The case was taken to appeal on 13 March. But there were no grounds for altering the conviction and so the appeal was dismissed. The Home Secretary saw no reason why he should grant a reprieve. On 29 March 1939, Butler was hanged at Wandsworth prison.
The question is, why did Butler go to Key’s shop? If Key was not a receiver of stolen goods, as appears likely, presumably Butler thought he might be. He may have made an offer of the goods he had stolen. What did Key do next which led to a fatal attack? Did he threaten to call the police? If so, that would be a reason for Butler to attack him, using the knife he had bought. We know that Butler was lying when he said that it was Key who had the knife and attacked him, so this hypothesis seems possible, as well as showing Butler’s story of self defence to have been a nonsense. Possibly it was a case of attempted robbery, with Butler taking a knife as a method of frightening the older man into handing goods over to him. Or perhaps he meant to kill him anyway, and then rob the shop. We shall never know what exactly happened just after 11 in that shop on that morning of Christmas Eve, 1938.
The case gained international fame, with German newspapers reporting that a spiritualist had been used to solve the case. This seems to have been a mistake due to Key’s interests in spiritualism and had no foundation in fact. There were also touches of the macabre. Dr Roche Lynch was allowed to retain Key’s bloodstained jacket for lecturing purposes and the knife used to commit the crime was kept for Scotland Yard’s Black Museum.
CHAPTER 18
The Second Death on Kingston Hill
1939
The old bastard has got what he deserves.
Kingston Hill, as already noted in chapter 8, was where many of Kingston’s wealthier residents lived in their detached houses adjoining the east side of Richmond Park. Theophile Jean Baptiste Desnos, aged sixty-seven in 1939, was one of these fortunate people. He was probably of French parentage, but had been born in Bermondsey, London, in 1872 and was living in New Cross Road in 1901; and was then working as a manufacturing chemist. In 1911, still with the same occupation and still single, he lived with his two servants, at Lancaster Place, Richmond. By 1939, he lived at The Beeches (a detached house, now demolished, on the east side of Kingston Hill, nearly opposite to the Knoll), with his wife, Winifred Ida Desnos and their daughter. Desnos’ wealth stood at £22,255 2s, a very large sum indeed (worth about £823,000 today), and he was described as being in the import business. They had lived there since about 1932. They also had several servants. The latter included, from 1 October 1938, George John Brown, a gardener, and his wife, and Richard Clarke, a chauffeur. The Browns lived in a flat above the garage.
Brown was one of seven brothers who fought in the First World War, and of these, five were killed in France. Brown was in the Black Watch regiment for two years. After the war, he and two other men worked on a farm near Nottingham. He worked for the Duke of Buccleuch at one time, and from late 1936 until October 1938 he worked for a Mr Beaver of Kenley. All his employers stated that he worked satisfactorily, he always left his jobs of his own accord, but that he did have a violent temper.
Kingston Hill, 1900s. Author’s collection
It is probable that Desnos had not sought a reference from one Miss Mabel Grigsby of Little Meadow, West Drayton, Middlesex, whom had employed Brown in 1936. Whilst working there, he had struck a fellow gardener, one Mr Hart, with a cane, and had shook his employer. Apparently he had told his employer that his colleague was very slow, and so she should either sack him or he would kill him. Thinking Brown was jesting, she ignored him. On both counts, Brown was angry that they were doubting his integrity. Brown was clearly of an explosive temperament and woe betide anyone who crossed him.
A deadly explosion occurred at The Beeches, and was described by Clarke thus:
At 9.30 am 25 March 1939 I was in the kitchen of the house. The accused [Brown] came rushing through the kitchen. He said to me ‘I have knocked the old man out and he lays in the garden. You had better go and see to him.’ He then asked where the bloody women were. He said, ‘Where are the bloody women? I am going to serve them the same.’ He said, ‘The old bastard has got what he deserves.’ He went through into the hall and up the stairs.
Clarke went out onto the veranda and saw the immobile form of his employer lying there. He was lying on his back and his glasses were broken. Blood flowed from his cheek and he was unconscious. There were two Greek statuettes near to his head. Mrs Desnos soon appeared on the scene, and then Brown arrived. He struck her twice on the head, and when Miss Desnos came there, she was shaken by him, too. She ran away and her mother went to her husband. All this happened so quickly that Clarke was unable to intervene.
The police came to the house and took Brown into custody. PC Cosh noted that Brown ‘was agitated’. Dr Alex Wilson, of Putney Hill, arrived at 9.45am to examine the injured man. He had him removed to Putney Hospital. They spoke to Clarke about the affray. He said, ‘I have not noticed any previous trouble between Brown and Mrs Desnos. I knew of a dispute about Mrs Brown’s money … I did not think Brown would do such a thing as strike his employer.’
Brown explained that ‘I had an argument over some money’. Apparently, Mrs Brown was paid 10d per hour, but her insurance stamps were not paid for her by her employer and her husband was angry about this. However, he also said, ‘The root of this trouble is that he refused to pay my wife for the work she has done in the house, she has worked hard and he refused to give her anything and that is what the row was about’. In the argument between the two men, Brown claimed, ‘He called me a libellous cad and I struck him. I will do it again’. He added, ‘I wish I had killed him,’ but then said, ‘I didn’t hit him with any malice.’
Desnos’ condition was severe because he had had a thin skull. He did not get better and so an operation was carried out. Unfortunately it was not a success and he died on 30 April. Spilsbury was called on to undertake a postmortem on 2 May. He concluded, ‘The cause of death was fractures to the skull, haemorrhage around the brain and acute bronchitis and bronchial pneumonia … The deceased received a blow with some blunt instrument which caused the depressed ferule.’ The blunt instrument in question was one of the statuettes which had been found by Desnos. Brown was charged with murder and manslaughter.
At the magistrates’ court Brown was sent to the Old Bailey for trial. Meanwhile he was sent to prison and was examined by Dr Hugh Grierson, the prison’s medical officer and a man with much experience of dealing with prisoners. Grierson reported as follows:
There is no history of mental disorder in his family, neither is there any personal history of such … At no time has he shown any evidence of mental disease or disorder.
Although ‘circumstances may arouse a violent temper’ in him, and he was ‘of the paranoid type’, he was not insane and was thus capable of standing trial. Brown’s previous instance of violence in 1936 was also discovered.
The trial took place on 16 May 1939. Brown was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to twenty-one months’ imprisonment, and the leniency of the sentence was due to the fact that he had not used a weapon to strike Desnos. It seems that that he was knocked over and then hit his head on a statuette, which resulted in his death, making this an accidental death, not a murder. Mrs Desnos remained living at The Beeches until about 1951.
CHAPTER 19
Why did Jack Martin Commit Matricide?
1948
I don’t know what I done with the iron. I don’t know why I did it. I came over queer.
Several of the chapters in this book have posed the classic murder mystery question – whodunnit? This one, by contrast, poses the perhaps more difficult question – whydunnit?
Jack Martin seemed to be a very ordinary sort of fellow. He had been born in 1922 and, after leaving school, worked as a labourer for several local firms. He was called up for military service during World War Two, in the General Corps of Signals, the Royal Corps of Signals and finally the Royal
Army Ordnance Corps. Throughout his service he remained a private and suffered from mild deafness. Martin never served abroad. He was demobbed in July 1947 and was given an excellent character reference, it being stated that he ‘has carried out his duties conscientiously and well … honest and respectful to his employers. He should prove a useful asset to any civilian employer needing a capable and hard working man’. He returned home and soon found work. In 1948, he lived with Emily, his widowed mother (aged sixty-two), and his two other bachelor brothers (Albert and Leonard, both of whom were older that he). They lived in a house on Cambridge Road, Kingston. He was also single and worked as a labourer.
At 11.15 am on 6 April, Mrs Lillian Bowyer, of Bonner Hill Road, Kingston, and a daughter of Mrs Martin, arrived at her mother’s house. She had called to see her mother, but instead, on entering the kitchen, was shocked to see Jack’s body with a gas ring in his hand. Smelling gas, she turned it off and opened the windows. Her husband, George, was close at hand. He rendered first aid to his brother-in-law and found he was still breathing. They then called the emergency services.
Cambridge Road, 2009. The Author
The police arrived at the house at 11.42 am to find Martin unconscious and suffering from the effects of coal gas poisoning. He was taken to Kingston Cottage Hospital, where he began to recover. When he did so, he told Detective Inspector Findlay the shocking news, ‘I killed my mother’.
Soon after these dramatic words were uttered, the police made their second visit of the day to the house in Cambridge Road. Findlay later described the following scene:
I found the body of an elderly woman in a cupboard under the stairs of the living room, reclining on coal. The body was clothed and there was bloodstains on the face and hair. There was no disturbance in the coal cupboard. It was apparent the body had been placed there after death … Examining the room, I found a piece of carpet rolled up, and on a chair near the cupboard upon which were bloodstains. There were several spots of blood on the floor covering near the door leading from the living room to the front room.
The corpse was that of Emily Martin. Dr Francis Camps, a pathologist (who was later involved in the Christie/Evans case), examined the body at the mortuary that evening and concluded that death was due to manual strangulation, adding that there was a scalp injury caused by a flat iron. A cloth had been found in the scullery, with bloodstains on it, and presumably this had been used to wipe marks from the floor where the body initially lay before being moved to the coal store.
Naturally, Martin was questioned about what had happened, and he showed no reluctance to tell all he knew; and on being told he would be charged with murder, replied, ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He told Findlay:
I didn’t go to work this morning because I didn’t feel too good. I got up about half past seven. Mother was up and I told her I didn’t feel too good, so she said, ‘Go and see Dr Childs.’ I had some breakfast and mother went up to the meat shop. I was still indoors when she came back from the meat shop. I had a flat iron in my hand and she turned her back on me near the coal cellar door and I hit her on the crown of her head with it. She was just going down and I grabbed her round the neck. She went on the floor near the door that goes out from the kitchen into the front room. She was lying on her back and I strangled her with both hands. Then I picked her up and put her in the coal cellar. I washed the floor over a bit with a rag from the sink and pulled a bit of carpet over a bit. I don’t know what I done with the iron. I don’t know why I did it. I came over queer. Then I went over ‘The Duke’ had a pint of beer and went back and put my head over the gas ring. When I came round I was in hospital. I wasn’t too bad, then. It all seemed such a long time ago.
The police questioned other family members about Martin. The crime seemed inexplicable. He was not known to harbour any ill feelings towards his mother. As Frederick, a brother of his, told them, he had ‘never heard Jack use a bad word towards his mother, with whom he was on good terms’. Yet they all agreed that he was not quite himself. George Martin stated, ‘Jack has been having queer spells for about the last three months. He seems to have suffered from fits of depression, would appear vacant and never speak to anybody.’ Bernard Shepherd, a brother-in-law, added, ‘He then appeared unsettled and at times had a vacant look about him. He would sit and stare and glare and not say a word.’ George Bowyer made similar comments and referred to the ‘vacant look’.
Clearly, Martin was suffering from ill health, but it is unclear exactly what this was. There was no history of mental illness in the family, though he had complained of headaches recently. In the previous August he had been suffering from jaundice and in November he had shown signs of developing an inferiority complex. During his military service, which had only recently come to an end, it had been noted that he may have had sexual problems (these were never specified; possibly homosexuality was being hinted at).
Martin pleaded not guilty but reserved his defence when brought before the local magistrates on 23 April. He was tried at the Surrey Assizes on 7 July 1948. He was found guilty – there could be no other verdict and there was no doubt that he had killed his mother. However, because of his questionable mental state, he was reprieved from execution and was sent to Broadmoor. On 27 April 1972 he was discharged.
Why had he killed his mother, against whom he had no quarrel? Findlay gave the following answer, ‘I am of the opinion Jack Martin has some form of mental black out. He is a peculiar type of fellow … he was on good terms with his mother and there was no ill feeling in the house.’ It is unfortunate that the police file on this case does not include a psychiatric report, as would have to have been undertaken to assess whether he was mentally capable of standing trial. This would have provided further clues to why Martin killed his beloved mother. As it is, we may never know the answer, but those with an understanding of mental health issues are clearly well placed to hazard a diagnosis. Dr Rossiter Lewis, a Harley Street psychiatrist, claimed it was schizophrenia. He said that Martin had suffered a short period of acute mania, being deluded to believing he was being threatened by the world and by his mother in particular. So he killed his mother, believing her to be a malign influence working against him. Dr Matheson, prison doctor at Brixton, agreed with this, stating that Martin knew what he was doing, but did not know that it was wrong. All we can be sure about is that this was not a premeditated crime, it lacked motive and once it had been committed, the killer felt remorseful and tried to take his own life. When this failed, through the intervention of his sister, he was all too ready to confess to the police without any hesitation. Findlay’s layman’s assessment of the situation does not seem too far off the mark – Martin suffered a very temporary mental aberration in which he committed a terrible act.
CHAPTER 20
The Teddington Towpath Murders
1953
I must have a woman. I cannot stop myself. I’m not a murderer.
The year was a memorable one. The Queen was crowned. Everest was climbed. Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published. From the point of view of London crime, John Christie strangled his last three victims, and later that year was arrested, tried and hanged. Three of his other victims were found in Rillington Place and questions were asked whether his fellow lodger, Timothy Evans, had been rightfully hanged for another two of the murders committed there. This alone would have made 1953 a memorable year in the annals of crime. Yet there were other despicable murders in that year. These were not like the ones committed by Christie, in the inner London slums. These were perpetrated in the outer suburbs. As Sherlock Holmes remarked, ‘the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful country-side’.
North Surrey was not a safe place for women in 1952–53. It all began on Oxshott Heath, on the early afternoon of 25 March 1952. A married woman (whose name has been blacked out in the police file) was attacked on Oxshott Common by a man whom she did not know. She was k
nocked on the head and dragged off before being assaulted. There was another attack on the morning of 24 May 1953, when fourteen-year-old Kathleen Ringham of Albany Crescent, Claygate, went for a walk. She was attacked by a man armed with a chopper and was sexually assaulted. At least these two escaped alive.
Others were even less fortunate. One was Barbara Songhurst (born 19 April 1937), aged sixteen, of Prince’s Road, Teddington, an assistant at Harwood and Hills, a chemist’s shop (where she was paid 35s per week) on Hampton Hill. The other was her friend Christine Rose Reed (born 18 March 1935), aged eighteen and of Roy Crescent, Hampton Hill, and a factory worker (paid £3 18s 9d per week). They were spending Sunday 31 May 1953 on their bicycles, riding along the riverside. They were later described as ‘virtuous clean living girls both very fond of dancing and of the company of boys’. Barbara, who had attended Victoria Girls’ School, Princes Terrace Road, Teddington, leaving at fifteen, was one of a family of seven and her father was an invalid. The house where she lived was poorly kept and she was allowed to stay out late at nights. Christine was referred to as being ‘rather mentally backward’. She had two siblings and her father was a grocer’s assistant. Unlike Barbara, she came from a well ordered home, but like her, was allowed to stay out until late.
Foul Deeds in Richmond and Kingston Page 14
