WORLD’S NO.

1 TRUE
CRIME QUARTERLY
www.truecrimelibrary.com
13
TRUE
CASES
No.116

T FOUL
MOS

NO BO DY, N O C R I M E ?
K IL LE R GE TS LI FE PLUS 156 YEARS
KELSEY’ S CA LL OU S

MISTRESS SYDNEY
WITH A MASS-KILLER
DEADLY GIVEN $30,000
OBSESSION REWARD
STRIPPER DEADLY
SLICED HER
HUSBAND PAIR PLAYED
INTO WITH THEIR
PIECES VICTIMS’ HEADS
multi-millionaire kills to seal property deal
WORLD’S NO. 1 TRUE CRIME QUARTERLY “God knows, I’d
www.truecrimelibrary.com
like to get rid of
my partner and
live with you,” he
whispered to his
No. 116 new girlfriend.
“How would you
MOST
FOUL 26 Couples Who Kill:
Killer Couple Played With Their
Victims’ Heads
like to help me kill
her?”
32Sheffield’s Winter Of Murder

38Horror In Paradise
2 No Body, No
Crime?
42 Husband
“Disposed Of
Wife’s Body Parts
Opinion Through Porthole”
7 More of your views

8 Meet The
Terminator
49 Unsolved: Was
Sex The Spur To
Murder?
p12 p22

12 Multi-Millionaire
Kills To Seal
Property Deal
53 Killer Grandma
Stole Victim’s
Identity

16 Stripper Sliced
Her Husband
Into Pieces
56 Mistress With
A Deadly
Obsession

22 61
Sydney p16 p53 Unsolved 2: The
Mass-Killer Liverpool Sack
Given $30,000 Reward Murder
Krystal Kenney. The
confession and testimony
of Frazee’s ex-lover would
“T here is no better killer in the
world than me,” boasted Anatoly
Onoprienko after his capture in the
a husband or wife are on their second
marriage and there are already children
by the first union, such conversations can
prove pivotal in both the
investigation into his wife’s
disappearance and the
mid-90s. And he had a fair point. The have deadly consequences. resulting murder trial
Ukrainian monster had murdered more Raymond Singh, whose British wife
than 50 men, women Wendy was on her

T
and children in a seven- second marriage, took it HIRTY-TWO-year-old Krystal
year horror spree of further. Turn to Horror In Kenney, a state registered nurse,
indiscriminate serial Paradise, on page 38, for was madly in love with new
killing that shocked the full story. boyfriend Patrick Frazee, 31. “I fell
the world and brought Was Sex The Spur To completely under his spell,” was the way
misery to his nation. Murder?, That was just she put it.
Remorseless one of the questions There was a problem. Frazee already
Onoprienko added: puzzling investigators had a partner, who was the mother of
p8 p38 his child. She was Kelsey Berreth, a
“After what I have after the murder of
learnt out there, I have Israel Ellis in the Cannon first-class pilot and flying instructor.
no competitors in my field. I have no Hill Park area of Birmingham in 1949. “God knows, I’d like to get rid of
regrets, no remorse, and I would do it He’d been with his girlfriend Bessie at Kelsey and live with you!” Frazee
again if I could.” the time – and perhaps the killer wasn’t whispered to Krystal one romantic night.
Turn to page 8 and Meet The Terminator, happy about it...See page 49. “She’s a terrible and abusive mother to
for the full, horrific story. Finally, don’t miss Killer Grandma Stole our baby daughter, and she’s a drug user
Money, and what happens to it after Victim’s Identity, on page 53. Lois Riess’s as well.”
our demise, can be a troubling question descent into double-murder is truly None of this was true, but how was
and cause family rifts and worse. When shocking. Krystal to know that? She was however
unprepared for what followed.
In some cases, fictitious names and places have been used. Where this has been done, a note of this fact appears in “Help me kill her,” Frazee said
conjunction with the story. Cover and contents of Murder Most Foul Quarterly are produced by Magazine Design & suddenly. “You’re a nurse. You have
Publishing Ltd. Printed and bound by Warners Midlands plc, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH, for the Proprietors and access to the drugs cabinet. Steal some
Publishers. Copyright and the rights of translation and reproduction of the contents of Murder Most Foul Quarterly are
strictly reserved. Editorial and General Offices, P.O. Box 735, London SE26 5NQ. Single copies £4.50 post free in UK,
powerful opiates and put them in
available from Forum Press, P.O. Box 735, London SE26 5NQ or email: enquiries@truecrimelibrary.com. Advertising Kelsey’s coffee. This is the only way we
sales, subscription and back-number enquiries Tel: +44 (0) 20 8778 0514. Trade sales by Marketforce (UK), 5 are going to be able to live together.”
Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU. Tel: +44 (0)20 3787 9001. © Magazine Design & Publishing Ltd. Krystal shook her head. There was no
way she would do that sort of thing, But

2 Murder Most Foul No Body, No Crime?

 NO BODY, NO CRIME?
– Kelsey’s Callous
Killer Gets Life
Plus 156 Years
Above (inset), the last known
image of Kelsey Berreth and her
partner Patrick Frazee, entering
her home on the day she
disappeared. The couple (right)
were in the process of separating
and shared custody of their
infant daughter
Frazee was persistent. Twice more he
asked her to kill Kelsey, emphasising her
“abusive” character. Did she believe him,
or did she eventually choose to believe
him because she wanted to be with him?
Whichever way it was, in November
2018 she agreed to mix some poison
in Starbuck’s coffee. Frazee gave her
Kelsey’s address and a photograph, and
drove her to Kelsey’s home in Woodland
Park, a township between Denver and
Colorado Springs. Krystal knocked on
the door and Kelsey answered.
It is unclear what her cover story was, Case report by
or how she explained the toxic coffee Mark Davis
to a woman she had never met in her
Kelsey’s home in
Woodland Park.
Investigators
believed it was here
that she had been
murdered
life. But she said afterwards that she lied
about who she was and got cold feet.
She couldn’t go through with the murder
plot.
“When I told Patrick I couldn’t poison
this woman, however much I wanted
to be with him, he got very angry,” she
recalled later. “I told him we didn’t have
to do this; there were other ways we
could be together.”
Smouldering with rage, Frazee let
it pass. But days later he was again
persuading Krystal to kill Kelsey. This
time he gave her a key to his partner’s
home and told her to lie in wait for her.
When Kelsey returned home, Krystal was
instructed to ambush her, beat her with a
stovepipe and bludgeon her with a bat.
But again Krystal shook her head. She
couldn’t do it.
The third time he raised the subject
Krystal cut him short. Even though she
feared his explosive temper she said
simply, “I can’t murder Kelsey for you.
Don’t even think about it again.”
Frazee did think about it again. He
decided that if you want a job done it
3
was best to do it yourself.
Precisely what he did and how he did
it did not come out until after his arrest.
Before that, all that was known was that
on Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd,
2018, Kelsey vanished from the face
of the earth. She was never seen again,
either dead or alive.
that sound like a mother who would just
disappear of her own volition?
“Frazee suggested that because she
has a pilot’s licence she may have flown
somewhere with a friend. But she
doesn’t have a plane, nor do we know
of anyone she could have borrowed one
from. Anyway, she has never made a
flight without filing a flight plan.

T his made no sense to everyone who

knew her because, seen from the
outside, Kelsey Berreth’s life looked near
perfect. At 29 she was the mother of a
one-year-old daughter, named Kaylee;
she had a pilot’s licence and she had a
good job as a pilot instructor. But few
knew that between appearance and
reality things weren’t going so well with
Why on earth, they
wondered, had she
driven all day out
of state to a place
she didn’t know and
where she had no
friends or family?
“Frazee got a bit worked up at the end
of our phone conversation. He said, ‘I’ve
had enough of everyone’s questions. I
can’t deal with this any more. I’ve split
up with Kelsey but we have sorted out
the custody issues and we will always be
friends.’”
Prayer vigils were held, a $25,000
reward was offered, there were Facebook
reports, and photos of Kelsey were
published in the local newspapers, but
there was no sign of Kelsey.
Her last movements were captured
by CCTV – the images showed
her carrying her daughter into a
supermarket in her home town of
Woodland Park, between Denver and
Colorado Springs, and then placing
her in a shopping trolley. The footage
showed the time was 2.30 p.m. Kelsey Berreth

her romance.
In America Thanksgiving Day,
November 22nd, is supposed to be a
time of celebration with friends and
family. For Kelsey, in 2018 Thanksgiving
wasn’t the happiest of days. Early that
morning her estranged partner had
returned their daughter to her after
having overnight custody.
After that, as she went about her
chores her mind was riveted on the
problems she was having with Frazee.
They planned to split, and they were
fighting about the custody of little
Kaylee.
To friends and family the couple were
still in negotiations about the ultimate
custody of their child, but their break-up
was superficially at least “civilised,”
and everyone expected a satisfactory
conclusion.
There were some odd aspects to
Kelsey’s disappearance. Her employers,
Doss Aviation, received texts from
her mobile phone to say she wouldn’t
Above, the footage of Kelsey shopping at a supermarket with her
be at work for a week. Investigators
daughter was widely used in the appeal for information relating to her
determined that her phone pinged on
disappearance on Thanksgiving Day 2018
that day on a tower in Idaho, 600 miles
from her home.
Why on earth, they wondered, had After that – nothing. To all wouldn’t reveal what, if anything, was
she driven all day out of state to a place appearances, Kelsey had simply ceased found.
she didn’t know and where she had no to exist.
friends or family?
Kelsey’s mother, Cheryl Berreth,
had reported her daughter missing the
Investigators inevitably zoomed in
on Patrick Frazee. He willingly handed
over his phone and allowed them to
Eintoven so, a month after Kelsey
disappeared, Frazee was taken
“protective custody,” and his
previous night. “I phoned Patrick Frazee take a DNA swab. But he refused to daughter was put into the care of her
and he said he was worried too, and say anything in public because, he grandparents.
hadn’t heard from her since he dropped said, it might prejudice the on-going Where was Kelsey? Was this a case
off little Kaylee,” she said. “For her to go investigation. of no body, no crime? No one had a
off like that, leaving her daughter behind He told the investigators the same as clue, and Patrick Frazee wasn’t saying
and not telling anyone was so totally out he had told Kelsey’s mother: “I haven’t anything. But the net was closing
of character. seen her since I took Kaylee back to her in on him. Krystal Kenney, now his
“Although she and Frazee didn’t live on Thanksgiving morning.” ex-girlfriend, had been interviewed by
together, they had a strong bond because The cops were dubious about that. the police. She told them how she had
of Kaylee. Sometimes they would argue, They got a search warrant for his home. once been romantically involved with the
but nothing out of the ordinary. Does But the report was sealed, and police suspect, and she told them how he had

4
tried to get her to help murder Kelsey.
With Frazee in jail facing a murder
investigation and police telling Krystal
Kenney she was looking at conspiracy
to murder and other charges that could
amount to a life sentence, she had no
option but to tell everything she knew.
Idaho police passed her over to the
Colorado Bureau of Investigations, and
an agent, Greg Slater, was sent to talk
to her. Slater said: “At this point, sadly,
we did not believe Kelsey was still alive.
I was going to make sure that Krystal
Kenney knew the consequences of her
actions and what would happen if she
didn’t co-operate.”
Slater went on: “Krystal Kenney
wasn’t involved in the attack on the
victim. The killer was Patrick Frazee,
and the murder occurred in Kelsey’s
apartment on Thanksgiving. His
daughter was in the apartment asleep
while her mother was being murdered.
“But Kenney was involved in the
cover-up. Two days after killing Kelsey,
Frazee asked Kenney to go to the
apartment to clean up blood. He even
asked her to search for a missing tooth.
“You don’t know how
hard it is to have
Thanksgiving dinner
after killing someone”
Kenney spent hours scrubbing the
apartment, which she described as
‘horrific.’
“However, she refused to help Frazee
dispose of Kelsey’s body, so he took it to
a farm in the country.”
Frazee told his ex that he’d stuffed the
body into a black bag and hidden it in
a haystack before going off to friends to
celebrate Thanksgiving as if nothing had
happened.
He also told her: “You don’t know how
hard it is to have Thanksgiving dinner
after killing someone.”
Later, he told her, he put the body in
a water trough, and then doused it with
petrol and set it on fire. Krystal couldn’t
remember what he told her about
disposing of the remains. “He left them
either at a dump or in a river.”
She said she loved Frazee and wanted
to please him. But, she added, she was Patrick Frazee in court
also in fear of him. Only now that he

Krystal Kenney (left)
accompanied police to Kelsey’s
home to show where she had
cleaned up blood. Between the
floorboards they found what
blood she had missed (above)
was behind bars did she feel safe enough
to reveal her part in helping to dispose
of Kelsey Berreth and cleaning up the
murder scene.
In any event, cleaning up a murder

Krystal Kenney showed where

Kelsey’s body had been burned
at the ranch (left). The container
(above) holding the body was
captured in transit by a petrol
station CCTV camera (below)

5
scene can never escape the penetrating
eye of modern forensic analysts.
Investigators found microscopic blood
traces, the size of pinpricks and invisible
to the human eye, in Kelsey’s toilet, on
the outside of her bath, on the bottom
of her rubbish bin, on the walls, a tower
rack and a vanity mirror.
The blood found matched a DNA
profile developed with samples taken
from Kelsey’s family.
Investigators also revealed that Kelsey
sent texts to Frazee three days after she
was dead, asking him if he still loved her.
Greg Slater observed: “This was no
spur of the moment fight. He was sending
himself texts from her phone after she
was dead. The two phones were next to
each other when these bogus texts were
sent, picked up by the same ping tower. It
just shows how far Frazee was prepared
to go to throw investigators off the scent.
“The reply he sent from his own
phone in answer to Kelsey’s spurious
‘Do you love me?’ question was, ‘Why
should I bend over backwards and stand
by you through everything if I didn’t?
The answer is I do.’
“He was trying to paint a picture of a
couple in love with each other, days after Above, Patrick Frazee’s gamble on there being no body failed and he
he had brutally killed her.” received a substantial prison sentence. The family of victim Kelsey
Days later, on the last day of 2018 Berreth (below) have the consolation of knowing he will never be released
in fact, the axe fell on Frazee. He was
charged on three counts of solicitation on the floor there were bloody footprints. told me that, because who says that? She
“It was horrible. He told me he had said, ‘Yeah, he asked me to kill the mother
“He told me he had blindfolded Kelsey under the ruse of of his baby.’”
having her guess the different scents of Joseph Moon, a long-time friend of
blindfolded Kelsey candles in the room and then he attacked Frazee, testified that one day he and
under the ruse of her with a baseball bat. He told me her Frazee were chatting when Frazee said, “I
last words were, ‘Please stop.’ figured out a way to kill her. No body, no
having her guess the “He just said he swung away with the crime. Right?”
different scents of bat and hit her really hard. I mopped up And Margaret Luce, a customer of
and bleached the apartment for hours Frazee’s horseshoeing business, said
candles in the room and hours. Part of the plan was for me Frazee had told her he wanted to raise
and then he attacked to throw investigators off by driving to a Kaylee without her mother. “He said
different state with Kelsey’s phone. I got he just wants her gone, so he can raise
her with a baseball rid of the phone and her car keys. Kaylee with someone else.”
bat” “I was so scared I didn’t know what to To back up the witnesses’ evidence, the
do. But now I know I made the wrong prosecution also provided photographs
to commit murder, and one charge of decisions. I thought he was a good dad. from a neighbour’s CCTV showing
first-degree murder. I just hoped the whole thing would go Frazee and Kelsey entering her apartment
away.” together. Over the next three hours

S uch was the publicity surrounding

the case that the trial was conducted
without cameras being present. Frazee’s
lawyers asked for pool of more than 300
jurors in order to find an impartial jury
and pleaded, unsuccessfully, to have the
trial held out of state.
When the trial began in September
2019 it was clear that Krystal Kenney’s
evidence would be crucial to the outcome.
After she told the court that Frazee had
tried to persuade her to kill Kelsey on
three different occasions she said she took
investigators to the farm where Frazee
had doused the body in petrol and set it
alight.
A burned patch of earth and scraps
of melted plastic testified to the scene of
Kelsey’s incineration.
After the murder, she said, Frazee
phoned her and told her to get over to
Kelsey’s house and clean up the mess. “I
saw blood all over the floor and the walls.
There was blood on the dishwasher, and
The prosecution had plenty of other
evidence in support of their contention
that Frazee killed Kelsey. Krystal
Kenney’s best friend, Michelle Stein,
recalled a disturbing conversation she had
with Krystal before Kelsey disappeared.
She told the court: “Kenney told me
that Frazee had asked her to take care of
his baby’s mama. I was in shock when she
Frazee is shown leaving and returning
several times, while Kelsey is never seen
again.
Frazee’s defence team tried to paint
Krystal Kenney as a liar, willing to tell
any story to make a deal. They also
suggested that the evidence against
Frazee wasn’t credible, as no body was
found.
That didn’t seem to worry the jury
too much. They listened to 10 days of
testimony and then found him guilty
of all the charges in the indictment
– first-degree murder, conspiracy,
tampering with a dead human body and
other crimes of violence.
Patrick Frazee was sentenced to
life imprisonment without parole
plus a further 156 years. His gamble
of “no body, no crime” had, to the
relief of Kelsey’s family, ended up
in failure. Their regret now is that
they will never be able to bury their
daughter.

6
OPINION
“Sugar Daddy” Sentence Correct
I was left with no pity for Peter Morgan
after he tortured and murdered
Georgina Symonds (“Why Sugar-Daddy
Strangled Georgina,” MMF 115). Yes,
Georgina milked Morgan for all she
could get; Morgan was so obsessed
that he even agreed
to share her with her
boyfriend but this could
never last. Morgan
was a multi-millionaire
and the boyfriend was
an ordinary fellow.
Georgina, caught up
in all the trappings of
Above,
wealth, ditched the
millionaire
boyfriend for Morgan.
torture-
Morgan was her superior
murderer
by almost 30 years so
Peter
this was never going to
Morgan.
last.
Below,
After the boyfriend
his victim
hanged himself,
Georgina
Georgina blamed
Symonds
Morgan. She surely
had a lot to answer for
here. She met someone
else but also wanted
what she had got from
Morgan. Mistake. She
should have run. Jealousy
and blackmail got the
better of Morgan and
he brutally tortured and
strangled Georgina. All his money and
high-flying legal team were of no help
to him when he received a minimum
25-year prison sentence. This was
upheld in 2018 at the appeal court
in London. The decision was indeed
correct.
Michael Minihan, Limerick
A Little Sympathy For A Killer
I have a scintilla of sympathy for
mistress-killer Peter Morgan (“Why
Sugar-Daddy Strangled Georgina,” MMF
115). After all, he had given this woman
a beautiful place to live, a generous
allowance and numerous gifts yet she
was sleeping with other men and had
plans to blackmail him. He suffered
from Asperger’s which results in very
black and white thinking so, in his mind,
she had to die or she would ruin his life.
Georgina had lost her other boyfriend
and a close friend to suicide and she
was deeply depressed. It’s likely that she
had a death wish, hence her constant
mocking of Peter Morgan. He had had
plastic surgery to improve his looks yet
she cruelly maligned his appearance
as well as criticising his lack of sexual
aptitude. These were all taunts which
could goad a man into violence.
The other victims in this story are
Peter Morgan’s family who did nothing
FIND US
ONLINE AT www.truecrimelibrary.com
Write to: Opinion, Murder Most Foul, PO Box 735, London SE26 5NQ
or email murdermostfoul@truecrimelibrary.com (please put your
address on emails). We pay £8 each for any letters that are published
Deadly influence: cult leader
Marshall Applewhite
wrong but now have to live with the
stigma of his crime and his life sentence.
C. Ware, Weston-super-Mare
Horror Of The Inferno
Being trapped in an inferno must be
amongst the most painful and horrific
ways to die. Pyromaniacs like Jennie
Damiani, who killed nine, are thankfully
rare – but when they do strike the results
can be appalling (“Nine Victims For
Flaming Mame,” MMF 115).
Worst-ever civilian attack was the
Happy Land nightclub fire in the Bronx
in March 1990. Angry at being bounced
from the club and dumped by his girl,
Julio Gonzalez set a fire that killed 93
Left to right, K-On!, with
Yui playing lead guitar; arson
investigator turned arsonist John
Leonard Orr
revellers. More recently, in July 2019,
the Kyoto Animation Fire killed 36
at the studio that makes the popular
K-On! J-Pop high school series. The
accused, Shinji Aoba, claimed the studio
stole his idea.
Most bizarre story is that of John
Leonard “Pillow Pyro” Orr, renowned
arson investigator with the Glendale,
California, Fire Department in the
1980s. His colleagues were amazed at
John’s ability to be first on the scene
at any fire, to know the exact location
of nearby fire hydrants and the most
effective way to deal with the blaze.
What a hero! As the years passed John’s
status grew. But there was a good
reason for his prescience – John had
started the fires, more than 2,000 in all,
taking four innocent lives along the way.
Andrew Stephenson, Newhaven
Margate’s Hotel Murder
Thank you for the fascinating report
on Sidney Harry Fox, who certainly
got his just deserts after murdering
his own mother (“The Evidence That
Hanged Sidney Fox,” MMF 115). She
was devoted to this “utterly worthless”
individual – and it cost her her life.
There was no confession of guilt from
Fox, but the fact that he was the first
convicted killer sentenced to death who
didn’t appeal speaks volumes.
Nick Chaston, Felixstowe
Astonishing Story Of Deadly Cult
I was flabbergasted to read Rio
DiAngelo’s story of the day he found
dozens of his fellow-cult members
dead, duped into committing suicide
by their leader Marshall Applewhite
(“Horror Of The Heaven’s Gate Cult,”
MMF 115). What an astonishing
story! It’s just about impossible to
grasp how one would feel if one made
such a discovery, although I must say
Francesca Morrison’s masterly report
on DiAngelo and the cult is probably
as close as you can get to actually
experiencing it yourself.
What is it, I wonder, about figures
such as Applewhite that makes people
follow them, sheeplike? What kind of
charisma must these cult leaders have?
David Koresh was another one, and, as
you pointed out, perhaps the worst was
the Reverend Jim Jones.
Perhaps it’s not just the leaders’
charisma that leads to such
mass-suicides. I think there must be
some weakness of character on the part
of the cult members – a weakness that
compels them to seek a leader to follow,
and then makes it all the harder for then
to ever break free again. What do other
readers think?
Jim Dunwoody, Witney
Grandad Bludgeoned To Death
Has Murder Most Foul examined
the unsolved murder of 68-year-old
Bristol grandfather Barry Rubery? He
was found bludgeoned to death in his
cottage in April 2010. Among the items
that were taken by his killers from his
home in the village of Iron Acton were
a gold Masonic pocket watch, a drill
and a mobile phone.
Cameron Camilla Boyle, Leicester
We’ve never written about this tragic and
intriguing case before.Would other readers
like to know more about it?
Opinion Murder Most Foul 7
 He murdered more
than 50 men, women
and children in a
seven-year horror spree
of indiscriminate serial
killing that shocked
the world and brought
misery to his native
Ukraine. And when
Anatoly Onoprienko
was finally captured he
showed not an ounce
of remorse

I
T WAS a chilling interview that
Anatoly Onoprienko gave to a British
newspaper after he was sentenced
to death by a Ukrainian court for 52
murders.
Onoprienko, dubbed “The
Terminator,” reminisced about the
murders he had committed and how he
was ready for prison and his own death.
He told The Times’s reporter, “I
started preparing for prison life a long

By A.W. Moss
time ago. I fasted, did yoga, I am not

MEETTHE
afraid of death. Death for me is nothing.
Naturally, I would prefer the death
penalty. I have absolutely no interest in
relations with people. I have betrayed
them.
“The first time I killed, I shot down a
deer in the woods. I was in my early 20s
and I recall feeling very upset when I
saw it dead. I couldn’t explain why I had
done it and I felt sorry for it. I never had
that feeling again.
“There Is No Better Killer
“If I am ever let out I will start killing
again, but this time it will be worse, ten
times worse. The urge is there. Seize this
In The World Than Me”
chance because I am being groomed to
serve Satan.
“If I am not killed I will escape from
this jail and the first thing I’ll do is find
Kuchma [the then Ukrainian president]
and hang him from a tree by his
testicles.”

T he death penalty was decreed in

April 1999 but by August it was
commuted to a life sentence. Why?
Then, just as now, the Ukraine was
negotiating a tricky path between hoping
to enter the European Community or
returning to the Russian trade fold – it
had been incorporated in the old Soviet
Union from 1920 until the break-up of Onoprienko
the Soviet empire in 1991. inside the
In 1997 President Leonid Kuchma unheated
had imposed a moratorium on capital metal cage at
punishment in accordance with the rules his trial
of the Council of Europe, to which the
Ukraine had recently been admitted. Onoprienko had been captured the Easter Sunday 1996, police traced him
Traditionally, executions in Ukraine had previous year after a horror spree of to the home of his girlfriend Anna Kazak
been carried out with a single bullet in serial killing that had lasted for seven and he was arrested following a brief
the back of the head. years – he was now 36 years old. On scuffle. He had tried to get his gun but

8 Murder Most Foul Meet The Terminator

 Onoprienko in his
prison cell and
being led into
court (right)

Onoprienko said. “After what I have
learnt out there, I have no competitors in
my field. I have no regrets, no remorse,
and I would do it again if I could.”
President Kuchma’s dilemma was
that he could not temporarily lift the
moratorium for Onoprienko without
flouting the rules of the Council of
reiterated, “I will start killing again.”
And next time, he pledged, “it will be
ten times worse.” Coming from a man
who had confessed to committing 40
murders in a period of just three months
in 1995 and 1996, that threat had to be
taken seriously.
And so the years passed by in a

TERMINATOR
the police had been too quick. Police
As the wheels of Ukrainian justice searching for
ground slowly along, the vast horror of evidence at a
Onoprienko’s appalling killings came to murder crime
light, and the outraged public bayed for scene in the
his blood. Ukraine
The boasting of Onoprienko inflamed
the situation. “There is no better killer
in the world than me,” he declared. It
was no empty boast – although five
other serial killers are known to have
committed more murders – because
Onoprienko had almost certainly
committed many other murders himself.
In an ironic twist, fellow-Ukrainian
Andrei Chikatilo, executed in Russian in
1994 for 52 murders, exactly equalled
Onoprienko’s total in the league of
killers.
Chikatilo, known as “The Butcher
of Rostov” or “The Red Ripper,” had
committed his crimes in Russia itself
between 1978 and 1990, mostly in the Europe. The alternative was to commute small cell in Zhitomir Prison in the
Rostov region. Fifty-two killings was the death sentence to life imprisonment, Ukraine, and still the threat of his release
the total for which Chikatilo had been but that further incensed most hovered over the country’s life. But all
sentenced in court, although he admitted Ukrainians. Onoprienko’s threats were to come to
to 56. There was even a bigger problem nothing.
Investigators believe Onoprienko’s beyond that. Nobody could be jailed in On August 27th, 2012, he died of
tally to be much much higher than Ukraine for more than 20 years. In just heart failure at the prison at the still
the 52 murders he is known to have two decades from then, Onoprienko young age of 54.
committed. “Anyone who wants to would still be only 59. Onoprienko had claimed his target had
measure up to me can always try,” “And if I am ever let out,” he always been 360 slayings, “give or take

9
 Above, Onoprienko re-enacts one of his murders for the cameras. Below left, Ukrainian-born serial killer Andrei
Chikatilo whose total number of murders equalled that of Onoprienko
ten.” The authorities believed he was a
lot nearer that total than the 52 murders
he confessed to.
There is an ominous gap in his
chronicle of killings. At his four-month
trial he had admitted killing a dozen
victims in 1989, plus the 40 in 1995
and 1996. So what was he up to in the
early 1990s? In those years he roamed
Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Greece
and Sweden, stealing to live.
Because his known killings
were apparently motivated by
theft, investigators thought
it would be surprising if his
international stealing spree
was not punctuated by at least
the occasional murder.
His technique was to select
a home on the outskirts of
a village, shoot the locks off
the doors and gun down and
stab everyone within except
children. Rather than waste
bullets on kids, he beat them
to death with heavy metal
objects. Then he helped
himself to whatever he fancied – mostly
cash, stereo equipment and jewellery.
Finally, he torched the houses and left.
His killing was indiscriminate. His
victims were all the same to him, he said,
regardless of their age or sex, and he
felt sorry for none of them. He didn’t
see them as individuals. They were “just
masses.”
Slightly built and only about
five-foot-four, he looked harmless – until
people looked into his cold blue eyes, say
his interrogators. It was then that they
saw the merciless killer. And an unusual
one, because most serial killers have a
sexual motive or are mentally ill, whereas
Onoprienko had been found to be sane.
Further, he had raped only one of his 52
victims. Apart from that, sex played no
part in any of his slayings.
He likened his murders to hunting,
with people as the prey instead of
animals. And he claimed to be driven
by a “higher force” ordering him to kill,
but not victims of his own choice. He
recalled wanting to kill a sister-in-law
10
he detested. He waited in vain for the
“order.” It never came so she was
spared.
He also saw himself as part of an
experiment to show that a man could
murder and live with his crimes,
unaffected by what he had done.
Interviewed by a woman reporter, he
told her that given the chance he would
probably have slain her too. Curiously
for someone with a compulsion to kill,
he appeared to have
derived no enjoyment
from his murders.
He described dead
bodies with revulsion,
their smell as repugnant.
He recalled how he sat
in a car with five people
he had killed. The stench
of death was appalling.
But he enjoyed the
notoriety his murders
brought him.
He was proud of
what he saw as his
professionalism and
relished describing his murders in detail,
apparently getting a kick out of them in
retrospect rather than at the time.
He recalled a little girl praying on
her bed after she had seen him kill her
parents. When he ordered her to show
him where they kept their money she
looked at him angrily. “No, I won’t,” she
told him. Then he smashed her head in,
feeling nothing.
What made him a serial killer?
Psychiatrists pointed to his early history.
His mother died when he was four, and
when he was seven his father and elder
brother placed him in an orphanage.
That unhappy childhood, it was
suggested, lay behind his many murders
of complete families – people enjoying a
life that was denied him.
After attending college as a forestry
student he found work as a sailor on
cruise liners, having an affair with a
ship’s waitress whom he left when she
had his child. Then he became a fireman,
committing his first known murders in
1989 when he shot a married couple as
they stood beside their Lada parked in
a layby. To him, he said, the man and
wife were just objects, like their car. He
felt nothing as he murdered them. No
pleasure, just an urge to kill.
H is intensive killing spree began
on Christmas Eve 1995 when he
shot his way into a forester’s home in
the hamlet of Garmania, murdering
the man, his wife and their two young
Mourners
gathered
around some of
Onoprienko’s
victims near the
Polish border
sons, stealing jewellery and clothes and
leaving the house in flames. His next
victims were a couple and the wife’s
19-year-old twin sisters. Having shot and
stabbed them to death in their home in
Bratkovychi, near the Polish border, he
ransacked the place and departed after
setting it on fire.
Then he travelled a few hundred
miles to Enerhodar, where he killed
seven more victims before returning to
Bratkovychi on January 17th to wipe
out a family of five. His next stop was
Fastov, near Kiev, where he murdered
a family of four. The police began to
notice a pattern. More often than not
the men victims were shot, the women
knifed and the children bludgeoned.
Two thousand police, 3,000 soldiers
and thousands of national guards took
part in Ukraine’s biggest-ever manhunt,
and an anonymous tip-off finally led to
Onoprienko’s arrest in April 1996 at his
girlfriend’s home near Lviv, not far from
the Polish border.
Police called at the house with a search
warrant and asked to see Onoprienko’s
documents. He might have successfully
bluffed it out, but his “professionalism”
deserted him. He reached for his hunting
rifle, was too slow, and the officers
grabbed him. The rifle turned out to be
his murder weapon.
His girlfriend Anna was astonished
and horrified. She and her children had
lived happily with him throughout his
killing spree. She added that he had
always been very loving. They had been
planning to marry, but she now learned
where he had obtained the gold ring he
had given her when he proposed. Only
hours earlier the ring had been on the
finger of one of Onoprienko’s victims.
He had cut off the finger to get it.
With the killer behind bars, the
authorities found that it was no simple
matter to bring him to trial. When he
made his first court appearance in
November 1996 Onoprienko declared,
“This is your law. I consider myself a
hostage. Is that clear?”
What soon did become clear to the
judges was that they couldn’t afford to
try him. He had ranged far and wide in
committing his murders, and the courts
had no money to pay the 400 witnesses’
travel and hotel expenses. The judges
therefore went on TV to appeal for
funds.
His trial postponed, Onoprienko spent
more than two years in jail while the
authorities sought the finance needed
to bring him to justice. Eventually the
Ukrainian Government coughed up
the £30,000 required, and Anatoly
Onoprienko – like his infamous fellow-
serial killer Andrei Chikatilo – appeared
in court in a metal cage.
He exercised his right under Ukrainian
law to read all the witnesses’ statements
which were to be used in evidence
against him. This helped to pass the
time. The statements filled 99 hefty
volumes.
Although psychiatrists had decided
he was sane, it emerged that before his
Above, Onoprienko holds up his killing hands. Below, Zhitomir Prison in
the Ukraine where he passed his final years
final killing spree Onoprienko had spent
three months in a Kiev mental hospital
where he was treated for schizophrenia.
Discharged from the hospital when the
doctors decided he posed no danger to
the public, he had promptly set about his
killing of 40 people in rapid succession.
Now, wearing a track-suit, trainers and
duffel coat as he sat impassively in his
cage in the chilly, unheated courtroom,
the serial killer had become known as
“The Terminator.”
He heard prosecutor Yuri
Ignatenko tell the panel of five judges:
His girlfriend was
astonished and horrified.
She and her children had
lived happily with him
throughout his killing
spree. He had always
been very loving
“Onoprienko’s statements about mental
seizures, being spied on, hearing voices
and the influence of higher powers are
a simulation of mental illness and a
reaction to the situation he is in. In every
society there have been and are people
who can kill, due to their innate natures.”
Seeking clemency, Onoprienko’s
defence lawyer Ruslan Moshkovsky told
the court: “My client was deprived of
motherly love from the age of four. He
lacked the care which is necessary for
the formation of a true man.”
Onoprienko rejected his opportunity
to address the court himself, but made
his feelings known in interviews he
gave during his trial. He said he had
“absolutely no interest in relations with
people” or in life itself.
He had earlier said he was prepared to
spend the rest of his life in prison trying
to understand the unknown force that
drove him. But he was equally prepared
to be executed. “Of course, I would
prefer to be shot because nothing in this
life interests me.”
Finally, it was on Wednesday, March
31st, 1999, that presiding judge Dmytro
Lypsky announced that he and his
fellow-judges had found Anatoly
Onoprienko’s guilt in 52 murders
“confirmed by the proof given.”
Thirty-six-year-old Sergei Rogozin, an
accomplice in nine of the early killings,
was convicted as an accessory.
The following day Onoprienko was
sentenced to death. “I think shooting is
almost nothing for him,” commented
Tamara Genko. “Unfortunately, one
person cannot be shot to death fifty-two
times.” Onoprienko’s victims had
included Tamara Genko’s only daughter,
son-in-law and grandchildren.
Rogozin, the convicted accessory, was
jailed for 13 years. Onoprienko covered
his ears after his sentence was read out,
to exclude shouts of abuse from his
victims’ weeping relatives.
Back in his cell, Onoprienko repeated
his wish to be executed, saying he would
not appeal to Kuchma to have his
sentence commuted.
But the killer was instead to spend
the rest of his days behind bars and his
boasting only echoed around the walls of
his prison cell.
Only with his death did
Ukrainians feel entirely safe and
protected from the mass horror that
the nation had lived through. Heart
attack? Did he have a heart to be
attacked?
11
 MULTI-MILLIO
TO SEAL PROP
He was the British Case
property developer son report by
of a Greek shipping A. W.
Moss
magnate living a luxury
playboy lifestyle in
Florida. But Thanos
Papalexis had a darker
side – he was also a
sadistic, debt-ridden
fantasist and ruthless
torture-killer...

T
O THE wealthy residents of
Florida’s exclusive resort of West
Palm Beach, their 36-year-old
neighbour Thanos Papalexis seemed
not to have a care in the world. The
property-developer son of a Greek
shipping magnate, he drove a Bentley
convertible, wore Savile Row suits,
had an ornate gold throne in his office,
and was also something of a playboy,
frequently appearing in the society
pages of the Palm Beach Post.
In January 2008 he even hosted a
political fundraising party for Hillary
Clinton at his rented sea-front mansion.

In a rented mansion
in exclusive West
Palm Beach, Florida
(left), Thanos
Papalexis lived like
a king

So what happened 11 months later,
on November 7th, sent shock waves
through the well-heeled community.
At West Palm Beach’s fashionable
Fire Rock Pizza Restaurant, Papalexis
was having lunch with a woman
friend when United States marshals
approached his table. First, they read
him his rights. Then they arrested him
on an extradition warrant issued by a
judge in London, alleging murder.
Papalexis had arrived in Florida in
March 2000 shortly after the slaying
of Charalambos Christodoulides,
the 55-year-old caretaker at a
disused wine warehouse in Kilburn,
north-west London. A Greek Cypriot,
Christodoulides lived alone in a flat in
the warehouse, and he was murdered,
the extradition papers alleged, because
his refusal to move out blocked
Papalexis’s plan to buy and sell the
building in a £2.3 million property
deal. The warehouse was owned by
a relative of Christodoulides and the
caretaker had lived there for most of his
adult life.

12 Murder Most Foul Multi-Millionaire Kills To Seal Property Deal

ONAIRE KILLS
PERTY DEAL
Three days after his arrest, Papalexis
appeared before a federal court in Palm
Beach, and his astonished neighbours
learned that the homicide charge
wasn’t his only problem. The supposed
multi-millionaire owed rent for the
mansion where he’d entertained the
Clintons, and other creditors were
harassing him.
The following month he was
extradited to Britain, and when his
three-month trial began at the Old
Bailey on June 9th, 2009, two alleged
accomplices stood beside him in the
dock. All three denied murder.
For the Crown, Mr. Jonathan
Laidlaw QC said that at the time of
the killing Papalexis faced financial
ruin. His recently-formed property
business had suffered heavy losses
on another development in Holloway,
north London, and a bridging loan was
costing him £60,000 a week.
Mr. Christodoulides was reported
missing after he failed to turn up at
“At the core of this
case there is the sheer
brutality and ruthlessness
of the killing. This was a
senseless killing motivated
by greed”
his sister’s home for Sunday lunch.
Because of his gentle nature he was
known to the family as “Bambi,” and
the police found his body buried in a
vehicle inspection pit at the warehouse.
Paint-stripper had been poured over
the corpse, apparently in an attempt to
stop sniffer dogs finding it.
Forensic scientists found evidence
that in his flat the caretaker had been
tied to a chair and hooded, before
being beaten and finally strangled. His
body had then been wrapped in a sheet,
and two woolly hats had been placed
over his face before he was dumped in
the pit.
“The victim was a quiet, simple man
who lived an isolated existence, and
he did not in any sense contribute to
the circumstances in which he died,”
said Mr. Laidlaw. “He was murdered
in cold blood, strangled to death while
restrained and utterly defenceless.
“At the core of this case there is the
sheer brutality and ruthlessness of the
Victim of a cold-blooded murder –
Charalambos Christodoulides
killing. This was a senseless killing
motivated by greed. Born with all the
advantages of wealth, Papalexis has
led a life based not only on deceit, false
promises and failure, but at times on
complete fantasy.
“He is arrogant, he is brazen. He sees
himself as some sort of charmer. His
arrogance and his mismanagement of
his business interests were about to be
exposed, and he was facing not only
receivership but ruin in this country.
He was finished here. To compound
Hillary Clinton – Papalexis held a
campaign fundraiser
for her at his rented mansion
that failure, he was also confronted
with humiliation.”
Mobile phone evidence showed that
Papalexis and two Albanian illegal
immigrants he employed were at
the warehouse for three hours from
8 a.m. on March 10th, 2000. The
Crown claimed that during that time
Papalexis ordered the Albanians to
kill the caretaker so that the property
deal could go ahead. But despite
the caretaker’s removal, the deal fell
through and Papalexis, saddled with
debts of £8 million, fled to Florida with
The vehicle inspection pit where
the victim’s body was found
a £750,000 VAT rebate his creditors
failed to get.
The jury heard that for years the
investigation was hampered by lack
of evidence. Then in 2008 a cigarette
stub found at the warehouse yielded
Papalexis’s DNA, and in America there
was a surprise development – a one-time
Miami porn star informed US marshals
that in 2004 Papalexis told her: “I
strangled someone. There were two
people with me. This man was giving
me problems. It happened in London.”
Creditors were pursuing Papalexis for
$2 million, and as his trial continued he
was described as “a classic psychopath.”
He had a son by his wife, the court was
told, but he cheated on her, paying for
four girlfriends’ boob jobs, and hiring
hookers for orgies at his rented mansion.
13
He was also into sadistic sex, and on a was the woman he was lunching with
sadomasochism website he claimed to when he was arrested. She was in love
be the king of his own realm, all others with him, and after his extradition she
being subject to his will. discovered that he had raided her bank
account, forging her signature to pay a

A s a fantasist he also bragged that

he was a James Bond-style spy.
He told the one-time porn star he
worked for the CIA and MI6, and in the
witness-box he admitted being a lying
adulterer turned on by prostitutes and
pornography, and enjoying group sex.
“But I’m not a bad person,” he insisted.
He claimed that when he told the
porn star about the murder, he was just
“This was an execution
carried out for financial
gain. You treated
Charalambos as
completely expendable”
stringing her along to keep their affair
interesting. But the jury didn’t believe
him. He had made similar admissions
to his wife and his bodyguard, and on
September 4th his trial ended with his
conviction.
The two Albanians told the police
that Papalexis had asked them to go to
the warehouse and had forced them at
gunpoint to wrap the body. The jury
failed to reach verdicts on the murder
charges against the pair, and they were
remanded in custody to await a retrial.
In 2010, the pair were found guilty and
sentenced to life imrisonment.
Outside the court, following
Papalexis’s trial, Detective Inspector
Above, Thanos Papalexis posing
– he was described as a “classic
psychopath” and “totally amoral.”
Above right, the killer’s mug-shot
Brent Hyatt, who led the investigation,
told reporters: “Thanos Papalexis
is a man who had absolutely every
advantage in life, but he proved to be
outrageously devious, dishonest and
callous – a man who was entirely driven
by selfishness and greed to an extent
that I have never seen before.”
And the murdered caretaker, it
emerged, was not the only victim of
Papalexis’s brutal megalomania. A
42-year-old divorcee was another. She
£2,000 car-hire bill.
Realising she had been conned by the
man she hoped to marry, the divorcee
drank herself to death. Shortly after
his trial began, she
was found dead in
her flat, a bottle of
vodka at her side. A
preliminary autopsy
found she died from
alcoholic poisoning.
Papalexis finally
got his comeuppance
on September
30th, 2009, when he was jailed for life.
Ordering him to serve a minimum of
20 years, Judge Jeremy Roberts told
him: “You are a totally amoral person
in the sense that you do not think twice
in doing or saying anything which helps
you achieve your own ends.
“This was an execution carried out for
financial gain. You treated Charalambos
as completely expendable. You found
yourself with a serious problem and you
decided to take the life of a harmless and
innocent human being.”
A statement issued by
Charalambos Christodoulides’s
relatives, read to the court, said
Papalexis was “like a devil.”
Charalambos, they said, was “a
quiet man going about his own
simple life, harming no one.
Nobody deserves to die in such
truly dreadful circumstances.”

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STRIPPER SL
HUSBAND INT
Marjorie was a seven-times-married stripper when
she said “Yes” to Jay Orbin
O
CTOBER RAIN has left small
puddles in the desert sand on the
outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona,
and an eerie quietness hangs over a
group of crime scene investigators who
are busily examining a grisly discovery
made that morning by a passing
trekker.
A large blue tub wrapped in heavy
black plastic has their attention, its
putrid and piercing stench detectable
from yards away.
“You could smell death in the air
as we approached it,” said Phoenix
homicide cop Dave Barnes. “Once you
smell it, you know what it is for the rest
of your life.”
Inside the tub they find what remains
of a body: a partial torso cut below
the belly button and above the knees.
The male victim is clothed in a pair
of bloody denim shorts – a set of keys
and $400 still in the pockets. In the
bottom of the tub, covered by crumpled
16 Murder Most Foul Stripper Sliced Her Husband Into Pieces
Jay Orbin might not
have been the best-
looking or most
exciting catch for a
woman like Marjorie,
but he could offer
her the one thing
she’d always wanted
– the chance to have
children...
rubbish bags, lies a single bullet casing.
“All the insides, the internal organs
and intestines, were missing,” said
Barnes, “and I wondered how anyone
could do this to a human being: cut
off his arms, his legs, his shoulders, his
head? Someone who really didn’t like
him, I guess.”
Too little of the body remained for it
to be identified, but DNA tests revealed
the victim to be Jay Orbin, a 45-year-
old art dealer who’d been reported
missing by his wife Marjorie a month
earlier.
A former Las Vegas stripper and
showgirl, Marjorie had already
been married seven times by the time
she was 35, and had made a name
for herself in a raunchy show called
Platinum Blondes that had toured
America and Europe.
Doting dad Jay Orbin with his
At 18 years old, she was told she
much-wanted son, Noah
could never have children, so she
LICED HER Report by
Mark Davis

TO PIECES
Marjorie (below)
became a
choreographer
and star dancer
for a man who ran
upmarket strip clubs
around the world

decided to live life to the full: dance,

travel, work hard and play hard.
“I went into every relationship
looking for Prince Charming. In
between, I took detours, and sometimes
became a stripper. But I never felt
disrespected, and I never did anything I
would be afraid of telling my mother.”
She met Jay Orbin at a strip joint
when he was 26 years old. He was
gregarious, funny, generous, and fell
wildly in love with her. But Marjorie,
who was only 24, wanted life in the fast
lane.
“He was a good guy, and I didn’t want
to hurt him. But I needed to get out.”

She returned home to Florida and
met multi-millionaire entrepreneur
Michael J. Peter who ran upmarket
strip clubs around the world. He
lived the high life –travelling the world
on private jets, holidaying on yachts,
and staying at his homes in Orlando,
New York and Paris. They were once
featured on the TV show Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous.
“We lived together for a number of
years, did a lot of things together, and
travelled everywhere,” said Marjorie.
“But the industry is very difficult.
When someone you love has girls
climbing all over them all the time, it’s
difficult to take.”

P eter’s wandering eye caused a

made Marjorie his star dancer and
choreographer, and gave her a leading
role in his adult movie No More Dirty
Deals.
At the time, he owned more than 100
restaurants, bars, nightclubs and topless
clubs and had a fortune estimated at
more than $100 million.
While they were together, Marjorie
Left, the torso of Jay Orbin, which
had been sliced up and put into a
large blue tub (centre)
break-up, and Marjorie took
her talents back to Las Vegas where
businessman Jay Orbin saw a billboard
advertising his old flame.
“He said he was in town and would
I like to meet for a drink. We spent the
entire night talking until the sun came
up.
“The only thing I ever wanted that I
was never able to have was a child, and
Jay wanted a wife and child more than
anything in the world, so we fitted. He
told me he’d do anything I wanted.”
By then Jay’s arts company was
flourishing and he offered to pay for
fertility treatments if Marjorie would

17
marry him and move to Phoenix.
His mother was unimpressed and said
she couldn’t believe “he was bringing
her into the house and saying he was
engaged to her. Yes, she was beautiful.
But not as beautiful as she thought she
was.”
The couple eloped and married at
the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las
Vegas Boulevard. Jay had never seemed
happier.
“He calls me up and says he’s met
the love of his life,” says Jay’s brother
Jake, who visited the newlyweds a
few months later. “They both loved
each other. She was the perfect
housewife...made the meals...took care
of everything that needed to be done
around the house.”
The fertility treatments took their toll
on her, and often made her ill, but she
was willing to suffer the discomfort if it
meant fulfilling her dream of a child.
At last, after $100,000-worth of in
vitro fertilisation treatments, in 1996
she gave birth to a little boy named
Noah. Ironically, she and Jay divorced
soon after for financial reasons when
it was discovered that Marjorie had a
$50,000 tax lien in her name from a
previous marriage. She always claimed
she didn’t want Jay to be responsible
for the debt, and they continued to live
together as man and wife.
Several years later, however, the
relationship became platonic. Jay was a
workaholic who spent long spells away
from home, and Marjorie was a high-
maintenance woman who’d swapped
glamour for suburbia. But they were
doting parents and lavished attention
18
“If that wasn’t a
smoking gun, I don’t
know what would
be. She wasn’t
shopping for a
plastic tub; she was
shopping for her
husband’s coffin”
The many faces of Marjorie:
below, as a loving wife and
mother, left, the showgirl
on Noah.
She and Jay had last been together
on August 29th, 2004, when they
celebrated Noah’s eighth birthday at
a theme park. After seeing him blow
out the candles on a special carrot
cake, Jay hugged his son goodbye and
climbed into his work truck – loaded
with merchandise – on a business trip
to Florida.
Jay’s company sold native American
Indian jewellery and artefacts, and it
had grown highly successful in the
10 years or so since he started it. He
considered his trips high-risk as he
travelled with $300,000-worth of
goods, and as self-protection carried
several guns. He was also secretive
about his planned routes.
The trip proved difficult as Hurricane
Francis was ripping through the state,
and Jay decided to cut his losses and
return home after only a week on the
road.
The day before driving back to
Phoenix, he did some business in
Tucson and spent the night at an inn.
The following day, September 8th, was
his birthday and he called his parents
and brother.
“Hi, I’m on my way home,” he told
them. “Wish me happy forty-fifth. I’ll
talk to you guys later.”
It was the last time they ever heard
his voice.
A week later his mother Joanne rang
Marjorie because she usually heard
from Jay every three or four days and
he hadn’t returned her calls.
“I knew something bad had
happened,” she said, “but Marjorie
told me I was acting silly for being
worried. She said Jay had come back
from Florida and then left again almost
immediately on another trip because
she and Noah had flu and it seemed
pointless for him to stay at home and
catch it.”
Another week passed, and three of
Jay’s friends picked up messages from
his mobile phone, the calls made within
five minutes of each other. None of
them heard his voice, but one said his
favourite radio station was playing in
the background.
At last, on September 22nd,
desperate family and friends finally
persuaded Marjorie to call the police. It
had been three weeks since she’d seen
her husband.
Detective Jan Butcher of the missing
persons unit asked her for information
about the vehicle Jay had been driving,
and she promised to call back. She
never did.
“That struck me as very odd,” said
Detective Butcher. “I kept leaving
messages, but it took another six days
before we could even arrange a visit.
I told her I got the feeling she was
being unhelpful to say the least. I also
made it clear that out of all the missing
persons cases I’d investigated, I found
her far removed from a typical worried
spouse.”
“You get that feeling, huh?” replied
Marjorie. “Surprised to hear you say
that. I’m past being emotional about
Jay. I still refuse to believe he’s not
gonna come bustin’ in the door any
minute. And just because I’m not
running round crying and hysterical
doesn’t mean I’m not concerned and
not doing anything.”
Jan Butcher remained suspicious,
and discovered that Marjorie had
indeed been very busy since Jay’s
disappearance – draining her husband’s
accounts of more than $100,000
in shopping sprees that included a
$12,000 baby grand piano.
At last she asked Marjorie to come in
for a polygraph or lie-detector test. The
dialogue she overheard on the other end
of the phone clinched her suspicions.
Marjorie: “You know what – she
wants me to take a polygraph
tomorrow.”
Male voice: “You tell her to go f...
herself.”
After hearing the call, Jan Butcher got
a search warrant and asked her force’s
SWAT team to deliver it. Despite their
hearing raised voices, no one answered,
so they broke the door down and found
Marjorie in the house with her lover
Larry Weisberg.
The 60-year-old computer designer
had been having an affair with Marjorie
while her husband was away on
business trips, and the team found
more of his clothes in the master
bedroom than Jay’s.
They also noticed empty picture
frames, an envelope with $4,000 in it,
and a spotless garage recently coated
with resin-hardened paint. The floor
had been acid cleaned.
While they were looking round,
Weisberg grew so abusive and
threatening that a SWAT officer had to
taser and handcuff him.
Then Marjorie shouted: “There’s
a child down the hall! There’s a child
down the hall! Don’t scare my son!”
detective to investigate her. Apart
from information about her previous
husbands, he found she had a record
for indecent exposure.
“Marjorie never called a hospital,
never went looking, and never called
any of Jay’s associates,” said Jake.
“Basically, she did nothing to try and
find out where he was. She was cold,
callous and unemotional, and part of
me was sure she already knew what had
happened to him.”
The evidence against Marjorie
continued to mount. Two days after
Jay’s body was discovered, police found
his green Ford Bronco abandoned in
the car park of an apartment complex
less than a mile from the couple’s home.
Three witnesses told detectives a thin
woman with long blonde hair had been
seen around the car some time after
September 8th.
CCTV footage showed Marjorie
using Jay’s American Express cards two
days later at a local supermarket where
she bought cleaning materials, two blue
tubs and black plastic bags. A bar code
sticker identified one of the tubs as the
Above, Marjorie in her younger container that had held the remains of
days and below, with entrepreneur Jay’s body.
Michael J. Peter, who gave her a “If that wasn’t a smoking gun, I don’t
leading role in his adult movie, No know what would be,” said detective
More Dirty Deals Barnes. “She wasn’t shopping for a
plastic tub; she was shopping for her
No arrests were made, but the search husband’s coffin.”
turned up new clues: credit cards Jay A packet of jigsaw blades taken from
Orbin always took with him on business Jay’s warehouse was found to have two
trips, and a chequebook he always kept missing blades that corresponded to
in his briefcase. Noah was removed
from the house and taken to live with “Marjorie got Jay’s
Jay’s brother, Jake.
gun, took it out of
W hen asked about the money,
Marjorie admitted she’d been
his briefcase, and
liquidating Jay’s personal and business killed him in the
accounts, as well as withdrawing the
daily maximum amount of cash from garage while their
cash machines. She explained that she son slept. She used
was carrying out her husband’s wishes.
Jay, who two jigsaw blades
was a careful
and diligent
to cut him into
planner, had pieces…”
left a “farewell
letter” for the cut patterns left on his body. And
Marjorie in autopsy reports showed that his body
the event of had been frozen for some time before
his death. It being thawed and dismembered. At
began: “If least one witness saw a large chest
you’re reading freezer in the couple’s garage that has
this, something never been found.
has probably In December 2004, Marjorie Orbin
happened to me.” was charged with murder, and swapped
The letter her furs and silky lingerie for prison
identified stripes. Prosecutors decided that
insurance although Weisberg’s affair with her, his
money of aggressive behaviour towards the police,
nearly a and his access to the Orbin home – he
million dollars, even had a remote that admitted him to
and named the Orbins’ garage – gave him motive
Marjorie as sole and opportunity, they would offer him
beneficiary. immunity from prosecution if he agreed
But it wasn’t only the police who to testify against her.
suspected Marjorie. Jay’s brother
was growing increasingly desperate our years later, sitting at the defence
and frustrated, and hired a private F table at the start of her trial in
19
September 2009, Marjorie barely
resembled the ritzy blonde she’d been
at the time of her arrest. Her hair was
dyed brown, and she wore owlish
glasses, and a baggy trouser suit that
failed to hide the bulge of the electric
stun belt strapped round her for
security.
The trial lasted eight months during
which time a lead prosecutor broke his
ankle, four jurors dropped out, and

“She’s a seven-
times-married court about their
stripper who was steamy affair,
and other friends
desperate for a child claimed she’d
talked about
and an inheritance. killing Jay by
When she got what cutting his brakes
or shooting him
she wanted, she and dumping
blew him away. Jay his body in the
desert.
was someone she Sophie
Johnson, her
hated” former cellmate,
the defence asked for a retrial after testified that
it emerged that detective Barnes had Marjorie had
been suspended from the Phoenix said Jay was
Police on an unrelated matter. Marjorie’s blonde ambition at the time of her arrest “shot, frozen,
“All the forensic evidence points to (main picture) was temporarily banished as she went thawed, and
Marjorie,” said prosecutor Treena Kay. mousy brown and bespectacled for the jury (inset) dismembered.”
“Weisberg was just another toy, another Defence lawyer
man for Marjorie to manipulate. Robyn Varcoe
She’s a seven-times-married stripper money and property. dismissed Ms. Johnson as a jailhouse
who was desperate for a child and “Marjorie got Jay’s gun, took it out snitch, but Prosecutor Kay insisted she
an inheritance. When she got what of his briefcase, and killed him in the had been offered no deal to testify. A
she wanted, she blew him away. Jay garage while their son slept. She used month later under cross-examination,
was someone she hated. She told her two jigsaw blades to cut him into however, she recanted her testimony.
friends he was fat and disgusting and pieces.” When Larry Weisberg took the stand
she hadn’t slept with him for years. She One of Marjorie’s former lovers – – the former lovers facing each other
wanted him dead and she wanted his Noah’s karate instructor – told the for the first time in nearly five years –

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20
he said Marjorie seduced him while Jay
was away on business.
“After his body was found, she asked
me to run away with her,” he said. “I
asked her what for? I know nothing
about what happened to him and had
no part in his death.”
Robyn Varcoe insisted Weisberg
was lying, and in a bizarre legal twist
accused him of murdering Jay Orbin.
“He did this by dismembering
and dumping Jay’s body like trash,
virtually on Marjorie’s doorstep,”
said Ms. Varcoe. “His circumstantial
connections to this crime are enough
to provide reasonable doubt about
Marjorie’s guilt.”
Love letters Marjorie wrote to
Weisberg were read out in court to
show that she had truly cared for him.
“I have been alone for so long. I
have created my own little isolated
environment.When you spoke to me with
such tenderness and emotion... it melted
me...I love you in a way I have only
dreamed about.”
Ms. Varcoe claimed that Jay Orbin
confronted Weisberg when he returned
home unexpectedly on September 8th:
“Two big guys who don’t back down,
and one of them is carrying a loaded
gun. The result is obvious.”
She continued: “And it’s physically
impossible for Marjorie to have cut
up her husband, cleaned the garage,
lugged Jay’s body in a container and
dumped it in the desert all on her own.
This is a case where there is no eye-
witness, no murder weapon, and no
definitive forensic evidence.”

hen Marjorie eventually took

W the stand, she told the court that
Weisberg had killed her husband and
threatened to kill her and her son if she
refused to help him cover up the crime.
The jury did not believe her, found her
guilty of first-degree murder, and she
was sentenced to life without parole.
She continued to protest her
innocence from jail, and has not seen
Noah since the day of her arrest. He is
now 16 years old and still living with
relatives.
Despite the evidence, many people
have a sense of uncertainty about
this case, and questions remain. For
example, why would a murderer
dump portions of their victim so close
to home, and would she really have
been able to carry them? Were they
butchered into portable joints that
Marjorie elected to spend her days in solitary confinement and, ever the
showgirl, made a series of video diaries for the CBS television network
(below left). Inset, her most recent mug-shot
didn’t weigh too much? It would seem
so, as the rest of the body was never
found.
Why did Marjorie allow herself to
be seen at Jay’s abandoned car after
the date of his disappearance, and why
didn’t she pretend to be a distraught
wife?
Weisberg proved he was violent and
aggressive, but did she love him enough
to want to protect him and share the
insurance? Was it an accident that went
horribly wrong?
It’s interesting that her one-time
partner Michael J. Peter described in
court a very different Marjorie to the
one painted by the prosecution. He
said he’d offered to support her and
Noah if she would come back to him,
but her answer had been: “There’s
nothing in the world I’d rather do than
be with you again, Michael. But Jay’s
a good man. I would never take the
father from the child or the child from
the father.”
Detective Dave Barnes still worries
about the case, and claims that
evidence which could have implicated
Weisberg was never tested by the
Phoenix crime lab.
“Hairs were found on the tub
containing Jay Orbin’s remains,” he
said, “and I tried to get them tested.
But the crime lab refused. The hairs
could exonerate Weisberg or put him
in prison for the rest of his life. I don’t
know which. I know for a fact that
Marjorie was involved. I don’t know for
a fact that Larry Weisberg was involved.
I think it’s possible. But everything
we looked at and everything we were
allowed to test eliminated Weisberg.”
Marjorie Orbin has chosen to spend
her days in solitary confinement, but
has made a series of video diaries for
the CBS television network. In one of
them she repeats: “I trusted someone
that I should not have. And I aided
and abetted someone that I should
not have. I’m paying a price. And that
person is not.”
In 2011, the court of appeals
in Arizona rejected an appeal
for a new trial. She remains
incarcerated at at the Arizona
State Prison Complex, Perryville.

21
 SYDNEY MASS-KILLER G
What can turn a basically good man into a ruthless
killer? For 43-year-old Lindsay Robert Rose, it was
frustration. Society, he considered, had thrown him
on the scrapheap. So he became one of Australia’s
most vicious, cold-hearted murderers…
H
is was the story of a man willing to
kill, maim and torture as the whim
took him, but also a man who had
selflessly served the public for many
years, and had been commended by his
colleagues for his many good deeds. His
case left Australia’s criminologists and
social commentators scratching their
heads and asking, “How could a good
man become so evil?”
Lindsay Robert Rose was such a
Jekyll and Hyde character that there
were no easy answers. Growing up in
a poor working-class suburb of Sydney
in the early 1960s was not an easy time
for him. His parents Joe and Anthea
Rose had married in 1954 after a short
courtship. Lindsay was born a year
later, but cracks were already beginning
to appear in the marriage.
Joe, a construction worker, had been
prone to heavy bouts of drinking that
became longer and more frequent. The
birth of a son served only to alienate
him from his wife, as little Lindsay
became the sole object of her affections.
He began to have affairs and one-night
stands, and was happier to spend his
money on booze and women than on
his family.
He became physically abusive as the
marriage disintegrated, both wife and
son becoming victims of his temper.
Finally Anthea could take no more, and
in 1963 she left the home one day with
her son in tow and went to live at her
sister’s.
Joe threatened to kill her if she didn’t
come back but she held firm. Within a
year they were divorced, and 18 months
later Anthea remarried. Her second
husband, David Haskell, could not
have been more different from her first.
A quiet, meek, mild-mannered civil
servant, he proved to be a reliable and
honest breadwinner. But he was never
going to be the strong male model
young Lindsay needed.
Small for his age, the boy was often
bullied at school because of his size.
When he came home crying, begging
his stepfather for help, he got no
response. His stepfather had also been
bullied as a child, and had been left to
deal with it by himself.
Anthea did her best to protect her
only child from the outside world,
but by the time Lindsay left school,
he had several chips on his shoulder.
While other boys in their late teens
were going out partying and meeting
girls, Lindsay Rose spent much of his
time visiting prostitutes and massage
parlours. He had no interest in sport,
dating or studying for university, and
Edward Cavanagh and Carmelita
Lee. After murdering the drug
dealer Rose tied Carmelita to the
bed and tortured her for hours
did not enjoy the company of other
men. He was starting to display the
characteristics of a dangerous loner.
But there was one pursuit in life that
he did enjoy. Having been mollycoddled
by his mother, a trained nurse, he was
attracted to the medical profession. At
one time he considered training to be a
doctor, but he lacked the dedication to
follow this up. After a few years drifting
from one dead-end job to another, he
finally joined the ambulance service. If
he couldn’t be a doctor, then this was
the next best thing.
This was the only period of his life
when Lindsay Rose had any kind of
stability or sense of achievement. He
excelled in his training at the Royal
Victoria Hospital in Sydney, where
staff would later remember him as
hard-working, capable and dedicated to
his career.
Hmeaningful
e was still visiting prostitutes, and
apparently incapable of forming
relationships with women,
but at least he was in a secure,
responsible job, and his mother was
proud of him. It seemed that things
were going to turn out all right for Rose
after all.
But his hopes of making a career in
his caring profession were dashed in
1981, when he suffered a back injury
which put him out of work for several
months. He failed to pass the medical
that was required for paramedics
returning to work after an injury,
and found himself forced out of the
ambulance service. He had lost the one
thing he felt he had achieved in his life.
As his bitterness festered, he became a
ticking time-bomb of resentment.
In his work as a paramedic he had
become friendly with several police
officers he had met at accidents or in
hospital. When he told one of them
he was going to have to leave the
ambulance service, it was suggested
that he try to find work as a private
investigator. This quite appealed to him.
After all, he had been leading a furtive
double life for some time: a responsible
paramedic by day, and a street crawler
and denizen of the notorious Kings

22 Murder Most Foul Sydney Mass-Killer Given $30,000 Reward

GIVEN $30,000 REWARD
Case recalled by
Joe Cymrank
Cross red light district by night.
His nondescript appearance and
mild manner enabled him to blend
into situations without causing a stir,
and he started to get work checking up
on errant husbands who were having
affairs or paying for sex. He knew
where these men would go and what
deceptions they would practise. And
he found that he could earn more from
blackmailing an unfaithful husband
than from being paid by the subject’s
wife. His descent into a world of sleaze
and dishonesty accelerated when he
began to associate with corrupt police
officers involved in the vice trade.
Rose was now living on the edge
constantly, and not afraid to take the
law into his own hands when he felt it
necessary. It was on one such occasion
that this rebounded on him. Serving a
summons on a man who tried to push
him out of his house, Rose lashed out
at him, landing several blows to his
head. The man informed the police
and Rose was arrested. None of his
contacts in the force could help him,
and he was convicted of assault and
had his licence suspended for three
years.

Nconvinced
ow that he had a conviction he
had crossed the line. He became
he was a victim of society
which had deprived him first of his
career as a paramedic and now of his Lindsay Rose (above) horribly tortured his victims before putting them
job as a private eye. From now on out of their misery

Millionaire’s lover Reynette
Holford (right) just happened to
be in the house at the wrong time.
She was stabbed 32 times with a
screwdriver
Lindsay Rose was going to do whatever
he liked to make money, and no one
was going to stop him.
He became friendly with a former
brothel-keeper and armed robber,
David Norton. They shared a liking
for prostitutes and a grudge against
society, and in 1983 they committed
several robberies together. The once
mild-mannered Rose had become a
thug who found his bravado behind the
barrel of a .45.
Just before Christmas that year
Norton was badly beaten for reneging
on a debt to Eddie Cavanagh, a local
pimp and drug-dealer. Rose visited his
friend in hospital, promising him that
Cavanagh would pay for what he had
done. But even Norton couldn’t have
expected the measure of retribution
that Rose was to exact.
It was early afternoon of January
21st, 1984, and Sydney was sweltering
under a hot summer sun. Cavanagh,
51, shared a sumptuous home in the
Hoxton Park area with his mistress
Carmelita Lee, 22. He was formerly her
pimp, but now he was her lover.
She was sitting out by the pool when
Rose and an accomplice broke into
the property and dragged her into the
bedroom, where she was bound naked
and raped repeatedly while Rose waited
for Cavanagh to return home.
When Cavanagh walked through his
front door, he didn’t even have time to
put his keys down before he was shot
several times. Then as Cavanagh lay
dying, Rose returned to the bedroom
where a terrified Carmelita must have
known the fate awaiting her. After
hours of torture, Rose made her suffer
no more. He put a single bullet between
her eyes.
A man like Cavanagh had many
enemies and the police weren’t short
of possible suspects, but they put the
double-murder down to a botched
armed robbery rather than a revenge
killing.
Having shown the criminal
underworld what he could do, Rose
now carried out a series of armed
robberies over the years to finance
his increasingly expensive lifestyle,
targeting the homes of the wealthy.
It was on one such occasion that

23
he committed his next murder. On
January 19th, 1987, he broke into the
home of millionaire property tycoon
Bill Graf, who was living in West Ryde.
Rose knew that Graf was away on
business and thought the house was
empty. What he didn’t know was that
Graf ’s lover, Reynette Holford, had
decided to stay at the house for a few
days while her boyfriend was away. As
Rose was ransacking a bedroom, she
surprised him from behind and leapt at
him with a pair of scissors.
Rose later told the police, “She
jumped on me with this pair of
scissors. She shocked the hell out of
me. I was sure the house was empty. In
the struggle that followed, I thumped
her a couple of times to stop her
screaming. The next thing I know she’s
not breathing.”
At his trial the horrific truth of
how Reynette Holford really died
came to light. Her naked body
had been tied up in a way that the
police called “hamstrung,” and she
had been stabbed 32 times with a
screwdriver which Rose carried with
him on robberies. At the time there
was nothing to connect him with the
murder, and again he didn’t fall under
police suspicion.
While his armed robberies continued
to pay for his endless stream of
prostitutes, he let it be known that he
would consider accepting a “contract”
if the price were right.
He was known to everyone in the
vice world including the vice squad.
The police never thought of him as a

www.truecrimelibrary.com

THE KILLING
Rose decided that he didn’t have
enough time to have sex with
JUNE
Fatima Ozonal (above) but he

THAT PUT
2020
£3.50
would kill her anyway

POP’S MAD killer, but kept an eye on his pimping

activities. There were some officers still
serving from the time when Rose was
WORLD’S NO.1 TRUE CRIME MAGAZINE GENIUS a private detective, and he was always
happy to supply them with girls.

Killing IN JAIL He now began to claim protection

money from some of the massage
parlours that were opening up in
Career Of SAD SCENES
the 1990s. One proprietor offered
him $10,000 to kill the owner of the

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Gladesville Massage Parlour, and Rose
picked Valentine’s Day, 1994, to do the
job. He thought it would be quiet at
Legend ROAD PRISON the massage parlour, as many errant
husbands and boyfriends would be
The Sexton spending the day with their partners.
CRIMES THAT MADE THE HEADLINES And The
The contract was to kill the owner,
Kerry Pang, a 35-year-old mother of
Newcastle’s Sisters five, who was attracting more business
than her rivals thought she should.
“Horror In When Rose arrived at the parlour at
about 7.30 p.m., she wasn’t there.
The Bath” 40 Years She had gone home in the afternoon
to spend some time with her kids.
Case Later… Another girl, 27-year-old Fatima
Ozonal, was on duty in her place.
Justice For Rose realised that he couldn’t let
THE SERIAL Michelle
her go and that he didn’t have time to
have sex with her, so he decided to kill

KILLER WHO her, although she wasn’t part of the

contract. He shot her three times in

A SLAYER
the back of the head from point-blank
COULDN’T KEEP …Yet It Took
30 Years To
range, and then dragged her body into
one of the private massage rooms.

A SECRET Bring Him To

Justice!
STALKS THE Kerry Pang arrived shortly
afterwards. As she walked into the
parlour, Rose grabbed her by the
HANGED IN AUSTRALIA
Hold-Up
REEPERBAHN throat and dragged her into another
private room where she knelt before
him, begging for her life. Before
shooting her, he stabbed her in the
June issue on sale at
At The W.H. Smith and all good
face, head and chest and gouged
out one of her eyes. He then poured
Star Service newsagents from May 7th
paraffin throughout the building and
set the parlour on fire, razing it to the
The young killer
Garage or see the offer on page 55 ground.
This time he had gone too far, and
even some of his one-time cronies were

24
appalled by his wanton violence and
cruelty. The net was closing in but Rose
believed he was invincible.
He was arrested after a tip-off in
March 1997, having moved to Brisbane
under a new identity. He confessed to
the five killings soon afterwards.
W hen his trial began in July 1998,
Rose stood accused of the five
Kerry Pang (above) knelt before
Rose and begged for her life.
Before shooting her he stabbed
her in the face and chest and
gouged out one of her eyes
murders, plus numerous other
offences of armed robbery, blackmail
and assault. He pleaded guilty,
and astonishingly was awarded a
$30,000 reward from the authorities
for providing them with a mine of
information about his accomplices and
other unsolved crimes.
Condemnation of the settlement
was pretty unanimous. Newspaper
editorials, with headlines such as
“Blood Money” and “Dealing With
The Devil,” slammed the decision.
An embarrassed spokesman for
the New South Wales police minister
said that Rose hadn’t been paid by
them, but that the New South Wales
Crime Commission had promised
to fund some of his legal expenses.
The statement said, “The Crime
Commission is separate from the
police service. It is there to investigate
serious crimes, and it has wide coercive
powers and a secrecy provision. Even
we do not know what it is doing.”
Pleading for leniency, Rose’s defence
counsel, Mr. Stuart Littlemore QC,
told the court that on January 28th,
1977, Rose heard on the radio that
an overhead bridge had collapsed
on a peak-hour service, trapping
hundreds of commuters of whom 83
died. He said, “Rose wasn’t on duty
as an ambulance officer, but he put
on his uniform, went to the scene,
and laboured all night and morning
carrying out bodies of dead adults and
children while comforting the injured.
Surely a man capable of such heroism
should be entitled to some discount on
Rose during his trial
his sentence.”
To the relief of the victims’ families,
Supreme Court Justice David Levine
did not agree, handing down five life
sentences with no chance of parole –
one for each murder. The judge told
Rose: “There is simply no warrant
for leniency. I find it impossible to
reconcile the compassion for the
sanctity of human life as an ambulance
officer with the cynical, cold-blooded
destruction of human life in these five
murders.”
There was bedlam outside the court
after the sentencing. Glen Cavanagh,
Rose set fire to the Gladesville
Massage Parlour after murdering
the two women
son of victim Eddie, asked, “How does
someone who can take five people’s
lives get $30,000? He shopped other
people to get leniency, not money. It’s
obvious he’s being well looked after.
They’ve even given him a laptop
computer and a hundred dollars for a
phone bill. The whole thing stinks.”
Those attending the trial also
included victims’ rights campaigner
Ken Marslew, leader of a support
group called Enough is Enough. He
too was outraged that the Crime
Commission had paid money to Rose.
“What is the bloody mentality of
the people who allow this to happen?”
he asked. “What must the families of
the victims be going through, knowing
that this bastard, who has deliberately
killed one of their loved ones, is being
rewarded by the system for being a
snitch? That money should be used to
help the victims’ families, especially
the children of Kerry Pang and Fatima
Ozonal. The money won’t go far, but if
one cent goes to Rose, it is a national
disgrace.”
Killer-of-five and Supermax
haemorrhoids-sufferer Rose
Before being taken down, Rose
had offered a backhanded apology
to the court. He said, “I am sorry I
caused so much suffering, but at least
I have helped to make sure that many
other dangerous people will now also
go to prison. If I had remained an
ambulanceman, none of this would
have happened. But the fates conspired
against me, and I chose the wrong path
in life.”
Once put away in Long Bay
Prison, Rose continued to alarm
the authorities with his intelligence
and ability to manipulate others,
allegedly plotting to murder a staff
member as part of an escape plan.
With this foiled he was moved to
Goulburn’s Supermax prison, said
to be the toughest in Australia. At
first he would tend the prison’s
garden and work out in the yard,
but he was eventually transferred
away from Supermax to have his
haemorrhoids treated. He remains
behind bars to this day.
25
 couples
therein lay the motive for his crime –
necrophilia.

who C lark’s fi rst known victims were

15-year-old Gina Marano and
her step-sister Cynthia Chandler, 16.
Each girl was shot in the head with a

kill
D
URING THE summer of
1980, Sunset Boulevard – the
street stretching from Los
Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway,
normally associated with the glamour
of Hollywood – was the playground
of Douglas Daniel Clark. It was here
that he selected his playthings, where
he found what he lusted after the most.
His preference was oral sex – and along
Sunset Boulevard it was easy to come
by.
The 34-year-old young-faced
boilermaker butchered and abused
creatures of the Boulevard – callow
young runaways, black and white, all
willing to spend a few minutes with
him in the front seat of his car for the Above, Carol Bundy, who claimed
$30 or $40 they’d set as the price for that her boyfriend was “extremely
their favours. good in bed.” Right, the severed
Clark’s partner in this bizarre lifestyle head of Exxie Wilson
was a plump, middle-aged nurse by
the name of Carol Bundy, three years “When Clark first brought
his senior. They lived together during Exxie’s head home, he was
that summer of 1980. But theirs was small-calibre gun and their sexually
no grand romance. It was gross evil. laughing. He thought it was abused bodies discarded like so much
And they were arrested two days apart, as funny as hell, that it rubbish along a highway exit road,
for similar types of crime – he for where they were found on June 12th,
murdering and decapitating girls, she would be a trick to play 1980.
for hacking off the head of a boyfriend. on the cops” On June 6th, a man who identified

HORROR BEYOND BELIEF

KILLER COUPLE PL
VICTIMS’ HEADS
She told the police after her arrest:
“It’s fun to kill someone.”
She also claimed she was dominated
by Clark who was “extremely good in
bed.” But he didn’t want to bed Carol;
he preferred to romp with the skinny
young streetwalkers and so Carol
helped him fi nd his victims.
The police may never know how
many women Clark actually killed but,
for the most part, they all died the same
way. He paid them to have oral sex with
him in his car, then shot them in the
head with a small-calibre weapon as he
reached his sexual climax.
Next, he would strip off their
underwear, save it as a trophy, and
have sex with their dead bodies. And
himself as “Detective Clark” phoned
a friend of Cynthia Chandler and
told her that the two girls were dead.
On June 22nd, a man who identified
himself as “Doug Clark of the Los
Angeles Police” called again to describe
the manner in which the girls had been
killed.
“I killed them – and now I want you,

26 Murder Most Foul Killer Couple Played With Their Victims’ Heads
 By Chris Edwards

Above, Exxie Wilson and below,

Karen Jones – both plucked from
Sunset Strip and murdered by
Douglas Daniel Clark (left)

LAYED WITH THEIR

The head had been frozen solid and wrapped in a pair of girl’s Levis. Make-up
had been applied to the face to give it the appearance of a Barbie doll – and
it had been used as a sex object. This was not the work of one man; he had an
accomplice – the woman who had made up the victim’s face...

too,” he told her. “I shot Gina in the
head. Then I shot Cynthia in the heart,
then I made love to them. Now I want
to do it to you. I saw you at that party
where they were.”
He told the girl that he was having an
orgasm while he was talking to her.
The caller never revealed his real
name. But a tape recording of his voice
was later identified by the girl as that of
Douglas Clark.
Before disposing of the bodies of
the teenage stepsisters, Clark had
attempted to fi nd Carol Bundy to share
his experience with her. But she was not
at home, so Clark left a note, telling her:
“Sorry to have missed you.”
On June 23rd, police found the
bodies of two more young females.
Both had been shot in the head with
a small-calibre weapon. They were
20-year-old Exxie Wilson and Karen
Jones, 24, both prostitutes – and both
from Little Rock, Arkansas. Their
bodies had been dumped in the Studio
City-Burbank area.
Their pimp told the police that

27
he’d had both girls working along
Sunset Boulevard on the night of June
23rd-24th. The last he saw of Exxie
Wilson, she was trying to make it with
a trick on Sunset. That was about
midnight. And the last time he spoke to
Karen Jones was about 2 a.m., while she
was stalking a “john” on the boulevard.
Residents in a sedate Burbank
neighbourhood reported hearing
a woman screaming for help. The
screams had appeared to come from
where the body of Karen Jones was
found at about 3.30 a.m. on June 24th.
The body of Exxie Wilson was found in
an alley about six hours later. And the
prostitute was a ghastly sight – she had
been beheaded.
Her head wasn’t found until June
27th, when a Burbank resident pulled
into his driveway to see a wooden box
obstructing his way to the garage.
He got out of the car, opened the box
and stared back into the glazed eyes of
20-year-old Exxie Wilson. Where that
head had been from June 24th until
June 27th was anybody’s guess. But it
had clearly been “cared for” and toyed
with by someone.
The bullet that killed her was found
embedded in her skull. The head had

They all died the same way.

He paid them to have oral
sex with him in his car, then
shot them in the head with a
small-calibre weapon as he
reached his sexual climax
been frozen solid and wrapped in
a pair of girl’s Levis. Make-up had
been applied to the face to give it the
appearance of a Barbie doll – and it
had been used as a sex object. It also
appeared that the head and hair had
been washed in a detergent.
The bullet was found to be similar to
those already removed from the heads
of the other three girls. This convinced
police that one killer had taken the lives
The murder weapon, a .25-calibre
Raven automatic
of all four girls.
Another victim of the man now being
called the Sunset Boulevard killer
was Marnette Comer, a 17-year-old
runaway from Sacramento, California,
who was last seen on June 1st. But
it wasn’t until June 30th that her
mummified body was found by
snake-hunters in a ravine near Sylmar,
a community in the San Fernando
Valley.
She had been shot four times with
small-calibre bullets and her abdomen
had been sliced open. Two recovered
bullets were eventually determined to
have been fi red from one of the guns
owned bv Douglas Clark.
On March 2nd, 1981, the nude
body of a teenage girl was found in the
Saugus-Newhall area of Los Angeles
County. She too had been shot in the
head with a small-calibre weapon.
Police concluded that one man did all
six killings.
Police eventually learned that on
the night of June 21st, 1980, Douglas
Clark had asked a 13-year-old boy
to wash out the interior of his station
wagon. The boy had been horrified by
the large quantity of blood on the front
passenger seat. But, out of fear, he told
no one at the time. He would later recall
that it took him over an hour to clean
up the mess. Clark told the youngster
that a cat had bled to death in the car
on the previous night.
But some time later Carol Bundy was
to accuse Clark of killing a girl they’d
known only as Kathy on June 20th.
Carol told the police that Clark had
Douglas Clark told the police that
it was Carol’s former boyfriend
who had committed the horrific
murders
killed the young girl in his car as she
was orally copulating him. The original
plan, she said, had been for Carol to
kill Kathy while the girl was having sex
with Clark.
O n August 9th, 1980, the headless
body of Jack Murray, 45, was
found in his van, parked on a street in
Van Nuys, less than half a mile from
his home. Murray had been shot and
stabbed numerous times. His head was
never found.
And so it was at this point that plump
Carol Bundy waltzed into the picture
that police had been building up of
the Sunset Boulevard killer. Murray’s
car led the police to his home, where
they found evidence that Carol Bundy
had lived there at one time. But a
few months before, Carol Bundy had
notified her employer that she had
changed her address.
And the cops did a double-take on
this one. For Carol had split up with
her boyfriend, Jack Murray, so that she
could move in with Douglas Daniel
Clark.
Carol was taken into custody on
August 10th and charged with the
murder of Murray. Just 48 hours later,

28

Cynthia Chandler
Gina Marano
Marnette Comer
Clark was arrested and charged with
six counts of murder, in connection
with the deaths of the Sunset Boulevard
victims. He was also charged with
aiding and abetting Carol Bundy in the
murder and beheading of Jack Murray.
Carol had told her nursing supervisor
that she killed Murray in order to keep
him from going to the police and telling
them about the crimes committed by
Clark, his rival for her affections.
Shortly before Murray was In his conversations with the police,
murdered, someone – probably Murray Clark said he liked having a girl orally
– had tipped off the police to Clark’s copulate him, and would shoot her in
connection with the six murders and the head when he reached a climax.
the fact that Carol knew more about the He confessed to killing the Comer girl
killings than anyone was aware. by shooting her four times and then
She was arrested and accused of slicing open her abdomen to hasten the
killing and beheading Jack Murray, decomposition process.
after trying to pin his murder on Clark. Carol told police that Clark once told
But Clark had a story of his own to tell. her he had shot an unidentified girl,
He said his only connection with the known only as Kathy, in the head: “She
Murray killing was that he was going died slowly.... huffi ng and puffi ng and
to help Carol dispose of Murray’s head, thrashing about. She bled profusely,”
but the police moved in too soon for he had said.
him to get involved. He’d gone on to confess to the
Meanwhile, a co-worker of Clark’s murder and decapitation of Exxie
found two small-calibre handguns Wilson. Then he pursued Exxie’s
hidden at their place of employment room-mate Karen Jones, shooting her
and handed them over to the police. in a Burbank street. When her body
These guns and the ammunition linked was found a short time later, he was
Clark fi rmly to the Sunset Boulevard
“If you’re going around
killing hookers, you might as
well make it gruesome and
do some weird things, like
cutting the head off to
make it look like some
psychotic did it”
killings.
In an interview with Detective
Richard Stallcup in the Los Angeles
County Jail Clark admitted helping
Carol Bundy look for a place to dispose
of Murray’s head because she had
threatened to give police photos of
Clark having sex with an 11-year-old
girl. He insisted that all the killings
were done by Murray and Carol, Carol Bundy (above and below)
and that they were trying to pin the could not compete with the
murders on him. streetwalkers her partner craved,
so she encouraged him to take his
depravity one step further
D etective Stallcup had some further
long conversations with both Clark
and Carol that shed light on the lives of
the nurse and the boilermaker. Clark
had been wearing women’s underwear
since he was a kid, and maintained that
he could never look at sex “head on,”
it had to be “kinky” to be any good for
him. He admitted killing around 50
women and was hoping to kill 100 in
his pursuit of “kinky sex.”
He sometimes saved the underwear
of his victims and described his
fantasy of cutting a girl’s throat during
intercourse, with his excitement
increasing as she neared death.
According to Carol Bundy, Clark had
hunted women on the streets at night
like an animal, killing some of those he
caught. He decided whether they lived
or died by judging how good they were
at oral sex. Failure meant a bullet in the
head. amused by the fact that he had Exxie
Carol Bundy told police that she Wilson’s head in the boot of his car
and Clark planned to kill increasing during his pursuit of Jones.
numbers of women and make each According to Carol, Clark took home
murder more gruesome than the last. Exxie’s head and put it in the freezer.
He called these murders “taking care of The fi rst time Carol had seen the head,
business” and he kept a “killing bag” in it was in the sink and she had made
his car, containing knife, rubber gloves a joke of it by painting the face with
and plastic bags. make-up. Clark would swing the head
29
around by the hair and take it into
the shower with him where he orally
copulated with it. Eventually, they left
the head in a private drive.
Clark once told Carol that he
shot an unidentified woman as she
orally copulated him. Then he had
intercourse with the corpse. Clark
also told her that he was a member
of a murder organisation and had
participated in 47 homicides since he
was 17 years old, either because he was
unhappy with the people, or because he
was contracted to do the jobs.
Carol Bundy gave the police a bullet
that Clark had told her had passed
through the head of young Gina
Marano.
But Carol didn’t want to just hear
about the murders he’d committed,
she suggested to him, “If you’re going
around killing hookers, you might as
well make it gruesome and do some
weird things, like cutting the head off
Carol Bundy shot to death, stabbed and beheaded another lover, Jack
Murray (right) and left his body in his van (above)
30
to make it look like some psychotic did
it.”
She later told the police that she’d
been surprised when he took up her
suggestion.
C lark confessed to police that on
April 2nd, 1980, he picked up a
young streetwalker outside a Sunset
Boulevard supermarket. He tried to
coax her into his blue station wagon
and offered to give her $40 if she would
perform oral sex on him. As she began
doing what he wanted, he suddenly
whipped out a razor-sharp knife and
stabbed her in the back, the neck, the
head and chest – a total of more than
20 times. Then he tried to strangle her,
but she somehow managed to fight him
off.
All this took place only a few feet off
Sunset Boulevard, while any number of
people walked past the station wagon.
Finally, the young prostitute broke
away from Clark and, with
superhuman strength,
jerked open the door and
fell onto the ground – a
mass of gaping wounds and
profuse bleeding.
Carol Bundy had told
the police: “When Clark
fi rst brought Exxie’s head
home, he was laughing. He
thought it was as funny as
hell, that it would be a good
trick to play on the cops –
making it gruesome – make
them think that they’d got
a real freak out there. And
they had!
“I mean, he really
didn’t want to decapitate
anybody. But the broad
was dead, anyway,” she
said. “What was the harm
in it?”
Describing the fi rst
time she had seen Exxie
Wilson’s head, Carol told Detective
Stallcup: “I was essentially turned off
by it...repulsed.
“But we did have a lot of fun with her
head. I was making her up, like a Barbie
doll with make-up.”
Carol explained, “I was a reluctant
participant but it got to be a joint
venture, where we were both enjoying
it.”
She told police: “We each had our
own gun. My gun was the shiny one –
the chrome one. And he had the nickel
one – the duller one.
Carol also described the “kill bag”
and said: “Usually, if he was planning
on going out for the evening, he would
tell me to go ahead and get the kill bag
ready. That meant preparing things.”
When she was asked if she wanted
her lover to kill her, she replied, “Yes.
During periods when I was emotionally
upset, panicky, at points where I didn’t
deal with the situation.
“Essentially, his attitude was, ‘If you
want to commit suicide, go ahead, but
don’t involve me.’”
She thought of herself as Clark’s
slave and added: “I felt that I had no
alternative but to join in with him,” she
said.
He had told her that if she ever
committed suicide, “he would like me
to hang myself, so that he could hold
my body while having intercourse with
me as I died.”
Carol Bundy said she accompanied
Clark on expeditions to pick up
prostitutes for him. He complained that
the streetwalkers were getting harder
to fi nd, more expensive to lure and
more difficult to entice into his car so
he thought they might have to switch to
some other kinds of women and girls,
probably along the beaches in Venice
and Balboa – the beach bunnies.
W hen the trial of Douglas Clark
got under way in October, 1982,
Prosecutor Robert Jorgensen warned
the jury that he would be taking them
on an “intimate tour of a sewer,”
a “disgusting realm of cruelty and
depravity.” He added: “That sewer
is the natural habitat of Douglas
Daniel Clark...From it he emerged by
the darkest night pale and red-eyed,
nervously alert to prowl the mean
streets in his cowardly search for weak
and defenceless prey.”
From the very beginning, Clark had
denied having any hand in the killing of
the six young women. He insisted that
Jack Murray and Carol Bundy were the
real killers – and that Carol was merely
a copycat slayer, at that. The killer
she had copied, said Clark, was in fact
serial killer Ted Bundy (no relation).
Ted Bundy was then on Death Row in
Florida, but was later executed for his
crimes on January 24th, 1989.
One of the fi rst of the Sunset
Boulevard victims was Marnette
Comer, 17, who was murdered on
June 1st, 1980. On June 1st, 1974, Ted
Bundy had killed Brenda Ball, Clark
pointed out.
On June 11th, 1980, Gina Marano
and Cynthia Chandler were killed in
Los Angeles. On that date six years
earlier, Ted Bundy had claimed another
victim.
On June 23rd, 1980, Karen Jones and
Exxie Wilson were picked up on Sunset
Boulevard and eventually murdered.
Clark said the killer then went looking
for a third victim, a friend of the girls.
Ted Bundy had established that pattern
six years previously – and, according to
Clark, Carol Bundy and Jack Murray
copied it. Clark claimed that Carol got
“I don’t march to the same
drummer as you do. If we
were all like me, Sodom and
Gomorrah might look like a
nice play to stay”
the idea for these murders from a book
entitled Ted Bundy, All-American Killer.
Carol Bundy would admit to having
the book – but only in the Los Angeles
County Jail, after she had been arrested.
Prosecutor Jorgensen called on several
witnesses to testify that they’d been with
Murray on the specific dates and times
when some of the Sunset Boulevard
murders were committed. During
the particularly bloody night of June
11th to 12th, 1980, Murray had been
at an all-night poker game – and the
prosecution had half a dozen witnesses
to prove it.
Ballistics tests showed that five
women had been shot with a gun that
was in Clark’s possession at the time of
his arrest. And a bullet recovered from
Murray’s van had been fired from the
gun in Carol Bundy’s possession.
The court-appointed lawyer for
Clark was Maxwell Keith, who was
determined to snatch his client from the
shadow of the gas chamber by pleading
that he was hopelessly insane and was
not accountable for the terrible crimes.
Clark, for his part, continued to claim
that he’d taken no part in the killings at
all, that Carol Bundy and Jack Murray
were the guilty parties.
Prosecutor Jorgensen demanded
that Clark die in the gas chamber.
In his final arguments to the jury,
Jorgensen referred to the “grotesque
and disgusting” evidence of necrophilia
and sexual madness he had presented in
the case.
On January 28th, 1983, Douglas
Clark was convicted of murdering six
young women and of attempting to
murder the prostitute who had managed
to break away from him at the Sunset
Boulevard supermarket in April, 1980.
Carol Bundy, who testified at Clark’s
trial, was herself charged with two
counts of murder, one of which involved
the decapitation of Murray, the other
of an unidentified girl. She pleaded
not guilty and not guilty by reason of
insanity. She had testified at Clark’s
trial, on condition that her evidence
would not be used against her in her
own trial. She denied taking part in
any of the killings attributed to Clark
and said that whatever she knew about
those crimes she got from the detailed
descriptions given to her by Clark.
When the jury returned with the
verdicts in the courtroom of Judge
Ricardo Torres, there were no surprises.
Clark was found guilty on each of the
six murder counts against him – any
one of which could send him to the gas
chamber in San Quentin – and one
count of attempted murder. But if all
this bothered him he didn’t show it. He
stood calmly at the counsel table, his
hands clasped behind his back. And
now it was up to the same jury to decide
whether he should spend the rest of his
life in a cage in San Quentin, or die in
that prison’s gas chamber.
Handling his own defence in the
sentencing phase of the trial, Clark
urged the eight men and four women
to send an “innocent man” to the gas
chamber – Douglas Daniel Clark.
In a low-key presentation, Clark told
the jurors that it was possible that the
appeals courts would grant him a new
trial before he was executed.
He declared that should he be given
another trial, he would be permitted
to bring out what he called “the rest
of the evidence.” Then he paused and
added: “But then, on the other hand, it
is possible that I’ll be executed before
proving mv innocence.”
Condescendingly, he told the jurors:
“You made the right decision in
this case, based on the evidence you
saw,” hinting that he was not given a
fair shake. He went on dramaticallv:
“Justice cries out for the death penalty
in this case. We have a duty here today
to justify, to validate the society we live
in. I don’t live in this same society, per
se.
“I don’t march to the same drummer
you do. If we were all like me, Sodom
and Gomorrah might look like a nice
place to stay,” Clark told the court.
In his argument, little of which made
sense, Clark said that although he had
been involved in “bad situations,” he
was innocent of the charges that were
placed against him and of which he’d
been convicted. “Somebody else must
have done it,” he said.
He concluded, “You can’t let one man
shake the foundations of the justice
system. We can’t tear down the system
for one man. Whoever killed those
people deserves to die.”
The jurors regarded his tactics as a
feeble attempt to use reverse psychology
on them – by asking the jury to find
him guilty and, at the same time, listen
to his plea of innocence. “It really
didn’t weigh on us at all,” said the jury
foreman later.
When it was Prosecutor Jorgensen’s
turn to address the court, he called
Still in San Quentin State Prison,
Douglas Daniel Clark (left and
above) remains on Death Row. His
accomplice died of heart failure on
December 9th, 2003
Clark “an incomparably evil person,
who killed for sexual amusement”
and who could profit neither from
punishment nor experience. He urged
the jurors to recommend to Judge
Torres that Clark be condemned to
death – certainly never having the
slightest chance of getting out of prison.
Jorgensen asked Clark if he regretted
his crimes, to which the killer replied,
“If I had a violin, I would play it.”
On March 16th, Judge Torres
sentenced Clark to die in the gas
chamber. On May 2nd, 1983, as jury
selection was about to begin for her trial
on two murder counts, Carol Bundy
changed her plea to guilty and was later
sentenced to life imprisonment.
Carol Bundy died of heart
failure on December 9th, 2003, at
the Central California Women’s
Facility where she was serving
her sentence. She was 61. Douglas
Daniel Clark is still on Death Row
in San Quentin State Prison.
31
 SHEFFIELD’S WINTER
OF MURDER Within weeks of each other they had been
strangled, their bodies dumped in the bombed-
out city. Francesca Morrison relates how two
ordinary women, tired of war and rationing,
slipped into a haze of sex and alcohol in their
search for a little love and companionship
Mary Pemberton George York

M
ARY PEMBERTON leaned
against the bus stop as if it
could shelter her from the
Mary Pemberton:
bitterly cold wind that was
scything across the rubble of what
used to be a row of houses and a
The Saturday Night
school.
“Bloody Luftwaffe,” she muttered
Sleepovers
to herself. “Bloody rationing. Bloody
winter. Bloody hell. Bloody buses.
Bloody life.”
She wound her scarf more tightly
round her head and neck, and dug her
hands deep into her pockets. It was
January 1947, and Sheffield, like the
rest of Britain, was in the grip of one
of the coldest winters on record.
The city had been heavily
blitzed during the war, and Mary
remembered hearing the rattle of
aircraft guns as the German gunners
tried to shoot down the barrage
balloons. One night she had woken up
to see dozens of bombers circling the
skies above her house. Monday, January 13th, 1947, and The
She had been 20 when the war Star newspaper reports the finding of
started, and air raids, gas masks, sirens Mary’s body
and all-clears had become a way of
life. Although many local men were alcohol turned her aggressive and
away fighting, the mines and heavy abusive. But most of her friends and
industry kept many of them employed acquaintances were drinkers, and pubs
at home. in those bleak post-war years offered
It was a strange, chaotic, intense sort warmth and at least the illusion of
of existence, and Mary had responded companionship. Mary left Ernest, and
to its uncertainty impulsively – by took jobs as cleaner and barmaid in
marrying Ernest. But he had proved several Sheffield pubs.
to be a drunkard and womaniser, and It was June 1946 when she met way she had almost forgotten. Again
day-by-day she saw the fragile flowers George York, a 28-year-old local and again, he urged her to reduce her
of hope for their future trampled by salesman who had lodgings in a nicely drinking. She snapped at him, but was
his brutality and boorishness. furnished 30s-style detached house at secretly glad that he cared enough to
She was unsure exactly when her 55 Norton Lees Lane. Unlike most of nag her.
own slide into booze and promiscuity her casual boy friends and one-night- Two months into their relationship,
had really started. Ernest had certainly she started spending Saturday
encouraged her to drink – it was Cases researched by Matthew Spicer nights at his lodgings. Women were
their only shared interest – and only not allowed in men’s rooms, and
two years earlier she had been so stands, George was unmarried and smuggling her in past the landlady
drunk during a furious row between had just returned to Sheffield after was difficult. George worried the other
them that she had attempted to demob. lodgers would overhear them and
strangle their child, who was crying Mary always felt that George saw “shop” him.
interminably with fear and distress. through the lippy, blowsy backchat of But, for both of them, those
She had been bound over by the court her barmaid role to the woman she Saturday night sleepovers were
for the assault. had once been. He was courteous, and important. They wanted sex, but
Although she denied it, she knew seemed to enjoy talking to her in a snuggling up together afterwards gave

32 Murder Most Foul Sheffield’s Winter Of Murder


The strangler carried Mary’s body (above)
from his lodgings at 55 Norton Lees Lane,
pictured left with the gate open, along the alley
opposite to bushes, where he dumped her
The alley leading to Chessel Close, with sheeting on the right
showing where the body was found (highlighted in red), and the
murder house in the background
to the Sheaf House Hotel to drown
her sorrows.
Fearing he had dumped her, she
them both a sense of belonging. When drank heavily to dull the pain, and
she was sober, Mary knew she was by the end of the evening she was
sick of sordid gropings and shovings plastered. As the last customer left the
in pub yards and bombed buildings. bar at 11.15 p.m., Mary staggered to
When she was drunk – as she often the bus stop outside the Sheaf House
was – she hardly knew they were Hotel.
happening. Besides, the men often She recognised a couple who had
slipped her a couple of shillings for it. spent the evening there, and slurred a
Pub hours meant she could see greeting. On the bus, she waved and
George on Saturday afternoons and blew kisses to other passengers before
after closing time, so on Saturday, getting off at Ellin Street near the
January 11th, she caught the bus to city centre. Most of them knew her,
Meersbrook Park where she thought and were not surprised to see her so
she had arranged to meet him at 2.30 intoxicated.
p.m. He was usually punctual, so by She weaved her way towards the
3 o’clock, when he still hadn’t turned hardware shop where she and George
up, she was fuming, and stomped off usually met on a Saturday night. To
her surprise, he was standing there
waiting for her.
“Where the hell were you this
afternoon?” she ranted. “I damn well
waited for you. You can’t treat me like
that. I’m not some kind of slut you can
pick up and drop. Who d’you think
you are?”
George had told her last week that
he had to work that afternoon, and
realised she had forgotten. Booze
was beginning to rot her memory. He
started to protest. But she was still
shouting and swearing, oblivious to
reason.
He steered her up the road towards
his lodgings, wondering how to get her
upstairs without being heard. It was a
genteel neighbourhood, not given to
drunken outbursts.
As they approached the front door,
she fell into a sullen quiet and he
managed to push her up the stairs
and into his room without waking the
landlady or other lodgers.
She plonked down on the bed,
glaring at him. Pain made her savage.
She wanted him.
But she couldn’t
trust him. How
could he love her?
She was a whore.
She had messed
up everything. She
would lose him.
She couldn’t bear
it.
George tried to
muffle her as the
row escalated. But
she was swearing
loudly now, and
stoking her anger,
provoking him to
respond.
“When you didn’t
turn up, I met Tom
Derby. He’s been
after me for weeks.
So I went with him.
He’s a real man.”
At last, she flew
at him, scratching
at his face and
bellowing that she
hated him.
He flipped, and grabbed her by the
throat to try and stop the noise issuing
from it. Angry at her destructiveness
and desperate to silence her, he
squeezed her neck until she went limp
in his arms.
He thought she had passed out from
a mixture of fury and alcohol, and as
he carried her downstairs he heard her
making “coughing sounds.”
Opening the gate, he checked both
ways to see that the street was clear.
Then a terrible dread swept over him
as he laid her lifeless body under a
hedge beside a footpath connecting
Norton Lees Lane with Chessel Close
– across the road from his lodgings.
She looked so cold lying there that
he ran back to his room and brought
down a raincoat and overcoat, which
33

Above, strangle marks clearly show on
this morgue photograph of Mary
Mary had gone to the Sheaf House
Hotel to drown her sorrows
he draped gently over her.
Early next morning, a man walking
his dog found Mary. She was fully
clothed, and bruising round her neck
suggested she had been strangled.
Detective Chief Inspector Gerald
Carnhill took over the case, and by
midday Mary had been identified.
At 8.50 p.m. Carnhill and his team
went to the Sheaf House Hotel. They
found George was sitting at the bar,
and took him to Sheffield Central
police station for questioning.
He was charged with Mary
Pemberton’s murder at 5.45 a.m. after
making a long and voluntary statement
in which he confessed to strangling
her with his bare hands. He said he
had completely lost his head when she
wouldn’t stop shouting.
He appeared at the city magistrates’
court on Monday where he was
remanded in custody for two weeks.
Wearing a pale blue sports coat and
grey trousers, he appeared tired and
dazed throughout the brief hearing.
His one-day trial began at Leeds
Assizes on Friday, March 14th, 1947
before Mr. Justice Stable. The defence
was manslaughter on grounds of
provocation.
Counsel told the court that York had
done his best to help Mary change her
“intemperate” ways because he loved
her very much. He had never lost
34
Luckily for York the street was clear when he carried Mary’s body across the
road from his lodgings (right) to the alley on the left
his temper with her before, but that
evening he thought “she was going to
poke or scratch my eyes out.” Mary
had also slapped him across the face
and used offensive words towards him
to try and make him jealous.
The prosecution alleged
“provocation must be commensurate
with the means by which the killing
was brought about. Strangling was
terrible. It was not like a slap in the
face or a blow on the chin. It must
require provocation of the most
infuriating nature to justify an attack
fraught with such deadly possible
consequences as to seize the throat
and hold it for such a time as to cause
death.”
After retiring for 35 minutes, the
jury found George York guilty of
murder – but recommended mercy
in the strongest possible terms on
grounds of provocation.
The judge said he agreed with their
verdict, and assured them that the
Home Office would give their mercy
plea the fullest consideration.
Ever the old soldier, York stood to
attention as he was sentenced to hang.
He declined to appeal, and a date was
set in early April for his execution at
Armley Prison in Leeds.
The judge, who had been overtly
sympathetic to York throughout his
trial, then wrote an extraordinary
letter to the Home Secretary, which
amounted to a de facto justification for
the murder. It read:
“This is essentially a case in which the
earliest possible restoration to society, that
is consistent with your public duty, of
an otherwise blameless and decent living
young man, is to be hoped for. The act of
killing, which was not premeditated, was
the reaction to conduct on the part of a
woman of very grievous character.”
There was little the Home Secretary
could do but spare York’s life and he
was reprieved on 26th March. His
death sentence was commuted to life,
and he was released eight years later in
1955. He died in London in 1993.
Although there is insufficient
material to explain the judge’s fulsome
intervention on York’s behalf, we can
speculate that he was sympathetic
towards a soldier who had only just
returned home after fighting for king
and country.
York may have had a particularly
good service record, and might have
indicated in his statement that he was
suffering from what we now identify
as post-traumatic stress disorder that
left him prone to panicky or violent
reactions.
It is likely that he saw military
action that affected him deeply as he
said, somewhat philosophically, in his
statement: “What is death? It is just
a negative. It is something that awaits
everybody. All it means is that the
particular human machine, whatever
it is, has stopped, and stopped for
good.”
His own good character, compared
with his victim’s debauchery, was
also important. “Disreputable”
women drew scant sympathy from
the judiciary of the day – particularly
if they responded badly to a man
magnanimous enough to love them.
But, under another judge,
George York might have forfeited
his life for the alcoholic Mary
Pemberton.
 Edith Simmonite:
“Too Bad To
Mend”
HE LITTLE boy crunched over

T the snow to the derelict building in

Bridge Street. Fuel was desperately
short in post-war Sheffield during the
deep-freeze winter of 1947, and his
mum had sent him out with a sack to
scavenge on the bombsites that littered
the city.
The doors and windows had been
blown out, and drifts of dirty snow had
piled up inside, giving the place an icy
dankness. He shivered in the gloom, and
looked around for bits of timber that
would fit in his sack.
He saw her lying in a corner by the
wall, stretched out face downwards.
Her legs were bare, and he knew
immediately that she was dead.
“Ronnie! Ronnie!” he yelled, running
out of the building. “I’ve found a dead
woman! Come quick!”
The lad who was foraging with
him came racing up, eyes wide with a
mixture of horror and excitement. He
threw down his bag, and went over to
peer cautiously through the window.
“We’d better fetch someone,” he said
solemnly.
The traffic controller at nearby Bridge
Street bus station sent for the police and
ambulance, and the body was quickly
identified by one of the officers at the
scene as 27-year-old Edith Simmonite, a
local prostitute. She had been strangled
with her own headscarf within the last
24 hours, and near to the body were
footprints made by a man’s Wellington
boots.
Edie was well known in the area.
She had lived for the last six or seven
years in a women’s hostel in West Bar
Green. The landlord said she had no
regular work, but left around midday
to frequent pubs in the neighbourhood.
In the evenings, she went to cinemas,
and then back to the pubs. She usually
returned to the hostel in the early hours
Top right, the derelict buildings in Bridge Street, where the body of Edith
(above) was found. The killer’s footprints can clearly be seen
William Smedley Edith Simmonite
of the morning.
She was only five feet tall, with a fresh
complexion and brown hair. Her mother
had died when she was young, and she
spent most of her childhood in different
institutions, including the corporation’s
scattered homes scheme.
She had been a cutlery worker, and
then a cleaner at a city nursing home
where the matron described her as “a
splendid worker, always bright and
cheerful.” The rest of the staff grew very
fond of her, and did their best to make
her feel at home. They provided her
with clothes and she had a room of her
own.
Years later, however, she came back
to visit the matron who tried to rescue
her from the prostitution she had sunk
into. Her only reply was: “It’s no good,
matron. I’m too bad to mend.”
She was often found weeping in pubs,
and further irritated local landlords
by picking petty arguments with other
customers. But when she was merry, she
would sing sweetly. Her special love was
her cat Trixie, and trips to the cinema.
One of the places she visited on the
night of her murder was the Sun Inn
at West Bar. The licensee’s daughter
remembered that she was generally very
quiet, and often came in alone or with
different men. She seemed to have no
regular boy friend. But on Thursday
and Friday nights that week she had
come into the pub with the same man.
Police picked him up and took him
back for questioning twice, only to

35
release him without charge. Witnesses
said they also saw her talking to
another man on Friday night in the
pub, and later in Bridge Street. He
had been wearing Wellington boots
with the tops turned down.
Two weeks later, her killer had
still not been found, and police were
searching for three men supposedly
overheard in a café discussing the
murder at least three hours before the
body was found. The men were never
traced.
Police had also overlooked Edie’s
contact with William Smedley, a
38-year-old miner with whom she had
been having sex for several months. Edie
wanted the relationship to develop, but
Smedley was backing off. He claimed
she had given him syphilis, but was still
pestering him.
On the Friday night of the murder,
Smedley was drinking in the Sun Inn
when Edie came in and asked him: “Are
you going with me, Billy?”
He told her to push off, but she was
afraid the landlord would accuse her of
soliciting if she stayed there on her own,
and tried to persuade him to go with
her.
“You can have it for nothing,” she
wheedled. “We can go somewhere. I
want to talk to you. I’ve missed you.”
Smedley accompanied her out of
the pub and they went to the derelict
building in Spring Street where he had
her against the damp brick wall before
telling her to keep away from him for
good.
Edie was upset, and retaliated by
teasing him about the syphilis he had
received treatment for three months
earlier.
“Reckon I’ve given you the pox
again,” she said. “Maybe I should tell
people where you got it...”
Goaded by her taunts and fuelled
with drink, Smedley lost his temper and
seized her scarf. He wound it round
her neck and pulled hard until she fell.
He continued pulling until she stopped
choking.
“That’ll keep you quiet, you little
whore!”
Six weeks later, Smedley suddenly
appeared at the police station and asked
to speak to Detective Sergeant Naylor
who was part of the murder squad. He
said that a man he had seen with Edie
on the night of the murder – a resident
at the hostel where he lived – had told
him the following morning that he had
killed Edie and was going to Rhyl in
North Wales.
He said that the man had now sent
him a letter asking how the police
investigation was progressing and
suggesting that Smedley came to Rhyl
where he would meet him at the town’s
miners’ convalescent home.
It seemed an odd scenario – why
would Smedley want to visit Rhyl? – but
the police gave him three pounds for the
information and said he would receive a
further seven if the other man turned up.
Smedley had a criminal record, but with
36
On leaving the police station Smedley
sent this telegram to his brother
no other leads they had to trust him.
On leaving the police station, Smedley
immediately sent a telegram to his sister
in Doncaster saying: “Come Saturday
morning. Urgent. Brother in terrible
trouble.”
She and her husband arrived next
morning, and Smedley took them to the
pub near his hostel where he explained
that the police were trying to “pull him
in” for killing Edie Simmonite. Then,
after a long and earnest conversation, he
eventually admitted to them that he was
Marks on Edith’s neck show she
was strangled, the killer using her
headscarf
indeed the murderer.
Neither he nor they told the police,
and Smedley was taken to Rhyl by
Detective Sergeant Naylor to wait for
the mysterious strangler. He kept up the
pretence for three days, and then went
to Colwyn Bay police station to admit
his guilt.
The man from Rhyl did actually
exist, but he was a completely innocent
Irishman who had lived at Smedley’s
hostel. Some days after the murder,
Smedley had confessed his crime to
him. But the man had failed to report it
to the police.
Smedley appeared before Sheffield
magistrates wearing a blue tunic jacket
and open-neck shirt. When the director
of public prosecutions steered the bench
through the signed statements Smedley
had made to the police, the accused
interrupted several times, and eventually
shouted out: “That’s all lies, that paper!”
For all his protests, the confession
was corroborated. His brother-in-law
told the magistrates that Smedley had
confessed to him, and hostel resident
Matthew Frayn confirmed he had heard
some of what was said. There was also
evidence that Smedley had not returned
to the hostel on the night of the murder,
as the cleaners found his bed had not
been slept in. Lastly, the pathologist
testified that Edie was indeed suffering
from venereal disease.
His trial opened at Leeds Assizes
on July 21st, 1947 before Mr. Justice
Pritchard.
Called to give evidence in his own
defence, Smedley told the jury of nine
men and three women that on the night
of the murder he felt jolly. But towards
the end of the evening, Edie Simmonite
arrived and asked him to leave the pub
with her. When he refused, she said: “If
you don’t go, I’ll get you chucked out.”
He admitted pulling her scarf for
three or four minutes and said: “I did
it to frighten her. I had no intention of
killing her. No intention of hurting her.
But I was getting fed up and wanted to
teach her a lesson.”
Under cross-examination, he said he
dropped down astride her to pull her
scarf. She was kicking and
when she stopped he had
an idea he had killed her.
He admitted he had told
lies to put police off the
scent.
In his closing speech,
Smedley’s counsel
called for a verdict of
manslaughter on the
grounds that: “It is in
doubt whether Smedley
intended either to kill or
cause grievous bodily
harm and, in any event, he
was provoked. Were there
any circumstances more
extreme than for a man to
be told he has been given a
loathsome disease?”
The jury returned after an hour
with a verdict of guilty. But, unlike
the George York case, they made no
recommendation to spare the prisoner’s
life. When sentence was passed, Smedley
buried his face in his hands, collapsed,
and had to be carried from the dock.
Once again, the Home Secretary
considered clemency. He was told
that Edie had tried to make trouble
for Smedley at his lodgings and have
him evicted. At the trial, there was also
mention that she had stolen from him.
But the fact that Smedley had a criminal
record for using “obscene and indecent
language” and “aiding and abetting acts
of indecency” led the Home Secretary
to conclude that he had simply tired of
her and wanted to be rid of her.
William Smedley was executed
on August 14th, 1947, at Armley
Prison, in Leeds. Not a single
person stood outside the prison
gates as the clock chimed nine to
signify that he was dead – notable
only for being the last man hanged
for murder in the city of Sheffield.
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W
HO GETS our money
when we’re dead? That’s a
question frequently batted
to and fro between spouses when a
husband or wife are on their second
marriage and there are already children
by the first union.
It can give rise to protracted dialogue,
sometimes to argument. Raymond
Singh, whose wife Wendy was on her
second marriage, took it further. After
discussing the subject heatedly in a
restaurant he frenziedly stabbed her to
death.
Case report by
John sanders
Wendy, a former auxiliary nurse, who
was born in the Isle of Wight and lived
for a number of years in East Anglia,
was 10 years older than Singh and had
two children by her first marriage.
The couple had invested heavily in
the Momi Bay Resort, in Fiji, and had
gone out there to live so that Wendy
could develop it. She was anxious that
her 15-year-old autistic son from her
first marriage, who had the mental age
of an 11-year-old, should be protected if
anything happened to her.
Trouble began on the evening of May
10th, 2008, when the couple and the
two small children of their marriage, a
baby and a three-year-old, went to the
Head Works Café in Suva, Fiji. While
Singh went off to have his hair done,
Wendy’s teenage son arrived and joined
his mother and the two children at her
table.
When Singh came back and saw
the lad sitting there he flew into a
rage. “What is he doing here?” he
expostulated. “This is supposed to be a
family day out.”
Wendy smiled back at him and was
heard to say, “Darling, he is your son
too.” The angry mood continued when
38 Murder Most Foul Horror In Paradise – British Wife Murdered
they went on to a restaurant to have
dinner with a friend.
Over dinner Wendy declared her
intention of giving some of her assets
to her older children. The argument
escalated and came to a point where
Wendy’s teenage son challenged Singh
to a fight. A scuffle took place between
the two.
After dinner they all went home.
What happened next was described by
neighbours. Tomasi Bulai said he was
“While we were
on our way to the
police station singh
uttered the words,
‘It happened out of
frustration’”
watching a Super 14 rugby match on
TV and could hear the couple arguing.
“My wife called to me from the
balcony. She said she could hear Wendy
screaming, ‘Please stop, stop!’ I could
see Raymond Singh moving in his flat.
Then I saw him come out with the baby
in his arms and with the three-year-old.
He drove off with them.
“I came down to the driveway and
Background and left, the
paradise island of Fiji.
Below, clouds gather over
Momi Bay resort. Wendy
and raymond singh had
invested in the resort and
moved to the island from
Ipswich to develop their
investment
saw Wendy lying on the floor, face up. I
called the police.”
Sean Kaihai, 21, later told the court
that he also heard Wendy scream,
“Please stop!” and he heard no more
sounds after that.
“I could see Raymond Singh through
the window. He was staring at the floor.
He then came out of the house with the
baby in his arms. He threw the baby on
to the back seat and forced the small
boy alongside him before driving off.”
Singh drove his children to the home
of his father in the early hours of the
morning and confessed he had killed
his wife. When the police arrived at the
murder scene they found Wendy lying
in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
She had been hacked to death, and
was almost decapitated. There were 36
bloody footprints around the house, all
made by Singh.
W endy and Raymond Singh
met in Fiji in the 1990s when
she had gone there to study for an
environmental degree. They married in
the UK and lived for a time in Grove
Lane, Ipswich. Singh was a sub-editor
with the East Anglian Daily Times for a
while.
Even then their married life had
its problems. Singh was convicted of
 Wendy singh. “she
was madly in love,”
a close relative
said. “I thought she
had found a really
charming man.”
But raymond
singh (right) had a
darker side

horror
In ParadIse
BrITIsh WIFe MUrdered
Wendy Singh was beautiful, ambitious and loving. She and her husband
Raymond, a native of Fiji, moved to the island to develop a holiday resort
they had invested in. Their life might have been idyllic, but an argument
over money ended in bitter tragedy...
common assault and assault occasioning hoping to make millions from it. They “She would sit out the back with a
bodily harm on Wendy. He pleaded were really looking forward to be back cigarette and was very quiet and looked
guilty and was sentenced to community there again.” like she was far away.”
work for two years. The order was later When the Singhs left Ipswich for
revoked on grounds of good progress
and change of circumstances.
To their neighbours in East Anglia
Fiji in 2008, it was a sad time for both
couples and their children. “They gave
us a box of chocolates and Raymond
W hen Singh appeared in the Fiji
High Court on trial for murder
it was clear that the couple had been
– they lived in Great Yarmouth before had tears in his eyes,” the wife said. arguing over the resort’s funding and
moving to Ipswich – there were no “Wendy was crying too and I gave her any potential profits. The prosecution
evident signs of domestic trouble. A a hug. We exchanged addresses and the said that Singh killed his wife “in a
couple who lived next door to them in children wrote to them, but we never cold-blooded, calculated way because of
Grove Lane described them as “quite heard anything back.” his greed.” The accused wanted all the
close.” The children played with each The couple described Singh as money that would be forthcoming from
other in the garden and the husband a quiet person who was very softly the resort Wendy was developing.
helped decorate the Singhs’ house. spoken and seemed very “gentle.” The prosecutor said Singh filed an
The husband said: “They told us they Wendy was “a lovely girl and very affidavit in court in July, 2008, aimed
had bought a resort in Fiji off someone friendly,” although the wife thought at getting his hands on Wendy’s entire
on the internet. It was going to be a that despite being “very laid back” she share of the property by saying that
new start for them. I think they were seemed to have things on her mind. Wendy had only two children, thereby

39

“When I came back
from classes she was
always drinking. she
spent most of her
time drinking”
excluding the two others from her
previous marriage.
The defence claimed that it was the
legal right of any husband in Fiji to
apply to get the property of his wife. In
any event there was no money to inherit
at that time because the bank had seized
all the property.
Singh claimed in evidence that he
only attacked his wife after she pulled a
knife on their two children, whereupon
he rushed to their defence. But Police
Inspector Dharmend Chandra told
the court: “While we were on our way
to the police station Singh uttered the
words, ‘It happened out of frustration.’
When I asked him what happened out
of frustration he said, ‘I killed my wife
The couple met in
Fiji when Wendy
was studying on
the island
out of frustration.’”
Singh’s sister said she was a
foundation student at the University of
the South Pacific when she first came to
know of Wendy’s relationship with her
brother.
“When I came back from classes she
was always drinking,” she told the court.
“She spent most of her time drinking.
She even drank when she was pregnant
with her second child of the marriage.”
The baby was born four months before
40
Wendy was murdered.
Evidence about what happened in
the café on the night of May 10th was
given by the café owner. She told the
court that Singh came in with his wife
and their two children. “I was putting
their coffee on the table when I heard
Singh start arguing about the presence
of Wendy’s son,” she said.
“Wendy said her son would be 16
next year and she wanted him to inherit
some of her valuables. Raymond Singh
then said, ‘What about our children?’
Wendy replied: ‘When they grow up
they will have their share.’”
The trial was conducted by Judge
Daniel Goundaer who sat with five
assessors. They ruled that there was no
provocation and no mitigating factors.
The judge said that although Singh,
now a 30-year-old law student, had
led a responsible life, his marriage was
marred by squabbles.
“They were squabbles about petty
matters, but what marriage doesn’t have
them?” the judge asked.
“There is no evidence that your
wife ever attacked you or your children
resulting in criminal convictions. The
extent and seriousness of the injuries
she received makes me conclude that
the attack must have been ferocious. She
had 79 bruises and wounds all over her
body.
“On the day before the incident both
of you were drinking and arguing. The
final argument lapsed for a while until
your wife called for help, and then there
was complete silence.
“She was left lying on the floor in a
pool of blood without any regard from
you. You knew she was seriously injured.
Your bloody footprints were all over
the house. You called your parents with
bloody hands. Your wife’s blood was
found in the vehicle you drove.
“The killing was further aggravated
by the fact that you inflicted the
injuries on your wife in the presence
of her children. You have deprived
four children of their mother, and your
two children will now have to grow up
without their parents. But you cannot
use your children to seek leniency from
the court for circumstances you have
caused.”
Singh was sentenced to life and told
he would have to serve a minimum
of 18 years. The punishment was the
maximum allowable under Fijian law.
Outside the court Singh, who still
claimed that he had sprung to the
defence of his two children, said he
would appeal the sentence. “Serving
time for murdering Wendy means
nothing,” he added. “Eighteen years of
my personal liberty for the happiness
and safety of my children is nothing.
When you become a father you put
your children first. This is not the end.”
o ne of Wendy’s relatives said Wendy
became besotted with Singh during
her student days in Fiji after they met
at a student party. Although they fell in
love, Wendy didn’t immediately tell her
family back home in England.
“She kept it very, very quiet. It wasn’t
until back in England she found she
was pregnant that she told us about
him. They decided they both wanted
a relationship, so she cashed in her life
insurances to pay for him to come to
England.
“She was madly in love. She thought
he was the most wonderful thing going.
He had obviously swept her off her
feet.” They were married at Gorleston in
 The many faces
of raymond
singh...
Left, raymond singh breaks
down in court and right,
smiles in the police van.
Far right, a more serious
singh is pictured outside the
courtroom
Norfolk in the summer of 2003.
“I thought she had found a really
charming man,” the relative said. But
by the end of the year, there were
telling signs for all to see of Singh’s
paranoia and temper.
“Just before Christmas, Wendy was
phoning me all the time. She wasn’t
particularly happy. When Boxing Day
came he really kicked off, and I saw a
naboro Prison, Fiji, where raymond singh was sent to serve his sentence
FIJI and The deaTh PenaLTY
F iji is a peace-loving island, so
when in 1958 Edward Singh was
sentenced to death for killing his
nine-month-old son with sulphuric
acid, vociferous protests against the
death sentence broke out.
But the colonial government swept
aside the protests, pointing out that
the murder rate had doubled, from
five to 10 in 1957, and in July 1958
there had already been 15 murders.
Caught up in these statistics
the luckless father was hanged on
Thursday, August 7th, 1958, at the
Central Prison in the capital, Suva.
Capital punishment was abolished
on the island in 1979 except for
crimes under the Republic of Fiji
Military Forces Act.
In 2002, George Speight, who led
an armed coup against the Fijian
Government, avoided the death
penalty after he pleaded guilty to
treason.
Speight, who held the government
of Mahendra Chaudry hostage for
56 days in the name of indigenous
rights, wept in the dock when Justice
Michael Scott donned the black cap
and ordered him to be hanged, but
his sentence was later commuted to
life imprisonment.
Ethnic Indians make up 44 per
cent of Fiji’s population and control
much of the economy. George
Speight and his supporters wanted
ethnic Indians to be stripped of
political rights.
different side of him. Anything Wendy
did was wrong and it wasn’t going to be
right.
“He bought her a ring for Christmas
and because she didn’t say thank you
or something he kicked off all the time
about it. He stormed up the stairs. Then
he came down and started shouting
“she was left lying
on the floor in a pool
of blood without any
regard from you.
You knew she was
seriously injured. Your
bloody footprints were
all over the house”
in the front room. He was a complete
control freak. He wanted her attention
full-time.
“I am obviously very pleased with
the verdict, but nothing will ever bring
Wendy back. Her death made me
realise what a devastating effect murder
has – not just on the victim, but on the
whole family and friends. It’s a horrific
life-changing experience – one we will
never be able to forget.”
In March 2011, Raymond Singh
consumed a toxic weed killer while
watering vegetables in the Naboro
prison garden. He was admitted
to intensive care but died shortly
after.
41
Was Agnes Tufverson in Ivan Poderzaj’s
trunk aboard the White Star liner Olympic?
And did he dispose of her through the
porthole?
HUSBAND “DISPOSE
“DISPOS
PARTS THROUG
CASE RECALLED BY
CAMERON
CHAMBERS
I
N THE LOBBY under the crystal
chandeliers of Grosvenor House,
Mayfair, London, stood a handsome
gentleman of perhaps 40, ostensibly
studying the murals on the wall at his
right. But it wasn’t the painting that
was engaging his attention. From the
corner of his eye he was watching
a woman. Brisk, smartly dressed,
obviously American, she looked like
money in the bank to Captain Ivan
Poderzaj (sometimes Anglicised to
Poderjay).
This woman had come from the
tea room off the lobby. As she passed,
Poderzaj stooped, pretended to retrieve
something from the floor, and hurried
after her.
“Madame! Madame!” he said softly
but insistently.
42 Murder Most Foul Husband “Disposed Of Wife’s Body Parts Through Porthole”
She stopped and turned.
Fedora hat in one hand, Poderzaj
extended the other hand towards her,
in it was a hundred-dollar bill.
“Madame, I trust you will pardon the
intrusion, but I think you must have
dropped this from your purse.” He
smiled.
His charm, his old world
graciousness, plus his vital masculinity
did things to unmarried, 43-year-old
Agnes Tufverson.
Blushing, she looked hastily into her
purse, then glanced up at Poderzaj. The
bill was still extended towards her. “Oh,
no, it couldn’t possibly be mine,” she
said. “I changed all of my American
money into foreign currency.”
“I felt sure you had dropped it,
madame. I have been here for some
Olympic arrives
arrives in
in New
New
York
York on
on its
its maiden
maiden
voyage
voyage inin 1911
1911
time, awaiting a business acquaintance.
If someone else...” he shrugged. “But I
saw no one.” His English was perfect,
though tinged with a slight accent.
If Agnes Tufverson had been as
unscrupulous as Poderzaj she would
have taken that money and avoided any
further contact with him. Had she done
so, she might have lived out her natural
life.
C aptain Ivan Poderzaj lived not just a
double life, but myriad lives under
myriad aliases throughout the capitals
of Europe and on the high seas and in
America.
His career, studded with romantic
liaisons and unbounded chicanery,
properly began when he was cashiered
out of the Yugoslav Army in the

ED OF WIFE’S BODY
GH PORTHOLE”
early 1920s for swindling suppliers
out of money due them. He was
then Lieutenant Poderzaj of the
Quartermaster Corps. On numerous
occasions later, he referred to himself
as Captain, or even as Major Poderzaj.
Not only was Poderzaj a handsome,
engaging and sometimes amusing
rogue, but he was as quick with a
quip as with a compliment, and
equally nimble with his fingers. All
these qualifications stood him in good
stead during several lush seasons as
a trans-Atlantic cardsharp, working
the lines out of Liverpool. But when
complaints brought the police looking
for him, he put his playing cards aside
and slipped away to London, where he
attempted an ambitious stock swindle.
Unfortunately, Poderzaj’s would-be
victims were neither as gullible nor as
complacent as he imagined they would
be. He had barely got his pitch working
smoothly when Scotland Yard moved in
and carted him off to jail.
Upon his release, Poderzaj decided
that he had had enough of London for
a while and moved on to Paris.
Here the exuberance of the French
restored his spirits and his confidence.
His first transaction was the sale
of two priceless oriental rugs to a
visiting Spaniard. The difficulty was
that though he had accepted a down
payment, he couldn’t deliver the rugs
because they were on the floor of the
Palais de Justice. He barely got out of
Paris in time.
His next stop was Vienna, and
there his luck changed for the better.
Above, Agnes Tufverson – wife and
presumed victim of the charismatic
Ivan Poderzaj (left). Dapper as ever
after his years in prison, Poderzaj
waves to the cameraman even
though handcuffed
Working out of any of the best hotels,
all Poderzaj needed was to see a lone
woman listening dreamily to a Strauss
waltz and he was in business. From
then on, women became his principal
source of income.
Nor was he any respecter of age
where money was concerned. Witness
this scene at The Sacher Hotel:
A regal-looking woman in her 50s,
Poderzaj bowing before her. Dialogue:
“Madame, may I inquire about the
health of your distinguished husband? I
was privileged to serve with him at the
Versailles Peace Conference.”
“Indeed?” She was used to meeting
important people whose faces she
didn’t remember. “He has not been too
well of late, monsieur. May I ask your
name?”
“I am Lieutenant Victor Lohrmath.
Of course, at the time of the Peace
Conference I was serving in a minor
capacity. But I remember your husband
well. It is too bad that the world has so
few men of his calibre. Worse still that
it failed to listen to his ideas.”
The woman nodded. It was true
that her 71-year-old husband, now
ailing in Paris, had attended the Peace
Conference. But what concepts of his
43
the world had failed to heed she hadn’t tell his bride that their trip had been But Poderzaj protested how reluctant
the faintest notion. Yet she was too financed by another of his lady friends, he was to tie himself to that “puerile,
flattered to ask questions. an old battle-axe named Gerta Busch babbling moonself,” and insisted that
She agreed to have dinner with him who had joined in with several of he would never have taken such a step
the following evening. Later, they Poderzaj’s swindles. if it didn’t happen to be the only way to
waltzed to Strauss – and she went to This lady had at first been her father’s money. When he promised
the bank the next day. Another dinner... understandably reluctant to finance her to marry Gerta as soon as he had
another waltz...and another draft on a old lover’s marriage to another woman. collected and was free again, she came
Paris bank. Before the diplomat could across with the cash – $5,000 – to
send an emissary to rescue his wife finance his honeymoon.
she had given the spurious Lieutenant In Belgrade, at the home of his new
Lohrmath more than $30,000. And father-in-law, Poderzaj
it had been done in such a way that, The romantic and criminal went out of his way
for social reasons, he was safe from life of Captain Ivan Poderzaj to create an illusion
prosecution. had seen him cashiered of wealth. His large
from the Yugoslav Army for wardrobe, his easy,
swindling, a spell as a trans-
M onths later at the Ambassador
Hotel the swindling cavalier’s
roving eye settled upon Sophia
Atlantic cardsharp and a
stock swindle that brought
cultivated manner,
and the frequent
flaunting
Stegholtz, a good-looking, full-bosomed him to the attention of of stock
strawberry blonde who dressed and Scotland Yard... certificates
acted like ready money. Sophia was the along with
26-year-old daughter of a prosperous letters from America
Belgrade lumber merchant. At 17 she advising him to hold
had run off with a neighbour’s son and out and reap a fortune,
they had married in Vienna. impressed the old
Papa Stegholtz had acted quickly to man.
have the marriage annulled, and Sophia
just as quickly became a problem.
Having tasted Vienna’s famed night
life she was no longer content to live
in Belgrade. So, with papa furnishing
the money, she wandered around
Vienna looking for romance. It was not
at all surprising when “Major Johann
Stralier,” alias Captain Ivan Poderzaj,
arrived with that commodity.
The first, elaborately accidental,
meeting went like this:
“I enjoyed your artistry last night.”
“Pardon?”
“You are appearing at the opera
house?”
A pleased laugh. “You have mistaken
me for someone else, monsieur.”
“Well, if mademoiselle wishes to
deny her identity, I can understand. I
suppose your admirers make life quite
hectic.” The charmer swept his hat
low as he bowed and departed. The
impressionable Sophia actually believed
that Poderzaj had mistaken her for a
famous opera star then in Vienna.
The second meeting came two days
later.
“I satisfied myself last night by going
again to the opera. I did you a grave
injustice. That lady does not begin to
approach mademoiselle in beauty or in
carriage. Please forgive me.”
After that line, Sophia would forgive
anything. She had dinner with the
cavalier. He was going to America,
had large oil interests there in “some
place that they call Oklahoma.” For
three hours Sophia sat listening to
this man of the world. In the morning
she received a gift of flowers, and the
accompanying card read: “Beautiful
roses to the most beautiful lady I ever
met.”
Within six weeks they were married.
After a tour of Paris and Madrid they
returned to Belgrade where the major
hoped to get to his father-in-law for
some cash. He hadn’t bothered to

44
 He listened respectfully as his
son-in-law talked about his business
interests in addition to the securities,
including oil-laden properties in
Oklahoma. The plan was to borrow on
the stocks from one of the big Chicago
banks in order to add to the oil
holdings. Thus both would appreciate
simultaneously, and within a year or
two the major and his wife would be
independently wealthy. There was
only one hitch: he was short of cash
for the trip and for the initial financial
manoeuvres.
Sophia’s wheedling completed the
conquest, and papa agreed to come
across with $75,000. The bride was
excited about their forthcoming trip
to the United States, but at this point
the major tried gently to talk her out
of going along, promising that in only
a few weeks he’d be back. She cried,
and then old Stegholtz asserted himself;
either Sophia accompanied him or
financial help would be withheld.
So they went to America together,
but Sophia didn’t see as much of
her husband as she had a right to
expect. He was always rushing off to
interminable “business conferences”
which were, in reality, dates with any
good-looking woman he could pick up.
In Chicago he asked Sophia to cable
her father for more money. His theory
was to keep going back to the well until
it was dry. At first she demurred, then
complied, but heard nothing for three
days. Prodded, she sent another cable,
and this time got one in return:
THE MAJOR IS A COMPLETE
FRAUD. SAY NOTHING UNTIL
YOU RECEIVE LETTER NOW ON
WAY.
PAPA
Unfortunately the major was with
Sophia when the cablegram arrived. He
took it from her hand. A frown settled
across his face. “What does this mean?”
“It means, I suppose, that Father
thinks you’re a stinker,” replied Sophia
frankly. She had since noticed her
husband’s roving eye.
W hen Papa Stegholtz’s letter
arrived several days later there
could be no doubt that he was rapidly
closing in on the facts about Ivan
Poderzaj, alias Major Johann Stralier,
and though the investigation was not
yet complete, all the reports were bad.
The major was deeply hurt. He
refused to pursue his fortunes further.
His business in Oklahoma could go to
pot. “It is a matter of honour, my dear
Sophia. We must drop everything and
return to face your father.”
They did, and an outraged major
confronted a disillusioned Papa
Stegholtz. Poderzaj pulled out all the
stops. He denied. He protested. He
explained. He enlarged. He recreated
a fairyland of flowing black gold out
there in Oklahoma, to which he must
speedily return and for which he
required additional funds. But Papa
Stegholtz gave only a phlegmatic
“Nein.” Even Sophia’s intervention left
him unmoved. Sophia still went for her
great big hunk of man. She still had
hopes for their marriage.
They returned to Vienna to mark
time. Meanwhile, papa’s investigators
uncovered Gerta Busch and sent her
-
on to Belgrade, where she told all about
the $5,000 advance she had been trying
to collect from Poderzaj, and all about
his past.
Papa got his lawyer and they went to
Vienna, and soon Sophia had another
divorce. But the $75,000 had to be
written off, and so had $18,000-worth
of Sophia’s jewellery.
Poderzaj took off for France, and in a
month-long spending spree burned up
his bankroll at the Auteuil Race Track
and the Paris night spots. He was close
to being broke again and looking for
fresh prey when, in front of a theatre,
he spotted 25-year-old Marguerite
Suzanne Bertrand, a breathtaking
brunette who radiated sex appeal.
He went into his usual routine.
“Madame, I believe we met in London.
Was it at the King’s Charity Bazaar?”
Right here, Poderzaj got the surprise
Above, Marguerite Suzanne
Bertrand. Another wife to add to
Poderzaj’s collection – but this one
was a conspirator, not a victim
of his life. “Save it, Mister. I’ve been
around. What did you have in mind?”
she said.
Though she was looking at him with
the most radiantly innocent eyes in the
world, she was seeing right through
him.
Poderzaj tried again. “What did I
have in mind? Well, perhaps dinner by
candlelight?”
“That’s more to the point,” she
smiled. “But what’s with this Charity
Bazaar routine? What exactly are you
peddling?”
That set him back on his heels. His
glibness drained away in exact ratio to
his increasing admiration.
“All right, my sweet. I’m on the town
and close to being broke.”
“I knew it. And now I’ll tell you. I’m
broke, too.”
They looked at each other with
mutual understanding and broke into
laughter.
Poderzaj had met his match and his
mate. Within a month he had married
this girl who had everything but money.
Her first words to him as his wife
were: “Get a bankroll, honey. I don’t
care how you get it. You and I were
meant to live it up.”
T hey had been in London only a
short time when Poderzaj spotted
Agnes Tufverson at the Grosvenor. It
was June, 1933, and she was on her
first European holiday. She had been
ashore only a few days. The captain
didn’t rush things. When she denied
ownership of the money he’d “found,”
he said he would turn it in to the
management, bowed and departed.
Of course, he didn’t turn anything
in to the management, but he did
make inquiries. He learned that Agnes
Tufverson was a corporation lawyer
for the Electric Bond and Share
Company in New York City, unmarried,
highly successful in business and in
her investments, a regular attendant
at church and circumspect in all her
dealings.
The following day Miss Tufverson
was walking through the Grosvenor
lobby when she saw the captain coming
directly towards her. Her eyes lit up.
“Beautiful day, madame,” he greeted.
“Yes, it is. Do you know, I’ve been
wondering if they located the owner
of that money you found. Have you
heard?”
“Bless your heart, I never gave it
a second thought. In this glorious
weather it’s just wonderful to be alive.
Would you do me the honour of having
tea with me?”
She did, and loved it, and they talked.
“Have you been to America,
Captain?”
“Many times. You see, I had to patent
some inventions and my solicitors
thought I should be on the ground.
Wonderful place, your country. If only
they would take the time to do other
things than make money!”
She laughed. “You don’t regard
making money as one of the finer
accomplishments?”
“Perhaps that was unkind of me.
When one has enough of the world’s
goods, I suppose it is easy to be critical
of others less fortunate. However, let us
not talk business. It is boring on such a
lovely day. I only wish that our meeting
had taken place in Vienna. That is the
place to be at this time of year. Are you
coming to Vienna?”
“I hadn’t planned to, but you make it
sound irresistible.”
So it was arranged that Miss
Tufverson would spend at least a
few June days in Vienna. “Stop at the
Imperial. It is in the strasse with the
opera house,” the captain advised. “I
shall call on you there.”
The day before she left for Vienna
45
 235 East 22nd Street (above) where
Agnes lived with Poderzaj still
retains its art deco charms almost a
A gnes Tufverson arrived at her
apartment one evening to find a
note and a box of roses which had been
century later (left) taken in by the doorman.
“I am up the street in the hotel at
Gramercy Park. Please telephone me.
Ivan.”
go, or for not going along. She had been suffering from an
Miss Tufverson returned to her allergy caused by an eyebrow dye
East 22nd Street apartment, and for and did not wish to meet Poderzaj
the next four months received almost until the condition had cleared up.
daily letters from Poderzaj. Each letter So she did not telephone, and for
explained how business was detaining three days flowers and notes arrived
him, but it was evident that his ardour each morning. Resisting Poderzaj was
still burned brightly. useless.
Actually, Poderzaj couldn’t start for The meeting took place on
Miss Tufverson received the customary America until he had sold some of the
box of flowers. And the card, as always, “Czar’s jewels” to an unsuspecting client
read: and acquired enough money to buy
“Beautiful roses to the most beautiful some new clothes and book passage.
woman I ever met.
Captain Ivan Poderzaj.”
Another box of roses was awaiting
Agnes Tufverson upon her arrival at
the Imperial in Vienna. She buried
her face in them and sighed, and her
middle-aged eyes were as bright as a
schoolgirl’s.
He telephoned her on the second day,
and then began a week of teas, dinners,
theatres and walks in the gardens.
When the time came for Agnes to leave,
she was floating on a romantic cloud
and everything around her seemed as
unreal as fairyland itself.
“Agnes, why can’t you stay a few
more days?”
“Ivan, I’ve told you. I have a job. I
must return to it.”
“A pity. If it were not that I must
close a deal in London next month, I’d
pack and sail on the same ship.”
He must have her New York address.
He got it. On the ship going home, Mrs. Ulferd Urban (above) and
Agnes received daily radiograms from Selma “Sally” Tufverson remained
the distraught man. In most of them he determined to find their older
reproached himself for allowing her to sister Agnes

46
November 8th, and then everything
moved swiftly. On December 4th they
were married at the Little Church
Around the Corner. Poderzaj moved
into her apartment and they began
planning a trip to Europe.
She telephoned her sister in
Montreal.
“Sally, hold your breath! I’ve just
been married! I’m going to put my
husband on to talk to you.”
“Are you joking?” Sally replied.
“Of course I’m not joking.”
“Well, why didn’t you invite me
down?”
“We made up our minds only a few
hours ago. Wait a minute. I’ll put him
on.”
Poderzaj took over the instrument,
and in that smooth, fascinating voice,
flavoured with an accent, he spoke to
Sally Tufverson.
“You won’t be seeing Tuffie for a
spell. We’re going to do the continent
and then settle on my estate in
England.” Poderzaj chatted for some
time before handing the telephone back
to Agnes. That was the last time Sally
ever spoke to her sister.
Agnes Tufverson resigned from the
Electric Bond and Share Company’s
legal staff and began a round of
shopping. From various banks she
withdrew more than $40,000 which
she converted into bank drafts and
forwarded to “Captain Ivan Poderzaj”
at a London address. She cashed
approximately $38,000-worth of
securities, which also went to Poderzaj
in London. Meanwhile, the groom
danced attendance on his bride.
He left her on the morning of
December 20th to buy a trunk in a
luggage shop at Third Avenue and
29th Street. From this point on there
were many evasive and mysterious
movements. First, Poderzaj went along
with the delivery truck and had the
trunk stored in the apartment-house
cellar. As they were supposed to sail at
midnight on the Hamburg-American
liner Hamburg, putting that trunk in
the basement instead of the apartment
indicated that Poderzaj had some other
use for it.
Meanwhile, unknown to Ivan, Agnes
had taken some gifts and other small
items to the pier, intending to leave
them in the stateroom. You can imagine
her amazement when she was told there
were no reservations under the name of
Poderzaj.
Poderzaj kept Miss
Miller busy throwing
wrapped packages
in the incinerator.
“My wife has gone to
Philadelphia for a day
or two, but she’ll be
back in plenty of time.
We’ll let you know by
letter when to expect us
back,” Poderzaj told the
maid as he paid her off
at 6 p.m.
At 6.30, Weissberger’s
truck arrived to pick up
the baggage which was
to be delivered aboard
the White Star liner
Olympic, scheduled to
sail at midnight.
The men on that
truck were surprised at
Poderzaj’s supervision
of every move they
made. He accompanied
them on the lift,
directed where each
piece of baggage was
to be placed, then
insisted on riding with
them to the pier. There
everything went to
A detective in the general storeroom,
Poderzaj’s cabin except the large trunk
on aboard Olympic he had purchased on
demonstrates how a Third Avenue. This was
body might plausibly carried into a stateroom
be disposed of at sea reserved for one, just
above the water line.
And Poderzaj didn’t
leave the stateroom
until the boat docked at
“There must be some mistake. Will Southampton, England.
you check carefully?”
The purser was called. He went
over the list, then called the office for
confirmation.
Early in January, 1934, Sally
Tufverson received a cablegram
“No, madame, there is no mistake on
our part. There is no such reservation.”
Agnes returned to their apartment,
where Poderzaj was busy wrapping
small wedding gifts which were to
be stored by the Weissberger Moving
and Storage Company. A maid, Flora
Miller, was present when the bride
came in, very much upset.
“Ivan, what boat did you say we were
taking?” Captured by Interpol,
“The Hamburg –” Poderzaj was shipped
“But I was there and they have no back to New York to
reservation,” she interrupted. face questioning
Poderzaj studied his bride intently.
“I was about to say that there was a signed “Agnes”:
change this morning. Business. I didn’t “CANNOT STAND CLIMATE,
know where to reach you. We’ll discuss WE ARE NOW ON OUR WAY TO
it later,” he added, nodding towards the INDIA. WILL WRITE LATER.”
maid. Nothing further was heard
It was nearly 10 o’clock that night throughout February, March or April.
when Flora Miller had finished, and In May, Sally Tufverson took a leave of
Agnes said to her, “You might as well absence from her job and went to New
come in tomorrow.” York City. Unable to penetrate the wall
“That won’t be necessary, Flora,” of silence, she reported her sister as a
Poderzaj interrupted, “Take the day off. missing person.
We’ll see you the day after tomorrow.” Detectives went to work on what was
When Flora Miller arrived two days a very cold trail. However, concerning
later, Agnes was nowhere in sight. his movements prior to departure, they
47

learned that on December 3rd Poderzaj
had purchased 10 dollars’ worth of
razor blades, almost six pounds of cold
cream and a supply of sleeping pills.
One macabre theory was that Agnes
had been drugged with the sleeping
pills, strangled, then dismembered, and
that the packages Flora Miller had been
feeding into the incincerator were parts
of her body. The cold cream could have
been used to coat the wrapping paper
to prevent blood from seeping through.
However, this remained only a
theory, for nothing was uncovered in
the apartment to bear it out.
The New York police asked the
Viennese police to locate and
interrogate Poderzaj. They complied
and found him living in a deluxe
apartment with his wife Marguerite.
He gave his business as “investment
counsellor.”
“Do you know Agnes Tufverson?”
“Oh, yes, a lovely person. I was able
to be of service to her, guiding an
investment in London a year ago.”
“Did you marry her in New York?”
“Now, don’t be absurd. I have been
married to Marguerite for several
years – and was at the time I met Miss
48
The trunk found in Poderzaj’s
Vienna apartment, believed
to belong to Agnes Tufverson
Poderzaj
Tufverson.”
A dossier of some of the
Poderzaj swindles, including that of
Papa Stegholtz, was sent to New York
police headquarters. Assistant District
Released – and deported – Poderzaj
retained his good spirits
Attorney Vincent Impelliteri – later
mayor of New York – was intrigued.
Accompanied by a detective, he went
to Vienna armed with a copy of the
Poderzaj marriage licence.
Impelliteri was a
competent investigator.
He found in Poderzaj’s
possession some of Agnes
Tufverson’s jewellery and
furs. There were three
rings, a bracelet, a watch
and two strings of pearls,
valued at $3,500. But as
Agnes was not around to
charge that they had been
stolen, no extraditable
offence could be proven
here.
Impelliteri wanted
Poderzaj back in New York.
On the New York marriage
licence application, Ivan
had answered “single”
to one of the questions.
Impelliteri discussed with
Austrian authorities the
possibility of extraditing
him on a perjury charge.
The reply was that in
Austria perjury was not an
extraditable offence.
But Impelliteri wouldn’t
give up. He finally traced
the original marriage
licence and clergyman’s
certificate legalising
Poderzaj’s marriage to
Marguerite. He cabled New
York and Poderzaj was
indicted there for bigamy.
The Austrian government
allowed his extradition on
this charge.
C hief of Detectives John
Sullivan went to work on
Poderzaj. No bluster, no shouting, but
a steady stream of questions. Was the
body dismembered at the apartment?
Was it in the trunk in his cabin? Was it
disposed of through the porthole? If, as
he claimed, she hadn’t been murdered,
where was she? To all queries the still
jaunty conman gave the same answer:
they had quarrelled. She had walked
out. When she did not return, he had
sailed for Europe without her. The
clothes? The jewellery? She had given
them to him for his “poor relations.”
Bigamy? She knew he was already
married when she married him.
What can you do in a case like that?
All you can do is try the man for
bigamy. So they did, and in March
1935 he was found guilty and given
two and a half to five years in prison.
While doing his time at Auburn,
Poderzaj was caught dealing from the
bottom of the deck in a convict card
game in July 1938, and in the ensuing
fracas lost eight teeth and the sight of
his left eye.
After he was released in January
1940, he returned to live – with
Marguerite – in Belgrade.
 UNSOLVED:
WAS SEX THE SPUR
TO MURDER?
A romantic night out for a young Jewish couple ended with one of
them being fatally injured by a mystery attacker. Was it the work
of an anti-Semite or a dangerous sexual psychopath?

I
T WAS a soft summer night in
August 1949, in the Cannon Hill Park
area of Birmingham. Israel “Cyril”
Ellis and his girlfriend Bessie Marks
spread a jacket on the grass, turned their
portable radio low, and lay down in a
hollow under the trees.
Twenty-four-year-old Israel, who was
Jewish, was a mature theological student
at the Hebrew College in Leeds and was
back in Birmingham for the summer

Case recalled by
Matthew Spicer
break. Bessie, 19, was also Jewish and
worked as a typist. They had been seeing
each other several times a week for the
past couple of months.
Israel left his family home in nearby
Pershore Road between 7.30 and eight
o’clock that Friday evening, telling his
father he would not be late. Bessie was
waiting for him outside. She was the kind
of girl who turned heads and although
he knew she had other boyfriends, he felt
light-headed with excitement whenever
he saw her.
Dusk was falling as they ambled
through the park, calling at a café for ice
cream and sitting on a bench to eat it.
The entrance to the park was near
the city’s natural history museum and
the site that, years later, would become
known as the BBC’s Pebble Mill
studios. But beyond its main pathways
and borders, this suburban landscape
stretched into rougher, uncultivated
ground edged by an estate of pre-fabs
erected during the war to house people
after air raids had destroyed their homes.
The area attracted courting couples
and prostitutes, but the police did not
consider it a trouble spot.
After finishing their ice cream, Israel
and Bessie took the path towards the
Selly Park Hotel where they had a drink.
The bars were busy with the usual Friday
night crowd, but they saw no one they
knew and left around 9.30.
Their walk home led back through the
park, but they decided to veer off the
path towards the pre-fabs. A light was
shining through one of the windows and
Left to right, Bessie Marks and Israel Ellis. She lived to tell about the brutal
assault that ended his life. Background, Cannon Hill Park today
they peered inside, giggling like children,
before galloping off into the woodland,
still laughing.
In the darkness, they almost tripped
over tree roots guarding a little dip
in the ground. Israel flung down his
jacket and switched on the radio. Dance
music drifted very quietly around them
and Bessie’s Evening in Paris perfume
seemed to fill the air as they swayed and
shuffled on the fallen leaves.
Israel took her hand and pulled her
down onto the jacket. She lay back and
he kissed her deeply, sliding his palm
Suddenly, the blows
came out of the
darkness. As the first
ones hit Israel on the
back of his head, he
rolled off Bessie and the
next ones struck him
on the temple and face
as he lay bloodied and
gasping
over the smoothness of her nylons to
the flesh of her upper thigh. She was the
sexiest girl he had ever known and a far
cry from the hours he spent studying
ancient texts in the university library.
Somewhere in the moonless night a
clock struck 10. There was a rustle in the
grass and a man’s voice in the distance.
Bessie pulled away for a moment to
listen.
“D’you think there’s someone there?”
she whispered.
“I can’t hear anything,” said Israel,
covering her mouth with his hand and
pinning her body still with his own.
Suddenly, the blows came out of the
darkness. As the first ones hit Israel on
the back of his head, he rolled off Bessie
and the next ones struck him on the
temple and face as he lay bloodied and
gasping.
Bessie’s head and hands were cut and
bruised as she tried to defend herself,
but the assailant kicked and pushed her
out of the way as if Israel was his main
target.
The attack was over in seconds. They
had been completely vulnerable and
unable to fight back.

Was Sex The Spur To Murder? Murder Most Foul 49

 Bessie looked down at Israel. When he
did not reply, she panicked and ran out
of the copse towards the nearest light she
could see. This came from the window of
the pre-fab they had peered through.
Margaret Bartlett was preparing for
bed when Bessie hammered on the door
for help. She was shocked and incoherent
and Mrs. Bartlett made her sit down
while she heated some water to wash the
wounds on her face.
“My Walter’s late home,” she said,
trying to calm the distraught girl with
some ordinary conversation. “He’s
usually in by now.”
Moments later, the door burst open
and Israel staggered in. He was holding
his head and groaning.
He was closely followed by Walter
Bartlett who had been playing billiards
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50
at the Selly Park Hotel and had not A modern view
expected to come home to what looked of what was
like a domestic massacre. known as the
Leaving his wife to care for Israel, who Selly Park Hotel
was clearly deteriorating, he and Bessie in 1949
went to the phone box down the street to
call 999. On their way, Bessie turned to
him tearfully.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she accused.
“That’s why you were late home.”
“Don’t be such a silly little girl,” said
Bartlett. “Of course it wasn’t.”
At 11.30 p.m. Israel’s father, Barney
Ellis, was called to Selly Oak Hospital.
When he arrived, Bessie was lying on a
stretcher.
“What’s happened?” he asked her.
“He’s all right. He’ll be all right,” was
all she would say.
Eight hours later, a weeping Barney
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HE KILLED Ellis kissed his beloved son goodbye
for the last time. He had died from a
cerebral haemorrhage resulting from at
THE WRONG least three blows struck with considerable
force.
WOMAN T he murder inquiry, led by the
Helen was head of the city’s CID, Detective
Superintendent John Davies, began
intended victim
immediately with a visit to the crime
scene where it seemed as if the weapon
CULT KILLER
used in the assault had been left behind.
It was a Scots Pine fence post, five feet
long, three inches across and two inches
ExEcutEd FaMily
deep. It did not match any of the other
fencing used in the park and a sweep
oF FivE, onE By onE
of the surrounding area failed to locate
where it might have come from.
Dozens of detectives, uniformed
officers and police dogs searched the
park for further clues or evidence.
THE AXEMAN OF Bessie’s handbag was found propped
NEW ORLEANS
A Classic
Case That
Continues
To Baffle
Why
Cynthia
Shot The
Witness

Hinting at Bessie’s
promiscuity, the coroner
implied that they were
in the woods just for
sex and had the tragic
misfortune to be fatally
targeted by a peeping
Tom turned killer
against the tree where she had left it, and
the radio and jacket were also recovered.
But the girl herself was extremely vague
about what had happened and could
offer no description of the attacker
except to say that he seemed to be trying
to avoid hitting her.
Throughout the investigation, police
had difficulty finding witnesses and
A few of south Birmingham’s
post-war pre-fabs. Israel and
Bessie had peered into one
of these not long before the
fatal attack
all three inquests were hobbled by a
sexual embarrassment and coyness that
probably did not help the
proceedings.
Although there were clearly
other couples in the park at
the time, no one came forward
even when police publicly
announced guarantees of
confidentiality. They also
promised that prostitutes
would not be prosecuted.
There were two more
separate attacks in the park
that weekend in which
a young man and a bus
conductress were injured – but
not seriously.
The first inquest opened
five days after the murder
on Wednesday, August 17th,
but was adjourned after brief
questioning until August 25th
to allow the police time to
gather more evidence.
Barney Ellis, who covered
his head in Jewish fashion
while taking the oath,
sobbed as he told the city
coroner that his son was not
particularly robust and had
been at home about three
weeks before he died.
“When you talked to Bessie
Marks at the hospital, did she
tell you anything about the
attack?” asked the coroner.
“Nothing at all,” replied
Mr. Ellis.
“Did the girl say whether
they were walking or sitting
at the time?”
“They were not walking,”
said Mr. Ellis.
“Is the crime scene a
place frequented by young
men and women who want
some time to themselves?”
the coroner asked
Superintendent Davies.
“It is, sir,” he replied. “It
was while on the ground that the assault
took place.”
As part of their investigation, pictures
of the fence post were screened at
cinemas throughout Birmingham and
the surrounding area to see if anyone
recognised it. The police said that it bore
suspicious stains and
could also have come
from a chicken hutch or
shed.
When the
inquest resumed,
Superintendent Davies
was the only witness
because there had been
no progress in the
police inquiry. He said
that the killer probably
lived locally and was
almost certainly a voyeur
fixated on sexual activity.
This time, he was more
open about lack of help
from the public.
“We rely entirely on
the public, and unless
we have their full
co-operation we shall not
find the culprit,” he said.
“We just want a start.
Perhaps the smallest clue
may be the key to the
whole thing.”
By now, there were
doubts about the fence
post being the murder
weapon. Professor J. M.
Webster, who conducted
the post-mortem, felt it
was more likely that the
attacker had wielded a
cosh or walking stick.
Blood found on the fence
batten was old and it
should have had traces of
hair or flesh attached if
it had been used to beat
Israel and Bessie. But it
did not.
Concealing and
carrying a five-foot fence
post would also have
been farcical for someone
intent on slipping
inconspicuously through the park and its
environs at night.
As the weeks went by with no arrests,
the coroner decided to hold a full inquest
with a jury. Bessie Marks was clearly the
star witness – particularly as she had not
appeared in either of the two preceding
ones.
Wearing a short sky-blue coat, she
told the court that she had lived in
Birmingham since last October and been
introduced to Israel Ellis in May. Since
then, she said, they had met about three
times a week. How this tied in with his
studies in Leeds was never explained.
She went on to say that they got on
well and though they had tiffs, none of
them was serious.
“Did you think his attentions were
proper?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Were you satisfied he was behaving as
a gentleman?”
“Sometimes.”
There were gasps from the jury when
the coroner, with deliberate ambiguity,
asked: “I suppose he was not the only
boy you had?”
“No, not really. I have known other
51
various boyfriends.”
“Did you walk out with them and
dance with them and go to the cinema
with them?”
“Yes.”
“You treated them similarly to Israel
Ellis?”
“Yes.”
“Would he and these other boys know
one another?”
“Yes. They were more or less in the
same group.”
In the course of questioning, Bessie
revealed that she had intended to break
off her relationship with Israel that
evening.
“Why?”
“No particular reason.”
“What did he say when you sprung
this on him?”
“If you feel like that, it’s all right with
me.”
She added that it had been Israel’s idea
to go back to the park after they left the
hotel.
“If there’d been anyone following us,
I would have seen them or heard their
footsteps. When we were lying in the
hollow, we could not be seen from the
pre-fabs or by anyone else unless they
were standing really close by.”
“Did you hear anything suspicious
before the attack?” asked the coroner.
“I thought I heard a rustle in the grass
at the head of the hollow and then a
voice further over to the right.”
“So the rustle and the voice were not
together?”
“No.”
“So there must have been two
people?”
“Yes.”
In answer to a question from the jury,
Bessie said her other boyfriends did not
know about her date with Israel. The
coroner then added that the police had
interviewed and cleared all of them of
any connection with the crime.
The police had also rigorously
interviewed Walter Bartlett and
discovered that he had been
playing snooker with three
friends at the Selly Park Hotel
until about 9.30 on the evening
of the murder. He then played
scrub with two other regulars
until 10 o’clock when he went
into the hotel lobby for a few
minutes to buy cigarettes. He
returned and continued the
game for another 10 or 15
minutes and then went home,
arriving at about 10.15 p.m.
His wife and Bessie Marks both
confirmed these timings.
The foreman of the jury asked
52
Above, Pershore Road as it was in the early 1950s, looking towards Selly Park.
This was where Israel Ellis’s family lived. Below, Cannon Hill Park
him: “You had not seen Bessie Marks
before you saw her in your house that
night?”
“No, sir.”
Another witness told the court that he
had seen a shortish man running near
the hollow at about 10.10 p.m. He was
panting hard as if he had been running
for some time.
In his summing-up, the coroner said
that in his 20 years’ experience he had
“If there’d been anyone
following us, I’d have
seen them or heard
their footsteps.When
we were lying in the
hollow, we couldn’t be
seen from the pre-fabs”
never known such a baffling case.
“Perhaps a local person, enraged
morally about the behaviour of couples
near the pre-fabs, took it upon himself to
punish them,” he said. “He may not have
intended to kill. Equally, it could have
been the work of some insane person
who had gone berserk.
“But the police have worked hard
and long,” he said. “Indeed, I know of
no other case in which they have been
so concerned and have spent so many
hours, night after night, following up
clues of one sort or another. Although
they have ended in a cul-de-sac,
something may still transpire.”
After a day-long hearing, the jury
declared the case unsolved, adding their
praise for police efforts, and reiterating
Walter Bartlett’s innocence. The verdict
returned was “murder by some person or
persons unknown.”
The case was remarkable for its
extraordinary lack of witnesses and for
the shifting statements Bessie Marks gave
to the police. One engaged couple did
come forward later to say that a slim man
walking conspicuously fast had overtaken
them near the hotel. He was about five
feet eleven and wearing a dark suit. But
he was never traced.
Bessie had first told the police that the
attacker had run back to the pre-fabs,
then said she had not seen where he
went. To further complicate matters, she
apparently exclaimed when she saw the
fence post at the crime scene: “That’s the
piece of wood he hit us with.”
Nearby was a splinter of broken wood
which exactly fitted the fence post –
which, amazingly, was bloodstained – but
the pathologist remained adamant
that the wood was too rotten to have
withstood the impact of the blows and
that the blood was too old to be Ellis’s.
Modern forensics, of course, would
be able to identify the wood embedded
in Israel Ellis’s skull – which might have
given the police the lead they needed.
There were also unanswered questions
about the relationship between Israel
and Bessie. Hinting at her promiscuity,
the coroner implied that they were in
the woods just for sex and had the tragic
misfortune to be fatally targeted by a
peeping Tom turned killer.
But whether Cannon Hill Park’s
murderer was a sexual psychopath,
a homicidal anti-Semite, a posse of
morally indignant local vigilantes or
someone known to the couple seems
unlikely ever to be resolved.
 Killer Grandma
Stole Victim’s
Identity Report by Donald Carne

Shooting her husband

was the spark for what
followed: a murderous
road trip from Minnesota
to Texas. But for gambler
and fugitive Lois Riess,
aka “Losing Streak Lois,”
it proved to be the final
throw of the dice

“S
SOMETHING IN her
brain snapped,” Lois’s son
would later say, trying to
defend her. “She was a good lady.” But
defending Lois Ann
Riess, 56, after what
she’d done was an
uphill task.
Grandmother
Lois had picked up
a .22-calibre gun,
levelled it at her Above, Lois Riess’s mug-shot. Left, her slain husband
husband’s chest and David whom she shot twice in the chest
pulled the trigger –
twice. It was March
23rd, 2018. “Gone fishing” bother him in the house,” said the
So just what and “Not too search warrant application.
made her snap – well,” Lois replied. Nobody answered when they arrived
three months of But friends grew at the farm so they let themselves in.
snow, slush and concerned when “Mr. Riess? Sheriff’s Office! Mrs. Riess
ice through a the texts they – anyone there?” They drew their guns
Minnesota winter? received from and moved through the single-storey
A mid-life crisis, David’s phone had clapperboard home.
gambling debts and good punctuation They found David in the bathroom
a husband whose – that was never his with two holes in his chest. The cold
greatest joy in life strong point. weather had kept him fairly well
was river-fishing? After 16 days, preserved but the sweetly sick smell of
What is it that the Dodge County death hung like a complaint around
pushes a respectable Sheriff’s Office his corpse. Towels were stuffed around
woman with no criminal record over was asked to do a welfare check. the door to keep the smell at bay. It
the edge? “Employees expressed concerns that was unclear how long Lois remained
Whatever the reason for the shooting, Lois stated David was leaving for a by David’s side but it was clear from
Lois knew she couldn’t keep husband fishing trip, was sick, and they shouldn’t the absence of her clothes and personal
David’s death a secret – but she needed possessions that she had now taken off
to buy time. Popular locally, David, 54, – along with the family’s 2005 Cadillac
ran a worm farm in Blooming Prairie, Lois wasn’t very good at Escalade.
Minnesota, called Prairie Wax Worms. gambling – it was losses Lois mollified the grief of a
He provided bait for fishermen and
enjoyed the outdoor life in the land of a
that soured relations newly-bereaved widow by pursuing her
passion – gambling. Heading south, the
thousand lakes. The township lies south with David. To maintain Escalade magnetised to the sun, Lois
of Minneapolis off Interstate 35, west of her losing streak, she stopped off at Diamond Jo’s Casino in
Rochester. Northwood, Iowa, to play some tables.
Soon emails and texts arrived – stole $100,000 from her It was here that she may have first
“Where’s David?” “RU OK?” mentally disabled sister seen the “Killer Grandma” headlines

Killer Grandma Stole Victim’s Identity Murder Most Foul 53


that plagued her over the next three
weeks. To fund her short break in the
Hawkeye state, Lois cashed in $11,000
in forged cheques on David’s bank
account. David no longer needed it and
she wagered she would have inherited it
anyways.
Lois loved gambling – you could bet
your life on that. Only trouble was, Lois
wasn’t very good at gambling. Back
home in Blooming Prairie, she was
called Losing Streak Lois – it was her
pile of losses that had soured relations
with David. To maintain her losing
streak (or system, as Lois preferred to
think of it), she stole $100,000 off her
mentally disabled sister.
She knew she’d need more than
beginner’s luck to get away with murder
54
Above, a
handcuffed
Lois Riess in
court. Left,
victim Pamela
Hutchinson
but Lois wasn’t quite ready to throw
in her cards yet. She headed through
Illinois, Tennessee and Georgia towards
Fort Myers, Florida.
“Hi there!”
“Hello.”
Lois let down her silver-blonde hair
Above, left to right, the Diamond
Jo Casino, Iowa, the Smokin’
Oyster Brewery, Florida, and
South Padre Island, Texas
– it made her look 10 years younger.
She was ready to make friends. Pamela
Hutchinson, 59, a former car dealer,
looked so much like her – same hair,
same blue eyes – that they could have
been twins. It seemed natural that they
should talk and get along when they
Pamela Hutchinson’s Honda
Acura, which Lois Riess stole
after the murder and drove off
wearing its owner’s hat
came across one another.
“Come back to my place,” Pamela
said as they finished a tour of the
Smokin’ Oyster Brewery on April 5th,
2018. Security cameras picked them up
as they entered Pamela’s timeshare in
Snug Harbor, Marina Village. Forty-five
“Pamela befriended this
woman. The woman
probably gave her some
sob story. My cousin
went out helping the
world. She’s just giving
to a fault – to her death”
minutes later, Lois emerged alone,
carrying a bag.
Hot on Lois’s trail, sheriff’s deputies
entered Pamela’s timeshare a few days
later. In a familiar scene, they found
Pamela in the bathroom with two holes
in her chest and towels stuffed under
the door. Pamela’s luxury Honda Acura
was missing and $5,000 had evaporated
from her bank account.
“Ms. Hutchinson’s purse was found
to be in disarray and all cash, credit
cards and identification appeared to be
removed,” said an officer.
“Pamela befriended this woman,”
added her cousin, Daniele Jeffreys.
“The woman probably gave her some
sob story. My cousin went out helping
the world. She’s just giving to a fault –

Above, captured killer Lois Riess in police custody in Florida
to her death.”
Security footage showed Lois driving
away in Pamela’s Acura wearing
Pamela’s hat, adding identity theft to
her list of crimes.
“This is the first time in my career
I’ve seen someone steal someone’s
identity and target them for the way
they look in order to murder them,”
said Deputy Sheriff Carmine Marceno.
“I suspect Lois Riess at some point in
time will have no resources and she will
become more desperate and may kill
again.”
As the chase intensified, Lois, now
using Pamela’s ID, doubled down on
keeping ahead of the game but with
“Lois smiles and looks
like anyone’s mother
or grandmother, but
she’s calculating, she’s
targeting and she’s an
absolute cold-blood
killer”
her face splattered across all forms of
media, including new electric billboards,
it was a safe bet she would be found.
Passing through Louisiana, she won
a jackpot at a casino that kept her
stash well in the black but her luck was
running out. She crossed the border
into Texas, the fifth state involved in her
three-week chase, and set up residence
on South Padre Island, a beach resort
south of Corpus Christi.
Taking a risk by sitting at the corner
of a bar, Lois finally lost touch with
Lady Luck – a snake-eyed barman
recognised her as he served a cocktail.
“She was in Texas befriending
another unknown female in what
appeared to be the same pattern, which
would have determined that she would
have killed again,” said Deputy Sheriff
Marceno
In dramatic security footage, three
US Marshals, dressed in beach wear,
arrived to interrupt her chat, enclosing
her from three sides to corner her at the
bar. It’s unclear whether she finished
her drink.
In a Florida court, Lois pleaded guilty
to Pamela’s first-degree murder with a
firearm, grand theft of a motor vehicle,
grand theft and criminal use of personal
identification information of a deceased
individual, $5,000 or more. Her plea
took the death sentence off the table.
“Lois smiles and looks like anyone’s
mother or grandmother, but she’s
calculating, she’s targeting and she’s
an absolute cold-blood killer,” said
Carmine Marceno. “She befriends a
female at a bar with the sole purpose
of taking that person’s identity. That
female ends up becoming friends and
letting her guard down and thinking
Lois Riess was a very nice person.”
In December 2019, Lois was
sentenced by a Lee County Court
to life without parole. She waived
extradition and will face a second
sentence hearing in Dodge County for
David’s murder – the outcome of which
is for interest only, Minnesota abolished
the death penalty in 1911.
Not everyone was happy with
the outcome. “It probably wasn’t
what I wanted,” said Pamela’s
ex-husband, musing on the
death penalty. “Dang it, it was a
cold-blooded murder.” Even so,
Lois will never taste freedom again
– for Losing Streak Lois, it was
time to cash in her chips.
55
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 This
Report By
Francesca
Morrison

S
CHOOLTEACHER Paul Solomon
was watching TV with his wife
Betty Jeanne when the phone rang
in the kitchen. It was a Sunday afternoon
in 1989 in the smart New York suburb of
Greenburgh and they had no plans for
the rest of the day. Her arrest and indictment on first-degree mur
tabloid likened the case to the film Fatal Attra
The caller was 25-year-old Carolyn
Warmus, one of Paul’s colleagues who
who boiled bunnies and spiralled into homicid
had become a family friend – especially
to the Solomons’ teenage daughter
Kristen who was away that weekend on
a school skiing trip. Carolyn was also his claimed, the innocent victim of a set-up?
lover.
“Paul darling,” she said. “I’m so glad it
was you who answered. Why didn’t you
meet me for my birthday? Don’t you
love me any more? I must see you. I’ve
missed you so much.”
At the end of the call, which lasted 55
minutes, Paul arranged to meet Carolyn
at the Treetops Lounge in a nearby
Holiday Inn complex at 7.30 p.m. It
was a quiet, softly lit rendezvous they
had used several times in their year-long
affair.
“Thought I’d meet up with some of

The Solomon house in the smart New York suburb of Greenburgh where
Betty Jeanne (left) was shot nine times

the guys and go bowling tonight,” said
Paul, returning to the living-room. “Have
a few drinks. Catch up on stuff. That
okay, honey?”
Later that afternoon, Paul attached
a battery charger to his car, which he
knew would immobilise it for several
hours, and at 6.30 p.m. drove off to meet
Carolyn in his wife’s new Dodge, leaving
her alone in the apartment. On the way
he stopped briefly at the bowling alley
and said hello to people he knew.
There was no mistaking Paul Solomon
with his flowing mane of dark hair
and bushy beard. He was of Lebanese
descent and women found his foreign
looks and stocky virility attractive.
At the Treetops, he took a seat at the
bar and ordered a vodka while he waited
for Carolyn and reflected on their time
together. They met in 1987 when she
arrived at Greenville School as a new
teacher. She had fluffy blonde hair, large
oval eyes and a sinuous body that turned
every man’s head. She was gorgeous and
her youth excited him. But she was also
clingy and unpredictable and sometimes
her dizzy effervescence became volatile
and feverish.
Over the months she spent many
evenings at the Solomons’ house,
laughing and chatting over dinner with
Betty Jeanne and Kristen. She even
bought Kristen diamond earrings and
took her away on a skiing break. But,
despite her glamour and poise, she
seemed emotionally needy and tried
to infiltrate the Solomons’ family life
even while she and Paul were meeting
regularly for sex. In private, she told him
she wanted to be the next Mrs. Solomon.
Although she was a primary school
teacher, Carolyn was also a wealthy
heiress – daughter of a self-made
multi-millionaire who made his fortune
from insurance. In 1990, the New York
Times reported that Tom Warmus owned
a fleet of jets, several homes and dozens
of cars.
Lacking nothing materially, she had
grown up in luxury, but her parents
divorced when she was eight and she and
her brother and sister were caught in the
crossfire of savage custody battles. She
told friends she had always felt fatherless
and abandoned.
She arrived at Treetops at 7.45 p.m.
wearing a short black dress and soft
suede boots. They kissed, ordered
Chablis and oysters, and retired to a
table where the waitress noticed they
spent several hours deep in conversation.
They were discussing their future. He
had no plans to leave Betty Jeanne
and gently told Carolyn she should
find someone to marry. He was feeling
guilty about the affair and frightened by
her attempts to intensify it. He hoped

56 Murder Most Foul Mistress With A Deadly Obsession

rder charges sparked a media storm as every salivating American
action (below right) starring Glenn Close as the maniacal mistress
dal madness...but was she really a cold-blooded killer or, as she

Playing to the camera; Carolyn

Warmus arriving at court in sexy
designer outfits more suited to a
catwalk model than a defendant
in a murder trial

missing her birthday had tactfully
indicated that he was pulling out.
“But what about your happiness,
Paul? Don’t you deserve to be
happy?” she insisted.
They left the restaurant about
10.45 p.m. and went to Carolyn’s
car, which was parked away from
the others under some trees. Sex
between them had always been urgent
and exciting and although he was
planning to end the affair, Paul could
not resist her. Breathing perfume in
her neck and hair, he ran his hands
up her thighs and she groaned with
pleasure. According to his later
statements, she asked if she could
give him oral sex.
After it was finished, they said
goodbye, promised to meet again
soon, and drove home in opposite
directions – Carolyn to her
Manhattan apartment and Paul to the
other side of Greenburgh.

57
A t 11.40 p.m. he turned the key in
his front door, wondering why the
TV was blaring so loudly. He walked into
the living-room, which was in darkness.
Betty Jeanne was lying face-down on the
floor. He thought she was asleep and
touched her. She was cold. He got up to
turn on the lights and saw blood soaking
the carpet around her like a crimson rug
and the bullet holes in her back and leg.
The room was undisturbed and there
was no sign of a struggle. Nothing had
been stolen, but the telephone receiver
was lying just out of reach of Betty
Jeanne’s hand. The lead was unplugged.
There were six .25-calibre shell casings
littering the floor. She had been shot nine
times.
He rang the police at 11.42 p.m. and
by the time they arrived he was sitting
in a neighbour’s apartment looking
extremely distraught and scared. They
asked him where he had been just before
coming home and at first he omitted to
mention his assignation with Carolyn.
Detective Richard Constantino took
over the investigation and immediately
suspected Paul Solomon of killing his
wife – particularly after he admitted the
Treetops date, his affair, love notes at
work and telephone calls to his home.
However, the philandering-husband-
murders-annoying-wife theory soon
crumbled when Paul’s account of his
movements on the night of the murder
proved truthful.
A few weeks later, Constantino asked
Carolyn Warmus in for questioning
and had a hunch that she was not the
guileless blonde she purported to be. He
subpoenaed records of phone calls made
from her apartment during the critical
period before and after the murder and
found that one of the numbers belonged
to a middle-aged private investigator
called Vincent Parco.
Paul Solomon testifying. Whatever credibility he once had quickly
evaporated under withering cross-examination
58
He told detectives that Carolyn had
once hired him to check on a former
boyfriend and that she rang him from
time to time just to keep in touch. But,
shortly before Betty Jeanne’s death, she
had asked him to get her a gun with a
silencer.
The former boyfriend fitted the
silencer on the gun Parco gave him and
told detectives that he test-fired it in his
workshop before returning it to him. A
single .25-calibre shell casing was found
in a block of wood in his workshop that
exactly matched the casings found near
Betty Jeanne’s body.
Constantino knew he had found the
murder weapon and it was the same
Beretta automatic Parco had sold to
Carolyn Warmus for $2,500. He also
noticed that she made a call at 3.02
p.m. on the day of the murder to a gun
shop in New Jersey, 20 miles west of
Manhattan.
Records from the shop showed four
sales of .25-calibre ammunition for that
day. Three were to local men and one to
a woman from Long Island called Lisa
Kattai who used her driving licence as
ID.
“We wondered why someone from
Long Island would drive all the way
to New Jersey to buy ammo,” said
Constantino, “so we checked with Lisa
Kattai.”
He found that she had never been to
the gun shop or bought ammunition
and that her driving licence had gone
missing during a summer job placement
alongside Carolyn Warmus.
Finally, Constantino examined the
significance of an emergency phone call
made from the Solomons’ apartment at
7.15 p.m. on the evening of the murder.
A woman’s voice had screamed: “He’s
killing me! He’s killing me!” and then the
line went dead. At face value, it seemed
to be Betty Jeanne’s dying words, but
Constantino thought otherwise.
The phone, located in the dining
area, was found disconnected but not
forcibly pulled out of the wall socket.
Betty Jeanne’s body was found in the
living-room and there was no blood
near the phone, although she had bled
profusely.
“If she had made the call while being
assaulted, there would be blood by the
phone,” said Constantino. “Anyway,
how likely is it that a person being shot
would take time to make a phone call?
The phone was a dial not a push button,
so she would have used precious seconds
dialling 911 while the killer was pointing
a gun at her.”
The emergency operator said she
could not state positively whether
the caller had said “she” or “he,” so
Constantino believed Carolyn Warmus
made the call to give Solomon an alibi
and throw suspicion away from herself.
Police used an out-of-date directory to
trace the call and concluded it was a
hoax.
D etective Constantino had spent
several months building a profile of
the elegant heiress and found she had a
troubled history of failed relationships
with men. On the one hand, the
statuesque blonde appeared to have
everything – beauty, intelligence, charm.
On the other, she seemed driven by
destructive forces outside her control.
In 1983 she dated a young teaching
assistant who broke off the relationship
when he met another student who
subsequently became his wife. Two
weeks before their wedding, the couple
had to obtain a restraining order
prohibiting Carolyn Warmus from
coming near them.
She had entered their apartment
against their will and the police had
to remove her. In a note left for the
prospective bride, Carolyn wrote: “I
really hope you enjoyed the past week of not
being bothered by me because now I’m back
from vacation you can start worrying all
over again.
“With the tan I’ve got now, you’ve got
even more to compete with. Of course, with
a body like mine I’m sure you realised
what tough competition you’re up against
even before I went to Florida. In fact, you’re
just about out of the picture now. I hope
you enjoyed having him all to yourself this
week because it will be a long time before it
happens again.
“Knowing his devotion to me, he probably
spent as little time as possible with you this
past week and I guess as long as you keep
letting him live in your apartment with you
he’ll continue to pretend to care about you.
Go right on fooling yourself.”
In 1985 she became involved with a
married bartender and hired Vincent
Parco to keep him under surveillance.
The full picture did not emerge,
however, until six months after Betty
Jeanne’s murder when Paul Solomon
travelled to Puerto Rico with another
young teacher with whom he had been
carrying on an affair while still involved
with Carolyn Warmus.
According to Greenburgh detectives,
the enraged Carolyn followed the pair
to the holiday island and bribed hotel
staff to deliver messages to her ex-lover.
She also called the woman’s flatmate in
New York saying that her friend was on
holiday with a man suspected of killing
his wife. Carolyn made calls from Puerto
Rico to members of the woman’s family
in which she identified herself as a police
officer and made remarks aimed at
ending Solomon’s new romance.
Following her return from Puerto
Rico, the woman obtained a court order
for protection against Carolyn.
Constantino now believed that Betty
Jeanne had opened the door to a woman
she trusted as a friend and Carolyn
Warmus had pumped nine bullets into
her.
H er arrest and indictment on charges
of first-degree murder in January
1990 sparked a media storm as every
salivating American tabloid likened the
case to the 1987 film Fatal Attraction,
starring Glenn Close as the rejected
mistress who boiled pet rabbits and
spiralled into homicidal madness.
Twenty five years on, it is hard to
recapture the impact the film made on
America’s errant husbands who trembled
in their socks as the plotline darkened.
But it certainly touched a raw nerve in
the nation’s psyche.
As if playing to the cameras, Carolyn
Warmus arrived at court each day in
sexy designer outfits, more like a catwalk
model than a murder defendant. Private
detectives hired by her father clustered
round her and film producers lurked
with open chequebooks fighting for
exclusive rights to the story.
Tensions escalated as the first case
against her was dismissed because the
jury had not been told Vincent Parco had
been granted immunity from prosecution
in return for his testimony.
She was indicted a second time, and
her trial finally began on January 14th,
1991, almost two years to the day since
Betty Jeanne’s death.
Her attorney was David Lewis, a
vast, slouching man with a national
reputation who had once represented the
Panamanian president Manuel Noriega.
Used to high-profile cases, he was a
brilliant courtroom performer who hated
to lose and was not intimidated by media
attention.
Prosecutor James McCarty was a trial
veteran and fairly sure that the evidence
against Carolyn was unassailable. But as
Lewis rose from the table to begin his
methodical destruction of Paul Solomon,
even he must have quailed. Lewis was
determined to prove that Solomon would
have done anything – even murder – to
share his bed with a voluptuous and
desirable young woman like Carolyn
Warmus.
Not only did he rake through Paul
Solomon’s other affairs, he revealed that
the widower had made a great deal of
money from his wife’s death.
“I believe you’ve signed contracts
worth $155,000 with two film
companies?” asked Lewis.
“I don’t know the figures,” said
Solomon.
“Yet you signed the contracts,” said
Lewis.
“Yes,” said Solomon.
“You don’t know how much you’re
being paid for The Paul Solomon Story?”
shouted Lewis.
“My great hope was that it wouldn’t
be made,” said Solomon meekly.
Lewis pounced for the kill.
“You’re telling us you signed a contract
for money not to make a movie?”
The court erupted with laughter and
whatever credibility Paul Solomon once
had evaporated.
Even the prosecution warned jurors
that Vincent Parco was an unreliable
witness and “bears no resemblance to
TV private investigators like Tom Selleck.
By his own account, he does sleazy
things.”
Parco testified that he had become
infatuated with Carolyn and met her
many times at restaurants, movies and
bars. They never had sex, he said, but
one Christmas she called him and
said she was in sexy black lingerie
and wanted him to come over to her
apartment. Parco said he declined the
invitation.
“I was tired and suggested we did it on
Saturday night,” he said.
“You refused because you had a
headache?” said Lewis sarcastically.
“I didn’t have a headache,” said Parco
with a straight face.
A
s the trial dragged on in
excruciating detail, the
circumstantial web around Carolyn
Carolyn Warmus,
on January 22nd,
1991, during her
trial in New York’s
Westchester
County Court
Warmus tightened. Her phone records
from the day of the murder were
crucial to the prosecution case, but in a
shock move Lewis countered them by
producing alternative ones that made
it impossible for Carolyn to have been
anywhere near the murder scene. These
later proved to be forgeries and the
revelation was a crushing blow for Lewis
and his beleaguered client. A month
later, she was indicted for forgery and
tampering with physical evidence.
In his closing statement, Lewis
denounced Solomon and Parco as liars
and framers and pointed out that no one
had seen Carolyn Warmus at the scene of
the crime.
McCarty, however, described
her as “cunning, opportunistic and
manipulative,” and said the murder was
not a crime of sudden passion. She had
been plotting it as early as the summer
of 1988 when she first asked Parco to get
her a gun.
The jury went out for deliberations
on April 17th, 1991, and after four days
with no verdict patience was running
thin. As reporters and photographers
besieged Carolyn Warmus on her way
into court, she suddenly let out an
ear-piercing scream. At the defence table
she sat with her head in her hands crying
loudly.
“I’ve had it!” she yelled at Lewis.
“Somebody tripped me, judge. I just
can’t take it. Nobody cares about me,”
she sobbed.
For the next 11 nail-biting days the
jury tried to reach a verdict amidst wild
media speculation. But the jury had
stuck on “reasonable doubt” and “lack of
eye-witnesses” and were hopelessly hung
at 8-4 in favour of conviction.
As if the trial was not spectacular
enough, Lewis abandoned his client and
59
sued Tom Warmus for non-payment of
fees for defending his daughter.

T he second trial opened in January

1992 in the same courthouse. The
prosecution had tightened their case
and the new defence made much of
Solomon’s financial gain and the fact
that he still lived in the same apartment
where the murder occurred. Every day Carolyn
of his life he walked over the spot where Warmus
Betty Jeanne had died. called a press
Each day Carolyn brought a pillow to conference
court so she could put her head down in 2016 to
on the table during the often-tedious announce she
proceedings. The designer clothes was to contest
had gone and she wore jeans and a legal fees with
loose-fitting University of Michigan her former
sweater. Her soft blonde hair looked appeals lawyer
messy and unwashed. Reporters noted
that she seemed distant and vague. After hearing the guilty verdict, she devastated about being sentenced for
Her shoulders sagged and she slumped addressed the judge. a crime I did not commit,” she said,
awkwardly in her seat. “I am standing here before you wiping the tears from her eyes. “I can
only ask you for leniency because I am

true JUNE A NASTY TASTE

innocent. If I am guilty of anything at
all, it was simply being foolish enough

crime
to believe the lies and promises that Paul
OF MUSHROOMS Solomon made to me and allow myself
to be manipulated by him.”
First He Insured Judge John Carey was unmoved and
described the crime as “a hideous act,
Detective Monthly www.truecrimelibrary.com
His Friends… a most extreme, illegal and wanton
then He murder.” He could have sentenced her to

UN-MAKING Poisoned them a minimum of 15 years to life. Instead,

he chose the maximum, which was 25

A MURDERER?
years to life. Carolyn nearly collapsed.
No one from her family was in court
to witness her suffering and she was
What taken to Bedford Prison for women
Next For where it was expected that she would
soon appeal.
Steven
Avery?
35 vICtIMS For In a final irony, she was declared

tASMANIA’S
indigent – having no money or assets
– and the court declared that the state

“LAUGHING
should pay the $60,000 for the trial
Solved At Last! KILLer”
transcript that would enable her lawyer
to appeal.
Brisbane’s This appeal was dismissed in
September 2006, and she was left to
“Uncle await 2017, the first time she would be
Gerry” He Fought eligible for parole.

the Mob
In 2004, Carolyn filed a federal lawsuit
Murder against the New York State Department
…And the
of Correctional Services, alleging that
she had been raped and sexually abused
tHe SCArBoroUGH Mob Won by prison guards and forced to trade
sexual favours for basic privileges. She
SWIMMING Crusading reporter received a $10,000 settlement from New
PooL MUrder From the twin Cities
York State in 2008.
In 2016 she was denied parole when
…And The Last she first became eligible in January 2017,
Man Sentenced aged 53. In that interview she continued
To Hang
In England
MISCARRIAGE OF to maintain her innocence and blamed
the media attention for her conviction in

JeALoUS KILLer
JUSTICE? revenge
what she said was a circumstantial case.
She also detailed her health battles with
a brain tumour that was diagnosed the
previous year.
BUrNed HIS of the
After serving 27 years Carolyn
Warmus was finally released from
MIStreSS Sacked jail on Monday, 17th June, 2019,

ALIve
according to the New York State
Chauffeur Department of Corrections and
In shops from May 28th • Make sure of your copy by ordering direct from
Community Supervision. She is on
parole for life and will be supervised
www.truecrimelibrary.com or 020 8778 0514 • For subscription savings see page 55
in New York County.

60
 UNSOLVED:
THE LIVERPOOL
SACK MURDER
Who Was “The King Of Darkness”?
O
N A RAW Monday afternoon
in early January 1908, school
being over for the day, the little
playground in Kensington – a slum
district of Liverpool – was teeming with
children. An adult was also there, a
tall, thin middle-aged man with a black
moustache and wearing a collar and tie.
After watching the children play
for a while he approached a group of
seven-year-olds and joined in their
games, chasing first one child and then
Case recalled by
Sara Lee
another. Finally he held out his hand to
a little boy, saying, “Will you come with
me for some sweets?”
Although Christopher Sheenan, like
most children, was fond of sweets,
his mother had warned him never
to go anywhere with strangers, so he
reluctantly said, “No.”
The man then turned to pretty
Annie McGowan, but she too shook
her head. However, her best friend
Margaret “Madge” Kirby had no such
qualms. She could hardly believe her
good luck, for she had recently had
little but misfortune. Just weeks earlier
her mother had died, which was why
Madge was dressed in mourning.
Leaving her five-year-old brother
Davy in Annie’s care, she eagerly took
the man’s hand and walked off with
him into the winter gloom, saying she
wouldn’t be long.
An hour later Annie, feeling cold
and hungry, tired of waiting for her
friend and took Davy back to his home
in nearby Romilly Street. Christopher
continued to wait for Madge, perhaps
hoping to share her sweets.
When she failed to return home her
father, David Kirby, a 38-year-old
plumber, reported her missing and
spent the night scouring the streets for
her without success.
Detective Inspector Moore and his
men did their best to follow leads, while
the Liverpool newspapers published
descriptions of Madge and her
Above, seven-year-old Margaret
“Madge” Kirby. She took the man’s
hand and walked off with him
into the gloom. Top, A children’s
playground in Liverpool at the time
of the murder.
abductor, urging readers to look out for
them.
The following day, Tuesday, January
7th, young Robert Woodside, a friend
of the Kirby family, was shocked to
learn that little Madge was missing. He
was a grocer’s delivery boy and at 5.30
p.m. he set out on his bicycle to take a
box of supplies to a house on Rupert
Hill. On his way back he saw a man
coming from the opposite direction,
leading a little girl by the hand. She was
Madge!
“Come on, Madge,” Robert
yelled, and she looked round, clearly
recognising him. But as she tried to run
towards him, the man held her back by
her arm and though she burst into tears
he continued to hurry her along.
Robert followed them to the top of
the hill, where the man turned, told
Madge to stand by some railings and
then dashed towards the boy, shaking
his fist and chasing him back down the
hill before returning to the child.
Robert immediately cycled to
Madge’s home to alert her father, who
returned with him to Rupert Hill. But
they found no trace of either Madge or
the man.
Jane Hughes, a 40-year-old waitress
at a cocoa room on Brownlow Hill,
told the police that at around 6.45
that same Tuesday evening she served
a man and a little girl. The man had
tea, bread and butter and the child a
small cup of tea and an Eccles cake.
Mrs. Hughes remembered her because
she looked miserable and had clearly
been crying, as her face was smeared
with tears. Asked why the little girl
was so unhappy, the man replied that
he thought she had recently lost her
mother, and that she herself was now
lost, so he was going to take her home
rather than to the police station. Mrs.
Hughes didn’t like the look of him,
saying that although he was “dressed
better than working-class,” he had
obviously been drinking. That was to be
the last positive sighting of Madge and
her abductor, and months of anxiety
followed for her family. Then at 6.55
a.m. on Tuesday, August 11th, 1908,
Thomas Moody, a woodcarver, was
making his way down Great Newton
Street seeking work, when he saw a
large sack on the pavement near some
derelict houses. He tried to untie it,
but failed and continued on his way.
Then in Pembroke Place he met James
The Liverpool Sack Murder Murder Most Foul 61
Mulby, an ex-army friend he had Two days later,
known in Rangoon. on August 13th, the
“Hey, Jim, I’ve got a catch,” he inquest was opened
said, describing finding the sack, and at Dale Street
adding that he thought it might contain courthouse, the jury
clothes. first visiting the cellar
“Then let’s go back and have a look,” and then viewing
said Mulby the remains at the
When they reached the sack, Mulby mortuary.
took out his knife and slit it open. Dr. Nathan Raw
Inside it they saw something wrapped then testified that
in newspapers. From the overpowering although he was
smell Moody thought it might be a certain that death
dead animal, but on peeling away the was not due to
newspapers he saw the small hand of a natural causes, he
child and retched. could not say if
Madge was raped or

T he police were summoned and the

remains were taken to the Prince’s
Dock Mortuary. Examining the
sack, which had originally contained
onions, the police noted that it was
dry, although there had recently been
a heavy downpour of rain. So it must
have been dumped on the pavement
just minutes before Moody discovered
it.
Realising that the remains were
“I took the little girl
through the front door.
It was then quite dark.
We had been over two
hours at the World’s
Fair before then. I then
did away with her”
probably Madge Kirby’s, officers
led by Detective Inspector Moore
and Detective Sergeants Whitley and
Howell searched the derelict property
in Great Newton Street – a row
of tenements awaiting demolition,
about one and a half miles from
the playground where the child was
abducted.
Entering No. 15, they were
immediately assailed by a foul stench
coming from the cellar. The door
leading to it from the lobby had
apparently been nailed up, but was now
hanging off its hinges.
With candles and matches, Moore
and his men found pieces of rotting
flesh and matted hair in the cellar.
The outline of a child’s body could
clearly be seen on the floor. In an
adjacent room they found a girl’s
clothing strewn around – a dark blue
serge frock, a grey flannel petticoat,
flannelette drawers, a pair of Paisley
corsets and a small pair of black laced
boots. A child’s black velvet bonnet
with black strings was retrieved from a
rat hole in the floor.
Questioning the foreman of the
corporation demolition team, the police
learned that No. 15 was due to be
pulled down that very morning. The
foreman said that neither he nor any
of his men had nailed-up the door to
the cellar. Now dusty and covered with
fingerprints, it was removed to Prescot
62
how she lost her life
because her body was
far too decomposed.
But he noted that
her stays had not
been unfastened, and
had probably been
dragged over her
head – an indication
of violence.
It had been
theorised that Madge
might have been
slowly starved to
death in the house,
and Dr. Raw said
he could not rule
this out entirely.
But the degree of
putrefaction, he said,
suggested that she
had been dead a very
long time, probably
since shortly after her
abduction.
The inquest
was adjourned for
Madge’s funeral,
which took place
that afternoon,
August 13th, at the
Catholic cemetery
at Ford. The floral
tributes included a
harp-shaped bouquet
from little Annie
The letter received by the police on the day of Madge’s McGowan, who
funeral, August 13th, 1908 was with Madge
at the time of the
abduction. After a
Street police station where it was short but moving service, the child was
photographed. laid to rest in her mother’s grave.
The police suspected that, learning Later that afternoon the police
that the house was about to be received a letter in an unstamped
demolished and fearing the body would envelope marked “From Madge Kirby’s
be discovered, the killer had put it in a Murderer.” It read: “To Insp Moore. Dear
sack, intending to throw it in the River Sir, I should like to throw a little light on
Mersey. But as he left the house he the murder of my victim, Maggie Kirby.
feared he had been seen, and in a panic Some years ago I was a lodger at 15
dropped the sack and fled. Great Newton Street, so I know the house
Brought to Prescot Street police very thoroughly and am still in possession
station, with tears in his eyes, Madge’s of the key to the front door, which I used
father identified the recovered clothing in those days. On the night of January
as hers. He was then taken to the 16th at 8.45, I took the little girl through
mortuary. Although the body was the front door. It was then quite dark.We
decomposed beyond recognition, he had been over two hours at the World’s
identified the chemise, black-ribbed Fair (a collection of shows and swings in
stockings and black elastic garters nearby Gill Street) before then. That is the
found on it as belonging to his child. way I treated her. I then did away with
her. The way I killed her you will no doubt
find out today.
“At 5.35 on Tuesday morning I entered
the house once again with my key, not
with the intention of removing the body
for good, but with the intention of letting
the world know what became of the child.
If I had not been drunk I do not suppose
I would have attempted the task. It may
lead to my arrest, but I have only the
drink to thank for it.
“I am now going to give you a real clue
to work on. I am a regular customer at
the Prince of Wales Hotel on Derby Street.
Since I have made this confession I would
be obliged to say goodbye to (name deleted
by the police). I suppose they have been
good friends to me. I have given you a
chance for your money, so do your best.”
The police learned that the letter
was posted that morning in the south
end of Liverpool. They also discovered
that a man answering the description
He was thought to be
mad, because only a
madman would have
revisited the scene of
the crime, gathered up
the rotting remains of
the victim, put them in
a sack and left them on
the pavement
of the abductor had called at a house
there and asked permission to write a
letter. This convinced the investigators
that the letter was genuine, although
the landlord of the Prince of Wales
Hotel was unable to recognise the
handwriting.
A watch was put on the pub, but
the newspapers were sceptical. The
letter’s writer, they pointed out,
seemed to think that the abduction
took place on January 16th, whereas
Madge was snatched on January 6th.
The details the writer gave could have
been gleaned from newspaper reports,
and he did not say how the child died.
Nevertheless, the letter and its envelope
were reproduced in the newspapers in
the hope that someone might recognise
the handwriting.
he police learned that 15 Great
T Newton Street had been empty
for three years, and they managed to
locate two former tenants. Nathan
Schwernsky, a bill distributor, had
lived there until August 31st, 1903,
and he said that a fellow-lodger named
Thompson fitted the description
of the abductor, being tall and lean
with a black moustache. Another
former tenant, Mrs. Green, described
Thompson as “very eccentric.”
The police also discovered that the
locks of all the front doors in Great
Newton Street were exactly the same,
so anyone having a key to one house
could open all the rest!
Meanwhile the newspapers published
some of the hundreds of letters they
received from readers worried by
numerous attacks on young children
in and around the city’s parks and
recreation grounds. One man wrote
that his little girl, aged
seven, was invited into an
alley near the Kensington
playground, just prior
to the disappearance of
Madge Kirby. Fortunately,
she had been warned about
talking to strangers and
fled.
The writer concluded
sadly: “I think it is a shame
that in this enlightened age
we have to fill the minds of
our girls with horrors for
their self-protection, but that
it is absolutely necessary the
above experience proves.”
Another writer signing
himself “A Father”
described how he saw
a well-dressed man
interfering with a little
girl in an alley near Sefton
Park. “When I went up to
him he showed fight, and
as I knew if I took him
to the police station he
would get off with a pound
fine, I promptly thrashed
him with an ash stick I
happened to have with me
and I guarantee the wound I
inflicted on his head hasn’t
healed yet.”
The papers also
discussed the numerous
CRIME CAMERA
A police constable demonstrates the Alcotest 80 for the then Transport
Secretary Barbara Castle as she launched the campaign informing the public
of the new breathalyser law which came into effect on September 19th, 1967.
theories the police had formed about
the killer. He was thought to be mad,
because only a madman would have
revisited the scene of the crime,
gathered up the rotting remains of his
victim, put them in a sack
and left them nearby on
the pavement.
Another theory was that
he was sane but repentant,
removed the body so
it would be found, and
would soon walk into a
police station and give
himself up. Or had he
committed suicide? One
policeman speculated that
the abductor might have
become so depressed by
his crime that he would
now be at the bottom of
the Mersey.
It was reported that the
police were trying to learn
as much as possible about
the onion sack. In 1891
the raped and mutilated
body of a boy named
Nicholas Martin had been
retrieved from the Mersey
wrapped in a sailor’s bag
which eventually led to
the arrest, conviction
and execution of John
Conway, after it was
proved that he had
bought the bag from a
marine-store in the city.
But the onion sack was
too commonplace to be
much of a clue, and there
63
was no identifying mark on it.
On August 14th the police enlisted
the help of a bloodhound named “The
Czar,” a celebrated criminal catcher. In
Japan he had recently proved invaluable
in a number of police investigations, in
one case tracking a notorious burglar
for 12 days before cornering him in
a crowd of people. In desperation the
burglar had fired a gun at the dog, but
he missed and was arrested.
At 1 a.m. on August 15th, The Czar
was taken to the cellar at 15 Great
Newton Street, which had been treated
with carbolocene. As this was thought
to have destroyed the scent, some of
Madge’s clothes were produced to give
The Czar a start.
“The scene in the dark little cellar,
patchily illuminated by the flaming
motor lamp, was a weird and ghostly
one,” the Liverpool Echo reported.
“The bloodhound nosed eagerly in the
pathetic little heap of clothes, testing
the scent of first one piece and then
another. At last he dragged out one of Above left, Madge’s father, David Kirby, who had the task of identifying his
the stockings and held it for a long time daughter’s remains. Above right, Annie McGowan and Madge’s brother George,
in his great mouth. Then saturated with as they appeared at the inquest. Below, Lime Street station
the scent, he made a circle of the cellar,
nosing every nook and cranny. Then up the morning of August 18th. By that platform, but further inquiries
the stairs he went, followed by the silent now so many people were out and established that an excursion train
detectives.” about around Prescot Street police had left it for Birmingham at 9.30 the
The police knew the dog had a station, where the search was being previous evening. The dog’s owner,
difficult task. Four days had passed co-ordinated, that officers used a decoy however, said the scent was far too
since the murderer left the house hound to lure the crowds away while strong for the killer to have left the
and there had been heavy rain. The Czar and his owner set off in station seven hours earlier. After
Nevertheless, The Czar led the officers another direction. covering some 50 miles over four
through a maze of alleys and back At 12.30 a.m. The Czar picked up nights the hunt was abandoned, and
streets for two hours, following the the scent in the Botanic Gardens in the searchers returned to Prescot Street
route the killer presumably took as he Edge Lane, where he had lost it the
fled after dropping his sack. previous night. Going down street after
On reaching the lit thoroughfare of street, he headed for the city’s outskirts
Brownlow Hill, the dog paused before before doubling back and leading the
returning to the back alleys. Eventually, police at a run down the ramp to Edge
after much sniffing and nosing, he led
the detectives back in a wide circle to At 4 a.m. the police
15 Great Newton Street, and stood for and the dog arrived
a while at the front door of the house.
Then he went through Pembroke Place by cab at Lime Street
and to the playground in Kensington station, and in less
where Madge was abducted. than a second The
It was now 3 a.m. and though The
Czar was still eager to continue the Czar picked up the
hunt, the officers were flagging and scent again
people were gathering in curious
groups in the streets. At 4 o’clock the Lane railway station. There, The Czar
search was reluctantly abandoned, passed through the wicket gate and police station, The Czar having helped
having covered 18 miles. made for the inward platform, where himself to a reporter’s sandwiches.
he stood stock still, sniffed the air and The newspapers now questioned
whether the hunt had been a waste of
I n the early hours of the following
morning a second hunt was made.
It lasted until 5 a.m. and was then
slowly turned his head towards the
tunnel.
“Your man has gone back to
time and money, but decided that The
Czar’s efforts could not be described
called off, having covered much of the Liverpool by train,” the dog’s owner as a failure. To the people of Liverpool
same ground. A third search the next cried, and railway staff confirmed that he was the hero of the hour, and many
morning again yielded nothing new, just minutes earlier a train had left the were sorry that his services were not
possibly because crowds of people, station for Lime Street. employed earlier.
many on bicycles, were now following At 4 a.m. the police and the dog But it could not be denied that the
the dog. arrived by cab at Lime Street station, killer had used the animal to make fools
As the scent seemed to still be very and in less than a second The Czar of the police. “Many a time The Czar’s
fresh, the police thought the murderer picked up the scent again and followed followers observed that the murderer
might be haunting many of the places it to No. 8 platform where he sat down of Madge Kirby is not only a foul
The Czar visited, cheekily taking part and stared into the tunnel. monster but a remarkable pedestrian,”
in his own hunt, apparently safe in the “He’s gone!” his owner told the a reporter noted. “If the trail is to be
knowledge that the dog would follow detectives. “Your man has gone!” believed, he has traversed as circuitous
wherever he led it. A station worker told the officers a route of the Liverpool slums and
A fourth hunt took place on that trains did not depart from suburbs as would not have occurred
64
to an experienced sandbone man. His
journeyings certainly were not that
of a fugitive from justice. In a dozen
ways he made his tracks towards the
main outlets of the city, only to return
to his former haunts, and in the end
to accomplish the one sane movement
of them all – apparently an escape by
train.”

W hen the inquest was resumed

on September 10th and little
Annie McGowan was called to give
evidence, she became so distraught
that she had to be carried crying into
the witness-box by Detective Sergeant
Howell. However, the coroner managed
to soothe her, and after drying her eyes
and blowing her nose she was able to
answer all the questions put to her,
describing the man who came up to her
and her friends in the playground and
said, “Will you come with me for some
sweets?” Above, a newspaper headline telling of the bloodhound named The Czar and
“I said no,” Annie told the court its owner (right). Over four nights they trekked 50 miles around Liverpool,
proudly, “but Madge said yes.” following a scent. Below, Edge Lane station where the dog led the followers
The witnesses Robert Woodside and through the gate (arrowed) and onto the platform
Jane Hughes then told their stories,
Mrs. Hughes breaking down as she
identified Madge’s black velvet bonnet
with its black strings as the one the
upset child she saw was wearing.
John Smith, a dock labourer, testified
that at 6.30 a.m. on July 20th he saw a
man come down Pembroke Place and
turn into No. 6 court. He saw him walk
to the top of the court, climb over a
wall, and then drop down into the yard
of 15 Great Newton Street.
Smith followed and on looking over
the wall noticed that the back kitchen
window was wide open. He thought the
man had climbed through it. He waited
in the court for several minutes, but the
man did not come out. He was certain
that he would know him again.
Edward Farren, a carter, told the
court that at 5.30 a.m. on August
11th he was sitting on a lavatory in
the courtyard to the rear of 15 Great
Newton Street when he saw a man bottom of the street. anyone passed him and Mulby as they
climb over the wall and drop down Although this person was dressed were opening the onion sack, he said
into the alley. (No. 15 had no backyard as a woman, Glover thought he was that a well-dressed man sauntered by
door). The man went to a standpipe, looking at a man in female attire. He on the opposite side of the street and
took a drink and walked off towards got this impression from the way the stared at him, but didn’t speak.
Pembroke Place. person walked, taking giant man-like Moody had himself been a suspect
James Glover, a painter strides. until the police learned that at the time
and decorator, said that Detective Sergeant of the abduction he had a watertight
on the same morning Howell testified that alibi. He was in prison!
he was standing in the the description of The next witness, Detective Inspector
Corporation Yard in the individual fitted Moore, said that 15 Great Newton
Brownlow Street when no one living at 13 Street was often visited by youths. They
he saw a woman emerge Great Newton Street. climbed over the back wall and entered
from the backyard of 13 The tenants were at by the open kitchen window, in order
Great Newton Street, and home that morning, he to play cards and smoke. They had told
then quickly dodge back said, and they heard him that the door between the lobby
to avoid being seen. The nothing unusual. But and the cellar had been nailed up for at
woman seemed so agitated on inspecting the wall least 18 months.
that he continued to watch dividing No. 13 from Upon searching the upper rooms
her when she came out of No. 15 he found ample of the house he had found a leather
No. 13 again and walked evidence that it had strap and a small piece of pencil which
quickly down the street, recently been scaled. Madge’s elder brother, George, had
looking nervously about The Kirby family Thomas Moody then identified as hers.
her in all directions. When headstone in the Catholic described his discovery The inspector had also found a piece
she spotted him she stared cemetery at Ford of the child’s body. of iron that might have been used to
at him until she got to the Asked by the coroner if “jemmy” open the nailed-up door. In
65
the cellar he had discovered a paper fan
where the body had laid, and he thought
the abductor might have bought it for
the child in order to “pacify” her as he
led her towards the house.
The coroner then read out three
letters sent to the police, supposedly
by the abductor. The first, written
in pencil and dated August 13th,
had already been reproduced in the
newspapers. The second, dated August
17th, was posted in London while
the dog hunt was in full swing. It too
was addressed to Inspector Moore,
but this time it was typewritten, the
writer inviting the inspector to come
to London to hunt him down, and also
enjoy a holiday “at the public expense
and earn a reputation as a zealous
officer.”
The writer added that as he was
not of the lower class, no one would
suspect him of being the murderer,
especially not the merchant in whose
office he was now typing the letter.
The third letter, written in pencil and
posted in Liverpool the next day, was
in the same handwriting as the first.
“As I go to my business every morning
and pass along Dale Street a few minutes
before 10 o’clock,” the writer wrote, “I
linger at the police court, and as I gaze
into the faces of those so-called intelligent
detectives I can scream with laughter
when I think of the clues I have given
them and the hot-pot they have made of
the whole business.”
The letter was signed “The King of
Darkness,” the writer adding that he
would endeavour to leave his next note
in the detective office at Dale Street.
No more letters had been received,
however, the coroner told the jury,
saying he had read them out to show
the great difficulties the police had in
dealing with the case as the killer was
obviously an intelligent man.
The jury then deliberated for a few
minutes before returning the expected
verdict of “Wilful murder by some
person or persons unknown.”
At the conclusion of the inquest,
overwhelmed by the horror of his
child’s death, Madge’s father returned
home pale and distraught, telling his
sister, “This has finished me.” He then
took to his bed, where he died of grief
on September 28th. He was buried
with his wife and child.
T he police continued with their
inquiries, but they led nowhere.
Then on October 24th a fourth
taunting letter purporting to be
from Madge’s killer was sent to the
Dewsbury Police in Yorkshire. It read:
“Dear Sir, some weeks ago I sent a letter
to Liverpool police station giving them a
clue and a chance to catch me but they
have not got me yet. I am now in your
town of Dewsbury and I now give your
policemen a chance. I am 5ft 10ins in
height, of slender build, I dress in black
“I am now in your
town of Dewsbury
and I now give your

117
policemen a chance.
I dress in black and
brown. I stop here one
week only. If you don’t
E QUA RTER LY catch me I vow I will
1 TRUE CR IM
WOR LD’S NO. .com
w w w.truecr
imelibrary kill one more child”
SADISTIC
AA VERY
VERY BRUTE WHO and brown boots and cross the market
every day at one o’clock. I stop here one

DEADLY
DEADLY STRANGLED
KELLY
week only. If you don’t catch me I vow
I will kill one more child. I write several
ways, this time I wrote like a workman.”

COUPLE
COUPLE DEATH ROW
The letter was decorated with a skull
and crossbones and a crude drawing of
a child’s face. No more were received,
and the case remains unsolved.
FOR HUSBAND There is no evidence “The King
# WHO HIRED
of Darkness” killed again, but many
believed he had killed at least one child
“LOOKALIKE” before Madge.
At midnight on October 28th, 1905,
RELEASED TO KILLER 10-year-old Elizabeth Peers was given
KILL AGAIN sixpence and a plate by her mother
and sent to a nearby butcher’s shop in

COUPLES WHO KILL

TTHHEE Lodge Lane, Kensington, to buy some

D THE ““ G
G O
O RRIILLLLA
A cooked pork.
Wearing a cloak, tam o’shanter and
“I KILLE R’’SS” ”
KIILLLLEER
kilt, she failed to return home, and the
BITCH AND I K next morning her raped and strangled

DON’T GIVE RREEIIGGN NO OFF body was found in an alley behind

Cullen Street, near the playground

A DAMN” rs’ Six-State Killing Spree TTEERRRRO OR R where Madge Kirby was later abducted.
A witness told the police that at
Love
Eight Murdered In about 12.15 a.m. she saw a child
TORTURE
JUST HOW wearing a tam o’shanter and walking
with a tall, thin middle-aged man who
BOX OF MANY had a black moustache.
THE “IRON MEN DID At Toxteth Park Cemetery on
WHY MURDER CURTAIN”
November 3rd, 30,000 mourners

THE CHILDREN? FIEND EMMA MURDER? watched as Elizabeth Peers was

laid to rest. Or was she? For
decades afterwards, children
the lisbon ripper and the three marias reported seeing a sad-looking
In shops from July 30th • Make sure of your copy by ordering direct from child in a cloak and tam o’shanter
www.truecrimelibrary.com or 020 8778 0514 • For subscription savings see page 55 walking up and down the alley
behind Cullen Street…

66
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