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The Bow cinema murder occurred at Bow Road, East London on 7 August 1934, when 19-year-old John Frederick Stockwell attacked cinema manager Dudley Henry Hoard with an axe. Stockwell was later tried and hanged at Pentonville Prison.
Background
Stockwell was born in Manchester on 7 August 1934. His father, also named John Stockwell, was killed in November 1915 during the Gallipoli Campaign while serving with the Manchester Regiment. His mother died soon after and he spent the rest of his childhood and youth in various Salvation Army orphanages.
Murder
On the morning of 7 August 1934, Dudley Henrey Hoard, manager of the Palace Cinema in Bow Road, London, was attacked by an axe after answering the door. He suffered fourteen blows to the head and was left for dead. Cleaners later arrived at the cinema and found the the partially clothed body of Hoard, with multiple wounds and fractures to the skull. Mrs Maisie Hoard was found alive but unconscious with a wound to her head. After being taken to hospital, she described the attacker as a young man of about 19. The following day police found a bloodied axe in a storage room behind the stage. A bloody thumbprint, identified as being made by somebody other than Hoard, was found on one of the walls.
Investigation
On 10 August police in Lowestoft received a letter confessing to killing Hoard at 7:40 am on 7 August. It was signed J. F. Stockwell. John Stockwell, a 19-year-old employee at the Eastern Palace Cinema, had not been a suspect as 7 August was his day off. Stockwell's clothes, wristwatch, Post Office savings book, and an apparent suicide note were found on a Lowestoft beach later that day. However, holidaymakers had spotted a young man placing the clothes on the beach and notified police when news of the confession letter was made public.
The following day a young man fitting Stockwell's description checked into Metropolitan Hotel in Great Yarmouth under the name J.F. Smith. He aroused the suspicion of the hotel manager as "Smith" had given his address as Luton, Hertfordshire even though Luton is in Bedfordshire. Yarmouth police arrested the man who confessed to being Stockwell.
Trial and execution
Stockwell was charged with murder and brought before the Thames Magistrates' Court on 13 August. He did not enter a plea and was remanded until 21 August.
At his next appearance he admitted to stealing £90 from the cinema takings and hiding it in a suitcase on the premises. On the morning of 7 August he arrived at the cinema claiming to have left some personal money there the night before, and asked Hoard if he could look for it. When Stockwell tried to retrieve the case, Hoard tried to stop him. Stockwell then hit Hoard several times with an axe he had concealed under his coat. Mrs Hoard came to investigate the noise. Stockwell hit her once before hiding the axe and fleeing with the money.
On 22 October 1934, Stockwell formally pleaded guilty to the charge of murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging and executed at HM Prison Pentonville on 14 November.
References
- Arthur B. Smith (1959). Lord Goddard: my years with the Lord Chief Justice. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 79.
- O'Conner, Sean. Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller. Simon & Schuster. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-471-10135-9.
- Steve Fielding (2013). Hanged at Pentonville. The History Press. p. 60. ISBN 075095339X.
- Metropolitan Police Office (1934), MEPO 3/896: Murder and robbery of Dudley Henry Hoard by John Frederick Stockwell at Eastern Palace Cinema, E.3, The National Archives