Youthful Don Juan

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 637, 13 April 1929, Page 18

Youthful Don Juan

Arch-Deceiver of Women Unmoved As Judge Dons Black Cap

Fiction oncl authentic criminal records have seldom approached the amazing life-story of Joseph Reginald Victor Clarke, adventurer , murderer and Ron Juan, who was recently condemned to death for the callous murder of a widow at Liverpool A wholesale betrayer of women, Clarke, who is only twentyone, himself viivdly described the . crime for which he has been sentenced to death, and the many extraordinary complexities of his character are revealed in the following extraordinary narrative. ■ HAVE had more love affairs than there are days in the year. That’s not so bad for a lad of This cynical boast of Joseph Reginald Victor Clarke within a week of the murder for which he was sentenced to pay the penalty on the gallows is a good index to the twisted mentality of a young man who lived solely for the society of pretty, gullible girls (says the “Sunday News”). Brutal Crime In his 21st year Clarke has been condemned to hang for the brutal murder of Mrs. Alice Fontaine, a 55-years-old widow, who, with her pretty young daughter, Mary Agnes, lived in Northbrook Street, Princes Gate, Liverpool. Clarke had made love to Mary Agnes while lodging in the house, and, according to counsel for the prosecution at Liverpool Assizes, had become “nothing more or less than a parasite, battening on the kindness of two defenceless women,” during his four and a-half months’ stay there. This modern Don Juan pleaded guilty to murdering Mrs. Fontaine who had been strangled with a length of cord. The crime was discovered after the girl had rushed screaming into the street on a Sunday morning partly dressed, bleeding from throat wounds inflicted by this demented young man. It is most rare for a judge to accept a plea of guilty in murder charges, but Mr. Justice Finlay took this course, and Clarke’s case was disposed of in the record time of only five minutes. “You thoroughly understand that you are pleading guilty to a charge of wilful murder?” said his lordship. “Yes, my lord,” was the answer. The Judge: And you thoroughly understand what the only sentence can be? —Yes. “You have been convicted of murder on your own confession,” said the clerk of assize solemnly to the prisoner later. “Have you anything to say why the Court should not pass sentence of death according to law?” “I have nothing to say, my lord,” replied Clarke, clearly and without a tremor. Clarke betrayed no emotion while sentence was being passed. “Thank you, my loTd,” he said, and walked calmly below, after bowing to the judge. Clarke is a man of slim build, looking older than his years, with fair hair brushed straight back from his forehead. He wore a dark overcoat. Graphic Confession Clarke’s demeanour in court was on a par with the calm, candid confession which he is alleged to have made at the police station regarding the crime for which he is to hang. It was as follows: “Mrs. Fontaine was talking to me about getting on, making good. She was just saying that I could get a job and make a borne for May, her daughter. I can’t tell what happened then, but I suddenly put my hands on her throat, and I threw her over the arm of the chair. She screamed, ‘Oh, Teddy Bear!’ (-that was the name she used to call me). I just pressed her throat good and hard for about a minute. “She stopped breathing. We were in the room alone at the time. She had just brought me a cup of tea. Mrs. Fontaine and I had grown unfriendly because I could not pay my way. She was always very good to me all the time. She lent me money and tried her best to help me to get along. “When Mrs. Fontaine had finished gasping I went into the bedroom of Miss Fontaine, and I asked her if she still loved me. She replied: ‘You know I always will.’ I said to her, ‘I have killed mother and because you have turned me down I am going to kill you, too.’ “I gripped her by the throat, but she screamed and struggled fiercely. We disarranged all the furniture in the room, but I eventually got her under control. “Then I suddenly realised I was killing her. I had in my pocket a shoemaker’s knife, and cut the cord with that and tried to bring her to. She screamed, afresh. Then I cut her throat. She seemed to go under for a time, and then she recovered and took me by the hand. She said: ‘Let us sit on the bed a bit, Teddy Bear. You knew I loved you. Why have you done all this?’

To return to the Southampton girl. She was a shop assistant, comfortably off, but by no means affluent. True as steel to Clark, she never doubted for a moment that this prince of liars and deceivers was equally faithful to her. A wonderful letter-writer, he kept her under the belief that he was suffering great distress, and as a result of this despicable deception she kept him regularly supplied with money, clothing and comforts while he was supposed to be on a sick bed. Actually, he was gallivanting around Liverpool with other girls. Miss Southampton was not the only victim of this young blackguard’s duplicity. There was a young woman in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from whom he had had a heart-break parting with declarations of everlasting love when he sailed from there to Liverpool. Clark’s departure from Southampton was sudden. He told his girl he had to rush to Liverpool at a moment’s notice to join the White Star liner Baltic as wireless operator, whereas in reality he was flying from justice, a warrant having been issued for his arrest. He had been carrying out a rather lucrative fraud by advertising wireless sets for sale, receiving orders, pocketing the cash and failing to deliver the goods.

Soon afterwards he turned up in London, was arrested, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. On his release he again transgressed and was quickly back within prison walls. When next heard of Clark was pantry boy on a ship sailing between Liverpool and New York. Now comes the most amazing part of this remarkable man’s life story. A host of amorous adventures were crowded into the short period from April of last year until the fateful Sunday morning of November, when the terrible drama in the house of the Fontaine’s, at 110 Northbrook Strdet, Princes Park, Liverpool, was enacted. In those few months, by divers subterfuges, lies, impositions and thefts, he lived in ease and plenty at the expense chiefly of women, not only in Liverpool, but elsewhere. In selecting lodgings his ideal landlady was one who lived alone with a daughter, preferably young and pretty. ; It was in one such household in Liver--1 pool that he settled down last June. The daughter was particularly attrac- ; tive, and he promptly paid court to her : in the hope that he might so be : excused from the immediate payment : of his rent. But the mother, having some knowledge of the world, taxed him about his dilatoriness in paying. “Oh, you know what we artists are,” was his casual remark. “Sometimes we have money, and sometimes we have not. But we always pay.” Left in a Huff One night Clark found his belongings, including his paints, brushes, and canvases had disappeared. The landlady told him they were in her possession, and they would be restored to him as soon as he paid up. He left the house in a huff, called on another girl friend, and borrowed the money. Within half an hour he had paid the landlady, and had been informed that he had outworn his welcome, and he must find another abode. This setback did not disturb him. That same night he was installed in a new home in the same district, and within a stone’s throw of the late Bishop of Liverpool’s palace. At these new apartments the landlady was the mother of four handsome young daughters. It was at this house that Clarke proved himself a master of intrigue. Incredible though it may seem, be made love to all four sisters. He courted them separately, and yet, so to speak, simultaneously, and with such consummate skill that each thought herself the favourite. Seeking Shelter One evening, while wondering where his next home was to be, he stopped in a Granby Street shop doorway to shelter from the rain. A girl ■was sheltering there also. She was good-looking, and so Clark spoke to her, and before they parted they exchanged names. Thus did Clark and Alice Fontaine become acquainted. What that friendship led to the world now knows. In the Fontaine household, where he soon went to live, he carried on his scheme of pillage. Not only did he strive to win the girl’s affections, he also lived on the mother. He owed her for his board and lodgings, and in addition borrowed money from her to such an extent that when her affairs came to be inquired into after she had been murdered it was discovered that her bank balance had entirely vanished. It was when she had no more money to lend and she had protested against his further appeals that he had seized her by the throat and crushed the life out of her. What was this strange man’s fascination over his woman friends? That is the question that will be asked on all sides now that his extraordinary career is disclosed. In letter-writing he excelled, and he called to his aid in this direction his own natural poetic gifts. He leaves behind him a book of poems in his own hand-writing, and fourteen days before he killed Mrs. Fontaine he wrote in these strangely philosophic and fatalistic terms: Across the fields of yesterday He sometimes comes to me, A little boy tcith face aglow, The lad I used to be. And yet he siniles so wistfully, I What can his sorrow mean f j I think that he still hopes to be The man l might have"been.

“I said, ‘I thought you meant to give me up’; and she replied, ‘How could you think that? I love you still. Let us go and see mother,’ still holding me by the hand.’’ It may truthfully be said that Clark owes his present predicament to his overwhelming egotism and love of the society of young and pretty women. A dilettante poet and painter, a dabbler in psychology and hypnotism, a real romanticist —even this list of “qualities” does not do justice to Clark. In early life Clark had been a victim of circumstances. Before he was actually born, his parents had separated. He knew neither the restraining hand of a father nor the guiding influence of a mother. He was nursed into boyhood by a relative, who died before he reached his ’teens. Despite these domestic handicaps the lad showed promise of brilliance at school, and proved himself exceptionally clever at higher mathematics. When schooling ended he had a splendid record, but poor prospects. The boy’s mother, who, it was reported, had obtained a divorce in the Virginian courts, sent for him, and at the age of 16 he visited her in America. His education was further polished up at Princeton University, but on leaving he yearned for England again, and returned to carve out a fortune in the Old Country. He came back to England, to use the words of an observer, “a first-class swanker.” He opened a wireless shop in Kings Lynn. This business was his first big bluff. The shop was gutted by a fire. After he had been paid the insurance money he calmly told a friend that he had set the place alight to get the insurance money. “That’s a quick sale,” he said with a careless laugh. He then transferred his operations to the South of England. But it was at Southampton, where he next turned up, that he entered on his first real romance., By this time he was employing his hypnotic powers on the fair sex with some success, and had developed into a formidable ladykiller.