SON'S APPALLING CRIME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

SON'S APPALLING CRIME

By EDWIN T. WOODHALL Copyright Reserved

The author prior to his recent retirement, was a prominent Scotland Yard official and a member of the Allied Secret Service.

'J'KE insurance industry has its own detective service—and needs it. It has been said that insurance is responsible for more crimes than any other i*ind of business. Forgery, theft, swindles of every description, arson, even-suicide and murder have been committed with no other object than that of getting money from insurance companies, and thousands of spurious claims, involving millions of money, are made on them every year. " The insurance companies, however, have their own methods of protecting themselves, and their chief safeguard is the skill and vigilance of their special investigators—a body of highly-trained men, many of them ex-members of the police forces, who know the ways of the criminal from A to Z—whose duty it is to investi gate any suspicious case and unmask the fraudulent claimant. Desperately Short of Money One of the most appalling crimes of modern times was brought to light in this way. Never before in England hacJ there been a case in which a man injured his mother and then deliberately schemed day by day to kill her in order to obtain the insurance money. Without the relentless efforts of the insurance investigators, murder would never have been suspected, or the murderer brought to the gallows. To a certain hotel in Margate, sorrK 1 years ago, came a man named Fox. With him / was his widowed mother. She was an invalid, Fox said, and the management of the hotel placed at their disposal two rooms—Nos. G6 and 67 — with a comnfunicating door, so that, if his mother should be taken ill. her son would be at hand to look after her. Fox, at this time, was desperately short of money. For some time previously he had been moving from place to place along the south coast, living from hand to mouth with the help of Valueless cheques, and there is no doubt

£ "that he arrived at Margate he | Bad all his plans carefully laid. Some time before his mother's iife had been insured for £3OOO, and to this extent Fox would benefit by her >' death. He believed that the time had r now come to extricate himself from I his financial difficulties by collecting the insurance! money. i Accordingly, he went to London * cashing a worthless cheque with a local : chemist to pay his expenses —and by | some means arranged for the premium ; ; on his mother's policy, which was orerI flue, to be paid up to date. On return- ! big to Margate he realised that there ,was no • time to be lost. He had no I' money, trouble might arise over his \ worthless cheque at any moment, and I lis plan had to be carried out immedi- % ately. His mother must die. Artificial Respiration Falls That night, about 11.30, there was ' a sudden commotion in the hotel. "Fire! Fire I'' shouted a voice, and l ( ox came dashing in panic down the stairs. * Guests rushed from their rooms, heard Fox's frenzied cries that his I - mother's room was blazing and his ] mother helpless inside and surged to- | ;ward Rooms 66 and 67. I Dense clouds of smoke were pouring f from Room 66, and it seemed imposf Bible to enter it. And then Fox must | have had a shock. One guest, more I courageous than the rest, bound a wet | towel round his face, went down on his hands and knees and crawled into the Xoom. r The smoke was so thick that he could \ lee nothing.; He groped blindly about I the room, feeling with his hands, found f lihe bed, touched a pair of legs, seized | (ihem and dragged the unconscious form % »f Mrs. Fox into the corridor. Artificial I respiration was useless, and the doctor | pronounced life extinct. Confidence in Plan % Fox seemed overcome with grief. Ho ? ,had gone to bed, he said,, leaving his g another dozing in her chair by the fire | with a glass of port beside her. There were some clothes airing before the li fire', and, somehow, he supposed, they I had become ignited and caused the out- | break. , , , | The next morning, however, he had i iso far recovered from his grief as to set about settling his mother's affairs in a most businesslike way. He advised the j§ insurance company of the claim, and 1 approached a local solicitor to try to i|| persuade hun to advance him some I money at once on the security of the ij policy. f I The son was obviously confident that | his plan had succeeded, and he no doubt j| felt quite secure when, in due course, || the inquest was held, and the verdict |j was "death by misadventure, due to j| lufiocation." His mother's body was laid H to rest at Great Frensham, in Norfolk. j| _ But Fox was in too much of a hurry. | No sooner was his mother dead than he H began questioning the insurance comjjg about his prospects, and the first that was noticed was that his had died only just in time.

Invalid Mother Murdered in Hotel ATTEMPT TO SECURE £3OOO INSURANCE MONEY

She had dieil just before midnight—about 11.30 p.m. Had she died after midnight, another premium would have had to be paid to keep the policy in force. He had forgotten, too, or had never known of, the exigence of insurance investigators. Inquiries, as usual, were sot 011 foot. The case was placed in the hands of an ex-detective, who travelled to Margate and very soon wired to his employers: "Hxtremely muddy water in this business." Suspicions Rogarding Fox The investigator had good reasons lor his suspicions. Fox declared that his mother had been asleep in her chair, yet the man who had recovered the body had found it on the bed. Moreover, an examination of the room showed clearly that the tire had originated actually under the chair on which she was said to have been sitting. In addition, the son's need of money and the story of the worthless cheque made the case look still less like a genuine accident. On receiving their investigator's report, the insurance company placed the whole suspicious set; of facts before the police, who promptly took action. It was quickly ascertained that Fox was an old Borstal boy, with a formidable criminal dossier. From early youth he had led a life of crime. Previously he had worked in an insurance company, and at one time had been in touch with a woman whose life he had insured for £3OO, and whom he had persuaded to make a will in his favour. Possession of Petrol Fortunately, no doubt, for her, suspicions of his honesty had been aroused, and she had refused to have any more to do with him. Suspected possession of petrol and the incident of the worthless cheque made things look still blacker. But there was not yet sufficient evidence to charge Fox with murder However, his practically penniless condition enabled the police to arrest him on a charge of "obtaining food and lodgings by false pretences. *' The police were bv now convinced that the supposed accident was really murder —murder of the most appalling kind; Fox, they were sure, was the murderer. But they had still to bnng the crime home to the guilty man. Things moved snviftly. The Home Office ordered an exhumation, and iS'r Bernard Spilsbury was instructed to make an examination. Fortunately, the

cofßn had been sealed up by the undertaker with putty, and as a result of the perfect state of preservation of the body, Sir Bernard Spilsbury was able to accomplish what was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant pieces of work in his career. Bruises Discovered At the outset he had no idea whatever of the cause of death; it might have been one of a hundred causes. There was not a single external mark of violence, and all the organs were healthy. No vestige of soot was found in the bronchial tubes or lungs—as there must have been had death been duo to smoke suffocation —and there was nothing whatever to account for natural death. Then, hidden in the throat, Sir Bernard found a bruise, about the size of a half a crown. On the tongue was another small bruise, apparently caused by contact with a tooth. But there were no teeth in the mouth, and no one knew what had become of them. Both these bruises, save for the sealing of the coffin, would have disappeared;* but as a result of careful laboratory tests, Sir Bernard was able to state definitely that Mrs. Fox had been strangled, and her cries stified with a pillow. As a result, Fox was charged with wilful murder, <sonvicted and hanged. But without the work of the insurance investigator the inquest verdict would never have been doubted, and one of the worst of cold-blooded murders would never have been detected.