Cambridgeshire Murders (20 page)

The first wound Willis had suffered had been the one to his shoulder; the bullet had entered his upper back and exited at the front. The blood loss was small and the doctor concluded that no major vessels had been damaged. But the shot had felled Willis and, while he was on the ground, Potts had fired again. This second bullet had entered the rear of his upper thigh. There was no exit wound because it had travelled upwards into Willis's body causing extensive internal injuries. He died around 5.30 a.m. on 4 June and Dr Henry Buckley Roderick recorded the cause of death to be ‘shock resulting from a gunshot wound in the perineum'.

Douglas Newton Potts.
(Cambridgeshire Collection, Cambridge Central Library.

The inquest heard from a series of witnesses in an attempt to build a picture of the preceding weeks' events, which had culminated in these deaths. One of the first called was Walter Potts, Douglas's father. He had identified his son's body and explained that they had last seen each other on 22 April as his son left to return to Cambridge after visiting for Easter. Mr Potts admitted that his son ‘was of a rather excitable and nervous disposition. He was highly strung.' But he also explained that he and his son had been on the best of terms and he had always had considerable confidence in him, as he had ‘never caused him a moment's anxiety or worry'. Douglas's father had not suspected a problem until Monday 26 May when a letter had arrived from Wollaston explaining that Douglas had been absent for two nights.

Potts replied by sending his son a letter and a telegram asking him to get in touch and explain his absence before he had to reply to his tutor. The letter was returned. Mr Potts did not hear from his son again.

As he finished giving his evidence he said: ‘May I express regret at this terrible tragedy, and at the same time, on behalf of my family say we strongly resent the newspapers' lack of humanity to those who are left behind.' This was no doubt referring to the article in the late edition of
The Times
, which came out before there had been an opportunity to inform relatives. Particularly objectionable was the portion that read: ‘After shooting the two men Potts shot himself through the head. He was not killed at once, but died of his injuries in hospital this evening.'

Some of the other witnesses were other undergraduates. According to F. Clifford, a fellow member of the Blue Melodians, Potts had a ‘bizarre taste in dress' and ‘he used to wear grey flannel plus fours, brilliantly coloured stockings, white shoes with brown leather facings, and a high-necked jumper, either scarlet or canary yellow'. According to other descriptions he often also sported a false moustache.

One of the places Potts, Newton and some of their fellow students would visit was The Bell Hotel in the High Street, Mildenhall. This was a trip of about twenty miles and the friends would travel there in a borrowed car. The landlord's daughter commented that Potts always had ‘plenty of money to spend' and never seemed to visit Mildenhall in the same car twice. He regaled locals with stories about being a prince and claimed that some of his companions were also blue-blooded.

At one point Potts had suggested to Newton that they should take to a life of crime. On occasion Potts used the
nom-de-plume
of Victor Morrell. Newton had an alias of Gordon Frazer that he never used. In fact at the inquest Newton described most of Potts' antics as ‘ragging' but it seems that Potts was finding it hard to distinguish between fact and fiction. The fact that Newton went along with Potts' escapades and did not think that some of the more extreme facets of his friend's behaviour were particularly theatrical could have encouraged Potts to continue along his fantasist route.

On the evening of 4 May Potts stole an automatic pistol from another student. This may have been meant just as a prop for his fictional charades but it was not long before he drew attention to himself; Potts had visited several local gents' outfitters and at each said that he had wanted to order a suit for his friend. While this friend was being measured Potts would select other items for himself and asked to be sent a single bill to his home address. At one shop the owner refused and Potts pulled out the loaded gun and began waving it around.

The owner of the pistol, a Webley automatic, was David Gattiker. He had a firearms licence and had bought the gun and 500 rounds of ammunition from Messrs Gallyon of Bridge Street, Cambridge. He used the pistol for target practice at a local range and had last seen it on Sunday 4 May. When he went to get it the next day it had gone and he reported its loss to the police on 7 May. He knew Potts but they were not close friends.

Potts had arrived uninvited to Gattiker's rooms at about half past nine in the evening. With him were seven or eight other undergraduates. They had attended a party and were mostly acting as if they were drunk. Gattiker told Potts that he was unhappy about their presence. As far as he knew Potts had not been aware that he owned a gun but it had disappeared by the following morning.

The longest statement was made by John Newman. He had met Potts two or three weeks after arriving at King's College and they had soon become firm friends. Newman played the trumpet and they had a shared interest in music and soon formed their band.

While their friendship was still relatively new Potts had made his suggestion that they should try a life of crime. At this point Newman claimed that he found Potts to be normal but of ‘a rather theatrical nature'. Therefore he did not take much notice as the suggestion had been made in front of others and was just taken as a joke.

Newman had been with Potts when he had said he was going to look up a friend and had visited Gattiker's rooms. Gattiker was out and Newman thought that Potts had left a note. While he was there Newman had noticed a gun on the top of a cupboard. Potts picked it up and took it away with him. Newman claimed he that was not sure whether his friend was borrowing it or already owned it, but admitted that Potts had later told him that the gun did not belong to him. Newman also saw the pistol on a police list of items reported missing. They were in Norman and Bradley's, pawnbrokers, at the time – somewhere they had both gone to raise money on numerous occasions.

The Blue Melodians had not played outside Cambridge, mainly gigging at small local charity events. Socially though, Newman, Potts and others had been further afield and he admitted that he had had to appear before his own tutor, Mr Thatcher, for going to Mildenhall in cars. This reprimand was enough to prompt Newman to leave Cambridge rather than face his family to explain his behaviour.

Potts had already had the idea of going abroad and they had gone as far as getting the forms to apply for passports before abandoning the idea. Potts now partially resurrected it, suggesting that they went away for a month before getting a job. Between them they owned a motorcycle, which they had bought a few days earlier, and thought they would use for transport. At first they also planned to sell their possessions to raise funds but, except for a few items that Potts carried with him, they abandoned this idea after deciding that they would set out for London immediately.

Within twenty-four hours the ill-conceived plan was in disarray; they arrived in the capital at 3.15 p.m. on 24 May and, with nowhere to stay, spent the night on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields. During the evening they sold the motorbike for £22 10
s
but were paid with a cheque that they would not be able to cash until the coming Monday.

They had no accommodation and, even with the cash from the cheque, they found themselves broke again very quickly. Their lifeline came in the form Madge Miller, who they did not know personally but had been told to look up by a mutual friend.

Miller was a 25-year-old dance instructor who lived in Shaftesbury Avenue. By the time they contacted her it was Thursday 29 May and they claimed they had not slept for the previous seven nights. They had run out of money and had spent the previous night walking along the Embankment. They arrived at her flat between two and three in the morning and she took them in. The only money she gave them was enough to get their luggage from Charing Cross Station, but she did feed them and let them sleep in her spare bedroom. They eventually left on Monday 2 June.

In her witness statement she told the jury that on the night of their arrival there had been no milk in the flat so they had drunk tea Russian style and had talked for so long that she had lost track of the time. In the morning Potts had sent her maid out for a loaf of bread and the two young men had left the flat at 11.30. She overheard them talking about meeting a man called Desmond at the Savoy for lunch. Potts hoped this Desmond would give them some money but they came back empty handed. It was never clear whether ‘Desmond' even existed.

When they returned to her flat on the Friday night she saw that each of them carried a gun. She asked: ‘Are they loaded?' to which one of them replied in the affirmative.

Wondering why they had guns Potts told her, ‘We shall need these.' Miller asked them not to load them.

Potts told her that there were problems at college. He often referred to John Newman as Gerald, one of his middle names: he asked, ‘Hasn't Gerald told you about the trouble?' Potts went on to say that there was trouble about money, a smashed car and also a man was taking out a warrant for his arrest.

Under questioning from the coroner Newman admitted that he had also owned a revolver. He had bought it in Cambridge and claimed that his sole purpose in owning it was to cover Potts' weapon with the single licence. He also admitted that both of them had threatened to commit suicide with their guns. He assured the coroner that they had not been serious threats. While in London Potts and Newman had run into several acquaintances and the threats of suicide had been a ruse to give the impression that they were desperate and could not face returning to Cambridge. This, they hoped, would discourage anyone from turning them over to their tutors.

Triple shooting tragedy at Cambridge
. (Police Illustrated News)

Miller advised them to return to face the music but Potts and Newman went on to spend the weekend with her; she paid for them all to go the cinema twice. They played cards together in the evenings and on Sunday afternoon they walked around Fleet Street and High Holborn. At one point Potts stopped to point out the office where his father worked.

On Saturday Potts sent two letters, one to a girl in Tonbridge, the other to a friend at Cambridge. He told Miller that he planned to see this girl as soon as he had the money to do so.

On Monday, 2 June, after they had risen at about 11 a.m., Miller had a brief conversation with Potts. He said: ‘Gerald is going home. I am really glad because I think he is going to have a breakdown. He looks ill.' She checked this with Newman who replied: ‘I will be back in two days'. Later that afternoon he telephoned and left the same message with her housekeeper. But Miller did not see either of them again until she read of the shootings and saw Newman at the inquest. Potts and Newman did not leave London, they just felt that they could not impose on their host any further and had another sleepless night on their own.

Meanwhile, on the same Monday, the letter Potts had sent to Cambridge arrived with a third-year undergraduate, Frederick Waterwell Bolton. Bolton had known Potts for a few months after Newman had introduced them. The last time Bolton had seen his friends was 24 May, the day they left college. Newman had come straight from his tutor's rooms and was very agitated. He had asked Bolton to take a letter to Potts, which he said was a demand for £5 from a man at Mildenhall.

Bolton then had a conversation with Potts who said he had wired the man 50
s
the day before but the letter was a demand for the other 50
s
. Potts said he only had £1. Bolton kindly agreed to lend him the other £1 10
s
. Potts also said that he was about to be sent down.

The last time Bolton saw the two was the same afternoon as they were preparing to leave Cambridge on their motorcycle. The letter Bolton received on Monday 2 June read :