The killer of Sir Harry Oakes, was still alive and well, and living brazenly in the open, in Nassau, in 1959. Even though the killer possessed substantial political influence and wealth, the true murderer of Sir Harry Oakes, some sixteen years after the 1943 crime of the century, he was still wary of those trying to expose him.
In June 1959, a stubborn Cyril Stevenson pushed the Harry Oakes Killer, to don his dark mask one more time. The killer was determined to put a bullet in the man trying to reopen the investigation, into the greatest unsolved murder, ever committed, in the Bahamas.
1959 – Cyril St. John Stevenson Claimed He Knew Real Killer of Harry Oakes
Oddly enough, in June 1959, it wasn’t his political views or his new newspaper that almost got Cyril Stevenson, killed.
In May 1959, Stevenson claimed, in the House of Assembly, that based on newly discovered evidence by the lead investigator on the 1943 Oakes murder, the case should be reopened. Private detective Raymond Schindler said that when he had new evidence years prior, the Bahamas government threatened to deport him, if he investigated or interviewed anyone further.
Now in 1959, some sixteen years after the murder, Schindler denied having any new evidence and refused to appear in the Bahamas to provide any new testimony.
Nevertheless, the government voted to reopen the case.
(Berkshire Eagle, Friday, May 22, 1959)
May 1959 – Duke of Windsor Now Living in Paris, Refuses To Return To Give Testimony
It was a wasted telegram. Stevenson should have known implicitly what the response was going to be. The Duke of Windsor, who was the governor of the Bahamas when the murder happened, and who many said was particularly meddlesome in the investigation, refused an invitation to come back to the Bahamas, to give new testimony.
(Edmonton Journal, Friday, 22 May 1959)
JUNE 1959 – THREE BULLETS AND DEATH THREATS PUT AN END TO THE REOPENED CASE OF SIR HARRY OAKES
It didn’t take long for the Oakes Killer to respond to Cyril Stevenson’s stubbornness in pushing for a new investigation. The vote to reopen the case by the House of Assembly was really political lip service. No one in the ruling UBP (United Bahamian Party) government was interested in rehashing the Oakes case; especially as an opposition party PLP (Progressive Liberal Party) member was pushing for it.
But 1959 was different from 1943. The international press was keeping a keen eye on the way the renewed interest was being handled. The UBP government couldn’t appear to be participating in a murder cover up of a man, so once prominent, in the world.
However, in less than a few short weeks from the House of Assembly voting to reopen the case in May 1959, Stevenson’s house was shot into, in the middle of the night, on 14 June 1959.
Three bullets gave enough of a message to Cyril Stevenson to drop the case, for good. The last person, American Betty Renner, who tried to ask questions about the Oakes murder, was found dead, half naked, at the bottom of a well, in Nassau, in 1950.
Mr Cyril Stevenson, the Bahamas M.P. who sought to have the investigation of the murder of the Harry Oaks reopened, and claimed he could name the murderer, has reported to police that three shots were fired into his home.
Deputy Police-Supt. Sanly Moir said that two bullets had been recovered. They appeared to be 38 calibre, and unusual size in the Bahamas. Police would investigate the shooting and recent threats against Mr Stevenson’s life, he said. The shots were fired into the lower floor of a building which combined by Mr Stevenson is living quarters and newspaper office. He is the editor of the weekly Nassau Herald.
At the time he was in bed in the other story and there were no lights on in the building he said.
So Harry Oakes, a Canadian millionaire was murdered in July 1943. His son-in-law Count Alfred de Marigny was tried from murder but he was acquitted.
The case has never solved.
