Expert: Mark Smith - 10/11/2004

Question
I'll assume that you're familiar with the unsolved murder of Julia Wallace.  Supposedly, she and her husband had "no enemies."  Yet somebody obviously murdered her and tried to frame Mr. Wallace.  Supposedly there've been some theories as to the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Qualtrough."  What are the realistic theories of whom and why in this case, and why weren't these presented at the original trial?  I would assume that Mr. Wallace would've known if he had any vile enemies of this sort.

Answer
Hello. I'm satisfied that the identity of Mrs Wallace's killer was revealed in 1981. He was Richard Gordon Parry a former colleague of Mr Wallace at the Prudential.
Parry had been sacked for dishonesty and turned to petty crime. In January 1931 he was 22 years old. He knew Mr Wallace's working patterns and suspected that he would have a large sum of money in the house, so he made the phone call to lure him away and entered the house. As a former colleague he would have been let in by Mrs Wallace without any difficulty. It is unlikely that he intended to kill her, he probably panicked when she caught him trying to steal the money from the cash box. He was questioned by the police at the time, but his girlfriend provided an alibi.
In 1966 a book was published on the murder in which a former colleague of Mr Wallace was suggested as the true killer, but the author could not name Parry as he was still alive. He died in 1980 and the following year a radio programme named him as the killer. Parry's alibi was shown to be false and someone revealed that he was asked to clean out his car late on the evening of the murder. In the glove compartment he found a blood stained glove that Parry said would hang him if it was reported to the police.
I have no doubt the Parry was the murderer.
Mark