Episode 146: Secrets at the Seaside: The Rattenbury Murder Case

In the spring of 1935, the quiet English seaside town of Bournemouth was shaken by a crime that became one of the most sensational trials of the twentieth century.

At the center was Alma Rattenbury — once a musical prodigy from Canada, a war widow, and a woman who had lived through loss and reinvention. By her forties, Alma was married to Francis Rattenbury, a much older man whose architectural legacy included the British Columbia Parliament Buildings and Victoria’s Empress Hotel. Their marriage, marked by age, alcoholism, and estrangement, carried on behind the closed doors of their Bournemouth home, Villa Madeira.

Into this household stepped George Stoner, a 17-year-old chauffeur and handyman. Within weeks he became Alma’s lover. The scandalous affair between the glamorous older woman and the inexperienced youth only added to the volatility inside the villa — and in March 1935, it erupted in violence.

Francis Rattenbury was found bludgeoned with a carpenter’s hammer, dying days later from his injuries. Alma’s behavior in the aftermath was erratic — at times claiming she had struck him, at others pointing to Stoner. Both were arrested, and the public flocked to the Old Bailey, eager to see what the tabloids called “The Murder at Villa Madeira.”

The trial drew packed galleries and scathing headlines. Alma was acquitted, but vilified as a scarlet woman who had corrupted a boy half her age. Stoner was convicted and sentenced to death, though his sentence was later commuted. Days after the verdict, Alma walked to the banks of the River Avon and stabbed herself in the heart.

Their son John, just six years old at the time, would grow up in the shadow of scandal but ultimately found his own path — becoming an architect with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West, carrying forward the legacy of building that his father had left behind.

Nearly a century later, the case still resonates. Not only as a tale of murder, but as a story of love, betrayal, reputation, and ruin — all unfolding behind the façade of a respectable English villa.

🎧 Listen to the full story now on Historical True Crime.