The strange case of Baroness de Stempel: How the death of an eccentric
architect revealed a web of murder, fraud and intrigue
Twenty years ago, an eccentric architect was bludgeoned to death at his
crumbling mansion. The dramatic trial of his ex-wife revealed a web of
murder, fraud and intrigue, shining a harsh light on Britain's
aristocracy. But what happened next in the strange case of Baroness de
Stempel?
....
Simon Dale, an architect who was blind and whose scholarship was deeply
eccentric, was married to Susan Wilberforce – the unnamed "wife" of the
headstone – the great-great-grand-daughter of William Wilberforce.
Twenty years ago next month, one sunny Sunday afternoon in September, he
was found battered to death in the kitchen of Heath House, the crumbling
mansion that they, as newlyweds, had saved from demolition and turned
into their family home, but which, after their divorce, became the
subject of an acrimonious dispute. And Susan Wilberforce was charged
with the murder of her ex-husband, although she was cleared at trial.
Hence the absence of her name. Two decades on, the murderer is still at
large, the police file still open.
That is not all. While investigating the murder, detectives stumbled
across another crime: Susan, together with her second husband, Baron
Michael de Stempel, and two of her five children, had defrauded
Margaret, Lady Illingworth, her elderly and senile aunt, who had once
organised Susan's debutante party, of an estimated £1m. Susan pleaded
guilty to fraud; Michael and two of her children, Marcus and Sophia,
both in their mid-twenties, were found guilty. The judge called Susan a
"malign and appalling influence" on her offspring.
cont'd....
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2820965.ece