in the Bournemouth Daily Echo and had been living a sheltered, largely-friendless life with his parents before he moved into the Rattenburys' home, the 'Villa Madeira', in Manor Road. In the early hours of 23 March 1935, Rattenbury was discovered in his sitting room with severe head injuries. He had sustained a series of blows with a carpenter's mallet, the blows savage enough to remove the back of his skull and to cause his false teeth to fall out; he died four days later. His wife confessed, but Stoner admitted to the housekeeper that he had actually carried out the deed. Alma Rattenbury and Stoner were both charged although Alma was to retract her confession after her elder son Christopher visited her in prison. Stoner was convicted and sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment following the submission to the Home Secretary of a petition signed by over 300,000 people, who felt that the young man had been manipulated into committing murder by the older woman. Alma, represented by Ewen Montagu, was acquitted of murder and of being an accessory after the fact but committed suicide a few days later on 4 June 1935, stabbing herself with a dagger six times in the chest (three of which penetrated her heart), before throwing herself into the River Stour at Christchurch. Stoner served only seven years of his sentence since he was released early to join the army and fight in the Second World War. He married in 1944 and fathered a daughter in 1948. He and his wife led "a quiet life" in the Bournemouth area although he briefly attracted the attention of the media again when he was given two years' probation for indecently assaulting a 12-year-old boy in a public toilet in 1990. It is possible Stoner was already suffering from Alzheimer's disease at the time of the offence; he died aged 83 at Christchurch Hospital in 2000. Despite Francis Rattenbury's outstanding career as an architect, he was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery close to his home in Bournemouth. In 2007, a headstone was erected as a lasting memorial, paid for by a family friend. Cultural references In 1937, playwright and actor Emlyn Williams suggested to producer Alexander Korda the idea of making a film about "the Rattenbury murder case" with actors Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Williams then joined Oberon in the cast