On the 21st of June 1935, a murder was committed, a murder that would go down in history as one of the great mysteries of its time. John Simmons was shot and killed inside a locked and bolted room at his home. No weapon was found and the killer was never caught. As a man, Simmons was not known to have had any enemies and this strange crime appeared to have been committed without a motive.
What made the mystery even more enduring was the profession of Mr Simmons. In his early life, Simmons was a reasonably successful magician. Most of the tricks and illusions he performed were devised and built by himself. Simmons wasn’t really a people person. He may have lacked the panache of more polished entertainers, but the quality of his illusions more than made up for any shortcomings in his performances. His tricks soon became famous within the magic fraternity. So much so that he gave up performing and instead made a good living devising and building illusions for other more established magicians. He also wrote many books on the subject.
In 1927, Simmons purchased Oxley Hall, a rather grand manor house on the outskirts of Oxford. He lived there with his young wife, Constance, and live-in housekeeper, Sally Green. Local handyman, Andrew Harper, also worked there five or six days a week. Although comfortably well off, Simmons was careful with his money and did not like to spend it unless he really had to. To him, the people he employed were a necessary evil as the manor and grounds proved too much for the Simmons to maintain alone. In 1934, Sally was dismissed by Simmons following accusations from Constance that she had stolen a broach belonging to her. Sally was never replaced and she took her own life three days later.
Sally Green's untimely demise did not come as a shock to the locals. Over the years, Oxley Hall had witnessed many such tragedies. It was widely considered to be an unlucky house and many claimed it was haunted. John Simmons did not believe in ghosts or hauntings. He was aware of the manor's history and put it down to coincidence and superstition. In fact, Simmons had written many books on the subject and claimed all such events could be explained away with logical thinking. Undeterred by past events, Simmons enjoyed living there and made several improvements to the property.
A small barn on the grounds of Loxley Hall had been converted into a workshop. If Simmons wasn’t in there building an illusion, he could be found in his study on the third-floor writing. This is where the infamous murder took place. The study was located in the west wing at the end of a long narrow corridor. Over the years, Oxley Hall was used for many things. At one time it was used by the local magistrate to hold court. Simmons's study was the holding cell and as such was the only room in the manor to have bars on its windows.
Nonetheless, the room provided good light throughout the day and was the perfect place to sit behind a typewriter. Simmons spent many hours in there doing just that. There was a rule in the house that whenever Simmons was in there he was not to be disturbed. Sally knew to keep well away when he was writing. He was even known to miss a meal or two. Once he had an idea in his head he wouldn’t stop until it was written down. Inspiration could hit him at any time.
It was 11:30 on the morning of the 21st of June 1936. Simmons was in his study writing. Constance had just returned from a shopping trip in Oxford. Simmons had asked her to give him a shout when lunch was ready. Once prepared, Constance went up to his study to fetch him. Lightly knocking on the door at first, Constance called out his name. When he failed to reply she turned the handle, it was locked. Kneeling down, she tried to look through the keyhole but the key was inserted from the other side. Her knocking became more and more frantic. It was soon obvious that something was very wrong. Simmons was locked in the room and unresponsive to her calls and knocking. Constance tried to force the door open but lacked the necessary strength.
The only person who could have helped was the handyman, Andrew Harper, but it was his day off. With no other option available, Constance telephoned the police. Given Simmons fame and standing, a senior officer was dispatched to the manor. Detective Inspector George Monroe soon arrived with two uniformed police officers. It isn't clear from police notes who exactly forced the door, but force their way in they did. What they saw inside the room was a murder mystery that would go unsolved for almost forty years.
John Simmons was found at his desk, slumped down over his typewriter. He had suffered a single gunshot to the heart. He would have died instantly and as such very little blood was found at the scene. Immediately, inspector Monroe declared the room a crime scene and ordered PC Whitlock to phone for the coroner and a forensic team to attend. In the meantime, PC Cooke took Constance down to the kitchen to make a statement. She told the officer that she had been out shopping all morning. The only other person with access to the manor was the handyman but it was his day off.
Inspector Monroe remained in the study in order to start his preliminary investigation. His first priority was to locate and secure the murder weapon, but no such weapon was found at the scene. By his own evidence, the room had been securely locked and bolted from the inside. The windows were barred and the room had no other visible exits. Taking the notebook from his pocket, Monroe drew a rough sketch of the room. At first glance, several items appeared to be out of place in such a room. The typewriter had also been damaged. Several type-bars were missing and looked like they had been snapped off.
A silver coloured metal bucket was placed on the floor about three feet from the desk and directly in line with the deceased. Inside the bucket were a crystal ball and a rose taken from the garden. A small length of red rope approximately three feet long was tied around the base of the bucket. About two feet behind that was a small rag doll placed on the floor in a seated position. Even more bizarrely, the doll had been blindfolded and surrounded by playing cards. It was obvious to Monroe that something extremely odd had occurred in that room.
At around 12:20 PM, a three-man forensic team arrived. The coroner, Mr McKee, arrived shortly after. McKee agreed with Monroe’s initial assessment of the cause of death. A full autopsy later that day confirmed that Simmons did indeed die as a result from a single gunshot to the heart. Apart from the fatal gunshot, no other wounds were found. Analysis of Simmons blood showed no signs of drugging or excessive alcohol use prior to his death. As no weapon was found at the scene the coroner recorded an initial verdict of unlawful killing, murder.
Only two people had keys to the manor, and therefore access, his wife Constance, and the handyman, Andrew Harper. There were no signs of forced entry to the property and all the windows and doors were found to be secure. Constance had receipts from her shopping trip and Harper had spent the morning tending to a small bonfire in his garden. One of his neighbours confirmed such. As neither Constance nor Harper had any apparent motive for the murder, the final verdict was murder by person or persons unknown.
There were many peculiar aspects to this murder. Despite a substantial reward being offered, no new leads were found and the case went unsolved. Many tried over the years. Various private investigators and armchair sleuths took an interest but failed to come up with any satisfactory conclusions. The murder though had become the subject of many books and articles over the following years. All kinds of theories evolved including aliens and poltergeists. One book even suggested that the whole village may have had a grudge against Simmons and conspired to commit and cover up the murder.
Then, in 1975, thirty-nine years later, the case was finally solved. Handyman, Andrew Harper, was now in his late sixties and terminally ill in hospital. He was suffering from the late stages of lung cancer and had only weeks to live at best. One morning whilst being attended to by a nurse, Harper asked if she would be kind enough to fetch him a solicitor. He made it clear that he wanted a solicitor well versed in criminal matters as he had a serious confession to make. Later that afternoon he was visited by Oxford solicitor, Henry Winters. Winters was a senior partner in his law firm and specialised in criminal cases.
Harper was very unwell at this point and Winters suggested that he should only make a written statement. Only once it was completed and legal advice given, should the police be informed. Harper agreed and over the next two days laid out in great detail how and why he committed the murders. Upon completion, Winters contacted the police and made arrangements for them to visit Harper in hospital. His statement reads as follows.
I Andrew Harper, would like to confess to the murders of John Simmons and his wife, Constance Simmons. I killed them because I held them responsible for the death of my friend, Sally Green. Sally was a good and honest girl. Mrs Simmons accused her of stealing a broach. Mr Simmons sacked her before asking any questions or supplying any evidence. She was thrown out of the house without any money or even her personal possessions. A few days later, Sally jumped to her death off Bradley Bridge. I later learned that Mrs Simmons had found the lost broach. It was still attached to a coat she had worn a few weeks before. I couldn’t allow Sally’s death to go unpunished, so plotted the murders.
The first murder took place on the morning of the 21st of June 1936. I used a revolver belonging to Mr Simmons which I had previously taken from the writing desk in his study. I knew that’s where he kept it and believe it was his service revolver he had kept from the war. I had been working in the house the day before and was told by Mr Simmons that his wife intended to go shopping the following morning. He also said that I should take the day off as he had some work to finish off in his study. I saw this as a good opportunity as I would have plenty of time to set things up.
As I lived alone at the time, nobody would miss me that morning. Even so, I wanted to be seen to be at home. I had a lot of garden waste to burn so started a small bonfire in my rear garden. While I was outside, Mrs Simmons drove past and gave me a wave. Luck was on my side that day. Just as I was about to leave, my neighbour, George, came down the side of my cottage. He told me he was just popping down the shops and asked if I needed anything. I gave him some coppers and told him I could do with a pint of milk. The local shops were a good walk away and would take him at least thirty minutes to return. That would give me plenty of time to get to the manor, do what I needed to do, and get back.
I took the short walk across the field and entered the house through the kitchen. My boots were a bit wet and muddy as it had rained a little the night before. I took them off outside so as to not leave any muddy footprints in the house. I then made my way upstairs to the corridor on the third floor. At the top of the stairs, there is a small built-in cupboard where I had put all the things, including the revolver, the afternoon before. The cupboard is not used very often and I had the only key. I knew they would be safe there. I could hear Mr Simmons typing so I quietly unlocked the cupboard and removed the revolver. I then made my way down the corridor.
As I walked in on Mr Simmons he was sitting at his desk, I stood in front of him. He asked me what I was doing there. I didn’t say anything; I just pointed the revolver and fired a single shot into his chest. Mr Simmons slumped back in his chair, he was clearly dead. I was actually surprised at how little blood there was. His eyes were still open so I pushed him forward over his desk. It was only then that I thought about removing some of the type-bars from his typewriter. It didn’t take long to snap them off. After that, I went back to the cupboard to fetch the other items.
After placing them on the floor in front of Simmons desk, I set about locking the door from the outside. I was often alone in the house and had practiced on the lock many times. It was simple really; it was all done with string and a magnet. It was the thin but strong string I used in the garden for tying up shrubs to fences and the like. Just above the lock on the door was a small sliding bolt. For best effect, I wanted to use both. The sliding bolt was the hardest to crack as it fit snugly in the catch. I got around this by undoing the screws a little. This allowed the bolt to slide in and out with ease.
It was then quite easy to slide the bolt over from the other side using the large magnet. I’d helped Mr Simmons build one of his illusions about a year before. I can’t remember exactly what the trick was; only that it involved a very strong magnet and some steel balls. That prop was still inside the barn so getting hold of the magnet was easy. As for the key, I had a long length of my gardening string. The key itself was of the standard type with a hole in the flat bit you turned. I put the string through the hole so that the key was roughly in the middle. I wrapped one side of the string around the key several times.
Then I slid both ends of the string under the door and pulled the door shut. Keeping both ends of the string under tension, I pulled on the side that was wrapped around the key while slowly releasing the other side of the string. This worked really well and the key started turning. As soon as the door was locked I let go of one end of the string and pulled the whole length back under the door. That’s when I used the magnet to slide the bolt over. Even though I had loosened the screws on the sliding bolt latch, I knew that when the door was forced open it would still break away from the frame. They would never suspect that the screws were already loose or how it could have been moved over from outside.
As for the purpose of the items I’d placed on the floor. That idea was actually given to me by Mr Simmons, not directly of course. Mr Simmons was always showing me magic tricks. One day I asked him how he does it. He said it was easy, it was all about distraction. Basically, look over here while I do something over there. That was the art of the magician, to distract you from what was really going on. Once you understand that, the rest is simple. Over the years, police and others tried to make sense of those objects. They were just random items I placed there to confuse and distract. The more time spent looking at them and their meaning, the less time spent looking at the lock, simple genius really. I was often amused when I read about the significance various writers placed on them over the years. Mr Simmons was right; they did prove to be a distraction.
Once I finished in the manor I made my way back home. I knew the police would be searching the area for the gun. As my time was limited, I couldn’t hide it very far from the house. Using a long branch I’d prepared earlier, I placed the gun up inside an old bird's nest at the edge of the woods. I could see that tree from my cottage so would know if it was found, it wasn’t. I made it back in plenty of time to put some more garden waste on the bonfire before George returned with my milk. The smoke from the bonfire disguised any smell left on my clothes from firing the revolver.
I was still outside when Inspector Munroe arrived with a uniformed officer. He told me that Mr Simmons had been murdered and asked me where I had been all morning. I told him that I had been in my garden, my neighbour George confirmed that. I don’t know why George didn’t mention going down the shops, he just didn’t. As far as Inspector Munroe was concerned, I had been at home all morning and my neighbour confirmed just that. He asked me if I minded having my cottage searched. I was only too happy to let him as nothing inside could incriminate me. Besides, I had no apparent motive.
Over the next few weeks, I saw various police teams searching the grounds and woods around the manor. They must have walked past the revolver at least a dozen times. At one point some soldiers from the nearby barracks showed up with metal detectors. They even put a couple of divers in the lake. As soon as life returned to normal I retrieved the revolver and buried it in my cellar. It’s still there under some flagstones supporting a very heavy metal workbench. I was intending to use it again on Mrs Simmons. I had it all worked out but an even better opportunity presented itself, and I took it.
Mrs Simmons had a yappy little dog called Princess. She used to take it everywhere. It must have gone missing as I could hear Mrs Simmons calling out its name. I was in my garden when I heard her in the nearby woods. That was quite early in the morning and she continued at various times throughout the day and into the early evening. That’s when I got the idea. It was late in the day but still reasonably light. Mrs Simmons was in the woods near the end of my garden.
I walked over to her and said that I’d overheard someone in the pub talking about a small dog, he had seen walking along Bradley Road. I suggested she should look there and offered to help, she was happy to accept. We could have walked there but she wanted to take the car. The sun was going down by now and it was starting to get dark. A short drive took us to Bradley Bridge. There is a little lay-by just before the bridge and we stopped there. I walked onto the bridge and looked over. Mrs Simmons was outside the car calling for the dog. I shouted to her that I thought I saw something.
She hurried over to me and I pointed down, over the bridge. As she bent over to look I gave her a little push. She went straight down like a stone. The water below is deep, cold, and rocky. I watched as her lifeless body was swept under by the current. Nobody saw me and I returned home through the woods. Although I had a more convoluted end planned for Mrs Simmons, I felt like it was poetic justice that she should go the same way as my friend Sally.
It was two days before her body was discovered. The police believed that she committed suicide over the death of her husband, the inquest agreed. After the inquest, I received a visit from the police. They wanted the keys to the manor. Story has it that when they entered they found the little dog yapping in the kitchen. It had somehow been in the house all the time. The people of the village said what a tragedy it was for both of them to die. Nobody talked about the tragedy of poor Sally Green.
After the statement was read out, the solicitor handed the detective a small brown envelope. Inside were the three missing type-bars from the typewriter in Mr Simmons study. They contained the letters I.O.U. The police charged Harper with both murders but the case never went to trial. Harper finally succumbed to his illness and died two weeks later. At his request, he was buried in the local churchyard, close by his friend Sally. Those two murders have put Oxley Hall on the map and are now open to the public through the holiday season.
