August Sangret (28 August 1913 – 29 April 1943) was a French-Canadian soldier, convicted and subsequently hanged for the September 1942 murder of 19-year-old Joan Pearl Wolfe in Surrey, England. This murder case is also known as the "Wigwam Murder".
The murder of Joan Pearl Wolfe became known as "the Wigwam Murder" due to the fact the victim had become known among locals as the "Wigwam Girl" through her living in two separate, improvised wigwams upon Hankley Common in the months preceding her murder, and that these devices proved to have been constructed by her murderer.
This case marked the first occasion in British legal history in which a murder victim's skull was introduced as evidence at trial, and has been described by true crime author Colin Wilson as "the last of the classic cases."
Early life
Sangret August Sangret was born in Battleford, Saskatchewan, on 28 August 1913. He was of mixed race, being part French Canadian and part Cree Indian. Little is known of Sangret's early life, but his family was poor, his early years were blighted with illnesses, and at least one of his siblings died at an early age from tuberculosis. Sangret received no schooling in his childhood, and was unable to read, or to write beyond signing his own name. Nonetheless, he has been described as being modestly intelligent, and in possession of an excellent memory. 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. As a result of this outdoor work, Sangret developed a lithe, muscular physique.
At the age of 17, Sangret received the first of many diagnoses that he had contracted a venereal disease. 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. This would prove to be the first of at least six occasions in which Sangret would receive treatment for a contracted venereal disease, attesting to his sexual promiscuity, although the remaining five instances would occur between 1938 and 1942.
Throughout the 1930s, Sangret accrued an extensive criminal record, which included six months served in jail for a violent assault committed in 1932, a three-month sentence served in 1938 for threatening to shoot a woman who had spurned him in favour of another suitor, and numerous convictions for both vagrancy and theft. He was regularly unemployed, and enlisted to serve in the Battleford Light Infantry in 1935. This militia regiment trained for just two weeks each year, and Sangret served with this regiment until 1939.
Wolfe
Joan Pearl Wolfe was born in Tonbridge, Kent, on 11 March 1923, the youngest of three children born to Charles Frederick and Edith Mary (née Groombridge) Wolfe, who had married in 1920.
In April 1930, Joan's father died at the age of 34.Tonbridge Free Press 25 April 1930, p. 7 Her mother remarried a man named Leslie John Wood in January the following year; they had a daughter in December 1931. 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. 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.
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. In August 1939, when Joan was 16 years old, she returned from school one day to find her step-father lying dead on the floor of their sealed kitchen: he had committed suicide by gassing himself.Tonbridge Free Press 25 August 1939, p. 6. Her mother subsequently remarried for a second time in 1942; this time to a man named Charles Watts.
With her mother's approval, Wolfe became engaged to an affluent young man from Tunbridge Wells shortly before her 16th birthday in 1939. Reportedly, Joan's fiancé lavished his attention and affections on her, although later the same year, while still engaged, Wolfe first ran away from home. On this first occasion, her mother reported her daughter missing to police, and Joan was discovered approximately one month later in the town of Aldershot. 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.
After one month, Wolfe left this employment, but did not inform her mother of this fact. It is at this stage in her life in which Wolfe's behaviour is believed to have become increasingly irresponsible and promiscuous, and she is known to have subsequently engaged in casual affairs with several soldiers between 1940 and 1942, most of whom served with the Canadian Army. Wolfe's behaviour from 1940 onward attests to her being gullible, extremely naïve, prone to flights of fancy, yet apparently yearning for stability. Her naïvety may have been compounded by her heavily chaperoned convent upbringing. These facts are evidenced not only in her behaviour, but in the content of the numerous letters she is known to have written to her final lover, who would ultimately prove to be her murderer. Moreover, until her death, she neither drank, smoked or used any profane language in her vocabulary.
Although little beyond subsequent trial testimony is known of Wolfe's relationship with her mother, the evidence which exists attests to Edith Watts being a simple, caring woman, gradually driven to despair by her eldest daughter's increasingly unpredictable and irresponsible behaviour; however, Wolfe herself may have found her mother's attitude somewhat overbearing. Nonetheless, via letter and in person, Edith is known to have repeatedly implored her daughter to return to or remain at home, and to revert to a stable, respectable lifestyle. 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.
Despite her wayward lifestyle, Joan did maintain sporadic written correspondence with her mother between 1940 and 1942, and she is known to have infrequently returned home to Tunbridge Wells for brief periods—twice in the company of Canadian soldiers she was dating—to visit her family, before opting to return to Godalming or Guildford. She is known to have held several menial forms of employment from 1940 onward; alternately residing in cheap lodgings or sleeping rough. Wolfe is also known to have formed a close friendship with an elderly lady named Kate Hayter in the village of Thursley while she lived and worked in Godalming. According to Wolfe, Hayter allowed her sleep at her bungalow, and to both wash and change her clothes, when she was unemployed.
On each occasion Edith wrote to or spoke with her daughter, she would argue with Joan as to her irresponsible and promiscuous lifestyle. By 1942, the relationship between mother and daughter had deteriorated and, in May, Edith wrote a final letter to her daughter, informing her she was "finished with you. I have been more than fair to you; forgiven you for things no other mother would have done ... You said something about repaying me for all I have done for you ... Joan, I shall be paid in full the day you come and truthfully say, 'Mum, I'm going to be a good girl'. Joan, that will be the happiest day of my life."
War years On 19 June 1940, nine months after Canada had proclaimed her intention to join the war effort, Sangret chose to enlist as a full-time soldier in the Regina Rifle Regiment. Shortly thereafter, his regiment was transferred to Dundurn Camp. 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). Throughout his military service, he never advanced beyond the rank of private.
Sangret's regiment was deployed to Britain on 24 March 1942. He was initially stationed in Fleet, Hampshire, before being posted to Aldershot and, on 13 July, to Jasper Camp. This final posting was in the market town of Godalming, and Sangret became one of an estimated 100,000 soldiers stationed in the vicinity of Witley and Thursley in 1942. At Jasper Camp, Sangret enrolled in a newly formed 12-week educational course for soldiers lacking in elementary education. While stationed in Godalming, Sangret became acquainted with Joan Pearl Wolfe.
The same year Sangret's regiment was posted to Britain, Joan Wolfe became engaged to a Canadian soldier named Francis Hearn, who returned to Canada on 15 July, having previously promised to marry her (which he had likely known was improbable due to his imminent posting to Canada). Wolfe is known to have thereafter worn a ring given to her by Hearn, and to have occasionally referred to herself as his wife. On one occasion, she is known to have falsely informed a female acquaintance she and Hearn had married in London, and that she and he were both "heartbroken" at his being posted back to Canada.
Acquaintance and courtship On 17 July 1942, the day after Hearn left for Canada, Joan Wolfe and August Sangret met for the first time in a pub in Godalming. According to Sangret, he had first noted Wolfe when she walked toward a bar and ordered a lemonade, to which he had asked her when she subsequently sat near him whether she was able to purchase "anything stronger", and Wolfe—whom he described as being "rather scruffy" and downcast in spirit—had simply replied that she "didn't drink anything stronger". He and Wolfe had then begun to talk, and later walked through a local park, before engaging in intercourse in a field close to the River Wey. The two then parted company, having arranged to meet again. 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. Wolfe had apparently agreed to date Hartnell on this evening, but became notably upset when Hartnell suggested tossing a coin to determine whether he or Sangret should "have her" that evening. In response, Hartnell simply left Wolfe and Sangret, and the pair were briefly detained by police, before being released. Sangret took Wolfe to the undergrowth close to Witley Camp that evening, and on this date, upon being informed by Wolfe she had "nowhere to stay", constructed the first wigwam for he and Wolfe to meet. Sangret described this first temporary shelter as being "a little shack with limbs and stuff." He spent the night with Wolfe in this device, returning to barracks at 6 a.m., having given Joan his photograph, address, and arranging to meet her in Godalming that evening. He later furnished this spartan pine structure with army blankets.