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EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY: On Tuesday 31st May 1932, in a place she had dubbed ‘The Love Hut’, although the evidence stated that (in a drunk and emotional state) Elvira shot her lover to death, the circumstances of the murder was so dubious - that the truth was easily whitewashed by an adoring press who were so besotted by this beautiful but vapid rich kid - that they made her the only victim, and him the absolute culprit.
THE LOCATION
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SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on William Mews in Knightsbridge, SW1; two roads west of The Goat Tavern where William McSwan was treated to a farewell drink, two streets west of the Hyde Park bombing, and a short walk south of the fake SAS soldier and his cowardly initiation - coming soon to Murder Mile. Hidden off the rather posh Loundes Square, William Mews was once a cul-de-sac comprising of stables where society’s elite bragged that they kept their horses, only to have a flunky shovel up the shit - as that’s what the wealthy do, they boast about their success and have the little people do all the work. By the 1930s, William Mews had become a line of garages occupied by cabdrivers whose families lived in the flats above. One exception was at No 21, where 27-year-old socialite Elvira Barney lived, boozed, debauched and had her bad behaviour rewarded by society and her crimes excused by the law. On Tuesday 31st May 1932, in a place she had dubbed ‘The Love Hut’, although the evidence stated that (in a drunk and emotional state) Elvira shot her lover to death, the circumstances of the murder was so dubious - that the truth was easily whitewashed by an adoring press who were so besotted by this beautiful but vapid rich kid - that they made her the only victim, and him the absolute culprit. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 250: The Socialite’s Premonition. Money: it can turn the good bad, the bad worse, the needy greedy, and the wealthy blind. Born on 22nd January 1904, the early life of Elvira Enid Mullen was as pampered and privileged as any posh little prig whose first words were ‘nanny’ having been born with a silver spoon in every orifice. As the middle child of three siblings to affluent stockbroker Sir John Mullens, manager of the London Stock Exchange, and his wife Lady Mullens, with no need to understand the value of money, she was raised believing that everyone below her should be at her beck and call, and had no understanding of why she couldn’t have whatever she wanted, when she wanted it, and often without earning it. Following the death of her brother Cyril when she was only 12, what occupied her time wasn’t a career but the seeding of the sibling rivalry with her baby sister. Both described as “society beauties” who were pretty, petite and auburn haired, although Avril would make her parents proud by marrying in lofty circles - first to Ernest Simpson (the ex-husband of Wallis Simpson whose relationship with King Edward 8th almost brought down the monarchy) and later to a Georgian royal prince, meaning that she would be titled as Princess Imeritinsky - Elvira saw herself as the rebel and the troublemaker. Like a petulant child, Elvira went out of her way to do everything her parents despised. In 1924, she studied at Lady Benson’s Drama Academy, and although acting was seen as a disreputable profession for a young woman of means, under the stage name of Dolores Ashley, she appeared in The Blue Kitten, a musical about a waiter who pretended to be upper class so he can marry a socialite. In its run, it was only modestly reviewed and barely lasted a season, and although the acting career of Dolores Ashley never went much further, this brief spark of stardom gave Elvira the notoriety and the attention she craved, as by 1924, she was already being heralded as part of The Bright Young Things. The Bright Young Things were the in-crowd of the late 1920’s and early 1930s. Like the Kardashians… only with talent, this fashionable set of wealthy bohemians lived by their own rules, poo-pooed the stuffy Victorian values of their privileged upbringing and caused as much scandal as possible by drinking heavily, imbibing illicit drugs, flouting the law, and engaging in bisexual sex. The antics of the Bright Young Things set the tabloid papers ablaze, making household names of these trendsetting luminaries, such as photographer Cecil Beaton, actress Tallulah Bankhead, poet John Betjeman, playwright Noel Coward, novelists Barbara Cartland and G K Chesterton, renowned fascists the Mitford sisters and Guy Burgess the spy, as well Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later The Queen Mother. Elvira wasn’t as high-profile as many, which is why amongst such celebrities her name is barely known today, but it was her erratic and often eccentric exploits which gave her such an infamous reputation. In 1924, Elvira got engaged to Charles Graves, a gossip journalist whose articles about the Bright Young Things had established them as cultural icons, as opposed to just privileged wastrels. They were seen as the ‘hot couple’, only it was Elvira’s bizarre behaviour which ended their tempestuous relationship. In his 1951 autobiography titled ‘The Bad Old Days’, Charles doesn’t name his fiancé, but states “the girl was the daughter of a rich businessman, her home life was not particularly happy, I’d made the unfortunate error of mistaking sympathy for love… so I wrote her a note asking her to break it off…”. Returning to his Chelsea flat, “at 3am on a Saturday night I was woken up by my guest, who said “there is a girl walking up and down the pavement. I think she has a revolver. I went to the window which was on the first floor and sure enough there she was…”, an angry auburn beauty with a loaded gun. Knowing how unstable and volatile she was, he said to his guest “’when you hear me undo the latch, open the window and attract her attention. I’ll do the rest’”. It was a stratagem he had mulled over and possibly put into practice several times before, as once the latch was unlocked, his guest whistled, Elvira looked up, and Charles dashed out, stating ‘it was time enough to grab the pistol. Luckily, I knew which wrist to grab. She tried to pull the trigger, but the pistol fell onto the pavement with a clang”. Charles had a lucky escape, later stating “she was hysterical for some minutes. I made the girl sleep on the divan while I sat out the night in an armchair to make sure that she did not run away, or do herself any damage. When I saw her mother and told her what had happened, she was horrified”. It was an incident which wasn’t reported to the police, and with Charles then being the editor of the Sunday Express, it didn’t feature in any of the newspapers, and besmirched none of their names. Thus is the power of the wealthy and influential… …so, why do I tell you this? Because it is a premonition of things to come. In 1927, causing more consternation for her exasperated parents, Elvira met John Sterling Barney at a party. Married the following year, it was a relationship bitterly opposed to by her family, which ended in frequent quarrels and fights, mostly because he wasn’t a Lord or a stockbroker, just a singer. By 1929, with her husband returning to America, Elvira Barney (as she was then known) continued her spiral out of control, by combining her drinking and late-night escapades (in an era when drink driving was still legal) with the purchase of Delage D8; a French-built 8-cylinder motorcar, costing twice that of the average house, and with a 102hp engine was capable of speeds of 82mph on roads which had barely been improved since the days of horse and carts, so it was no surprise she had several accidents. In 1930, Elvira was arrested in Croydon having crashed her car at speed while drunk. It was entirely her fault, but like the spoilt little rich girl she was, she “furiously berated the constable, reminding him of her status, her name, her family, and threatened to get him sacked”. Let off with a fine, a year later, she crashed her car in Piccadilly Circus, breaking her jaw, losing a tooth and getting a slap on the wrist. The era of the Bright Young Things was coming to a close, as with the Wall Street Crash plunging the world into recession, their kind of decadence and excesses was seen as nothing short of disgusting. But did they care? Some did, but others did not, as being born with no sense of the less fortunate, when the poor struggled, the powerful and the popular only ever worry about their own pleasures… …and that included Elvira. Some may suggest that Elvira was only interested in herself, which is why, of the man she claimed to love and would ultimately murder, she said “I have known Michael for about a year. We were great friends, and he used to come and see me from time to time… but we were never a couple or an item”. Similar to Elvira, Michael’s upbringing of one of privilege, albeit of a lowly middle-class status. Born in Elgin in 1908, Thomas William Scott Stephen known as Michael was the son of a prominent financier and a Justice of the Peace. As one of three competitive siblings, with Francis becoming a respected solicitor and Harbourne becoming the managing director at the Daily Telegraph and one of the most honoured airmen of The Battle of Britain, Michael too saw himself as the rebel and the troublemaker. Educated, but unwilling to put in a hard day’s work, although it was said that Michael was a dress designer, being denied an allowance by his father, he turned to gambling and became a bit of a dandy. And this is how the story would be split in two; with the press deciding who the public should root for, based on who was the most popular and who was not, as once again, money and power would win. During the trial, being dead, Michael couldn’t defend himself. Described as ‘unemployed’ and ridiculed as ‘a sponger and a scoundrel’, they ignored the fact that Elvira was no better just more popular. Many called him a nobody as if she was a somebody. And whereas they both drank, did drugs and engaged in promiscuous sex, his faults were seen as immoral, whereas hers was a beloved part of her character. It was said that they met in Paris, and some time before May 1932 (the month he was murdered), he’d move into her little flat above a garage at 21 William Mews – which they had titled as ‘The Love Hut’. As in her volatile engagement with Charles Graves and her jealous marriage to John Barney, there was no denying that Elvira & Michael loved each other as much as they hated each other, as in so many letters found, Michael wrote “dear darling, forgive me all the dreadful things I have done. I promise to be better and kinder so you won’t be frightened any more. I love you, only you, in all the world”. Of which, she replied “my darling baby. I really do love you darling”, but stated, “I feel like suicide when you are angry. It absolutely ruined my marriage and it leads to all kinds of misery. I won’t let you down. God knows why I should when you are so lovely. Take care. All my love, really all. Elvira”. It was a relationship as tragic and fractious as it was loving and deadly, as these two wastrels with nothing to offer the world bounced from party to party, often drunk, on drugs, and claiming to live a liberated life when monogamy was shunned, and yet, they would condemn each other for cheating. Nobody really knew what went on behind their closed doors, but although (in court) Michael was accused of only using her for money, among her popular friends, he was seen as nothing but a butler. Neither had any respect for their neighbours… …as the hipsters of their day, they loved to brag about how they “lived among the real people”, and yet, they didn’t know their names, and sullied the cul-de-sac’s peace with late-night fights and parties. Like a premonition of his death, a fight occurred on Thursday 19th May 1932, 12 days before his murder as Mrs Dorothy Hall who lived opposite recalled “it was 3:30am. I was awakened by a terrible screaming out of Mrs Barney’s window”. Elvira was naked and angry “telling him to go away, as he asked her for money, she wouldn’t give him any and she said ‘go and fish for it’”. So far, so ordinary… …until “Mrs Barney looked out of the window and screamed to him ’laugh baby, laugh for the last time’, and fired. I heard the sound of firing and I saw the flash and some smoke. After she had fired she kind of fell inside the window”, both laughing and crying, as Michael walked away. The next morning he called on her, “and once again they were quite friendly”, as if nothing had happened. But with their fights becoming so commonplace, tragically their neighbours often ignored them. The night of the murder began like any other… with a raucous party. Elvira didn’t care a wit that her hard-working neighbours had jobs and lives, as from ‘The Love Hut’, this cul-de-sac echoed with loud music, arrogant voices, and the popping of champagne corks. Inside, roughly 30 members of the Bright Young Things partied heartily, being crammed full of artists, poets, painters and even a power boat racer, only Michael was little more than a helper who served drinks. At 9pm, giving respite to their neighbours, the party decamped to the opulence of the Café de Paris in Piccadilly – where more drink, drugs and pretentious chat only added more fuel onto the fire – after which they headed to the infamous The Blue Angel club on Dean Street, to ruin their livers further. Being half cut and arseholed, it was still dark when her car skidded into William Mews. As if their fight from the morning had never ceased, their hurtful barbs could be heard before the car doors had even opened, as their bickering echoed across the cul-de-sac, causing some neighbours to slightly stir. As before, Dorothy Hall heard it all, but she saw very little; “at roughly 4:30am, I heard screaming and shouting, which woke my baby. There was a light on in the top floor window. I heard Mrs Barney, who was very hysterical telling him to get out of her house at once. Then she screamed out and said ‘I will shoot you’. She said that twice, ‘I will shoot you’. He said he would be going and then I heard the shot”. One shot… …followed by Michael crying ‘good God, what have you done?’ and Elvira screaming ‘Chicken, come back to me’. “I heard Mrs Barney call ‘Michael’ twice, and then all was quiet”. Which was odd, as Kate Stevens at no8 claimed “I heard four shots before the final one, a very loud one and Mrs Barney say ’Michael come back, I love you’”. And yet, William Liff, who was as close as any other, stated “I heard Mrs Barney say ‘go away or I’ll shoot you’, a pistol shot, followed by a groan and a thumping noise”. But which was it? As all three witnesses had seen nothing, and what they’d heard was only observed through the haze of tiredness across a dark echoey mews having been woken with a sharp start at an ungodly hour. And yet, all their statements contradicted how Elvira said the shooting had occurred. The socialite would later claim in a statement which was endlessly reported by an adoring media “we arrived home about 2am. We had a quarrel about a woman he was fond of”, her name being Dora. Inside the ‘Love Hut’ there was just Michael and Elvira, no-one else, so we only have Elvira’s side. She said “Michael threatened to leave me. I said ‘if you do, you know what will happen?’”, as several times prior (with Charles, John & Michael) she’d tried to take her own life. “He knew I kept a revolver… last night it was under the cushion of a chair near the bed, He knew where it was… he took it and said, ‘I’m going to take it away for fear you’ll kill yourself’”, as Elvira was a danger to herself and others. “I ran after him and tried to get it back”, but as the two struggled with both of their hands gripped on the revolver, “it went off… he looked surprised”, I didn’t know he was hurt, he went into the bathroom, half shut the door, and he said ‘fetch a doctor’, I saw he looked ill”, which his bloodstains would prove. Summoning Dr Durrant to what she would describe as “a dreadful accident” in which a man “has shot himself”, upon arrival, the Doctor declared Michael dead. Detective Inspector William Winter arrived shortly afterwards to find Elvira in a hysterical state unwilling to explain how this death had occurred. With the revolver by his hand, an entry wound in his left lapel, an exit wound in his back, and the bullet having passed through his left lung, filling his plural cavity with four pints of blood, his cause of death was heart failure - for which he was conscious for roughly ten minutes, before he collapsed and died. On the surface, it seemed like a very plausible accident… …but by the man’s dead hand lay a .32 revolver with three live and two spent rounds in the barrel. But what was odd was the order of the bullets, which went; one live, one live, one spent, one live and then one spent, as if (at some point) the barrel had been spun, like in a cruel game of Russian Roulette. Four experts examined the body; Home Office pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Robert Churchill the Met’s gun specialist, Dr Arnold Harbour the police surgeon and the detective, all of whom would state the following: “the revolver was three to six inches from the body when it was fired”, “his hands were clean, there was no blackening or singeing”, “there was no scorch marks on the entry wound”, and with Elvira wearing a kimono and knickers, no fingerprints were found on the gun as she wore gloves”. That said, if the two of them were face to face and struggling with the gun, “it was unlikely they would hold it at lung height”, “it would have been practically impossible for a man holding the butt of the revolver and struggling to have pulled the trigger, and fired it in the direction it was fired”, and with the gun being “one of the safest revolvers made”, requiring a lot of force and only space for one finger in the trigger guard, “if two people struggled with it, they’d have great difficulty in pulling the trigger”. When asked to give an account, Elvira the pampered socialite was petulant and flew into a temper. When told she would be taken to Gerald Road police station for questioning, she struck Sergeant Campion across the face, wailing “how dare you threaten to put me in a cell, you vile swine”, which he didn’t do. Having to be restrained, with the police informing her mother, Lady Mullens of her arrest, she barked “now you know who my mother is, you will be a little more careful in what you say to me”. But what else would you expect? When questioned, she was emotional, restless, as well as cold and callous, with her only thoughts being about herself, but as a self-interested socialite, it’s what she did. Tried in Court 1 of the Old Bailey on the 4th of July 1932, she pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, before a gallery packed full of journalists, as outside, her legion of fans protested her innocence. Putting on a show before an adoring crowd, rather than focussing on the details of the case, the press dedicated the first third of every article to her hair, her clothes, her brave demeanour, how she wept and raised a tiny green bottle of smelling salts to her nose as her love letters were read out in court. But often, they forgot to even mention the name of the victim, which many of them also got wrong. With many famous faces giving testimony as to her good character, and Michael being little more than an afterthought as the socialite hogged the limelight, with the jury retiring to consider all of the evidence against her, on Thursday 7th July at 4:45pm, after just two hours, a verdict was returned. Judge: “on the charge of murder, how do you find her?”, Foreman: “not guilty”. Judge: “on the charge of manslaughter, how do you find her?”, Foreman: “not guilty”. Judge: “and on the charge of grievous bodily harm, how do you find her?”, Foreman: “not guilty”. Unable to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to kill him, Elvira Barney was acquitted of all charges, and she walked free. (End) Deluged with bouquets and congratulations, this should have been the reawakening of her celebrity status, but with The Bright Young Things having lost their sparkle, Elvira went into self-imposed exile. Three weeks after her acquittal, while travelling at high speeds and drunk, Elvira crashed her car near Cannes on the French south coast, seriously injuring Countess Caroline Karolyi, and leading to another court case. Disowned by her family, divorced by John Barney, and with her upcoming marriage to Paris dress designer Rene Jean Cady being postponed, she fell in a deep bout of depression and alcoholism. Three and a half years after the trial, having to be helped to her bedroom by the porter of Hotel de Colisee in Paris owing to hard drinking, on the Christmas Day of 1936, Elvira was found dead. She was alone, and with her fame almost gone - unlike the murder - her “natural death” was barely reported. Unlike many of those supposed Bright Young Things, Elvira Barney’s name has vanished into obscurity, just as Michael’s had at his own trial for his own death. But such is the curse of fame and infamy, as when a celebrity is beloved, no matter what, they are given the benefit of the doubt. And yet, when the other party isn’t as liked, or as famous, or as praised by the press from whom we get most of our information, all-too-often the facts are cherrypicked to sell a narrative which best suits the celebrity. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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