MURDERERS’ MOTIVES STRANGE AND VARIED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 19 (Supplement)

MURDERERS’ MOTIVES STRANGE AND VARIED.

Psychology of Notorious Criminals was Studied by Scotland Yard Chief.

Throwing back my mind over the long array of murderers whom I have known (writes ex-Chief Constable Wensley, the famous Scotland Yard detective), I am driven to the conclusion that they can not be classified in any general category. The motives that make a man or woman kill may operate in any class of society among all kinds of people. Murder may be equally committed because a man is hard and determined or because he is weak and irresolute. Patrick Mahon, who killed Miss Emily Kaye at a bungalow on the beach at Pevensey Bay, was, I think, an example of a weak man who drifted into a premeditated crime of violence. This instability had been marked throughout his career, in which there had been several criminal episodes, in spite of the fact that he had had many opportunities of making a comfortable and honest living, and was married to a devoted and clever woman.

Mahon, a good-looking fellow of engaging manners, had, through his wife’s influence, in 1923 become a sales manager to a certain firm, and was moving in respectable circles near Richmond, where he was a popular figure. At this time he had become entangled in an illicit love affair with Miss Kaye, who had long earned her own living as a secretary, and had contrived to save some £6OO.

In the early months of 1924 he was becoming a little tired of her. She, on the other hand, was becoming more than ever infatuated with him, and the fact that she was enciente could not have been much longer concealed. I imagine that she was a person of dominating character, and not likely to accept a dismissal easily. In fact, she was pressing him to elope with her—a course he was by no means anxious to take. A “Love Experiment.” At this juncture it was agreed between the two to make a “ love experiment ” by spending a holiday together at a bungalow near Pevensey Bay. Both of them had decided that this should bring affairs to a climax. Miss Kaye’s idea was to show the man that he could be happy with her, and to settle final plans for their flight abroad. His was a more sinister project. To explain his absence to his wife, he made the excuse that he was travelling on business. On Thursday, May 4, 1924, a Mr Beard, who had formerly been divisional detective inspector of the L Division, rang up Scotland Yard and was invited to come along and see me. He told a rather singular story. A Mrs Mahon had found a Waterloo station cloakroom ticket that had dropped from one of her husband’s pockets. She was an intelligent woman, and had not altogether swallowed Mahon’s excuses of his recent absences. She had asked Beard to find out to what the ticket referred. He discovered that it was a voucher for a locked Gladstone bag. By lifting the flaps at the side of the bag he managed to get a glimpse inside. Thus he discovered some articles of women’s clothing' that appeared to be stained with blood. This it was that had brought him to us. It was conceivable that all this might have an innocent—or at any rate a non-criminal explanation. At this time we did not even know that there was a woman missing. One of the possibilities that flitted across my mind was that the owner of the bag might have had associations with some woman, and used the bag when marketing for temporary housekeeping with her. The presence of the clothes would be reason enough for not taking the bag home. The incident was a singular one, however, and I felt it worth while to take some steps. I asked Cljief Inspector (now superintendent) Percy Savage to look into the business. The Slayer’s Knife.

I was at dinner on the following evening when a message reached me that Mahon had been detained and was then at Scotland Yard. I hurried over. The bag had been more closely examined, and was found to contain a cook’s knife and a few bloodstained articles of women’s clothing which had been heavily sprinkled with a disinfectant. Mahon’s first reply was that the bag had been used to carry meat for dogs. He was told that this answer was not satisfactory, for we believed that the stains were of human blood. I think this probably caused him to give us credit for knowing a great deal more of the facts than we did. There was a long silence, and at last he observed that he would tell the truth.

After giving details of Miss Kaye’s identity and his association with her, the effect of his statement was that during the course of a quarrel at the bungalow' she had thrown a coal axe at him. He had struggled with her. and in a fall she had struck her head against an iron coal scuttle and died. The next day he had come to town, bought a knife and saw, and returned to the bungalow. The day after that — Good Friday—he had dismembered the body. Then he gave details of an attempt to destroy the remains by fire during the following day—an attempt which he had been forced to abandon. Finally, he had packed parts of the body in the bag and attempted to dispose of them piecemeal by throwing them from carriage windows during various journeys.

I deputed a number of officers to accompany Savage down to Eastbourne, and by four in the morning they were on their way by car. There was ample evidence of the tragedy that had been enacted there. The coal cauldron was so flimsy that a fall on it seemed unlikely to account for a serious injury. He Chattered Too Much.

Savage hurried back to town that evening. Meanwhile, in spite of cautions, Mahon had been talking somewhat freely to a young officer—Detec-tive-Sergeant Frew—who had been left in charge of him. This introduced several fresh points into the inquiry, and we knew that, at any rate, he was a man with a criminal record.

The only real question was now whether he was guilty of murder or whether Miss Kaye had been killed in circumstances that amounted to manslaughter. This was settled as our inquiries progressed. Before going to Pevensey Bay, Miss Kaye had realised her securities and drawn £4OO in four notes from the bank. Three of these were traced as having been cashed by Mahon in a false name. On the day that he had come to town after Miss Kaye’s death he had wired to a girl, whom he had met casually in Richmond Street a little while before, to dine with him. On that occasion he had invited her to come down to the bungalow on Good Friday to stay a few days. She had gone down on that day and remained till the following Monday—and all the while the headless body q{ Miss Kaye was in a locked room which Mahon told her contained books. The man’s account of this episqde was that “he would have gone stark, raving mad if he had not had her with him.'’

But most damning of all was the discovery that Mahon had bought a

knife and saw on April 12 —three days before he had gone into residence with Miss Kaye at the bungalow.

My personal impression of this man was mixed. He was very well spoken, in some ways had an attractive manner and was extremely plausible, but really he was a moral degenerate, cunning and utterly without strength of character. He was convicted at Lewes Assizes in July, 1924, and very properly hanged. Tendency to Imitation.

The tendency to imitate in methods of murder was illustrated in a case that arose towards the end of the same year. A young man named Normal Thorne, who ran a chicken farm at Crowborough, in Sussex, was engaged to a Miss Elsie Cameron, whose home was at Kensal Rise, and by whom he was visited from time to time.

On Friday, December 5, the girl left home carrying a suitcase and telling no one of her destination, although it seemed to have been assumed that she was going to see Thorne. She did not return, and five days later her father wired to Thorne, who replied that he did not understand, that she was not with him, that he “ feared the worst" and urging “no delay in making inquiries.”

As time went on we were asked to send an officer from the Yard to cooperate with the East Sussex Constabulary in investigating the mystery. Obviously this request would not have been made unless they had felt that there was something much graver than a mere case of a missing person. So Chief Detective Inspector John Gillan, a strong and astute officer, was sent down.

One or two queer angles to the matter had become apparent. Thorne had fallen in love with another girl, and tried to break off his association with Miss Cameron some little while before her disappearance. She, however, was determined that he should marry her and, on the ground that she was in a certain condition—which, in fact, she was not —had brought strong pressure to bear on him for an early wedding. # When Gillan took up the investigation the continued absence of the girl had excited much public attention. Thorne bore the publicity that he received with composure, and professed much eagerness to help the police. He supplied them with a photograph, and was constantly making inquiries as to their progress. All this play-acting was exceptionally well done, but it did not impose on Gillan.

There was only one person in the world who had an obvious reason for wishing Elsie Cameron out of the way. That was Thorne.

Gillan, with the local police, arranged that a close search of the farm should take place. Thorne expressed his willingness to give them every facility. It is recorded that on one occasion he was chatting cheerfully with officers who were digging while he stood close to the spot where a foot and a half below Miss Cameron was buried. Moreover, he was making a very frank statement to Gillan, going back to his school days, relating intimate details of his association with the girl, and her resentment at his friendship with the other girl. Most of this was truthful up to the point where he declared that he had not seen Miss Cameron since November 30.

The day after this statement one of the constables who were digging on the farm came across the suitcase that had been carried by Elsie Cameron when she left home, still containing some articles of clothing that had belonged to her.

On hearing of this Gillan promptlyput Thorne under detention, telling him that he would probably be charged with murder. All that day the search on the farm went on without result, and in the evening Thome again asked to see Gillan, and told a remarkable story.

Elsie Cameron, he now admitted, had come to him on that Friday. She had told him, he said, that she meant to be married at once, and intended to remain with him until the ceremony. There was an argument, and he left her at about a quarter to ten to keep an appointment, previously made, to meet the other girl and her mother, who had been away, to assist them with their luggage at the railway station.

When he returned home at half-past eleven Miss Cameron’s body was hanging from one of the beams of the hut. He cut her down. Terrified at his position, he had, during the night, burned her clothes, cut up the body, and buried it in a chicken run. Experimental Hanging. On the spot he indicated where the body was found, and he was charged with the murder. The initial medical examination revealed no marks to confirm his story. On the contrary, there were a number of injuries to the head and body that suggested a struggle in which she had been hit by some blunt weapon—such as an Indian club that was found in Thorne’s hut.

It was a point of too, although I do not think it was brought out at the trial, that among the things found in the hut were a number of newspaper cuttings on the Mahon case, and several books on pathology. Gillan and his assistant, DetectiveSergeant (now Inspector) Askew, made an interesting if grim experiment at the hut. A close examination of the cross-beams showed no mark upon them. It was decided to make a test to see if they would have been strong enough to have withstood the weight of the dead girl. Two 561 b weights were placed on a chair and attached to a beam with some strong string that was found on the premises. Then the chair waa slowly tilted so that they might 6llda gently off without any pronounced jerk. This, it was found, made an obvious mark on the beam. A second test was conducted with rope of the same kind as that which Thorne said had been used by the dead girl. In this case weights were again placed on a chair, which was then kicked away as it might be by a person attempting suicide. This experiment showed that the rope left very distinct impressions on the soft wood. The question at the trial resolved itself into a duel between the medical experts as to how Elsie Cameron had died. It was contended for the defence that she had attempted to hang herself, but m reality had not died from hanging, but from shock. The prosecution argued that death had been brought about from shock caused by a. number of blows. The jury accepted the latter theory, and Thorne was hanged for murder.

As I have already suggested, my own view is that this was a crime of imitation. Had Mahon never murdered Emily Kaye, Elsie Cameron might still be alive. Thorne, although unlike 1 Mahon, a man without criminal ante- \ cedents, and whose life hitherto had \ been without reproach, was confronted ] with much the same problem’*-* woman * who had become a nuisanca to Mahon’s methods suggested a way out 1 to him, and he adopted them, it should be said, many of the zniaid takes made by the ©the^