The Investigation
The first policeman on the scene was handed a census form on which Kerr had written down Storie's gasped account of what she recalled at that moment; the document was never seen again. Storie gave another statement to the police later that morning, just before she underwent surgery in Bedford Hospital. Almost at once, the evidence began to throw up anomalies. Storie recalled what the man had said about being on the run for four months, yet he was immaculately dressed in a dark three-piece suit and with well-shone shoes. Moreover, there appeared to be a complete lack of motive.
The gun was discovered on the evening of 24 August, under the back seat of a 36A London bus, fully loaded and wiped clean of fingerprints. With the gun was a handkerchief which was to provide DNA evidence many years later. The police issued an appeal to boarding-house keepers to report any unusual or suspicious guests. A hotel manager reported a man who had locked himself in his room for five days after the murder, and the police picked him up. The suspect falsely identified himself as Frederick Durrant; he was actually Peter Louis Alphon, a drifter surviving on an inheritance and the proceeds of gambling. He claimed he had spent the evening of 22 August with his mother, and the following night at the Vienna Hotel, Maida Vale; the police quickly confirmed this and Alphon was released.
On 29 August, Valerie Storie and another witness, Edward Blackall, who had seen the driver of the Morris Minor, compiled an Identikit picture which was then released. However, only two days later, Storie gave a different description of her assailant to the police.
On 7 September, Meike Dalal was attacked in her home in Richmond, Surrey, by a man claiming to be the A6 murderer, whom she later identified as Alphon in an identity parade on 23 September. The investigation then stalled until 11 September, when two cartridge cases were found in the guest basement bedroom of the Vienna Hotel, which were matched with the bullets that killed Gregsten and to the ones in the gun found on the bus. The hotel manager, William Nudds, made a statement to police naming the last occupant of the room as 'James Ryan'. At the trial Nudds also stated that the man, upon leaving, had asked the way to a bus stop for a 36A bus, though his statement to police had merely mentioned the 36 bus. Nudds' statement also said that Alphon had stayed in the hotel as he claimed, and had remained in his room, Room 6, all night. The police raided the hotel, and questioned Nudds again, who then changed his story, claiming that Alphon had in fact been in the basement and Ryan in Room 6 but, for reasons unknown, had swapped rooms during the night. Nudds also now added that Alphon had left the hotel 'calm and composed'.
The police then took the unusual step of publicly naming Alphon as the murder suspect. Alphon subsequently surrendered himself, and was subjected to an intense interrogation. However, Valerie Storie failed to pick him out in an identity parade, and he was released four days later after being detained on a charge of assaulting Meike Dalal. Alphon was recorded by PC Ian Thomson as saying "there can't have been any fingerprints in the car otherwise mine would have given me away". Police went back to Nudds, the hotel manager, (himself the owner of a criminal record for fraud), who now said that his second statement was a lie, and his first statement, implicating Ryan, was in fact true. His reason for lying was that he had seen that Alphon was the police's prime suspect, and had wanted to assist their case. After some investigation, 'Ryan' turned out to be James Hanratty, a car thief and burglar already wanted on suspicion of two offences of burglary.
Hanratty telephoned Scotland Yard, saying he had fled because he had no credible alibi for the date in question, but repeated several times that he had nothing to do with the A6 murder. He was eventually arrested in Blackpool at the Stevonia cafe on 11 October, and on 14 October Valerie Storie picked him out in an identity parade, after each of the men in the parade had repeated the phrase used by the murderer, "Be quiet, will you? I'm thinking." Hanratty, with his cockney accent, pronounced 'thinking' as 'finking', as had the murderer. Hanratty was then charged with the murder of Michael Gregsten.
Read more about this topic: James Hanratty