Towpath murders

Towpath murders
Christine Reed (left) and Barbara Songhurst, c. 1953
Location	Teddington Lock, Richmond upon Thames, London, England
Coordinates	51°25′54″N 0°19′26″W / 51.43167°N 0.32389°W / 51.43167; -0.32389
Date	31 May 1953 (1953-05-31)
Weapons	Axe Gurkha knife
Deaths	Christine Rose Reed (18) Barbara Songhurst (16)
Perpetrator	Alfred Charles Whiteway (21)
Motive	Sexual sadism Rape Elimination
Sentence	Death (2 November 1953) Executed (22 December 1953)

The towpath murders (also known as the Thames Towpath murders^[1]) are a double murder which occurred upon a section of towpath between Teddington Lock and Eel Pie Island in Richmond upon Thames, London, England, on 31 May 1953. The victims were two teenage girls named Christine Reed and Barbara Songhurst who were ambushed by a lone individual as they cycled to their respective homes in Hampton and Teddington. Both girls were overpowered, then violently raped and murdered before their bodies were discarded in the River Thames. The perpetrator, 21-year-old Alfred Charles Whiteway, was convicted of both murders in a trial held at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Hilbery that October; he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 22 December 1953.

The murders of Christine Reed and Barbara Songhurst became known as the "towpath murders" due to a towpath being both the location the victims were last seen alive and the site of their murder. The forensic methods used to link the perpetrator to both the victims and the weapons used in the commission of the crime were described as "one of Scotland Yard's most notable triumphs in a century".^[2]

The victims were 16-year-old Barbara Songhurst and 18-year-old Christine Reed. The girls had been on a bicycle trip on Sunday, 31 May 1953, and were seen cycling along the towpath beside the River Thames at about 11:30 pm. They failed to return home. Songhurst's body was found the next day floating in the river, and Reed's body was found submerged in the river on 6 June, after a section of the river was drained.^[3] Pathologist Keith Mant determined that both victims had been beaten, raped and killed with both a Gurkha knife and a hatchet.^[4]

Alfred Charles Whiteway, aged 21, separated from his wife and living with his parents in Sydney Road, Teddington, was arrested a month later after the two separate rapes of women in Surrey. At first Whiteway denied any involvement. Later, a police constable found an axe under the back seat of a police car, apparently hidden by Whiteway following his arrest for the rape of a 14-year-old girl and an attack on a woman in the Oxshott Heath and Woods. The axe was found at the house of the constable, who had taken it home and was using it to chop wood.

Forensic tests of the time could only inconclusively link traces of blood on the axe and Whiteway's shoes to the murders, but his signature to what police said was a confession taken down by them was crucial evidence for the prosecution. However, Whiteway continuously insisted he had been told to sign at the bottom of a blank sheet of paper and police had simply manufactured the confession.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

Whiteway was tried at the Old Bailey in the autumn of 1953 before Mr Justice Hilbery. He was brought to trial solely for Songhurst's murder,^[10] and was defended by solicitor Arthur Prothero, who instructed Peter Rawlinson, then a relatively junior barrister. Rawlinson cross-examined murder squad detective Herbert Hannam at length, opening large holes in his evidence of the confession, which Whiteway claimed was falsified. Rawlinson drew the jury's attention to recordings of interviews where Whiteway told police he didn't know what he was signing when asked to sign his statement. Whiteway's wife also testified that he had been drinking tea with her on the porch at 11:30 when the victims were last seen.^[11]

At the trial, defence counsel Peter Rawlinson had subjected lead detective Herbert Hannam to what was at the time considered a very sharp cross-examination on Whiteway's contention that the main evidence against him had been manufactured by police. Press reports of the period complained at the implication that the police were lying.^[12] In view of police methods of the time, and Hannam's book expressing the opinion that the law sometimes must be ignored by detectives, subsequent commentary has thought it not unlikely that Whiteway had been "verbaled".^[9]

The jury retired to consider their verdict on 2 November; they deliberated for forty-five minutes before announcing they had reached their verdict: Whiteway was found guilty of Songhurst's murder. He showed no emotion as the sentence was passed, and left the courtroom in silence.^[13]

An appeal was heard by the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Goddard), Mr. Justice Sellers and Mr. Justice Barry but was rejected on 7 December.^[14]

Whiteway (then age 22) was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 22 December 1953.

• Bell, Amy (2014), Murder Capital: Suspicious deaths in London, 1933–53, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-0-719-09197-1
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• Innes, Brian (2000), Bodies of Evidence, London: Amber Books Ltd., ISBN 978-1-856-05623-6
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• Morris, Jim (2015), The Who's Who of British Crime: In the Twentieth Century, Stroud: Amberley Publishing, ISBN 978-1-445-63924-6
• Smyth, Frank (1993). "The Towpath Murders". Real-Life Crimes. No. 23. London, England: Eaglemoss Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-1-856-29960-2.
• Wade, Stephen (2018), The Count of Scotland Yard: The Controversial Life and Cases of DCS Herbert Hannam, Stroud: Amberley Publishing, ISBN 978-1-445-68102-3
• Yount, Lisa (2007), Forensic Science: From Fibers to Fingerprints, New York City: Chelsea House Publishing, ISBN 978-1-604-13061-4

• British Executions case file pertaining to Alfred Charles Whiteway
• Contemporary news article pertaining to the towpath murders
• 16 September 1953 Sydney Sun news article detailing the murders of Reed and Songhurst
• The Towpath Murders: Death and Destruction on the River Bank at crimeandinvestigation.co.uk