THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THOMAS RODGERS FOR THE MURDER FOR A MOTIVE UNKNOWN....

 THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THOMAS RODGERS FOR THE MURDER FOR A MOTIVE UNKNOWN....

 John Thomas Rodgers - murder for a motive unknown.

22 year old Rodgers was a barman at the Northwood Hotel at 47 Green Lane in Northwood, Middlesex.  One of his co-workers was 25 year old Lillian Maud Chamberlain who lived in a flat across the road from the hotel.  

She was married and her husband, Ivan, worked as a restaurant car attendant on the L.M.S railway.  This often took him away for the night as happened on Wednesday the 25th of August 1937.

This Wednesday was Rodgers’ half day off and it is at least probable that he would have known that Lillian’s husband would be away.

The following morning Lillian did not report for work and another employee was sent across the road to find her.  He was shocked to discover her badly beaten body, wearing only her nightdress.  

The famous pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, found that death had been caused by strangulation and that she had been struck with a clothes iron.  Suspicion was raised by Rodgers not showing up for work either on the Thursday. The police circulated a description of Rodgers to the press.  Two busmen who knew him, spotted Rodgers at Golders Green underground station.  One kept him talking while the other went for the police.  He was arrested there.

Interviewed later he told police that he had gone to Ruislip and when he returned to the hotel it was locked up.  Knowing that Lillian lived across the road, he went to her flat intending to ask to sleep the night there.  He found the door open and discovered her.  She was still alive at this time and he got blood on his clothes as he held her.  He took these clothes off and borrowed some of Ivan’s clothes, before disposing of his own.

Rodgers came to trial at the Old Bailey on the 18th and 19th of October 1937, before Mr. Justice Charles.  He continued to maintain his innocence and stuck to the somewhat unlikely story he had told police.  Mr. G. B. McClure for the prosecution asked him why he did not call for an ambulance for Lillian, to which he replied “With me it self first, self last and self always.”

It took the jury two hours to reach a guilty verdict but they added a recommendation to mercy on account of Rodger’s age.

It was reported on Monday the 25th of October that Rodgers would appeal but this was later withdrawn.

Mercy was not forthcoming and Rodgers was hanged at Pentonville prison at 9.00 a.m. on Thursday the 18th of November 1937, by Thomas Pierrepoint, assisted by Henry Pollard, for whom this would be his last job as an assistant.  Rodgers was quite a small man at five feet four inches tall and 140 lbs. in weight.  Pierrepoint gave him a drop of 7 feet 11 inches.

Rodgers had been engaged to be married to Miss Irene Scott.  In February 1938 she married Rodgers’ brother, Matthew, at Watford Registry Office.

Rodgers’ mother who died in 1925 had been convicted of manslaughter when he was just 4 years old and served a five year prison sentence for cutting his father’s throat.

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