The Wigwam Murder

In April 1943 a Canadian soldier was hanged at Wandsworth Gaol for the murder of a 19-year-old English girl.

It was the first time that a human skull had been produced in a British court room. It belonged to Joan Pearl Wolfe, a nineteen-year-old runaway and vagrant who hung around Canadian army camps, particularly in the Hankley Common, Surrey, area. The back of her head had been fatally shattered by a birch stake and the curious circular holes at the front were made by a unique knife with a blade shaped like a parrot's head.

The man who went to the gallows for the capital crime of murder was August Sangret, a Metis, or half breed, French-Canadian Indian. But the case against him was purely circumstantial. 'No, sir, I never killed that girl. Somebody did it and I guess I shall have to take the rap', he claimed.

The 'Wigwam murder' as it has come to be called - August built a wigwam for Joan and himself in which to meet and make love -was one of the most brilliant pieces of detection and forensic science on record. The whole fascinating forensic jigsaw, involving Drs Keith Simpson, Eric Gardner and Gerald Roche Lynch, was highly impressive and is demonstrated in the book through the detailed reminiscences of Keith Simpson and Molly Lefebure.

What has been lost until now is the human drama behind the cold facts. In this page-turning and compassionate account, M J Trow builds on his reputation as a chronicler of human failings, first established in his book on the Derek Bentley case: Let him have it, Chris (Constable, 1990).

Book Author

M .J.Trow bills himself in many of his books as the only Welshman who cannot sing or play rugby. A military historian by training, graduating from King’s College, London and Cambridge, he has spent most years of his life at the chalk face of comprehensive schools which has given him the inspiration for his latest fictional detective Peter ‘Mad Max’ Maxwell. The first detective series appeared in 1985 in the form of Inspector Lestrade, late of the Conan Doyle canon and after sixteen hilarious, bloody and intriguing outings, the world’s second greatest detective hung ...
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