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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).
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