High-society murder?
The salacious story that gripped a nation…
They lived a wild life in 1940s’ Las Ve gas
It was the trial that would be labelled ‘New York’s greatest murder thriller’.
The very first time homosexual relationships were reported in the city’s newspapers.
And it all began with a passionate affair...
Wayne Lonergan was born in Toronto, Canada, but moved to New York in 1939.
And it was in the Big Apple where Wayne, in his 20s, first met William Burton – the boss of a lucrative beer company and also an amateur painter. The Lion Brewery in Manhattan Valley had been producing beer since the 1850s and had made William millions of dollars. He hired Wayne as a rickshaw boy to take him between exhibits at the famous World’s Fair in New York. But what started as a professional bond quickly turned passionate. William and Wayne became lovers. That was until October 1940 – when William died, aged just 43. He left behind his glamorous daughter Patricia. Now Wayne, three years Patricia’s senior, turned his attentions to her. An heiress to the beer business, Patricia appeared to be the perfect – and priceless – potential wife. Eloping and marrying in Las Vegas, the couple lived a wild life, drinking and partying into the early hours. And it was no less than seven months later that she fell pregnant with a baby boy. But new mum Patricia found it hard to move on from her youthful life of carousing. She still frequented glitzy nightspots, such as El Morocco and the Stork Club. Patricia’s reluctance to settle down sparked friction between her and Wayne. Drifting apart, they both took lovers. They soon split up and became estranged.
Wayne moved back to Canada.
In October 1943, Patricia cut Wayne out of her will, which was worth millions of pounds.
Wayne’s chance of becoming rich was ruined.
But just how far would he go to seek his revenge?
On 24 October 1943, when her son was just 1, Patricia’s naked body was found in her apartment. She was just 22. Dr Milton Halpern, who arrived with a posse of police and later reported to the coroner, said, ‘Repeated blows on top of her head caused a skull fracture. This could have killed her.’
But Patricia had also been strangled.
She’d been partying just hours before – and now she was dead.
At the time when the body was found, Wayne was working for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Despite the couple’s acrimonious past, he was ruled out as a suspect.
But the police soon discovered he’d been given weekend leave to travel to New York during the weekend of Patricia’s death.
Wayne was found in Toronto and returned to New York voluntarily, but he claimed to have an alibi – from an American soldier with whom he’d spent the night. Attempting to explain deep gashes on his chin, he said the soldier had tried to rob him, and the marks were left when he’d tried to defend himself. Police believed him at first. One officer reportedly said, ‘A guilty man, I imagine, would not have offered us an alibi so degrading as this one.’ Back then, homosexuality was seen as taboo. But, regardless of the alibi, Wayne was arrested and taken for questioning. What followed next was a staggering 84 hours of interrogation, during which Wayne allegedly confessed to killing his wife during a quarrel. Unfortunately, some of the
police interview was leaked to the Press, and this resulted in Wayne Lonergan being labelled a murderer prior to the court case.
Then the unsigned confession was denied by Wayne and his lawyers.
His first trial for first-degree murder was declared a mistrial.
The second trial – this time for seconddegree murder – began in March 1944.
It became one of the most sensational court cases of the 1940s.
Details of the couple’s high-society life and Wayne’s relationship with Patricia’s father meant that the courtroom became a media circus, with the country gripped by the lewd and salacious details.
Over 13 days, the prosecution and defence battled it out between each other over what’d happened to the couple on the night of 24 October 1943.
Doubt was cast on Lonergan’s confession.
The court heard from the prosecution that Lonergan had travelled to the apartment of his estranged wife to deliver a soft toy to their son.
There, he discovered Patricia nude in bed, recovering from a night out with another man.
A row had ensued, with Patricia threatening Wayne that he’d never be allowed to see his son again.
That, the prosecution alleged, was the trigger for the murderous attack that followed.
They said Wayne Lonergan had smashed Patricia over the head with a silver candelabra.
The savage blows had crushed her skull. But they said that Lonergan had finished off the killing by strangling her. Lonergan said he’d killed his wife while she was inflicting ‘great physical pain’ on him, claiming self-defence. Some reports suggested she’d been performing a sex act on Lonergan, before biting his penis. But the prosecution maintained that Lonergan’s motive for the killing was actually good, old-fashioned greed. They alleged that he was after the beer company’s millions of dollars. So, when all the evidence had been heard, would the jury decide Wayne Lonergan had committed murder..?
Wayne’s WORLD: He married an heiress What do you think? Turn for the verdict…
Judge James Garrett Wallace barred all spectators, except for newspaper reporters, from the court.
Wayne Lonergan was convicted of seconddegree murder on 17 April 1944 and sentenced to 35 years to life in jail.
After spending 22 years behind bars, Lonergan was released and deported to Canada.
He fought for years for a share of his widow’s $15 million (around £12 million) estate, but all the money went to their son, who changed his name to erase all links to his father.
Lonergan died of cancer in Toronto, at the age of 67.