Towpath murders

The towpath murders was a case in which two teenage girls were murdered on the towpath near Teddington Lock in Richmond upon Thames, London, England, on 31 May 1953. Alfred Charles Whiteway (1931 – 22 December 1953) was found guilty and hanged for the murders, which attracted much press attention, the case being described at the time as "one of Scotland Yard's most notable triumphs in a century".

The victims were 16-year-old Barbara Songhurst and 18-year-old Christine Reed. The girls had been on a bicycle trip on Sunday, 31 May 1953, and were seen cycling along the towpath beside the River Thames at about 11pm. They failed to return home. Songhurst's body was found the next day floating in the river, and Reed's body was found on 6 June, after a section of the river was drained. Pathologist Keith Mant determined that both victims had been beaten, raped and killed with a hatchet.

Whiteway was tried at the Old Bailey in the autumn 1953 before Mr Justice Hilbery. He was defended by solicitor Arthur Prothero, who instructed Peter Rawlinson, then a relatively junior barrister. Rawlinson cross-examined murder squad detective Herbert Hannam at length, opening large holes in his evidence of the confession, which Whiteway claimed was falsified.

On 2 November, after forty-five minutes of deliberation, the jury found Whiteway guilty. An appeal was heard by the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Goddard), Mr. Justice Sellers and Mr. Justice Barry but was rejected on 7 December. Whiteway was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 22 December 1953. The axe is in the Black Museum at Scotland Yard.