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Michael QUERIPEL
Classification:
Homicide
Characteristics: Juvenile (17)
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
April 28,
1955
Date
of arrest:
August 19,
1955
Date of birth: 1938
Victim profile: Elizabeth Currell,
46
Method of murder:
Beating with an iron tee-marker
Location: Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England, United
Kingdom
Status: Sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure,
1955
On 29 April 1955. Mrs Elizabeth
Currell took her dog out for a walk on the golf course and never
returned. The next morning her body was found near the 17th tee, she had
been battered to death with an iron tee-marker that lay nearby with a
bloody palm print on it.
Over 9000 palm prints were taken in
the area and one was found to match 17 year old Michael Queripel. He
confessed to the motiveless murder and was sentenced to be detained at
Her Majesty's Pleasure, the term given to life imprisonment when the
prisoner is under 18 and too young to be executed.
Michael Queripel
At dawn on 29th April 1955 the
battered body of Mrs Elizabeth Currell was found in the rough near the
17th tee on Potters Bar Golf Course. It was Mrs Currell's habit to walk
her dog on the course each evening and her husband had reported her
missing when the dog returned alone the previous evening.
A stocking had been tied around the dead woman's
throat and she had been killed by blows from a heavy iron tee-marker
that lay nearby. On the marker was a bloody palm print.
When the palm print was not found in police records,
police decided to fingerprint local employees. Eventually over 9,000
sets of prints were taken and, on 19 August, a print was found that
matched. It belonged to 17-year-old Michael Queripel, a clerk with
Potters Bar Urban District Council.
Initially he told police that he had
only discovered the body but then admitted the killing. He told police
that he was out walking trying to clear a migraine, had seen the woman
and hit out at her.
His trial for murder was at the Old Bailey on 12
October, where he pleaded guilty. He was ordered to be detained during
Her Majesty's Pleasure.