The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes (57 page)

When Hughes came into view, he swerved past the bus and crashed the car. He was heard shouting, “I’m going to stab her. I’m going to kill her.” Over the next forty-five minutes, officers sought to calm Hughes and tried to persuade him to leave Gill Moran in the car and they would provide him with another vehicle. He demanded a Land Rover for his getaway and such a vehicle was duly brought to the scene.

As Hughes stepped out of the crashed car, police marksmen killed him with four shots. He was dragged away bleeding from the head and Gill Moran, who had suffered knife wounds, was released from her ordeal. Later, she would learn about the tragic deaths of her family.

An inquiry into the murders raised many questions. The first was why the police had given up their search on the moors when Hughes was less than a mile away in the Morans’ cottage. The second was the practice of transferring a dangerous prisoner using a taxi. The Home Secretary promised that
security would be tightened up. Other questions hinged on how Hughes had managed to obtain a knife and apparently had not been searched.

The Fate Of “Daddy Samples”

Walter Lewis Samples, a retired engineer who lived alone in Memphis, Tennessee, had been ill for a couple of days and, when his condition worsened on 21 February 1941, he asked his doctor to call round urgently. He was clearly in great pain and before he was rushed off to hospital, he mentioned that the last meal he had eaten was breakfast when he had cooked bacon and eggs and drank two glasses of milk. The milk was delivered to his doorstep as usual but he noticed that the supplier was not his regular dairy.

Soon after admission to hospital, Samples died, and an autopsy determined that he had been poisoned with phosphorus. Analysis of the milk in the opened bottle taken from his refrigerator was also positive for the poison. The dairy that supplied the milk had impeccable bottling procedures, which ruled out accidental contamination. This left suicide or murder as the options open for investigation.

Suicide was thought unlikely leading to the conclusion that someone wanted him out of the way and had planted the poisoned milk with the intention of killing him. A search of Samples’ bungalow provided a few surprises indicating that the military veteran had been leading a double life. A horde of photographs was found of images depicting partially clothed women and his address book was filled with telephone numbers of ladies, many of whom were married. Some of the photographs were signed by the ladies in question and dedicated to “Daddy Samples”. It seemed that the veteran had a robust sex life.

Knowledge of this background provided the possibility that a disenchanted lover might have wanted to eliminate “Daddy Samples”. Detectives interviewed some of the ladies and formed the impression that his personal magnetism was such that they would do anything for him.

Another line of enquiry bore fruit. Samples had been active in the property market and investigators checked court records to see if he had been involved in any litigious disputes. It seemed that he had some unresolved business with a man named Le Roy House. Enquiries showed that Mrs House had been involved romantically with Samples and a woman answering her description had been seen by neighbours at his property.

The plot thickened when a search of Le Roy House’s property turned up several milk bottles belonging to the same Memphis dairy that supplied Samples. Mrs House, apparently unbeknown to her husband, was in possession of a will whereby Samples made her his sole beneficiary. The signature on the document was a forgery, however, and the Houses were charged with murder.

At this point, Le Roy House confessed that he had left the bottle of poisoned milk on Samples’ doorstep and absolved his wife from any blame. Nevertheless, they were both tried and convicted of murder, each being sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. By this time, Le Roy had withdrawn his confession and, following an appeal, a new trial was granted in 1943. Mrs House caused a sensation by declaring, “My husband is innocent, I did it alone and he’s trying to protect me.” Her conviction and sentence were upheld while the charges against Le Roy were dismissed.

Poisoned Stout

When a poison concoction disguised in a bottle of stout was left unattended and sampled by three people, two of whom died as a result, the case illustrated the legal point that someone who attempts to murder person A, and by mischance kills B, is still guilty of murder.

Richard Brinkley was a jobbing gardener who hit on a get-rich-quick scheme involving murder and fraud. He befriended a seventy-seven-year-old widow, Johanna Maria Louisa Blume, who lived with her granddaughter, Caroline, in a house she owned in Fulham, London.

In December 1906, Brinkley put his cunning plan into action by making out a will whereby Mrs Blume left all her assets and property to him. On the pretext that he was collecting signatures for an outing to the seaside, he presented the widow with the paper on which was written the will and carefully folded to obscure the nature of the contents. He then persuaded her to put her signature at the bottom of the paper.

Using the same ploy, Brinkley next procured the signatures of two witnesses. Two days later Mrs Blume died and the examining doctor attributed her death to apoplexy. A verdict of death from natural causes was recorded by the coroner.

Brinkley now appeared at the house in Fulham with the intention of taking possession under the terms of the late Mrs Blume’s will. He produced her will to prove his right of ownership and moved in at the expense of her granddaughter who was dispossessed.

Thinking he had achieved his aims, Brinkley began selling off some of the contents of the house but was in for a shock when Mrs Blume’s relatives contested the will. He was told that the two witnesses to the document would be required to swear on oath that they were both present when the testator signed.

This development provided Brinkley with a dilemma. Realizing that the witnesses would be questioned, he decided to eliminate them. He began with Mr Parker, an accountant’s clerk, who was already beginning to smell a rat. After a couple of visits involving the pouring of drinks and attempts on Brinkley’s part to adulterate them when Parker was out of the room, he resorted to another ruse.

This involved the purchase of a dog that Parker had for sale. Brinkley called at Parker’s lodgings on 20 April 1907 to discuss terms. When he arrived, he produced a bottle of stout and vigorously proclaimed the health-giving qualities of the drink. At this point, Parker’s landlord, Mr Beck, called at the house but made himself scarce when he realized the two men were discussing business.

Parker and Brinkley went out into the yard to look at the dog, leaving the bottle of stout on the table. Meanwhile, Mr Beck
returned, accompanied by his wife and daughter. Persuaded by Brinkley’s advocacy of the drink they decided to sample it. Within minutes, Mr and Mrs Beck were struck down with convulsions and died soon afterwards. Their daughter was taken ill but recovered later in hospital.

Brinkley was quickly arrested after Parker told the police what had happened. The dregs of liquid remaining in the bottled stout were analysed and found to contain prussic acid. Mrs Blume’s body was later exhumed but no traces of poison were found. Brinkley protested his innocence and attempted to put up an alibi but it quickly unravelled on questioning.

Asked about his possession of prussic acid, strychnine, arsenic and chloroform, Brinkley said they were used for electrical and photographic experiments. His trial at Lewes Assizes for the murder of Mr and Mrs Beck was notable for the fact that they were not his intended victims. The jury had little difficulty in returning a guilty verdict and Brinkley was sentenced to death by Mr Justice Bigham and was executed at Wandsworth Prison on 13 August 1907.

Poison Pie

Thirty-five-year-old Michael Barber worked in a factory warehouse at Westcliff-on-Sea in the UK. He was married to Susan and they had three children. While he liked the quiet life, his wife preferred to be socially active. The marriage got into difficulties when Susan proved unfaithful. Returning from a fishing trip, Michael surprised Susan in bed with a neighbour. There were harsh words and a few blows exchanged.

Early in June 1981, Michael became unwell with severe headaches and was off work. When he experienced cramps and nausea, his doctor treated him for an infection. His health continued to go downhill and after he had breathing problems, he was admitted to hospital at Southend. When his kidneys began to fail, he was transferred to Hammersmith Hospital where doctors began to suspect that he had been poisoned.

Michael Barber died on 27 June from cardiac arrest and kidney failure. On the same day, Susan’s neighbour moved in
with her. Michael’s body was duly cremated but not before tissue samples had been taken. After a long delay, laboratory test results showed that he had been poisoned with paraquat, a powerful herbicide.

Police enquiries led to the arrest of Susan Barber and her twenty-five-year-old paramour, Richard Collins. They denied any involvement in Michael’s death but, slowly, a picture began to emerge of a failing marriage and an unfaithful wife. Neighbours provided colourful testimony of Susan’s lustful ambitions, which included making dates by radio using “Nympho” as her call sign. Probing questioning resulted in a confession.

Susan Barber said she had found a supply of paraquat in the garden shed. She mixed some of it with Michael’s dinner of steak and kidney pie. When this had no immediate effect, she repeated the procedure, reducing Michael to a state where his organs started to fail.

Ironically, Michael had brought the paraquat into their home at a time when he worked in landscape gardening. Paraquat is a highly effective herbicide which, if ingested, produces severe headaches and gastro-intestinal problems. In the secondary phase of poisoning, the liver and kidneys are affected and the lungs begin to fail.

Susan hardly played the role of a grieving widow, first bringing Collins into her life and then discarding him in favour of other men. In all this, Collins was believed to be her tool; he knew what was going on but had no part in the poisoning.

The pair were put on trial in November 1982. They pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder and conspiracy to murder. Susan’s account was that she had poisoned her husband only to incapacitate him so that she could escape with her children from an abusive marriage. The jury found her guilty of murder and she was given a sentence of life imprisonment. Collins was found guilty of conspiracy and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

“Lie In Wait For The Victim”

The teenage daughter of a millionaire devised a murder plan aimed to make her wealthy. She committed some of her plans to paper, outlining how she would target an elderly, wealthy woman to kill and rob; it was meant to be a perfect murder.

Kemi Adeyoola’s murderous ambitions were nurtured while she was in a juvenile detention centre following a conviction for shoplifting.

Eighty-five-year-old Anne Mendel was found by her husband lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs in their home at Golders Green in north-west London. She had been stabbed fourteen times. The murder was committed in March 2005 a few months after Adeyoola’s thesis, “Prison and After: Making Life Count”, was found in her detention centre cell.

She set out her objective, which was to gain a minimum of three million pounds by killing an elderly woman who must be wealthy and defenceless. That person was Anne Mendel and Adeyoola’s DNA was found on her body.

Adeyoola went on trial for murder in June 2006 when the full extent of her plans was revealed in what amounted to a murder manual. She drew up lists of equipment needed, including semi-automatic guns, wigs and dark glasses. The modus operandi was also mapped out: “lie in wait for the victim, creep up on her, and cover her mouth with a gloved hand.” Once inside the house, her chilling mission was to use a butcher’s knife “to remove her head” and wrap it in cling film to contain the bleeding. The “job”, as she described it, was to be carried out by February 2005.

In court, Adeyoola said her handwritten notes were intended as a work of fiction to fulfil her ambition to be a writer. The young woman was the daughter of a successful property management businessman. Her parents were divorced and she had had a disturbed upbringing. She had a record for shoplifting and had worked as an escort, making £500 a night. Detectives found pornographic material, sex toys and stolen clothes when they searched her flat.

She pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder but the prosecution made convincing use of her “murder blueprint” and argued that the killing of Mrs Mendel was a rehearsal for her real aim which was to kill a really wealthy victim and gain the three million pounds she planned to gain. Adeyoola had attempted to set up a false alibi for the murder by eliciting help from a young accomplice. She admitted shoplifting from the age of fifteen and described it as a skill. The jury brought in a guilty verdict and the judge in his summing up dismissed the defence notion that her fractured family background was an explanation for her crime.

Judge Richard Hone described Adeyoola as “remorseless and cold-blooded”, adding, “I think you wanted to experience what it felt like to kill someone in cold-blood, possibly so that you could write about it . . .” The eighteen-year-old was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment.

“Pray For Me . . .”

Consumed with jealousy, a student made a diary entry referring to his girlfriend, writing, “Next time I suspect her of liking another man, I shall kill her quickly and without warning.” Three months later, he fulfilled that promise.

Mohammed Abdullah and Sonja Hoff were students at the University of California in Berkeley. Sonya, a vibrant young woman who had an active social life, was pursuing a course of Persian studies and Abdullah studied Islamic culture. They were drawn together and there was talk of marriage.

Mohammed Abdullah had changed his name from Joseph Howk, reflecting his conversion from Roman Catholicism to Islam. He had a high IQ but had been a difficult child, which led to psychiatric assessment and a diagnosis of a schizoid personality at the age of fifteen.