The historic unsolved murder of Julia Wallace has been the inspiration for many books and is regarded as one of the most baffling classic murder mysteries. William Herbert Wallace and his wife, Julia, lived in the district of Anfield, Liverpool. William lectured chemistry while Julia was an accomplished pianist.
On the evening of 18 January, 1931, William was attending a meeting at the Liverpool Central Chess Club. While there, he was handed a note which contained a message that came through on the telephone. The note was from a man who identified himself as “R.M. Qualtrough” who asked William to come to “25 Menlove Gardens East” the following evening at 19:30 to discuss an insurance deal. When the aforementioned time was approaching, William made his way to the address by tramcar. When he arrived at the area the address was said to be, he couldn’t find it. He asked a couple of police officers on duty as well as newsagent workers but according to everybody, this address didn’t exist. After searching for around an hour, he gave up and made him way back home. He was on a wild goose chase. He questioned who “R.M. Qualtrough” was and why he sent him to a non-existent address and how he knew he would be at the Liverpool Central Chess Club the previous evening.
When he arrived, William was stumped to find that he couldn’t open either the front door or back door. His next door neighbours, John and Florence Johnston, saw him looking perturbed and asked him what was going on. He walked around to the back again and this time, the door opened. As he entered his home, he was met by a ghastly scene. Lying in front of the gas fire in the living room was the bloody body of Juliet. “They’ve finished her, look at her brains…” a pale disturbed William exclaimed to the Johnstons. Police shortly arrived to assess the scene. Due to a major strike in 1919 that led to half of the force being dismissed, the handling of the investigation was a complete and utter shambles from the start.
The murder was a frenzied and brutal one indicating that the killer was most likely covered in blood. William didn’t have a spot on blood on him. In addition, an investigation of the sinks and drains revealed that they had not been used indicating the killer had left the home while drenched in Julia’s blood. Despite the fact that there was no evidence against him, investigators began to question whether William had killed his wife. It was uncovered that the phone call had come from a booth 400 yards from the Wallace household and they questioned why the door had opened when other witnesses were nearby. However, the reconstruction of times surrounding the murder swayed in William’s favour. Many people could place him on the tram at 19:06 and several witnesses saw Julia at 18:45 meaning that William would have only had 15 minutes to kill his wife, clean himself up, dispose of the murder weapon and clothing, and catch the tram.
Nevertheless, William was charged with murder and stood trial at Liverpool Assizes. All of the evidence against him was purely circumstantial yet he was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed this verdict because it was “not supported by the weight of the evidence.” William was set free. He passed away two years later. To this day, nobody has ever been charged with Julia’s murder.
