Wallis, Part 8

On the dark and stormy night of July 8, 1943, a man named Harry Oakes was murdered. He had been bludgeoned repeatedly on the head, and then set on fire. Harry Oakes was the richest man living in the Bahamas. He was a Canadian millionaire who had moved to the Bahamas to avoid taxes and exploit the locals. He was also known for his extensive charity work, but he was still definitely a colonialist type. There were stories he had been involved in some shady business dealings, but no one was entirely sure.

It was important the Governor be immediately informed. The next morning, Wallis and David were awoken with a knock to their door early in the morning. Wallis was still half asleep when her husband got out of bed to answer the door. She heard him have a conversation with his equerry in the door way. The only word she could make out was "murder".

The obvious suspect was Harry Oakes's son-in-law, Alfred de Marigny. Alfred de Marigny liked two things: money and teenage girls. He was born to poor French aristocrats, and used his charm to marry two wealthy women in quick secession and took money from them in the inevitable divorces. Harry Oakes had a daughter named Nancy, who was a pretty teenager from a wealthy family. When she was in her mid-teens, she and de Marigny had had a flirtation. He was in his late-thirties at the time. Her father had thought he'd put an end to it, but two days after she turned eighteen, Nancy ran off with him and they got married in New York before returning home to her shocked parents. Naturally, Harry Oakes was not happy about it. He tried to pressure his daughter into getting a divorce, and shortly before his death he'd sent her and her mother away to the United States to try and get her away from her husband for a while.

There were other suspects. Oakes's business partner, Harold Christie, was another possibility. But as Harold Christie was richer and more powerful than Alfred de Marigny, he wasn't as seriously considered at first. There was another issue; David, who in his position as Governor of the Bahamas had some authority over the investigation, hated de Marigny's guts. While Wallis was someone you definitely wouldn't want to cross, David was not a hateful person. Most of his worst behavior was motivated by selfishness or ignorance rather than a genuine desire to hurt anyone. Even people like Stanley Baldwin, Alec Hardinge, and Alan Lascelles, who really screwed him over, he never spoke of with much malice. His hatred of de Marigny went back to before Harry Oakes was killed.

There's a quote I remember reading once from David on de Marigny where he accuses him of being a horrible disgusting person who liked little girls. I can't find the exact quote so I won't try to guess at it beyond that, but basically David considered him to be a pedophile. It didn't help that he was rude and disrespectful to Wallis. It certainly went both ways. Alfred de Marigny is often used a source for books and documentaries trying to prove the Windsors were Nazis. Not only did he accuse them of Nazism, he also said they were involved with the Mafia in all kinds of illegal activities, and hinted that they were involved in killing Harry Oakes because he wouldn't go along with their plans. Alfred de Marigny also suggested they intentionally framed him for murder because he knew too much.

What made it impossible for the investigation to properly do its job was that everyone involved in the government and police believed Alfred de Marigny was guilty from the moment they realized it was murder. David's main mistake (beyond pre-judging de Marigny guilty) was when, instead of trusting the local authorities or calling in the Scotland Yard, he hired a Miami police officer who had once worked as his bodyguard to handle the case. David originally told him that he thought it possible that it might've just been a suicide (Oakes had seemed very depressed and irritable in the days before his death) and the fire was an accident. It was only after that theory was totally disproved that de Marigny was accused.

There's little evidence David intentionally set out to frame Alfred de Marigny. He really believed the man was guilty. He did have motive, means, and possibly (depending on who you believed) opportunity. But that doesn't necessarily mean he was guilty. It was certainly enough to convince David and Wallis at the time, though. His motives were clear; Harry Oakes wanted to break Alfred and Nancy up, and had even threatened to financially cut off his daughter if he couldn't. And while de Marigny probably wasn't the pedophile David accused him of being, he did like underaged (but not pre-pubescent or pubescent) girls and had a reputation for going after other teenage girls before Nancy Oakes. As such, David (and many other people) considered him thoroughly immoral. This was not entirely hypocritical; even in his wild younger days David had never gone after jailbait.

There was eventually a trial, and the whole story was a media sensation. It involved everything Americans love reading about: murder, exotic locations, impropriety, royalty, and lots of money. While it perhaps wasn't quite O.J. Simpson level notoriety (there was a war going on, after all), at the time it was a big deal. Alfred de Marigny was acquitted, with the condition that he leave the Bahamas and go live somewhere else. Apparently the jury was willing to buy the "pedophile" accusation but not the "murderer" one.

What got him off, and what is still the main bone of contention, was a fingerprint on a screen near where the body was found. The fingerprint belonged to Marigny, but some investigators and experts believed the fingerprint had been planted and pressed on to the screen off of something else. This is also the main evidence for a conspiracy. It seems like I am going on about this case, but it is pretty relevant, and I am not even going into half the conspiracy theories associated with it, or all of the different possible suspects. The whole thing is just a giant ball of WTF and the case is so weird I don't think anyone could make it up. It was the inspiration for a TV movie and several episodes of various crime shows over the years.

The theories that in recent years have been researched and have the most evidence are that either Harold Christie did it, or that Alfred de Marigny actually was guilty after all and only got off because he used his widespread unpopularity against the prosecution to convince people of a nonexistent conspiracy. Even if he was guilty there may have been some conspiracy; perhaps authorities weren't sure he did it or knew he was guilty but faked evidence because they couldn't prove it. Harold Christie was probably guilty, though, considering he was nearby when the murder took place and years later when asked about it at a party he didn't deny his guilt and simply refused to say anything. Either way, there may or may not have been a conspiracy. If there was, David may not have been involved with it at all. Both Oakes and Christie had had connections with the Bay Street Boys and were rumored to be involved in all sorts of unsavory business dealings. Christie wouldn't have needed the Governor to instigate a conspiracy. David had worked against the Bay Street Boys and made enemies in the process, so it's unlikely he would get involved in one of their conspiracies. Perhaps his dislike of de Marigny was manipulated by people involved with the government so he would unwittingly help the conspiracy. It's also been suggested, if he was involved, it was because criminals had threatened to harm Wallis if he didn't cooperate.

Either way, the Windsors' involvement in the case was overstated by the press. David did not have any absolute authority over the investigation and without getting a lot of people "in on it" he couldn't have orchestrated a conspiracy or gotten de Marigny charged. Wallis, for her part, had nothing to do with anything. But it's still relevant to my series of posts on her life, because the press did try to rope her into it. As she was already widely disliked, it was suggested by many (including de Maringy himself) that she had manipulated her husband into having him framed. There was even a bizarre theory that Wallis and de Marigny were involved in some kind of affair, and that Wallis ordered Harry Oakes killed and Alfred de Marigny framed to get revenge on him for choosing Nancy Oakes over her. Needless to say, all evidence directly contradicts that.

The whole unfortunate episode highly damaged David's reputation, even though his involvement in the case had been highly overstated. The press had wanted to sell papers; when you link a celebrity to a lurid murder case it makes the story even more interesting to the public. Wallis regarded the whole situation as unpleasant. She summed up the situation after the murder in her memoirs: "The sense of shock and horror sent through the colony by this crime and the mystery as to its perpetrator were never quite dispelled during the remaining time we were there."

During the time between the crime and the trial, life for Wallis continued as it had since their arrival. She did a lot of charity and war work to keep herself busy, and still tried to go to America every chance she got. On one trip to Washington D.C. there was a riot back in Nassau due to conflicts between the Bay Street Boys and the native population and David was forced to return early without his wife. Wallis was deeply concerned for him, but David's actions during the riot actually improved his press significantly. He had managed to significantly calm the rioters and had even gone into a burning building to help put out a fire and save civilians. But in the aftermath of the de Marigny trial that was pretty much forgotten.

There was also another major issue for Wallis during that time period. In spring 1944 she began to feel ill and suffered spells of dizziness and pains throughout her body. Wallis insisted she was fine. David suggested she go to New York to see a specialist, but she refused. She wrote to her Aunt Bessie: "The Duke is anxious for me to go but I can't bring myself to leave him in this awful hot depressing hole." When they finally went to New York in July, 1944, Wallis received an examination and it was determined she had stomach cancer. David and Wallis remained in America until September while Wallis had an operation and recuperated in Virginia. While there, Winston Churchill, who was also in America visiting President Roosevelt, met up with David to discuss his future role. David offered to go to Europe and do undercover work for the Foreign Office. He was turned down because of his unpopularity with the government and the fact he probably would have made a terrible spy. His knowledge of espionage came entirely from Film Noir movies, which he and Wallis were both obsessed with.

Churchill did offer to help him get Wallis received by the royal family. It was customary for the King and Queen to receive colonial governors and their wives for tea if they ever came to Britain. When the war ended, David and Wallis would be expected to at least pass through London and thus be invited to tea. Churchill figured this would be a good way to help heal the conflicts in the family as custom and tradition would require a reception and thus Bertie and Elizabeth would not feel as though they were betraying their feelings about Wallis. David desperately wanted any help he could get with that matter. Unfortunately, as Churchill wrote to the Windsors later, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were "inflexibly" opposed to such a meeting and not even Winston Churchill could change their minds.

Though her cancer was gone, Wallis still continued to feel ill, and couldn't stomach another summer in the Bahamas once 1945 came along. But once again she refused to leave without her husband. Churchill had told David in September 1944 that he could resign his position at his convenience. He announced his resignation on March 15, 1944, to take effect at the end of April. The war was coming to an end and his term would have ended on July 9th anyway. Despite claims he quit or deserted his post, terms for colonial governors were not set in stone and people often left early. It wasn't like an American office (like, say, Governor of Alaska) where you're elected to a term and expected to stay the course. By leaving early, beyond sparing Wallis another summer in the heat, he also did the British government a favor. They wanted him gone, but were worried about public backlash if his term came to an end and they didn't offer to renew it.

Because of the de Marigny scandal, his term was generally judged a failure by the British government. He had also managed to piss off everyone in the colonial government, and despite going beyond the call of duty with her charity work, Wallis was judged for her more Marie-Antoinette-like behavior. Ironically, even during the de Marigny trial, David's approval rating with the black Bahamians, who made up the majority of the population, rarely dipped below eighty percent, but given this was a colonial government that worked against him in the eyes of the British government.

Because of travel sanctions, the Windsors first went to New York to wait for the official end of the war in the Pacific. While there, they went shopping, partied, and "rewarded" themselves for surviving their time in the Bahamas. The war had aged them both significantly; photos show that though only five years passed between 1940 and 1945 both Wallis and David aged about fifteen. But life was getting better; it was the beginning of Wallis's new life as the most fabulous socialite in the Jet Set.