AUGUST 2022 WORLD’S NO.1 TRUE CRIME MAGAZINE 30 years ago Britain’s best-known executioner died... HANGMAN! Now read Pierrepoint’s surprising views on the death penalty WHEN HANGED AT USK: DADDY THE FAMILY- RAN SLAYER AMOK FROM SPAIN ...Seven Would Die Lorraine’s BLOOMSBURY’S Killer Was “A LOCKED ROOM Tragedy Waiting MURDER MYSTERY To Happen” www.truecrimelibrary.com Don’t miss this year’s SUMMER SPECIALS! True Detective Summer Special • £4.99 • On sale NOW! MSuamstmere rD Septeecctiiavle • £4.99 • On sale NOW! FIVE WAYS TO ORDER YOUR 84-PAGE SPECIALS True Crime l Order your Specials online at www.truecrimelibrary.com Summer Special • £4.99 • On sale NOW! l Also available at W.H. Smith and all good newsagents, who will gladly save your copies for you – this is a free service l Price £4.99 each – or get ALL THREE Specials sent direct to you, post-free in the UK, for £12.00, and SAVE £2.97! (Outside UK, via airmail: £17 or €20 or US$26 or Aus$33). l Call 020 8778 0514 to order by credit/debit card l Send a cheque made out to Forum Press or a postal order for £4.99 each OR £12.00 for all three Specials and send to Forum Press, PO Box 735, London SE26 5NQ CONTENTS TRUE DETECTIVE AUGUST 2022 “Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing Letters except revenge.” Not a quote from an anti-death- Please send your comments, penalty campaigner nor a liberal-minded politician of suggestions and queries to yesteryear but Albert Pierrepoint (right) – Britain’s most P4 True Detective, PO Box 735, London SE26 5NQ, UK prolific state executioner. Pierrepoint, who died 30 years or email ago, in July 1992, kept his views to himself during his 24-year career as a [email protected] hangman. He came from a family of executioners and his “clients” included Fax: +44 (0)20 8776 8260 many of Britain’s most notorious killlers of the day such as 10 Rillington subscriptions Place serial killer John Christie and Acid Bath Murderer John George Haigh. UK: £31.50 for 12 issues. There was, inevitably, controversy too – the executions of Timothy Evans, Surface mail: £50.00 (US$68.00/ Ruth Ellis and Derek Bentley all evoking public ire at the failings of the Au$84.00). Airmail (Europe): £50.00 (€57.00). Airmail (rest of world): £61.00 British justice system. Following his retirement, the dapper northerner was (US$82.00/Au$103.00) ready to say more. Reflecting on Pierrepoint’s views seems timely as we To subscribe, visit mark the 30th anniversary of his passing. Turn to page 4 and Hangman!. www.truecrimelibrary.com or call Ramon Salcido sought a better life when he came to the US from his +44 (0)20 8778 0514 or email native Mexico. By 1989 he was married with three daughters and living in [email protected] or write to Forum Press, PO Box 735, California. But his American dream – and those of his victims – was about London SE26 5NQ to be destroyed by his terrible gun rampage. See page 8 and America’s back numbers Most Evil – When Daddy Ran Amok...Seven Would Die for the full story. Visit www.truecrimelibrary.com Who killed actress Harriet Buswell? Turn to page 30 and Questions & or phone Forum Press on Answers – Bloomsbury’s Locked Room Murder Mystery for a chance to assess +44 (0)20 8778 0514 or email the evidence in this enduring Victorian-era puzzler.... [email protected] advertising l Order a True Detective subscription for the crime buff in For ad rates contact Forum Press, your life – or for yourself. See page 35 for full details. PO Box 735, London SE26 5NQ Tel: +44 (0)20 8778 0514 4 Hangman! 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Copyright and Mark Davis Tom Winterburn the rights of translation and reproduction of the contents of True Detective are strictly 24 Who Buried Milly In The 36 Tessa Was Killed In Cold reserved. Distributed by Marketforce Garden? Blood (UK) Ltd, 3rd Floor, 161 Marsh Wall, John Sanders Mark Davis London, E14 9AP 26 Hanged In Australia: 40 Hanged In Wales: Tel: +44 (0)330 390 6555 © Magazine Design & Publishing Ltd “I’ll Be Hung For Her Like The Family-Slayer From A Man,” Said Susannah’s Spain Boyfriend Phillip Stephenson We also publish Master James Newbury Detective, True Crime and 47 Execution USA Murder Most Foul magazines 30 Questions & Answers Martin Chaffe Search “True Crime Library” @TrueCrimeMagz www.truecrimelibrary.com @truecrimelibrary True Detective 3 “WHEN I LEAVE school, 30 years ago Britain’s best-known executioner died... I should like to be chief executioner,” Albert Pierrepoint wrote in an essay when he was 11. He was both the son and nephew of chief executioners, and he achieved his ambition in 1941, nearly 10 years into his career as a hangman. But his income from an average of one execution a month did not amount to a living, so like his father and uncle he was never able to give up his day job. First he delivered groceries with a horse and cart, then he became a publican, and for 14 years he managed to keep his part-time job with the noose secret even from his wife Anne. But in 1946 his duties required him to spend several days in Germany. There he hanged more than 200, comprising both Nazi war criminals and Europeans convicted of ordinary crimes as a consequence of the disturbed state of post-war Germany and Austria. He was no longer able to come up with stories to account to Anne for his occasional overnight absences. He had to tell her what he did when he was away, and at the same time his cover was blown by the authorities. The war criminals were being hanged by Britain’s chief executioner Albert Pierrepoint, the War Office announced, eager to publicise the professional way the job was being done. “When I leave school I should like to be chief executioner,” Albert wrote in an essay when he was 11 It was publicity Pierrepoint could have done without. He had always been the soul of discretion, maintaining a low profile, and now everyone knew his secret. But he didn’t change. He never talked about his executions, not even Albert Pierrepoint to Anne, and anyone who attempted to – he hanged more draw him out on the subject was destined people than any other to be disappointed. British executioner in He refused to discuss how many lives the 20th century he had ended. “It is my intention that the number of executions that I have performed shall remain a secret that I was a perfectionist, and he went about which was just as well. For it was shall take to my grave.” Latest research it with a priestly dedication, prohibiting Pierrepoint who hanged Timothy puts the figure at 433, including 16 his assistants from making jocular, lewd Evans, an illiterate London van-driver women. or macabre remarks about the prisoners executed in 1950 for his baby daughter’s Yet he was far from inarticulate. On or their corpses, and never making such murder, but later found to be innocent. appearing before the Royal Commission comments himself. The culprit was Evans’s landlord, the on Capital Punishment in 1949, he “A condemned prisoner is entrusted to serial killer John Christie, whom Albert was asked if he had any experience of me,” he wrote, “after decisions have been subsequently hanged as well. judging what ordinary people thought made which I cannot alter. He is a man, His nose was itching, Christie of the death penalty. “I imagine people she is a woman who, the church says, still complained after his arms were pinioned talk to you about your duties?” said his merits some mercy. The supreme mercy at his execution in 1953. “It won’t bother questioner. I can extend to them is to give them and you for long,” Pierrepoint told him. “Yes,” Albert replied, “but I refuse to sustain in them their dignity in dying and He was also the executioner in the speak about it. It is something I think in death. The gentleness must remain.” controversial hanging of Derek Bentley, should be secret. It is something I think condemned to death for the shooting should be sacred to me.” This attitude enabled him to remain of a policeman by an accomplice, To him, hanging prisoners was not detached from the rightness or Christopher Craig, who at 16 was too just a job, it was a vocation in which he wrongness of the prisoners’ convictions, young to go to the gallows. 4 True Detective Hangman! 30 years ago Britain’s best-known executioner died... HANGM AN! Now read Pierrepoint’s surprising views on the death penalty Right, Timothy Spall as Albert Pierrepoint prepares the noose for Ruth Ellis, played by Mary Stockley. Above, the real Albert Report by Pierrepoint (left), accompanied Ashley Phillips by Chief Inspector Robert Fabian after the real-life execution of Ruth Ellis knew he was physically very strong and “He started to move and his body a little simple-minded. He had been so caught the edge of the table. He Bentley had the mental age of an sure he wouldn’t hang. appeared not to feel this, although the 11-year-old, and he was subsequently “I must say my own thoughts were table shook. I put the white cap over his given a posthumous pardon. not concerned with any sympathies for head, and the noose with it, and heard “When you go to hang a boy of Bentley. I was occupied with the thought the familiar click of belt and buckle. The nineteen,” Pierrepoint wrote in his that he was six feet tall, a weightlifter and controversy from that instant became autobiography, “it does not matter that a boxer with a brain younger than his purposeless, for Derek Bentley was he is tall and broad-shouldered, for at body. dead.” nine o’clock on the morning he is to die “Bentley had jumped at the sudden Two years later, Pierrepoint was left he still looks only a boy. opening of the door. I am sure he in no doubt of his unpopularity with “And so did Derek Bentley when the had still not properly weighed up the opponents of the death penalty when sickly green door of the condemned cell situation. He moved his shoulders he went to execute Ruth Ellis. He was was abruptly whisked open for me on wonderingly, but did not say anything. spat at and barracked in the street. January 28th, 1953. He sat at his prison I whispered, ‘Just follow me, lad,’ and Rarely photographed leaving or entering table, watching the doorway. added soothingly, ‘It’s all right, Derek – prisons, after her hanging he was “I believe that, because we were all just follow me.’ snapped with another dignitary in crime, dressed so normally in everyday lounge Detective Chief Inspector Robert Fabian suits, young Derek Bentley thought then “A condemned of Scotland Yard. at that moment we had come with his This execution was said to have reprieve. His face glowed with an instant prisoner is entrusted prompted his sudden resignation, which of eagerness. Then he saw the yellow followed within a year. But that rumour strap in my right hand, and his eyes fixed to me after decisions was “absolutely false,” he wrote in his upon it. The sight of this wiped all the memoirs. “At the execution of Ruth Ellis have been made hope from his expression. He stood up no untoward incident happened which in very slowly and clumsily. any way appalled me or anyone else, and which I cannot alter” “We expected trouble with Bentley. We the execution had no connection with 5 “I’ve always wanted to meet you Mr. Pierrepoint,” Amery said on the scaffold, “but not, of course, under these circumstances” my resignation seven months later. Nor and the club-owning gangster Antonio did I leave the list of executioners, as “Babe” Mancini, whose last word on one newspaper said, by being arbitrarily the scaffold in 1941 was “Cheerio.” taken off it to shut my mouth because Mancini, incidentally, was Albert I was about to reveal the last words of Pierrepoint’s first “customer” as No. 1 Ruth Ellis. She never spoke.” hangman. The 16 women Pierrepoint executed Pierrepoint’s resignation was in all impressed him with their courage. “I fact provoked think a woman is braver by a dispute over than a man,” he told the his payment. On Royal Commission. “I a cold January have never seen a man morning he had braver than a woman.” gone to Manchester’s In Germany Strangeways prison he performed 13 to hang Thomas executions in a single Bancroft, who in day, the war criminals the afternoon was he topped including reprieved. Pierrepoint Josef Kramer, the claimed his full fee “Beast of Belsen,” guard Irma Grese, who went to her of £15 (about £700 and the notorious death smiling. in today’s money) Auschwitz and Belsen Two traitors were also amongst his for his wasted time concentration camp tally. In 1945 he hanged the British and journey, but was Secretary of State for India’s son John offered only £1. The Above, David Amery, who had tried to recruit British Blakely and Prison Commission prisoners of war to fight on the Russian Ruth Eliis, declined to become front for the Nazis. “I’ve always wanted and right, involved in the dispute, to meet you, Mr. Pierrepoint,” Amery John Amery so he quit rather than said on the scaffold, “but not, of course, accept the £1 which he considered under these circumstances.” derisory, and the Commission lost And in the following year Pierrepoint the man acknowledged to be Britain’s executed William Joyce, otherwise best-ever and most prolific executioner, known as “Lord Haw-Haw,” for his his condemned-cell-to-the-drop record propaganda broadcasts from Germany just seven seconds. for the Nazis. In his 24 years as a hangman he had dispatched many of the nation’s most In view of his occupation, you might notorious criminals, including the acid have expected Albert Pierrepoint to be bath murderer John George Haigh, something of a sadist, relishing his grisly executed at Wandsworth Prison in 1949, work, but he was nothing of the sort. Had you met him on a train, you might Albert Pierrepoint. “It have taken him to be a brisk, dapper, is my intention that the cheery factory foreman, for although number of executions his expertise with the noose had that I have performed made him a household name, he was shall remain a secret extraordinarily ordinary, and unaffected that I shall take to my by his double life. grave.” Latest research puts the figure at 433 men and women 6 AN UNUsUAl FAmily BUsiNess... “IF YOU can’t do it without whisky, his duties with decorum. don’t do it at all,” Tom Pierrepoint But Tom had his knuckles rapped (far left) advised his nephew Albert early in his nearly-40-year career, as (left). documents recently released by the Having hanged nearly 300 prisoners national archives reveal. In the 1920s he by the time he retired in 1946, Tom and his rival hangman Robert Baxter knew what he was talking were reprimanded for about. And he didn’t need touting for business. to remind Albert of the Whenever a prisoner’s sad example of his father death sentence was reported, Albert Henry (right), who lost his the two executioners wrote Pierrepoint post as chief executioner offering their services to in 1910 after he turned up the official responsible for to the gallows. drunk to hang an inmate at booking the hangman. This “I never used to write,” Tom Chelmsford Prison. practice was unseemly, the Pierrepoint told the commission, Unlike his father, however, Albert Prison Commission ruled, because “but I found out that someone else was not a heavy drinker and he never many death sentences were commuted was and I was not getting my fair needed alcohol to sustain him for an on appeal, and the hangmen were thus turn. The junior man was getting execution. Like his uncle Tom, he was a applying to execute prisoners even the work and the senior man was model hangman, invariably performing before it was certain that they would go waiting idle.” He was only 50 at the time of his last “I do not now believe that any execution, and he continued in his role one of the hundreds of executions I as the landlord of the aptly-named Help carried out has in any way acted as a the Poor Struggler pub, in Hollinwood, deterrent against future murder. Capital between Oldham and Manchester, punishment, in my view, achieved frequently joining his customers in nothing except revenge.” sing-songs, and becoming a familiar, One execution in particular is dinner-jacketed figure at Lancashire believed to have led him to that social functions where he was happy to conclusion. In 1950 James Henry discuss anything but the Corbitt, 37, was a regular at one topic upon which he Pierrepoint’s pub, and one of his was uniquely qualified to singing partners – they called each express his opinion. other “Tish” and “Tosh.” Everyone He reserved that for his was aware of the landlord’s other autobiography, published occupation, but one night, after singing in 1974, 10 years after “Danny Boy” with Pierrepoint, Corbitt Britain’s last executions. went out and strangled his girlfriend “If death were a deterrent,” Eliza Wood at a hotel in Ashton- he wrote, “I might be Left, Pierrepoint’s fellow-singer under-Lyne, also scrawling “Whore” in expected to know. It is I James Corbitt, and above, indelible ink on her forehead. who have faced them last, gangster Antonio Mancini Consequently, at Strangeways Prison young men and girls, working men, “All the men and women whom on November 28th, Pierrepoint’s former grandmothers. I have been amazed to I have faced at that final moment pub customer and fellow-singer became see the courage with which they take convince me that in what I have done his “client” on the scaffold. that walk into the unknown. It did not I have not prevented a single murder. “Hello, Tish,” the hangman said to deter them then, and it had not deterred And if death does not work to deter one calm him. But this was hardly necessary. them when they committed what they person, it should not be held to deter Instead of breaking down, Corbitt were convicted for. any... attempted to thrust his head into the noose before it was ready. Some of Pierrepoint’s “customers.” Left to right, Irma Grese, Josef Kramer The murderer accepted his fate, and and John Christie he probably deserved to die, his son was later quoted as saying, urging the return of capital punishment. “Anybody who kills somebody should hang unless it was in self-defence. My father knew what he was doing. He was thinking about killing the woman for a year.” Albert Pierrepoint died on July 10th, 1992, aged 87. In his memoirs he had recalled that on returning to his pub after Corbitt’s execution, “As I polished the glasses, I thought if any man had a deterrent to murder poised before him, it was this troubadour who I called Tish. He was not only aware of the rope, he had the man who handled it beside him singing a duet. The deterrent did not work. He killed the thing he loved.” 7 A ’ S M C O I R S T E M E Ramon Salcido seemed to have it all – a V I beautiful wife, three pretty young daughters and A L a home in the California sunshine. But he was plagued by a powerful jealousy – which led to an unimaginable murderous rampage... When Daddy Ran Amok... Seven Would Die Horrific Mass Killing In California THE VILLAGE of Boyes Hot Springs in California’s Sonoma Valley had seen better days. It had never fully recovered from the Great Depression, which severely Case report by Walt Hecox limited its attractions as a tourist destination, and had drifted into a sleepy existence as a primarily residential area. In fact, at 3 o’clock on the morning of April 14th, 1989, the almost the whole village was sound asleep. But one or two people were awake, including the night clerk at the Sonoma Mission Inn, a splendid monument to Inset left, mass killer Ramon Salcido today. Above, daughters Sofia, Carmina the days when the entire town was a and Teresa, only one of whom would survive their father’s rampage fashionable resort. Also awake and abroad was a man wearing rough work clothes who head, the night clerk sent him away. single room in the place was priced at walked into the hotel lobby at 3 a.m. Sometimes he wondered about people. $95? That was the bare-bones bottom and wanted to check in. Shaking his Didn’t the man know the cheapest of the range, and this guy obviously 8 True Detective When Daddy Ran Amok...Seven Would Die couldn’t afford it. At 7 o’clock in the morning, perhaps a dozen miles away, in middle-class suburban Cotati, a man living on Lakewood Avenue thought he heard people screaming. Then the sound stopped and he pushed it from his mind. Half an hour later, a man who lived directly across the street from Bob and Marion Richards’ home in Lakewood Above, a policeman waits outside the Salcido home as colleagues investigate the death scene. Left, top to bottom, Angela Salcido and fellow- victim Tracy Toovey Avenue noticed that the Richards’ dog Ranch near Kenwood. “There’s been a Sonoma County sheriff’s department was outside. That was unusual. The shooting,” the dispatcher was informed. out of Santa Rosa, was not alarming. A animal was never outside alone. Then “A man has been wounded.” man had been shot in the shoulder and he noticed that Bob Richards’ car On the surface, the call which the officers knew he was not critically had gone. It was possible the dog had sent Lieutenant Erne Ballinger and hurt. Of more concern to Brown and darted outside, unnoticed, when Bob Detective Sergeant Mike Brown of the Ballinger, however, was that the man left for work at the crack of dawn. with the gun had left the crime scene The man knocked on the Richards’ A man had been shot and was at large. He might use the door. Marion would want to know weapon again. in the shoulder and her dog was outside unattended. His Shortly after 8.35 a.m., Brown and knock was not answered. That, too, officers knew he was Ballinger, approached the scene of the he thought, was strange. Ordinarily, shooting. Ken Butti, the foreman at not critically hurt. Marion Richards answered anyone’s the Grand Cru Winery, was waiting for knock promptly. The neighbour waited Of more concern, them, a bloodstained bandage on his a few more moments, knocked again shoulder, his pale-faced, shaken wife at however, was that the and, when there was no answer, left his side. The winemaker was puzzled, bewildered and just a trifle alarmed... man with the gun had angered and alarmed by what had At 8.18 a.m., a sheriff’s department happened. left the crime scene dispatcher in nearby Santa Rosa got Butti told the officers that one of a telephone call from the Kunde and was at large... the Grand Cru employees had driven 9 to the Butti ranch house a short time ago, parked his car in about the same spot as the sheriff’s department men, and approached the porch where Butti was sitting. Ken recognised the car. He stood up and started down the steps. The man who had climbed out of an ageing Ford was not there for conversation. He levelled a .22 revolver at Butti, mumbled something the foreman never quite heard, and fired twice at almost point-blank range. The winemaker staggered back, wounded. He heard his wife scream, then saw the man point his gun at her. “I saw him pull the trigger and heard the hammer click, but there was no explosion,” the wounded man told the detectives. Mrs. Butti had been saved from death or serious injury by a misfire. The injured man was hard-pressed to find a motive for the shooting. He told the detectives that the gunman, whom he identified as Ramon Salcido, a 28-year-old Mexican national who had migrated to the United States in the early 80s and was now a legal resident of his adopted country, was normally a good worker. Above, Ramon Salcido with his wife and victim Angela seen in a studio photograph. Left, a wanted poster used by the investigators to help find the fugitive mass killer might try again. chainlink fence marked the school Then the detectives drove south-west, grounds’ southern boundary, separating towards the Grand Cru Estate it from the Grand Cru vineyards. But Chardonnay vineyards and winery. Ballinger and Brown found trouble on They had obtained Salcido’s home Dunbar Road before they even reached address from Ken Butti, but first they Grand Cru that morning. Parked just wanted to stop at the winery and warn off an access road was an ancient car. Lately, the foreman continued, the workers there. It was the dark and dusty Volkswagen Ramon had been troubled by a Butti had told the officers that Karmann Ghia that Tracy Toovey, marriage he thought might be falling Ramon Salcido was married to a very 35-year-old assistant winemaker at apart. He was also in some kind of attractive woman and was insanely Grand Cru, had been driving since he financial jam. The combination had jealous. The wounded foreman was a teenager. Hanging from the open affected his work, Butti explained. He indicated that Salcido suspected the door of the little car was Toovey’s body, had been forced to talk to the younger assistant winemaker at Grand Cru of half in and half out, his face shattered man about his performance on the making improper advances to her, and by almost half-a-dozen bullets. job, but nothing had been said that innocence might not protect the man. The officers called for a doctor, but indicated to Salcido that his job was in A couple of miles south of the Kunde they knew the man was dead. danger, or that might have prompted Ranch was the Dunbar School. A lofty It was a Friday. Some children him to retaliate. Of course, the foreman were visible on the baseball field and reflected, Salcido obviously did not He levelled a .22 playgrounds of Dunbar School. There share his opinion. would be more in the classrooms. The revolver at Butti, Sergeant Brown and Lieutenant officers knew that with a killer on the Ballinger made arrangements for the mumbled something loose something would have to be done wounded man to be hospitalised. They at the school and the winery – and the foreman never also helped Mrs. Butti make plans to quickly. leave home and stay with friends. She quite heard, and fired Six miles farther down Highway 12 had witnessed the shooting and Salcido was Boyes Hot Springs, where Ramon twice at almost point- knew it. He had tried to kill her once. Salcido lived on Baines Street with There was reason to believe that he blank range his wife and three young daughters. 10