In addition to English, Sangret spoke the Cree language fluently, and learned some of the traditional skills of his ancestors in his youth, some of which were honed throughout the years he worked as a farm labourer in the town of Maidstone in the 1920s.

On this first occasion, upon medical advice, he had unsuccessfully attempted to cure himself using a potassium permanganate solution, before admitting himself to a Battleford hospital to undergo extensive treatment for a bladder obstruction.

The family moved to live in Tunbridge Wells where Joan attended a Catholic convent school in nearby Mark Cross, her tuition fees reportedly paid by a wealthy aunt.

[16] She attended this convent school until aged 16, becoming fluent in the French language, and although outwardly pious and known to regularly wear a conspicuous crucifix about her neck, she apparently lacked any serious religious commitment.

[17] Joan's step-father, Leslie, was known locally as proficient chess player but was an eccentric figure who suffered from insomnia and was prone to sudden public outbursts of both paranoia and hostility.

She was driven back to Tunbridge Wells by her fiancé's mother, although shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Wolfe chose to call off her engagement and instead travel to London to train as a storekeeper in an aircraft factory.

In addition, contrary to Wolfe's claims that those in positions of authority had seldom made any serious efforts to help her, the police—occasionally at Edith's urging—did intervene on several occasions out of concern for her welfare, and she was repeatedly offered various forms of assistance, but would inevitably revert to her somewhat nomadic lifestyle.

His career as a soldier is marred with several blemishes, and he was repeatedly punished for both minor and major infractions of military discipline, including several instances in which he was reported absent without leave (although no record exists of Sangret ever being returned to barracks against his will).

As would often subsequently occur, Wolfe did not keep her next date, but Sangret and a fellow soldier named Hartnell did by chance encounter her outside a Godalming fish and chip shop on 21 July.

This second device was constructed by Sangret in mid- to late-August, using birch saplings and tied with parcel string he had stolen from barracks, although he later claimed he and Wolfe had lived in this second wigwam for just two nights, before the pair had scoured the village of Witley on 23 August, in an unsuccessful search for lodgings.

In this pavilion, Wolfe would spend extended periods of time, often composing romantic poetry and letters (several of which were smattered with religious overtones),[47] and making childlike drawings of the home into which she evidently envisioned herself and Sangret moving following their marriage.

[51] On two successive days in the week before her murder, Wolfe was seen by a local resident named William Featherby picking blackberries on the edge of the common, and cooking vegetables over an open fire.

"[59] At 10:20 a.m. on 7 October 1942, two Royal Marines named William Moore and Geoffrey Cooke, patrolling a section of Hankley Common known as Houndown Wood on a routine military exercise, passed a high mound of earth which had been purposely bulldozed to simulate training upon rough terrain for tank crews.

"I thought it had begun in the dell where Joan's papers were found, probably with the stabbing attack on her head ... She must have run downhill, screaming with pain and fear, inviting pursuit to silence her.

[74] Curiously, the tissues around the stab wounds in the victim's forearm and hand had been pulled outwards as the knife had been extracted—indicating the end of the blade had a curved or hooked point,[66] resembling a parrot's beak.

Upon closer inspection, investigators noted several short strands of blonde human hair crushed into the bark, strongly indicating Wolfe had fallen to the ground at this location before her murderer had used this bough to inflict the vast depressed fracture to her skull.

[78]) Three days later, within a 400-yard radius of the burial site, these officers also discovered numerous personal artefacts belonging to the victim including her shoes and purse, a handbag containing a rosary, a bar of soap, and a distinctive elephant charm.

[79] Following the identification of Wolfe's body, Chief Inspector Greeno and Superintendent Richard Webb informally interviewed Sangret at the Godalming army camp where he was stationed on 12 October.

[85] On 27 November 1942, a distinctive knife with a hooked point resembling a parrot's beak was discovered by a Private Albert Brown, hidden in a waste pipe within the wash-house at Witley barracks.

[85] Brown had discovered this instrument when tasked with clearing a blocked drain; he and a colleague immediately handed this knife to Harold Wade, who in turn forwarded the weapon to the Surrey Police.

[51] (Subsequent eyewitness testimony would indicate Sangret had excused himself to wash his hands in this wash-room on 12 October, immediately prior to his initial, informal questioning by Inspector Greeno.

Nonetheless, Doctors Eric Gardner and Keith Simpson each independently examined the weapon on 3 December and concluded only such a knife could have inflicted the wounds discovered on Wolfe's skull and arm.

[82] On 6 December, Inspector Greeno interviewed Sangret at the Aldershot barracks where he had recently been transferred, before requesting he accompany investigators to Hankley Common to pinpoint the locations he and Wolfe had lived and frequented.

[62] Formal committal hearings were held in Guildford between 12 and 20 January 1943, and saw 21 members of the Canadian Army testify as eyewitnesses to Sangret's relationship with Wolfe; his conflicting and indifferent accounts as to her whereabouts following her disappearance; his being in possession of the knife alleged to have been used in her murder; and his movements on critical dates.

"[89] In his opening statement on behalf of the Crown, Eric Neve outlined the prosecution's intention to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sangret had murdered Wolfe—whom he referred to as the Wigwam Girl—on or about 14 September 1942.

Also called to testify on this date was Private Samuel Crowle, who had found the knife introduced as Exhibit 4 close to the second wigwam Sangret had constructed on Hankley Common the previous August.

[94] In addition to Crowle's testimony, an American soldier named Raymond Deadman also testified on 25 February as to his becoming acquainted with Wolfe in the week prior to her murder, and to his observing Sangret's possessive nature.

The knife the prosecution contended had inflicted the distinctive injuries to Wolfe's forehead was introduced in evidence as Exhibit 4, with Corporal Thomas Harding testifying as to his handing this weapon to Sangret on 26 August.

Following the testimony of Dr. Gardner, Dr. Roche Lynch took the witness stand to discuss the results of the Benzidine tests he had conducted upon Sangret's army blanket, uniform, water-bottle, and the knife discovered at Witley barracks.

"[103] Following this final instruction from Macnaghten, the jury retired to consider their verdict, taking Wolfe's skull and the knife alleged by the prosecution to have inflicted the preliminary stab wounds to her body to assist in their deliberations.