The Wartime Murder of Caroline Trayler (Folkestone, 1943)

Early Life

Caroline Ellen Stapleton was born on 1 February 1925. Little is known of her childhood, but at the age of 17 she was living with her parents at 3 Sussex Road, Folkestone, on Kent’s southeast coast, and working as an usherette at a cinema, earning 30 shillings a week. Described as attractive and outgoing, with striking auburn hair, Caroline met Sergeant Joseph William Edgar Trayler of the Durham Light Infantry in February 1942, while he was stationed in the coastal town.  Joseph had just turned 21 but had already witnessed the horrors of war, having been among the 330,000 Allied troops evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. They married just eight months later, but their happiness was short-lived. Sergeant Trayler was posted to North Africa, while Caroline remained in Folkestone. As the wife of a serving soldier, she received a military pension but continued working at the cinema.

Disappearance And Death

On Sunday 13 June 1943, Caroline, now 18, finished her shift at 9:00 p.m., changed out of her uniform, and headed to her local pub – the Mechanics’ Arms on St John’s Street, just a few minutes from home. Caroline was looking forward to an evening of socialising. Though she wore both her engagement and wedding rings, in the words of barrister J.D. Casswell, ‘she had already succumbed to the temptation of wartime separation…pretty Caroline Trayler had learnt early how to console the lonely men of her native Folkestone while her husband served his country overseas.’ Four days later, on 17 June, Caroline’s family reported her missing.

It was in an empty, bombed-out grocer’s shop at 94 Foord Road, near the railway viaduct and just minutes from the Mechanics’ Arms, that Police Constable Lewis of the Folkestone Division made a tragic discovery. Finding the back gate and rear door unlocked, Lewis stepped inside and noticed a woman’s blue suede shoe and a brown leather handbag lying on the floor. Further along the passageway leading to the front of the shop lay a young woman, face down on the dusty floorboards. PC Lewis flagged down an Inspector driving past at the time, and the body was taken to the mortuary, where seasoned pathologist Dr Keith Simpson conducted the post-mortem.

Police Investigation

Dr Keith Simpson confirmed that the cause of death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation, indicated by a fractured larynx and bruising to the throat and chin. He also found injuries consistent with sexual assault and surmised that she had first been gripped by the throat from the front, resisted her attacker, and was then turned face down and strangled from behind. A fresh tear on the nail of her left index finger suggested a struggle, and scrapings from under the nail revealed a wool fibre, possibly from the assailant’s clothing. Six dark hairs were found on her thighs that didn’t match her own auburn hair, and investigators were hopeful this evidence might eventually lead to a suspect.

Caroline Trayler’s father, Fred Stapleton, was called in to identify the body. He worked less than 100 yards from the crime scene as a firewatcher, keeping vigil from a tall building to spot and report fires caused by German incendiary bombs. But he could have had no idea that on the streets below his lookout point, his daughter was being brutally murdered. He confirmed her identity and noticed that her rings were missing, presumably stolen by the killer.

Witnesses at the Mechanics’ Arms

Police enquiries initially centred on the Mechanics’ Arms, where landlady Dorothy Goldsworthy recalled Caroline talking to two soldiers on the night of her death. She remembered one of them glancing at the 18-year-old redhead, then turning to his friend and saying, ‘She’s nice.’ The same man then bought her a drink. One of the soldiers left around 9:30 p.m., but the other, who spoke with a Northern accent, stayed and entertained Caroline until closing time at 10:00 p.m., when the pair left together. Three witnesses later saw Caroline with a soldier after she left the pub, between 10:15 and 10:45 p.m., with the final sighting near the boarded-up shop where her body would later be found. None of them could clearly describe the man she was with, as soldiers were a common sight in the area and nothing about him had stood out.

Dennis Edmund Leckey

It was only when police turned their attention to nearby Army camps that they began to make progress. At the Acrise camp, five miles from Folkestone, they learnt that a Royal Artillery gunner had gone absent without leave on Friday 18 June – the day after Caroline Trayler’s body was discovered – and was now on the run. The man was 24-year-old Dennis Edmund Leckey.

The night before Leckey’s unauthorised absence, he’d been quieter than usual according to his bunkmate Fred Latham. Leckey said he was planning to travel home to Manchester for the weekend to check on his wife, whom he suspected of infidelity. He also let slip that he’d left a pub with a girl the previous week, but they’d parted ways when she told him she had a date to keep. Later that same evening, Leckey reportedly asked another soldier, a gunner named Melia, ‘Have you heard about the girl in Folkestone who’s been done in?’ Melia, replied that he hadn’t and asked where the news had come from. Leckey claimed he’d seen it in the paper, but no article appeared in the press until the following morning. When pressed further, Leckey quickly changed the subject.

Leckey Goes on the Run

It soon became clear that Dennis Leckey was not only AWOL, but also guilty of theft and fraud. He had taken a handful of leave passes along with a paybook belonging to his colleague Latham, then used it to collect Latham’s weekly wages, carefully replacing the ID photo with one of himself. He had then boarded a train to Manchester dressed in civilian clothes. His Sergeant Major gave police a photograph of the fugitive, who was described as 5’10, of medium build, with dark hair and hazel eyes. The photo was shown to Mrs Goldsworthy at the Mechanics’ Arms, who identified him without hesitation as the man she’d seen talking to Caroline Trayler on Sunday 13 June. A photo of Caroline was also shown to Leckey’s friend who had accompanied him to the pub that night, who confirmed she was the woman Leckey had been flirting with.

Police stations across the country were put on alert with Leckey’s description and instructed to arrest him on sight, on suspicion of murder. In Manchester, officers visited his home at 34 Santley Road in Longsight, where they spoke to his wife, 21-year-old Beatrice. They learnt that the couple had married in 1939, just as the war broke out, and had two children. Dennis Leckey was born on 9 April 1919 in Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire. He had worked as a clerk in a grocer’s shop before joining the Territorial Army in May 1939 and was called up for active duty just two days before Britain declared war, following in the footsteps of his older brother Kenneth, a Military Police corporal, and his grandfather, a former Army Major.

Beatrice confirmed that her husband had visited her briefly but had already left, without telling her where he was going. Acting on a tip that Leckey might be staying with a friend, Lance Bombardier Kearney, detectives travelled to Stoke-on-Trent to find that Leckey had indeed been there, but had already departed, once again slipping through the authorities’ fingers. Kearney  told police that Leckey had made a strange comment about having an engagement and wedding ring, which he claimed to have got from a girl in Ireland but offered no further explanation. Could he have been referring to the rings taken from Caroline Trayler’s body? Detectives believed this might be a crucial piece of evidence.

After leaving his friend Kearney, Leckey travelled to Ashton-under-Lyne to visit his mother-in-law, who later told police he had seemed nervous, which she had attributed at the time to fear of being posted overseas. By 28 June, Dennis Leckey had returned to London, posing as an American under the name Gunner Latham. He was spotted drinking with two US Army officers and a Canadian at the Queen’s Hotel in Leicester Square, but had vanished by morning, along with £5, a watch, and their identity papers.

Arrest and forensic evidence

The theft was reported to the American Military Police, and an officer from the American CID called in a tip to the Metropolitan Police that the suspect had just been seen drinking at a pub near Marble Arch. The police rushed to the scene, where they saw a man at the bar who closely resembled Leckey’s description. He insisted his name was Latham, but they weren’t convinced. He was arrested for theft and taken to Marylebone  Police Station where he was told he would also be questioned in connection with the murder of Caroline Trayler. Leckey seemed untroubled, announcing smugly, ‘You’ve got nothing on me.’

An identification parade was held but none of the witnesses who’d seen Caroline leaving the Mechanics’ Arms with a soldier on the night of her death could pick Leckey out of the lineup. They hadn’t had a clear enough look at him and by now, several weeks had passed. Leckey remained in custody while police sent his uniform to Dr James Davidson at the Metropolitan Police Lab for analysis. On Leckey’s trousers, Dr Davidson found hairs identical to Caroline Trayler’s, while pathologist Dr Keith Simpson concluded that Leckey’s own hair matched the six dark hairs discovered on the victim’s body. The wool fibre recovered from under her fingernail was consistent with the material of a khaki shirt, like the one Leckey had been wearing. However, it could have come from any standard army-issue shirt so this couldn’t be definitively traced to him.

Detective Inspector Pierce formally charged Dennis Edmund Leckey with the murder of Caroline Trayler, to which Leckey replied, ‘I was with the girl. I want to be fair with you and to myself, and before I make a statement, I should like to get advice.’ These seemingly harmless words would later be dynamite in court.

Leckey admitted to being with Caroline on the night of her death and claimed they’d kissed but said he left her shortly afterwards because she had another date. He said he then walked back to camp and met a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force officer and had offered to carry her bag. He returned to camp around 1:30 a.m., excusing his lateness to the guard on duty by saying that he had ‘seen a girl home.’  The guard corroborated this, as did Flight Officer Margaret Cook, whose bag Leckey had carried.

Police found no evidence to support Leckey’s claims of his wife’s infidelity, suspecting instead that this was a cover story for why he had fled to Manchester so suddenly. More details emerged of the 24-year-old gunner’s activities during his absence, and it turned out that on Tuesday 2 June, Leckey had met a woman named Winifred Woolley at Stafford Railway Station, impressing her with boasts of being an RAF fighter pilot. They travelled to Birmingham together, watched a film at a cinema, then went to a hotel for sex.

Trial at the Old Bailey

Dennis Leckey stood trial at The Old Bailey on Monday 20 September 1943, pleading Not Guilty. The prosecution, led by John Flowers K.C., called 34 witnesses including forensic experts. Flowers told the court that Leckey was a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character, capable of transforming from a friendly, sociable man into a violent felon with an unstoppable urge to rape and kill.

When Leckey took the stand, he admitted to being with Caroline that night, though his story had developed. He now claimed she had agreed to accompany him to an alleyway between two houses where they had consensual sex. When asked why he had taken so long to return to camp afterwards, he explained that he’d felt unwell from drinking too much and had to stop and rest. But Flight Officer Margaret Cook, whom Leckey had escorted to the train station, agreed he had seemed absent minded, but was certain he wasn’t drunk. As for his unusually quiet demeanour that had been noticed by colleagues, Leckey claimed he was feeling guilty about being unfaithful to his wife. The prosecution quickly reminded the jury that this claim was weakened by the fact that Leckey slept with Winifred Woolley in Birmingham shortly afterwards.

Barrister J.D. Casswell had little to offer in Leckey’s defence. No-one could deny that he had been seen leaving the pub with the deceased, and his behaviour and incriminating remarks afterwards clearly suggested an attempt to flee from justice. Combined with the physical evidence of the hairs, it should have been an easy conviction. Yet this seemingly open-and-shut case had broken hinges.

Judicial Error and Verdict

In his summing up, Mr Justice Singleton made a fatal error. He told the jury, ‘On 30 June, Detective Inspector Pierce saw the accused. He charged him with the offence and cautioned him, and the accused said, ‘Well, I’ve nothing to say until I’ve seen a solicitor.’ If a man is charged with murder and is not responsible, wouldn’t you expect him to deny it? Is it not a little difficult to see why, if he were innocent, he wouldn’t just say, ‘I did not murder the girl; when I left her, she was all right’?’

These words fundamentally undermined the accused’s legal right to remain silent. 30 minutes later, the jury returned with a verdict: Dennis Edmund Leckey was found guilty of murder.

Appeal and Outcome

Casswell immediately launched an appeal, arguing that the judge’s summation had misdirected the jury by implying that a suspect who doesn’t protest his innocence must be guilty. The Lord Chief Justice agreed. As a result, the murder conviction was quashed, and Leckey walked free in the eyes of civil law, though he was remanded to barracks to face the lesser military charge of being AWOL from the Army. Even J.D. Casswell would later write that his client had had a very lucky escape.

Aftermath

When Sergeant Joseph Trayler received the news of his wife’s murder, he was recovering from wounds in a North African hospital. Denied leave to travel home, he too decided to absent himself from duty and travelled 3,000-miles back to England. For the next few weeks, he walked sadly around Folkestone, revisiting the places where he and Caroline had shared memories. He remained in Kent and later remarried. He had three children and died in Derbyshire in 2000, outliving his wife and one of his daughters.

Dennis Leckey later moved to Ashton-under-Lyne with his wife and children. In February 1944, he changed his surname to Haines, his mother’s maiden name, presumably to avoid the infamy of his past. He worked briefly as a clerk, but in February 1945, he found himself back in the dock for fraud and was sentenced to eight months in Manchester Prison. While behind bars, he was questioned about a burglary, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him, and his mother provided an alibi.

Dennis Leckey After the War

Having narrowly escaped an extension to his sentence, Dennis Leckey, a.k.a. Haines, moved with his family to Ormskirk, a market town in Lancashire. His life thereafter was unnoteworthy, and he died on 7 March 1997 at the age of 77. In later decades, another individual bearing the same name was convicted of unrelated criminal offences. There is no evidence establishing any connection between this later offender and Dennis Edmund Leckey, and no such link has ever been proven.

The Case Today

The Mechanics’ Arms pub, where Caroline spent her final evening, was demolished in the 1960s. 94 Foord Road, the bombed-out shop where she was killed, is now a self-storage unit, its grim past long forgotten.

Wartime Britain was no stranger to serious crime. Just a year later, another case captured national attention — the murder of George Heath by Karl Hulten and Elizabeth Jones, known as the “Cleft Chin Murder”, which I’ve written about in detail elsewhere on this site and also explored in a book co-authored with my wife, Melissa.

Researched and written by Prash Ganendran, Published 13 October 2025

© 2025 Prash Ganendran. All Rights Reserved.

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Sources

Ancestry https://www.ancestry.co.uk

Professor Keith Simpson: An Autobiography, 1978, Harrap Ltd

A Lance for Liberty, J.D. Casswell, George Harrap & Co Ltd

British Newspaper Archive, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Daily News 22 June 1943

Folkestone Herald, 24 July 1943

Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald – Saturday 25 September 1943

Hull Daily Mail – Tuesday 02 November 1943

Daily Mirror – Tuesday 02 November 1943

Liverpool Echo – Saturday 06 November 1943

Sunday Sun (Newcastle) – Sunday 07 November 1943

Daily Herald – Saturday 24 February 1945

Gloucester Citizen – Saturday 24 February 1945

Stockport Advertiser and Guardian – Friday 23 March 1945

Kensington News and West London Times – Friday 23 August 1946

Wells Journal – Friday 04 October 1946

https://madebyredrose.co.uk/abuser/dennis-leckey?category=19

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/cambridge-house-knowl-view-rochdale/part-f-other-institutions/dennis-leckey.html