Russell Pascoe, aged 24 and 22 year old Dennis John Whitty were jointly convicted of the murder of 64 year old William Garfield Rowe in the doorway of his house at Nanjarrow Farm at Constantine near Falmouth in Cornwall at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday the 14th of August 1963.
Pascoe had lived in Constantine and Whitty at St. Keverne.
Gossip in the village of Constantine was that William Rowe was quite wealthy and kept his money in the house. Pascoe had worked for Mr. Rowe for a time after leaving school. At the time of the crime Whitty and Pascoe were living with three young women in a caravan at Kenwyn Caravan Site in Truro and were indulging in various criminal activities to fund their lifestyles.
The pair had battered and stabbed the reclusive farmer to death in an attempt to steal his alleged fortune. He had suffered seven stab wounds plus other serious injuries from being hit with an iron bar. In reality they managed to find just £4 after ransacking the house, although the police later located a further £3000 stashed away.
Pascoe was riding his motorbike and was arrested at a police checkpoint in Constantine on the 16th of August, the police having been tipped off by one of the young women he was living with in the caravan. Whitty was brought in for questioning the following day. Both blamed the other for the murder, with Pascoe alleging that after he had hit Mr. Rowe with iron bar the first time, but that it was Whitty who had struck the remaining blows. Who actually did what will never be known for sure.
The murder weapons were recovered by police divers from Argal Reservoir near Penryn.
They were tried at Bodmin, before Mr. Justice Thesiger, between the 29th of October and the 2nd of November 1963. The jury of nine men and three women retired at 3.45 p.m. on the Saturday and returned with their guilty verdicts some four hours later.
Upon conviction, Pascoe was sent to Bristol to await execution and Whitty was sent to Winchester, as Bodmin had long since ceased to have an execution facility.
Their appeals were heard before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Parker, sitting with Justices Atkinson and Winn and dismissed on the 25th of November 1963. Lord Parker determined that the trial judge had not misdirected the jury. He also stated that the blows to Mr. Rowe had been inflicted over a period of 10-15 seconds and therefore concluded that both men were attacking him simultaneously.
At 8.00 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday the 17th of December they were led to the gallows. Pascoe was hanged by Harry Allen and Royston Rickard and Whitty by Robert Stewart and Harry Robinson. Allen gave Pascoe who weighed 182 lbs. a drop of 6’ 3” while Whitty who weighed 169 lbs. got a drop of 6’ 6”.
Outside Horfield prison in Bristol there was a considerable demonstration, with Tony Benn the MP for Bristol South East and the Bishop of Bristol, the Right Reverend Oliver Tomkins present.
The inquest on Pascoe was held before Mr. John Seymour Williams at Bristol, while that of Whitty was held before Mr. A. K. Freeman at Winchester.
After 1954 double hangings were carried out simultaneously in different prisons, rather than side by side on the same gallows.
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