Peter Pan creator NOT implicated in child deaths

NOT Guilty!

Yesterday’s Telegraph carried a news item that at allowed those of us who loved the tales of Peter Pan to breathe a huge sigh of relief! The LAPD has cleared Peter Pan creator J M Barrie of any link to the mysterious deaths of two babies in the 1930s. Police had discovered their mummified remains in a locked trunk belonging to a JM Barrie.

The bodies were discovered last month when two women were clearing out the abandoned basement of an apartment building.
The corpses were wrapped in sheets and hidden in two doctor's bags among crumpled copies of 1930s newspapers and other belongings from that decade.

The only clue to the babies' identity was the name J M Barrie on the steamer trunk's lid. Investigators announced last week that, after reading correspondence from relatives left in the trunk, they had identified the trunk's owner as Janet M Barrie, a Scottish-born nurse who had worked in Los Angeles after her family emigrated to Canada (and not Kirriemuir’s most famous son James M Barrie… or second most famous son if you rate AC/DC over Peter Pan.. Bon Scott having been from said town too!)

Coroners have been unable to determine how the babies died but said there was no signs of trauma or that they were aborted. One had apparently reached full term while the other was much smaller and could have been a foetus or born prematurely.

Among the theories being examined by police is that Miss Barrie had children but that they did not survive or were aborted. Another possibility, said officers, is that they were babies she helped deliver in the apartment building who later died.

Whatever the reason it is heartening to know that the more famous J M Barrie was not involved. This is not the first time that such a misunderstanding has taken place. Last year partly consumed human remains were found in a Galloway cave which bore the graffiti “S..n Bean woz ere”. It was only after extensive interviews and forensic analysis that police concluded that the Bean in question was Sawney and not Sean!

The cost of truth – Chechnya

Natalya Estemirova

Last Wednesday journalist Natalya Estemirova was murdered. Apparently she had been abducted as she left her home in Chechnya on Wednesday morning, a colleague said. Her body was found in Ingushetia.She had been shot twice in the head at close range.

Mrs Estemirova was the seventh opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president, to have been murdered in the past 10 months

Her colleagues at human rights organisation Memorial alleged that Kadyrov was responsible for the killing. "Ramzan Kadyrov is responsible, not only because he leads Chechnya," alleged Oleg Orlov, Memorial's director. "He threatened Natalya, told her that her hands would be covered in blood and that he destroys bad people. We didn't say this before because we were scared for her safety."

Mrs Estemirova had just published a report that accused members of the Kadyrov administration of carrying out revenge killings.

Memorial called for the removal of Mr Kadyrov, who was appointed deputy prime minister in 2004 and ascended to the presidency in 2007 after reaching the legal age of 30. Accusations of disappearances, revenge killings and other abuses have dogged his regime. Critics accuse the Kremlin of turning a blind eye to the alleged crimes, in exchange for stability brought to a republic that fought two separatist wars with Moscow in the 1990s.

Ramzam Kadyrov, murderer, torturer, human rights abuser and puppet of Putin

Mr Kadyrov has denied accusations that he ordered the killing of Mrs Politkovskaya. However, in the past 10 months many of his rivals have been found dead after killings in Vienna, Istanbul, Dubai and Moscow.

Nobody believes him and the President and erstwhile president of Russia probably don’t really give a damn, if they did not actively, or at least passively sanction her death.

My thank to Sean Jeating Omnium for inspiring me to post this item and the next one

The brutal face of the Iranian Regime

Hat Tip Martin in the Margins and Anneke who also carry this video



Hat tip to Martin in the Margins for this video.


There are no words that can fully express my disgust.

Hamlet and the death of the noseless astronomer

Continuing with the Shakespearean theme yesterday’s theme (albeit a slightly tenuous link to the theme!) Times reports on the possible resolution of a 400 year old murder mystery. Researchers believe that they open the tomb of Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, there will be proof that he was murdered by a contract killer.

A beast, that wants discourse of reason

Archeologists are waiting for permission to open the tomb in the Tyn Cathedral, in Prague. Brahe was the first astronomer to describe a supernova and is famous for his incredibly accurate measurements of celestial movements in the pre-telescope era and for having catalogued more than 1,000 new stars. He is also famous for wearing a prosthetic nose of gold and silver after losing his own at the age of 20 in a rapier duel resulting from a row over a mathematical formula.

A new theory by Danish scholars claims that Brahe was poisoned with mercury on the orders of Christian IV, the King of Denmark, because the astronomer had an affair with his mother. It is even suggested that Shakespeare used the alleged liaison as an inspiration for Hamlet,

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king

Brahe was celebrated across Europe and served as personal astrologer of King Friedrich II of Denmark. He was held in such regard that more than 5 per cent of Denmark's gross national product went into his projects. When the King died and his son Christian IV ascended the throne, Brahe fell from grace and had to flee the country. In 1597 he settled in Prague, where he became the court astrologert of Emperor Rudolph II of Habsburg, but died soon after, aged 57. According to an account by his assistant Brahe died because he was too polite to leave the table at a banquet until his bladder “became twisted”.

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

Peter Andersen, a Danish scholar at the University of Strasbourg, believes that Brahe was poisoned by his cousin Count Eric Brahe, a Swedish diplomat in the service of the Danish Crown. Last year Professor Andersen found the diary of the alleged murderer, in which he records many meetings with Hans, the brother of Christian IV, on whose orders he is believed to have gone to Prague to murder his cousin.

Professor Andersen believes that his cousin slipped mercury into Brahe's drink. Tests on his hair showed mercury levels one hundred times above normal as a result of ingesting a large quantity of the liquid metal about 13 hours before his death, coinciding with the visit from his cousin.

New documents on the death of Georgi Markov

The murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in September 1978 is one of those cases which seems to have lingered in the collective memory. Other cases are quickly forgotten but this Markov’s death seems to remain – perhaps it was the nature of his murder – a ricin pellet shot into Markov from a modified umbrella. He was murdered by Bulgarian intelligence with KGB assistance.

According to the Sofia Echo new documents have confirmed that the murder of Georgi Markov (code name “Wanderer”) was indeed a topic of discussion between the KGB and the Bulgarian intelligence services. The subject of these discussions was the planning of how to disarm the playwright.

The documents confirm that agent Francesco Gulin (Agent Piccadilly) was specially trained in 1978, sent on a mission and subsequently invited to holiday in Bulgaria, where he was presented with medals by the country’s then-secret police State Security. A secret agreement between the KGB and the Bulgarian communist-era intelligence services to provide Bulgaria with access to fast-acting poisons and devices for their delivery has also been discovered.

The most important documents will be published in Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily in a series of articles starting on September 8. Dnevnik’s investigative journalist Hristo Hristov, was granted access to the dossier of agent Piccadilly after a three-year legal battle. Hristov had been initially refused access to key archives containing information about the murder of Georgi Markov by the director of NIS, General Kircho Kirov. The court battle ended in the Supreme Administrative Court, which issued an unprecedented ruling in favour of Hristov.

Documents from the Piccadilly dossier were requested by the British and Danish authorities in 1993 in order to arrest Gulino, but Bulgaria refused to provide them and the man disappeared from Copenhagen, where he had been based by Bulgaria’s intelligence services since 1975. In May, the Metropolitan Police again requested the Piccadilly files as providing the most important evidence in Markov’s case; at present, it is not clear whether the Bulgarian authorities have agreed to provide them.

In addition to the Piccadilly dossier, Hristov came across an agreement between the KGB and State Security for access to fast-acting poisons and mechanical devices for their silent delivery. The agreement was signed between the Bulgarian and Soviet intelligence services in 1972 by the their then-directors, Bulgarian Dimitar Kyosev and Russian Fyodor Mortin. The document required the Soviet intelligence services to provide experience and facilities for the selection and training of agents who would perform the so-called serious operations (sabotage, kidnapping, murder). After the fall of communism, the former director of “K” department of the Soviet intelligence services, General Oleg Kalugin, publicly admitted that Zhivkov had made a request for KGB technical assistance in the liquidation of Markov, but the successors to the KGB in Russia today have denied these allegations.

The archives of the Bulgarian intelligence services also reveal documentary evidence that the operation led by Bulgarian intelligence services against Markov, ie, Wanderer, was a topic of discussion in the KGB. During the investigation, it became clear that the intelligence services had planned a detailed study of the Wanderer situation for the purposes of performing a “serious operation” (SO) and the “disarming of the target”. Other documents discovered by Hristov in the Markov investigation used the term “neutralised” as opposed to “disarmed”.

The new disclosures comes 30 years after Markov’s murder and only days before the Bulgarian investigation into the case will be closed because of the expiry of the 30-year statute of limitations for criminal investigations. In recent years, the investigator into the case, Andrei Tsvetanov has been promoting the theory that Markov’s death was a result of medical error by the doctors treating Markov in 1978. At the same time, Tsvetanov ignored all the evidence gathered in the case by the previous investigative team (including the Piccadilly files) that prove that the murder had been prepared and carried out by the First Chief Directorate with KGB assistance. The new disclosures have raised the question of whether the Bulgarian authorities’ investigation into the Markov murder has been sufficiently objective and why the new archive evidence has not been included in it.

Hawley Crippen is Innocent OK

Well it is unlikely that we will see similar graffiti over the east end but forensic scientists are now suggesting that Doctor Crippen may be the victim of a miscarriage of justice....


Doctor Crippen was convicted and executed for the murder of his wife Cora Turner. The case (a relatively mundane case in itself imho) is remarkable for the use of wireless telegraphy in his capture. Following the apparent murder and dismemberment of his wife, Crippen and his lover Ethel le Neve had boarded the SS Montrose, posing as father and son. A suspicious captain recognised Crippen and alerted the police. An officer taking a faster vessel was able to arrest Crippen as the Montrose entered the St Lawrence River.


Nearly a century later a team of American forensic scientists have compared mitochondrial DNA from the remains presented at the trial with samples taken from Cora Crippen's surviving relatives. The results show that the exhumed body could not have been Cora Turner’s.


Police had found mutilated remains at Crippen’s house. The head and bones had been removed. According to toxicologist John Trestrail, poisoners rarely inflict external damage on their victims. "It is so unusual that a poisoner would dismember the victim, because a poisoner attempts to get away with murder without leaving any trace. In my database of 1,100 poisoning cases, this is the only one which involves dismemberment," he said. The discrepancy prompted him to re-examine the evidence in the Crippen case. Working with a genealogist, Beth Wills, he set about finding Mrs Crippen's surviving family. The team tracked down three distant relatives in California and Puerto Rico and compared their DNA with some obtained from samples presented at Crippen’s trial.


If the body did not belong to Cora Turner then who is it? One of Dr Trestrail's hypotheses is that Crippen was performing illegal abortions and that the body could have resulted from a botched procedure. So what happened to Turner? Was she actually murdered by Crippen but her body remains undiscovered somewhere? Or could she have returned to the US and lived under an assumed name? Ten years after the trial, a singer with the name Belle Rose (similar to Turner’s stage name of Belle Elmore) name was registered as living with Cora's sister in New York. Records show that the same woman entered the US through Ellis Island from Bermuda in 1910 shortly after Mrs Crippen disappeared. Of course this could well be a coincidence.


I have no idea whether this is sufficient to exonerate Crippen. I wouldn’t hold my breath for a posthumous pardon. It’s still an interesting twist in this case, albeit nearly a century too late to save him from a date with the hangman.

Murder he wrote, murder he did.

I meant to blog this story a couple of days ago but better late than never. Polish pulp fiction writer, Krystian Bala, was sentenced to 25 years in jail this week for his role in a case of abduction, torture and murder, a crime that he then used for the plot of a bestselling thriller. Bala was found guilty of orchestrating the murder seven years ago of businessman, Dariusz Janiszewski, in a crime brought on by the suspicion that the victim was sleeping with his ex-wife.

In the novel, the villain gets away with kidnapping, mutilating and murdering a young woman. Janiszewski, said to have been having an affair with Bala's ex-wife, was found in the river Oder near Wroclaw in south-west Poland in December 2000, four weeks after going missing. The police tests revealed that he was stripped almost naked and tortured. His wrists had been bound behind his back and tied to a noose around his neck before he was dumped in the river. The police had little to go on and within six months, the case was dropped. It remained closed for five years.

2003 saw the publication of Bala’s novel Amok, a story about a group of bored sadists, with the narrator, Chris, recounting the murder of a young woman. The details of the murder matched those of Janiszewski almost exactly. Bala, who often uses the first name Chris, was initially arrested in 2005 but released for lack of evidence. When further evidence came to light, Bala was re-arrested. The case against him, however, remained circumstantial.

Police uncovered evidence that Bala had known the dead man, had telephoned him around the time of his disappearance and had then sold the dead man's mobile phone on the Internet within days of the murder. Bala has protested his innocence, insisting that he derived the details for the Amok thriller from media reports of the Janiszewski murder. Sentencing Bala to 25 years', Judge Lidia Hojenska admitted that he could not be found directly guilty of carrying out the murder. But the evidence sufficed to find him guilty of planning and orchestrating the crime. "The evidence gathered gives sufficient basis to say that Krystian Bala committed the crime of leading the killing of Dariusz Janiszewski," she said.

The court heard expert and witness evidence that Bala was a control freak, eager to show off his intelligence, "pathologically jealous" and inclined to sadism. "He was pathologically jealous of his wife," said Judge Hojenska. "He could not allow his estranged wife to have ties with another man."