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William Herbert Wallace

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Murderer (Alleged)

The Resume

    (August 29, 1878-February 26, 1933)
    Born in Millom, England, United Kingdom
    Insurance agent in Liverpool
    At a meeting of the Liverpool Chess Club (January 19, 1931), was given a message left earlier by 'R.M. Qualtrough' asking to meet the next day at 25 Menlove Gardens East
    While he was looking for the address (which turned out to be fictitious), his wife Julia was bludgeoned to death
    Was tried and convicted of murder
    Conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal on the grounds that the evidence did not support a guilty verdict

Why he might be annoying:

    The call to the Liverpool Chess Club was made from a booth four hundred yards from Wallace's house, leading prosecutors to suggest Wallace placed the call himself to set up an alibi.
    Prosecutors also noted only Wallace could be sure that he would show up to receive the message, especially since he had skipped the two previous meetings of the Club.
    When he returned home from searching for 25 Melove Gardens East, he told his neighbors that he could not get into the house because the door was bolted, which turned out to be untrue.
    His stoic, unemotional behavior made a bad impression on the jury.
    The case inspires a fondness for chess metaphors among writers. (Such as Dorothy L. Sayers's 'The Wallace murder had no key-move and ended, in fact, in stalemate' or Edgar Lustgarten's 'It has all the maddening, frustrating fascination of a chess problem that ends in perpetual check.')

Why he might not be annoying:

    The Chess Club director who took the call from Qualtrough testified that he was certain that Wallace was not the man he spoke to.
    A locksmith found the locks at the Wallace residence prone to jamming, which may have caused Wallace to believe the door had been bolted.
    The prosecution claimed Wallace had committed the murder at 6 PM, but a milk delivery boy insisted he had spoken to Julia while making his deliveries at 6:30.
    If the delivery boy's time was right, Wallace had ten minutes or less to commit the murder, dispose of the weapon (which was never found), change and get rid of any bloodstained clothes (the murder scene was spattered with blood, but the clothes he was wearing that night were closely examined and no trace of blood found) and still catch the tramcar for the Menlove Gardens neighborhood.
    No one ever came up with a motive for Wallace killing his wife.
    Their neighbors, whose house shared a wall with theirs, said they never heard any arguments between the Wallaces.
    Some later writers suggested that the real murderer was an ex-employee at Wallace's insurance firm who planned to steal the day's takings while Wallace was out.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 5 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 13 Votes: 76.92% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying