Murder in Bournemouth — The Woman Who Took the Blame for Murder

On the East Cliff at Bournemouth in 1935, Villa Madeira looked like every other quiet villa in a resort that prided itself on its respectability. Inside lived a once-celebrated architect long past his best years, his much younger wife, and the teenage servant she had taken into her confidence. One ordinary evening, in that ground-floor drawing room, something happened that no one who lived there ever fully explained. By the time help arrived the house was lit throughout, and a woman was already telling the police she was to blame. But whose hand was it really, and why would she take the fall? A new forgotten British case every few days. Subscribe so the next one finds you. This is the story of Francis Rattenbury, the Leeds-born architect who shaped the public face of a Canadian province before scandal followed him to the Dorset coast; of Alma, the gifted pianist and songwriter half his age; and of George Stoner, the eighteen-year-old engaged through a newspaper advertisement. It follows the confessions, the withdrawn statement, the trial moved to the Old Bailey under Mr Justice Humphreys, the petition that gathered hundreds of thousands of names, and the riverbank at Three Arches Bend. The exact truth of that drawing room has never been settled. Sources: Bournemouth Daily Echo, 1934 Proceedings at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey), London, May 1935 Notable British Trials series, edited by F. Tennyson Jesse The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury by Sean O'Connor, 2019 #TrueCrime #BritishTrueCrime #HistoricalCrime #Documentary