The Chilling Story of Ada James' Murder | Roy Marsden's Incident Room | Real Crime

foreign [Music] [Music] nobody should die that way I've never seen anything that hurt one of the duties of a pathologist is to determine the cause of death watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required download Billy now murder is the ultimate crime and holds an endless fascination in this program we're going to look back in the files at the gruesome events in Cutthroat Lane with the help of a 21st century jury of experts psychologist and profiling expert Kerry Danes journalist and crime novelist Hillary Bonner retired senior police investigator Mick Turner and Jerome Williams QC what was the method what was the motive how was the investigation conducted were Clues missed or deliberately ignored today we ask it was Justice really done in Cutthroat Lane the senwerbergs in the northeast of Bristol is dominated by narrow ways Hill and the path that sweeps down from its Hundred-Foot Summit alongside the church since the early 20th century local people have had another name for this ancient route here in this historic Backwater of the West country's principal city was an event so shocking that even though people still shudder the mention of cutthroat Lane the people living here in San werbergs had always been part of a close-knit working class Community made up of families who had lived here for years and knew each other well the coming of the railways in the 19th century changed everything three railway lines now crossed at narroway's Junction passing through deep cuttings in the patchwork of hedged fields a Stone Works and firelighter Factory replaced the old Watercress beds followed by a scaffolding yard and bottling plant narrow ways Hill itself was a popular place for football boxing and prize fighting but social workers became concerned with the health and the living conditions of the people of Inner City Bristol within this world of dark factories and Cinders from Steam Trains young Ada James lived and worked Ada Louisa James was born probably in Bristol in 1892 like many working-class girls of the time the plump dark-haired Ada was steeped in a religious upbringing [Music] apart from giving spiritual sustenance the churches of the early 20th century served a vital role as social centers where single women could meet friends of both sexes usually under the watchful eye of their parents Ada was a good God-fearing soul and there was very much a school of thought at the time that the church kept young girls particularly poor young girls out of trouble if I come to think of it I remember it not being so very different to that when I was growing up in the west country in the 50s and 60s we know that ADA worked in the nail and button factory near the center of the city by all accounts she was volatile and strong will and not the sort of girl to suffer fools gladly Ada James was a poor Factory girl but it seems that both her feet were firmly on the ground sometime in her teens Ada fell for Edward Henry Palmer Ted to his friends we know that the young man who was two years older than Ada had a checkered youth he'd apparently been an accomplished amateur boxer before drifting into the less glamorous role of chairmaker here though was a man with dreams of leaving England behind and settling into a new and prosperous life abroad Ada evidently shared Ted's vision of the future and the two Factory workers quickly became a couple Ted's life however was proving to be full of false starts the young man had indeed spent most of 1912 in Canada leaving his girlfriend to struggle on at the button factory but in the December he returned home to Bristol and a life with his mother and two sisters in Albany Road in Bristol's Montpellier District with money saved from the work in North America Ted picked up the threads of his relationship with Ada on Monday evening January the 27 1913 the girls from the button factory Spilled Out onto the streets after another grueling monotonous shift Ada didn't stay long to chat with her workmates she and her brother Alfred had arranged to attend the Bible class T at the shaftesbury crusade in Clark's buildings in Bristol in stark contrast to Ada and her evening with her church friends Ted had spent most of the day moving from one local pub to another brooding on the future and squandering what was left of his wages from Canada at some stage of the pub crawl through his Beary Haze the xboxer began thinking about ADA again perhaps out of remorse he wandered round to Ada's home and waited for her to return from her Bible class t at around 7 30 that evening the couple set out for a walk towards the grassy slopes of narrow ways Hill apparently getting on well together and delighting in each other's company stopping on the narrow pathway Ted Unleashed another of his Grand schemes this time he wanted to leave Bristol in the near future to seek his fortune in the West Indies the idea was that he would send for Ada once he became established in the right sort of work the volatile young Factory girl was Furious she'd heard it all before he'd gone to Canada leaving her behind now he was about to do the same again he later claimed she hold it at him shouting if you do go I shall go on the tongue I've done it before and will do so again Ted wanted to know the girl was serious about a life of prostitution yes she said later Ted was to say that at this point everything went black what happened next is not in dispute Ted Palmer dreamer and failed Adventurer reached into his jacket and produced a Cutthroat razor with a single crazed lunge he slit his girlfriend's throat Premiere to ear as Ada thrashed about in a sea of blood her main artery severed the young man ran off into the night very soon afterwards One Frederick fry was walking home through some werbergs he saw Ada lying on the ground barely conscious gasping Through Blood she tried to describe what had happened to her pointing towards the narrow ways-hill footpath at the End of the Street fighting gamely for Life the girl had apparently crawled a quarter of a mile in search of help with Mr Price seemingly powerless to assist the girl in her dying throws an off-duty policeman PC parfit arrived at the appalling scene what's she saying what's she been saying something while waiting for an ambulance to arrive from some Phillips the officer gave the dying girl a pencil and a sheet of paper struggling to summon up the strength Ada scribbled Ted Palmer's name and as her life ebbed away whispered Mahi fiance did it s head PC puff it contacted Bristol Central police station within minutes the ancient Hill was teeming with police officers searching for a weapon or any clue to the Savage attack on a defenseless young woman oh near the scene of the attack they found the girls discarded engagement ring lying in a pool of blood the head of the local CID a detective inspector Tanner went straight to Bristol Royal infirmary probably in the hope of coaxing more answers out of ADA but despite an emergency operation the girl died around midnight a vicious domestic attack was now a murder inquiry if I was investigated this incident today I would be interested in looking at Ada's medical records to see if there's evidence that she'd suffered previous incidents of abuse the sad fact is that most victims of murder are killed by somebody they know and love in fact in the past police have been criticized for not interfering in domestic incidents nowadays investigators show much more Enlightenment and they would focus on the relationship as the reason for the killing while Ada was struggling with her last words to the policeman Ted Palmer ambled towards hodder's chemist shop at the corner of Warwick and Stapleton Road with the shop now closed for the day the young man banged frantically on the door to be let in an assistant George dodman working late in the shop was able to respond quickly to the commotion I need laudnam Ted demanded in the England of the 19th and early 20th century laudnam or tincture of opium was a drug that had Mass Appeal either as a narcotic or as a painkiller George Dogman served Ted Palmer with toffemsworth enough for a suicide attempt traumatized by shock and stress an adult from the effects of the drug Palmer showed up at around 2AM on the morning after the attack at the house of his uncle in Bean Street begging for a glass of water saying that he'd taken poison at the same time PC William Cook who was patrolling the area spotted the man and immediately arrested him when police searched the young man they found a letter possibly a suicide note addressed to his mother forgive me a my dear girl for our trouble red it is all over now forever I cannot stand the disgrace anymore Edward Henry Palmer was duly charged with murdering Ada Louisa James it appeared to be an open and shut case but it wasn't Palmer went into the doctor Gloucester sizes on Wednesday February the 19th 1913 but denied premeditated murder the young man was said to have appeared unmoved as he stood to face the charge exchanging warm glances and greetings with friends who turned up in numbers to give moral support the trial with Lord Justice Coleridge presiding lasted just one day it really wasn't very uncommon for a trial to last just one day um we didn't have photocopiers we didn't have computers we didn't have tape recorders a witness would come along give his evidence be cross-examined Judd would sum the case up and often would turn to the jury and say you don't really need to retire do you and they would confer amongst themselves within the jury box and return a verdict of guilty or innocent just as quickly as prying an egg and that's how it was not uncommon at all now this was 1913 a year before the first world war and detection and investigation techniques were primitive by today's standards what's she saying what should be saying but there didn't seem to be much doubt about who had committed the crime given the verbal statement the dying Ada had given to fry and the word Ted written on the scrap of paper the policeman had given her but from the outset it was more the nature of the crime than the act itself that was to create a controversy a spur-of-the-moment crime of passion Ted Palmer might end up in jail but if it was a premeditated plan crime he would end up Facing The Hangman's noose murder is the unlawful killing of another intending to kill them or to cause serious injury to them as a result which they die that's murder in this country always has been still is manslaughter is some lesser offense obviously and in the context of this case what was being argued was that provocation is a partial defense to murder in other words I was provoked into doing it therefore don't convict me of murder Palmer soon stopped smiling when the two Prosecuting counsel Mr Emanuel and Mr McDonald produced evidence to suggest that far from being a spur of the moment attack the death of ADA James was coldly planned and premeditated more details about the relationship between tedenada now began to emerge after returning from Canada at Christmas time he had bought her a ring as proof of his good intentions and they had discussed marriage much to Ada's concern however her fiance was struggling in his attempts to return to work Ada had just her wages from the factory Ted had just the dwindling supply of cash from his 12 months in Canada Ted also had bouts of instability he apparently owned a revolver possibly acquired in Canada and took a fiendish delight in deliberately waving it around to terrorize his mother and sisters we do not know whether any aveda's friends and family were aware of the dark difficult side of Ted Palmer or whether any of them tried to discourage the friendship to all out with appearances he must have seemed a hard-working and ambitious young man down on his luck who was trying to make his way in the world with Ada at his side as his fiancee and future bride Ted's Behavior with a gun arguably showed that he had an impulsive nature and he now reminded the court that when Ada threatened to go on the town everything had gone black people often say to me that they don't know what happened when they committed an offense everything went black or more commonly they'll say that they started to see red now it seems that whatever was the exchange between Ted and Ada it triggered an intense rage in him so whatever he did he did out of intense anger and angry aggressive outburst the court was told that Palmer had pawned his revolver to raise much needed cash when he tried to redeem The Pledge he didn't have enough money so he went and bought a razor instead with the clear intention of killing Ada the prosecution claimed there are levels of premeditation and I would suggest that the points at which Ted reached into his pocket for the razor regardless of whether that razor had been put there for the purpose of killing Ada or not that in itself showed that his thought processes had turned to murder a turn to violence you can only use a weapon if it is available to you so I would suggest that there's something a little bit fishy about a man who goes out with a razor in his pocket that's easily accessible but Palmer argued that he bought the razor on the Sunday because he'd lost his own reason most significantly it turned out that his sister had hidden it because of his unstable Behavior but if he had bought the razor on Sunday why was it still in his pocket on Monday night tennis reply was that on the Sunday he was too drunk to shave the defense counted with evidence that Ted had woken chemist George Dogman shortly after the crime in order to buy laudanum and kill himself surely in remorse for his impulsive act but the prosecution pointed out that he had been sane enough when arrested to inquire about the logistics of Ada's Final hours you don't mean to say that she got over that style he asked the police officers do do you think she suffered it was suggested that Ted Palmer had taken laudnam to commit suicide and that he had a note with him which suggested that he might have been intending to commit suicide fact is that in those days that was an offense in itself and certainly it would have been regarded as seeking to cheat the hangman the jury decided that the death of ADA James was willful murder Edward Henry Palmer was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead these days we've got a much broader way of thinking about provocation but I still don't think that Ted's defense would have held water then and I don't think it would hold water now we can think about provocation as something that is so powerful and immense that it causes um a temporary loss of control in the person who's been provoked or we can think about provocation as building up over time so for example I've worked with women who have killed violent spouses and although they've not been threatened at the time that they committed the killings that that threat has built up over time and with learned experiences Palmer's defense team did not leave it at that on March the 10th 1913 the case went to appeal with Mr JD Trapnell for the defense arguing that the circumstances were such as to Warrant the jury in reducing the crime from murder to manslaughter what trackner was trying to say to the court of appeal was that ADA had thrown the ring in his face had said she'd been on the town before and was going to go again that might properly be regarded as provocation today but the court of appeal then didn't see it that way Mr Trapnell tried another tag Palma had tried to get the revolver out of porn on January the 25th not because he wished to use it but because he planned to sell it according to Palmer Mr Trapnell said Tedder told the girl that being unable to find work at Bristol he had decided to go abroad to make a home for her there again the defense spelled out the angry exchanges between this apparently devoted couple she said that if he did that she'd go on the town as she had done before he said do you mean that she said yes she threw the ring he had given her in his face and that thereupon he had killed her Mr trapnel then suggested that the trial judge Mr Justice colbridge had misdirected the jury when he had told them that no provocation by gestures or words could reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter they would have seen her as a tart they were not married the court of appeal wouldn't have regarded that as a significant enough reason to justify any man losing his self-control so as to be able to argue provocation in the event the presiding judge Mr Justice Channel refused leave to appeal the court thought that if the jury had returned a verdict a manslaughter it would based on the evidence of being entirely wrong words alone are less in very exceptional circumstances were not sufficient provocation to reduce homicide from murder to manslaughter he said in 1913 Words May well not amounted to the partial defense offered by provocation positions very different now race sex Creed are all features which might justify someone seeking to raise that as a partial defense to a charge of murder position in 1913 was very different the court would have regarded her as I've said as a tart who was not married to this man and they could not conceive of how anyone could lose his self-control to that extent to be able to run this as a partial defense and that's why they dismissed it Palmer's bizarre behavior threatening his mother and sister with the revolver suggested a mental instability the story that his sister hid his razor because of fears of what her brother might do with it is perfectly believable but there is no reference at any stage of the trial or the subsequent appeal to the young man's fragile mental state now I know from the research that I do into my books now how narrow the line is between murder and manslaughter and that's something I don't think that has changed over the years uh nonetheless it's my personal belief that if Edward stood was brought to Justice now that he would not stand trial for murder and that he'd probably be committed under the mental health Act but this was 1913 and the law was a harsher Master Edward Palmer was hanged by Thomas pierpoint at Bristol on Wednesday March the 19th leaving the chilling memories of those events in Cutthroat Blaine to another generation [Music] [Music] murder is the ultimate crime and holds an endless fascination in this program we're going to look back in the files of the case of the headless man and re-examine it with the help of a 21st century jury of experts psychologists and profiling expert Kerry Danes journalist and crime novelist Hillary Bonner retired senior police investigator Mick Turner and forensic scientist Alan Baker what was the method what was the motive how was the investigation conducted were Clues missed or deliberately ignored today we ask who was the endless man and how did he die [Music] on the evening of Wednesday the 24th of January 1938 Mrs Sullivan a nurse by occupation called to check on this house where her son Brian lived on the assumption that he was still in London but Brian wasn't in London his mother found him lying upstairs having apparently gassed himself Brian Sullivan's death was just one part of a jigsaw of events that spawned a thousand Clues and became known as The Case of the headless man so who was Brian Sullivan and what was his connection with the grizzly events which brought crowds to Hall Bridge on the River 7 to watch as fishermen hold a headless man from the swirling Waters Brian was a young man with a passion for ballroom dancing he worked in a London hotel until he was sacked for attempted robbery and then he became involved in some shady dealings with a convicted fraudster called Kenneth Newman which left him broke Brian's mother nurse Sullivan found him a refuge here at Tower Lodge Cheltenham her employer Captain William butt helped pay for the lease and Brian became a regular guest at the lodge nurse Sullivan was employed by Captain Butt to look after his ailing wife Edith Around the Clock on the 10th of January 14 days before his body was found Brian had taken tea with his mother and the butts before returning to the lodge to sleep so the lives of Captain Barton Brian Sullivan were connected soon their deaths will be connected too in the three weeks preceding Brian Sullivan's death two significant events had occurred Captain buttered gone missing and human tissue had been found here on Hall Bridge it was only a fragment and at first police believed it was animal flesh had they realized what it really was they might have paid more attention to two other clues that were to become significant later a lorry driver had seen two men parked on the bridge the night before and a woman's glove and scarf had been found thrown in the mud on the bridge Brian Sullivan owned an identical car and the significance of the glove would become clear later so what sort of a man was Captain but the manned whom boat Brian and his mother looked for lodging and fans we know he was a womanizer with a pawn shop for rich single women and Wealthy widows after military service he found just what he needed in Edith a wealthy spinster this was the era when the likes of William butt kept their ranks their military ranks even when the rank was as unimpressive as Army Captain it was also that period during the between the two Wars when there were far more eligible women around than there were eligible men and it was also a very very different time when the likes of William button he was not a very pleasant man but he would expect his wife just to put up with his philandering just to put up with everything that that he did and the wife would probably expect no better that's the worst of it Eden suffered mental health problems and as her illness became worse the couple downsized and settled in Cheltenham on the old Bath Road here they took on Nurse Sullivan to live in and look after Mrs Butt but the captains soon tired of the housebound Edith and went in search of fresh sexual Adventures he moved a jackal and hide existence to neighbors and acquaintances he was an affable ex-army type privately he was a secretive mean-spirited man not to be crossed on any account on Monday January the 3rd 1938 captain and Mrs Butt returned to Cheltenham from spending Christmas in New Year with his widowed sister in Oxfordshire the next day January the 4th the captain was already laying plans for another of his sudden and secret excursions at around 5 p.m he asked nurse Sullivan to prepare tea and then to take Edith to the pictures and that's an order he said nurse Sullivan's young son Brian accompanied the ladies to the gomont in the Town Center to watch love his news they returned to find the side Gates on the garage doors open there shall he misses butt that man's gone again in fact from that night January the 4th Edith was never to see her husband alive again then three weeks later three fishermen were hauling in their Nets one mile Downstream of Hall Bridge on the River seven suddenly their load became heavy but not with fish for entangled in the mess was something white slippery until utterly bloated and repellent the one of the trio was violently sick over the side of the boat the men had been hoping to land a catch of salmon but instead they rode ashore towing a putrefying male human torso around the Torso some want to tied a length of tough cord passing under the armpits this was attached to another piece of cord of about eight to nine inches long which was attached in turn to a large white brick another length of cord attached to a second white brick was tied around the waist of the Torso pretended Albert Wayman confirmed to reporters that the body was minus its arms legs and head one of the arms had been properly dissected with the saw the other one was ragged the legs had been cut off close to the hips and the head had been removed near to the spine Mr Wayman said where of the opinion that the body is that of a man of a mature age at this stage the police were not making any connection with the unpleasant discoveries on Hall bridge on January the 10th especially since a respected local pathologist declared the blood splinters of bone and fragment of Flesh to be of animal origin at the time of this particular crime the origin of the flesh would have caused some difficulty they would have been able to do some fairly rudimentary tests blood type tests that could have determined whether it was animal or human in origin but applying today's science to that particular crime would have meant that they could have quite readily established that it was human and then quite readily Associated that particular sample with an individual if indeed a sample from that individual would had been taken the local police were already looking into Brian Sullivan's death so who was the Torso and were the two deaths connected police had already scoured Club rooms and left luggage offices for body parts immediately following the false alarm of January the 10th three theories were being advanced in the local press one was that the sore man had been murdered the second one was he was killed on the road and dramatically disposed of thirdly that it was medical students playing some kind of ghastly practical joke the police hoped that a postmortem would provide some answers meanwhile to the Delight of the crowds gathering on the riverbank the dragging of the seven continued on the Saturday afternoon January the 6th someone shouted triumphantly from a boat fisherman Jack dudfield and his friend Alf Chamberlain had found a man's right arm frustratingly the hand had been chopped off so there were no fingerprints like the Torso the armor being tied to a brick by the elbow the collection of exhibits was building by suddenly the crowd had grown to five thousand it doesn't surprise me one bit that so many people turned up it must have been for a lot of them the most exciting thing that had happened in their in their lives it must have been a thriller I think it's a sort of Gossip syndrome isn't it that you you you you know you shouldn't but you can't resist now it's quite possible that the killer was amongst that number it has been known before and these days during investigations we usually have quite detailed photographs films CCTV camera and police will look at who seems to be watching the investigation just that little bit too closely can of course happen think about the sower murders Ian Huntley was very deeply involved in that investigation he took any opportunity that he could and of course he was filmed talking to the Press about the the killings the hunt for the missing head and limbs continued into the week around 11 o'clock on the Tuesday Morning February the 8th an enterprising pensioner dragged up a right leg and foot from the water again with a brick attached in the afternoon another villager found the left leg and foot and a rope and brick the body was coming together bit by bit now only the heads the hands and left arm were missing most critically among the massive detail that had been collected by the police was the information that Captain William Bernard butt had been missing from his home enchantment since the night of January the 4th the local newspapers followed each and every twist and turn in the story it was Sensational stuff the Cheltenham area had seen two dead bodies in a Disappearance in less than a month now they were definitely connected in less than a month the Cheltenham area had seen two dead bodies and a Disappearance in a series of events which became notorious as the case of the headless man Captain William butt had been missing from his home in Cheltenham since the night of January the 4th 1938. the captain's wife had been cared for by nurse Sullivan her son Brian had apparently taken his own life and a torso had been found near a bridge where a cast similar to brands have been seen with a mysterious shape on the back seat on Monday February the 7th 1938 three senior detectives led a search of tower Lodge following the apparent suicide of Brian Sullivan in the Alcove Under the Stairs the detectives found that white bricks had been ripped out most significantly the garden contained bricks identical to the ones displaced from The Alcove and they looked just like the ones attached to the headless body the detectives hadn't finished they also found similar rope and a length of string of the same type that had been tied to the torso's right arm the house itself was rich with items belonging to Captain Bud in a case police found an Automobile Association keyring with nine keys and a pair of white Woolen Underpants but most interesting for the police was the fact that the case also contained items of clothing that belonged to Brian Sullivan the items recovered from Mr Sullivan's house potentially could have been very helpful from a police point of view because they could have established an association between that individual and the victim of the crime were they friends they were clearly linked with a business associates or were they the closest of enemies I really don't know another possibility is that they were lovers just because Captain boy had a push on for the ladies doesn't mean that it didn't also like men he's been in the Army for some time now it's only recently become legal to be homosexual and be in the Army but just because something was not legal in those days doesn't mean that it didn't happen events were now moving quickly Tuesday February the 8th saw the opening and closing of an inquest into the trunk of a body of a male person found in the river seven a doctor told the court that the Torso was that of a well-developed male whose age was probably over 25 years and probably under 50 years but was it the captain it was probable he went on that the body had been submerged in the water shortly after death and had remained there for around four weeks before the postmortem with which will put it in the week after the captain disappeared but the doctor said there was not enough evidence to arrive at the exact nature of his murder meanwhile checks on the laundry mark on the glove that had been found on Hall Bridge had borne fruit the castle laundry in Wandsworth reported that the Mark showed it belonged to a woman who lived in London's West End police trace the woman to an address in Piccadilly and established she had 28 convictions for prostitution since October 1932. since January 1934 she had also been married to a friend of Sullivan's one Kenneth Newman but this concrete proof of Bran's connection with low life and prostitution fed the theory that he and his mother a trained nurse ran an abortion clinic out of tower Lodge and what of Kenneth Newman was he the second man in the car on the bridge police interviewed Newman but a check of his movements and Alibis yielded nothing that could link him to the disposal of the Torso police also traced an Austin tourer that belonged to Brian Sullivan but found nothing to suggest that it had been used to carry a dismembered body but police were satisfied that wherever the body was dismembered it certainly wasn't Tower Lodge on February the 10th the Torso was buried in a Cheltenham graveyard in a four foot eight inch Elm coffin around the same time Susan schill the owner of shill's Drapers in bathrobe Cheltenham was giving police what was literally a whole parcel of Clues she said that nurse Sullivan and Captain Butt both held Accounts at the shop early in the afternoon on January the 14th a young delivery boy took a parcel to Tower Lodge for Urgent delivery to nurse Sullivan in pouring rain the boy peddled to the lodge he could see that the parcel contained a box of 12 sanitary towels nurse Sullivan strongly denied ordering the towels in any case at 57 she was of an age probably not to need such articles however from the delivery boy's description the man at the door was probably Brian Sullivan alive and in Cheltenham on January the 14th on Saturday February the 19th the last of the four limbs was tugged out of the river seven by Alf Chamberlain the same man who had found the right arm of the Torso on the 5th of February this time it was the left arm tie with binder twine around the elbow but yet again no hand only the head was now missing but could the police identify the body without it many people remember the Dennis Nielsen case some years ago where bits and portions of body parts were found in the drains of a property in London and of course the police had a very difficult job then to piece it all together please now began to feel confident of the torso's identity like a bizarre version of Cinderella the eminent pathologist Dr Bernard spilsbury tried a pair of Captain butts shoes onto the feet of the severed legs and they were found to be a good fit please also check to return Railway ticket from Gloucester to Cheltenham dated January the 15th which PC Mary had found in the grounds of tower Lodge it appeared that the ticket was the first of 14 issued for the 823 train a ticket collector described a young man of five foot seven inches tall clean-shaven with a round face dark wearing horn Rim glasses and slightly effeminate in the way he walked this again was Brian Sullivan to a t the ticket collector even remarked to a guard there's a for you the man was also carrying in a Tashi case or portable gramophone Brian Sullivan was known to possess a portable gramophone and wireless set the young man last seen the library's mother on January the 10th was evidently still alive and traveling around the area five days later so Brian Sullivan could have been involved in the captain's murder but now the supply of Clues gradually petered out in the absence of facts colorful theories abounded investigations into the captain's financial affairs showed that he fleeced his sick wife of hundreds of pounds of cash the inspector also appeared to think it feasible the tower Lodge had been assigned for burying the victim and that a hole had been created in the house but then the river was chosen as a preferable site for disposal the inspector also shared sir Bernard spillsbury's belief that injuries on the Torso were consistent with the man being struck by a fast-moving vehicle but if it wasn't Bran's tourer what car was it and what did Brian Sullivan's suicide here was another mystery Brian's mother nurse Sullivan maintained that her son did not die by his own hand she said the alleged suicide note was simply not the kind of message Brian would write and that in fact The Gas Pipe of the lodge had been severed would it not have been a simpler and easier thing for him to have just laying down and turn on the gas by means of an ordinary jet there might be some weight to Mrs Sullivan's assertion that there's no way that Brian would have committed suicide after all she knows him best but I think that it's more likely that this is a mother's unwillingness to really confront and accept that her son her Offspring somebody that she loved was capable of killing a man and then dismembering a body it might have been so much easier for her to believe that somebody else must have been responsible for these terrible terrible Acts the police never formally named Captain William butt as the Saun up man the inquest on March the 29th returned an open verdict on the body of an unidentified person no one was ever tried either for the murder or for the disposal of the body Mrs Sullivan successfully sued a national newspaper for suggesting that she and her son used Tower Lodge to perform illegal abortions the theory has persisted but although Mrs Sullivan had the medical knowledge and bran Sullivan the necessary Vice World contacts there is no firm evidence of wrongdoing so who killed the captain and how did Brian die and what was the London connection with a prostitute in the Underworld [Music] did the captain become privilege of these alleged goings on at the lodge and tried to Blackmail the Sullivans giving them a strong motive to get rid of him but again there's no evidence to support this in any case he does not explain the subsequent death of Brian Sullivan I think that on the way to the evidence that I have it's not such a leap of faith to believe that Brian murdered the captain for whatever reason that will never never come to light and then he felt so terrible about it that he took his own life what you have to remember is that killing is a stressful business and certainly the dismemberment of a body is unpleasant in the extreme and so Brian May well have been in a position in the mental state to take his own life Mrs hellevan died on August the 9th 1945 police had always found her a difficult woman to interview What secrets if any did Mrs Sullivan take to the Grave the Torso case is rightly called the case of a thousand clues for which there are still no answers unless there is someone still alive who knows what really happened to the good captain and his good friends

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 31,941

Keywords: true crime, real crime, true crime documentary, true crime stories, full length documentary 2023, true crime stories 2023, documentary movies - topic, true crime documentary 2023, Real Crime Documentary, Cutthroat Lane, Ada James Murder Case, Justice in Question, Gruesome Crimes, Cold Cases, Mystery Unraveled, True Crime Investigation, Justice Prevail, BBC Documentary

Id: F7uCWuka4yQ

Length: 45min 1sec (2701 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023