Ghosts & Gallows (32 page)

In the years that followed their son’s death, Bentley’s family lead a persistent campaign to clear his name. It was not until 1993 that Derek Bentley received a posthumous Royal Pardon for the death sentence passed forty years before; the Court of Appeal finally quashed his murder conviction in 1998. Before then his parents were reported to have left his bedroom at their house in Colliers Wood untouched and exactly as it was during the time that Bentley lived there. It was also reported that the same room was haunted regularly by his presence: bedclothes were disturbed, the family heard footsteps, and his dog seemed to acknowledge his former owner, howling on occasion as if announcing his arrival. Following the death of Bentley’s father William in 1974, it was alleged that their parish priest had in one instance fallen into a mediumistic trance and had channelled his dead son and spoken in his voice.

At the beginning of this book, the analogy between criminal detective work and scientific psychical research – both exact and demanding disciplines – was highlighted, and the cases in this book have given some indication of the continuing British fascination with eerie stories of ghosts and gallows. A growing increase in the credibility of psychic detection and the continuing involvement of mediums in police work, particularly cases of murder, may result at some future time in a solution to more than individual crimes, but also to the mysteries of the paranormal world that continue to intrigue and fascinate us all. At that point, it will be possible to look at the cases we have discussed here in an entirely different light, as they will form a body of compelling evidence for the reality of an unseen world, as well as hidden faculties of man, that cannot be summarily dismissed out of hand. In Britain the gallows may have gone, but the ghosts, it seems, will always be with us …

Ansari, Hasan Moiz,
Islam and the Paranormal
(iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2006)

Archer, Fred,
Ghost Detectives: Crime and the Psychic World
(W.H. Allen, London, 1970) Baker, Phil,
The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life & Times of Dennis Wheatley
(Dedalus Ltd, Sawtry, 2009) Barbanell, Maurice,
This is Spiritualism
(Herbert Jenkins, London, 1959)

Begg, Paul,
Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History
(Pearson Education Ltd, Harlow, 2005) Bilton, Michael,
Wicked Beyond Belief
(Harper Collins, London, 2003)

Burn, Gordon,
‘ … somebody’s husband, somebody’s son’: The Story of Peter Sutcliffe
(Heinemann, London, 1984) Carlin, Francis,
Reminiscences of an Ex-Detective
(Hutchinson & Co., London, 1927) Cohen, David,
Price and his Spirit Child ‘Rosalie’
(Regency Press, London, 1965) Connell, Nicholas & Stratton, Ruth,
Hertfordshire Murders
(Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003) Dahl, Ludwig,
We Are Here: Psychic Experiences
(Rider & Co., London, 1931)

Duke, Winifred (Ed.),
The Trials of Frederick Nodder – The Mona Tinsley Case
(William Hodge & Co. Ltd, London, 1950) Eddleston, John J.,
Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopaedia
(Metro Publishing, London, 2002) Evans, Stewart & Skinner, Keith,
Jack the Ripper: Letters From Hell
(Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2001) Fielding, Steve,
The Executioner’s Bible
(John Blake, London, 2008)

Fletcher, Tony,
Memories of Murder: The Great Cases of a Fingerprint Expert
(Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1986) Fortune, Dion,
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(Rider & Co., London, 1930) Gaute, J.H.H. & Odell, Robin,
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Murder Whereabouts
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The True Story of Maria Marten
(East Anglian Magazine, Ipswich, 1949) Goodman, Jonathan (Ed.),
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(BCA, London, 1992) Haeri, Shaykh Fadhlalla,
The Elements of Islam
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Maria Marten – The Murder in the Red Barn
(Richard Castell Publishing Ltd, Plymouth, 1992) Hallam, Jack,
The Ghosts’ Who’s Who
(David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1977)

Harris, Melvin,
Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth
(Columbus Books, London, 1987) Holohan, Christine & McHugh, Vera,
A Voice from the Grave: The Unseen Witness in the Jacqui Poole Murder Case
(Maverick House, Dunshaughlin, 2006) Jackson, Robert,
Francis Camps: Famous Case Histories of the Most Celebrated Pathologist of our Time
(Hart-Davis MacGibbon Ltd, London, 1975) Jones, Nella & Davenport, Shirley,
Ghost of a Chance: The Life Story of a Psychic Detective
(Pan Books Ltd, London, 1982) Jones, Nella & Bruce, Mandy,
Nella: A Psychic Eye
(Ebury Press, London, 1992) Lane, Brian,
The Encyclopedia of Occult and Supernatural Murder
(Headline Book Publishing, London, 1995) Lindley, Charles,
Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book
(Geoffrey Bles Ltd, London, 1936)

Lucas, Norman,
The Child Killers
(Arthur Barker Ltd, London, 1970)

McCormick, Donald,
The Red Barn Mystery: Some New Evidence on an Old Murder
(John Long, London, 1967) Newton, Toyne,
The Demonic Connection
(Blandford Press, Poole, 1987)

Pollack, Jack Harrison,
The Amazing Story of Croiset the Clairvoyant
(W.H. Allen, London, 1965) Price, Harry,
Fifty Years of Psychical Research
(Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd, London, 1939) Roberts, Estelle,
Forty Years a Medium
(Herbert Jenkins, London, 1959)

Rogo, D. Scott,
The Haunted House Handbook
(Tempo Books, New York, 1978)

Roughead, William,
Twelve Scots Trials
(William Green & Sons, Edinburgh, 1913) Scott, Sir Walter,
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
(J. Murray, London, 1830) Stemman, Roy,
Spirit Communication
(Piatkus Books Ltd, London, 2005)

Symonds, John,
The Great Beast
(Rider & Co., London, 1951)

Tabori, Cornelius,
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(Rider & Co., London, 1951)

Underwood, Peter,
Haunted London
(George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, London, 1973) Ibid.,
The Ghost Hunters: Who They Are & What They Do
(Robert Hale Ltd, London, 1985) Wheatley, Dennis,
The Time Has Come … The Memoirs of Dennis Wheatley: Officer and Temporary Gentleman 1914-1919
(Hutchinson, London, 1978) Ibid.,
The Time Has Come … The Memoirs of Dennis Wheatley: Drink and Ink 1919-1977
(Hutchinson, London, 1979) Wilson, Colin & Pitman, Patricia,
Encyclopaedia of Murder
(Arthur Barker Ltd, London, 1961) Wilson, Colin & Seaman, Donald,
Encyclopaedia of Modern Murder
(Arthur Barker Ltd, London, 1983) Wilson, Colin,
The Psychic Detectives
(Pan Books, London, 1984)

Ibid.,
A Criminal History of Mankind
(Granada Publishing, London, 1985)

Ibid.,
The Mammoth Book of Murder
(Robinson, London, 2000)

Wilson, David,
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(Sphere, London, 2009)

Wilson, Ian,
The After Death Experience
(Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1987)

Wilson, Richard,
Scotland’s Unsolved Mysteries of the Twentieth Century
(Robert Hale, London, 1995)

The lonely Clachen of Inverey, photographed in the early years of the twentieth century, over 150 years after the death of Sergeant Davies. (Author’s collection)

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), who published an account of the ghost of Arthur Davies in the 1830s. The great Scottish novelist felt the story of the haunting was an invention. (The Walter Scott Digital Archive)

The execution of William Corder outside Bury Gaol on 11 August 1828.

A death mask of William Corder, perpetrator of the infamous Murder in the Red Barn – other surviving relics include a section of his pickled scalp and a published account of the murder bound in Corder’s own skin. (St Edmundsbury Borough Council)