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A strange telegram
Irene Wilkins was a 31 year-old school cook, who lived with her widowed mother in Streatham, south London. Just before Christmas in 1921, she was looking for a new job and with this in mind, she placed an advert in the Morning Post.
The ad appeared on the morning of 20 December and that same day she received a telegram instructing her to catch the 4.30 train to Bournemouth. It was signed ‘Wood, Beech House’.
Irene quickly sent a confirmation telegram before setting off. Not long after she had left the house however, the telegram she had sent to Wood at Beech House was returned by the post office, address unknown. By late evening, when there was no word of her daughter. Mrs Wilkins reported her missing.
A body is discovered
Irene’s body was discovered by a farm labourer under some bushes, and it was revealed she had died as a result of blows to the head. Police assumed whoever had written the telegram had been the murderer, and studied it for clues.
It contained several spelling mistakes, and they discovered identical telegrams had been sent to other women, who luckily had decided not to head to Bournemouth. They also found distinctive tyre tracks near to the where the body had been hidden.
The net closes
After a tip-off from a witness regarding the perpetrator’s car, the police had a suspect; a chauffeur named Thomas Henry Allaway. When he was arrested they found betting slips in his pockets, with handwriting that showed string similarities to that of the telegrams.
When asked to write out the contents of one of the telegrams, Allaway reproduced all the spelling mistakes. He was charged with Irene’s murder and hanged on 22 August 1922.
A missing man
The next case in this episode also took place in the 1920s. Vivian Messiter was last seen on 30 October 1928 after having moved to Southampton, and been there only a month.
A police officer was dispatched to the garage where he worked, but found it barred. It appeared Messiter had simply fled Southampton.
The company he worked for sent a replacement to the garage, and he forced it open, finding Messiter’s body. He had been battered to death with a hammer.
A deadly advertisement
Detective chief Inspector Protheroe from Scotland Yard was called in to handle the case, and looked at Messiter’s order book. A number of the front pages had been torn out but the carbon transfer sheets revealed customers’ names and addresses around Southampton. When checked these all proved to be false.
