THE UNFORTUNATE EXECUTION OF ALFRED RICHARDS - A STRANGE WIFE MURDER...

  Alfred Richards - a strange wife murder.


  Alfred Ernest Richards aged 38, an illiterate millhand, was convicted of the murder of his 37 year old wife, Kathleen, on Monday the 30th of May 1938 at 270 Sutherland Avenue, Welling, Kent, where she had been living.  


Alfred had battered, kicked and finally manually strangled Kathleen.  The murder took place around 11.10 a.m. and at 11.50 a.m. Alfred turned himself in at Shooter’s Hill police station and was taken into custody.  

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The problems in the Richards’ marriage seemed to have started when Kathleen began some sort of relationship with Grace Dolman who was a fellow employee at the cinema where Kathleen worked as an usherette.


  The went to a cinema together on the night of February the 6th and got home quite late.  Alfred was very angry about this and a violent row ensued, with Alfred threatening to kill Kathleen if he found her in the house the following day.  She took him at his word and moved in with Grace Dolman.  


Kathleen went back to the marital home on a regular basis, in which her sister and her husband (Florence and Albert Reed) also lived.  She assumed that Alfred would have gone to work as normal on the Monday morning but it seems that he had waited in an upstairs room for her.


  Kathleen duly came round with Grace about 11.00 a.m. and went upstairs a few minutes later.  


Grace and Florence heard screams from upstairs and rushed up to find Alfred in the act of murder.  It is not clear whether Kathleen and Grace were just friends or whether there was more to it than that.


He came to trial at Maidstone on the 25th of June 1938 before Mr. Justice Humphreys.  Geoffrey Lawrence led for the prosecution and Norman Parkes for the defence.


  The defence put forward was the usual one of insanity.  Mr. Justice Humphreys ruled that as a matter of law there was no evidence on which the jury could find a verdict of insanity. The trial lasted just one day and the jury took only 10 minutes to return a guilty verdict but with a recommendation to mercy.  It would seem that there was no appeal.


As Maidstone no longer had an execution facility Richards was hanged at Wandsworth Prison by Thomas Pierrepoint, assisted by his nephew, Albert at 9.00 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday 12th July 1938.  He weighed 167 lbs. and was described as “muscular”.  Accordingly he was given a drop of 6’ 10”.

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