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ONE OF THE strangest,

Romances in British Legal History

By David Cocksedge

ONE OF THE strangest romances in British legal history began on the afternoon of Friday 13 October 1944. An American serviceman who liked to call himself Second Lieutenant Richard Allen (22) of the 501st Parachute Regiment, US army, walked into a small cafe in Queen Caroline Street on London 's Hammersmith Broadway. His real name was Karl Gustav Hulten, and he recalled later, "I saw my pal Len Bexley sitting there with a young lady. I took another seat, but he asked me to come over and join them, which I did."

Bexley introduced 'Ricky' to Elizabeth ('Betty') Jones, an 18-year-old stripper who worked under the name Georgina Grayson. She rented a room under this name at 311 King Street , close to where she now sat. Born and brought up in South Wales , Betty was married when she was only 16 to a soldier. This man, ten years her senior, had a quick temper and a brutish manner. When he punched her in the face at their wedding reception, she promptly walked out on him and made her way to London . There she had a succession of seedy, unfulfilling jobs - a waitress, cinema usherette and striptease dancer at the Blue Lagoon Club. When Hulten met her that fateful Friday, she was unemployed, and 'resting between jobs'.

In his statement, Hulten recalled, "We sat drinking tea and coffee as we talked for a while in the cafeteria, and afterwards we all got up and left together. Mrs Jones and I walked towards the Broadway. I asked her is she would care to come out later on that evening."

At 11.30pm that same evening, Betty Jones was just about to give up her wait outside the Broadway Cinema, when Hulten drove up in a two-and-a-half-ton ten-wheeled US Army truck. Highly impressed, Betty was soon sitting beside him. It was an appropriately bizarre start to an affair that was to destroy them both. Between them, they would commit one of the most cold-blooded, senseless killings in civilian life whilst Britain was at war. The newspapers of the day were to dub them the wartime 'Bonnie & Clyde' after the famous American gangsters of the 1930's. After a spate of bank robberies and murders, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were finally gunned down in a police ambush in Louisiana on 23 May 1934. Their destructive careers were glamorized by Hollywood in a 1967 cult movie starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

In a sense, Hulten and Jones were still children, locked in the world of celluloid fantasy that comprised wartime entertainment. 'Ricky' told his new girlfriend that the truck was stolen, and that he was a lieutenant in a US paratroop regiment. In fact, Private Hulten from Idaho was an army deserter, who had left his post and gone AWOL (away without leave). His lies appealed to Betty's sense of the romantic, and she responded that she had always wanted to do something exciting, like "become a gun moll like they do in the States." Hulten boasted, again untruthfully, that he had "carried a gun for the Mob in Chicago ." He then produced an automatic pistol, which further impressed Betty Jones.

The point of no return had now been reached: they were both committed to act out the roles they had chosen for themselves, and admired in each other. A sequence of events had been put into motion that would not stop short of murder.

As they drove towards Reading , ( Berkshire ), they overtook a lone girl on a bicycle just after 1.00am. Hulten stopped the large truck, and waited for the girl to cycle past them. As she did, he pushed her off her machine and grabbed her handbag, which had been slung over the handlebars. Before the poor girl could get back on her feet, the modern highway robbers were back in the truck and speeding towards London . The proceeds of Hulten's cowardly attack were a couple of shillings and some wartime clothing coupons. At 5.00am, they returned to Betty's room in King Street after Hulten had parked the truck nearby.

The next day, they planned to hold up a pub landlord and relieve him of his proceedings, but abandoned the idea when they saw that he was not alone. Betty then suggested that they rob a taxi-driver, and Hulten forced one to stop at gunpoint. But before they could get inside the cab and take his money, the astute cabbie drove off and left them by the roadside. This wartime version of 'Bonnie & Clyde' would be a comedy act if it were not for the tragic events that were to follow.

Whilst the Hammersmith outlaws were driving back into London 's black-out along the Edgware Road , Jones suggested that they stop and pick up a young woman who was making her way to Bristol via Paddington station. Hulten offered to drive her as far as Reading and the young girl, Sandra Gregory (18) climbed gratefully into the truck between them. Hulten's later statement read, "When we were almost through Runnymede Park going towards Windsor I pulled off the road and stopped the truck. I told the girl we had a flat tyre. We all got out. And then I hit the girl over the head with an iron bar." Whilst Hulten held Ms Gregory face-down on the ground, Jones rifled her pockets. Hulten's statement continued, "By this time the girl had ceased struggling. I picked her up by the shoulders and Betty picked up her feet. We carried her over and dumped her about three feet from the edge of a stream." Their proceeds from this nasty little crime were less than five shillings. Their victim, Ms Gregory, thankfully survived her physical ordeal, though the mental scars took longer to heal.

The next day they decided to try another taxi heist. Soon after 2.00am they flagged down a cab driven by George Heath (45). This was a grey Ford V8 saloon, registration number RD 8955. As they were approaching the Chiswick roundabout, Hulten ordered the driver to stop, telling him they would get out and pay him. Heath pulled into the kerb. According to Elizabeth Jones' later statement: "As the driver was leaning over to open the door for me, I saw a flash and heard a bang. Heath moaned slightly and turned a little towards the front. Ricky said, 'Move over or I'll give you another dose of the same.' I heard Heath breathing very heavily and his head slumped on his chest." Without any warning, Hulten had shot him through the upholstery of the driver's seat, presumably as an act to impress his new girlfriend. Hulten had now crossed the line. He was no longer just a small-time punk, a dim-witted petty criminal. He was a murderer and his girlfriend an accomplice in this dastardly crime.

Hulten then replaced Heath behind the wheel of the saloon, and while he drove towards Staines his companion systematically emptied the dying man's pockets. Heath struggled to hold onto life for just fifteen more minutes before succumbing to a massive internal hemorrhage. His stiffening corpse was unceremoniously cast into a ditch by Knowle Green, just outside Staines . The couple drove home at 4 am, and after wiping the cab of fingerprints, they left it in the cinema car park behind Hammersmith Broadway. After eating at the Black and White cafe nearby, they went back to Ms Jones' room to look over the loot. In celebration of their deadly deed, Jones and Hulten then had wild sex before they fell asleep together. This is relevant, because Hulten's defence team presented this during the trial as evidence to illustrate just how excited Ms. Jones had been by witnessing a killing. "She was really turned on by watching me kill the cab driver", he stated later. "She virtually demanded sex."

George Heath's body was discovered six hours later by Robert Balding, an auxiliary fireman. Heath's less immediately useful possessions, such as his check book and driver's license, lay where they had been thrown out onto the Great West Road . These were found by John Jones, an apprentice electrician. This gave a possible identity to the corpse, and a description of George Heath and his car were circulated to all London police units.

Meantime, Hulten and his moll had been disposing of their victim's marketable possessions - they sold his fountain pen and wristwatch and then passed the afternoon spending the proceeds at the famous White City greyhound track. That evening, they watched Deanna Durbin in the movie 'Christmas Holiday'.

Now full of bravado, they drove around openly in Heath's V8 saloon, seemingly unaware that the Metropolitan Police had circulated details of the vehicle throughout the force. Hulten later drove alone to Newbury, to his old army camp, and then returned to London and the arms of another girlfriend, Ms Joyce Cook.

But his luck finally ran out when PC William Walters was out on his regular 'beat'. The policeman spotted a Ford saloon parked in Lurgan Avenue , off the Fulham Road . Walters took careful note of the registration number - RD 8955.

In response to his call, Walters was soon joined by Inspector John Read and a sergeant. The three men took it in turns to keep watch on the car. Just after 9.00pm, Hulten left Joyce Cook's house and walked towards the stolen V8. PC Walters stepped up. "Is this your car, sir?" he enquired in the polite manner typical of Britain 's police force.

At Hammersmith police station, Hulten stated that he was Second Lieutenant Richard Allen of the 501st Parachute Regiment, US Army. In his hip pocket was found a Remington automatic pistol and three clips of ammunition. "Allen" claimed that he had found the car abandoned near Newbury, and was using it to get about. The next day, he was transferred to the American Military Police at its' HQ in Piccadilly.

This was in perfect accord with wartime protocol, which recognized the sovereignty of American servicemen stationed in Britain , and did not permit them to be tried in British courts. When the Americans discovered that Hulten was a deserter and a murder suspect, however, they waived this right and returned him to the ministrations of British law and justice. US military brass had had enough of Karl Hulten and his constant insubordination. Like Pontius Pilate, the American Army washed its' hands of him.

Hulten had by now given police Ms Jones' name and address at King Street , and she had been interviewed at Hammersmith police station, where she made a statement. Later on, Elizabeth Jones made a full confession of her part in the murder of George Heath. She blamed Hulten (whom she now knew was not 'Ricky Allen') for everything, stating that he had threatened her with violence and that she was very afraid of him. Karl Hulten in turn blamed Ms Jones for egging him on to the deadly deed. "If it had not been for her urging me to use the gun, I would never have shot Heath", he claimed.

In January 1945 Hulten and Ms Jones appeared at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Charles and a jury of twelve London citizens. Six days later, on 21 January, they were found guilty of murder and sentence of death was pronounced on them both. Their appeals for clemency were dismissed in February 1945.

For Karl Gustav Hulten, the last reel of the third-rate gangster movie he had made of his pathetic life came to an end on 8 March 1945. He died kicking at the end of a rope in Wormwood Scrubs prison just a week after his 23rd birthday.

Betty Jones was reprieved just two days before her execution date and spent the next decade in jail. She was finally released on license in November 1954. Ten years in Holloway Prison had cured her of any further fanciful ideas of becoming a gangster's moll.

(Research: 'The American soldier and his English moll'; crimelibrary.com).

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