At the same time Cornish meticulously pointed out that he had not been able to locate the missing keys or the girl’s handbag, so Field’s story could not be disproved.
The puzzled coroner’s jury promptly cleared the man in plus fours but refused to take any action against Field, returning with a verdict of willful murder by some person unknown.
It was apparent to observers that Cornish of the Yard was in danger of losing his first case. He would need more evidence to move against Field and he had none.
Even though he continued to work on the case, almost two years passed with no results. Then in July, 1933, Field unexpectedly surrendered himself to police for the murder of Nora Upchurch, explaining, “I want the whole matter cleared up.”
Field confessed the murder to Cornish. He said that he had met Nora several months before the strangling and had fallen for her. They met on clandestine dates. He claimed that one night he admitted to Nora that he was married and the girl promptly began blackmailing him, demanding payments or threatening to inform his wife of their affair. On the night of the murder he met her at a busy corner and lured her to the vacant store for which he had the keys. He took her in through the back door and, once she was inside the stockroom, strangled her.
He proved to be hazy about many details, claiming that he could not remember all that had occurred. Asked about the missing purse and keys, Field said he had buried them under a tree about ten miles from London. The electrician took police to the spot but even though the officers dug and sifted around all the trees in the areas, they were unable to find either the keys or the purse.
The confession appeared to be a complete vindication of Cornish and once again mention was made of how he had never lost a case. But, as it turned out, it was the lull before the storm. The only evidence against Field was his confession and when he took the stand he not only repudiated it but said he had taken the unusual step of confessing to a crime he had not committed in order to clear his reputation.
He painted a picture of himself as an innocent man forced to walk around with a cloud over his name as a result of the unjust suspicions of Superintendent Cornish. Because of the police official’s constant prying he had been unable to get a job and found that former friends were shunning him, afraid they would be called in for questioning if seen in his company.
Standing erect in the prisoner’s dock, he said he could not allow the situation to continue. “While matters stand this way, I know people are thinking that I might have done it. I could not do anything or say anything to change their minds. I wanted to be arrested and put on trial to have my innocence proved in a court of law.”
The presiding judge glanced at the prisoner and remarked that he had chosen an unusual method, the understatement of the year.
“It is the only way,” Field replied. He pointed out that his confession was vague because he did not know the details, since he had not murdered Nora Upchurch.
With the validity of the confession in doubt and the failure of police to produce such vital evidence linking him to the crime as the missing handbag and keys, the case against Field collapsed and the judge in his charge to the jury directed them to return with an acquittal verdict.
The case was lost forever to Cornish of the Yard. Even if the keys and handbag now were found, it would be impossible to try Field again. He stepped out of court a free man, though Cornish still was convinced that he was the killer. The Superintendent realized now that Field had talked but not enough; he had cleverly omitted the details from his confession in order to get away with murder.
Even so, the case was far from over. Several weeks later Field confirmed Cornish’s theory when he publicly boasted that he had committed the murder. He sold his detailed confession to a newspaper, in which he still claimed that he had murdered Nora because she was blackmailing him. In it he wrote, “I have never had any regrets. A judge has classified blackmail as a moral murder, so it is my contention that she got what she deserved.”
Cornish of the Yard was grim when the second confession appeared in print. “He thinks now that he’s cleverer than the law and he’ll try something else,” he predicted to friendly newsmen.
However, it seemed that Cornish had made his second mistake. Field seemed to enjoy the white light of notoriety for a brief time and then he quietly enlisted with the Royal Air Force. He kept to himself and performed his duties as storekeeper efficiently, avoiding getting into trouble.
As the years passed, Field was forgotten. In April, 1936, the public and Cornish of the Yard had a new interest. Mrs. Beatrice Sutton was found strangled in the bedroom of her home in Clapham, a London suburb. The killer had vanished and officials could find no motive for the crime. Separated from her husband, she had lived quietly and did not run around with men. Her husband, who was shocked by the crime, was cleared when he was able to account for his movements on the night of the murder.
Cornish was assigned to the difficult case. He studied the meagre evidence, hoping to find a clue that somehow had been overlooked. He read again the description of how the strangling had been done and startled his colleagues by suggesting that the murder had been committed by the forgotten man, Field. He called for the dusty files on the murder of Nora Upchurch and read aloud from both reports. The method of strangling of both women was almost identical. Nora’s body had been covered with newspapers; Mrs. Sutton’s body was covered with pillows.
A request was made to the Air Force for information on Field. The former electrician had gone AWOL in March, the week before the murder, and was still absent.
The long hours of work Cornish had put in previously checking on Field now began to pay off. He had a list of every woman the electrician had known then and officers were assigned to visit them. The missing soldier was found at the home of one.
When Field was brought into Cornish the scene was a playback of the one three years earlier. Once again Field was suspected of murder by the Superintendent. Once again there was no evidence to link him with the victim. And once again Field voluntarily confessed.
“I murdered Mrs. Sutton,” he calmly told Cornish of the Yard. “I did it because I want to commit suicide and I can’t carry it through myself.”
He explained that he had run away from the Air Force in order to destroy himself. On the day of the murder he had purchased a bottle of poison but found that he did not have the courage to take his own life. Then he met Mrs. Sutton on the street, told her he had no place to sleep and asked if she would put him up for the night. The kind-hearted woman invited him to her home.
“I went there solely to murder,” he said in his signed confession. “I put my hands around her throat and pressed for two or three minutes. She struggled a little at first and then lay still. I relaxed my grip, but then she moved her legs and I gripped her throat again, and after two or three minutes she did not move again. I put two pillows over her face because I did not want to see it. I left the flat, closing the door behind me. I had never seen the woman before in my life, and had not the least malice toward her. I just murdered her because I wanted to murder someone. I had not the nerve to take my own life. Now the hangman can do it for me.”
Understandably, Field’s confession to his second murder caused a sensation in England. British newspapers, by law, are forbidden to comment on a case before trial, but there was no lack of discussion about it in every pub in the land. And everybody asked the same questions: What was Field up to now? Would he pull the same sort of trick he did in the Upchurch murder?