Daniel Raven – a motiveless murder

 Daniel Raven – a motiveless murder?

Daniel Myer Raven was a 23-year-old Jewish advertising agent with a reputation for always being immaculately turned out. His wealthy in-laws, 49-year-old Leopold Goodman and his 47-year-old wife, Esther, were both Russian Jews. 

On evening of Monday 10th October 1949, Daniel Raven went with his wife’s parents Leopold and Esther Goodman to visit his wife, 22 year old Gertrude Marie and their new born son in a maternity home at Muswell Hill in London. 

The Goodman’s went home to Ashcombe Gardens in Edgware around 8 p.m.  Daniel left a few minutes later and went home.  About 30 minutes later he went to his in-law’s house at 8 Ashcombe Gardens on Edgware Way in Edgeware where it was alleged that he beat them both to death using the heavy base of a television aerial.  Esther’s face was so badly beaten as to be unrecognizable.  Raven claimed that he panicked when confronted by the murder scene and got the blood on his trousers because he knelt down beside Esther to see if she was alive. He also said that because he had blood on his clothes he was frightened and therefore did not ring the police, but instead went home.

The bodies were discovered by Mr. Goodman's business partner, Frederick Fraiman, who along with his wife and daughter, had called at the house at about 9.55 p.m. to inquire about Gertrude and the baby. Getting no response to his ringing Mr. Fraiman climbed in through an open window and was confronted by the grim site in the house.

Raven was arrested the day after the murder (the 11th of October) by Chief Inspector Tanshill who asked him to identify the remains of the suit found in the boiler and the cleaned shoes found in the garage, which Raven admitted were his.

He was tried before Mr. Justice Cassells at the Old Bailey beginning on Tuesday 22nd November for the murder of Leopold Goodman. His defence was that, like Mr. Fraiman, he had entered the house after getting no reply and had discovered the bodies, got blood on the suit when he knelt by his mother-in-law's body and had fled in panic. His councel, Mr. John Maude KC told the jury that “the case clamoured for proof of motive.”  In his summing up Mr. Justice Cassells stated that “The Crown did not have to establish a motive. Men kill for many reasons and men do not kill and leave statements of the motive by the body.”  Because Raven had pleaded not guilty, his counsel could introduce insanity as a defence.  On the 24th November he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

An appeal before the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Hilbery and Humphreys, supported by evidence of insanity, was dismissed on the 20th of December 1949. The Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede refused to commute the sentence and Raven was hanged at Pentonville Prison at 9.00 a.m. on Friday 6th January 1950 by Albert Pierrepoint, assisted by Harry Kirk.  He weighed 144lbs. and was given a drop of 7’ 8”, causing fracture/dislocation of the 3rd and 4th cervical vertebrae. Some 200 people waited outside the prison to see the notices of execution posted at 9.12 a.m.

Raven’s parents emigrated to New Zealand in March 1950 and Gertrude Raven remarried in December of that year.

The case caused a sensation at the time, largely because of the respectable background of both Raven and his in-laws and the total lack of any plausible motive for him to kill two people he had been on good terms with. Clearly it was not a murder for gain.