In Business as a Murderer

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 16, 22 April 1905, Page 42

In Business as a Murderer

An apt illustration that truth is at times stranger than fiction is to be found in the “Memoirs of a Great Detective,” just published by Heinemann. The memoirs are those of J. Wilson Murray, who was born in Edinburgh in 1840, and the interesting record of the criminal cases with which he was connected makes manifest, his extraordinary powers of common sense and shrewdness. The case of Birchall, who had embarked in business as a murderer, and who for a year had planned crimes expecting a rich harvest of gold, is graphically told by Detective-Inspec-tor Murray. Thick grow the briars in Blenheim Swamp in Ontario. Fallen logs and tangled thickets mingle in a maze, impassable save where path* penetrate the dense underbrush. Desolation and loneliness pervade the place. The bones of dead men had been found in-the swamp; but not until February, 1890, did it reveal a body lately dead. Two woodmen passing came upon it and rolled it over.

Only the wild creatures of the swamp had beheld the tragedy. From the treetops and the moss lands they saw a young man come walking up an old narrow trail, lie was smoking, and gazed eagerly ahead as if the bush-grown road were a golden highway to a promised land. They saw death walking at his elbow —a second figure, handsome and alert, swift of movement, stealthy, noiseless. They saw the glitter of steel, the flash of flame, and heard the explosion ring out through the forest. They saw the blithesome young gentleman lurch forward, sway, and fall as a second shot went echoing over the march.

They saw the murderer quietly search the pockets, then deliberately produce a pair of scissors, and clip frOm the dead man’s clothes all tell-tale traoes of identity. Nothing was done hurriedly. The. murderer then raised the body, and Laid it down in a lonely spot, washed his hands in a pool and walked briskly out of the swamp. The body was found by the Elridge brothers. In response to a telegram 1 went to the township of Blenheim, and saw the body, The clothing was of English style and cut, but there was no clue to his identity. The name of the tailor and the label on his clothes had been cut out carefully. Tire label of his brown Derby hat had been removed; even a possible tell-tale button had been severed.

The body was photographed, and photographs sent to the leading newspapers in Canada and the United States. On the sixth day after it had been buried, a man and woman arrived at Princeton and asked to see it. The body was dug up, and they were both deeply shocked to recognise it as that of an acquaintance, named Benwell, whom they had met aboard ship in coming from England. Mr Murray introduced himself to the couple, and learned hat the man’s name was Reginald Birchall, of London, England. He bad said that he had last seen Benwell at Niagara, and that, the latter had gone on to London; Ontario. The easy confidence of the man aroused the suspicions of Murray, who made certain that the man was lying, after he found that Benwell had never gone to London. So he straightway had Birchall arrested.

Then Murray found that Birchall had come over from England in the company of Benwell and a young man named Douglas Raymond Pelly. Birchall had advertised for a partner in a Canadian farm, and Pelly was coming with him to the glorious prospect which he had pictured of a large farm near Niagara, with large houses and barns, heated by steam and lighted with electricity. When Pelly joined Birchall on the Britannic lie discovered that Benwell was also of the party, and subsequently learnt that Birchall had taken both into the farm business without consulting either.

When the parly reached Buffalo Birchall and Benwell went to see the mythical farm. That was on February 17. Birchall returned alone that evening, and said

that Benwell had remained at the farm. Next day they went to Niagara Falls. Soon after our arrival, said Polly to Murray, Birchall invited me to go for a walk. We walked along the river road, and on our walk we came to a place which, Birchall said, was thought to be a nice place to bathe in the river, so a stairway had been built over the cliffs. Birchall said to me. “Oh, you have never been down here; you ought to go. It is the best way to see the Falls.” 1 went down first, and soon noticed that it was a rotten, unsafe stairway. It led down close by the falls. “Birchall,” said 1, “this is a horrid place.” He was following, and said, “Go on; it will pay you.” We landed at the bottom finally. To my great surprise there stood a man gazing into the swirling water. This man turned and looked at me. I sprang past Birchall, and started back up the stairs. Birchall seemed nonplussed when we came upon the stranger in this lonely, secluded spot; and all that day he was moody and silent. He invited me for another walk next day, and led the way down the cliffs close to the cantilever bridge. He took me there so as to get a better view of the rapids. He tried to persuade roe to stand elose by him at the edge, but instinctively 1 drew back and went away. A little push and all would have been over. The very next day, having gone over to the American side, we started to walk back over the lower suspension bridge. When out near the centre of the bridge Birchall walked over by the edge and looked down at the roaring rapids. “Come, sec the view; it is he said to me. J drew back. He grew white, and walked on. I lagged behind. “Come, walk with me,” he said, halting. I shook my head. He repeated his invitation. He stopped, and advanced a step towards me. I stepped back, and was about to run over the bridge when two men came walking across, and Birchall turned and walked on to Canada. Murray then took up the trail of Birchall when he left Buffalo on 17 th February with Benwell. Two young Englishmen in the train had attracted the attention of a Miss Lockhart by the manner in which they were talking about the land. They were admiring fields which were in no way to be admired. One who wore a big astrakhan cap was very quiet, and twitched in his seat, but was always attentive to his fellow traveller.

Later, after getting off the train at Eastwood, the two men had been seen Walking towards Blenheim Swamp. A man who was cutting timber had heard two distinct pistol shots at less than a mile distance at 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

An hour passes. At 2.30 a man who wore a fur cap stopped a young farmer to ask the way, and then walked rapidly on towards Eastwood. As he neared the station he encountered a young lady, who had known him the year before as Lord Somerset. He went up to her and shook hands pleasantly, saying, “How do you do? Don’t you remember me?” and asked familiarly after her family. So other witnesses identified Birchall, alias Lord Somerset, and Murray established a perfect chain of evidence to show

his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Witnesses were found to identify, the body of Benwell as that of the young inan who was Birchall'a companion on the train. Thus Bircliull had four hours and 24 minutes in which to walk the four miles from Eastwood to the swamp, do the murder, and walk back to Eastwood. To clinch Birchall’s guilt, I heard from London at tiffs time, says Murray, that Colonel Benwell, the murdered man’s father, had received from Birchall an undated letter from Niagara Falls. The post mark was dated 20th February, three days after Birchall left Benwell dead in the swamp. In this letter Birchall asked that the agreement be set aside, and that 500dol be sent to him about arrangements. “I have been talking to your son today about arrangements, and he is so well satisfied with the prospects here that he is ready to go immediately into partnership, and he is writing to you to-day on the subject,” wrote Birchall. Instead of writing to his father on 20th February, Benwell lay dead on a slab with none to know his name. While masquerading as Lord Somerset in Canada, he had selected the bottomless lake, known as Pine Pond, for a grave that would tell no tales. The Blenheim Swamp was his chamber of death.

He selected an imaginary farm, and went back to England to find a rich victim. He made the mistake of taking two instead of one. Even then his plans were well laid. He would kill Benwell in the swamp, and shove. Pelly into the rapids at the falls. The professional murderer would have collected, by bogus letters to fond parents, the sum still due from the victims, and would have gone back to England for more. But fate was against him. Fate guided the two woodmen to the dead body in the swamp. Fate placed the stranger at the foot of the rotten stairway at the falls where Pelly was to die.' Fate put the two strange men on the lower suspension bridge the night Pelly was to be hurled into the rapids. Pelly lived, and he compelled Birchall to go to view Benwell’s body. It may be that Birchall believed he would brave it out, and still kill Pelly at the falls, and then throw the crime of Benwell’s death on the missing Pelly. But it all failed: Providence swept his plans aside. The trial was one of the great criminal cases in Canada. It excited widespread attention in England, on account of Belly’s and Benwell’s high connections, and Birchall’s notoriety as a wild rake at Oxford. The defence was that in tha four hours and 24 minutes between his arrival at and departure from Eastwood, Birchall could not have walked the distance and shot a man. The verdict was inevitable. —guilty, the evidence being simply overwhelming. In prison Birchall was the recipient of much attention. Some people bared their flower gardens to send him nosegays every day. Silly girls wrote silly letters to him. He sent for Murray several times, and was quite offended, if lie did note-all to see him. “I found you always a gentleman,” were his last words to him. “and you did your duty, and I have no hard feelings against you.’’

He was hanged on 14th November, 1890. So ended the Birchall case as it had begun —with a death.