WILLIAM SANCHEZ DE PINA HEPPER
Hanged at Wandsworth Prison the 11th of August 1954
If you ever go along to the “Chelsea Flower Show” or visit the “Royal Hospital,” take a look over your shoulder, and opposite the entrance to the Royal Hospital, you will see a road called Ormonde Gate, from the 1940's until 1954 in one of the Flat at number 7, lived William Hepper and his family, he was describe as a gentleman who always help neighbours with their children and to carry prams up the stairs.
Born Guillermo (William) Sanchez de Pina on the 14th of August 1891, in Gibraltar, the son of Arthur Sanchez de Pina, a clerk born at Gibraltar on the 29th of December 1862, and Maria Josefa Escobar.
Hepper, (when he started calling himself Hepper is unknown) was said to be an artist, who had also worked for the B.B.C., as a translator and spied for the U.S.A. in Spain.
Hepper married Patrocinio Claudia Ramos on the 30th of March 1919 in Spain, their first child, William was born the same year. Mary Josefa in 1923, Theodore in 1929, and Patrocianio in 1933.
In November 1939, he was a consular clerk living at 46 Liberia Road, Islington, in North London. His last child Pearl was born at Islington, in London in 1942.
Pearl was friends with Margaret Rose Louise Spevick, who lived close to Ormonde Gate at 12 Embankment Gardens, Chelsea, in London.
At the end of January 1954, Margaret broke her arm in an accident. Hepper who had a studio in room 14, at 112 Western Road, Hove near Brighton, in Sussex, offered the Spevick's Louis and Elizabeth, to take their daughter to convalesce, and he would also paint her portrait, Mr. & Mrs. Spevick agreed, and Hepper and Margaret travelled down to Brighton on the 3rd of February.
On the 7th of February, Mrs. Spevick hearing no news from her daughter, went to Hove, getting no answer at the studio, she went to find the caretaker, who let her into the studio, only to find her daughter's dead body on the bed.
Margaret aged 11 years, had been raped and strangled to death. Hepper could not be located, and on the eighth of February, authorities aired a request for information along with a photo of William Hepper on television and in local cinemas. Police then quickly discovered that he had travelled to Spain. The day after the murder he boarded the cross-channel boat from Newhaven in Sussex, to Dieppe in France, and travelled to Spain.
On 18th February 1954, a magistrate issued a warrant for Hepper's extradition while Spanish authorities held him.
On 23rd March 1953, Hepper was formally cautioned and charged at Hove police station with the murder of 11-year-old Margaret Rose Louise Spevick.
22nd July 1954: At the Sussex Assizes in Lewis, Hepper pleaded not guilty to murdering Margaret Spevick, but Hepper was found guilty and Mr. Justice Jones passed sentence of death.
11th August 1954: Hanged at Wandsworth Prison in South London, by Albert Pierrepoint, assisted by Royston Rickard.
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