Killer kicked victim so hard, he was left with bone in his shoe
A late-night drink led to an elderly woman being beaten to death – and her killer being caught by his bloodstained suit. Liz Day takes a look at the details
THE evening of Saturday, October 12, 1947, began just like any other for Rachel Allen as she went for a drink at the local pub.
The retired washerwoman fed her nine cats before wrapping a shawl around her shoulders and walking to the Butchers Arms down the road from her cottage in the Rhondda.
The 76-year-old enjoyed a drink and music at the pub before walking to a nearby shop to buy a tin of snuff.
Dressed in a heavy black skirt, Rachel walked out into the rain and started to make her way to her home in Hillside Terrace in Wattstown – a corner cottage containing a bed, two chairs and a table.
At 11.20pm her body was found, face down, on the dark, wet road.
She was holding her house key in one hand and the box of snuff lay on the ground beside her.
Neighbour Mary Morris made the gruesome find and her screams brought local bobby PC Henton to the scene.
He had been on patrol nearby and a single glance at her body told him that Rachel had been either kicked or clubbed to death, with her face punched and stamped on. The outline of a blood-covered hand was discovered on the victim’s door.
Officers from the Glamorgan County Constabulary were immediately hauled out of bed and ordered to scour the collieries and hills surrounding Wattstown for a weapon.
They set about searching for clues and interviewing villagers.
Among those investigating was PC Henton, who was in the process of putting together his own theory.
Chief Constable Joseph Jones asked Scotland Yard for assistance. They dispatched a team of experts, including Detective Chief Superintendent John Capstick – known as Charlie of the Yard.
He arrived the next day and set up an incident room in the library of Wattstown Workmen’s Institute.
DCS Capstick took off his hat and said: “Bring me the local man.”
PC Henton handed him a piece of paper with two names scrawled on it.
One name was that of a man who had quarrelled with Rachel a few months earlier. The other was Evan Haydn Evans.
The constable explained his inquiries had thrown up a description of a short man who had spoken to Rachel outside the pub, only for her to threaten him with the police.
He himself had seen three men leave the Butchers Arms to go to a dance in Porth – unusual because there were usually four men in that group.
The reveller missing was Evans, wearing a brown suit bought that day.
On Sunday night DCS Capstick, his murder squad colleague Detective Sergeant John Stoneman, and Pontypridd Detective Inspector Tom Williams climbed the slope to Heol Llechau to question the suspect.
“Get dressed,” ordered the detective. Evans put on a dark blue suit. “Where’s your other suit?” he asked.
“This is the one I always wear. It’s the only decent one I have,” Evans replied.
His mother handed him a pair black shoes which were shined to perfection – probably to erase bloodstains.
“I don’t want these,” Evans said to his mother. “I want my brown ones.”
Suspicions were raised by his desperate desire to discard the shiny shoes underneath the sofa and they were taken for examination by forensic scientists in Cardiff. Their tests revealed a tiny piece of Rachel’s skull.
DCS Capstick was still concerned about the missing suit, which must have been spattered with blood.
He made a second visit to Evans’ home. Throughout his questioning the killer’s eyes were said to be flickering towards the sofa, which was made of artificial leather and attached to the framework with bright new nails.
“Open up that thing,” ordered the detective.
The bottom was prised away and out fell the new brown suit. It was streaked with blood. In a formal statement Evans, 22, said he was walking home after drinking up to 10 pints in the pub when he came across Rachel shouting for her cats.
“She called me a pig,” he said. “I had my temper then and hit her through the door. She fell on the floor and I picked her up and I hit her a few times with my right fist. She fell on the floor and I kicked her about four times.
“I lit a match and she was all bleeding...”
A jury at Cardiff Crown Court found him guilty of murder – not manslaughter as his defence had claimed – and Mr Justice Byrne sentenced Evans to death.
On Tuesday, February 3, 1948, he walked to the gallows in Cardiff prison.