CONSTABLE GUTTERIDGE

Evening Star, Issue 19776, 28 January 1928, Page 22

CONSTABLE GUTTERIDGE

SCOTLAND YARD'S ACTIVITIES MURDER CHARGE PENDING ress Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, January 27. (Received January 28, at 1 a.in.) It is *xpceted that a murder charge in connection with the death of Constable Gulteridge will he preferred at the week-end as the result of recent discoveries and inquiries. EVIDENCE, AT INQUEST ’After an adjournment at nearly two months, the inquest on William Goerge Gutteridge, the police constable who was found shot dead by the roadside at Stapleford Abbots, near Romford, on September 27, was resumed on November 2d. The inquest was opened three days after the discovery of the body, and was adjourned in the expectation that an arrest would soon be made. Despite the great activity of the police, however, no charge had yet been preferred against anybody. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder by Some person or persons unknown. Detective Crockford spoke of finding Gutferidge’s body lying on the roadside. H© was fully clothed with the exception of his helmet. The two lower buttons of his tunic were undone, and his whistle was loose from his pocket. He was holding his pencil in his right hand, and his pocket book was lying near his helmet. He examined the road at the spot. There were no signs of a struggle, but there was a zig-zag trail of blood. There was more blood at the start of the trail, and there was a pool under Gutteridge’s head. Witness said that on the hank on the left hand side of the road there was a mark as though a car had chafed the bank, and there was a mark in the road indicating where the wheel of a motor car had rested. There was no conspicuous mark of any particular traffic;. Gutteridge’s truncheon was in his pocket, and had no marks on it. His flash lamp was in his hip pocket, His watch was in his fob pocket. SOUND OR A MOTOR.

Constable Taylor said lie was with Gutteridge till about 3.25 on the morning in question. Alter he arrived home, about 4.20 a.m., he heard a motor car pass the house and saw the light of its headlamps on the window. It was going, he believed, in the direction of London. The car that passed his house did not appear to go at a great speed. Cans could not go fast there, because there was a right-angle turn. Ur YVoodhous said that Gutteridge had two wounds on the left cheek, one about an* inch and the other about an inch and three-quarters in front'of the ear. Thcv would not quite admit the witness’s little huger. They were both surrounded by a scorched area of about one-eighth of an inch, indicating that the muzzle of the weapon had been held fairly close. He followed the track of the wounds with a probe. The anterior wound came out of the opposite cheek, and passed through the right jawbone, which was fractured. The second wound he tracked to the left side of the neck. There were two other wounds almost symmetrically placed in regard to the eyes, just below the eye halls. JWith a probe he traced the exit of one of them at the back of the skull. The Coroner: The weapon must have been quite close to the face?—l should ear less than 6in. The Coroner: Four bullet wounds were shot into the head? —Yes, and I have come to the conclusion they were not self-inflicted, and they were all four fired from close range. In my opinion, the two cheek wounds were inflicted first. One of them was not serious, but the other would produce death by hemorrhage in a couple of minutes. The third and fourth wounds would produce instantaneous death. I believe that the last two shots, those through the eyes, were fired while Gutteridge lay on his back. CHIEF INSPECTOR'S STORY’. Chief Inspector Berrett described his investigations in the case, “in spite of these investigations,” he said, “I have not at present been able to trace the crime to any person or persons. I have, with a number of other officers, caused inquiries to be made, and have interviewed quite a lot of persons of various callings with a view to obtaining information concerning persons who may have been responsible for this crime. About 2.30 on the morning of September 27 a Morris-Cowley motor car was stolen from the premises of Ur Lowe, at Billericay, and as a result of numerous inquiries I have made I have come to the conclusion that a motor car, evidently this one, passed over a route of about fifteen miles across country to Stapleford Abbots and the scene of the'crime. The same car was traced from there by another route via Abridge, toward London. “ interviews and statements taken from a number of people verify these facts. 1 have taken a number of measurements, and as the result of these and other particulars obtained there, and of a minute examination of the car, I am of the opinion that some person or persons responsible lor the thelt of the car drove it to the Ongar and Romford road, and stopped where Gutteridge was murdered. 1 should say that the officer was in the act of obtaining particulars from some person or persons when he received the first two shots described by the doctor, and then staggered hack, zig-zagging to where he fell. On the bank near where he was found were small splashes of blood, which evidently were caused by him sliding down the bank. A NEWSPAPER THEORY The inquest conclusion Lhat Constable Gutteridge was murdered on his country beat in Essex by some person unknown brings the mystery back to the original position set out by this paper, qlone among journals, that the hapless constable was not the victim of motor bandits or cithers engaged in some other crime (said I 'the ‘Sunday News’ of November 27). It; was shown in court how Scotland Yard bad stirred up the criminals of the country with a big stick—and found nothing. Now the last resort is a theory of private revenge, or that possibly the shooting was- done by some wandering homicidal criminal. FOUR WOUNDS IN THE HEAD. The medical evidence furnished faint gleams of light! We heard for the first time positively that there were four bullet wounds. The first went through the left cheek, the second was also a cheek shot which tore through higher up and left after inflicting a mortal wound. This wound was sufficient to have caused death in two minutes. Neither of these bullets has been found. Then poor Gutteridge fell, and the brutal murderer drilled victim’s eyes as he lay on his back. Those two bullets were found, and were passed from hand to hand in the jury box. The doctor said the bullets seemed to be of the type used in a service revolver. No experts were called to decide their calibre. Apparently nobody thinks this is important. There are thousands of men with practical war experience of bullets and their billets who could say exactly what these two lumps of twisted lead mean. The last hope in the Gutteridge case is that’ “murder .Will out,”

Who fired the four shots? A homicidal maniac with or without a, motive. SURETK MAN’S VIEW. , A member of the Surcte —the Scotland Yard of Paris—said'yesterday to a ‘ Sunday Nejvs ’ representative:—“ I should think that in any reconstruction of the crime the fact that a pencil was found between the dead policeman’s finger and thumb indicates a careful “plant.” Surely the firing of several shots would relax tho muscles, and the pencil 'would have fallen from the officer’s fingers The shots through the eyes show, in my view, that there was 'personal animus;’-' '•