22 year old Rex Harvey Jones, a colliery repairman of Duffryn Rhondal near Port Talbot murdered Beatrice (Peggy) Mary Watts, aged 20, on Sunday the 5th of June 1949 in the Forestry Plantation at Nantybar Mountain near Port Talbot.
Rex and some friends had been out for a drink on a pleasant summer’s night at a club in Neath. Beatrice and a group of her friends had been to a dance in Morriston and the two groups met up in Victoria Gardens, Neath later that evening. They all went home on the bus. When they got off Rex said he would see Beatrice home and they walked together down an unlit country lane.
The next that was heard of them was when Rex phoned the police at 1.15 a.m. and told them to come as he had killed a girl, whose name he gave as Peggy Watts. The duty constable rode to the telephone box where Rex was waiting for him.
Rex could give no reason for killing her and told the constable that they had gone into the plantation on Nanytbar Mountain and had sex. When they had finished, he manually strangled her. He later told police that something had come over him and he knew he had strangled the girl because his thumbs were sore.
Jones was examined by Dr. J. M. Taylor at 3.35 a.m. on the 6th of July and found to be “extraordinarily cool and not in the least emotional.” “He seemed as if he had finished a day’s work and answered questions (I) put to him immediately.”
Jones was tried at the Glamorgan Assizes at Swansea before Mr. Justice Croom-Johnson on the 12th of July 1949 with the prosecution led by Mr. H Edmund and defence by Mr. Arthian Davies.
His confession was not withdrawn. In his summing up, Mr. Justice Croom-Johnson told the jury “If you are satisfied that this man is guilty you must ignore his previous good character, how ever high it may be.
You have to steel your hearts against good character and steel your hearts to see that justice is done.” The jury returned a guilty verdict, but with a recommendation to mercy.
Jones did not lodge an appeal and it was announced on Monday the 25th of July that the double execution would be carried out on Thursday the 4th of August 1949.
Case 2.
Robert Thomas MacKintosh was a 21 year old steel worker, from Vivian Square, Aberavon in Glamorgan south Wales.
16 year old Beryl Beechy’s family were friends with the MacKintosh family and had all lived in the same house at Green Park Street in Aberavon at one time.
On the evening of Friday the 3rd of June 1949, Beryl’s mum, Margaret, asked her daughter to take 10 shillings (50p) to Mrs. MacKintosh who lived in Vivian Square in Aberavon. Beryl was seen near there at 7.30 pm. walking in the right direction.
Her body was found on an ash heap on a nearby railway embankment the following morning, just 40 yards from her home. She had been strangled with a cord which was still round her neck. It was reported that Beryl had been “interfered with” presumably sexually, although it was not reported whether she was raped.
Police enquiries soon led them to the MacKintosh home. When they interviewed MacKintosh he told them that he got home from work at around 6 p.m. and that Beryl had called and given him the ten shillings, while he was cleaning the house.
The police made a detailed examination of the home and discovered blood stains in Robert’s room and noted that material found on Beryl’s dress matched that from the staircase of the MacKintosh home.
MacKintosh changed his story and said that he had invited Beryl in and something had come over him, causing him to strangle her. He then took the body out, covered in a coat and threw it over a low wall onto the railway embankment. He later made a statement in which he said “I have been a pig.
Something came over me and it was the same as happened before when I tried to kiss my sister. My mind went a blank.” It appears that MacKintosh had served in Egypt and Palestine while doing his National Service in the Army and this may have affected him. He claimed that it had and he had not been the same since.
MacKintosh was also tried at Swansea before Mr. Justice Croom-Johnson on the following day, the 13th of July 1949. His barrister, Mr. H. Glynn-Jones told the court that he was not going to call witnesses for the defence.
Addressing the jury he said “the devil of lust took possession of the heart of a young man of good character and unblemished record. Possessed by that devil such a man became for the time being something worse than the beast in the field.” MacKintosh did not appeal either.
Both men were hanged at 9.00 a.m. on Thursday the 4th of August 1949 by Albert Pierrepoint, assisted by Harry Kirk and George Dickinson, at Swansea Prison. This was the only time Dickinson acted as an assistant and he resigned afterwards.
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