The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes: a Critical Literature Review
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LITERATURE REVIEW Another Look at a Bahamian Mystery: The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes: A Critical Literature Review Cathleen LeGrand1 The College of The Bahamas INTRODUCTION four lethal head wounds and burns from the fire, was discovered the next morning by his close Stop me if you've heard this one: friend and houseguest, Harold Christie, an The richest man in the Bahamas, no, the richest influential Bahamian estate agent. man in the British Empire, is murdered in his bed. Add to this cast of characters a smooth-operating He has suffered a fatal head wound caused by a Mauritian (Alfred deMarigny) married to Oakes' boat's winch lever. Or by bullets from a small- young daughter; a former King of England (the calibre gun. No, by a conch shell. Or by some Duke of Windsor), now forced to serve this tiny blunt object close at hand, still unidentified. colonial outpost; and the Duke's scandalous wife The rich man's body is set afire in order to burn (the Duchess of Windsor), for whom he down his house and conceal the details of the renounced his crown. crime. Or as a diversionary tactic, to confuse the Also, factor in the war raging around the globe. authorities. No, in a voodoo ritual. France had recently fallen to the Nazis; German The killer is his son-in-law. Or his houseguest. U-boats patrolled the Atlantic; and the shortages Or a Mafia hit man. and other exigencies of wartime were the rule. The reason for the murder: to eliminate a powerful The trial of Alfred deMarigny, Oakes' son-in-law, opponent of casino gambling. Or to prevent this made international news and his eventual acquittal rich man from leaving the Bahamas with his left the case unsolved—it remains unsolved today. businesses and wealth. Or to avenge the rich Let us not forget the recurring legend of all the man's resentment of his daughter's choice of “unexplained killings of people directly, or husband. Or to steal the enormous horde of gold indirectly, involved” with the Harry Oakes murder reported to be hidden in his house. (Marquis, 2006, p. 6). The richest man in the Bahamas (if not in the This may sound too good to be true. It may sound whole Empire) was Sir Harry Oakes, who earned like the plot to a best-selling pot-boiler. And it all his fortune from gold prospecting and spent the serves to explain the continuing interest in the rest of his life avoiding the tax man. He was murder of Sir Harry Oakes, often referred to, found murdered on the morning of 8 July 1943, hyperbolically (and hyperbole is in no short having been killed sometime after midnight supply in the coverage of the murder), as "the during a summer thunderstorm. His body, bearing crime of the century" (DeMarigny & Herskowitz, 1 Cathleen LeGrand, Public Services Librarian, Libraries and Instructional Media Services, The College of The Bahamas, P.O. Box N-4912, Nassau, Bahamas. E-mail: [email protected] How to cite this article in APA (6th ed.) style: LeGrand, C. (2010). Another look at a Bahamian mystery: The murder of Sir Harry Oakes: A critical literature review. The International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 16, 92-101. Retrieved from http://researchjournal.cob.edu.bs © C. LeGrand, 2010. Journal compilation © The International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 2010. C. LeGrand. The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes: A Critical Literature Review. 93 1990, p. 41). sub-standard gangland thriller, complete with The Books Leasor's own original mobster characters spouting DeMarigny, A. & Herskowitz, M. (1990). A stereotypical tough-guy dialogue. Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes, Bt. is a Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir compilation of contemporary news reporting on Harry Oakes. New York, NY: Crown the case. It reprints, in their entirety, news articles Publishers. published in The Nassau Daily Tribune (now The Houts, M. (1972). King's X: Common Law and Tribune) during the investigation of the murder the Death of Sir Harry Oakes. New York, and the trial of deMarigny. NY: William Morrow. A Serpent in Eden is the most recently published Leasor. J. (1983). Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes?. of these books. It is, therefore, able to incorporate Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. the newest theories regarding the case. Its author is particularly interested in reviewing the Marquis, J. (2006). Blood and Fire. Kingston, previously published books so that he can analyze Jamaica: LMH Publishing. their conclusions and debunk the legends and The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes, Bt. (1959). rumours perpetuated therein. Owen's verdict: Nassau, Bahamas: Nassau Daily Tribune. most of these earlier works "suffer from the handicap of not being able to say what the authors Owen, J. (2005). A Serpent in Eden. London, thought for fear of libelling those involved who England: Abacus. were still alive" at the time of their publication A Conspiracy of Crowns is an autobiographical (Owen, 2005, p. xiii). account of Alfred deMarigny, Sir Harry's son-in- All of these books, save The Murder of Sir Harry law. It is a highly entertaining, and even more Oakes, Bt. (a compilation of primary source highly far-fetched, report on the case from an documents), suffer from a lack of documentation. insider, in this case, the accused. None has citations. Most have only a rudimentary King's X is an odd combination of murder mystery bibliography, Owen offering the best and most and legal treatise. It offers engaging accounts of substantive one. Marquis' book has no citations, the backgrounds of all the principal characters and no bibliography and, what is worse, no index. a preposterous-sounding "solution" to the murder. This lack of documentation makes it difficult for Houts, a professor of criminal law, is particularly the reader to verify any of the allegations. While interested in the legal aspects of the case and none of these books claims to be scholarly focuses on the conduct of the trial of deMarigny (therefore requiring citations), the arguments the for the murder of Sir Harry. He uses the trial as a authors make would be well-served by such an lens through which to view the differences in the inclusion. Many of these authors hope to Civil Law and Common Law systems. Houts convince readers of their unique and ground- particularly wishes to demonstrate unequivocally breaking theory regarding the murder, or else to the shortcomings of the Civil Law system and its debunk the ground-breaking theories offered by “totalitarian efficiencies” (Houts, 1972, p. 328). others. His ultimate goal: to convince readers of the need Without citations, the reader cannot verify from to protect the U.S. legal system, which he which source a claim comes and some of the considers under attack from “Meyer Lansky and sources are, without question, more reliable than his Mafia and Costa Nostra associates” (p. 328). others. Owen notes that he consulted a variety of Speculating on the murderer of Sir Harry is really primary-source documents—letters, manuscripts a side project for the author. and official documents—held in various archives Who Killed Sir Harry? is an even odder specimen. and museums. No other author references such The first four chapters present standard valuable resources—kudos to Owen—but, again, information on the murder and the trial of knowing which evidence came from which deMarigny. The final six chapters take a sharp valuable resource would be of great service to the turn into the realm of fiction. They read like a The International Journal of Bahamian Studies Vol. 16 (2010) C. LeGrand. The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes: A Critical Literature Review. 94 reader. It is, otherwise, difficult to separate the of deMarigny's other assertions which are usually more authoritative claims from the wholly both unverified and unverifiable. unreliable ones. And even Owen, as do all these The Accused authors, cites claims that apparently come directly DeMarigny's claims are entertaining—and almost from deMarigny himself, who, in his own book, entirely self-serving. Of course, it can be argued, comes off as a less-than-reliable narrator. we all paint the rosiest possible pictures of Owen does an exemplary job demonstrating ourselves in our autobiographies—deMarigny deMarigny's unreliability (making it all the more should not be blamed for doing just that. But the surprising that he would seemingly take some of picture he paints surpasses "rosy" and teeters on deMarigny's claims at face value while shooting "so saintly as to defy belief". gaping holes in others). He compares the two DeMarigny describes himself as "a provocative published accounts deMarigny painted of his life: figure, every inch a maverick..." (DeMarigny, one in More Devil Than Saint (New York, NY: 1990, p. 9), "tall, elegant, well born, but irreverent Beechurst Press, 1946) and the other in about class and wealth" (p. 10). His father-in-law, Conspiracy of Crowns (1990). Owen shows how Sir Harry Oakes "admired his business judgment" deMarigny directly contradicts himself in the two (p. 14) but was frustrated by deMarigny's books, offering completely different accounts of "independence" (p. 9). He compliments himself his early life, his schooling, and his pre-Bahamas for his sympathy with blacks, with Jews, with career. For instance, deMarigny's first wife, anyone impoverished or oppressed. When he isn't Lucie-Alice Cahen disappears entirely in the later making a fortune in the stock market, in spite of book. She earns only brief mention (perhaps his lack of experience or education, he is merited by their very short marriage)—he admits heroically smuggling Jews out of Nazi Germany to being her "frequent escort" (DeMarigny, 1946, in two dangerous, cleverly-designed missions of p.