AMAZING STORY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 24

AMAZING STORY

Man’s Underworld Life Amazing evidence of a dead mans career and character was given at aa inquest at Woking, Surrey. The man, George Rowsell, 50, a London street trader, was found dead by the police with a bullet wound in his head near the week-end bungalow which he owned at Ripley. Just outside the bungalow the police discovered Kathleen Forkin, 18, a pretty Irish waitress, of Euston Crescent, London, critically ill with bullet wounds in her hand and jaw. Inquiries in London by the Surrey police, under Superintendent White, of Woking, showed that Kowsell was well known in the underworld as a man who had made a considerable amount of money in some questionable way.

In Ripley, where be spent a good deal of his time, stories are told of his violent temper. “More than once,” a resident said, “Rowsell has pulled a gun from his pocket when he was being worsted in argument, and, brandishing it, has said: ‘See that! There are two bullets there —one for you and one for me!’

“Because of his temper we all kept pretty clear of him. We suspected that he was mixed up in some shady business in London, and he had no real friends here, although he had been coming to Ripley for five years.” There was, however, another side to Rowsell’s character. Among the children of Ripley he was known as “Uncle George,” and more than one child can tell stories of his generosity with sweets.

Miss Forkin, who was dangerously ill in Guildford Hospital, was able to tell the police a dramatic story of the shooting. She went to Ripley, she stated, to see Rows?ll’s bungalow. Once there he began to drink heavily. “As time went on, Rowsell kept delaying our departure,” Miss Forkin went on. “At last I put my coat on. By this time he was hopelessly drunk. “He brought out a revolver. I made for the door. He got in my way. I put my hands to my face. There was a shot, and I had a queer feeling in my jaw. Blindly, I tried to release the catch of the door. I felt my last hour had come. I covered my face with ray hands again. There was another shot. A bullet went into my hand. I undid the latch frantically. The next thing I remember is collapsing at a house nearby.”

Soon after Miss Forkin told this story the police made what seemed at first to be a sensational discovery. This was that Rowsell was well known' at an address in Newnham Terrace, Lambeth, which was being used as a secret retreat for a young French girl who was maid to Susan Bertrand, the woman arrested in Paris in connection with the murder of “Red” Max Kassel. It seemed to the detectives as though the affair at Ripley was linked up with the Kassel crime. Scotland Yard men were asked to assist, but it was soon discovered that although Rowsell certainly knew many people engaged in the white slave traffic, his death had no connection with Kassel’s murder. Rowsell, who was very well off, employed a number of men as costermongers, and at one time worked a stall himself.