On the same day that Julian Sessé met his untimely end, so did a seaman on board a British cruise liner, 5,712 miles away.
On the face of it, the facts were quite straightforward. Edward McLoughlin was a 33-year-old able seaman from Co. Wicklow, Eire; he was very experienced, having worked aboard ships since 1956. By comparison, Peter Charles Woolgar, also aged thirty-three, had only been at sea for eighteen months, but he was one of the ship’s six quartermasters, whose duties led him to the ship’s bridge and subsequent contact with the officers, something that annoyed McLoughlin. The antagonism was one-sided; there was no evidence that Woolgar felt any dislike for McLoughlin. But on 19 December 1970, McLoughlin had been drinking heavily, and by the evening he had begun riling Woolgar, telling him, in front of witnesses, that he (Woolgar) was not capable of doing his job; this hassling had been happening for much of the voyage.
The argument continued, then McLoughlin followed Woolgar to the latter’s cabin, where the needling continued, until Woolgar had had enough; he punched McLoughlin – by his own admission – fifteen or twenty times around the head and body, threw him across the cabin, picked up a metal bunk ladder and hit him across the head with it. Since the ladder weighed 8¾lbs, was 4ft. 7¾ inches in length and 11¼ inches wide, it was a formidable weapon, and McLoughlin died as a result of the assault. Woolgar was immediately penitent, saying to a crew member, ‘Why didn’t you stop me, Charlie?’ and ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ But even though Woolgar had been extremely provoked verbally, the fact remained that McLoughlin had not offered him any physical violence.
Their ship, the 24,000-ton SS Northern Star, had anchored in Acapulco Bay, Guerrero, Mexico, 800 yards from the shore and clearly in Mexican territorial waters. However, the death had occurred on a British-registered ship, and the investigation had to be carried out by British detectives. Since Woolgar had been detained, having made verbal admissions to several crew members of his culpability, it looked very much as though everything was cut and dried.
Don’t you believe it.
* * *
Detective Sergeant (First Class) Maurice Marshall was No. 1 ‘in the frame’, together with Detective Chief Superintendent Don Saunders, on 24 December 1970, when they were informed of McLoughlin’s death. Fortunately, this did not disrupt Marshall’s Christmas arrangements, and he was able to spend Christmas Day with his wife and four children at his in-laws’ home in Cheshire, although the next few days were spent arranging travel plans, travellers’ cheques and visas for the USA – this being necessary for a short stopover – and Mexico. In addition, both officers were completely kitted out for work in the tropics at ‘All Kits’ in Leicester Square: a new suit, spare trousers, three shirts, underwear, pyjamas and even a couple of ties, all at the expense of the Metropolitan Police. ‘I bet it doesn’t happen now’, Marshall told me, and it could well be he was right.
Saunders and Marshall were old friends; they had worked together in earlier ranks and different locations. Saunders – who later became Commander of the Metropolitan Police’s No. 1 District CID – was an outstanding and much admired detective.
Marshall had joined the police in 1953 and served for eighteen years as a constable and sergeant, gaining a wealth of experience, both on division and in the Flying Squad and C1 Department before, during the next twenty-three years, shooting up to the rank of detective chief superintendent, collecting a clutch of commendations from Commissioners, judges and Directors of Public Prosecutions.
So both officers flew to Mexico City, and on 30 December, while Saunders remained at the British Embassy, Marshall travelled to Acapulco, where he was met by Derek Gore, the exceptionally helpful British Vice Consul. Apparently, the post of Vice Consul was not a full-time job; Gore was also deputy manager of the extremely prestigious Las Brisas, then rated one the world’s top twelve hotels. On the wall near reception was an enormous plaque emblazoned with the Royal Coat of Arms. This was undoubtedly thrilling to the rich American tourists who flocked to the hotel, although not necessarily viewed with the same degree of enthusiasm by the Garter King of Arms.
With the New Year rapidly approaching, the hotel was full to bursting with wealthy Americans, but Gore – obviously a very enterprising deputy manager – not only managed to find accommodation for the Murder Squad officers, but also provided them with their own bungalow and swimming pool. They were even given (as were all the guests) a pink and white striped jeep, while breakfast was delivered by Mexican housemaids; the flasks of coffee, fruit and pastries were left on the bungalow’s doorstep, while fresh blossoms were liberally sprinkled on the surface of the pool.
The friendliness of the American guests, who were enormously impressed by the presence of Scotland Yard detectives, plus the tequila and the hot sunny days, made a rather refreshing change from London, where during the last week of December their counterparts were experiencing sleet, snow and temperatures which varied between zero and 3° centigrade.
Meanwhile, the SS Northern Star had continued its journey, together with the witnesses among its 450 crew members, any of whom might join different ships travelling to anywhere in the world. Woolgar was locked up in a Mexican jail and McLoughlin had been buried in a Mexican graveyard; no post mortem had been carried out. At least, a doctor had certified that he was dead.
It was time to put lotus land on hold so that police work could begin.
At the Acapulco municipal offices, where a conference was held with the Mexican Government Immigration Inspector and the Federal District Attorney, Saunders dealt with the Mexican authorities in order to remove Woolgar from their territory, and after they considered a Consular Convention Agreement of 1964, the Extradition Treaty of 1886 and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, they agreed to waive their jurisdiction. Directly that was done, the British officers assumed jurisdiction on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Woolgar, having spent ten days in the local jail, offered no resistance to being returned to England, and on 1 January 1971, with the prisoner handcuffed to Maurice Marshall, they boarded a Quantas airliner; after twenty hours, with stopovers at Mexico City, Nassau and Bermuda, they arrived at London Heathrow, and on 2 January Marshall charged Woolgar at Cannon Row police station with murder. The following day, Marshall wrote down a long and detailed statement from him, and on Monday, 4 January, Woolgar appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and was remanded in custody. The rest of that day was spent in Marshall updating the commander of C1, plus the Director of Public Prosecution’s office, and obtaining airline tickets and a further visa at the Mexican Embassy.
On Tuesday, 5 January, Marshall flew to Acapulco via New York, finally arriving at 3.30 pm on 6 January; not that there was a chance to relax. Saunders had arranged for McLoughlin’s body to be exhumed the following day and, as usual, exhumations were carried out early in the morning. Marshall now recounts what happened:
At 5.30 am, while it was still dark, Don and I attended Las Crusas Cemetery near Acapulco together with Charles Tarrant, the Consul and Derek Gore, the Vice Consul. There we were met with Mexican officials including Señor De La Rosa from the funeral directors and Señor Cervantes of the Health Authority and others. There were approximately a dozen people, and the only ones who failed to turn up were the gravediggers. After waiting for about an hour and having established there were no volunteers in the company, Don and I decided there was nothing else for it but to do it ourselves. Using spades provided by the cemetery, we dug down and fortunately found the coffin only a couple of feet deep. We got it to the surface and then had to open it to establish we had the right body, which one of the undertakers present was able to confirm.
The body had been in a shallow grave in a very hot climate for nearly three weeks and it stank. The stench was worse than anything I ever encountered, before or since. But that was not what concerned us. We discovered that no post mortem examination (as we would understand it) had been performed on the body and, to add to the confusion, the body had been liberally covered in some form of chemical crystals prior to burial, thus contaminating any future examination which would be performed in the UK. Such fears proved unfounded, as the UK pathologist, Dr Bowen, had no difficulty eliminating any effect the chemicals may have had from his conclusions.
The body was then returned to the undertakers to be suitably packed for air travel back to the UK. This turned out to be an exact and lengthy procedure requiring three coffins, one inside the other. The first, an ordinary wooden coffin, was encased within a steel coffin which had to be welded shut and hidden inside a more ornate outer coffin. The whole was accompanied by reams of paperwork, inspections, permissions and authorisations from Federal and State departments and, of course, the airlines involved. Everything was in Spanish and had to be translated, which was time consuming but not so delaying as seeking the cooperation of the chief of the Municipal Police. This turned out to be the most bizarre contact I ever had with another policeman, anywhere.
We were taken that same day to the local police headquarters by Derek Gore, the British Vice Consul, and after a short delay, we were shown into the chief’s office. We were not offered a seat and stood before his desk while Derek Gore and he conducted a conversation. We Brits could not understand a word of Spanish, but it became apparent that this exchange was less than friendly. After a short while, he must have summoned help, because two burly police officers entered and he barked something at them which I did not immediately understand. It would be an exaggeration to say we were physically thrown out into the street, but we were certainly bundled unceremoniously out of the office and out of the building with helping hands behind us. A very embarrassed and upset Derek Gore explained that the post of police chief was a political appointment, and the previous year, this man had been a taxi driver whom Derek Gore had barred from the Las Brisas hotel for cheating. In order to obtain the written statements we required from local policemen, we enlisted the help of the British Ambassador and made a formal complaint to the Federal District Attorney.
Later that day, we visited the doctor/medical examiner who had pronounced McLoughlin dead. He now produced a large, ornate certificate in Spanish which he had signed and sealed and which apparently gave the cause of death as a blow to the head. It was only later, when this document was translated, that we discovered that it purported to be the details of the doctor’s post mortem examination of the body. We knew no such examination had been made, although it transpired that the Mexican’s guess was right and agreed by Dr Bowen later in the UK. It was explained by Derek Gore that the doctor’s official fee was so small it barely paid for the ornate certificate. To do his job, he would normally expect someone else to pay him, and as no one had, he didn’t do it.
The following four days were spent interviewing local witnesses and taking statements, making travel arrangements, supervising the packing of the body and dealing with the Mexican regulations. However, due to a delay in waiting for the federal police to arrive from Mexico City to deal with the complaint against the local police, it was with great regret that Saunders and Marshall were obliged to spend the next four days lying on the beach, swimming and snorkelling in the hotel’s own sea lagoon and going on conducted tours of all the visible sights in Acapulco. This came to an end when a smartly suited official from Mexico City arrived, and after he had a quiet word with the local chief of police, the matters which should have been sorted out almost a week previously were partially resolved. These were agents of the judiciary who had been refused interviews with the Murder Squad officers and who had brought ashore Woolgar, the dead man and the ladder which had inflicted the fatal injury. They later made declarations through their district attorney.
Following the flight back to England, during which Marshall swore he could detect the smell of the corpse in the hold, the officers were fully engaged with the DPP, gathering exhibits and making arrangements to meet the Northern Star upon her arrival at Southampton. Next came the post mortem at Uxbridge mortuary, where Dr Bowen stated that the most likely cause of death was a subarachnoid haemorrhage – the type of haemorrhage brought about by a blow to the head – and then, on 16 January, the officers joined the ship and the same day, set sail for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. By the time the ship docked, four days later, the remaining crew had been interviewed and statements obtained, and the cabin where the assault had taken place had been photographed.
Identification of McLoughlin was proved by the right thumb print from the body being identical with that in McLoughlin’s seaman’s discharge book.
The Met Commissioner personally wrote to Charles Hope, H.M. Ambassador to the United States of Mexico, expressing his thanks for the very great assistance which had been rendered to the officers by him and his staff; as Saunders would accurately state, ‘Without the assistance so readily given, our task would have been nearly impossible.’
On 1 February, Marshall was promoted to detective inspector and posted to Islington police station, but he attended the Old Bailey on 27 May, when Woolgar pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter and, given all the circumstances of the case, received a twelve-month conditional discharge. This meant that as long as Woolgar kept out of trouble for the next year, it would be the end of the matter.
‘It was’, Marshall told me, ‘probably the most expensive conditional discharge in history’, and there was no doubt he was right. He was also concerned about the expenditure he and Saunders had incurred, telling me:
We had been given a budget of some few hundreds of pounds but had arrived in a millionaires’ paradise with costs to match, and our legitimate spend was ten times that amount and more. As it was part of my role to look after the financial side of the investigation, I was more than a little worried. ‘Don’t worry’, said Don. ‘As long as we can show we economised as far as possible, they can’t complain.’ So instead of dining at the super expensive Las Brisas Hotel, we ate dinner at the cheaper Hilton instead. It worked, because Don used his charm on the ladies of F2 (Finance) Department and we never heard another word about it.
Except grumbles of envy from colleagues who were sent to investigate murders in places like Grimsby.