it.

  Why was such meticulous care been affected in the dissecting the arms at the elbow. If the forearms had been tattooed, and anyone who knows anything about sailors knows that the forearm is a popular site for tattooing, would the removal of those forearms destroy a clue which might possibly lead to identification?