Episode 98 - Caroline Luard - the Seal Chart Murder

This week on Twisted Britain Bob tells us about Caroline Luard, The seal Chart Murder, this is a long standing cold case in the UK where noone has ever been found guilty of Carolines murder, Bob and Ali also discuss thier thoughts on is it possible to solve these historic cases

thanks for listening

Episode Transcript

(00:31):
Hello and welcome to Twisted Britain,a podcast and true crime in Britain with
a sprinkling the Weird of a Caband your hosts are me Bob Dale and
me Alie Downey. Good evening,Ali, Danny. How are you,
sir? Ali Downey's fantastic? Yeah? Do you know what? It's the
small things in light that sometimes pissedyou off, isn't it. L I'm
su sat on a stool that you'renormally sat on and you've got my bloody
armed chair. Yeah, I'm likesix inches higher than normal. I'm really

(00:51):
not happy about this. Is fantastic. Constantly feel like I'm going to fall
over. I feel really stable.It's quite comfy. It's a lot more
comfy than I thought it would be. So there. That's bar Seats by
Twisted Britain. The reviews, yealovely. You're better to have a nice
high backed chair than a small,unstable stool. Well, here we are.
That's what I have this evening.But that's the way it is.
I'm up here and you down mein so many parts of my life,

(01:15):
Alice, So that is true.It's true. How are you? So
you will? I'm fabulous what's lifedealt you this week? A whole lot
of work? Yeah, it hastoy shop Christmas, wolfed night shifts.
It's busy, it's good fun.It's like it was almost predictable, but
yet you still forgot about it.Yeah yeah, toy shops at Christmas must
suck balls Mann, it's rubbish.I bet it is constantly dealing with folk

(01:40):
in a fucking angry state, furiousmiddle aged women who are very upset that
we no longer stock SpongeBob toys.Have you ever said thank you, love
you by whilst not being able toserve somebody? No, that is your
task for this week. Okay,somebody really angry can't get what they want
for their child for Christmas. Youjust have to say love you bye.

(02:01):
That would make me very very happymy turn this week? Yes, thank
god, Because I've been very verybusy. You have not had time to
scrawl your mind onto a piece ofpaper. No, but we'll do it.
We'll do it again another time.We're not doing it next week.
No, because you're a pantoic inmy tights on a stage. Oh no,
you won't, bloody well will alistair? And it's not behind me?

(02:24):
It's I mean, I've got alot of learning in front of me,
I think is the issue with this. But yes, it's Panto week next
week, so it must be thattime of year again. This case,
I'm going to tell you this eveningis not a happy one. It's not
for this time of year, andit's got nothing to do with panto.
Oh however, if I have accidentallywritten panto lines into it, it would

(02:46):
not surprise me. He's behind you. Do you have to explain what panto
is? No? No, mostof our listeners are British. If you
don't know what pantos, look itup. It's pretty sweet. But yeah,
anyway, imagine a really camp musicalGot Kids. I get cast as
the village idiot. Yeah every time. Yeah, yea tho. They don't

(03:07):
even call it village idiot in thescript anymore. It's just Bob. It's
just called Bob. Yeah if that. One of the lines in this year's
panto is as I came on stagefor the first time, one of the
tiny little children, she must beabout six or seven years old, just
walks up to me and goes,I thought you'd retired. Wow, just
took one year out and that wasit. So I'm getting absolute slander from

(03:27):
the children now, but never mind, So we move on to some crime.
Let's do it. I have somecrime for you this evening. I
have what I would call the startto a lovely tale that takes a horrific
turn in the middle. It's theit's called the seal Chart Murders murder,
sorry, the seal Chart murder.And it's called back because of the area

(03:49):
it happened in. It was asmall village called seal Chart and it is
the murder of Caroline Louard. Nowwe had a discussion before this about how
to pronounce it. It's l uA r D. And I'm going with
Loua. I agree. It isone of the longest cold cases in UK
history to this day now, noone has ever been found guilty of Caroline's
murder. There have been two peoplethat have been tried in court a third

(04:12):
suspect who will eventually hang, butnot for the murder of Caroline. This
is a case with police corruption,public intrigue, no obvious motive and a
very sad end to it. SoBuckle and al, you're not going to
like this. Oh, I'm reallysorry to bring it up that way.
I like it already. I foundit weirdly off the back of your Metasode
episode coming out, the Medicine episode. The Metasode episode. This could have

(04:38):
been a Metasode if I'd wanted itto, because I actually found it through
somebody who was suspected of this murderbut tried for a separate one, which
I'll tell you briefly about the end. I was going to tell his tale
and go he was also part ofthis. But this one just got me
thinking about cold cases in general.So obviously we know that the police reve

(05:00):
cold cases on a fairly regular basisor a predetermined time frame. Anyway,
weheat them, they reheat them,they pop them in the microwave, and
see if they can do any morepolice stuff. But since this one was
set in around about nineteen ten,there's not exactly much more information or leads
that will come out about this case, if anything at all. And I

(05:20):
wonder if that means that there mustbe a point where we can safely say
a cold case becomes unsolvable, frozenfrozen. Yeah, yeah, but I'm
not loving this matter. Are yougonna go with this as much as you
possibly can? Yeah, I'd kindof I started writing about this and thinking,
like, we talked about some cases, quite a few cases that are

(05:41):
completely unsolved to this day, andyeah, a lot of them are over
one hundred years old. Now,I would say that with the kind of
modern policing techniques that we have,if we're not at the epitome of what
policing is, then it would takea massive change in technology and culture or
something to make it broader. Yeah, you know what I mean, until
we get mind scanning. Yeah.Yeah, that's why I'm thinking, what's

(06:02):
the next stage of policing. Ireally hope it's not mind scanning? Me
too, But that must mean thatsome cases that we've covered them, I
can't think of one off the topof my head other than this one,
because this is one I've been readingabout that it stops beaking an unsolved murder
and becomes an unsolvable murder. Butwell, anyway, I thought we could
have a we chat about it atthe end once I tell you about this

(06:24):
case. Caroline Louard was born inthe northwest of England in eighteen fifty in
a small town called Ergamont in theLake District Lovely, or just outside the
Late District a bit further towards thecoast in the Lake district, but that
kind of area of the United Kingdom. Her father was Thomas Hartley of Guildfoot,

(06:44):
and they seem she seemed to havecome from a decent line, kind
of good family lineage. She was. Her father had a of Guildfoot after
his name, so he's not ofcleaning the gutters. You know. They
weren't a poor family by any stretchof the imagine nation. And the early
parts of her life aren't really importantto this case. What the first crossing

(07:09):
point in that means anything that bringsus onto the story is the meeting of
a man by the name of Charlesthe Ward. It's about in the eighteen
seventy five when the two of themget together, and despite the twelve year
age difference, she was twenty fiveand he was thirty seven, the pair
fall quickly in love and marry quitequickly, pretty much within the year.

(07:29):
They have two sons within the nextthree years. Charles is born in eighteen
seventy six and Eric is born ineighteen seventy seven. And Eric is born
in eighteen seventy eight. Charles theWard comes from a long line of military
men, and he had followed intheir footsteps becoming a major general. During
his career in the Royal Artillery,he'd served in Bermuda, Corfu, Gibraltar

(07:53):
and Natal and after twenty something yearsin the military, he took his retirement
in eighteen eighty eight. He andhis wife Caroline. At this point moved
to a house called igtham Noll ig h t h a mtham Noll in
a small village just outside of sevenin Kent, south of London. For

(08:15):
any being internationally listening south of London, towards the away from the point outbite
close enough a west side note aboutCharles, he was, as you can
imagine, being a major general,a bit of a big wig. You
know. He'd obviously worked his wayup through the army and he'd become part
of not maybe not part of highsociety, but part of society in general.

(08:39):
He as a major general, hewould have been part of society.
And he lived in this nice countryhouse in a small village, so he
was well known in the area.He became reasonably influential in his life.
He became a county councilor and aJustice of the peace. He even helped
set up the Society of Miniature RifleClub Miniature Rifle Club, so I think.

(09:00):
But well, the small amount ofmeeting I did on this part was
the small The miniature sorry, theSociety for Miniature Rifle Club was basically non
army regulation rifles. Miniature is probablya weird word to use, but a
non forces based weapon. Yeah.So farmers, ye, countrymen, There

(09:22):
were a lot of them. Theywere usually smaller what we'd call caliber yeah,
weapons than the army would use.They used smaller metal balls. They
were often called coun guns. Oddlyenough, they were used in American trapping.
We're onto bullets and casings at thispoint. Yeah, late late eighteen
nineties, nineteen hundred, that kindof time. I haven't written this down,

(09:46):
but his reasoning for helping set upthe society I found quite interesting.
He believed that every man, everyworking man, should know how to use
a gun because during the Boer War, in which he had presumably served in,
he saw the effectiveness of farmers againstthe British forces. That these untrained

(10:09):
civilian soldiers were pretty damn good shotsfrom a distance because they would be used
to getting rid of vermin or hunting. So he believed that off the back
of what he'd seen in his timein the forces, that every working man,
and I don't know if he meantworking class man or just every working
man should be able to discharge aweapon accurately and efficiently as a military man.

(10:31):
It was probably every man. Yeah, probably something like the old ancient
British long bow. Yeah, becauseit was kind of every peasant had to
be trained in a long bow oncea week. Was that real? Yep,
that was a real thing for decadesduring the Hundred Years War. It's
supposed to makes sense when you're andwe've said, we've used very generic language

(10:52):
in the past about in this timeof peace it was a short or this
time of war, but yeah,when you're talking about things like the Board
War or the Hundred ye War,there was a proceved necessity for every man
to be ready to go. Yeah. But anyway, as I say,
he he he was quite an influentialman in the especially in the town he
lived in. And he was aproper military man. And what did proper

(11:16):
and what do the sons of propermilitary men do? Alistair he joined the
military, They joined the military propersons or they rebel if they're not well.
These these two joined the military.They both joined the army. They
were probably bought or given commissions onthe basis of how well they rather did
as well, I wouldn't be surprised, Yeah, because he was definitely highly

(11:37):
respected within the military. Like hehe he had reason to get to military
major general because of his performance.But he was also held himself as that
sounds ridiculous, but you know,I mean he what he was the epitome
of being a major general. Yeah, rather than just he certainly earned it,
but he also held that he wasthe very model of modern major general,

(12:01):
modern major general. If we can'twe're not doing the animal, he's
mineral. I told you we weren'tdoing Panto tonight. Okay, sorry,
sorry, As I say, bothCharles and Eric joined the army. That
sadly, Eric lost his life.It whilst in service in the army in
nineteen oh three, so they suffera loss. And he was born and

(12:24):
Eric was eight eight, so he'swhat twenty five when he dies, So
not a very old man, no, in the turn of the century.
But and that come as a bitof a hit to the family. It's
not the biggesthit that happens to thisfamily. So I'd like to fast forward,
ever so slightly to nineteen o eight. Caroline and Charles have been living

(12:48):
in Ichtham Knowle for about twenty yearsnow, and they're both in their golden
years of life. Shall we saythey're elderly, Yeah, they're probably elderly
for the time. She's nearly sixtyand he's about seventy years old. That
sounds the earlier. For the time, they've been enjoying a nice, quiet
life as I was hired couple.Other than the tragic loss of their son,

(13:11):
they had kind of gotten into thevillage life. They'd been there twenty
years. He'd been a local councilorjust as the Peace, just as the
peace they'd spent. They were bigparts of the church. He was a
member of the golf club. Thewhole lot like they were part of village
life and everybody knew them. Onthe twenty fourth of August nineteen o eight,

(13:33):
the couple go to take a strollwith the dog. They have different
destinations for their walk. They leavethe house together. Charles is heading to
the golf club to achieve his clubs. As they are going away for a
few days, and he wants totake the clubs with him, as she
would. Yeah, well, theywere going to a country retreat, why
would you not take your clubs withyou. Caroline, however, it is
just out to get some exercise andwalk the dog, but she does have
a destination in mind. She walksto what they called the Cassa, which

(13:58):
was essentially a summer house that wasowned by their neighbors, but their neighbors
allowed them a key. They hadfrequent use of it. They kind of
often used it as a wee retreat. Yep. It was about a mile
a mile and a bit away fromthe main house, but it was in
the woods in the forest, kindof secluded, so they used it as
a getaway. Because I would imaginethis the house they were in would have
had servants and stuff like that,so almost certainly they took their time away

(14:20):
in the Cassa. Caroline's plan wasto do a loop down to the summer
house, which was just a littleover a mile from the main house,
and then use the track through thewoods as a return to the house,
as she had guests coming over thatafternoon to see her. Charles, however,
would leave her at the wicker Gate, which is just a point where
she would go right and he'd goleft or eat either way. That is

(14:43):
just before the path of the summerHouse, and he would carry on to
Gordon Green Golf Club, which isnow called the Wilderness Golf Club and one
of the oldest clubs in Kent.Have you played there? I haven't played.
I had a look at it today. I spent a little bit of
time zooming around their website and lookingat the course. So if we ever
do the Twisted Britain Tour of Britain, I'm playing the course, Okay,
I feel I have to. It'sone hundred and eight pounds around, but

(15:07):
I'll work that out at the time. It looks lovely and it I think
it opened in eighteen ninety so itopened around about the same time as they
moved to the village. So hewas probably one of the original members of
the golf club. Yeah, anyway, we get back to this. The
couple had left the house about halfpast two, and Caroline's fund was coming
to the house later that afternoon,and as Caroline would only be doing a

(15:31):
couple of miles on the loops,should have loads of time to get home
They parted ways at the wicker Gateat about three pm and Charles had a
further walk down to the golf club. He was seen on this walk by
Thomas Durrand at about three twenty.He passed Whole Farm at this point and
was on the route route to theclubhouse. He was seen again between twenty
five past three and half past three, some five hundred meters from the entrance

(15:56):
to the golf course. There's severalpeople that he saw in the clubhouses,
including one of the club stewards aboutthree thirty five. Having been a member
of a golf club for years,there is no way you can go into
a golf club, take your clubsand leave. There are people to talk
to. The greenkeeper stops here,the bar start like. It's not a

(16:17):
short journey. Rosland used to jokewith me, I've got the golf club
for ten minutes. I'm just goingto get my clubs. I'll see in
two hours, because you just getchatting and you end up, you know,
blurthering and having a pint and allthat. So he would have spoken
to people and you end up blatheringand having a pint. I believe the
Major General had a chat with afew people. He is noted that he
spoke specifically with the coast steward andone of the greenkeepers and a couple other

(16:42):
patrons of the club, but maybehe didn't stop for a pint and the
end up. So also, haveyour wife come and get him. He's
a major general to brandy. Itdefinitely is a brandy and yeah, some
of the brandy's left in the mustacheat the end. It's got to be
one undred present, as I say. After his blather that he most definitely
had with other people at the club, he gathered up his golf clubs and

(17:02):
set off back up the road toreturn home. This is where he bumps
into Reverend Cotton, who was thelocal vicar, and the vicar offers to
run him up the road in hiscar, but Charles says, I'm fine
walking, but if you wouldn't mindtaking the clubs for me, that base
because well, I'll just take thewalk back up the road. You take
the clubs. I fully understand that. Okay, Yeah, chuck these in

(17:25):
the back seat. I'll walk andI'll meet you up the road because there's
no problem at all. Chut theclubs in the back and I'll meet you
the top of the road. Thisis about four o'clock in the afternoon.
Charles says the vicar, I'll seeat the top of the road about fifteen
twenty minutes, and I'll get myclubs back off him, and this is
pretty much exactly what happens. ReverendCotton picks up the Major at four twenty
at the top of the road andgives him a left. In the last
five minutes of the journey, theMajor arrives back at the house, where

(17:51):
he is surprised to find Missus Stewart, who was Caroline's guest that was coming
the evening. Yep, she wasthere waiting for Caroline, but she had
no sign of her. This isafter four point thirty ish, and she
should have been back, if notan hour ago, then forty minutes ago
easily, as she was just doingthat short loop. Charles reassured Missus Stewart

(18:17):
that she'd probably be home soon andthat they just wait together after a wee
while, the Major starts to getwired himself and heads off in the direction
of the summer house to see ifhe could see what's caused Caroline to be
late. He walked down the routethat he assumed she would have returned on
and about forty five minutes later hereaches the summerhouse where he sees Caroline is
lying on the verandah. He assumesthat she has fainted and goes to check

(18:40):
on her. She has not fainted, and that becomes fairly evident when Charles
sees the blood on the floor.Where's the dog? Don't know? Okay,
don't know the answer to that.Caroline Loward had been shot in the
head twice, once in the frontof the head and once in the cheek.
Shot shot twice in the head,once in the front where some reports

(19:04):
say in the eye, and thenonce in the cheek. It's reported it
was as if she was turning tosee who it was, so probably shot
on the side and as she turns, shot in the front of the head.
Whoofed really horrible. She also hada blow or a wound to the

(19:26):
back of the head. Now,as we go on there adding a couple
of inquests that happen into her death. One of the coroner's verdicts is that
the wound has happened as a attackingblow the back of the head pump and
then shot. Yep. The othercomes to the conclusion that she's been shot
and then the wound has happened asshe's fallen. Okay, Yeah, if

(19:49):
I'm being honest, I don't knowhow you would tell the difference in that
when it's all happened in such ashort time frame, but the enduring the
two separate inquests that happened without tryingto give away too much about what precedes
that there is a difference of opinion. I don't think it matters if I'm

(20:10):
being honest, because of what happensin the next kind of day or two.
Having said that, just thinking outloud, now, you can always
tell if a wound has happened afterthe fact, if a lot of blood
loss has happened, because then there'sthen less blood that that would Or you

(20:30):
can tell somebody's died before the placeburned down because there's no smoking the lungs
and stuff like that. So Iwould imagine there probably is a way of
telling. I just I don't knowwhat it is nineteen ten though as well.
Yeah, I don't know. That'sforensics one hundred years ago. Anyway,
I don't think it matters if I'mbeing honest. Yeah, it's probably
not pertinent it's not pertinent, butwhen I was reading it, I was

(20:53):
trying to work out which one Ibelieved, And I don't know if I
believe either. Well, I knowthat she had a wind to the back
of her head, but I don'tknow if I can pick between the two
anyway. I'm di dressing anyway.Caroline had had her purse taken and she
had wounds on her fingers where fourrings had been roughly taken from her hands.
No cartridges were found at the scene, but it was noted that some

(21:15):
disappearing footprints heading away from the summerhouse. Were there were the footprints disappearing
from the summer house or were theyactively disappearing as the authorities were looking at
them? They weren't magic footprints,no, okay, they disappeared away from
the Sorry for my flowery language.Fuck you man. I try to write

(21:37):
it nice and you fucking tear itup. Caroline's death is estimated to have
happened at about three point fifteen,and that's the reason why I went through
the all the different times that wecould account for where Charles was. You
could probably guess why we're getting there. Two witnesses claimed to have heard two
or three gunshots around about quarter pastthree, who was a local resident and

(22:00):
it had been there for years.She was at a house less than half
a mile away and said she hadheard the shots coming from the direction of
a summer house, and this wascorroborated by Daniel Kettle, who was a
local gardener. Two fairly solid witnessesgiving a time frame that incredible. Yeah,
absolutely, obviously we have the policegetting involved straight away, and after

(22:21):
an initial search of the area,including the use of two bloodhounds, they
initially found a trail heading in thesame direction as the disappearing footprints, but
they soon ran out as they hitthe main road. I don't know whether
it was maybe tarmac doesn't carry scentas well or doesn't. It's at this
point that the trail pretty much goescold. In total, there were three

(22:44):
inquests tells about the death of CarolineLoeward, the first taking place in her
home, which is odd, butgiven the standing of the couple that took
place and he was just as thepeace ba ba, But I don't find
it odd. Of the more modernpieces of writing about this case that can

(23:04):
people that have looked into it,two or three of them had said it
was odd that it happened in herhouse, but I personally don't find it
odd because it was the nearest placethat was probably big enough to do it,
that people would have known him,if that makes sense. But that
makes sense, but I suppose forimpartiality reasons, you could say it shouldn't

(23:26):
have happened there. During the firstin quest, there was a postmote carried
out by Dr Mansfield, and DrMansfield said Caroline Leeward had been hit on
the back of the head. Theblow had been sufficient to knock her to
the ground where she had vomited.She had then been shot behind the right
ear. That shot failed to killher, so a second shot was fired

(23:48):
into the left cheek. That isfucking horror movie shit. YEP. I
haven't got a quote for what thesecond coroner said, but his take was
she'd been more surprisingly shot and shefell down and bumped her head. I
don't know whether the mommet would havecome from in that scenario, but there

(24:11):
we are. During the inquest,Charles Loward is obviously questioned about his own
gun ownership. As one thing.He admitted to having three pistols, but
said he didn't use them and Infact, he did not know where the
AMMO for the guns was. Afterthey were inspected, they were ruled out
as a possible murder weapon as theywere the wrong caliber. It was ascertained

(24:32):
that the weapon used in the attackwas a point three to two oh,
and none of the guns in theWard household were of that caliber. I
would imagine he probably had is ittwo two's yeah, most likely, so
there would have been a difference.And this was part of the coroners.
And it's a big caliber. Yeah, big gun. I would I don't

(24:56):
know, you might know better thanme. Would it be more likely used
because farmers. I was gonna seeby farmers, But farmers would have used
shotguns? Yeah, so yeah,it's an odd rifle or pistol or whatever
to have. It is worth notingthat no murder weapon was found in the
woods nearby or as part of theinvestigation at all, but it was ascertained

(25:18):
that the three that were in theWard household were definitely not the one that
was used for the killing. It'sa more common rifle caliber than pistol caliber.
Oddly, That's why I thought whenI was reading it, I was
like, this, has this beenused by somebody using a rifle rather,
But that's even harder to I mean, I suppose if you never hide it,

(25:40):
you just keep it and you neverget caught. It's probably all right.
During questioning Charles, the Ward wasasked to write an account of the
day from his point of view,and part of that written statement is as
follows. I then examined her dressand found that it was torn her back.
Her pocket at the back of theskre had been torn open. One

(26:00):
of our gloves, which was lyingnear was inside out, as though it
had been torn off. She hadboth gloves on when she left me,
and then looked at her hands andsaw the rings were missing. She wore
all her rings on the left handand always wore them except when she was
washing her hands. One of therings was over one hundred years old.
It was an heirloom given to herby her mother. It was an old

(26:22):
design of mounting, so he wasfairly like it detailed in his description of
her. Yeah, the pocket thatis mentioned that was torn from her skirt
was found, and it was foundin the ward house, and as such
the spotlight of guilt was very quicklyswung on the Major General. Despite the

(26:44):
fact that he could account for hiswhereabouts during the time and had no motive,
and there was no smoking gun atall. The second inquest happens about
two weeks after the death of Caroline, and as you expect, Charles was
questioned again. This time he wasasked to be could think of anyone who
held his wife in a bad regard. His answer was no, and as

(27:04):
far as I can see, thatis the truth. There was nobody in
the local village had a bad thingto say about Caroline. She was a
an upstanding, well respected elderly womanwithin the community. The thing that hams
next is incredibly horrible. It's notas horrible as the killing of Caroline Leward,
but it's not unexpected to me.The general public get involved and they

(27:27):
are, as you can imagine,just really supportive to this elderly man who's
lost his wife and has no reasonto have been involved and has a solid
alibi as to where he was.You can imagine that that's how the general
public reacted. Yea, it's absolutelynot at all. It's mainly because the
general public are the epitome of anarsehole in most scenarios, and they started

(27:52):
to just join our patreon. Generalpublic for just so an I will call
you the epitome of an arsehal.People probably would pay for that man,
only fans you belittle people across theinternet. I'd pay for that wit.

(28:15):
Honestly, if I could get moneyfor doing it, I'd do it.
Pay off that house. Baby,you're a cunt, You're a cut,
You're a cunt. I've ever saidcut. There's many times in one podcast,
But here we are. What wasI talking about? Yeah, so
the general public, Well, yeah, I'm going with it. An epitome

(28:37):
of a bunch of arseholes, andrumors started to disseminate about an old man
who had killed his wife. Wellthat's not even the worst part. He
then starts to receive anonymous letters,and they did not contain nice words.
In fact, they were pretty mucha pile of death threats and just vitriolic
nonsense. And they were sent tohim. They were sent to the home

(28:59):
secretary, they were sent around tobasically say, this guy's done it.
This guy's people have early social media. Wow, it's written down on parchment.
Social media is what's happened to him. Parchment poison, parchment poison.
I like it a lot. Probablyhappened a lot. To be fair,
it was entertainment back then. Yeah, absolutely, there was no Twitter,

(29:21):
there was no X. Won't giveit to you, I'll do it if
you're not going to thanks. Theamount of ship that Charles the Ward receives
is basically too much for him,and he decides to give up the house
and he advertises the remainder of thelease and puts the contents of the house
up for auction, just to getthe hell out of Dodge. Basically he

(29:42):
didn't want to be there. Hewas getting a load of shite. He's
very lucky. However, he hasa a rather influential friend. Influential is
not the right word there, soa rather a wealthy friend. He was
in a good circle of people andwhat the formalities of the inquest that had
concluded. Charles went to live withColonel Ward, who was an MP,

(30:06):
and he opened up his doors tohis friend to say, come and stay
with us. So you're out thespotlight for a second. At the same
time as this is happening, thisis in the early part of September nineteen
oh eight, the lo Ward's otherson, who was on tour in South
Africa with the army, had obviouslylearned of her his mother's death, and
was making arrangements to come home andsee his father. The jay he was

(30:29):
due home was the eighteenth of Septembernineteen o eight, the day after he
moves in with Colonel Ward. Thiswould turn out to be another horrific day
for the Ward family as before,not a lucky family, not a lucky
family. Before his before his sonreturns home, Charles has it basically,

(30:53):
he's all but had enough of itall, and he goes for another walk,
takes another stroll, but this timehe walked to the local train station.
When he waits on the nine tonine train to pass, and he
casually steps out in front of wherehe was by the train station, under
the train and kills himself. Ah, people shouldn't do that to train drivers.

(31:15):
I agree. Charles, however,was not in a happy place and
decided that this is his only wayout and it's a really sad thing.
But it's a really sad thing,and it's terrible for the change rivers and
stuff. But in this scenario,I perceive it as a grieving man that's
just getting absolute abuse and decides hecan't live with it anymore. He's in

(31:37):
his seventies and he decides to endit all, make it all go away.
It almost fuels the fire. Really. It doubles down on the speculation
that he was the perpetrator of hiswife's death. And I mean, I'm
letting out my personal feelings here,but I genuinely don't think he was.
I don't think he was either.The trail went cold next to tarmac.

(32:00):
The perpetrator probably got in a car. Yeah, absolutely, And we can
account for where Charles was for theentire afternoon print. Yeah, he wouldn't
be my prime suspect. No.I understand him being a suspect, yes,
and should have been questioned as hewas in the two inquests that have

(32:20):
happened so far. There's a thirdinquest. There's not much that we need
to go over that that touches onany differences within the case. Charles is
not tried for murder of his wife. The official outcome of the inquest that
happened is that Karen Loward was murderedby person or persons unknown, and Charles
was deemed to have committed suicide whiletemporarily insane. In the following year of

(32:45):
nineteen oh nine, and man bythe name of David Woodruff was arrested and
taken to trial for the murder ofCaroline Loward. There are a few issues
with this arrest and trial. Allowthem to lay them out for you.
He was arrested as he left jailhaving served four months for a nothing crime.

(33:08):
He did have a pistol. Weknow that for a fact. Was
it a three zero two caliber?Can't can't take confirm or deny that.
Con fur More, deny that.I can confirm or deny that. He
said that he had never been tothe area of Seven Oaks, so he
couldn't have done this. True,But in fairness he could just say that

(33:32):
if I had killed someone in sevenOaks, I would say I'd never been
to seven Oaks. Yep. Soright, we'll take that one as ah.
Yeah. The clothes he was presentedto the court in was shabby and
non fitting, too small for him. He said, when I was arrested,

(33:52):
the police took all my clothes offme and gave me these clothes to
wear. I'm going to say togive the impression to a jury that he
was a scally wag. Nice goodword, thanks man. Once again,
he could quite easily say these arenot my clothes, but they might be
also, I feel that it's easierto check. Oh yeah, absolutely,

(34:15):
are his clothes. Yes, Fuckscally wag. You're presuming that the police
are going to tell the truth.Well, of course I trusted in the
police completely. I told you earlierthat this had a bit of police corruption
in it. Oh not police corruption. Yeah. So the police had evidence
against David Woodruff, but when askedwhat it was, they wouldn't tell anyone.

(34:37):
Anyone. No, but didn't theyarrest him. They did not disclose
the evidence that they had against him. Not not great. Never released was
the evidence officially. Oh there's theother one. There's one other thing.
David Woodruff was in jail on theday of the murder. Tricky, tricky,

(35:01):
not impossible, not impossible. Imean a cunning escape, a murder
to steal four rings and some pocketchange followed by breaking back into prison.
Is the perfect crime? Is thatwhat you're considering the perfect crime? Oh?
Yeah, No, one's gonna suspectme. And yet he's on trial,

(35:24):
and yet here he is. Ifhe had done that, he would
be gutted. I mean, let'sgo with if he did do that,
he got away with it because Funnilyenough, he was not convicted of the
crime of Caroline Leward. It's kindof thought that the police just wanted to
bring someone in. They needed totry somebody to kind of get the matter

(35:45):
over with. You can get ridof this one. We need to hang
somebody for this. Somebody needs tohang for this murder, and the public
are pissed. I think it probablywas part of that. I think the
police probably were like, we can'tbe seem to not solve this, that
that's not acceptable. We need todo something, and they what they did

(36:06):
was just go spin it on thiswee man who once had a pistol and
is a scally wag. Thankfully,you'll be happy to know that he was
leg oh good. Only other oneother man was ever kind of associated with
the crime, and the man's namewas John Dickman, and he was who
I mentioned earlier. He was thefirst part of this case that I found,

(36:30):
but the one I least read intobecause his crime was it was on
a train, and that's why Iwas looking at it. I told you
I wanted to look at most ofmore train ones because I enjoyed the torso
in the tunnel episode that we didrecently enjoyed funny word. I know that.
Yeah, it was interesting, indeed, thank you. And John Dickman

(36:52):
was not the first murder on atrain. The Torso on the train Tosso
on tunnel, sorry, was thesecond one, and I think this was
the third or fourth one. Ijust started reading about it, and basically
it was a botched robbery when heshot somebody in the head and he was
tried. This is just from mymemory. I haven't written any of this

(37:13):
down. He was basically tried andfound guilty of the murder on the train.
There's some conjecture about that, andmaybe go back and look at it
as if we ever do our here'sthree or four many cases that we've looked
at and never followed up on typeepisode. But the thing of note with
his conviction and he was he wassentenced to hang and he hanged, was

(37:35):
that five of the members of thejury that found him guilty petitioned to have
the guilty verdict overturned after the fact, which that was the reason I found
it quite interesting. But to behonest, there wasn't enough of a story
to do an episode. And becausehe was associated with Caroline Lewards, it's
a very loose association, if I'mgoing to be honest, he was associated

(37:58):
in the fact that it was inthe similar area with a pistol and the
police were looking to try and pinsomebody for something. Yeah. Whether John
Dinckland was guilty of the crime thathe hanged for doesn't have any sway on
our case other than the fact thathis name has been associated with it.
The fact of the matter is thatnobody in one hundred and what one hundred

(38:21):
and fifteen years or something like that, has been found guilty or tried reasonably.
The people that were tried, andI include I said two people were
tried on this part, and Ikind of it was including Charles the Ward
in this. He wasn't actually takento trial, but he was questioned and
seen as a suspect. Whether itwas why the police or the public,

(38:44):
he was certainly a figure that wasaccused. Yeah. And then there was
David who definitely didn't do it,but was basically they tried to finger him
with it. It's kind kind ofthought that a vagrant or a passer by
committed the crime and then it wasa robbery gone wrong. The removal of

(39:07):
the rings would suggest that I've reada couple of theories that the removal of
the rings was to cover it up. It was almost like it can appear
like a robbery. Yeah, yourold double bluff type thing. No rings
ever turned up at pawn shops thatthey know of. So these rings,
whether they were moved on or not, they weren't done in a way that
they were traced. So if somebodywas robbing them, pure speculation on my

(39:30):
part. But if you were robbingsomebody for four rings, you'd be selling
them. Yeah, you're not keepingthem. I don't know the other bits
and pieces that were speculation that wasdid the little village rumor rounds was that
major General was using his I'm goingto the golf club as an excuse to

(39:51):
be having an affair, and therewas a jealous lover involved, and all
this kind of stuff that was disputedwithin the court. That is small village,
very widely. One person said hewas having an affair and like eight
folk were like, no, hewasn't. They were certainly seen as pillars
of their community. Caroline and Charlesand very much in love as an older

(40:13):
couple. Weirdly, when I givethe synopsis of this case to Leslie and
Allen at the bar instantly, thetwo of them when he did it?
Really, Yeah, I found thatI have no doubt in my mind when
I was writing this that you wouldside with the fact that you don't think
he did. I don't think hedid, but who did? Well,

(40:38):
I don't buy jealous lover? No, No, three h two is a
big three two? Oh sorry,three two is a big caliper gun.
Yeah, not to belittle our fabulousalter gender, but it's unlikely a jealous

(41:01):
level would be using a caliber likethat, especially twice. Yeah, big
big big bangs. Yeah. Theother also twice isn't a crime of passion
by this commitment a jealous lover?Yeah, twice is this person? I

(41:22):
want this person dead? Twice iskilling somebody from Yeah, totally. And
whether and that's why I said earlierabout the boat the head, I don't
think it matters whether it was firstor after the fact, because to me,
it's the shooting twice, because ifyou even if she didn't die after
the first shot, and this isa horrible branch of conversation, Even if

(41:45):
she hadn't died after the first shot, she was certainly incapacitated enough to be
robbed, Yes, if that's whatthe motive was, but I don't know.
Yeah, And this is when Igot on to the point where you
and I talk about these stories.We call them stories because in fact,
this one there was a lot oftimes and dates and bits and bobs,
but that was just the way thestory told that we call them stories rather

(42:07):
than cases. The difficult thing withthat is where do we get to the
end of a case? Has thiscase finished? Do you know what I
mean? And like I was talkingabout earlier, I said that when does
the case become unsolvable? And barringthe invention of new technologies, blah blah

(42:29):
blah blah. Even with the inventionof new technologies for this we were talking
about mind scanning not going to helpthis case. No, are there are
cases which will never be solved?Yeah? How do like that really annoys
me? Like to the core ofmy being? That really annoys me.
Really, I don't know why thiscase in itself has no effect on my

(42:52):
life other than I've done a fairamount of reading about it, and I've
told you about it this evening becauseI thought you would enjoy or be intrigued
by the case. But I don'tknow. I genuinely can't explain why.
I'm like, but somebody did that, And we talk about older cases specifically.

(43:15):
We make that choice to do sobecause we want to kind of highlight
things that maybe people never heard of, and it's not with any stretch of
the imagination that we think we havesomething to add to be able to solve
it. Now, there are podcastsout there that do that that you know,
they do much more journalistic, investigativejournalism and research and maybe find something

(43:36):
that nobody's ever thought about, butthey tend to be more modern cases,
certainly within the last forty or fiftyyears. Probably the stuff we're talking about
when we say this is unsolved isthat it is it unsolved forever? Do
you think probably that with very fewexceptions, it's a baffling thing to talk

(43:57):
about. I don't know. We'renow talking about the reasoning behind the podcast
and everything, but just doing thereading on this case, I was like,
and I don't know why it wasthis one, because we've talked about
other unsolved cases that would never besolved again, but this one, I
was like, quite a few.I think it was probably this one because
I don't think major General Charles theWard killed his wife. Me neither,

(44:19):
I think I can hands down sayI don't think he did. I don't
think she was a targeted victim,and I find it a really odd crime
of opportunsity because she was at asummerhouse that was in the woods. It
was off that somebody like nobody's passingthere. We talked about who's the pickpocket

(44:43):
on the pickpocket and the train,I forget his name, push of the
freud. He went down to LondonBridge to try and pickpocket somebody. If
he'd found a target that day andmanaged to pickpocket somebody, he would have
ever murdered anybody. But he wentto our thorough of people, whereas the
cassa was in the middle of fuckingnowhere. So I don't I just don't

(45:06):
buy a crime of opportunity either,which leaves me with I don't fucking know.
There's another possible type of crime ofopportunity that we're talking about a time
where certainly in Scotland, I'm lesssure about England, but certainly in Scotland,

(45:28):
tramps, hawker lads, tinkers,poachers are still prevalent professions who sort
of wander the country It's interesting yousay that because one could have been not
a vagrant. But yeah, soI deliver one like that who she challenged
when she reached that summerhouse. Hewas staying there illegally, possibly on his

(45:54):
travels and poaching, and she challengedhim. So one of the kind that
I read. It's really interesting yousaid that because I didn't use the word
gypsy specifically, but it is accountedin the kind of newspapers of the time,
and certainly in the retelling of thetales. It was a vagrant,
a gypsy, a traveler or somethingor somebody else. And I can't remember

(46:16):
that. I was just going tolook up my iPad, but it would
take too long. That's mad thatyour men go straight to. There were
people that would have been in ruralareas, Yeah, there were, because
that's that was accounted in one ortwo of the readings I did. I
specifically didn't put it in because Ijust like, it's so if and if

(46:37):
and then's butts that it is.It almost makes it the unsolved case even
wider. It does because these arepeople that are incredibly difficult to track.
They have no specific home, Theymoved from place to place, they are
opportunistic farm hands who do some work, some poaching that may have a three

(47:01):
two rifle two rifle. Yeah,there you go. Like I said,
I found this case because I waslooking at something else, and we maybe
come back to John Jackham, butI don't know if I will, because
I just like it's not a nothingcase, because none of these are nothing
cases. But this was to mehidden within that case, and I very

(47:24):
much enjoyed finding it. I likeit it is. I'll give you metasode
you give me, I'll give youa metasinde a metisode without the episode.
Yeah, this is just the inbrackets bit in the middle. Yeah,
I'll take that man. The wholething's brackets. I wouldn't like to call
Charles and Caroline brackets, though Ithink they were horribly victims of a crime

(47:45):
that didn't either need to happen orshouldn't have happened to them. The really
sad thing the son that came backto see his wife but got back on
the day that his father died,also died in service about four or five
years after his father committed suicide.The entire quartet of the family within the

(48:07):
period of nineteen oh three to nineteenfourteen wiped out, All died really really
horrible as a shame, four bigsad points in that that's that case.
I'm really sorry about that. Butyeah, that was the sealed Charter murder.
And do go and like you've justlistened to me talk about it in

(48:28):
my readings, but do go andhave a look at it. Most of
the places that I did my readingall started with a famous unsolved case in
Britain. Now, having done onehundred episodes or so of Twisted Britain,
woo, yeah, we're coming upon it reasonably soying. I'd never heard
of it, and when I lookedinto it, only one other podcast that

(48:50):
covered it, and it was ourfriend caprice Unseen podcast. Oh yeah,
Caprice covered it just in twenty twentyI think was during Lockdown she covered it.
It's mad actually because the twenty twentyone crime Con advert was on the
version of her podcast that I listenedto, which made me laugh. So
if you want a wonderful humor beingtelling you this case in a different way,

(49:14):
go and listen to Capricea's Unseen podcasts. We're big fans of Yeah,
we are, both the podcast andof Caprice ourself, but there's there wasn't
there wasn't much other podcast. It'srare that we find something that nobody else
has covered. Yeah, but thereis a couple of really good books on
it that I'll post links to.Usually I'm avoiding content, and Kent Online
did a really good article in aboutabout nine or ten years ago. So

(49:37):
yeah, if you want to learnmore about the Steal Charm murders, do
look it up because it's one ofthese ones that I had just never heard
of. But it is one hundredand fifteen hundred and sixteen years completely unsolved
and I believe will never be solved. No, I doubt it. There
you are. That was my that'smy case for you this evening, Alistair.
That's a good one, Bob,you very well. Good story.
Yeah, I enjoyed it. Sadbut good story. It's one of those

(50:00):
ones I didn't mind, so youknow, sometimes you don't mind doing the
reading on things because you're like,I kind of want to tell this story,
and that was one of these ones. If you've enjoyed what you listened
to this evening, please do checkout the rest of our podcast. As
I say, there's one hundred andsomething online half more than half of them
are me and you now. Wellreally yeah, yeah, I did awesome.
Haven't marked the point, but I'lldouble check. But more than half

(50:22):
of the Twisted Britain episodes are Meand You Now, so they are if
we if we include the live recordingsat crime Corn and stuff, then we're
definitely of course I include that,I include everything. So you're the second
longest host of Twisted Britain. Nownice. There was a post on our
Facebook group today that quote works onso many levels. Was There was a

(50:52):
post on Facebook today that said somebodyhad started listening to the Twist Britain from
the beginning and it just got tothe episodes where I did them on my
own. Apparently I just sound sad. I don't think I was sad.
I just think I was like,how the fuck do I do this on
my own? I think it wasmore enforced fear than sadness. I've never

(51:13):
been sad. Wait wait till youget to my first episode, buddy,
I was goddamn terrified. That's true. You've blossomed since though, sir blossomed
since that's a friend of the mic, less but not completely like you still
come edit at an angle. Youcan have the mic next to you.
Well you know, yeah, Iknow. Anyway, if you would like
to listen to our all the podcasts, please do go back and listen to

(51:36):
the THEA Dean ones and the onesof me sounding sad in the middle,
and then you'll get on too,Ali and I where we're just going to
keep doing this forever. Add infinatum, add infinatum. Wonderful, wonderful use
of Latin. I fucking really enjoyedthat. Well done, Thank you.
You can find us on all thesocial media channels, but I look for
Twisted Britain X. That's one.Bibo that's another. Yeah, we're on

(52:01):
Bible my face. We're a big, big, big fans of people look
us up on my face to beable to ask that light bar that's on
my face. If we had aBibo account here, it might just be
us. We might own Bible bymistake, just by you saying that,
and I don't want to own it. It's fine. Jeff bezelso by his
office, by offers, by hisoffers two points, and you're going to

(52:27):
work, your dafty you go towork. I mean I'm not going to
work. I'm gonna go home andhave a nap and then go to work
like a responsible person. Yeah,this is early anyway, social media shit
done. I'll give us a review, do that, five stars will be
lovely. You don't eat, writeanything down. We're both gonna be a
crime call next year. But itfeels a bit early to advertise that.

(52:50):
Yeah, twisted for ten percent off, I'm done. That's fabulous. Yeah.
No, I would say this episodewas posible. Squares Space don't because
the pays for it. That's right. One day they might. We will
advertise the fucker spar space. Thankyou, love you, bye, thank

(53:12):
you, love you bye, thankclause your few, bye you hear yourself
and close you bye.