Background
James Francis Hanratty was born in Farnborough, near Orpington in Kent, on October 4th, 1936. By the age of 25, he had convictions for housebreaking and car theft and had been released from prison in March of that year. However, he had no convictions for violent offences.
The Crime
Thirty-four-year-old Michael J. Gregsten, a married man, and 22-year-old Valerie Storie both worked for the Road Research Laboratory at Slough in Berkshire. They were having an affair, and on Tuesday, August 22nd, 1961, they went out for a drink together at the Old Station Inn in Taplow. Afterwards, they drove to Dorney Reach near Windsor, where they sat chatting in Michael’s Morris Minor.
A man approached the car and tapped on the window. Michael rolled it down to be confronted with a revolver and told, “This is a hold-up.” The assailant got into the car and took their money and watches. They drove around for about three hours before Michael was told to pull into a lay-by on the A6 at Deadman’s Hill near Clophill in Bedfordshire.
Their assailant decided to tie them up and bound Valerie’s wrists with Michael’s tie. He had nothing suitable for Michael. Seeing a duffle bag in the front footwell, he ordered Michael to pass it to him. Michael leaned forward to comply when two shots were fired, killing him. Valerie reacted, saying, “You bastard, why did you do that?” The man replied, “Be quiet, will you. I am thinking.” This was said in a Cockney accent, and the last word was pronounced “finking.” He also told Valerie his name was Jim.
Valerie was ordered to get into the back seat, where she was raped. She was later forced to help pull Michael’s body from the car and show the attacker how to start it and use the gears. Valerie was then shot three times and left for dead. Although she survived, one bullet had severed her spinal cord, leaving her paralyzed. She was discovered by a farm labourer around 6:45 a.m., who got Mr. John Kerr, conducting a traffic census, to fetch the police. When they arrived, Valerie was able to tell them that her attacker had “staring eyes.”
The case made headline news. The car was found abandoned in Redbridge but revealed no forensic evidence linked to Michael’s killer. John Skillett and Edward Blackhall told police they had seen the Morris Minor being driven erratically and had nearly been involved in an accident with it. They helped police create an Identikit picture of the driver. It should be noted that Hanratty was a competent driver. Valerie also helped create an Identikit picture, but it was quite different from theirs. Both pictures were released to the press and shown on television on August 30th.
The murder weapon was found wrapped in a handkerchief and hidden under the back seat of a London Transport bus in Peckham Garage on August 24th. The bus had been serving route 36A, running from Peckham to Paddington via Maida Vale, which passed very close to the Vienna Hotel.
The Investigation
Police Superintendent Robert Acott of Scotland Yard was in charge of the investigation and appealed to hotel managers to report any unusual guests who had arrived on August 23rd. The manager of the Alexandra Court Hotel reported a man who had locked himself in his room for five days after the murder and was behaving strangely. The police interviewed the man, who gave his name as Frederick Durrant. They soon found his real name was Peter Louis Alphon. He claimed he had spent the evening of August 22nd with his mother and the following night in Room 6 at the Vienna Hotel in Maida Vale. The police were able to confirm this.
Valerie Storie did not recognize Alphon in an identity parade, and he was released four days later after being detained on a charge of attempting to rape Meike Dalal, who also failed to identify him. PC Ian Thomson recorded that Alphon had told him, “There can’t have been any fingerprints in the car, otherwise mine would have given me away.”
In 1962, only a blood group could be determined from semen samples, and both Alphon and Hanratty were Group O — the most common group, found in 36% of the population.
Mrs. Galves, a housekeeper at the Vienna Hotel, was cleaning Room 24 when she found two spent .38-calibre shell cases. She reported this immediately, and they were found to match those used to shoot Michael. William Nudds, the manager of the Vienna Hotel, told police that Room 24 had previously been occupied by Hanratty under the alias he frequently used, “Mr. J. Ryan.” Nudds later testified that “Ryan” had asked for directions to the 36A bus stop.
Alphon had stayed in the Vienna as he claimed, but Nudds insisted that the man had been in Room 6 all night. Later, Nudds changed his story, possibly realizing that the two men could have swapped rooms during the night. He then claimed that Alphon had stayed in a basement room.
Police attention shifted from Alphon, and Hanratty became the chief suspect. On October 5th, 1961, he telephoned Scotland Yard to say he was not the man they were looking for and that he had been in Liverpool on the day in question. He was finally arrested at the Stevonia Café in Blackpool on October 11th. Three days later, Valerie identified him in an identity parade after each man was asked to say, “Be quiet, will you. I am finkin.”
Trial
Hanratty’s trial, the longest on record at the time, took place at Bedford before Mr. Justice Gorman from January 22nd to February 17th, 1962. Graham Swanwick led for the prosecution, and Michael Sherrard defended.
Superintendent Acott related a conversation he had with Hanratty, in which the prisoner told him that he never left fingerprints during his burglaries and wiped them off with his handkerchief. He went on to say that his fence had given him money to start a business after his release from Strangeways Prison in Manchester and that he had asked the man to get him a gun so he could do “stick-ups.” However, Hanratty vehemently denied ever killing anyone.
Hanratty initially maintained that he had been in Liverpool with three men whom he would not or could not name but then, on February 9th, changed his story, saying that he had been in Rhyl. The defence traced the owner of a boarding house in that town, who had a room with a green bath, as Hanratty had described. The owner, Mrs. Grace Jones, remembered someone fitting Hanratty’s description staying there but was uncertain of the dates. Other guests were unable to identify him as having been there.
This change of story irreparably damaged Hanratty’s defence, which could otherwise have shown considerable reasonable doubt. He was found guilty after the jury deliberated for nine hours.
Execution
Hanratty’s appeal was dismissed on March 9th, and he was hanged at Bedford Prison at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 4th, 1962, by Harry Allen and Royston Rickard. The gallows at Bedford, according to Harry Allen’s biography, were housed in a separate building from the main cell blocks. Some 300 people gathered outside the prison.
This execution was highly controversial, partly because of Peter Alphon’s attempts to “muddy the waters” and also because of high-profile people such as John Lennon becoming involved on Hanratty’s behalf. There was also contradictory evidence from Valerie Storie, whose description of her assailant changed over time, and other oddities such as the perpetrator apparently not being able to drive, whereas Hanratty could.
Aftermath
Peter Alphon continued to insinuate that he may have been the A6 murderer and that he had been involved in a plot to break up the relationship between Valerie and Michael. He claimed he had simply allowed Hanratty to be framed for the crime. The authorities considered him a mentally disturbed publicity seeker.
On February 22nd, 1966, Hanratty’s remains were removed from Bedford Gaol and reburied in Carpenders Park Lawn Cemetery near Watford in Hertfordshire.
At the request of the Hanratty family, the case was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in March 1997. In 1962, DNA testing was unavailable, but by 2000 it was. The family sought to clear his name using DNA evidence from the semen on Valerie Storie’s underwear and mucus found on the handkerchief that had wrapped the murder weapon. However, instead of the result they expected, comparison of DNA taken from Hanratty’s mother and brother, Michael, showed a good match.
Hanratty’s body was exhumed in 2001, and DNA extracted proved an exact match. Lawyers for the family argued that the clothes taken from Hanratty could have become contaminated by those from Valerie, as they were stored together. While possible, there would have had to be a third DNA sample found — there wasn’t.
On May 10th, 2002, the Court of Appeal dismissed the case as “fanciful” and upheld the conviction.
By the 1960s, the death penalty had become an increasingly political issue. The establishment and those on the right believed in it and were insistent on Hanratty’s guilt, whereas the liberal left were convinced he was innocent.
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