Gordon Park

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Gordon Park
A photo of Gordon Park, taken from the freegordon website.
Born	1944
Residence	Strangeways[1]
Occupation	Retired teacher
Spouse	First wife- Carol Park, 'The Lady in the Lake' Second wife- Catherine Park[2] Third wife- Jenny Park[3]
Children	Vanessa (Adopted)[A] Jeremy (Mother- Carol) Rachael (Mother- Carol)[4]
Website	http://www.freegordon.com/

Gordon Park (born 1944) is a retired teacher from Leece, near Ulverston, Cumbria, who was jailed for life in 2005 for the murder of his first wife, Carol Park, in 1976. The case was named 'The Lady in the Lake' by the press.

Carol Park, Gordon's first wife, went missing on July 17, 1976, and was never seen alive again. In 1997, her body was discovered at the bottom of Coniston Water, and Gordon was arrested on suspicion of murder. The charges were subsequentally dropped. However, Gordon was arrested again, in 2004, and later found guilty of his wife's murder. The trial judge sentenced him to life imprisonment and recommended that he should serve a minimum of 15 years before being considered for parole. He is currently living at Strangeways prison and is expected to remain behind bars until at least 2019 and the age of 75.

The details of the murder are sketchy. However, Carol was killed by her face being smashed by a blunt object of some sort, said to probably have been an ice axe. She was then bound with rope, using complex knots, and weighed down with rocks and lead piping, before being thrown overboard from a boat on Coniston Water. The body had landed on an underwater ledge, meaning that it could be found. If it had landed a few metres further from the shore, it would probably have never been discovered.

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the case. Gordon has received much support from his family and friends, and maintains his innocence. There was a large amount of local interest in the trial, as shown by the sales of a local paper. It is now said by some people that much of the evidence against him can be discounted. There have been vigils and petitions in attempts to free Gordon from prison and clear his name.

Contents 1 The Lady in the Lake 1.1 Carol Park vanishes 1.2 Discovery of body and post mortem results 1.3 First arrest and the dropping of charges 1.4 Second arrest and trial 2 Controversy 2.1 Support 2.2 Claims of flawed investigation 3 Footnotes 4 Sources

[edit] The Lady in the Lake

[edit] Carol Park vanishes

On July 17, 1976, Carol Park, who was thirty at the time, went missing. Gordon claimed that she had left home for another man, and, indeed, it would seem that their relationship was turbulent, with Carol having left their home in Leece twice before.^[5][6] It was for this reason, Gordon claimed, that he did not report her missing for six weeks.^[7] Carol was said to time her periods away from home to coincide with the school term. Gordon claimed that it wasn't until she didn't return in time to take up her job as a primary school teacher in September (the start of the school term) that he realised that there was a problem, and so reported her missing.^[8] On the day she vanished, the family had been due to visit Blackpool on a day trip. However, Carol said she felt unwell and wanted to remain behind in bed. She was never seen alive again.^[4]

[edit] Discovery of body and post mortem results

Carol Park's body was found in 1997, wearing only a nightdress, 75 feet down at the bottom of Coniston Water by amateur divers, and brought to the surface by police divers on August 13.^[5] It was later reported that the body had landed on an underwater ledge, and had it been thrown into the water a metre farther from the land, it would probably never have been found.^[6]

Details of Carol's death were revealed in the post mortem. There were severe injuries to the skull, and it was said that her face had been smashed by multiple blows.^[5] The examination also revealed that the murder weapon had been an ice axe.^[9] The body was found to be in a foetal position, which suggested that the body had been dealt with within a few hours of death, before rigor mortis could settle in.^[5] Many unusual knots were used to tie the body, and the same knots were said to be used in Gordon Parks' house and boat. This was one of the key pieces of evidence used against Gordon in the trial.^[3]

[edit] First arrest and the dropping of charges

At the time of the discovery of the body, Gordon and his third wife, Jenny, were on a cycling holiday in France. They heard news of the discovery of the body, and are said to have seen footage of the police searching their house. On August 24, they arrived home, and Gordon was arrested on suspicion of murder at 8.00am the next morning. He was charged with the murder of Carol Park, and remanded in Preston prison. However, after two weeks, his solicitors managed to persuade the court to grant him bail.^[10] On January 6, 1998, the charges against Gordon were dropped due to lack of evidence.^[4] The Crown Prosecution Service released a statement^[4] saying-

“

After a conference with leading counsel and the police, a decision was taken, in agreement with all parties, that there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.

”

After the charges were dropped, Gordan said that he wished to 'try to put all this, including the events of 21 years ago, behind me and try to return to my everyday life'. However, the fact that the charges were dropped angered Carol's brother, Ivor Price, who said that he was disgusted by the way that Carol was portrayed in the trial, and talked of how Carol was not 'someone who [was] cheap or had a string of lovers.'^[11]

[edit] Second arrest and trial

Gordon was again arrested on January 13, 2004. Police said at the time that the murder file had never been closed, and that the arrest followed new leads.^[12] These new leads were later reported to be a confession by Michael Wainwright, who claimed to have been a cell mate of Gordon's during his short prison stay in 1997. The police then revisited site where the body was discovered, and found a piece of Westmorland green slate, a stone that matched the rocks that made up the wall of the family's bungalow.^[13] The case was brought to trial at Manchester Crown Court, and lasted ten weeks. There was no single piece of evidence that pointed to Gordon indisputedly, but the prosecution argued that when the evidence was placed together, it could only point at Park, and not a 'mysterious stranger or secret lover'. Primarily, the case for the prosecution rested on circumstantial evidence, with the jury being asked to consider knots, rocks used to weight down the body and the ice axe, all linking Gordon Park to the crime.^[3] However, the statements of Michael Wainwright, and another of Gordon's cell mates, who had learning difficulties, were also used as evidence by the prosecution.^[13] He was sentenced to be jailed for life, and told that he must serve at least 15 years. The judge said that he had taken into account the 'terrible concealment' of the body.^[6]

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Support

There was much local interest in the matter, as was shown by the sales of the local paper, the North-West Evening Mail, when it ran special editions on the case.^[14] Park has maintained his innocence, and has received much support from his family and friends.^[6] His children, Jeremy and Rachael, appointed a new legal team in an attempt to find grounds for appeal. Jeremy also set up a website called freegordon in a bid to raise awareness and support of the case for Gordon.^[10]

A year into Park's life sentence, around 40 family members and friends held a vigil at Strangeways Prison, in a bid to raise awareness of 'the fact that there is an innocent man in prison'.^[1] Another was held a year later, lead by Jenny Park.^[15]

[edit] Claims of flawed investigation

The case was reported to be difficult for the prosecution, with the time between the murder and the trial making it extremely difficult to track potential witnesses. Keith Churchman, a police officer involved in the case, said 'The other difficulty was of course the body was taken away from the place where it was killed.'^[6] However, on top of the difficulties outlined by the police, the freegordon website^[16] detailed a number of holes in the evidence. A story about the problems with the evidence was published in the Daily Mail on October 12, 2005, at the request of Jeremy, though it was not written by him.^[17] Bob Woffenden, the author, late wrote an article for Inside Time, in December 2006, talking about the trial and its controversies.^[10] Another, similar article, pointing out holes in the evidence was published in the Sunday Herald, on July 23, 2006.^[18]

The first problem with the evidence is the use of 'jailhouse snitch' evidence, such as that from Michael Wainwright, described as "the most disreputable of all", despite the fact that it was one of the key pieces of evidence in the trial.^[17] Banks was described as "highly suggestable", frequently changed his story, and also claimed that Park had admitted to killing Carol while sailing to Blankpool. Wainwright, on the other hand, was a heavy cannabis smoker and admitted to hearing voices. He claims that Gordon said that he went upstairs, found Carol in bed with another man, and killed her in a fit of rage. This seemed unlikely, as the Parks lived in a bungalow, and the supposed lover has never come forward.^[18] It has also been said that Park had never actually met Wainwright.^[17]

Joan Young, who was the only first-hand witness, is challenged in both articles. She came forward in 2004, claiming that she had seen someone push something over the side of a boat on Coniston Water. This testimony is challenged, due to the fact that so much time has passed and the fact that her husband saw nothing. However, he claims to have been reading his paper at the time. Also, it has been said that Young was too far away to identify the person in the boat, and that it couldn't have been Carol Park's body that was being dumped, as the Youngs were positioned so that the location Carol's body was found would have been visibly blocked by an island. The article even points out that Young described a boat that appeared to be a cruiser. Despite the fact that Gordon owned a large yacht in 1997, in 1976, he owned a 505 racing dinghy, which he sold later that year.^[17]

The rock supposedly found in the lake, said to be taken from the Park's garden wall, has been challenged as evidence in multiple places. Both articles say that the police diver had no memory of recovering it, and he claimed that if he had found it, he would have placed it back. Professor Kenneth Pye, a defense witness, said that there was no evidence that the rock had ever been on the lake bed at all.^[17][18] The article in the Sunday Herald also claims that the policeman said to be responsible for finding the rock fainted when it was produced in court, offering no explanation, but still denying that he ever found it.^[18]

There are three witnesses who provide direct evidence supporting the idea that Park was innocent. The first, a neighbour, claims that they saw Carol at the bottom of her driveway. A second, another neighbour, claims that they saw an unidentified man in a Volkswagon Beetle in the Parks' drive for twenty minutes. The presence of the unidentified car has never been accounted for.^[17] Around 6pm that night, another witness, a woman who knew Carol, saw her at Charnock Richard services. She mentioned the fact that Carol had not greeted her to her husband, describing her as 'snobby'.^[18]

Two more issues are addressed in the Sunday Herald article, but not in the Daily Mail article. The first is of the knots used to tie up Carol's body- the knots on Carol's body were mostly granny knots, of which there was no evidence that Gordon ever used. The article also claims that the evidence of knots was irrelevent anyway, as climbers and yatchmen were so common in the area. The other piece of evidence related to another rock taken from the lakebed, which had supposedly come from the Parks' roof. However, the prosecution eventually admitted that Westmoreland green slate had been worked in the area for hundreds of years, and could have come from anywhere. The Herald also mentions the fact that the police files from the original missing persons enquiry into Carol Park had gone missing themselves, but does not draw any conclusions from this.^[18]

Both articles address the issue of who the killer could alternatively have been, and both of them mention Carol's other lovers, and John Rapson, responsible for murdering Carol's sister. Both of the articles mention that he was in the Barrow area around the time of the murder, but both of them are careful to point out that they are not accusing him of being the murderer.^[18][17]

[edit] Footnotes

A:^{^}  Vanessa was adopted by Gordon and Carol when she was 18 months old, after her mother, Christie, (who was Carol's sister) was murdered by her boyfriend in 1969.^[13]

[edit] Sources