CHAPTER 19

Why did Jack Martin Commit Matricide?
1948

I don’t know what I done with the iron. I don’t know why I did it. I came over queer.

Several of the chapters in this book have posed the classic murder mystery question – whodunnit? This one, by contrast, poses the perhaps more difficult question – whydunnit?

Jack Martin seemed to be a very ordinary sort of fellow. He had been born in 1922 and, after leaving school, worked as a labourer for several local firms. He was called up for military service during World War Two, in the General Corps of Signals, the Royal Corps of Signals and finally the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Throughout his service he remained a private and suffered from mild deafness. Martin never served abroad. He was demobbed in July 1947 and was given an excellent character reference, it being stated that he ‘has carried out his duties conscientiously and well … honest and respectful to his employers. He should prove a useful asset to any civilian employer needing a capable and hard working man’. He returned home and soon found work. In 1948, he lived with Emily, his widowed mother (aged sixty-two), and his two other bachelor brothers (Albert and Leonard, both of whom were older that he). They lived in a house on Cambridge Road, Kingston. He was also single and worked as a labourer.

At 11.15 am on 6 April, Mrs Lillian Bowyer, of Bonner Hill Road, Kingston, and a daughter of Mrs Martin, arrived at her mother’s house. She had called to see her mother, but instead, on entering the kitchen, was shocked to see Jack’s body with a gas ring in his hand. Smelling gas, she turned it off and opened the windows. Her husband, George, was close at hand. He rendered first aid to his brother-in-law and found he was still breathing. They then called the emergency services.