Towpath murders

Towpath murders
Christine Reed (left) and Barbara Songhurst, c. 1953
Location	Teddington Lock, Richmond upon Thames, London, England
Coordinates	51°25′54″N 0°19′26″W
Date	31 May 1953 (1953-05-31)
Weapons	Axe Gurkha knife
Deaths	Christine Rose Reed (18) Barbara Songhurst (16)
Perpetrator	Alfred Charles Whiteway (21)
Motive	Sexual sadism Rape Elimination
Sentence	Death (2 November 1953) Executed (22 December 1953)

The towpath murders (also known as the Thames Towpath Murders and the Teddington Towpath Murders) are a double murder which occurred upon a section of towpath between Teddington Lock and Eel Pie Island in Richmond upon Thames, London, England, on 31 May 1953. The victims were two teenage girls named Christine Reed and Barbara Songhurst who were ambushed by a lone individual as they cycled to their respective homes in Hampton Hill and Teddington. Both girls were overpowered, then violently raped and murdered before their bodies were discarded in the River Thames. The perpetrator, 21-year-old Alfred Charles Whiteway, was convicted of both murders in a trial held at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Hilbery that October; he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 22 December 1953.

The murders of Christine Reed and Barbara Songhurst became known as the "towpath murders" due to a towpath being both the location the victims were last seen alive and the site of their murder. The forensic methods used to link the perpetrator to both the victims and the weapons used in the commission of the crime were described as "one of Scotland Yard's most notable triumphs in a century".

Background

On the afternoon of Saturday 30 May 1953, 16-year-old Barbara Songhurst informed her parents of her intention to cycle from her Teddington home to spend the evening with her friend, 18-year-old Christine Reed, who lived in nearby Hampton Hill. Although Reed was two years older than Songhurst and the girls hailed from differing social backgrounds, the two were best friends, having become acquainted through their shared love of jazz music and dancing approximately one year prior. Both also enjoyed cycling, and had scrupulously saved their money to purchase their own bicycles: Reed had purchased a bicycle with money saved from her earnings as a machinist earlier in 1953; Songhurst had also recently purchased a new bicycle for £17 (the equivalent of approximately £400 as of 2024) with money earned via her employment as a chemist's shop assistant.

Later that afternoon, the two cycled together to a bebop concert to be held at York House, Twickenham, where several of their friends were also socialising. Several hours later, Reed and another girl left the premises to visit a nearby café as Songhurst danced with an American soldier based at Bushy Park; she later joined her friends at the café.

Reed and Songhurst left York House shortly before midnight; they cycled approximately three miles to Reed's home in Roy Grove, Hampton Hill where, by prearrangement, Songhurst spent the night.

31 May 1953

At 10 a.m. on 31 May, Reed and Songhurst ate breakfast after Reed had redressed into a yellow cardigan and dark blue serge trousers; they then returned to Songurst's home, where Barabara changed from her dancing clothing into a tartan shirt and jeans and a distinctive wide black belt with a large clasp buckle before informing her mother she and Reed intended to cycle to Brighton. That afternoon, the girls returned to Reed's home before—at approximately 7:15 p.m.—cycling to a section of the River Thames towpath between Teddington Lock and Petersham, where several teenagers both knew were camping on the opposite side of the river.

Reed and Songhurst left their friends at approximately 11 p.m. As Songhurst's new bicycle was not fitted with lighting, one of the male campers lent her his cycle lamp. Several campers watched the friends cycle in the direction of Teddington Lock, where they were to cross an iron bridge en route to their homes. The last individuals to see the girls alive were a courting couple sitting alongside the towpath.

Discoveries

At 8:15 p.m. on 1 June, a man named George Coster discovered the body of a teenage girl floating face-down in the Thames as he cycled to work; he immediately notified authorities, who instructed the Marine Policing Unit to retrieve the body, which was then taken to Richmond mortuary.

Extensive injuries upon the body indicated the decedent had been violently murdered. A search of the vicinity revealed the girl had evidently been attacked approximately 400 yards from a lock upon a secluded section of a secondary towpath which runs parallel to the main towpath by the Thames and is surrounded by shrubbery, trees and bushes. At this location, two large pools of blood were discovered in addition to numerous blood spatterings upon sections of shrubbery and ample sections of churned soil indicative of a ferocious physical struggle between the decedent and her murderer. A forensic analysis of the two pools of blood revealed one pool to be type A and the other type O. The decedent in the river had type A blood. Furthermore, two pairs of women's shoes—one pair two sizes larger than the other—were recovered 5 feet (1.5 m) from the crime scene, indicating more than one victim.

Autopsies

The decedent's autopsy was conducted by pathologist Keith Mant, who described the victim as a blonde, Caucasian female in her mid-teens who had died approximately eight hours prior to her discovery. She had received a deep laceration to her left cheek, which had fractured her cheekbone in addition to three stab wounds to the back—each of which had punctured her lungs. She had also received a skull fracture and numerous scratches and bruises on her legs likely sustained as she fought her assailant. This theory was further supported by several fibers sourcing from a man's sports jacket recovered from beneath her fingernails. The girl had also been violently raped. Mant was also able to determine the weapons used to inflict the injuries to the decedent were a distinctive Gurkha knife and a small hatchet.

She was formally identified as Barbara Songhurst on the afternoon of her discovery. As articles of Reed's clothing were discovered alongside garments belonging Songhurst at the site were Songhurst—and most likely Reed—had evidently been violently assaulted and murdered, a decision was made to dredge sections of the River Thames. Reed's partially-clothed body was found submerged close to Glover's Island on the afternoon of 6 June. Her autopsy revealed she had also been been beaten and raped before receiving a multitude of axe and knife wounds.

Investigation

Alfred Charles Whiteway, aged 21, separated from his wife and living with his parents in Sydney Road, Teddington, was arrested a month later after the two separate rapes of women in Surrey. At first Whiteway denied any involvement. Later, a police constable found an axe under the back seat of a police car, apparently hidden by Whiteway following his arrest for the rape of a 14-year-old girl and an attack on a woman in the Oxshott Heath and Woods. The axe was found at the house of the constable, who had taken it home and was using it to chop wood.

Forensic tests of the time could only inconclusively link traces of blood on the axe and Whiteway's shoes to the murders, but his signature to what police said was a confession taken down by them was crucial evidence for the prosecution. However, Whiteway continuously insisted he had been told to sign at the bottom of a blank sheet of paper and police had simply manufactured the confession.

On 18 September 1953, Whiteway was formally charged with the murders of Reed and Songhurst. When asked if he wished to speak at this committal hearing, Whiteway stated, "I have denied the charges."

Trial

Whiteway was tried at the Old Bailey in the autumn of 1953 before Mr Justice Hilbery. He was brought to trial solely for Songhurst's murder, and was defended by solicitor Arthur Prothero, who instructed Peter Rawlinson, then a relatively junior barrister. Rawlinson cross-examined murder squad detective Herbert Hannam at length, opening large holes in his evidence of the confession, which Whiteway claimed was falsified. Rawlinson drew the jury's attention to recordings of interviews where Whiteway told police he didn't know what he was signing when asked to sign his statement. Whiteway's wife also testified that he had been drinking tea with her on the porch at 11:30 when the victims were last seen.

At the trial, defence counsel Peter Rawlinson had subjected lead detective Herbert Hannam to what was at the time considered a very sharp cross-examination on Whiteway's contention that the main evidence against him had been manufactured by police. Press reports of the period complained at the implication that the police were lying. In view of police methods of the time, and Hannam's book expressing the opinion that the law sometimes must be ignored by detectives, subsequent commentary has thought it not unlikely that Whiteway had been "verbaled".

Conviction and execution

The jury retired to consider their verdict on 2 November; they deliberated for forty-five minutes before announcing they had reached their verdict: Whiteway was found guilty of Songhurst's murder. He showed no emotion as the sentence was passed, and left the courtroom in silence.

An appeal was heard by the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Goddard), Mr. Justice Sellers and Mr. Justice Barry but was rejected on 7 December.

Whiteway (then age 22) was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 22 December 1953. His executioner was Albert Pierrepoint.

See also

• Capital punishment in the United Kingdom
• HM Prison Wandsworth
• List of executioners
• List of solved missing person cases
• Sexual sadism

Cited works and further reading

• Bell, Amy (2014), Murder Capital: Suspicious deaths in London, 1933–53, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-0-719-09197-1
• Chibnall, Steven (2013), Law-and-Order News: An Analysis of Crime Reporting in the British Press, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-136-42249-2
• Cullen, Pamela V. (2006). A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams, London: Elliott & Thompson. ISBN 978-1-904-02719-5
• Fielding, Steven (2008). Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners, London, John Blake Publishing Ltd., ISBN 978-1-843-58563-3
• Gaute, J. H. H. (1991), The New Murderers' Who's Who, New York: Dorset Press, ISBN 978-0-747-23270-4
• Gordon, Michael (2018), Murder Files from Scotland Yard and the Black Museum, North Carolina: Exposit Books, ISBN 978-1-476-67254-0
• Innes, Brian (2000), Bodies of Evidence, London: Amber Books Ltd., ISBN 978-1-856-05623-6
• Jacobs, Thomas Curtis Hicks (1956), Aspects of Murder, United Kingdom: St. Paul, ISBN 978-1-125-81566-3
• Lane, Brian (1995), Chronicle of 20th Century Murder, Bournemouth: Select Editions, ISBN 978-0-425-14649-1
• McRery, Nigel (2013), Silent Witnesses: A History of Forensic Science, London: Random House Books, ISBN 978-1-847-94683-6
• Morris, Jim (2015), The Who's Who of British Crime: In the Twentieth Century, Stroud: Amberley Publishing, ISBN 978-1-445-63924-6
• Smyth, Frank (1993). "The Towpath Murders". Real-Life Crimes. No. 23. London, England: Eaglemoss Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-1-856-29960-2.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Wade, Stephen (2018), The Count of Scotland Yard: The Controversial Life and Cases of DCS Herbert Hannam, Stroud: Amberley Publishing, ISBN 978-1-445-68102-3
• Yount, Lisa (2007), Forensic Science: From Fibers to Fingerprints, New York City: Chelsea House Publishing, ISBN 978-1-604-13061-4

External links

• British Executions case file pertaining to Alfred Charles Whiteway
• Contemporary news article pertaining to the towpath murders
• 16 September 1953 Sydney Sun news article detailing the murders of Reed and Songhurst
• The Towpath Murders: Death and Destruction on the River Bank at crimeandinvestigation.co.uk