21 replies to this topic

[jeb]

there was another murder the time Ithink about1950 some where near the old SAINTS ground

[tessmop]

I can remember when I was about 7 or 8 years old there being a murder at a house in Cambridge Road,something to do with Gents shop.

[Alison P]

In the 50s Mr Gent had a jewellery shop on the corner of Eccleston Street and Windus Street. He was very nice to all of us children and would let us go into his shop and look at the cuckoo clocks. He used to go to Germany to buy stock and after one trip came back with a young German wife. They had a baby but Mrs Gent was very lonely and became friendly with my mother so she'd come over to visit our house for and hours chat in the evening. Mr Gent was very quiet and I think that she missed talking to people. One morning there was a big fuss and Police everywhere and we were told that the baby had been doing a lot of crying in the night and Mr Gent had just snapped, locked his wife in a room and held the baby inside of the oven and gassed it. (I may have the facts of the murder slightly wrong since it was a long time ago.) We never saw either of them again but my grandmother had known Mr Gent for many years and she said that he had suffered a big shock years before when he saw, from a bedroom window, his 12 year old (???) son from his first marriage run over and killed. It was a terrible tragedy and I had fond memories of both of them.

[Griffin]

The son who was killed in Boundary Road by a trolleybus was only four years old. His grave is beside a main path in the cemetery. At the time, they lived in Horace Street (at the Dilloway Street end), so I can't imagine the father having been unfortunate enough to witness the accident. I researched the later episode in the microfilm copies of the Reporter, and it was a very sad business. I used to buy the odd watch or clock from a Gent's shop in Cambridge Road some years later, but I have no idea what the relationship was.

[moody]

I remember my mother talking about that tragic couple , how very sad.

The murder you mention jeb was in Doulton St, her name was Valerie Lilly and she was a lovely girl always used to chat to us kids and always happy.

Her boyfriend strangled her in her parents front room after they had been out for the night, I was about 10 / 11 at the time and a journalist from the reporter stopped me one morning to ask if I knew where some one in the street had died, I didn't know of course, it was only later when everyone found out .

So awful for her parents and family, the lads of course , he was around the same age a her 18 and he idealized her, so I don't know what went wrong, maybe she wanted to finish the relationship and he lost it.

[the olden days]

tessmop, on 21 December 2011 - 08:57 PM, said:

Hi Skyman,during the second world war a scottish soldier who was on leave murdered a local girl in Coopers st.He was hanged for it.

This murder was committed in the front garden of The Elms in Cowley Hill Lane and the girl was on her way home to either Gamble Avenue or Bishop Road.

This was a big shock as I lived at Windlehurst and had Guernsey friends in Cowley Hill Lane and used to pass the Elms every time I visited them. I also remember the Gents murder in either Eccleston Street or Cambridge Road and another of a young girl murdered in a field at I think Blackbrook.

These were the only murders I remember over a period of about seven years.

HORT, on 28 January 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

The murder of Gladys Appleton. mentioned earlier took place in the grounds of the Elms in Cowley Hill Lane.
From Walton prison Records

John Gorden Davidson 12th July 44

Davidson 19, hung for strangling Gladys May Appleton 27, on the grounds of The Elms, Cowley Hill Lane,St Helens, 19th March, 1944


I presume the Elms is the old Maternity Hospital mentioned in another topic.

No it was a large house in Cowley Hill between Rutland Street and Windle Street, later converted to offices.

[Handsome Johnny]

frederick deeming, a mass murderer from rainhill and became australias first ever serial killer, also he has been linked to the jack the ripper murders........www.casebook.org › dissertations

Edited by Handsome Johnny, Yesterday, 03:18 PM.