Neville Heath

Neville Heath
Neville Heath
Background information
Birth name	Neville George Clevely Heath
Also known as	Lord Dudley, Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong, Group Captain Rupert Brook
Born	June 6, 1917(1917-06-06) Essex, England, United Kingdom
Died	October 16, 1946(1946-10-16) (aged 29)
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Killings
Number of victims	2
Span of killings	1946–1946
Country	England, United Kingdom
Date apprehended	1946

Neville George Clevely Heath (June 6, 1917 – October 16, 1946) was an English killer who was responsible for the murders of at least two young women. He was executed in London in 1946.

Early career

Heath was born in Essex, England. Although he came from a lower middle class background, his father, who was a barber, made considerable financial sacrifices so that he could attend private school. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1937, but was dismissed for going absent without leave. He was caught obtaining credit by fraud, and six months later was sent to Borstal for housebreaking and forgery. He used a number of aliases, including "Lord Dudley" and "Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong".

When the Second World War broke out, Heath joined the Royal Army Service Corps, and was posted to the Middle East. He lasted less than a year. He was shipped home, but on his way he escaped the guard and headed for Johannesburg where he joined the South African Air Force, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. He married, and the couple had a son, but at the end of the war his wife divorced him on grounds of desertion. He was also court martialled, for wearing medals to which he was not entitled. He returned to England in 1946.

Murders

On Sunday 16 June 1946, Heath took a room at the Pembridge Court Hotel in Notting Hill Gate. He used his real name, but added the title Lieutenant-Colonel. He was with a woman, Yvonne Symonds, who he said was his wife - in fact they had only just met. Heath had promised to marry her, so she spent the night with him and returned to her home the next day.

Margery Gardner

The following Thursday Heath spent the evening with Margery Gardner. She was older than Heath, a part-time actress who had left her husband and daughter to seek her fortune. Heath and Margery had been dancing together at the Panama Club in Kensington. The following day the assistant manager entered Heath's room as the chambermaid had been unable to gain entry. Margery Gardner’s body was found naked on the bed, her wrists and ankles bound. There were 17 slash marks on her body, her nipples had been savagely bitten, and an instrument had been inserted into her vagina.

In the fireplace there was a short poker, which Home Office pathologist Professor Keith Simpson said was responsible for her internal injuries. The whip that had inflicted the slash marks on her body was nowhere to be seen. These marks showed the distinctive diamond pattern of a woven leather riding crop. Professor Simpson told the police "Find that whip and you’ve found your man", Professor Simpson estimated Margery’s time of death as between midnight and the early hours of the morning. The police learned that Heath and Margery had arrived at the hotel around midnight, and that nothing had been heard until a door slammed at 1.30am. The cause of death was suffocation, but only after the other injuries had been inflicted.

Doreen Marshall

Heath headed to Worthing to see Yvonne, the girl he had proposed to, and spent a few days with her. Her parents were impressed with the "Lieutenant-Colonel", but he left when his name appeared in the newspapers in relation to Margery's murder. He then went to Bournemouth and took a room at the Tollard Royal Hotel, under the alias "Group Captain Rupert Brook". A few days later he met Doreen Margaret Marshall, who was staying at the Norfolk Hotel.

Doreen Margaret Marshall was born in Brentford in 1924, to company director Charles Marshall, and his wife Grace Merritt, she had an older sister Joan, later Mrs Charles Cruickshanks.

Doreen served in the WRNS during the Second World War, and was discharged on 27 June 1946. Suffering from influenza, she took a holiday in Bournemouth to convalesce. During the war Bournemouth had become a garrison town, with most of the hotels taken over as billets for troops; one hotel, The Norfolk, on Richmond Hill near the town centre stayed open to civilian guests and this is where Doreen stayed. Doreen attracted male attention, she met an American at the hotel, who owned a car and he took her for drives into the surrounding countryside.

Only five minutes from her hotel was the seafront, where 100 foot sandy cliffs framed the beach, and were held back by a low sea wall with a promenade. Whilst walking along the prom on Wednesday, 3rd July, with a friend Peggy, Doreen encountered the sadistic killer Neville Heath who was, at first sight, handsome and well-spoken. Neville introduced himself as Group Captain Rupert Brooke employing the name of the War Poet, who had been a frequent visitor to Bournemouth at the start of the century.

Doreen accepted Heath’s invitation to take afternoon tea at his hotel at the top of the cliffs, the Tollard Royal. She spent a charming afternoon with him, talking at length about herself, her friends and family, and she accepted his further invitation to dine with him in the evening. After dinner Heath took Doreen to the hotel lounge, where he became drunk, and she became tired and upset and asked another guest to call a taxi for her. Heath cancelled the taxi and offered to walk her home; this was the last time Doreen was seen alive.

Doreen's disappearance was reported to the police by the manager of the Norfolk Hotel on Friday 5th July and Heath, still calling himself Group Captain Brooke, soon became the focus of their attention. The police were informed of Doreen's disappearance, and the manager at the Norfolk Hotel remembered that she had taken a taxi to the Tollard Royal Hotel. There, the manager said she may have been the woman with Group Captain Rupert Brook. Although Heath/Group Captain Brook denied this, he telephoned Detective Constable Souter and said he might be able to help.

Doreen’s father, Charles, and sister, Mrs Cruickshanks, met ‘Brooke’, when they travelled to Bournemouth looking for Doreen, ‘Brooke’ joked to them about his facial similarity to the wanted poster for the murderer Neville Heath. He went to the police station, and identified Doreen's picture as the girl he had been with, but said he had left her at the Norfolk Hotel. The detective recognised Heath as the man wanted by Scotland Yard, and asked "Isn't your name Heath?" Heath denied it, and said he wanted to return to the hotel for his coat. The police fetched it for him and searched it. They found a railway cloakroom ticket, which led them to an attaché case containing a riding whip with a diamond pattern weave. Professor Simpson identified it as the object used on Margery Gardner. Heath was questioned again, and he admitted his real identity. The next day he was transferred to London where he was charged with the murder of Margery Gardner.

Despite the efforts of the Bournemouth Police, Doreen’s whereabouts remained a mystery until Sunday 7th July, when waitress Kathleen Evans, out walking her dog, noticed a swarm of flies by a rhododendron thicket in Branksome Dene Chine. Further investigation revealed Doreen’s body, badly mutilated, with the clothing removed. A police statement described a ‘very gruesome murder’. Wounds found on her hands suggested she had grasped defensively at a knife. She had received blows to her head, her wrists and ankles had been tied, one nipple had been bitten off and her throat had been slashed. As with Margery Gardner, an instrument had been inserted into her vagina. She also had a massive gash that ran from the inside of her thigh up to her mutilated breast.

Although Heath was charged with Doreen’s murder, his subsequent trial and execution related only to his earlier murder of Margery Gardner. Doreen was returned to her parents and buried in Pinner Cemetery.

Trial and execution

The trial of Neville Heath for the murder of Margery Gardner began on 24 September 1946. Heath originally told his counsel, J. D. Casswell KC, to plead guilty, but when Casswell questioned this, said "All right, put me down as Not Guilty, old boy". Casswell chose not to call him to give evidence, and relied on the defence of insanity, calling Dr William Henry de Bargue Hubert, an experienced criminal psychiatrist, to testify as an expert witness. Dr Hubert testified that Heath knew what he was doing but not that it was wrong, but the prosecution easily destroyed Hubert's argument: unknown to Casswell, Hubert was a drug addict and was under the influence of morphine in the witness box. Two prison doctors testified that although Heath was a sexual pervert and a psychopath, he was not insane. Heath was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on 16 October 1946 at Pentonville Prison. Prior to his execution Heath, as was the pre-execution custom, was offered a whisky, and he replied, "Considering the circumstances, better make it a double".

Heath is also said to have been the assailant when, in 1946, a few months before the murders, a woman was found naked and tied up in a hotel bedroom in the Strand, London. She had alerted the staff of the hotel by screaming. She refused to press charges, possibly to avoid the publicity.

It is not clear when Heath met Margery Gardner or how he could have attacked her without her screaming. In a statement Heath admitted that he had gagged her, and a saliva soaked scarf was found with the whip. It emerged after the trial that Margery had been a masochist who liked to be bound and lashed. She had probably gone back with Heath for pleasure, and so had probably allowed herself to be bound and gagged. It was possible that he could have been convicted of manslaughter, if Heath had put up the defence that Gardner's death had been a kinky sex game gone wrong. Years after the trial J. D. Casswell KC wrote: "It is almost certain that a month before her death she had been with Heath to another hotel room, and had only been saved by [...] a hotel detective."

References in media

• The Heath case was dramatised on the radio series Secrets of Scotland Yard around 1948 as "The Man About Town" and in the subsequent series The Black Museum in 1952 under the title of "The Powder Puff".^{[citation needed]}

• The Neville Heath murders and trial were dramatised in 1981 in the British television reenactment series Ladykillers (original 1980 series titled Lady Killers). Ian Charleson portrayed Heath in the episode, which was titled "Make It a Double".

References

• Critchley, Macdonald (1955). "Neville George Clevely Heath". In Hodge, James H.. Famous Trials 5. Penguin. pp. 55–106. 
• Simpson, Keith. Forty Years of Murder. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 05856050388. 
• Gp. Capt. J.A. Kent. One of the Few. Corgi. 
• Joshua David Casswell (1961). "My fourth client to be hanged". A lance for liberty. Harrap. p. 237. 

External links

• "Neville Heath". www.historybytheyard.co.uk. http://www.historybytheyard.co.uk/neville_heath.htm. Retrieved 2009-11-27. 
• http://www.murderuk.com/serial_neville_heath.html
• "Neville Heath". www.stephen-stratford.co.uk. http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/neville_heath.htm. Retrieved 2009-11-27. 
• http://www.real-crime.co.uk/Murder1/doch.htm#Heath,%20Neville%20George%20Clevely
• "The Ultimate Crime". www.real-crime.co.uk. http://www.real-crime.co.uk/Murder1/doch.htm#Heath,%20Neville%20George%20Clevely. Retrieved 2009-11-27.