John Birchall's Bad Bet

John Reginald Birchall was in most respects a tiresome murderer. His crime had no mystery to it, or even those little human touches that sometimes evoke a certain amount of sympathy for a killer. His was a coldblooded, selfish, thoroughly repulsive crime, and the only good thing that can be said about this story is that through a combination of luck and Birchall's own mistakes, he was soon arrested, and the jury had no problem with giving him the sentence he richly deserved.

The one curious touch to this case--the thing that lifts it above the commonplace for me--is that his was the only murder I know of that was committed in order to place a bet.

Birchall was born in 1866. He was the perfect example of what was a classic character from the Victorian and Edwardian eras: The young man from a "good family" who went very, very bad. His father, the Reverend Joseph Birchall, was a respected rector and an excellent scholar, who saw to it that his children received a first-rate education. When Reginald was twelve, he was sent to Rossall, a fine public school, where he was a talented student. When he was in his second year at this school, his father died, an event that marked the beginning of Reginald's downward spiral. His guardian moved him to a lower-quality school, where the boy fell in with a bad crowd, who taught him how to drink, gamble, and generally raise hell. He still managed to make it into Oxford, but he so ignored his studies in favor of riotous living that he left the University without getting a degree.

After leaving school, Birchall proceeded to do nothing in particular with his life. He tried various professions, but despite his native intelligence, he was too lazy and self-indulgent to make much of a success at anything. He married a girl named Florence Stevenson in 1888, but it is feared that his bride's main attraction for him was the fact that she was the heir of a very old and very well-to-do father.

Birchall badly needed these funds. His fondness for spending money, coupled with a reluctance to honestly earn it, had left him deeply in debt. He had recently taken to covering his expenses by writing bad checks, but he knew that expedient would not last forever. A change of scene was required if he wanted to stay out of prison, so he and his wife hopped a boat to Canada. He coupled his new residence with a new name. For reasons unknown to history, he began calling himself "Frederick A. Somerset," while broadly hinting that he and his wife were really "Lord and Lady Somerset." Unfortunately, the New World was no more profitable to Birchall than the old one had been. In 1889, the couple returned to England, one step ahead of a pack of angry creditors.

Like so many pampered and greedy people, he began to contemplate striking it rich through a life of crime--or, as Birchall himself put it, he "planned out a great scheme which I thought would land me safely upon the shore of comparative affluence and comfort." He recently got a "hot tip" on a horse named Sainfoin for the 1890 Epsom Derby. If he placed enough money on the longshot colt, his financial troubles would be over, at least for a while. But where to get the capital?

His "great scheme" was this: He would enlist one or two men in a bogus plan to set up a farm in Canada. His dupes would give him money up front, which he would use to make his genuine investment in Sainfoin. He assumed that "nothing could be said to us, as we could not be held in Canada for fraud committed in England."

Under the name of "J.R. Burchett," he placed notices in London newspapers advertising his desire to find a "gentleman's son" to go into business with him at his Canadian farm. It would be necessary for the men to invest £500 "to extend stock." This led to him coming to an arrangement with two young men, Frederick Benwell and Douglas Pelly. Pelly was incautious enough to give "Burchett" £170 as a down payment, but Benwell refused to "invest" anything until he saw the farm for himself.

In February 1890, the Birchalls sailed with Benwell and Pelly for Canada. The two "investors" had no idea that Birchall had come to the same financial agreement with each of them. During the trip, Birchall kept his two "business partners" apart by cleverly poisoning their minds against each other, with the result that by the time the voyage was over, Benwell and Pelly were scarcely on speaking terms. The last thing Birchall wanted was for his two marks to get together and compare notes.

When the ship arrived in Buffalo, New York, Pelly and Mrs. Birchall stayed at a hotel while Birchall and Benwell took a train to Ontario to inspect this mythical farm. A few hours later, Birchall returned, alone and in very good spirits. He explained that he left Benwell behind at the farm.

The next morning, the trio traveled across the border to Niagara Falls. When they arrived, Birchall invited Pelly out for a walk to inspect this natural wonder. Birchall urged his companion to get very close to the water's edge, as "it is the best way to see the Falls." Pelly was not particularly eager to do so, but Birchall was so insistent, he finally complied. They were both disagreeably surprised to find that they were not alone. Another man was already there, staring into the deep, ferocious waters.

Pelly had no reason to believe he was in any danger, but his subconscious, fortunately, was wise enough to alert him that something was very wrong with this scene. He swiftly turned and went back to the hotel. His companion slowly followed him. Pelly later recalled that Birchall was gloomy and silent for the rest of the day.

The next day, Birchall talked Pelly into another tour of the Falls. Again, he urged Pelly to stand very close to the rapids, but, in Pelly's words, "his manner seemed so coldly quiet, so repellant, that instinctively I drew back and made my excuses for not going near the edge, and went away."

The next day, Pelly read in a newspaper that the body of a murder victim had been found in a swamp in nearby Woodstock. He had been shot in the back of the head. No clue was found to identify the corpse, except for a cigar holder that had apparently fallen from the body. It bore the initials "F.W.B." Birchall immediately voiced his suspicion that the dead man was Benwell. Pelly, already somewhat unnerved by his companion's odd behavior, was so alarmed at this statement that he secretly provided himself with a revolver.

Later that same day, Birchall again lured Pelly out of the hotel on some pretext. Again, it involved them going near the Falls. And again, Birchall made another attempt to get Pelly to take a close view--a very, very close view--of the water. Pelly, however, this time flatly refused to go anywhere near the rapids--or Birchall.

It was not a very cheerful walk back to the hotel for either man.

Birchall then announced that Benwell had sent him a message asking to have his luggage forwarded to a hotel in New York. He was not particularly impressed by the farm, and had decided against the proposed partnership. The next day, Pelly saw in the newspaper a photograph of the murdered mystery man at Woodstock. "That looks like Benwell," he told Birchall.

Birchall scoffed at the idea, reminding him of the "message" Benwell had sent. It was finally decided that Birchall and his wife would go to Woodstock to inspect the body, while Pelly went to New York to see if Benwell had indeed arrived there.

After the Birchalls viewed the corpse, they met with John Wilson Murray, the detective investigating the Woodstock murder. They confirmed that the murdered man was indeed Frederick Benwell, a man Birchall said he had known "only slightly." The dead man, he explained, was only a casual acquaintance that he had met while sailing to Canada on the "Britannic." He only got a "brief line" from Benwell after they arrived in Canada.

As the two men chatted affably, Murray noticed that Mrs. Birchall seemed strangely tense and unhappy. She paced up and down the room, as though the conversation was upsetting her.

Afterward, Murray couldn't shake the suspicion that Birchall had not been entirely forthcoming with him. He did not at that time think the man had been involved in Benwell's murder, but his policeman's instinct told him that there was just something a bit "off." He followed Birchall to Niagara Falls to question him again. He also talked to Pelly, who had just returned from New York without finding any sign of Benwell. This interview told Murray quite enough about Birchall to order a warrant for his arrest.

Once Birchall and his wife were in custody, Murray set out to trace Birchall and Benwell's movements on the day they left together to "inspect the farm." He found a number of different witnesses who had seen the two traveling from Niagara Falls to Eastwood, a train station a few miles from the swamp where Benwell's body was later found. He found more witnesses who had seen them leaving the train and heading in the direction of this swamp. He found a farmer who had heard two gunshots shortly after the Englishmen had walked off together. He found still more witnesses who had seen Birchall returning to the Eastwood station, quite alone. In short, Murray soon had as pretty a chain of damning circumstantial evidence as any detective could ever hope to see.

There was more. The dead man's father sent Murray a letter Birchall had sent him. The note cheerfully talked about Benwell's deep satisfaction with the farm and his eagerness to go into a partnership with Birchall. Birchall urged the father to send the £500 Benwell had promised him.

The letter was dated February 20--three days after Benwell had been murdered.

Birchall's murder trial was one of the least suspenseful in Canadian history, but it attracted a stunning amount of media attention. Newspapers all across Canada, America, and England sent reporters to file dispatches on the proceedings. The courtroom was even wired for sound so the public could listen in on the trial. It was probably the first live broadcast of any murder trial.

Birchall consistently asserted his innocence, but it was hard to find anyone who believed him. The defense made a feeble effort to argue that in the four-and-a-half hours between his train trips to and from Eastwood, their client would simply not have had the time to murder Benwell, but the prosecution easily made short work of that contention. The jury swiftly returned a verdict of "Guilty," and everyone--probably even the defense attorneys--would have been deeply shocked if they had come to any other conclusion.

"Illustrated Police News"

Birchall was hanged on the morning of November 14, 1890. He had evidently decided that although he had not lived like a gentleman, he was at least going to die like one. He walked to the gallows with a composed, dignified demeanor, politely shook hands with the executioner, and even had a slight smile on his face as the noose was placed around his neck. The hangman said afterward that he had "never before beheld such an exhibition of nerve." Such sang-froid, ironically, just made it plain to him how Birchall could have committed cold-blooded murder.

It was truly a crime where the grand old legal phrase, "committed at the instigation of the Devil" applied. Birchall took an innocent life, and thus forfeited his own, simply so he could bet on a horse race.

As what of Sanfoin, the horse who inadvertently provided a motive for murder? He won the Derby, at generous odds.

The Devil has always had a sense of humor.

Sanfoin

The Kidnapping of a Champion

While high-profile kidnappings of animals are less frequent than human abductions, they happen more frequently than you might think. Arguably the most famous example is the unsolved disappearance of the magnificent racehorse Shergar.

As a three-year-old in 1981, he won one of the most illustrious races in the world, the Epsom Derby, by 10 lengths--a record winning margin for the event. Later that year, he was named European Horse of the Year, and was retired to stud, where his connections--as well as race fans--earnestly hoped he might duplicate his success on the racetrack in the breeding shed. He was acclaimed as one of the greatest equines of the century.

Shergar was sent to Ballymany Stud farm in his native Ireland. He was not only an intelligent horse, but gentle and good-natured, so he was adjusting well to his new routine. There was no reason to suspect he had anything but a long, placid life ahead of him.

On February 8, 1983, those expectations went horribly, shockingly wrong.

It was a blustery, icy-cold day, so Shergar was kept inside his heated stable for most of the day. After a brief run in his paddock, the horse's 58-year-old "stable boy," Jim Fitzgerald, brought Shergar back to his shed and returned to his house on the farm's grounds, locking the main door of the stable behind him, as always. All was quiet.

No one was around to see a strange car enter Ballymany's main gate, which had been left unguarded on this wickedly cold, foggy, snowy night. Fitzgerald was completely unprepared when he heard a knock on his door. His son, Bernard, opened the door. A masked stranger asked him, "Is the boss in?" Then, without warning, the intruder delivered a blow to the young man's head that left him flat on the floor. Fitzgerald rushed into the room, only to see the man pointing a pistol at him.

Other masked men--Fitzgerald later thought it was eight or so of them--suddenly entered the house, as well. The gunman told him, "We've come for Shergar, and we want £2m for him. Call the police and he's dead."

Fitzgerald was led at gunpoint to Shergar's stable. They forced him to put tack on the horse, and they led the unsuspecting animal to their waiting truck, and drove off with him.  Some of the kidnappers stayed behind, where they trained guns at Fitzgerald's family for several hours. Fitzgerald was shoved into a second vehicle and driven around for three hours before being tossed out on to the road, with a warning not to call police.

The hunt for the prized stallion began with a bizarre game of "Telephone." Fitzgerald reported the crime, not to the police, but to the stud farm's manager, Ghislain Drion. Drion then called Shergar's vet. The vet called a friend, who in his turn called the Irish Finance Minister. This official then contacted the Minister for Justice. It was not until eight hours after Shergar was taken away that anyone thought to inform law enforcement that they had a particularly weird abduction on their hands.

The crime seemed a complete mystery. No one had any clues who had committed this unprecedented and peculiarly revolting crime, let alone any indication of where Shergar could be. People claiming to be the kidnappers eventually contacted several racing journalists, as well as one of the horse's owners, the Aga Khan, to relay their ransom demands. These moves toward negotiation came to nothing. The horse's syndicate never had any intention of paying a dime, reasoning that if they had given in to the criminals' demands, no valuable racehorse in the world would be safe. The BBC and the Irish racehorse trainer Jeremy Maxwell also received anonymous phone calls claiming that Shergar had suffered an "accident" which required him to be euthanized, but authorities suspected the calls were a sick hoax.  After four days, the alleged kidnappers simply stopped calling. And no one for certain has ever seen Shergar--alive or dead--since.

The kidnapping remained an utterly cold case until 1992, when an imprisoned Irish Republican Army leader-turned-informer, Sean O'Callaghan, told the world what had happened to Shergar.

According to O'Callaghan, another IRA member, Kevin Mallon, was given the job of stealing the horse. The plan was merely to hold Shergar for a great deal of money to pay for arms and other expenses. After the ransom was paid, the horse would be returned.

The plan quickly proved disastrous. O'Callaghan said Mallon told him that Shergar, in unfamiliar surroundings and in the hands of inept thugs, became so hysterical that his kidnappers were unable to handle him. In a panic--and quite scared of this huge, dangerously high-strung creature--the terrorists lost their heads completely and machine-gunned their frenzied captive. According to O'Callaghan, this pampered, noble animal died a particularly slow, agonizing death.

The story goes that the IRA gang dug a large pit in the remote mountains near Ballinamore, about a hundred miles from Ballymany. Then, Shergar's corpse was dumped in this hasty, unmarked grave.

This depressing story is considered the most probable explanation for Shergar's disappearance, but it has never been proven. For what it's worth, the IRA has never claimed responsibility for the theft, and O'Callaghan, like many professional rats, has shown himself to be chronically unreliable.

For years after Shergar vanished, there were numerous "sightings" of him reported all over the world. To this day, there are still racetrack folk who say that his kidnappers, once they realized the impossibility of collecting a ransom, merely turned him out to live "incognito" at some private farm or another.

One would certainly like to think this is what happened.

Whatever Shergar's fate may have been, his kidnapping was one of those crimes as utterly pointless as it was cruel. The thieves themselves--whoever they were--never profited from their crime. The companies who had insured the horse refused to pay Shergar's owners, on the grounds that it was never established that the champion was dead. Only those few members of the 34-member syndicate who insured him against theft received any compensation--about $10.6 million, according to Lloyd's.

When talking to a writer for the "Daily Telegraph" in 2008, Jim Fitzgerald still became teary-eyed when remembering the horse he had known and loved so well. "Shergar was a grand horse," he said. "He deserved better."

That is all anyone can say with any certainty about the matter.

The Earl of Glasgow, a Horse's Worst Friend

I have attended racetracks for over half my life. During that time, I have come to know—or know of—a good many people involved in the sport, from trainers to owners to jockeys to stable workers to clockers to management to railbirds to stoopers to handicappers to turf writers to professions-that-are-best-left-undescribed. The majority of the people involved in racing are hard-working, good-hearted, engaging types who see their horses not just as meal-tickets, but objects of love, if not veneration. However, as in every branch of human endeavor, the game has its share of cretins whom I would like to see staked across the finish line as the horses come thundering down the stretch.

For all the lowlifes I have encountered in racing, I do not know of any that quite compare to James Carr-Boyle, Fifth Earl of Glasgow (1792-1869.) In an admittedly crowded field, this man was one of the very worst racehorse owners in history, and unfortunately he had the money to back up every bad instinct he had. And, as racing was his main interest in life, those instincts were plentiful.

Glasgow refused to give his horses names until they had, in his estimation, earned one. As his horses usually ran up the track, they seldom did earn them, which caused a good deal of irritation and confusion among those souls unlucky enough to work in his stables. According to one story—which, considering the Earl, I find all too credible—on the night before one racing event, he was implored to give his three entrants names. He derisively christened them "Give-Him-a-Name," "He-Hasn't-Got-a-Name," and "He-Isn't-Worth-a-Name."

This (in the words of an early biographer) "touchy, crochety, headstrong old Scotch nobleman," was a breeder of disastrous obtuseness. He showed a perverse devotion to bloodlines “of proved uselessness.” The few talented horses he had were often doomed by his impatience, stupidity, and imperiousness. It was said that "no man in the history of the turf ever brought out so many bad horses"--and he had a gift for blaming these losses on everyone except himself.  Glasgow was renowned for his fickleness and capriciousness--he was constantly hiring and firing trainers and jockeys, until finally horsemen of any sort of success in their profession refused to work for him without a three-year contract.  A contemporary turf writer noted, "No one was so wayward and difficult to please, or so munificent when he was pleased."  The only way he kept good workers was to pay them large bonuses whenever they became offended by one of his frequent scoldings.  He was in the habit of ordering that equines who were not training up to his expectations be shot on the spot. One of his trainers said his record was six executions in one morning.

Another occasion turned out more fortunately for his stable—although I suspect his animals sensed they were literally running for their lives. At one racing meet, he became so exasperated by his losses that he had six of his horses run match races with other owners, vowing that all his losers would be shot. His first horse, Senorita, won by a length and a half. Then his Knight of the Garter won by three-fourths of a length. Double Thong looked doomed, but luckily his opponent bolted, making Glasgow's entrant the winner. His next two horses also finished first. Glasgow’s Ernestine was to have met the Duke of Bedford’s Miss Sarah, but the Duke, showing a considerably more humane spirit than his opponent, felt sympathy for these horses running under an open death threat. He gallantly withdrew his entrant, leaving Glasgow to officially sweep the field.

The Finish of the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, by Samuel Henry Alken.
Glasgow's finest horse, General Peel, won the race in 1864.

As a huntsman, the Earl showed the same appalling enthusiasm he brought to racing. When quarry was scarce, he simply designated one of his huntsmen as a stand-in fox and chased the poor fellow for miles.

One of the Earl's obituaries stated: “With all his foibles he was a glorious old landmark to the Turf, and while he was still among us defying the roll of the ages, with his quaint garb and blunt speech, some may perchance have felt that his presence was a wholesome corrective to the modern spirit, which has lowered 'the sport of kings' into a doubtful trade, a contest for honour into a lust for long odds."

Tell that to anyone on four legs. I normally have a soft spot for unabashed eccentrics, even the more outrageous ones, but as far as the Fifth Earl is concerned, may a pox be on his name.

It is a pity no one ever thought to introduce him to our old friend Anna Kingsford.

The Jockey Who Rode Into Oblivion

Al Snider

While we wait to see if California Chrome becomes the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, here is a look at one of horse racing's biggest mysteries, involving an earlier TC champion:

Early in March 1948, jockey Al Snider, the regular rider of Calumet Farm's magnificent colt Citation, and two friends, trainer C.H. "Tobe" Trotter and businessman Donald Frazier, set sail from Miami for a week-long fishing trip in the Florida Keys.  On the afternoon of March 5, the trio left their yacht, which was anchored in Sandy Key, to go fishing in a 15-foot skiff. They planned to return within an hour.  They carried with them reserve fuel, a jug of water, life-jackets, 75" of rope, extra spark-plugs, a bailing pail, oars, and an anchor.  Friends left behind on the yacht could see the skiff about a mile away. Then darkness began to fall, and the men were lost to view. Not long after that, the captain of a passing boat saw the three men. There was no sign of any trouble, and the sea was calm. The skiff was a half-mile from land, and in shallow water—no deeper than four feet. If the boat ran into trouble, they could easily swim, or even wade ashore. Snider and his companions were never seen again. A week later, a search party found the skiff, but not the slightest trace of the three men was ever found. Another oddity was that the boat was completely empty--oars, seat cushions, everything was gone.

Although their disappearance was officially ruled as an ordinary “accident at sea,” no one really knows what happened to the trio. If they were swept overboard by the sudden storm that blew in over two hours after they were last seen, they were close enough to land to make it odd that their bodies—or even life-jackets or clothing—never turned up.  And why would they still have been out fishing in the darkness, hours after their planned return to the yacht?  Lawrence Boido, one of the friends who remained on the yacht, later commented, "I just can't figure what they were doing for the two hours or more before the storm hit."

There were some far darker rumors about the tragedy. Snider was said to have been an honest rider who could not be bribed into fixing a race. To this day, some believe that Snider’s refusal to "pull up" Citation in certain key races made him some very dangerous enemies.  (I'm friends with an eightysomething fellow who worked at Calumet during the Citation era, and who knew Snider personally.  When I once asked him what he thought had happened to Snider, he instantly replied matter-of-factly, "Why, the gangsters got him. Everyone knew that.")  Tommy Trotter, the son of one of the other missing men, talked of getting “vague phone calls” from Cuba the evening of the disappearance. Years later, Snider’s daughter Nancy, who was just six when her father vanished, remembered being pulled out of school afterward because of fears for her safety.

Four months after the men disappeared, a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed ashore in the Keys. It had a message inside which read: "Help. One dead. No Joke. Al S." Sick hoax or baffling clue? No one knew.

Two months after Snider disappeared, Citation and his new rider Eddie Arcaro won the Kentucky Derby. Arcaro and Citation’s owner gave Snider’s wife half of their winnings from the race. The colt went on to win the Preakness and Belmont, as well as numerous other major races.  He will always be remembered as one of the greatest Thoroughbreds of all time.

Albert Snider has his place in history, too, but for all the most unfortunate reasons.

Snider after winning the Flamingo Stakes with Citation.
He disappeared less than a week after this photo was taken.