Dorset Murders (15 page)

Lily Burton had not the slightest inkling about her husband's affair with the young cook, nor was she aware that there had been several other dalliances in the past. For a man like Burton, seen as a pillar of his local community, the inevitable consequences of such revelations were unthinkable.

On 31 March 1913, Winnie finished her dinner at Manor Farm at 2 p.m., then dressed herself in her best clothes, putting on what few trinkets of jewellery she possessed. At 2.55 p.m., she mounted her bicycle and rode off towards the village. Coincidentally, the first person she met on her journey was Lily Burton and the two women chatted for a few moments before Winnie rode on. She was seen by a villager a few minutes later talking to William Burton, who was sitting on some railings. It was the last time she would be seen alive by anyone other than her killer.

At first, her disappearance didn't cause too much alarm in the village since it was known that she had already told her mother that she would be leaving. Still, tongues wagged and rumours spread about her possible whereabouts, with William Burton happy to add to the gossip, telling people that he had heard that she had gone to London or to Canada and that he knew she was all right because she had contacted her family.

However, as well as reassuring villagers about Winnie's safety, William Burton also made some rather odd remarks. He remarked to Winifred Bailey, another servant at Manor Farm, that if the police found Winnie in the plantation, he would take his oath that he had done nothing to her. Brewer's drayman Frank Christopher was told by Burton that Winnie had left all her money behind, but that it didn't matter because ‘She doesn't want any money where she is to' [
sic
]. Burton also visited Winnie's mother to see if she had heard any news of her daughter and, a couple of weeks later, he was responsible for starting a rumour that ‘Cookie' had been found in London.

On 30 April, police were summoned to the cottage of George Gillingham by the rector of Gussage St Michael, the Revd Wright. Some weeks before, George, who worked as a dairyman at Manor Farm, had been walking with his wife in Sovell Plantation, a nearby wood, when they had found a broken set of false teeth. They had picked the teeth up and brought them home, not realising their possible significance. However, the rector was aware that Winnie wore dentures and was quick to notify the police when he spotted the teeth on the Gillingham's mantelpiece.

Police began to investigate and soon found two young boys who believed that they had seen an open grave in Sovell plantation the day before Winnie went missing. Searching for primroses, they had stumbled across a large hole that was 5 or 6ft long and about 2ft deep. A large pile of earth and an abandoned spade lay beside the hole.

On 2 May, one of the boys, Henry Palmer, led police to the site of the hole, which had since been filled in and covered with some branches. Sergeant James Stockley poked the ground with a stick and, when it was withdrawn from the soil, he noticed that it bore traces of human hair.

Police dug down and, eighteen inches below the surface of the ground, located the body of a young woman buried face down. A veil covered her face but it was still possible to recognise the body as that of Winifred Mitchell. Her long coat was undone and some of her underwear was missing. Most of her head had been blown away, apparently by a shotgun, and another piece from her false teeth was located near to her grave.

Since Burton was the last person known to have seen Winnie alive, police went straight to Manor Farm and arrested him on suspicion of murder. They had already heard that, on 31 March, Burton had borrowed a gun on the pretext of shooting a black and white cat belonging to Fred Boyt. The gun had been returned a couple of hours later and it's owner, Leonard Mitcham, was warned not to tell anyone that Burton had had the gun all afternoon, but to say instead that they had walked to the top of a nearby hill together and shot at some pigeons. Although Burton had told Mitcham that he had successfully shot the cat, it was in fact very much alive.

Its owner could testify to that. And Boyt was also able to tell the police that, on the evening of Winnie's disappearance, Burton had tapped on the window of his cottage and asked Boyt to come with him to Sovell Plantation where he wanted to check some traps. The two had walked together to a bridle path leading to the woods, then Burton had left Boyt for a few minutes. When he returned, he was pushing a woman's bicycle, which he told Boyt belonged to Winnie.

Winnie had gone to Canada, he continued and he had promised to return her bicycle to her mother's home. Boyt was warned that if he ever said anything to anyone about the bicycle then it would be a ‘bad job' for him, a warning that was repeated several times over the next few weeks.

When the police arrived to arrest him, Burton's first question to Sergeant Stockley was ‘Have you found her?' When Stockley said yes, Burton paled, saying that he knew he would be blamed as it had been said that he was the last person to be seen with her. He then burst into tears.

Taken to Cranborne police station, Burton expressed concern for his wife and said that it was a shame that he had ever set eyes on Winnie Mitchell. He denied killing her, saying that when he had met her at three o'clock she had told him that she was going to Lower Gussage, and that she had been alive and well when he left her. He intimated that he was merely one of a number of men who should be suspected of murdering Winnie, the obvious implication being that the young cook had been rather free with her favours. If the police would only release him, he told PC Anderson, he could find plenty of men who could support his story. Furthermore, he assured Superintendent Ricketts that he could account for every single minute of his time on the afternoon when Winnie went missing.

Burton appeared before magistrates at Wimborne on 21 May, charged with the wilful murder of Winifred Mary Mitchell. He pleaded ‘Not Guilty' but was committed for trial at the next Dorset Assizes, which opened in Dorchester on 1 June 1913 before Mr Justice Ridley.

The court heard from Fred Boyt and Leonard Mitcham, who repeated their statements to the police and also from Rose Mitchell, who told of finding her daughter's bicycle leaning against a tree in her garden after Winnie's disappearance. In the soft earth next to the bike was a footprint made by a man's hobnail boot, similar to those usually worn by Burton.

On the second and last day of the trial, Burton himself was put into the witness box. Asked to account for his movements on the day of the murder, he said that he was setting traps until 2 p.m. when he met Mitcham and suggested that they went shooting. The two had walked together up a hill and Burton had fired two cartridges, one at a thrush. Mitcham then left him with the gun, which he put into a nearby pit. Seeing his wife talking to Winnie Mitchell, he had joined them and chatted for a while, after which Winnie had ridden off on her bicycle towards Gussage All Saints. Burton had then returned to his work until it was time to go home, when he had retrieved the gun and returned it to Mitcham. In the evening, he, Mitcham and Boyt had walked up the hill together and he had found the bicycle behind a hayrick. According to Burton, Boyt had been the one to put the bicycle in Mrs Mitchell's garden.

Burton denied ever having had sexual relations with Winnie Mitchell and also denied ever telling anyone that she was ‘in trouble' or that he wished he could find a young man to take her away. He alleged that Winnie had told him that she was going to meet a man from Poole and that she had arranged to leave her bicycle in Burton's garden so that he could return it to her mother. He admitted to being surprised to find the bike behind the hayrick.

Asked why he had never mentioned the man from Poole to the police, Burton insisted that Winnie had told him not to say anything.

‘If this “man from Poole” had murdered the girl, would you not have liked to see him tried and hanged?' asked Mr Foote for the prosecution.

‘I do not know that he did it, sir', replied Burton

In his summing up of the case for the jury, the judge described the murder of Winifred Mitchell as both cruel and deliberate. The accused, he stated, had been most astute in trying to cover up his actions but the judge questioned why not a word had been heard by anyone about a man from Poole until the trial. Had the man from Poole been in the area in the week prior to the murder, digging a grave in the Sovell Plantation? If Burton's story of the man from Poole were true, why had he not told it before?

The jury were absent for just nineteen minutes before returning with a verdict of ‘Guilty'. William Walter Burton was sentenced to death.

He was hanged at Dorchester by Thomas Pierrepoint on 24 June 1913, having made a full confession of his guilt before he died. He purported to have been ‘proper led away' by Winnie and said that she had ‘made him believe all sorts'. The irony of the case was that the post-mortem examination had confirmed that, although Winnie was not a virgin, she was definitely not pregnant. Whether she genuinely believed that she was, or whether her claim to pregnancy was simply a ruse on her part to take her lover away from his wife, will never be known.

Whatever the case, but for the discovery of Winnie's false teeth it is likely that her murder would have remained undiscovered and that her killer would have been free to continue living the life of a respectable pillar of the community.

I
rene May Wilkins was a modest, rather shy spinster who came from a good family. The daughter of a former London barrister, she had reached the age of thirty-one without marrying and, as far as her widowed mother and her three siblings were aware, had no men friends.

During the First World War, she had worked as an inspector with the Army and Navy Canteen Board at a munitions factory in Gretna Green. When the hostilities ended, she worked as a lady cook but, on 20 December 1921, she was between posts and decided to place an advertisement in the Situations Wanted column of the
Morning Post:
‘Lady cook, 31, requires post in a school. Experienced in a school with forty boarders. Disengaged. Salary £65. Miss Irene Wilkins, 21 Thirlmere Road, Streatham SW16.'

No sooner had her advertisement appeared in the newspaper than Irene received a telegram, sent from Boscombe post office near Bournemouth. ‘Morning Post. Come immediately 4.30 train Waterloo. Bournmouth [
sic
] Central. Car will meet train. Expence [
sic
] no object. Urgent. Wood, Beech House'.

Irene sent back a telegram confirming that she would attend for an interview and packed an overnight bag containing her nightclothes, a green shantung Dorothy bag, a black and white tartan sponge bag, a hairbrush and comb and some money. However, to the consternation of her mother, brother and two sisters, just after she had left to catch her train, her telegram was returned address unknown.