CHAPTER 14

Murder in the Park (2)
1931

I sat with her for hours waiting for her to come round, and did not realise that I had killed her.

Richmond Park was not always a happy rendezvous for lovers and this chapter narrates a second deadly encounter. Yet the similarities with the previous chapter should not blind us to the differences, too. This story begins on a Sunday evening, 6 April 1931. Kathleen Wallis, of St James’ Avenue, Hampton Hill, was a nineteen-year-old in domestic service, and was returning to her employer’s house after seeing her parents. She was walking adjacent to Richmond Park at about 9 pm and later recalled:

I was walking down a pathway which runs along the garden fence. About half way down the pathway to the road I stopped and heard a sound. I thought it sounded like someone trying to cry out, but unable to do so. My sister remarked that it sounded like a child. Just then the noise stopped. I looked towards from where the sound came and could just see a dark form. I saw a red glow which looked like a lighted cigarette. We both walked towards the road and again stopped but could hear no further noise. I then went to Kingston Gate. The dark figure did not move. I could not see if it was a man or a woman.

Later that night, a young man entered Kingston police station. He was in an excitable condition and made a most surprising statement. He said, to PS Gillespie, at 1.14am on 7 April, ‘I believe I have done a girl in at Richmond Park.’

The young man was William Gordon Baldwin. He had been born on 31 January 1905, at Gibbon Road, Kingston. After leaving school in 1919 he worked as a gas fitter for Kingston Gas Company. He joined the Army on 15 November 1920 and served as a private in the RAMC. During his military service, which included duty in Eygpt, he suffered from malaria. When he was discharged after his seven year service on 14 November 1927, it was stated that his record was exemplary. On 13 December 1924, he had married one Doris Hodgson at St Stephen’s church, Paddington, and in the following April they had a son, Dennis. However, by 1930 they had separated by mutual consent, and whenever he was in work gave his wife small weekly sums of money. She lived in Clapham and then Kennington.