Murder of Vera Page

Disappearance

On Monday 14 December 1931, Vera left her home at 22 Blenheim Crescent at 4:30 p.m. to walk approximately fifty yards to the home of her aunt, Minnie Essex, who lived at number 70 Blenheim Crescent. The purpose of this short journey was to collect two swimming certificates she had been awarded but had left with her aunt the previous day. Prior to leaving, Vera informed her mother she would soon return home as she was hungry and looking forward to her evening meal. She was wearing a distinctive red beret.

Vera's aunt would later inform investigators her niece had stayed at her home for "about ten minutes" before returning home, adding "the street lamps" had not yet illuminated.

Discovery

At approximately 9:31 on the morning of 16 December, a milkman named Joseph Smith discovered Vera's body lying in a patch of shrubbery in the front garden of 89 Addison Road, Kensington, close to Holland Park. The location was approximately one mile from her home.

The perpetrator had made no serious effort to conceal Vera's body, beyond making a brief and rudimentary effort to throw handfuls of earth and leaves upon her remains. This fact led investigators to speculate Vera had likely been murdered close to the location of the discovery of her body, and that the perpetrator either lived locally or held extensive geographical knowledge of the neighbourhood. Furthermore, a worn section of ammonia-stained finger bandage also composing of lint and bearing traces of coal dust was discovered to be lodged firmly against the inner elbow of her right arm; this evidence was only discovered when Vera's body was moved from the crime scene to the mortuary.

Approximately forty hours had elapsed between the time Vera had last been seen alive and the discovery of her remains, yet her body was not rigid, and decomposition was relatively advanced, thus suggesting her body had been stored in a fairly warm environment between the time she had last been seen alive and the discovery of her body. Moreover, it had rained heavily from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. the previous day, and the weather was still generally moist and misty, yet Vera's clothing had absorbed very little moisture, and solely in locations where her body had touched the soil at the location of her discovery, leading investigators to opine that the child's body could not have lain in the location where she was discovered for more than two hours. This opinion was corroborated by both an occupant of the house who informed investigators that had the body been in the patch of shrubbery before 7:50 a.m., she could not have failed to notice it, and the milkman who discovered the body and who had made his routine delivery to the home at 5:30 a.m., who was also adamant that the body was not lying in this location upon his first visit to the premises.

Investigation

The rape and murder of Vera Page caused extensive public indignation and police mounted an intensive operation to apprehend her murderer. The individual in charge of the investigation was Superintendent George Cornish.

Over 200 police officers and detectives were assigned to the manhunt to apprehend the perpetrator; these efforts saw extensive door-to-door public inquiries conducted throughout the vicinity of Vera's disappearance and discovery and exhaustive media appeals to the public for information. Over 1,000 people would be formally questioned in relation to the murder, and several thousand witness statements obtained by police throughout their inquiries.

As Vera was a friendly but shy and wary child, investigators theorized she had likely been abducted and murdered by an individual she had known and trusted, and that this individual had lured her either to a warm room or into a car where he had proceeded to rape and murder her before stowing her body in either a coal cellar or a garage—as indicated by the extensive coal dust upon her clothes. This individual had subsequently retrieved Vera's body from the location of her concealment at or shortly before dawn on 16 December and proceeded to transport her body to Addison Road via either a wheelbarrow or a perambulator, inadvertently dislodging the finger bandage from his left hand as he removed his hands from beneath the child's arms as he had lifted, then discarded her body from the wheelbarrow or perambulator in the garden of 89 Addison Road. This theory soon bore fruit as on 17 December, a Mrs. Margaret Key informed investigators that at approximately 6:40 a.m. on 16 December, she had observed an individual whose physical appearance fitted that of a local man named Percy Orlando Rush pushing a costermonger's barrow laden with a large bundle covered with a distinctive red table-cloth with a knitted fringe walking in the direction of Addison Road.

On 17 December, a woman living close to Addison Road named Kathleen Short brought a child's red beret to the Notting Hill police station, stating she had found the rain-soaked item at approximately 9:30 on the evening of 15 December at a location investigators noted was quite close to where Vera had last been seen alive. This beret was identified by Vera's parents as belonging to their daughter, and was noted to smell of paraffin (although this odour may have been caused by Short initially storing the beret beneath a sink in her scullery). Short also informed investigators that close to the scene of her discovery, she had also located several sections of torn paper which she had collected and discarded, and a section of candle which she had herself used and then also discarded. By 21 December, police inquiries had also produced an eyewitness who stated that on the morning of the discovery of Vera's body, the door to a coal shed close to Addison Road had been left unlocked and ajar, when on all other dates it would invariably have been closed and locked.

The coal cellar in question was located beneath a block of flats close to the house on Addison Road where Vera's body was discovered and had no electric light source, giving credibility to Spilsbury's theory that the child had been murdered and/or her body hidden in a basement or coal cellar with no electric light, and that her murderer had likely illuminated the scene via candlelight. Investigators gave strong support to the theory that the Vera's body had been temporarily concealed in this cellar after her murder, then transported via wheelbarrow to the location of her subsequent discovery—most likely by the individual observed by Margaret Key less than three hours before the discovery of her body.

Prime suspect

Percy Orlando Rush was a 40-year-old married man who lived close to Blenheim Crescent and who had worked as a flannel washer and labourer in a launderette in Earl's Court for two years. Rush's parents lived on the upper floors of 22 Blenheim Crescent, and he and his wife—whom he had married in 1921—had lived in the premises until 1925, although after their relocation to nearby Talbot Road, he had continued to regularly visit his parents, having a key to their home.

Rush's parents had married in 1891—the same year as his birth. He had been the first of their four children and, according to census records, the only one of their children to still live with his parents at Blenheim Crescent by 1921. A veteran of the First World War, Rush had married a woman one year his senior named Daisy Lilian Wheeley in 1921; the couple—whose marriage remained childless—remained frequent visitors to Rush's parents' home, with Mondays being one of the weekdays they would typically visit.

Rush freely admitted to having known Vera—whom he described as "a nice little girl"—for approximately one year, although he claimed to have not seen her for approximately three weeks before her disappearance. He further admitted his travel route to and from work required him to walk along Blenheim Crescent on weekdays and that via his occupation, he had come into contact with ammonia on an almost daily basis. Furthermore, Rush admitted to having severely injured the little finger on his left hand in his workplace less than a week before Vera's murder, and to have regularly treated the wound with both bandages and iodine since. The wound itself was observed by a policeman to be tender in appearance and still requiring attention at the time of Rush's initial, informal questioning.

Forensic developments

A police search of Rush's Talbot Road home uncovered bandages, plus a distinctive red table-cloth with a knitted fringe markedly similar to the one observed by Margaret Key evidently used to cover Vera's body as her murderer had transported her remains to the garden of 89 Addison Road. A forensic examination of the consistency of candle wax discovered upon Vera's right shoulder and to wax spattering discovered upon Rush's own overcoat revealed the substance to be identical to that of a used candle recovered from Rush's home. Furthermore, this overcoat was found to contain traces of coal dust and semen. However, although the finger bandage recovered from the crime scene was found to be a perfect fit upon Rush's injured finger, to have been used to conceal a suppurating wound and to have been soaked in ammonia on at least one occasion, Home Office analyst Dr. Roche Lynch—having examined this bandage with the assistance of ultra violet light—concluded that the material was of a different consistency to all bandage and lint samples recovered by investigators during their search of Rush's home.

Rush's testimony

One of the final individuals to provide evidence the opening day of the proceedings was Rush himself, who stated he was "quite satisfied [he was] doing right" in testifying in his own defence. Though his movements on the date of the murder were never independently corroborated at the inquest, Rush claimed that on the evening of the murder, he had finished work at 6:15 p.m. and had walked home. As his wife, Daisy, had been visiting her mother, he had opted to go shopping for collar studs in Kensington Road as he did not wish to be alone in the family home. He claimed to have returned home at approximately 8:30 p.m., that his wife had returned home shortly thereafter, and that the two had gone to sleep at approximately 10:15 p.m. Rush further claimed to have not visited his parents on Monday 14 December, although he did admit that he had typically visited his parents on a Monday evening.

In response to specific allegations from the coroner that he had intentionally lured Vera to the coal shed close to Addison Road where he had then proceeded to rape, then strangle the child before later discarding her body in the front garden of 89 Addison Road, Rush became emphatic in his denials, claiming not to have known Vera as well as his initial witness statement to police had suggested and claiming to have only ever spoken to the child once. He then refused to answer a question as to why his claim to have been able to recognize a newspaper photograph of Vera shown to him by his wife following her murder contradicted his claim not to have known her.

Rush was then questioned about the injury to the finger of his left hand he had sustained on 9 December and his having worn a finger bandage in the days immediately following. He admitted to having worn a finger bandage, primarily to protect the wound from ammonia, but remained adamant he had ceased dressing the wound with bandage after approximately two days, stating: "I intended to get the finger hardened by letting air get to it"—adding he did not care about the possibility of ammonia coming into contact with the wound causing him pain. Dr. Oddie then responded with the question, "Did you know the bandage (discovered upon Vera's body) smelled of ammonia?" In response, Rush smiled—prompting a rebuke from Oddie—before denying the bandage was his. Minutes later, Rush raised a copy of the New Testament before swearing he had not encountered Vera on the date of her murder.

Although Rush did occasionally contradict himself throughout his testimony—particularly when questioned as to his recognizing Vera and his previous social interactions with her—no specific eyewitness accounts existed to place Rush in Vera's company on the day of her death, and extensive police inquiries at every chemist's shop in West London had failed to produce any individual who could recall having sold bandages of the type discovered upon Vera's body to Rush or his wife. Furthermore, the coal shed in which police alleged Vera had likely been murdered and/or her body stored before being disposed of at Addison Road had been vacated five days before her murder. (The coal shed's previous owner, Thomas O'Connor, testified at the inquest that he had taken the door's padlock with him.)

Summation

The coroner's inquest into Vera's murder lasted eight hours, and saw 113 exhibits presented before the coroner's jury. On the afternoon of 10 February, Dr. Oddie delivered his summation to the jury. Oddie explained to the jury that the case outlined against Rush at the inquest had amounted to his being "suspected for various reasons" before outlining the strong circumstantial evidence against him, but also the lack of any physical evidence directly linking him to the crime. He concluded his summation by instructing the jury: "You must not record a verdict against Rush unless you are satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that these various points of evidence which seem to indicate that he was the guilty man form a chain of circumstantial evidence so strong that you are forced to come to the conclusion that he was the man ... If you are not satisfied that the circumstantial evidence is sufficiently strong to fix the guilt upon Rush, you must return an open verdict. The chain of evidence must be complete."

Acquittal

After just five minutes of deliberation, the coroner's jury determined that insufficient evidence existed to formally charge Rush with Vera's murder and returned a formal verdict of murder by person or persons unknown while extending their collective sympathy to Vera's parents. In response to this verdict, Vera's mother burst into tears and was led from the courtroom by several friends—many of whom were also weeping—as other women in the gallery openly booed and shook their fists at Rush, vocally declaring him to be a blatant liar.

Rush shook hands with several supporters before leaving the courtroom in the company of his wife, who had remained steadfast in her belief of his innocence.