Unsolved murder of a reclusive man in Hampstead Heath

Allan Chappelow, writer and Fabian socialist and biographer of George Bernard Shaw was found savagely beaten to death in May 2006, at his north-we London home in Hampstead. The neighbours took it for granted the 86-year-old as a recluse, if always polite. Chappelow’s body lay undiscovered for over four weeks. Several blows with a hammer had been dealt to the back of his head. Death was swift, as there was no sign of struggle, police, however, found footprints on a blood-filled pile of papers and six discarded cigarette butts suggesting at least one intruder, the DNA collected from the butts did not match Chappelow’s.

This was the first murder trial in modern British history to be held in camera, as some parts of it were closed to the public and to the press, following a Home Office demand for secrecy banned journalists from even speculating.

Blood on the Page is diligent and a marvel of investigative research by Harding, a British journalist, who happens to be related to the Jewish investigator Hanns Alexander,  who ran Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Hoss to the ground at the war’s end.

Harding interviewed forensic entomologists, blood spatter specialists to explain about maggots and glucose-hungry flies which had been found on Chappelow’s body. According to Harding, the maggots can indicate when the flies laid their eggs on the corpse and the time the victim died. The investigations were compromised after a fire broke out in the house close to the crime scene.

Finally, an exiled Chinese dissident Wang Yam, who lived around the corner from Hampstead’s wealthy Downshire Hill, claimed he was the grandson of Chairman Mao’ s third-in-command and run several fraudulent online businesses, was charged with the murder.

Police also discovered fraudulent credit card activity in the immediate wake of murder on Chappelow’s bank account. Yam defended himself by saying he was given the cards by London-based Triads who were involved in identity thefts and money-laundering, and he denied murder.

Although no forensic evidence was ever found to implicate Yam in the murder, in 2009, he was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years, eight years later he failed to overturn the conviction on appeal.

 Chappelow was found curled up in a foetal position, his body partially burnt and covered in candle wax. According to Crown Prosecution witness, Chappelow was known to cruise Hampstead’s West Heath in search of gay sex and he may have indulged in hot “wax play”.  We cannot for sure know if Chappelow was killed by a Hampstead Heath sex companion.

Blood on the Page: A Murder, A Secret Trial, a Search for the Truth by Thomas Harding, William Heinemann £20, 338 pages.