Ireland Crimes and Mysteries

00:00 Hey guys and welcome to another episode of Ireland Crimes and Mysteries. I want to thank you for joining me today. And if you're a returning listener, I want to say a big thank you for your continued support. 00:11 If this is your first time listening to my podcast, welcome. It's great to have you on board. 00:17 So without further ado, let's get started on today's story. 00:22 Ireland Crimes and Mysteries is presented by Go Loud, Ireland's leading audio publisher and the home of Irish podcasts. Find new episodes on the podcast first on the Go Loud app and on your favourite podcast platform. 00:36 On Tuesday morning, the 18th of February 1936, a small Austin car was found at the bottom of Coburn Lane in Shankill, County Dublin. 00:45 And this car wasn't just parked up at the side of the road. It was wedged against a barrier near the sea, almost like someone had tried to get past it and the car had become stuck, basically. 00:56 It had been lashing rain through the night and it was still coming down heavy that morning, but the driver's door was wide open. So was the sunroof. 01:06 Inside, there was blood on the floor and on the back seat. Outside the open door, there was blood in the mud as well. There was nobody in the car. 01:15 But there was an envelope, and on it was a woman's name and address in Boosterstown. Mrs Lavina Ball. 23 St Helens Road. That gave Gardie somewhere to start. 01:28 Hey guys, and welcome back to Ireland Crimes and Mysteries. I'm Newells, and thanks for joining me. I'd also like to say a big thank you to all of you that send me messages. I'm sorry if I don't get to reply to you. I get a lot of messages and I try to reply to as many of them as possible. So just bear with me. And if you don't hear back from me, you can always message me again and I will do my very best to try and reply to you all. But on that note anyway, as I said, thank you. So let's get back to this week's story. Now, the story itself takes us back to Dublin in 1936. 02:00 It begins with that little Austin car at the bottom of a lane beside the sea. But to understand how it got there, we need to go back to Booterstown and to the woman whose name was found on that envelope inside the car. Now, Lavina's first name has been written in a few different ways over the years. 02:18 She has also been referred to as Vina, Vera and sometimes Lavinia. But for today's episode I think I'll just stick with Lavinia so we don't get confused as to who we're talking about. Now before we get totally stuck into the story I do just want to give you a little warning as well. This episode does include a violent death and accounts of suicide and attempted suicide. So please take care while you're listening. 02:42 Lavinia Ball Knee Witherill lived at 23 St. Helens Road in Boosterstown. Her full birth name was Lavinia Brown Witherill. 02:51 Lavina was born in Sandymount on the 8th of June 1881. She was one of six children born to John Witherill and Margaret Mackenzie. 03:01 The Witherills were a well-off Dublin shipping family. Lavina's father John had been a master mariner before becoming a ship owner. The family business John Witherill and Sons operated from Delorier Chambers in Dublin and owned and managed cargo ships. 03:17 So Lavina had grown up around money and business. By 1936, she had approximately £12,000 held in securities, which was a considerable personal fortune at the time. And Lavina looked after her own financial affairs. She dealt with stockbrokers, had a secretary who worked with her at the house and took an active part in managing her money. 03:39 She married Dr Charles Preston Ball on the 29th of April 1903 at St Mary's Church in Rutland Square in Dublin. 03:47 Charles was a doctor and the couple had two sons. Their older son was John Charles Preston Ball. 03:54 By 1936, John was about 31, living in Liverpool and studying to become a veterinary surgeon. Their younger son was Edward Francis Alan Preston Ball, who was born in Dublin on the 9th of May 1916. 04:09 Charles and Levina separated in 1927. Edward was still a child at the time and by the time we come to the events of 1936, his parents had been living apart for nine years. And one person who saw something of the relationship between Charles, Levina and Edward during those years was Edward's school friend, Richard Cobb. Cobb was at Shrewbury with Edward and would later become a well-known historian of France. 04:35 He also came to Ireland and spent a lot of time with the Ball family. Now, Cobb would write about the family in his 1985 memoir, A Classical Education, looking back over a good 50 years. 04:48 His view of Lavina was very hostile. Although he also remembered her making a great fuss of him when he first arrived. Edward met him off the boat at Dunlaira and showed him around Dublin during his visit. So Cobb had spent time with them in ordinary day-to-day life before there was any police investigation of any description. 05:07 He gave Edward's parents names taken from mythology. He called Charles Moloch and Levina Medea and he remembered the two of them as being locked in a constant war which Edward caught between them. One of the things Cobb remembered involved silverware. Lavina told him Charles was keeping silver that belonged to her and Cobb offered to get it back. Edward would keep his aunt occupied while Cobb went in through the garden. Cobb described wearing an old cap pulled down over his face and waiting in a coal cellar for Edward's signal. 05:40 Well, a young maid came down with a torch, saw him and screamed, Cobb are in, leaving the cap and bag behind. According to Cobb, Lavina was angry when he returned without the silver. She blamed the two boys for making a mess of the plan. 05:55 On another visit, he remembered a row breaking out at the dining table. Lavina threw a teapot at Edward and the argument ended with mother and son throwing different household objects across the room. Those are difficult scenes to hear about a family. But there was more to both Lavina and Edward than the rouse Cobb remembered. 06:15 Edward left Shrewsbury in 1934. After that, he found it difficult to settle on a career. What did interest him was the Gate Theatre on Cavendish Row in Dublin. 06:26 He spent a lot of time there, watching rehearsals, auditioning and taking small walk-on parts. But they weren't payrolls and Edward wasn't making a living from acting. By early 1936 he was sharing a flat at one upper Mount Street with a man named Cecil Monson. 06:43 Edward was relying on money from his parents and was already behind with his share of the rent. 06:48 He was said to receive a pound a week from Lavina and a pound and ten shillings from Charles. The rent for the flat was said to be a pound, two shillings and sixpence a week, shared between Edward and Cecil. Then the Gate Company began preparing for its first Egyptian season at the Royal Opera House in Cairo. The season was set for March of 1936. 07:09 Now, Edward wasn't being offered a starring role. One later account said he had a chance to travel as a stand-in, but he would have to find the £60 towards the travel and he simply didn't have it. So this was all only weeks away. Some later accounts also mention a St. Patrick's Day broadcast in connection with Edward's hopes of joining the company. 07:29 Cecil Monson had been given a place on the tour as well. That meant he would be leaving Dublin and would no longer be paying his half of the rent on the flat. 07:37 So even if Edward couldn't find the £60 to travel, he was going to have trouble keeping the flat going on his own. 07:43 By the middle of February, that was exactly what had happened. 07:47 Edward couldn't afford to remain at Upper Mount Street and he went back to live with his mother. 07:53 Lavina had been unwell herself. There's an account of her spending about a month in a private nursing home after what was described as a nervous breakdown in November 1935. 08:04 By February, she was back at St Helens Road and Edward was asking to live there again. The account Edward later gave Gardaí began on Wednesday the 12th of February. 08:14 He said he called to St Helens Road at about five o'clock that evening and told Lavina he would have to give up the flat. 08:21 He asked if he could move back into her house. 08:24 Now, Lavina wasn't keen on the idea, but according to Edward, she reluctantly agreed. 08:29 He moved his things back in the following morning, arriving at about half past eleven. 08:34 Then he went off to play golf in Dunlaire and didn't return until around eleven o'clock that night. 08:40 The next day was Friday the 14th of February. 08:43 Edward said he found a letter from Levina telling him that if he intended to stay in the house that night, she would go and stay with a woman named Julia Allen in Stilorgan. 08:54 At dinner, Lavina again told him she didn't want him living there. She wanted him to go to his father's house or find room somewhere in town. But Charles wouldn't have him and Edward said he couldn't afford to rent anywhere else. He said Lavina was very upset during the conversation. 09:10 He gave her two glasses of sherry and after that she seemed to calm down. 09:15 Now, all of that is Edward's version of those days with his mother. He described Saturday and Sunday as fairly normal. By Monday, Edward had been back in Boosterstown for four days. 09:26 And on that Monday, the 17th of February, Lily Kelly was working at St. Helens Road. Lily was the maid and she prepared breakfast for Lavina and Edward. Mother and son ate together. 09:38 There had been another source of tension in the house. Edward said he discovered that Lavina was opening and reading some of his letters. One of them was from Cecil Monson and referred to four pounds in rent that Edward still owed. 09:51 Lavina's secretary, Miss Whelan, was also at the house that morning and the two women spent some time dealing with Lavina's business affairs. 09:59 Edward had lunch with them before heading into Dublin himself. He was hoping to speak to a Mr Grant at the Canada Life Assurance Company about the possibility of work. But when he got there, Mr Grant was busy and they only spoke briefly. 10:14 Edward also called into the hospital's trust office on O'Connell Street on Lavina's behalf, where he handed in some paperwork and collected receipts from a woman named Bessie Fleming. Then at around four o'clock, Lavina and Miss Whelan headed into town themselves. They called to Lavina's stockbrokers and dealt with some more business connected to the hospital's trust. 10:36 Edward said he got back to Booterstown at around 20 past 5. He put Lavina's return at around half past 5. Lavina had been shopping for a luncheon she was holding at the house the following afternoon. She'd brought home wine, cold meats and cigarettes for the guests. 10:52 There was work to be done for the next day and Lily was helping getting the house ready. 10:58 There had also been a row between Lavina and Lily that day and Lavina had given her notice. 11:04 But Lily stayed on to finish what she was doing and left shortly after six. 11:08 There was one other person still at the property. 11:12 Richard Mates carried out gardening and odd jobs for Lavina and that evening he had been chopping and stacking firewood. 11:19 The tool he used was a small hatchet. Mates said that when he finished, he put the hatchet back in a tea chest in the garden shed. 11:28 He spoke briefly to Lavina at the back door and put his departure at about five past six. 11:34 And with Richard Mates gone, Lavina and Edward were alone in the house. 11:39 The next person that we know came to the house was a postman carrying a registered letter for Lavina. 11:45 He put his first visit at about ten past seven. He said it looked dark so he continued with the rest of his deliveries and came back about ten minutes later. This time he could see a light in the garage. 11:56 He rang the bell but it wasn't Lavina who answered, it was Edward. 12:00 The postman handed him the registered letter and Edward accepted it on his mother's behalf. 12:06 The postman described him as calm and relaxed. 12:09 At around half past eight, a neighbour called Mr Gregory looked out through the rain. He saw Edward opening the garage door and then going out to open the garden gate. And then at around midnight, another neighbour noticed a light showing through the curtains of Lavina's room, her bedroom. But from the time Richard Mates left shortly after six that evening, nobody outside that house would describe seeing Lavina alive again. 12:35 Now, during the early hours of Tuesday, the 18th of February, a solicitor named Mr Tanham was driving towards Dublin with his wife. As they passed through Shankill, they saw a young man looking for a lift near the junction of Corbonne Lane and the Dublin Road. It was a miserable February morning and the man had no hat or coat. 12:53 He told the Tanhams that his name was Mr Winter and that he came from Tunbridge Wells. He has to be dropped near the corner of Aylesbury Road and Shrewsbury Road. During the journey, Mr Tanham gave the young man his visiting card. 13:07 Down at Corborne Lane, the little Austin remained jammed against the barrier near the sea. The lane was known as a place where courting couples sometimes parked and several motorists were reported to have passed through there during the night. 13:20 One man remembered seeing the Austen at around 10 o'clock. Other accounts placed it there for roughly an hour and its position appeared to have changed by the time it was found the following morning. 13:31 One later account of the witness evidence includes a strange detail. 13:35 In poor light, a passing motorist thought the driver had an arm around something or someone in the back of the car. One later account names the man who came upon the car on Tuesday morning as James Rafferty, a newspaper delivery man. And once the inside of the car was examined properly, the amount of blood became clear. 13:54 There was a blood-soaked towel on the floor along with pieces of blood-stained blotting paper which was the thick absorbent paper people used to dry wet ink. 14:03 There were drops of blood and strands of hair on the back seat and outside the open driver's door there was a large pool of blood in the mud. 14:12 Then they found the envelope addressed to Levina at St Helens Road. 14:17 Gardaí were called. The car was secured and a search began around the lane, the nearby fields and the shoreline. 14:24 The Austen had been pushed so tightly against the barrier and the bank that it reportedly took six Gardaí to free it. 14:32 The car was beside the sea but that didn't tell Gardaí where its owner was. 14:37 There were fields and a shoreline to search and there was that address in Boosterstown to check. Now, despite being given notice the previous day, Lily Kelly returned to St Helens Road that Tuesday morning. She got there at about half past eight. 14:52 Lavina usually left a key beneath the mat for her, but this time it wasn't there. The lock on one of the side doors was faulty, so Lily was still able to get into the house. Lavina's car was gone and there was water across parts of the kitchen, the hall and the stairs. 15:07 Lily went upstairs and knocked on Levina's bedroom door. There was no answer. Then Edward appeared. 15:13 He told Lily his mother had spent the night at a friend's house. The luncheon was still going ahead, he said, and she should keep getting the house ready for the guests. 15:22 Edward asked her to prepare a hot bath for him, but there was no hot water. A while later, he carried the electric kettle upstairs so he had hot water to shave. 15:33 Lily had never seen him do that before. At around half past ten, Edward came downstairs dressed to go. He was carrying a suitcase. 15:41 He told Lily he was going into town about a job and might not return that evening because his mother didn't want him there when the guests arrived. As he left he said, I hope you have an enjoyable party. So Lily had been told to expect Levina back and Edward was gone into town with the suitcase. 15:58 When senior Garda officers first questioned Edward, he told them that Levina had left St. Helens Road alone at about quarter to eight the previous evening. 16:07 He said she told him she was going to spend the night with a friend. He had opened the garage and the garden gates for her and hadn't seen her since. 16:15 Edward said he later called to his father's house at 81 Pembroke Road and learned that Levina's car had been found at Shankill with blood inside it. 16:23 When he was told it was a very large amount of blood, he asked whether it might have come from a cut hand or from an accident. 16:30 Chief Superintendent Reynolds wanted to look inside Lavinia's bedroom. The door was locked, but Edward couldn't produce a key. 16:38 Reynolds forced it open. The room was dark and an electric fire had been left burning. A hot water bottle from the previous night was still beneath the bedclothes and the bed itself didn't appear to have been slept in. 16:51 Elsewhere in the house, Gardie found a pair of men's shoes that were wet, muddy and appeared to be bloodstained. In Edward's room, there was wet and bloodstained linen wrapped in the previous day's newspaper. 17:03 As the searches continued, Gardie found more blood on clothing and spots on the wallpaper, the carpet, the garage floor, the driveway and the flower beds. 17:13 They also found Mr. Tannham's visiting card in Edward's bedroom. 17:18 That linked Edward's bedroom to a lift from Shank Hill and to the young man who'd called himself Mr. Winter. 17:27 There was another item in his room as well. It was the note Lavina had written telling him that she would go to Mrs. Allen if he intended to stay in the house. 17:37 On Wednesday, the 19th of February, Superintendent Dunleavy asked Edward why he hadn't reported his mother missing. 17:44 Edward struggled to answer. 17:46 Eventually he said that because the Gardaí already knew Lavina was missing before he did, he hadn't thought it was necessary to report it himself. 17:55 Dunleavy also asked him to go through his movements on Tuesday. 17:59 Edward said he'd gone into town about work, called to the sweepstakes office, had lunch in a cafe and visited the Gate Theatre before going to his father's house. 18:10 But when he was asked about carrying a suitcase out of St Helens Road, he denied having one. 18:16 Gardie traced a suitcase to a friend's flat on Bagot Street. It was opened with Edward present. Inside were clothes belonging to him and Lavina, heavily stained with blood. 18:27 Gardie also noticed scratches on his fingers. Edward tried to keep his hands out of view, but when he was asked about the marks, he said they came from horseplay with friends. 18:37 The account of Lavina driving off to a friend's house didn't explain those discoveries. Later that day, Superintendent O'Reilly of Bray spoke to him. 18:47 O'Reilly knew Lavina and had met Edward several years earlier. 18:51 His approach was gentler than the questioning Edward had already faced, and Edward asked if they could go out for a drive. 18:59 O'Reilly brought him towards Lombard Street, where Edward hoped to see a friend, but the friend wasn't at home. 19:05 The two men then went to a cafe. 19:08 Edward said he wanted to speak to a solicitor. O'Reilly brought him to an aunt's house in Dunlaira, where a solicitor named Miley met him. 19:17 After consulting Miley, Edward said he was ready to make a full statement. But first, he wanted to see his father. 19:24 At 81 Pembroke Road, Dr Charles Bell told his son that he should explain to the Gardaí what had happened. Edward was then taken to Ladlane Garda Station. 19:35 Back at Lad Lane, Edward now said his mother had never driven away from St Helens Road. He told Gardie that after Lily Kelly and Richard Mates left, he and Lavina had suffered together at about a quarter past six. 19:49 Lavina was upset about the luncheon she was preparing for the following day. A cover for one of the chairs didn't fit properly and she believed some of the cigarettes she had bought for the guests were missing. 20:00 Edward said the conversation then moved on to the family. According to him, Lavinia spoke about her marriage and said she felt her life had been a failure. She complained about her older son John and then said she was afraid Edward would be a failure as well. 20:15 He said she became more and more distressed and told him that life was hopeless and that she wished she was dead. 20:22 Edward claimed he tried to calm her. After supper, Lavina went upstairs to her bedroom. 20:27 Before she went, Edward said she made a strange request. She wanted him to promise that he wouldn't allow people to think she was a coward. 20:36 Edward said he remained downstairs for another 20 to 30 minutes. 20:41 Then at around 7 o'clock he went up to her room. 20:45 He claimed he found Lavina lying on the bed with blood coming from wounds to her neck. There was a double-edged Gillette razor blade beside her right hand and he could find no sign of life. 20:55 He described more than one wound on the right side of her neck and another on her right cheek. 21:01 Now, this was the central part of Edward's new story. He said Lavina had taken her own life and everything he did afterwards was to stop people from finding out how she had died. That, he said, was what she had meant when she said not to let people think she was a coward. 21:19 In the account he gave, he hadn't called for medical help or contacted the Gardaí. 21:24 Instead, he said he took hold of Lavina by the arms and pulled her from the bed. He said her body fell to the floor and a large amount of blood spilled onto the carpet. 21:35 He took a towel and tried to stop more blood flowing from her neck. 21:39 He then lifted Levina, carried her downstairs through the kitchen and brought her into the garage. 21:45 He put her into the back of the Austin. 21:47 Edward then went back upstairs, locked the bedroom door and took the key with him. 21:53 He changed his bloodstained shirt and collar before returning to the garage. His account included the opening of the garage and the gate that Gregory had described seeing. But Edward said he had trouble getting the car out. He hadn't driven a car for about four years. 22:09 He could get the Austen started, but he couldn't manage to reverse it out of the garage, so he pushed it backwards onto the road instead. 22:17 Once he got moving, he headed south towards Shankill. Edward said he hadn't switched on the lights until he reached Marion Gates. 22:25 One later account has him going through Cornell's Court and Cabin Tealy, then through Shank Hill in the direction of Bray. At one stage he took a turn and had to change direction, again because he couldn't reverse properly. He got out and physically pushed the car around. 22:41 Eventually, he came back through Shank Hill and turned down Corborne Lane towards the sea. 22:46 There was already another car parked near the end of the lane. Edward said he walked down to the shoreline, came back and then waited for around a half an hour until the car was gone. 22:57 After that, he tried to force the Austen past the barrier. It became stuck. 23:03 Edward said he took Levina's body from the back of the car and began dragging her down the roadway towards the water. 23:10 At different points, he pulled her by the legs and then by the arms. 23:14 He waded ankle deep into the sea and left his mother there. 23:19 He said he also threw the razor blade into the water. 23:22 Then he went back to the Austin. Edward said he left the driver's door and the sunroof open because he wanted to let the smell of the blood out of the car. 23:31 It was still lashing rain when he walked back up towards the main road looking for a lift. That was when Mr. and Mrs. Tanham came along. So in this account, the young man who'd accepted the lift was Edward himself. He put his arrival at the corner of Aylesbury Road and Shewsbury Road at about half past one. 23:51 From there he made his way back to Booterstown. Once inside, Edward began trying to clean the house. He used clothes and hot water to wash blood from the kitchen, the garage and the rooms upstairs. 24:02 He turned on the electric fire in Lavina's bedroom to dry the wet carpet. 24:07 He gathered bloodstained clothes, towels, pillowcases and clothing together and packed them into a suitcase. 24:14 At one stage he said blood clots blocked the drain in the scullery sink. He picked them out and threw them through the window into the garden. 24:22 Those admissions gave Gardie an explanation for the water Lily had seen, the fire in the bedroom, the blood outside and the suitcase. 24:32 But there was something Edward was quite clear he hadn't done. 24:36 He denied using or hiding the small hatchet from the garden shed. 24:41 And he denied killing Levina. 24:44 Now, admitting that he'd moved her body wasn't the same as admitting murder. His statement gave Gardie a route to follow and things they could check. It didn't settle how Lavina had died. 24:56 While Edward was being questioned and giving his statement, the search for Lavina was continuing. 25:03 His new account gave Gardie particular things to follow up, but it didn't narrow the operation to one small patch of shoreline. Guardian volunteers searched roads, fields, ditches and drains from Killiney towards Bray. 25:16 Teams worked the shore around Shank Hill while aircraft looked along the east coast of Dublin and Wicklow. Boats searched the water and grappling hooks were used as well. This was a huge search and still there was no sign of her. 25:30 But the sea wasn't the only place Gardaí were looking. 25:33 They also searched the abandoned lead mines at Ballycoris and the hills around them. They were keeping open the possibility that her body was somewhere on land and that the car had been left near the shore to point them in the wrong direction. 25:47 Edward had already changed his account once. They couldn't simply take his new one as the gospel, basically. They tried an experiment with life-size dummies, putting them into the sea with buoys so they could follow where the water carried them. 26:00 The idea was to learn where a body left at Corbonne might go. 26:05 But the weather and tidal conditions weren't the same as they had been on the night Lavina disappeared. The experiment couldn't give them a definitive route. 26:14 Police in Wales were asked to watch their coastline too in case a body had crossed the Irish Sea. 26:20 There was also another practical question in Edward's account. Could he have got Lavina out of the car and down to the water on his own? 26:27 A reconstruction was carried out at Corborne Lane. 26:31 One guard a lay in the back of a car and another pulled him out and dragged him down towards the shore. 26:36 The account of that test puts the time at less than eight minutes. 26:41 It showed that one person could move another that way. It didn't prove that Edward had followed the exact route on that Monday night or that Lavina had entered the water where he said she had. 26:51 At the house, the small hatchet was also found. 26:55 Mates had told Gardaí he had put it into a tea chest after chopping the firewood. Gardaí Patrick Murphy found it in a box beneath the chest instead. The blade appeared bloodstained. 27:07 Edward had denied using it or hiding it. He'd named a razor blade as the thing that he'd found beside Lavina and said he'd disposed of that in the sea. 27:17 Gardie could examine the hatchet but without a body it was hard to determine whether the hatchet had been used. The searches hadn't located her body and nothing in Edward's statement had brought the search to an end. 27:30 Edward remained at St Helens Road under close Garda's supervision. 27:34 On the Friday after Levina disappeared he was sitting at the dining room table writing letters. 27:39 At around half past one in the afternoon he asked Garda Dunn if he could use the bathroom. Dunn went upstairs with him. Edward tried to lock the bathroom door but the Garda stopped him. He was allowed to pull the door mostly closed while Dunn waited outside. 27:55 Inside the bathroom Edward began moving objects from the windowsill. Then he opened the window, climbed onto the ledge and jumped. 28:04 He landed on the concrete below and was seriously injured but he did survive. 28:09 Two letters were found in his pocket. One was addressed to his father and the other to the coroner. The letters referred to ending his life. 28:17 Edward was formally arrested and taken first to the Bridewell and then to the Richmond Hospital on North Brunswick Street. 28:24 Because of his injuries, a court hearing was held beside his hospital bed. 28:28 District Justice Cusson attended, along with the prosecution and defence representatives, Garda officers and doctors. Only one journalist was allowed into the room. 28:40 Dr. Burke told the court that Edward would probably need about a month before he could be moved. He was remanded in custody while he recovered. 28:50 Edward Ball's trial opened at the Central Criminal Court in Green Street on Monday the 18th of May 1936. 28:57 He pleaded not guilty. 28:59 The prosecution case was that Levina had not taken her own life at all. 29:04 They alleged that Edward asked her for the £60 he needed to travel with the Gate Theatre Company. When Levina refused, they said he went out to the garden shed, took the hatchet and attacked her. 29:16 Afterwards, the prosecution said he brought her body to Shankill, left it in sea and spent the night trying to remove the evidence from St. Helens Road. 29:24 It was a murder trial without a body. 29:27 The prosecution still had to establish that Lavina was actually dead and that Edward had murdered her. 29:33 They had no post-mortem examination to put before the jury. What they did have was Edward's statement, along with the blood and other evidence. 29:43 He'd said himself that Lavina was dead and that he'd taken her body to the sea. 29:48 The dispute was over how she died. 29:51 Had she taken her own life with a razor blade, as Edward had claimed? Or had Edward killed her with the hatchet, as the prosecution alleged? 29:59 The trial lasted six days. 30:02 Lily Kelly gave evidence about events at the house and about earlier rows she'd witnessed. 30:09 A former maid named Bridget Brinkley also spoke about conflict between Lavina and Edward. 30:15 In their evidence, boatwomen described earlier arguments in which they saw Lavina as the aggressor while Edward remained passive or pleaded with her to stop. Brinkley gave one particularly serious example. In her sworn evidence, she said she had once heard Levina threaten Edward with an electric iron. That, of course, suited the defence's case, which portrayed Edward as a young man who had spent years caught in the middle of the conflict between his parents. 30:42 But Lily and Bridget could only speak about rows they'd witnessed before. Neither of them were there after Richard Mates left on the evening of the 17th of February. 30:52 The prosecution brought the jury back to the physical evidence and, piece by piece, compared it with Edward's statement. 30:59 There was blood in the Austen and in the house, on clothing and bed linen, on the carpet and wallpaper, in the kitchen and garage and outside in the garden. 31:10 Some of those traces fitted what Edward himself admitted doing. 31:15 The question was whether they also showed that his suicide story was false. 31:20 Let's start with the hatchet. 31:22 Richard Mates said he'd put it into the tea chest after chopping wood. 31:27 Garda Patrick Murphy found it in a box beneath the chest instead. Edward denied touching or holding it. The prosecution also alleged that somebody had tried to wipe it with cloth or bed linen, but blood remained on it. 31:42 Then there was hair recovered from the back seat of the Austin. 31:46 One expert was reported as saying it had been severed by chopping action rather than by a clean cut expected from a razor. 31:53 But according to reports of the trial, the pathologists from the two sides disagreed over whether the hair had been chopped or cut. 32:01 The blood in the bedroom was challenged too. Edward had described finding Lavina on the bed and then pulling her onto the floor. 32:09 The prosecution pointed to the quantity of blood on the carpet compared with the bed and argued that the patron did not fit his sequence, that Lavina had been bleeding heavily on the floor. 32:20 But Edward had admitted washing the room, and the jury were not looking at a scene that had been left untouched. 32:27 One later account describes another expert opinion, that Lavina had not bled to death, that some bleeding occurred after death, and that the condition of her hair suggested a violent neck wound. Now, that was an opinion about what might have happened to her. There was still no body for the doctors to examine and no post-mortem. It was all hearsay and surmising, basically. Then the defence turned to Edward's mental state. 32:53 The medical evidence included accounts from two doctors who had treated him and diagnosed him with what was then called dementia praecox. That's an obsolete medical term now. His father Charles also gave evidence about Edward's behaviour and state of mind. 33:10 The court heard that Charles had previously considered having him committed to an institution after Edward threatened to end his own life. Charles' evidence went further into the marriage. He alleged that after Edward's birth, Lavina interfered with his medical practice, met patients at the door and sent him on false calls, even while she continued to write affectionate letters to him. 33:32 Lavina's health and behaviour were discussed as well. Her doctor, Dorothy Bennett, described Lavina as extremely nervous and excitable and said she had experienced periods of depression. 33:44 She also gave evidence about behaviour she described as compulsive stealing. The defence also brought up a history of mental illness within Lavina's family. The jury were told about Levina's grandfather, Archibald Mackenzie. The account put before them was that in 1886 he'd attempted to shoot his wife Susan before taking his own life. 34:05 An inquest had returned a finding of temporary insanity. 34:09 All of that meant the jury were being asked to consider two things at once. First, had Edward killed Levina? And if he had, what was his mental state when he did it? 34:20 Now, in summing up, Mr Justice Hanna was reported as warning that the line between sanity and insanity was not always simple. He also drew attention to the months, even years, Edward had lived under what the judge called his mother's disposition towards him. 34:36 The jury went out for around five hours. 34:39 During their deliberations, they asked to hear again from witnesses, including Lily Kelly and Lavinia's hairdresser, Miss Brennan. Miss Brennan said Lavinia's hair reached to about her elbow, a detail the jury plainly considered relevant to the hair recovered from the car. 34:55 On the 23rd of May 1936, they returned with their decision. 35:03 Their verdict was guilty but insane. They found him guilty of Lavena's murder but insane at the time. 35:10 He was ordered to be detained indefinitely during the pleasure of the Governor-General. The scene after the verdict shows how closely Dublin had followed the case. 35:19 One later account describes a packed courtroom with many young women who had attended through the six days. One young woman, identified by a white collar and said to have smiled encouragement towards Edward during the trial, broke down and had to be helped out from the court. 35:34 The same account said Edward barely reacted. When a warder touched his shoulder he walked quickly down to the cells. 35:41 Outside hundreds of people had gathered to hear what happened and Gardie kept the gates closed when the building was full. It gives you an idea of just how enormous the case had become. 35:52 Edward was sent to the Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Dundrum. 35:57 He would remain there for about 14 years. During those years, one of his regular visitors was Dorothy McArdle. She was a writer, republican activist and historian, best known for the Irish Republic and a long-standing friend and political associate of Eamon de Valera's. 36:14 She also helped secure privileges for Edward while he was there. One later account says friends and supporters brought him fruit, groceries, books and records. 36:24 It also said he had a private room and that Edward believed Macardell's influence might bring him a presidential pardon. While Edward was in Dundrum, there was a development over Lavina's money. 36:35 On the 3rd of February 1937, the Daily Mirror reported that the Dublin High Court had ruled he could share in a 9,000 trust fund she had left. 36:45 Now, this wasn't Edward simply inheriting all of his mother's money. It was a share in the trust fund. But less than a year after the trial, he was still legally able to benefit from money Lavina had left. 36:57 Some later accounts linked Edward's money with greater comfort in Dundrum, including that claim about a private room. 37:04 Then, in 1950, Edward was released. He was in his early 30s by then. He had spent most of his adult life in Dundrum. After his release, he travelled to Paris, and there he met his old school friend Richard Cobb. 37:20 Cobb knew Edward from before all of this. They'd been school friends and Cobb had been a guest in Lavinia's house. Cobb would write about their 1950 meeting decades later. 37:32 He said Edward admitted frankly and in detail that he had killed Lavinia. 37:38 Cobb remembered Edward arriving in Paris and talking almost immediately about the mistake he believed he had made when cleaning the hatchet. 37:46 In Cobb's telling, Edward blamed their classical education for not teaching him that hot water could fix blood into the metal, while cold water would have been more effective. 37:57 In Cobb's account, Edward had asked Lavina for the £60 for the gate tour and she had refused to give it to him. 38:04 In the version Cobb remembered, she had called Edward lazy, talentless and uncultivated. She said she would rather spend her money on herself, including a new car, a cottage in Galway and a trip to the United States. 38:17 Cobb remembered Edward asking whether that was her last word. 38:22 In the account he gave, Edward then left the room, went out to the garden shed and took the hatchet. 38:29 According to Cobb, he then returned to Lavina and attacked her. 38:33 It was completely different from the account Edward had given in Lad Lane Garda Station. 38:38 A later retelling goes even further again. It says Lavina, already injured, made it upstairs, that Edward followed her and struck her as she lay beside the bed. And it gives her final words as, Jesus, Maria. 38:53 Cobb also remembered Edward showing very little remorse as he spoke about it. He said Edward even commented on the fact that he had failed to clean the weapon properly. 39:03 After his release, Edward appears to have spent much of his time travelling in continental Europe. He may also have worked for the Automobile Association in London. 39:12 He was known to be alive in 1984. 39:16 Shrewsbury's school records say he died in February 1987, aged 70. 39:21 Exactly how he died and where he was buried are still unclear. 39:26 Charles Preston Ball died in 1957. A later account says he remarried soon after the trial and died in Dun Laoghaire at the age of 85. Now, before we finish, I do want to come back to Lavina because so much of what we know about her in this story comes through other people. Edward, the people who worked in her house, her doctor and Richard Cobb writing decades later. 39:50 But Lavina was more than the rows people remembered and the things said about her in court. 39:56 For a woman of her time, she had her own home, her own money and her own business affairs. 40:01 And after everything we've talked about, I keep thinking about Levina on that Monday. She'd been out getting things for lunch the following day, wine, food, cigarettes. Just ordinary things you would do when you're expecting people to your home. And then, by the next morning, she was gone. 40:18 We know so much about what happened afterwards, the searches, the trial, Edward's years in Dundrum and the life he went on to have. 40:25 But Lavina never got to tell us what happened to her that night. 40:29 And I think that's what bothers me the most. Not just that her body was never found, but that there was never a place where her family could go and say, this is where she is. She had her own life before all of this, her own home, her own money, and whatever difficulties there were in that family, none of them changed what happened to her. 40:50 So I don't want to finish by talking about Edward. I want to finish by talking about Lavina. 40:55 Lavina Ball was 44 years old when she disappeared from her home in Boosterstown. Her body has never been recovered and I think she deserves to be remembered for more than the way her life ended and what people say she was like before she died. 41:10 Thank you so much for listening guys and as always I'll see you next week and mind yourselves. 41:16 So guys, that's it for today's episode of the Ireland Crimes and Mysteries podcast. Again, thanks for your listenership. And don't forget to subscribe to the show and hit that auto download so you never miss an episode. 41:27 Until the next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious. 41:33 This podcast has been compiled from information gathered in the public sphere, like news articles, documentaries and open source material that can be found on the web. 41:45 Everything in this podcast is alleged unless a conviction has taken place.