this technique, belated convictions have been achieved in a number of unsolved murders.
In 1970, DNA fingerprinting was a distant dream, yet inferences from press coverage of the trial in April 1971 suggest police did collect physical evidence from Grace's house that could even now exonerate Stamp.
'The prosecution alleges that a T-shirt found in the house belonged to Stamp. This was denied by the defense although Wynne Stamp later admitted that her son had owned one 'like it' ' (
'Adam Fanshaw, counsel for the defense, denied that hair recovered from Grace's bath could have belonged to Stamp. 'The defendant has never taken a bath in his grandmother's house,' he said, 'therefore any similarities shown by Dr. Studeley (Home Office pathologist) between the defendant's hair and hair retrieved from the bath must be coincidence' ' (
This indecisiveness was damaging to Stamp's cause. Fanshaw, later to become a High Court judge, ran an inconsistent defense. On the horns of a dilemma because his client insisted he had never taken a bath in his grandmother's house, he offered alternative explanations to the jury. The hairs weren't Stamp's but, if the jury decided they were, then they must have dropped into the bath by accident. However, Wynne Stamp gave evidence that her son had not visited his grandmother's house between Thursday, May 28, and Wednesday, June 3. As she also insisted that her mother was too house-proud to leave her bath dirty, that left Wednesday as the only day for Howard's hairs to drop in 'accidentally.' Not unreasonably, the jury preferred prosecution claims that there was too much hair for this to have happened. The quantity was only consistent with someone immersing his head in water and rubbing it with shampoo.
If the pathologist's second estimate is to be believed, the crime took place between 1200 and 1400 on Wednesday, June 3, 1970. From the pattern of blood on the stairs, walls and floors, it was estimated that Grace had taken between one and two hours to die, and this fitted conveniently with sightings of Stamp. He was known to have left his mother's house at 1145 when he was seen by a neighbor. She described him as 'looking normal' although she was unable to say what he was wearing. All the witnesses who saw him leaving his grandmother's house put the time at between 1400 and 1430 and their descriptions of his clothing were similar: 'white shirt, not tucked in, and blue jeans,' 'shirt and trousers,' 'white T-shirt and Levi's.' They all agreed his behavior was 'peculiar.' One said he was 'running like a bat out of hell.' Another: 'He wasn't looking where he was going and bumped into the back of a parked car.' A third: 'He tried to hide his face but I saw it before he turned away. His eyes were mad and staring.'
None said his hair was wet, nor that it looked different from normal. But they should have done if the prosecution was correct in its assumptions. In appearance, Stamp aped his hero, Ginger Baker, the legendary drummer with the 1960s rock group Cream. A photograph of Stamp taken by his mother three months before the murder shows him with a pale, pinched face, straggly mustache and beard, and a tangled mat of wiry hair hanging over his face and down to his shoulders. Wynne said he rarely washed it because it 'frizzed up when it dried and stuck out round his head.' She also claimed he 'put Vaseline on it to make it heavier.' In his summing-up Adam Fanshaw drew attention to these discrepancies-'if the defendant shampooed his hair, it must have been wet or sticking out when he left the house ... there were no residues of Vaseline on the hairs in the bath.' But the jury wasn't impressed.
Perhaps they thought frizzy hair and matted hair looked much the same. Perhaps they found Stamp's clean-cut appearance at trial-he had been persuaded to shave and accept a short-back-and-sides to present a boyish appearance-inconsistent with his mother's descriptions of him as 'always plastering his hair over his face to hide his lip.' They certainly accepted the prosecution's claim that shampoo, a detergent, dissolves Vaseline, a petroleum- based product, despite the defense's attempts to prove that Vaseline residues would have remained on the sides of the bath.
In one last twist, Stamp's mugshot, taken four days after he was said to have had a bath, presents an identical appearance to the photograph taken three months earlier. Pale, pinched face, straggly mustache and beard, and a tangled mat of
Irreconcilable Evidence
The earliest Stamp could have reached Grace's house was 1200, and the latest he could have left it was 1430. This would have given him two and a half hours in which to work up a rage, slash and stab his grandmother before cutting her throat, take a bath, wipe his fingerprints from the bath taps (they were clean), vandalize her house to cast the blame elsewhere, pull the curtains and secure the windows.
Even assuming all this were possible in so comparatively short a time, he also had to remember to dispose of a pair of gloves in a litter bin after he left. Yet witnesses described him as behaving peculiarly, running like a bat out of hell, bumping into things and having mad, staring eyes. In other words, he was a man in a panic.
It's difficult to see how this mad flight in the middle of a summer afternoon can be reconciled with the thoughtful way he appears to have acted in the wake of the murder. Why draw attention to himself after leaving the scene if he'd made an attempt-however poor-to cover his tracks? Indeed why was it necessary to leave the house in such a hurry? Wynne said he rarely returned from visits to his grandmother until the early hours-'they watched telly together'-so why didn't he do the same that day? Not only would it have given him longer to lay a false trail, it would also have allowed him to slip out under cover of darkness.
The more obvious explanation for his flight is that his second statement was true. He let himself into his grandmother's house and was so shocked by what he discovered that he ran home in terror to lock himself in his bedroom.
When Was Grace Jefferies Killed?
The pathologist's first estimate, later dismissed as a 'slip of the pen,' suggested Grace died on Monday, June 1, 1970. The postman's statement, amended at trial, referred to her curtains having been drawn for
This gives us the beginnings of a time frame. Rigor mortis starts after three to four hours in the small muscles of the face, hands and feet, before affecting the larger muscles. As it wears off, it follows the same pattern. Stamp's description implies rigor was still present in the major muscle of the shoulder, but had started to disappear
