| Royals Rendezvous Statement |
| Royals Rendezvous has moved to a new location, please go to royalsrendezvous.co.uk to continue the discussion. |
| 1946 - Reading Sweet Shop Strangling | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: 15 Jun 2015, 09:04 PM (582 Views) | |
| daib0 | 15 Jun 2015, 09:04 PM Post #1 |
|
Inter-Forum Gamemaster!
|
Get Reading The Reading sweet shop strangling in 1946 A police officer forced entry to the shop in Friar Street to find Connie Boothby dead on the floor On the evening of Sunday 1 September 1946, a police constable was sent to a tobacconist and confectioner’s shop on Friar Street, in the town centre (on the site of Sainsbury’s) to investigate the possible death of a young woman at the hands of her boyfriend. RAF serviceman, Eric Stanley Pocock, had handed himself in and confessed to her murder. At just after midnight, PC Sawyer shone his flashlight through the shop windows and, through the darkness, could just make out a shape on the floor at the rear of the building. With assistance from his colleagues, he forced entry and found 29-year-old shop girl, Connie Boothby. The victim was lying on her back, with her arms folded across her body. She was partially dressed, and her discarded clothes were neatly folded in a stack nearby. The marks on her throat suggested that she had been strangled. A search of the premises yielded an air force cap, collar and tie, a pair of bloodstained scissors and Connie’s handbag, which contained a vital piece of evidence: a suicide note. It was addressed to her parents and bore the tragic message – Please don’t grieve for me because this is what I want. Constance Lillian Boothby, née Dodds, was the manageress of the sweet shop. Recently estranged from her husband, Edward Boothby, after only five years of marriage, she had returned to Reading and moved back in with her parents, who owned the Queens Arms public house in Great Knollys Street, not far from the town centre. She had settled back at home, working in the shop and behind the bar of the family pub at the weekends. As revealed in her final note, she had asked ‘Teddy’ for a divorce but he had refused. A few weeks before her untimely end, Connie had met Flight Sergeant Eric Pocock at the Olympia dance hall, London St, Reading and they had begun to see each other, despite her parents’ disapproval. Eric, aged 21, was stationed at Lasham in Hampshire, where he worked as a driver for the 49 Maintenance Unit. He had joined the air force in 1943, spending the remainder of the war in Canada, after which he was assigned driving duties. The newspapers described him as ‘a very bright, promising young man, with a very good career.’ On 1 September 1946, Connie and her younger sister, Edith, were in the shop chatting while Connie cashed up. Eric joined them and all three went to the Vaudeville Café on Broad Street, for a cup of tea. Edith left the couple at 6.30 pm, later commenting, ‘They were very merry and laughing and talking.’ After the café, Eric and Connie moved on to the Jack of Both Sides pub, where Eric drank whiskey and Connie enjoyed a gin and orange. It all seemed like an ordinary evening out on the town but, a couple of hours later, their date took a very sinister turn. The young couple returned to the locked-up sweet shop at about 10.30 pm. According to Pocock, Connie had sat on his knee with his arms around his neck, and begged him to take her life: ‘Connie and I have been talking about ending it for some time,’ he explained to the police, ‘We decided to last night. I strangled her and tried to kill myself.’ Eric had sustained a superficial wound to his chest, near his heart, which had been caused by the scissors found at the scene. The trial for the murder of Constance Boothby took place the following month. A long queue had formed around the court and the public gallery was full. Pocock, a slight man with fair hair and wearing a raincoat, showed no emotion as he stood in the dock. The pathologist confirmed that Connie had been strangled, with ‘the throat having been gripped and crushed by the fingers and thumb of a hand.’ He added that bruises on her legs suggested that she had tried to raise her legs, but pressure had been applied to keep her restrained on the floor. Connie’s sister, Edith, testified that neither of the couple had seemed depressed, and their father claimed that he didn’t recognise the handwriting on the suicide note as his late daughter’s. In his summing up, the judge concluded that ‘if two persons mutually agreed to commit suicide together – one to kill the other and then to kill himself – and only one of them died, the surviving one was guilty, in the eye of the law, of murder.’ It took the jury just 20 minutes to return a guilty verdict and Pocock remained impassive as the judge passed the death sentence. Although the perpetrator of this violent act is known, the question remains as to whether it was a suicide pact gone wrong, or whether Eric Pocock murdered his girlfriend in cold blood – either way, at the time, it was classed as ‘murder’. Did Connie really wish to end her life, or was the choice taken from her? Did she try to stab Eric with the scissors, in a desperate attempt to save her own life? The official files are closed for another 30 years, and perhaps only then will we find out the full truth of The Sweet Shop Strangling. Eric Pocock’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He died in 1975. Connie is buried in Henley Road cemetery, Caversham. Original: http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/berkshire-history/reading-sweet-shop-strangling-1946-9447137 |
|
Royals Rendezvous - a specialist and friendly Reading FC fan forum Cello man... VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEVmGOEMJLE&t=12s Please share ! | |
![]() |
|
| Zip | 16 Jun 2015, 07:17 PM Post #2 |
|
That was a fascinating read Daib0. You do bring some cracking stuff onto the site. |
![]() |
|
| SuffolkRoyal | 16 Jun 2015, 07:28 PM Post #3 |
|
I have an unhealthy fascination with the macabre. One of the most gruesome murder stories in Readings history is the Amelia Dyer case, known as the baby farmer murders. Her old house in Kensington Road is still there and looks much the same. I used to walk past it on my way to Elm Park, but back then never even noticed it because I wasn't aware of the story. |
![]() |
|
| Zip | 16 Jun 2015, 07:57 PM Post #4 |
|
I'm the same Keith. I have a macabre tale of my own. At the time of the Fred West murders in Cromwell Street I was dealing with a claim in that Street for an Asian woman. Having dealt with the claim she rang me and said she wanted to come to my office to give me a present to say thank you. I politely declined saying I could not accept a gift. A few weeks later whilst I was driving around Gloucester local radio advised one of the streets was closed off due to a serious accident. The next day I was listening to the radio and the news mentioned that her funeral had taken place. I was shocked. It transpired that she had been on her pedal cycle when a lorry jumped red lights and smashed straight into her. She died of multiple injuries. It was terribly sad. She had three children. I always feel a bit guilty because she was late for an appointment so I was in Cromwell Street opposite the house and just wanting to be somewhere else. So I was a bit short with her. Bless her. I will mention another horrible memory of Cromwell Street but that's for another day. Edited by Zip, 16 Jun 2015, 07:59 PM.
|
![]() |
|
| SuffolkRoyal | 16 Jun 2015, 08:11 PM Post #5 |
|
This could become a very long thread daib0 has started here. I think we all probably have a few strange tales to tell. |
![]() |
|
| daib0 | 16 Jun 2015, 08:20 PM Post #6 |
|
Inter-Forum Gamemaster!
|
Go ahead, I like reading things too! |
|
Royals Rendezvous - a specialist and friendly Reading FC fan forum Cello man... VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEVmGOEMJLE&t=12s Please share ! | |
![]() |
|
| SuffolkRoyal | 16 Jun 2015, 10:07 PM Post #7 |
|
I was bought up in an old Victorian terraced house in Henley, my Dad still lives there. When I was a very young child I woke up screaming one night. My Mum came into my bedroom and I told her I'd seen an old man standing by the door, and I described in great detail what he looked like and what he was wearing. It was passed off as a nightmare. Many years later, when I was grown up, she told me that the week before that incident, she woke up during the night and saw an old man standing by the door in her bedroom and he was exactly as I had described him. And there is another story of that old house which my Mum and me always thought were linked to the old man. |
![]() |
|
| Bahamoth | 17 Jun 2015, 02:04 AM Post #8 |
|
And here was me thinking that Daib0 was confessing to a murder! |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Local Issues · Next Topic » |





2:28 PM Jul 11