Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways (14 page)

Their journey on 25 April 1914 did not go as planned. Between a mile and half a mile from Three Bridges station, the communication cord was pulled. Not by either Brooker or his companion – it was rung three times by a young man who was two compartments away. This was Donald Palmer of Woodford Green. He heard a sound like a child’s cry, then a loud laugh and then a shriek. He looked through the window and saw a woman on the floor, with a man with a knife standing over her. However, the train’s guard, Albert Hillman, although he told the driver about this, he did not suggest that the train be stopped. He thought it would be safer if the train proceeded to Three Bridges and the matter, whatever it was, could be dealt with there.

When the train arrived at Three Bridges station, Brooker stepped down from the compartment. He was described as being a well-set young man. He had a sailor’s knife in his hand. Hillman and Inspector Robbins, with other staff and passengers, apprehended him and took the knife from his hand. They found some rope and bound him, before taking him to the waiting room. The police were called and Superintendent Budgen
of Crawley and two constables drove to the scene of the crime. Brooker asked ‘Is she dead?’ When Budgen asked him who he was, he replied, ‘I do not think I can tell you.’

Brooker was given some water and the ropes were removed. He appeared very agitated. He was found to have a small bottle of whisky on him, which was removed. Brooker said to Robbins, ‘You ought to have a Victoria Cross’ and then said, ‘Let me get at him’, but it is unclear to whom this referred. He also appeared fatalistic about his own fate:

I hope I shall be strung up. I deserve it. She was a good girl. I did what I wanted, and am satisfied. It was a mad frenzy. If any of you had been treated in the same way you would have done the same.

Meanwhile, Ronald Mackay, a local chauffeur, who had been waiting on the platform for his mother, stepped into the compartment from which Brooker had just alighted. He made a shocking discovery. There he saw a young woman lying dead. Her throat had been cut. Although he did not know who it was, this was the body of Mrs Stone.

The corpse was taken to the stationmaster’s office. Here it was examined by Dr Matthews of Crawley. He found there were two deep wounds in the chest and one in her back. Both she and Brooker were wearing Burnley colours – they had been to the football match.

Mrs Stone’s body was identified that night by her sister, Mrs Maud Newstead, also of Woolwich, who came down with her husband to perform this unpleasant duty. She had not seen her sister since Easter.

What had happened in that third class compartment? Mrs Mackay gave her account:

I was alone. When the train stopped at Horley I saw Brooker and a young woman looking into the carriage windows. When the train was approaching Three Bridges, I heard a bell ringing constantly, but no screaming. As the train drew into the station, I put my head out of the window and saw Brooker jump out of the next compartment with a large knife in his hand.

Apparently Brooker shouted ‘I want my Ada. I want my Ada. I admit I’ve done it.’

The inquest was held on 27 April at East Grinstead. Brooker was charged with murder. He was asked no further questions, but was
remanded in custody for another week, being placed in Lewes gaol. At the adjourned inquest, Hillman was a leading witness. This was because of the controversy over him not having the train stopped when the cord was pulled. He said that when he first heard it, he looked out of the window to see if he could see anything amiss. The train was then passing by the signal box at Tinsley Green. Nothing seemed to be wrong. He explained his inaction thus, ‘I used my discretion and it was in the exercise of that discretion that I intended to run on to the Three Bridges station’. He gave the driver the white light to proceed, as opposed to telling the driver to shut off the steam and so stop the train. He explained it would be easier and safer to find out the source of the problem at a station than in between them. The jury agreed that Hillman acted correctly. They also commended Palmer for pulling the cord. The inquest concluded that Mrs Stone had been murdered and that Brooker was the killer.

The trial took place at the Sussex Assizes on 7 July, before Justice Daly. Although there was no doubt that Brooker had killed Mrs Stone, the defence did their best. They said that Brooker was drunk and so he could only be charged with the lesser crime of manslaughter, not murder. They stressed his excellent character as seen by his naval service. The reason he carried a knife was not due to any evil intention towards Mrs Stone, but because he had been attacked by a gang of men whilst on his way to work and so, presumably, needed it for self-defence. However, the jury thought otherwise and Brooker was sentenced to death.

It is unclear why Brooker killed Mrs Stone. The two appeared to be fond of one another, and there was no prior evidence of any violence between them. Even when Brooker was in drink, he had not been known to hit her. Brooker said himself:

We had been drinking and dancing and were pretty well oiled up when something cropped up and I did it. If I had done it half an hour later they would not have collared me. At least, not so fast. I had been carrying the knife down my leg for the past fortnight, but I shifted it the same day that it happened to my waist.

Presumably the two must have had some form of drunken quarrel almost immediately after boarding the train. What it concerned, we don’t know. Presumably no third party was involved or was imagined to be.

Brooker was executed at Lewes prison on 28 July 1914 by John Ellis and Thomas Pierrepoint.

‘It was the biggest manhunt in the City of London’

Perhaps the worst of all the crimes in this book is the one to be described in this chapter. Child murder was not unknown at the time, and there was the case of Willie Strachfield killed on the Underground in the year previous to this one (outlined in Chapter 21 below). But this one was even worse.

On Saturday 3 April 1915, Margaret Ellen Nally celebrated her seventh and last birthday. She lived with her family on Amberley Road, Harrow Road, Paddington. Her father, John Henry Nally, was a night porter at Paddington. She attended All Angels’ School at Cirencester Street. She had two brothers, one aged 9, the other aged 4, and a 13-month-old sister.

The following day was Easter Day. At 3.30 pm, Margaret went to see her aunt and other family members. They lived on Carlisle Road, Edgware. It was about half an hour’s walk, but no one seems to have had any apprehension of her travelling alone there. She had made the trip before and was always back before dark. Moreover, she knew the neighbourhood well, was intelligent and didn’t speak to strangers. No one had ever offered her sweets nor had accosted her previously. And there was certainly no problem with her trip there. She arrived at her aunt’s, Mrs Betsy Scott. There she played with her 5-year-old cousin, Alice Scott, as well as seeing her aunt and grandfather.

The two little girls ran an errand for Margaret’s aunt, going to buy her some matches from Emily Knight’s shop, and she rewarded them with a penny each. They bought some sweets at a shop in the street, perhaps one run by a Mrs Walker, and then said their goodbyes. Margaret announced that she was going home, an expression that she used when going to see her grandfather, John Nally. He recalled briefly seeing her at 6.30. 8 pm was the last time that anyone is known to have definitely seen her alive.

Meanwhile, at her parents’ house, they were beginning to worry. At 8 pm, her father took the route that she probably would have taken, travelling along Formosa Street, Shirland Road, Blomfield Road, into Maida Vale, through Lions’ Mews and thus into Carlisle Street. He hoped he might see her coming in the other direction. He did not do so. On enquiring at his relatives’ homes, he was told that his daughter had departed at 8 pm. So he tried an alternative route home. This was via Clifton Road and Bristol Gardens.

Unable to find her, he went to the service flats for which he was a night porter. At 10 pm, his wife went there to tell him that she still had not returned. The police stations at John Street and Paddington Green were informed of her disappearance. Enquiries were made at infirmaries for the girl.

By 2.30 am, the brutal truth was known to the Nally family. At 11.50 pm, Inspector Richard Groves, a railway official, went around on his duties at Aldersgate Underground station (since 1968 renamed the Barbican). The last train had arrived at the station, so it was time to check the station was clear and then to lock up. He was just checking the cloakrooms. There were two compartments. The right-hand door, the one to the ladies’ lavatory, did not seem to open. There was some form of obstruction preventing his entry. He forced the door open and then saw the shocking reality.

It was the corpse of Margaret Nally. Both the City of London police and the Metropolitan police investigated. Margaret had been murdered by having a piece of pique cloth thrust down her throat. The cloth had been torn and was jagged, and this had not been done recently. It measured ten inches by eight, a white, soiled rag. Her drawers and underwear had been torn. There was a slight bruise on her face. But there was even worse to come. She had also been ‘terribly assaulted’ to use the phrase of the time. A violent sexual attack had occurred.

Edward Nicholls, later a Detective Chief Inspector in the City police, wrote:

Nobody but a police officer like myself can realise the shock of horror which permeates the whole force on the discovery that a dear little innocent child has been brutally done to death.

Margaret was tall for her age. She had blue eyes, a full face and brown
hair tied up with a pink ribbon. She was wearing a grey coat with a blue half-collar. There were two metal buttons and two side pockets. She wore a white pinafore with a bright coloured sash. She had a dark red frock with a pearl button at the back and wore black shoes and black socks. And she also had a grey blue felt hat, which was trimmed with white.

However, there were few clues. Her hat was not found anywhere. It may have been taken by the killer as a trophy. The police hoped to locate it. A photograph of a similar hat was taken and this was distributed across London. One possibility was that the killer might have decoyed Margaret first taking her to a cinema and the hat was left behind there. However, none of the managers of any of the cinemas in Edgware reported finding one. A halfpenny was found under the body. This might have been used by the killer to decoy the girl away, and thus this would presume he was a stranger to her. Yet, since her pockets were shallow and as she had been given a coin by her aunt, this had probably dropped out of her pocket in the struggle. The cloth which had suffocated her was also seen as a clue. It was not at first thought to be the property of the victim nor her parents. It might have once belonged to the killer. It might have been used as a makeshift handkerchief. It might have been part of a man’s shirt or a woman’s underclothing. There were marks of blood and teeth on it, suggesting the victim had bitten her attacker and so the man who was being looked for may have been bitten on the hand or wrist.

Railway tickets issued at underground stations for travel were handed in to a ticket collector standing at the entrance once a journey had been completed. So the police examined those given up at Edgware Road and Aldersgate, both singles and returns. Nothing of value was found unfortunately.

Dr Bernard Spilsbury (1877–1947), a well-known Home Office pathologist, undertook a post mortem examination of the body. He thought that the time of death was at about 10 pm on Sunday evening. He and Dr Robert Kearsey, the City police surgeon, also thought that the assault on her had taken place either at the time of her death or shortly afterwards. The two doctors disagreed about the contents of the victim’s stomach. She had eaten mutton and giblets for her lunch at home, that was certain, but Spilsbury thought that she might have had a later meal – one given to her by her killer – but his colleague thought it was more likely that the evidence pointed to a case of indigestion, not a second meal.

Rumours and false leads abounded. One was that an old man was seen
talking to Margaret in Carlisle Street, but this had no foundation in truth. Another concerned a man who was giving children pudding in Burne Street, a continuation of Carlisle Street, but it transpired that this occurred on the evening after the murder.

Chief Detective Inspector Ottaway of the City police was in charge of the investigation. He heard a number of statements from transport officials which might be relevant. The first was from an omnibus conductor on the bus from Pound Lane to London Bridge. He said that he noticed a soldier aged 30 and a little girl, whom he identified as Margaret, on Sunday at 8.40. The soldier was five feet eight or nine, sallow complexion, medium build, looked ill, had brown hair and a moustache and several days of hair growth. They had got on his bus at the corner of Chapel Street and Edgware Road. The man pushed the girl onto the bus. He was looking a little drunk and she seemed reluctant to accompany him. The man seemed confused about where he wanted to travel to. The girl was without a hat. The two alighted at the corner of Gray’s Inn Road. The man led the girl across the road and towards King’s Cross station. They stopped at a whelk stall. Then the bus went on its way and that was the last the conductor saw of them. Mr Burwick, the stall holder, did not remember seeing the two. If the soldier was the killer, then they could have reached Aldersgate station from there within minutes, travelling via Euston Square.

Another statement was from a railway guard who was on the Metropolitan railway on the night of the murder. He saw a girl who he thought was Margaret leaving an Edgware Road train at Aldersgate. It was 9.45 and she was accompanied by a woman who was aged between 32 and 35, five feet three inches, respectably dressed in dark clothes and wore a dark flat hat. She appeared to be working class. She helped the hatless girl off onto the platform. The assistant guard did not recollect seeing the girl and the porter did not recall her either. In any case, the crime had been committed by a man. Another witness claimed to have seen Margaret in south London, but this was deemed a case of misidentity.