56. Elvira Barney - Accidental Killer

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Welcome to Lady Killers with me, Lucy Worsley from BBC Radio 4, where true crime meets history with a twist. Now, have you ever had problems with noisy neighbors? Well, just imagine living next door to this couple. Get out of my house at once! I hate you! I will shoot you. I will shoot you! I'm going! Michael! Come back to me! Michael! Michael! This is Lady Killers. Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we embark upon an adventure.

We're revisiting the crimes of history's most infamous murderesses from across the UK and the USA. We hear their words, their voices, and we ask, how did they do it? And more importantly, what drove them to it? Today I'm investigating one of the most sensational high society murder cases of the 20th century. It happens in a very exclusive part of central London, in Knightsbridge.

The residents of the little streets called William Mews didn't get much sleep living close to the rich and idle Mrs. Elvira Barney and her lover, Michael Scott Stephen, what with the drug fuelled parties, the noisy sex and the drunken row? But early in the morning at the thirty first of may nineteen thirty two. It's a whole lot worse. Dr. Thomas Durant of nearby Westbourne Terrace is woken by a phone call from one of his patients.

Once come at once. There's been a terrible accident. It's Elvira herself. Frantic. Arriving at William Mews, Doctor Durant enters Elvira's house and finds Michael's He at the top of the stairs. There's a gunshot wound to his chest. He's dead. Elvira tells Dr. Durant We were quarrelling.

Michael threatened to leave. He picked up the revolver from under a cushion on a chair because he thought I would kill myself. I wrestled with Michael to get the revolver from him. While we were wrestling, the revolver went off. I don't know how. Ha He wanted you to come so he could tell you it was an accident. I love him so he can't be dead. Let me die. I will kill myself. I want to know what really happened in the early hours of the 31st of May 1932.

And what can Elvira's story tell us about the lives of upper class women in the middle of the twentieth century? And how might Elvira's story play out differently if it happened today? To help me answer these questions, I am delighted to be joined by our guest detective, journalist, novelist, host of the Difficult Women podcast, Rachel Johnson. Rachel, what's the worst thing that you've ever done to annoy your neighbours? Oh my goodness.

W uh we had a car break in and my husband ran out naked in the street. chasing after his Audi which disappeared up to Wormwood Scrubs. Does that count? I don't think that's annoying. I think that's that's high class entertainment. Now, Rachel, let's get back to the glamorous nineteen thirties. Are you ready for this? Oh, so ready. I mean, what a story.

I'm so down this rabbit hole of Elvira Barney. Now, to find out more about Elvira Barney and Michael Scott Stephen, I went to the street where they were living with our in house historian, Professor Rosalind Crohn. This is William Mews, a highly desirable address in Knightsbridge. And I imagine these little houses are worth millions of pounds, but what was it like in the 1930s when Elvira was living here? Well Lucy, I've actually brought you a photograph.

to show you. So we can see it's a cobbled street and some of the cars. The houses are mainly occupied by the chauffeurs who work for the wealthy families on Lounge Square. and they live here above the garage which has the car or the horses with their family. But the couple living at number 21, now they are very different. That's Elvira and her recent boyfriend, Michael Scott Stevens. And I've got a really great description of their house.

It's been totally renovated. So the garage on the ground floor has been converted into this huge living room with a cocktail bar at one end. and furniture pushed against the wall to create a great big dancing floor. So she would have twenty, thirty guests come along, and they would hold these parties, or there'd be lots of music and noise, and the parties would spill out onto the street.

So you can imagine these were the neighbours from hell, especially if you're working people who have to get up early in the morning and work all day. She didn't. What do we know about Elvira's story so far? Well, she was the daughter of Sir John Mullins, who was a chief government stockbroker, and his famous wife, Lady Evelyn.

Now her parents lived in this enormous house on Belgrave Square, not far from here, and they had a staff of at least 20 servants. Elvira at this time is 27. She's a real party girl. She's actually married. to an American singer, but they've separated, the relationship is basically over. She moves to the Mews in order to have some privacy, but her lifestyle is still being funded by her parents.

and really they are funding these extravagant parties. She has her lovers coming around and she also has a bit of a drug habit. Ooh, would this be cocaine the nineteen thirties party drug? Yes, absolutely. What do we know about Michael's backstory? Well he's also in his mid twenties. He also comes from a wealthy family. He describes himself as a dress designer, but he doesn't really seem to have been working much at the time. Perhaps he was a bit of a a drug dealer for his friends, in fact.

His parents had also cut him off. They did not approve of his relationship with Elvira. So this is a pretty volatile relationship, isn't it? Yes, full of big rows. And their friends said that these rows really increased the sexual frisson between them. She was very jealous of his interest in other women. And there was also a kind of sadomasochistic element to their relationship too. According to reports, instruments of perversion, in other words, sex toys were found in their house.

And it is said that they were associated with a set known as the Bright Young Things. This is a a group of wealthy, aristocratic socialites in the roaring twenties who led this very hedonistic lifestyle in response to. the suffering of the First World War. It is said that Elvira was the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh's character, Agatha Runceble, in his novel Vile Bodies. So this is Really a time when women are partying as hard as men.

Rachel Johnson, having heard a bit about Elvira there, do you see any parallels between her lifestyle and perhaps the kind of people who appear on shows like Maiden Chelsea today? The social media stars. of the twenty twenties are so different from the bright young things of the twenties and thirties. The Bright Young Things were born into privilege status and class, and Elvira was the daughter of a so called aristocratic family, and she knew it.

and she acted like that was her job. With Maiden Chelsea stars in averted commas, these people are trying to become famous stars or celebrities. The Bright Young Things were the celebrities of their day by birth. Good point. Rachel, you used to edit a magazine called The Lady, which definitely had some very classy readers.

I guess you've got an insight into the world of the upper classes. If you're born into the upper classes today as a young woman, you have the means to do nothing, but what's expected of you? Are you supposed to go out and get a job anyway? You really are and It's not done now to do nothing. You have to have purpose and relevance and all those things. And young women, however grand, are expected to self actualize.

in ways they weren't before. And I think uh the billionaire class now realises that you've got to give your children enough to do something, but not too much that they do nothing. Part of the appeal of Elvira Barney, and this does not make me proud, is that she's posh and I just like the idea of posh people behaving badly. I don't think I'm alone in this, am I? Oh, I mean it's absolute catnip to the media. I love the whole sort of fur coat no knickers aspect to her.

So back to Elvira, what happens next?

Despite her protests, Dr. Durant calls the police. Elvira becomes hysterical. And when one of the officers politely suggests that she put on her fur coat to come to the station with him, Elvira hits him in the face, shouting Get out! I will teach you to put me in a cell, you foul swine. When you know who my mother is, perhaps you will be a little more careful what you say and do to me.

The police soon learn exactly who Elvira's mother is, because Sir John and Lady Mullins themselves arrive at William Mews shortly afterwards. they eventually persuade Elvira to go down to the police station. But amazingly, after just a few questions, she's released. Unconditionally. She's allowed to go home with her parents to Belgrave Square. The police begin to piece together what happened on the evening of the thirtieth of may. There's a cocktail party for 30 people at Elvira's house.

Then Elvira and Michael go off in Elvira's enormous car to the Café de Paris in Soho for dinner. Then they go to the Blue Angel Club until about 1 a.m. They're pretty drunk by the time they get back to William Mews at about 2 a.m. and as usual it seems they then have a row. The police interview the long-suffering neighbours about what happens next. At 4 25 AM, Mrs. Dorothy Hall, the wife of the chauffeur who lives opposite, hears this. Get out of my house at once! I hate you. Get out!

I will shoot you. I will shoot you. I'm going. What have you done? Michael! Come back to me! Michael! Michael! On the third of June, Elvira is arrested at her parents' house. She's charged with willful murder. That's killing somebody intentionally. and after a hearing at the Westminster Police Court, she's taken to Holloway Prison to await her trial.

Rachel, Elvira is not coming across at all well, is she? No, she is her own worst enemy, and the details are just so juicy. Imagine actually hitting a police officer now and calling them a vile or a foul swine. She would be in no end of trouble, but she really believes That her class and who her mother was, that status would afford her a kind of shield.

Can you imagine how Elvira coped being cooped up in Holloway prison for five weeks? Well, I think Elvira went to boarding school, so I'm sure prison is is much more comfortable than many primitive boarding schools. It's always said that if you've been to Eton, prison's a breeze. So no, I'm sure she was fine. Do you think that she was looking over her life and thinking about where she'd gone wrong? Do you think she was working on herself at this point?

Absolutely not. No. She doesn't strike me as a reflective person. She was about the pleasures of the flesh, wasn't she? And possibly an addict, we might say now, or someone with addictive tendencies. So I'm sure prison was difficult from that point of view because there were no parties and there were no cocktails. But I doubt that she would have come out of prison a reformed character. I think I agree. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?

In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theory. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Back to the story.

Elvira's trial begins just over a month after the shooting. They didn't hang about in nineteen thirty two. Now people cue all night for seats in the public gallery. This trial is going to be a sensation. Expert witnesses, including the most celebrated pathologists and firearms experts of the day, confirm that Michael was shot at very close range, three to six inches.

and that he could not have fired the gun himself. The gun requires a fourteen pound pull on the trigger. That's quite a hard pull, which means it's very unlikely to be fired accidentally. And there's other compelling evidence for the prosecution. The gun belongs to Elvira. Illegally. She keeps it in her house loaded. No one else is there at the time of the shooting. And immediately before the gun is fired, Elvira is heard to shout, I will shoot you, by no fewer than three different neighbours.

And then this is the killer fact, excuse the pun. Elvira has form with this gun. Eleven days before Michael dies, she has another drunken row with him. She's heard by the neighbours, including Mrs. Hall, the chauffeur's wife, yelling, Laugh, baby, laugh for the last time, before shooting at him from a first floor window. For this, Elvira faces an additional charge of intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Hmm, I think Elvira's in deep trouble. This sounds to me like an open and shut case. Elvira's parents employ the most famous and clever barrister in London, Sir Patrick Hastings. But he's got his work cut out, digging Elvira out of this terrible hole. Rachel, Elvira's parents are paying for this hugely expensive barrister, just like they've always paid for her lavish lifestyle. Do you think the parents should bear some blame for her situation themselves?

Nowadays we would probably say that she had been indulged too much and they didn't make her work for a living and she was entitled, which is the worst thing you can say about anybody now. was entitled Spoilt, Arrogant, Rude, Self-Indulgent, and Indulged. Now let's find out what happens in court.

Well, despite all of this evidence, the prosecution barrister, Sir Percival Clark, fails to make the most of his witnesses, Elvira's neighbours. And he doesn't exactly give Elvira herself a hard time in the witness box. He asks questions like this. Did you think Michael Scott Stephen was going to leave you for another woman? No. I did not think that. You were very much in love with him? Yes.

Yes. The court is on tentar hooks as Sir Patrick Hastings rises to begin his defence of Alvira. It's a virtuoso performance. Sir Patrick paints Michael's death as an accident. In fact, it's a tragic accident because Elvira has lost the man she loved. When he comes to cross-examine the key witness, Dorothy Hall, Sir Patrick cleverly focuses attention not on the night when Michael Scott Stephen was killed.

But on the previous incident, eleven days before, when Elvira fired a gun at him out of the window of her house. This incident in the news it happened late one night? Yes. About eleven o'clock the next morning, did you see the young man again? Yes. Was misses Barney with him? Yes. Did they seem friendly? Yes.

Yes. Did you and Michael Stephen speak? I told him to clear off, as he was a perfect nuisance in the muse. Did he reply? He said he didn't want to leave, Mrs. Barney, because he was afraid she might kill herself. Hmm, now this cleverly reinforces Elvira's argument that on the night he was killed, Michael was struggling with her to stop her killing herself when the gun went off accidentally. Sir Patrick continues to question Mrs. Hall about this previous time the gun was fired. Mrs. Hall.

Did I rightly understand you to say that when the shot was fired by Mrs Barney from the first floor window, You saw a puff of smoke? Yes. I suppose you didn't know that Mrs. Barney's revolver contained cordite cartridges? No. And I suppose you don't know either that cordite cartridges don't make any smoke. With that, the credibility of the prosecution's key witness is completely destroyed. And to seal Mrs. Hall's humiliation, Sir Patrick remarks to the court.

How awful it would be if the life of any one of us might depend upon the evidence of women like thee. Women like these. Oh my goodness. Rachel Johnson. It's very striking, isn't it? The easy ride that they've given to Elvira and the tough time they're giving to the working class witnesses. I'm really feeling sorry for Mrs. Hall because not only has she had her life made hell, now she's in court and she's not being believed. Exactly. It's terrible for her. And also on the victim here. Nowadays

The focus in all criminal trials has to be on the victim. And he's completely i in a way irrelevant. The focus is entirely on the alleged perpetrator. The trial lasts for three days. Sir Patrick Hastings makes a stirring closing speech to the jury, and it ends like this. I stand here and I claim of you that on the evidence that has been put before you. Mrs. Barney is entitled as a right to a verdict in her favour. There is not enough evidence to hang a cat.

She should never have been put on trial. She is a young woman with the whole of her life before her. I beg you to remember that, and I ask of you as a matter of justice and as of right. That you should set her free. Now the judge, Sir Travis Humphreys, actually congratulates Sir Patrick on his speech. That is certainly one of the finest speeches I have myself ever heard at the bar in the course of a somewhat protracted experience.

At three o'clock the jury retires. They are asked to consider three verdicts there's murder, there's manslaughter, and there's not guilty. Less than two hours later they return their verdict and it's not guilty. In the end, Elva gets a mere fifty pound fine for possession of an illegal firearm. Even the judge is rather astonished by the outcome. He's overheard saying Most extraordinary. Apparently we should give her a pat on the back.

So the judge is surprised. Rachel Johnson, what do you think? You're you're aghast, you got your hand over your mouth. Well now I think w that would be a mistrial because the judge basically directed the jury, didn't he, by congratulating Sir Patrick Hastings on his magnificent Terroration and direction to acquit. So very odd, a very, very perplexing case. I think what you said about the weight needed, the drag on the trigger.

But the effort required, the intent required to pull the trigger, and of course the fact that it was only three to five inches away from Stephen's chest I mean, what more do you need? So Elvira walks free. She celebrates back at her old haunt, the Café de Paris in Soho, by getting drunk and by shouting at the journalists who'd followed her there. I'm the woman who shot her lover!

Have a good look at me. I returned to Knightsbridge with Ros Crohn to find out what happened to Elvira after her acquittal. Ros and I are in Belgrave Square. This is as posh as it gets. And look at this mansion. This is number six Belgrave Square. The home of Elvira's parents. And after the trial she goes back and lives there, doesn't she? She does and I brought a photograph with me, Lucy.

To show you. Here she is arriving outside number six Belgrave Square. This is a day after the trial and she's been out shopping. Did you say that she was 27? Yes. She looks quite a lot older than that. Well, a life of partying and drinking and drugs will do that to you. Oof, yeah. And what's she going to do with her freedom then?

Well, the first thing she does is she sells her story to the Sunday dispatch. Of course she does. Of course she does, yeah. And in that story she bemoans the loss of her lover, Michael. And she also gives these rather quirky descriptions of their life together. Apparently they would stay in during the evening listening to programmes on the wireless. and some evenings he would read to her while she sat there and sewed. And this really rubbed people up the wrong way. This caused a lot of outrage.

Because it was ludicrously untrue. Yes, yeah. And they really thought she was getting away with it. Yes. Yeah. And it was this That really triggered this expression of moral outrage against the bright young things and their hedonistic lifestyle. And admittedly, this had been building for a while. I mean, this is the early nineteen thirties, it's a time of

economic depression, high unemployment. And what this case really did was to expose the gap that existed between these wealthy socialites living the high life, money no problem, and the struggles of ordinary people who were

So what do you do when you're an ex bright young thing and everybody hates you? Well I think the thing to do is to go abroad to leave the country. And that's exactly what Elvira did. So she didn't stay with her parents for long. Instead she went to France with a new male traveler. And there was more drinks, more drugs, they had car accidents. And eventually by 1936 they ended up in Paris. And on Christmas Eve, 1936, she went out partying. She had far too much to drink. She did a lot of drugs.

She was in such a state that she had to be taken by the hotel porter to her hotel room. And the next morning, Christmas Day 1936, she was found dead. in her room. She had died from a hemorrhage. And she was only thirty two years old. Phew what a waste. Yeah, it is a waste. It's quite sad actually. And there's a postscript to this story on the eighth of March.

In 1941, during the Blitz in London, Elvira's beloved Café de Paris, the hangout of the bright young things, was hit by a German bomb. 34 people were killed, around 80 people were injured. And this really marks the end of that era of the bright young things.

Roz has now joined us in the studio. Hello Roz. Hello, Lisi, and hello Rachel. Roz what do you take away from this story? I think this case is capturing a particular moment in history to do with this particular group of young titled people. If you look back in the 19th century, much easier then to keep your young women cloistered at home waiting for marriage.

But we go to the early twentieth century and because of big societal and technological changes the world is opening up and there are so many more choices and opportunities at the same time as enduring limitations and restrictions. Elvira's barrister, Sir Patrick Hastings. He asks the jury, doesn't he, to really consider that this is a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, and the jury take that on board, and deliver quite an extraordinary not guilty verdict.

Elvira takes this as a carte blanche to continue the life that she was leading. A reckless life full of drugs and drink and fast cars and car crashes, and I find that terribly, terribly sad. Hmm. I agree. Rachel, what's your takeaways from the story of Elvira? Well, one, it's the most uh you know, juicy imaginable story. It has sex, it has class, it has death.

It has a whole set of people that have been written up, The Bright Young Things in Evil and War, but it also shows us and and this is what goes on behind the curtain is actually quite tawdry. The drugs, the excess. the kind of wild sex and parties, they do have a dark side. And so you really do get it all with the story of Alvira Barney. It's interesting that looking back on the case many years later, the judge acknowledged that he didn't really explore.

Manslaughter as a viable option for the jury. And it was this failure that gave Elvira the unlikely chance of a new life, a chance that she then squandered within just four years. Did Elvira get away with murder? I think that Michael Scott Stevens' death was probably an awful accident, the sort of thing that happens when you mix drunken rouse with loaded guns.

Ninety plus years on, I'm glad that we've largely left behind the age of deference, because I can't help feeling that if it had been one of Elvira's neighbours in the dock, one of those chauffeur's wives who had to put up with the parties and the screaming and the gunshots in the night. The outcome might have been very different. Well huge thanks to Rachel Johnson and to Professor Rosalind Crohn. Next time a living servant is brutally murdered in a

Townhouse. A good friend is accused of killing her but protests her innocence. Will she be believed? Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley Is produced by Jane Greenwood, and the readers are Claire Corbett, William Hope, Jonathan Keble, and Ruth Sillars. The executive producer is Kirsty Hunter, and the commissioning editor for BBC Radio 4 is Rihanna Rock. It's a story hunter production for Yeah. And you can listen first to the episodes if you search for Lady Killers on BBC Sound.

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.