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Practically every day of the year is a landmark of some sort in the annals of crime. Here’s where you can find out what happened this week in years gone by... Stories from the week beginning April 30th. Death Sentence For 16-Year-OldWilliam Murray was just four years old when on MAY 1st, 1918, 15-year-old Joseph Fitt killed him in a coal cellar in Belfast. Two months later Fitt, by now 16, was tried and convicted of the toddler's murder and sentenced to death. Capital punishment for persons under 16 had been abolished in 1908 by the Children's Act, but did the law mean that to be spared the noose the killer had to be under 16 at the time of the offence or at the time of conviction? When Fitt's case went to appeal on November 2nd, 1918, it was ruled that he had been correctly sentenced to death as he was 16 when convicted. But the judges expressed concern that under the law a person could be condemned to death for a murder committed when they were several years younger than 16, if they were not tried until some years later. The judges added that the question of a reprieve for Fitt would doubtless receive careful consideration, and three days later his sentence was commuted and he was removed from the death cell. Flesh Hung From The CeilingWhen the state of Israel was being formed after the Second World War, British troops were among peacekeepers attempting to maintain law and order in Palestine, their role bringing them into constant conflict with a Jewish terrorist organisation known as the Stern Gang. In May 1947 one of the gang's members, Alexander Rubowitz, vanished from his home in Jerusalem. He was known to have been under investigation by British undercover agents led by Captain Roy Farran. The agents were suspected of being behind Rubowitz's disappearance, and Farran was tried for his murder and acquitted. A much-decorated Commando war hero, he later returned to his parents' home near Wolverhampton. But before his departure from Palestine posters appeared throughout Tel Aviv warning: "Captain Farran's time will come. We shall go after him to the end of the world." In late April 1948 the captain went to Scotland on holiday. He was still there on MAY 3rd when a package addressed to him arrived at the Farran family's home. It had been posted in the East End of London, and it appeared to contain a book. Such a parcel was expected, as Captain Farran's book Winged Dagger was about to be published. Thinking the package contained an advance copy, his 26-year-old brother Rex opened it. There was a blinding flash and an explosion blew out the room's windows. Pieces of Rex Farran's flesh hung like stalactites from the smoke-blackened ceiling, and he died shortly afterwards in hospital. The next day a British news agency in Paris received a phone call from a man claiming to be a member of the Stern Gang. He said they had sent the letter-bomb "to punish Farran for the murder of a Jewish youth." Scotland Yard launched a major investigation which spread to the Continent, but the killers were never caught. Obsessed With Fred And Rose WestSymonds Yat Rock is a well-known beauty spot near Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. But it wasn't quite so beautiful for a woman walking her dog there on May 8th, 1996, when she found a girl's battered body. Identified as 18-year-old Helen Martin, the girl had last been seen at 1 a.m. on MAY 4th, leaving a night club 60 miles away in Maesteg, Glamorgan. The night club's closed-circuit film was studied, and it showed her departing with a man who had failed to come forward despite appeals for information from anyone who had seen Helen that night. He was identified as 31-year-old David Alfred Willoway, a five-foot-one petty criminal living in Bridgend, Glamorgan. Interviewed by detectives, he said he had merely given Helen a lift in his car, dropping her off at her home. So why hadn't she gone straight inside? Dissatisfied with Willoway's story, the officers returned to his home to question him further. When they arrived he came out with a shotgun, threatened to shoot them and fled. Captured after a short hunt, he was charged with Helen's murder and tried at Cardiff Crown Court in December, 1996. The jury were told that he had become obsessed with Fred and Rosemary West's kidnapping of girls whom they forced to have lesbian sex before killing them. He had tried to persuade a girlfriend to join him in committing similar crimes, but she thought he was just fantasising. Pleading not guilty, Willoway claimed that Helen had died after accidentally hitting her head on his car. He said he had panicked and tried to hide the body. But the prosecution alleged he had abducted Helen, intending to take her to his home to make his sex-torture fantasy become reality. When she tried to escape he had beaten her to death with a wheel brace and dumped her body at the beauty spot. The court heard that when his girlfriend visited him in prison he had repeated his wish to emulate the Wests, saying he had intended to make Helen his first victim. On the third day of his trial Willoway changed his plea to guilty, and he was jailed for life. |
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