The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes (66 page)

While on Death Row, he campaigned against gang culture and wrote children’s books aimed at deflecting gang membership. He also appealed against his sentence, steadfastly maintaining his innocence, although he refused to apologise for crimes that he said he did not commit.

His execution, when it came in December 2005, had all the elements of a ritual. Williams’s final appeal for clemency was refused by the Governor of California on 12 December on the grounds that without an apology there could be no redemption. The decision was received with fury in some quarters and concern was reflected around the world. A popularly expressed view was that if Williams did not merit clemency, what did clemency mean in California? The man on Death Row, in an interview with a news agency, retained his serenity, and said that fearing the end would not benefit him.

As the time of execution drew near, unprecedented numbers of people gathered outside the gates of San Quentin Prison, singing “We Shall Overcome”. Even at this late hour, further appeals were made and rejected. Some protesters held up a banner featuring an image of California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and bearing the message, “Stop me before I kill again”.

Nearly forty witnesses assembled in the death chamber as Williams received the lethal injection. At 12.35 an announcement was made to those mounting a silent vigil that “Tookie” Williams was dead. There were cries of “Long live Tookie Williams” and quieter suggestions that the rejection of clemency in this case was a moral failure.

Identity Thief

When a reclusive millionaire was found murdered in his north London home, the evidence pointed to identity theft as a motive. The investigation led to the first murder trial in Britain to be covered by a secrecy order on the grounds of national security.

Eighty-four-year-old Allan Chappelow lived in a dilapidated house with an overgrown garden in Hampstead. He was a scholarly man and writer, regarded locally as a harmless eccentric, not least because of his habit of riding a motorcycle in his dressing gown.

Concerns over his safety began to grow in May 2006 when there were reports that his bank accounts were being unlawfully accessed. When he did not respond to calls, the police became involved with what they thought might be a missing persons enquiry. It became known that when Chappelow returned home on 1 May after a visit to the USA, he found that the door of his house had been forced open and that mail had been stolen.

On 14 June, the police entered his home and discovered his body, which was lying under a four-foot-high pile of papers. He had been severely beaten about the head, with injuries inflicted by a heavy instrument. There was a great deal of blood spatter and his clothes were covered in wax burns, suggesting that he might have been tortured for information. The body was badly decomposed and it was believed Chappelow had been dead for three weeks.

Enquiries revealed that from mid-May until the middle of June, systematic attempts had been made to access the dead man’s accounts using information gleaned by theft of mail delivered to his home. Twenty thousand pounds had been transferred out of one of his bank accounts.

The postman recorded a brief encounter he had with a Chinese person at Chappelow’s house who had quizzed him about the mail he was delivering. The man was forty-six-year-old Wang Yam, a British subject born in China. Yam, made a bankrupt in 2006 with debts of over £1 million, lived with
his girlfriend in a house two streets away from Chappelow’s home. It seemed that the couple were behind with the rent and were facing eviction. Yam had set up an e-mail account in Chappelow’s name at an internet café which he then accessed from his flat. Aware that a police investigation was gaining momentum, he fled to Switzerland.

Yam had graduated from a university in China and taken a lecturing post in Beijing. He became involved in the pro-democracy movement which alienated him from the Chinese government. He fled the backlash by escaping to Hong Kong where he was accepted as an asylum seeker in 1992 and later became a British citizen.

Following his extradition from Switzerland, Yam was charged with murder, theft and fraud, which he denied. His story was that a gang had murdered Chappelow and they had passed on to him the credit cards and bank details so that he could steal from the dead man’s accounts. Forensic examination of the cigarette butts found at the crime scene established that the DNA on them was not Yam’s.

He was tried at the Old Bailey in April 2008 when the Home Secretary ruled that most of the evidence would be heard in secret. This was because of Yam’s background as a Chinese dissident when he worked as an informer for MI6. The jury failed to reach a verdict on the murder but he was found guilty of fraud. At his second trial in January 2009, he was found guilty of killing Allan Chappelow for the purpose of stealing his identity. Yam claimed that he had been framed. In a criminal case that made legal history, he was sentenced to a minimum of twenty years in prison.

Puppet Master

On New Year’s Day 2008, fourteen-year-old Stefanie Rengel was stabbed to death outside her home in East York, Toronto. She was in the family home with her brother when she was lured outside by a nineteen-year-old youth acting on instructions from his girlfriend. He stabbed Stefanie six times and left her dying on the snow-covered ground.

The instigator of the killing was a fifteen-year-old girl who could not be named because she was regarded as a youth offender. In March 2009, her boyfriend, referred to as DB, appeared in court to answer charges of murder. He pleaded guilty and was duly convicted.

The girl who had orchestrated the killing was tried as a youth offender and throughout the initial proceedings was referred to as MT. The prosecution case was that she was obsessively jealous of Stefanie whom she had never met, but regarded as a rival. Over several months, she used all her powers of persuasion to coerce her boyfriend to kill Stefanie. She pestered him with telephone calls and text messages until he finally gave in and agreed to do her bidding. In one message MT said simply, “I want her dead” and she turned the screw further by threatening to “block” DB “until you kill her”.

The defence argued that MT suffered from a body-image disorder which made her anxious and insecure. She was obsessed about her appearance, believing she was fat, ugly and unattractive. Her insecurities, it was said, made her anxious about her self-image and she saw threats in others who she viewed as rivals. A forensic psychiatrist testified that she had a borderline personality disorder.

In March 2009 MT was convicted of first-degree murder. In further court proceedings in July, she read a tearful statement apologising to the family of the dead girl and admitting full responsibility for what had happened. Stefanie Rengel’s mother made a moving victim-impact statement concerning the violent death of her young daughter. Her poignant words about her grief made a powerful impression on the public.

On 28 July, MT appeared in court to face her sentence. At issue was whether she would continue to be treated as a youth offender, in which case she would receive a lesser sentence than if she was sentenced as an adult. The prosecutor argued for an adult sentence. He said that MT had calculated the murder over several months and he dismissed the extenuating circumstances that the defence had proposed.

Defence arguments that MT did not wield the knife that killed Stefanie and was home at the time, carried little weight.
Mr Justice Ian Nordheimer ruled that MT should be given an adult sentence and, from that point, she became Melissa Todorovic. She was given an automatic life sentence. The judge commented that, “Put simply, the puppet master is not less blameworthy than the puppet.”

In November 2009, the judge ruled that DB should be identified and treated by the court as an adult. Nineteen-year-old David Bigshaw, who had previously pleaded guilty, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

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