HANRATTY The Final Verdict.

Hardback, 1st edn. On the night of August 22, 1961, a lone gunman ambushed a couple in their Morris Minor in a cornfield at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire. Forcing them at gunpoint to drive through the night, he directed them up the A6, and to a lay-by on Deadman's Hill, just outside the village of Clophill in Bedfordshire. There, he shot and killed Michael Gregsten before raping Gregsten's companion, Valerie Storie, and leaving her for dead. She survived to give crucial evidence against James Hanratty, the man convicted and hanged for what became known as the A6 murder. Even at the time of the execution on April 4, 1962, there was widespread unease about the conviction. Was this really a motiveless crime? What of Hanratty's alibi, dismissed by the prosecution at the time? Most startling of all, what of the confessions of one Peter Louis Alphon, the first suspect in the case? A campaign to clear Hanratty's name, originally spearheaded by James Hanratty's father, continued over the years. Thirty years after one of the last state executions in Britain, the author, a journalist, revived interest in the case with his painstaking and gripping reconstruction in the documentary 'Hanratty - The Mystery of Deadman's Hill'. This book pieced together, for the first time, all the evidence, in what was considered a shameful miscarriage of justice. Since that time, however, with the advancement of DNA, strong evidence emerged that Hanratty was in fact guilty after all. Illus., Chronology, Appendices, Bibliog. and Index. 497pp. lge 8vo. h/back. Small 'beverage' mks. to fore-edge o/w F. in Nr. F. dw. A fairly heavy book which will require additional postage particularly if shipped overseas.