British Executions

George Henry Whelpton

Age: 31

Sex: male

Crime: murder

Date Of Execution: 7 Jan 1948

Crime Location:

Execution Place: Leeds

Method: hanging

Executioner: Stephen Wade

Source: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C4633054

George Henry Whelpton murdered his girlfriend Alison Gertrude Parkin 48, Joyce Parkin 23 and Maurice Parkin 15 at 4 Wainwright Road, Doncaster on 9 October 1947. He strangled them all.

He was a married bus driver and had been seeing Alison Parkin who was a widow 17 years older than him for about 3 months.

In court he claimed insanity saying that he didnt know what he did, the bodies were found strangled and mutilated. He said that there was an argument during which Alison Parkin picked something up and hit him and then he got hold of her and she dropped to the floor. After he said he went out and when he came back in Maurice Parkin attacked him and he hit him and he fell to the floor and then he saw Joyce Parkin in the living room who he hit causing her to als fall to the floor.

The bodies of Alison Parkin and Joyce Parkin were both naked. A blood stained poker was also found in the house.

On the day George Whelpton had left work as normal at 2.40pm and was later seen in a pub with Alison Parkin that afternoon. between 10-11pm George Whelpton and Alison Parkin had been stood outside the pub with a friend who was waiting for her husband who when he arrived drove them all home dropping George Whelpton and Alison Parkin about 100 yards from her home at 4 Wainwright Road. Joyce Parkin had been dancing with a friend and was dropped off at 11.30 and the friend heard the voice of Alison Parkin inside the house. Later at 12.45am a neighbour saw the scullery door open on the house and when she went to look she saw a dead body.

When he was later arrested at a bus depot he told a policeman 'We had a row and I did it. I just cannot remember all that happened.'

see National Archives - PCOM 9/1202, HO 45/22543 and ASSI 45/107/14

see Derby Daily Telegraph - Monday 15 December 1947

see Yorkshire Evening Post - Monday 15 December 1947