James Hanratty James Hanratty James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was effectively abolished. He was hanged at Bedford Gaol on 4 April 1962, after being convicted of the murder of scientist Michael Gregsten, aged 36, who was shot dead in a car on the A6 at Deadman's Hill, near Clophill, Bedfordshire in August 1961. Gregsten's mistress, Valerie Storie, was raped, shot five times, and left paralysed. According to Storie, the couple were
On the Murder of Eratosthenes argue that the murder was not premeditated by stressing Euphiletos' lack of preparation: he had had a friend around for dinner that night but had not kept him around to help, and he repeatedly stresses the difficulty Euphiletos had gathering witnesses after Eratosthenes entered his house because he had not organised them in advance. He does not call on witnesses to corroborate either of these points. Porter has argued that the speech was never actually delivered in court but was "a particularly sophisticated form of practical rhetorical exercise— a fictional speech based upon a fictional case, designed not only to