A 1981 radio documentary about the Julia Wallace cold case, hosted by author Roger Wilkes. Features interviews with relevant figures who were alive at the time of the murder.
Information?
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Great documentary drama, I remember it when first broadcast all those years ago. Still perplexing even to this day. Would you by any chance, have the debate that followed the broadcast with Roger Wilkes & Jonathan Goodman?.
Sadly I do not have that section, it is the only thing which I do not have. I have been in contact with Roger Wilkes previously and he has the tapes of the show, but we did not get round to having copies of them made etc.
I am now in possession of this and will be uploading it shortly.
Hello again & thank you for replying. A shame about the debate broadcast, maybe Mr Wilkes will allow you access to it one day. I found it hard to believe Richard Gordon Parry was the murderer of Julia Wallace.He was a thief, but If he did it, why on earth would he take his car to be cleaned if there was blood in it, as that would implicate him, common sense to have cleaned his car himself. Very rare a thief becomes a vicious murderer.
It’s strange listening to the 4th audio in 2021. I mention this because i am included within the conversation when my ‘ingenious’ letter is referred to. I was living in Devon then but was visiting where I’d gr9own up( Anfield). I hadn’t researched deeply and admit being influenced by my own parents and the good old appetite for anything salacious. I have long since researched it with more focus and breadth and i have no doubt at all that Parry was responsible for Julia’s death. It’s likely that he had an accomplice . It’s feasible that ‘Mr Charm’ had the front door answered to him( Julia shielding her Bronchitis with an overcoat around her). The back door was accessible after William leaving that way. Neither man could ‘shop’ the other as both would have hanged under the ‘joint enterprise’ law ruling.In the middle of the 1929-33 depression, Liverpool would have been rocked by the news of a city treasurer shielding a thif after already paying his way out of various other crimes. Why was Parry’s ‘ i was somewhere else’ accepted at face value but the boy who last spoke to Julia was hounded to change his recollection of the time ? Why was ‘Pukka’ Parkes, who knew Parry all his life and lived yards from him, told he was ‘mistaken’ by saying he’d been in the garage ? Why was that a ‘mistake’ ? No, the police had a remit. That was to nail Wallace and satisfy public hunger and keep Parry out of the limelight before he was sent away from Liverpool by an embarrassed family. Incidentally, the pompous voice who tried to bring down my original theory in the programme about the sister in law, doesn’t take important points into consideration that were on my letter. Julia and Amy were of similar size and build. The lights were low on a dark night and whoever he spoke to had a makeshift cover across her face because of her bronchitis thus masking her.Is it so ‘ludicrous’ to suggest that it could have been a case of mistaken identity ?
Thank you greatly for your post, it is very interesting to hear from someone who spoke on the radio broadcast.
Many many thanks for uploading the 4th & final part of Who killed Julia Wallace documentary. Absolutely fantastic to hear this once more. Great discussion. Much appreciated!
Talking of the phone-in during the 1981 broadcast. Mr Williamson calls in. He doesn’t mention Parry calling to the family home on the murder night. You’d have thought he would know about it, he talked about Parry being a con man at length yet no mention of this visit.
MW is correct about the police taking Parry’s alibi’s at face value, especially the Monday night telephone call alibi which is a blatant lie. Also Parry tells nobody subsequently about Brine being his alibi, not to Lily Lloyd in 1931 nor to Jonathan Goodman or Richard Whittington-Egan in 1966. There is something he doesn’t want anybody finding out about.