The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

THE MURDER OF MARGERY WREN by Douglas G. Browne and E. V. Tullett

This unsolved case from 1930 is taken from the casebook of the British pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury (1877-1947) hailed as the “greatest medical detective of the century”. Spilsbury’s professional links with the Home Office began in 1910, when he was called in to examine the mutilated remains of Cora Crippen, wife of the infamous doctor who had since fled London with his mistress, Ethel le Neve. It was the first of a long series of cases in which Spilsbury was retained by the Home Office over a period of nearly forty years. The rather forlorn case of Miss Wren, robbed in her seaside shop and left for dead, is included in the best-selling biography of Spilsbury published by Browne and Tullett in 1951. Douglas G. Browne was a kinsman of Hablot Knight Browne, better known as Phiz, who illustrated the works of Charles Dickens. Tom Tullett was chief of the Daily Mirror’s crime bureau, who claimed to be the only journalist to have been a detective in the CID.

If there are degrees of wickedness in murder, only a shade less atrocious than the killing of children is the deliberate battering to death of elderly women living alone. These crimes are almost always committed for gain. In the majority of cases the murderer picks out some one known to him-a woman keeping a small shop, or with a reputation for hoarding money-but the evidence shows that there is also a type of monster who sets to work, by a system of trial and error, to find a suitable victim. Though murder may not always be intended, whether it results or not seems to be a matter of indifference to this class of criminal. From his point of view the victim is usually better dead; and only too often, the hammer or poker having silenced her, the bloody task is completed.

Such brutes are always with us, as the newspapers show, and their crimes recur with terrible frequency in Spilsbury’s records. Some of these cases have been mentioned. Among those occurring in this middle period of his career two stand out-the murders of Miss Wren at Ramsgate and of Mrs Kempson at Oxford.

The Wren case, which in its shocking details differs little from a score of others, is remarkable for the character and behaviour of Miss Wren herself. She was eighty-two, and she had a small sweetshop in Ramsgate. She possessed some house property, and had money in the bank. Like so many people of her age and class, she kept cash in tin boxes and other receptacles stowed away in various hiding-places. This dangerous habit got known, as it usually does, and her hoards, no doubt, were much exaggerated, the more so because she lived like the traditional miser, in squalor and discomfort.

About six o’clock on 20 September 1930, a girl of twelve who lived opposite the shop was sent across the street to buy a blancmange powder. The shop door was locked; peering through the window, the girl saw Miss Wren sitting in her back room. When eventually the old woman came to the door blood was streaming down her face, and she could only whisper; but though, in fact, she was suffering from injuries that might have killed her on the spot, she went behind the counter and fetched a number of packets for the child to choose from. The girl ran back to her parents, and to their horrified inquiries Miss Wren gave the unlikely explanation that she had fallen over the fire-tongs.

She was taken to hospital, where she lingered for five days. She had been savagely attacked, and on the third day Scotland Yard was called in. As her mind wandered she made rambling and contradictory statements, from which glimpses of the truth emerged, to the nurses and the police, and to the magistrate who, later, waited beside her bed. It was an accident; a man had attacked her with the fire-tongs; he had a white bag; it was another man with a red face; it was two men; then, again, it was an accident with the tongs. Once she admitted that she knew her assailant, but she would not name him. “I don’t wish him to suffer. He must bear his sins…” Just before the end she said, “He tried to borrow ten pounds.” More than this they could not get from her, and to Superintendent Hambrook, who was in charge of the case, she was the most determined, inflexible woman he ever met. On the afternoon of the 25th she died, still keeping her secret.

Performing the post-mortem on the following day, Spilsbury enumerated eight wounds and bruises on the face, and seven more, lacerated or punctured, on the top of the head. In addition, there had been an attempt at strangulation. The injuries were undoubtedly inflicted with the tongs which figured in the poor woman’s stories, and on which hairs were found.

The circumstances of this murder suggest that it may not have been premeditated, as it so often seems to be in similar cases. Miss Wren was seen alive and well at five-thirty, and she usually kept her shop open after six. At that hour, in September, with Summer Time in force, it was not dark. There were people going up and down the street, and children playing. If violence was intended it was an extremely rash project. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the murderer came for money, and, like all his type, was prepared to go to great lengths to get it. It was probably he who locked the shop door. Perhaps disturbed by another caller-for no money seems to have been taken-he escaped by the backyard. Apart from the evidence of Miss Wren’s admissions, it is clear that he knew of her habits, and was familiar with the premises.

At the inquest certain persons were referred to by letters of the alphabet. Superintendent Hambrook says that there were six suspects, of whom A, B, and C were able to clear themselves. One of the remaining three D, E, or F, was the murderer. Miss Wren knew which, and the police may know too. But it has never been possible to pin the crime on him.