Futility Closet

Insurance agent William Herbert Wallace had a terrible night in January 1931 -- summoned to a nonexistent address in Liverpool, he returned home to find that his wife had been murdered in his absence. An investigation seemed to show a senseless crime with no weapon, no motive, and no likely suspects. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll revisit the slaying of Julia Wallace, which Raymond Chandler called "the impossible murder." We'll also recount some wobbly oaths and puzzle over an eccentric golfer. Intro: In the 1960s, Washington state televised the World Octopus Wrestling Championships. Kansas schoolteacher Samuel Dinsmoor spent two decades fashioning a Garden of Eden out of concrete. Sources for our feature on William Herbert Wallace: W.F. Wyndham-Brown, ed., The Trial of William Herbert Wallace, 1933. Yseult Bridges, Two Studies in Crime, 1959. Roger Wilkes, Wallace: The Final Verdict, 1984. Ronald Bartle, The Telephone Murder, 2012. Hans Von Hentig, "Pre-Murderous Kindness and Po