John and Yoko on The Simon Dee Show, recorded on 7th February 1970 for London Weekend Television at Studio One, Wembley Studios, London and broadcast on the 8th February 1970. Accompanying them (but not pictured here) was black rights activist Michael X, with whom John and Yoko had exchanged a bag of their hair for a pair of Muhammad Ali’s bloodstained boxing shorts previously on the 4th February.
They discussed James Hanratty, The Bag One lithographs and the Two Virgins record cover, and the recent hair and boxing short exchange with Michael X. John revealed that Sotheby’s had declined to auction the hair as “they only sell art.”
James Hanratty was convicted and hanged for the 1961 murder of a man, Michael Gregsten and raping his mistress, Valorie Storie who also was shot and left paralyzed. Even though 14 witnesses said that he was 250 miles away from where the crime took place, Hanratty was still found guilty of the crimes and was hanged in 1962. The controversy over his hanging lead to capital punishment being abolished in England in 1965.
The night before he was executed, Hanratty told his family one last time that he was innocent and asked that they clear his name. His mother and father and brother worked diligently to do just that.
In their quest for answers, they met someone that got them in touch with John and Yoko. The couple was interested in the story and wanted to make a film about it. The met with the Hanratty family on December 10, 1969, to announce the film and protest the hanging of James Hanratty.
[WARNING: Graphic Content]
(October 4 1936 - April 4 1962)
James Hanratty was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was effectively abolished.
August 22 1961, Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storey were having sex in Gregsten’s car on the edge of a cornfield north of London when a man with a gun got into the car. What followed was five hours of threats and insanity, and an aimless drive into North London, back out to St. Albans, and finally to a lay-by on the A6 truck road. Here the gunman raped Storey and, perhaps accidentally, shot and killed Gregsten. He then ordered Storey to drag her lover’s body out of the car, and in total darkness, fired the rest of his bullets in her direction. She was hit in the legs and paralysed. The gunman drove off and five hours later, Storey was found by a farm labourer.
October 11 1961, Hanratty was arrested in Blackpool and charged with Gregsten’s murder. The case was originally set for the Old Bailey but was moved to Bedford. Evidence went missing, important papers were carelessly strewn across the courtroom floor and not subsequently examined. Understandably, given her ordeal and the darkness in which it took place, Storey gave conflicting descriptions of her attacker. No convincing motive has ever been found for Hanratty to have committed the crime. After nine hours’ deliberation, the jury found him guilty. Despite an appeal and widespread protest, he was hanged at Bedford jail.
1997, a police inquiry concluded he was wrongfully convicted.
Twist Ending: The case was sent to the Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2002 that a DNA test conclusively proved Hanratty’s guilt beyond any doubt as DNA evidence taken from Hanratty’s exhumed body and living family members matched samples taken from Storey and the murder weapon.
Hanratty’s family still deny his involvement in the crime, citing potential sample contamination after they were kept in a laboratory for 40 years in conditions that, they argue, “do not live up to modern evidential standards” and were subject to amplification techniques to yield any genetic material.
November 26, 1940, Bedford Prison, England, 8am.
Two experienced executioners, Thomas Pierrepoint and his nephew Albert, walk into the condemned cell and collect the comatose William Cooper from his cell and strap his arms behind his back. Cooper, only five feet five inches tall and weighing only 136 pounds, is unable to handle what is about to happen. He is catatonic and barely conscious,his…
