Pascoe had previously worked as a labourer at Nanjarrow Farm, at Ponjeravah, Constantine, near Falmouth, and knew the farmer, William Rowe.

Local rumour held that Rowe had a large sum of money concealed on the premises, and he had been the victim of a burglary in 1960, during which £200 and some other items had been stolen.

[1] On 16 August, a policeman saw Pascoe riding his motorcycle in Constantine, stopped him and asked him to report for routine questioning at the murder headquarters.

He subsequently gave a written statement outlining the events on the night of the murder, and his claim that Pascoe had forced him into continuing the attack on Rowe.

At Rowe's farmhouse, police found a small diary in a desk, with descriptive notes written in Esperanto, referring to the whereabouts of various sums of money.

Having translated the notes, the executors of Rowe's will used them to find a number of caches of money, including in a safe set in concrete, covered by straw in a cowshed; and a large glass jar containing hundreds of banknotes, hidden elsewhere on the property.

[1] A key defence witness was 19-year-old student (and future Liberal Party politician) David Penhaligon, whose father was the owner of the caravan site where Pascoe and Whitty had been living with the three girls.

The jury debated for four and a half hours before returning with guilty verdicts for both Whitty and Pascoe, and they were sentenced to death by the Judge, Mr Justice Thesiger.

Whitty was executed by Robert Leslie Stewart (assisted by Harry Robinson) at Winchester at 8.00 am on 17 December[3] and was buried in an unmarked grave within the walls of the prison.

Among the protestors outside Winchester Prison were Whitty's fiancée, Bridget Hamilton (who collapsed as a clock chimed the execution hour) and a group of Quakers.