Forbidden History - Murder in the Bahamas: The Oakes Conspiracy

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

In 1943, Sir Harry Oakes, a wealthy gold magnate, was brutally murdered in the Bahamas, where the Duke of Windsor was serving as governor at the time. The investigation and trial were marred by allegations that the Duke influenced the outcome, fuelling suspicions of a cover-up… Cast List:  Raymond J Batvins: Former FBI Special Agent  James Owen: Author, ‘A Serpent in Eden’ Andrew Morton: Author, ’17 Carnations, The Windsors, The Nazi and the Cover Up’ Dr. Robert Bruce-Chwatt: Consultant Forensic Physician  John Marquis: Author & Former Newspaper Editor  Eric Meyers: Narrator  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. In 1943, Sir Harry Oaks, the richest man in the British Empire, was brutally murdered in the Bahamas during the height of the Second World War. A number of unusual features about the murder that holes in the head, the burning of the body, feathers on the court.

This was a very savage murder. He was quite difficult to kill. It was in trying to solve this crime that a murky world was uncovered involving police corruption, Nazi money, and the former King of Great Britain. Duke of Windsor was involved in all kinds of business activities that it shouldn't have been money laundering for a start off. The British government still harboured grave concerns, particularly about Wallace Simpson, over her strong pro-Nazi sympathies. Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.

Today a popular tourist destination, renowned for its natural beauty, idyllic beaches, and crystal clear waters. But in 1943, the killing of Sir Harry Oakes turned the island into the scene of a murder investigation that will forever be remembered for its scandal, corruption, and mystery. The simplest thing to do is to find a scapegoat out of all the people who could have a motive

and the most skeletons in their cupboard. Personally, I'd be very interested in looking at what evidence was presented. One wonders if the whole case wasn't tainted. Primarily, there were a lot of suspicions about the Duke and Duchess Nazi associations. The FBI was spying on the Duke and Duchess very comprehensively and providing anything and everything that it got from its coverage back to the British government. Before his untimely death, the American-born Sir Harry Oakes had risen to be a man of considerable wealth and influence.

Oakes had begun prospecting in 1889 at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. And he was determined to strike the mother load, but he was into his forties, I believe, when he finally made good in Canada, in Ontario. In 1912, Oaks struck gold in Northern Ontario and established the Lakeshore Mine, which would go on to become the second largest gold mine in North America. Oaks amassed an enormous fortune, but was unhappy with Canada's tax laws. Oaks found he was paying 85% tax on the profits he was making for the mines. He was in fact the highest taxpayer in Canada.

He discovered that in the Bahamas, both income tax and inheritance tax were very low, and it seemed to him a perfect place to move. In 1935, Oakes became a British citizen, obtained a knighthood, and moved to the small British colony of the Bahamas. I think Nassau at that time probably had a population of about 40,000, and so it's very much smaller than it is today. You know, you had this very relatively small, white Bahamian community

that had made fortunes from a variety of activities over the years, including bootlegging and blockade running and things of that kind, usually nefarious activities of one kind or another. It was a country looking for investment, and a man of Sir Harry's means was welcomed with open arms. It was also the richest man in the British Empire. It was actually worth the $200 million in 1943. I mean, can you imagine what that's worth now?

You're talking about a multi-billionaire. The outbreak of war in 1939 had relatively little effect on Nassau and the surrounding islands. Located thousands of miles from the fighting in Europe, the Bahamas were away from the immediate dangers of the war. For this very reason, the British government decided it would be the perfect place to send their country's wayward former king. So in 1940, the Duke of Windsor was sent to see out the war as the governor of the Bahamas. Being governed Bahamas sounds like a rather sort of glamorous job these days, but then it wasn't such a great posting. I don't think for anybody, let alone for somebody who had been notionally head of the British Empire. American papers when the appointment was announced compared the Duke to being the manager of an upmarket winter resort.

The Duke had been proclaimed King of the United Kingdom in 1936, but chose to abdicate later that year in favor of marrying the twice-divorced Wallace Simpson. But the abdication and marriage itself had caused a scandal in Britain. It was hoped that in stationing him in one of the far-flung colonies, the Duke would refaunched. from any further indiscretions. He'd become something an embarrassment to the royals and to the government in the years before the outbreak of war by his rather incautious admiration for Hitler and for Germany. It was considered by British politicians that at one point they were actually undermining the war effort. An almost willing defeat, prospective defeat if you like, on Britain. And so they were considered by Churchill and others as being a nuisance.

So in the end, Churchill came up with a magisterial compromise, which was to send him off to the Bahamas, where he would be out of the way, but he would be doing something that was notionally of support to the British war effort. The Duke soon became a well-established member of the Bahamian elite, striking up friendships with the likes of Sir Harry Oakes, his daughter Nancy. and her fiancé Alfred de Marigny, and Harold Christie, a Nassau-born businessman. Harold Christie became the Bahamas' number one real estate agent.

He was the go-to man for property in the Bahamas. If you wanted to buy a 3,000-acre stretch in the Bahamas, he's the guy to go to. If you wanted to buy an island in the Bahamas, he was the guy to go to. In fact, Sir Harry Oaks became his number one customer, and he sold huge tracks of Bahamas. immune land to Sahari Oaks and in the process became a close friend. Another prominent figure on the islands was Axel Wenner Gren, a Swedish industrialist and one of

the richest men in the world. Well he was a swede who was the head of the Electrolux empire. Selling some of the first vacuum cleaners and then some of the first fridges and he diversified into all sorts of other industries which were important. Notably he was the world's large producer of wood pulp, which is what's used to make paper. But Wenner Gren was also viewed by many with suspicion due to the questionable company he was known to keep. He had a friendship with Guring, the number two, to Hitler. He was busy in business in Mexico.

He was the sort of chap who, because he had got a lot of money, he felt he could also interfere in international affairs, and he was a bit of a know-all, actually. Life in the Bahamas was a far cry from the horrors of war in Europe. Everybody knew each other. The streets were safe, and crime was almost non-existent. Until one day in 1943, when the peaceful serenity of the islands was lost to a gruesome murder. On the 7th of July, Oakes had been enjoying entertaining his friends at his estate in Nassau. As the evening drew in, the guests began to leave until only Oakes and his good friend Harold Christie remained.

They stayed up talking about business and playing checkers before eventually calling it a night. Oaks offered for Christie to stay in the guest room, and the pair retired to their bedrooms. They slept in separate rooms, and the usual habit was for the two of them to get together on the balcony and have breakfast together, and that was the routine that was going to be followed on this particular occasion, certainly on the face of it anyway. In the morning, Christie went to check on Oaks, expecting to find him sleeping in. Instead, he made a horrific discovery. He saw the most appalling scene.

He saw that Oaks had been murdered. And of course, there were a number of unusual features about the murder. Somebody bashed his skull in. There seemed to be an attempt of setting the bed on fire. Feathers on the corpse. It was a pretty sort of horrifying scene, really. So Harry Oakes was a strong, powerful fit man, former gold miner. He probably fought if he wasn't knocked out by the first blow, which I doubt that he was.

This was a very savage murder. Christie raised the alarm and alerted the authorities. But for some reason, when the Duke of Windsor heard the news, he tried to prevent news from printing the story and even shut down the island's telegraph office. The Duke tried to impose a news blackout as well, which he couldn't do because one of the first people that Christie notified of the murder was Etienne DePooch, the editor and publisher of the Tribune. Christy told Etting DePuch he's dead in a panic on the phone.

And Etienne DePute said, are you sure? And he said, yes, definitely. He said, well, in that case, I must get it around the world and promptly filed to Reuters and Associated Press. Nassau, British Bahamas, murder victim, Sir Harry Oaks, 200 times a millionaire. Valatial Westbourne, Sir Harry's Nassau State. In the master bedroom here was found the burned and bludgeon body

of this 69-year-old gold mine owner. Lady Oaks was summering at Bar Harbor when Sir Harry met death. His pretty 19-year-old daughter, Nancy, greatest of his treasures, had married the man he's sternly disapproved of, Count Marie Alfred de Fugaro de Merigny. You must remember, this murderer, as a story, actually knocked the war itself off the front pages of the empire, because Sir Harry was such a well-known figure in the empire, the richest man in the empire, in fact. It was a huge story.

The news of Sir Harry's murder soon spread, but instead of letting the local Bahamian police do their job, the Duke of Windsor himself immediately stepped in to take charge of the investigation. Well, the Duke of Windsor, as the governor of the Bahamas, was effectively in control. I mean, this wasn't simply a nominal position, it wasn't a titular position, if you like. He was actually the man who made the big decisions when it came to investigations of this sort. At that time, the islands of the Bahamas were a British colony. British colony and as such came under the jurisdiction of Scotland Yard. But even though one of the richest men in the British Empire had been murdered, for some

reason the Duke did not seek help from the British authorities. Instead, he called for assistance from the United States. Now the features that emerged immediately after the murder of Harry Oaks is first of all the local police force was sidelined by the Duke. The Duke arranged for two homicide detectives from the Miami police force to be flown in. To many, it seemed as if the Duke was concerned with what Scotland Yard would possibly uncover if they did a thorough investigation. But what, if anything, was he trying to hide?

The Duke and Duchess were particularly antagonistic to Scotland Yard. They believed that Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard had an agenda, an intelligence agenda in addition to their law enforcement agenda, and the intelligence agenda was to provide any type of gossip, any type of information that they garnered during their investigation about the Duke and the Duchess, directly back to the royal family or directly back to Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, for his information and for their information. The Duke already had someone in mind to lead the investigation, someone that he had become acquainted with on a previous visit to the United States. He'd been to Miami on official

visit, and he'd been shown around by a man called Captain Melchon. And so Windsor had a bright idea, and he got in touch with the chief of the Miami Police and asked for Melchon to be sent out to come and assist. Police captains James Melchon and Edelchon and Eilchon. Edward Barker from the Miami homicide department, arrived at the scene within six hours. But if the Duke was trying to keep something hidden, why did he believe that the Miami police would not uncover his secret?

I think it was probably more the fact that Melton and Barker could be manipulated. I think that was the main attraction, and the Duke obviously wanted to manipulate this investigation for a number of reasons. Even at the time, the thoroughness of Barker and Melchon's examination of the crime scene was considered questionable. They came over as grossly incompetent. Apart from anything else, Barker forgot his photographic equipment, lifted in Miami.

He claimed that he'd been told that the death was a suicide and that he wouldn't need his camera equipment. What is unusual is that he made no effort. to obtain another camera in the Bahamas, whether it would have been a specialist fingerprint camera or not, is not really relevant because cameras can be adapted so that they can take micro photographs, close-ups, but he did nothing. People were allowed to tramp through the house as well.

So the crime scene became very contaminated, with footprints going in the house. in both directions and sand being brought into the house. It was a wet night the night before. Being experienced, they would have known perfectly well that a crime scene must be isolated to prevent both contamination and cross-contamination. They also knew that the scene had to be preserved.

During the initial examination of the crime scene, Barker stated that the conditions in the room hindered his ability to dust for prints. Barker said that because it was so humid in Nassau, there was a danger of if he tried to dust for fingerprints, which was his sort of expertise, that he might damage them or just brushed them away because fingerprints are made from sweat.

And so when it's very humid, they stay on the surface and can be brushed away easily. But certainly there does seem to be a fair deal of inadequate investigation. And it wasn't one would have thought a usual manner of proceeding with a murder investigation and a capital crime. Christie, whose room had been just down the hall from Sir Harry's, told the Miami detectives that he had heard nothing that night other than mosquitoes and a heavy storm that had hit

the island. But he did offer a potential person of interest who would be worth talking to. Sir Harry Oakes' son-in-law, Alfred de Marigny. Towards the end of the day, they became quite interested in the movements of Oakes' son-in-law, Freddie de Marini, when they received the results of the post-mortem. This determined that the time of death had happened sometime after midnight, and they learned from what Damarini had said that he'd been dropping some people off close to Westbourne

after the end of a dinner party he had. It was a known fact on the island that, Sir Harry had a turbulent relationship with his son-in-law, and the two were often at loggerheads. It was difficult because, of course, de Marini had married Sir Harry's daughter, Nancy, when she was 18, and Damarney was 36 years old, and it had already been married before. So he was considered to be not a particularly good match for young Nancy, and it was widely suspected, of course, that Damarini had married her because he wanted to get hands. on the Oaks fortune.

De Marigny was brought to Westbourne for questioning. He informed them that he'd had a small gathering at his house that evening and that he'd never left other than to drive some of his guests home at about 1 a.m. Returning 45 minutes later, Barker also had another reason to strongly suspect that de Marigny had been at the scene of the crime. They examined his body for traces of fire because it was apparently that whoever had set fire to the room might have been burned by it, and they claimed

seen some traces of burns on the hairs, on his arms, and on his hand, and that all made them suspicious. And so he started to come into focus for them as their most likely suspect. The autopsy results placed Sir Harry's time of death to be somewhere between 1.30 and 3.30 a.m. The timing and the singed hairs made de Marigny the prime suspect, and he was arrested the day. De Marini was taken back to Westbourne. Sometime that morning he went upstairs with Barker and he was interrogated again about his

movements and that evening the police seemed to have decided that he was their man and he was formally arrested. If tried and convicted of the murder, de Marigny would have been given the death sentence and hanged for his crime. But there was one person who refused to believe he was guilty, his wife, Sir Harry's daughter. Nancy stuck by Damarini. Damarini. She'd been off the island, in fact, when her father was murdered.

She did come back, and she very soon made it clear that she thought that Freddie was innocent and that she was going to see everything in her power to help him show that he hadn't committed the murder. And that would involve using her money to bring in outside help to Damarene's defense team show that he wasn't guilty. Nancy and DeMarigny claimed that he was being set up and used as a scapegoat. believing that a small group of Nassau's high-powered residents were framing him for Sir Harry's murder. Among them, they believed, was the Duke of Windsor.

It was strongly suspected that Damarini was in the frame right from the beginning. He was the convenient for guy for this situation. And certainly, the Duke directed events towards that conclusion. He wanted Damarini to end up on the end of a rope. full stop. And so anything that Barker and Melchon did in the course of the investigation was directed towards that end. It was no secret that the Duke despised Demerigny. They had had run-ins in the past and were both open about their feelings towards each other. De Marini was openly contemptuous of the Duke and he was the sort of chap who didn't disguise his views.

I forget the exact wording, but he actually made some reference to the Duke being a former king who was now the governor of a limestone outcrop. It was a remark that was calculated to belittle the Duke, and the Duke never forgot it. But would his dislike of de Marigny have been enough for the Duke to influence the direction of the investigation? Or were there, as many suspect, other more sinister motives for his actions? There's no doubt that the Duke did not want close scrutiny of his financial affairs at that time. And any really thorough investigation of the murder at that time would have turned up unpleasant, unpalatable facts about his own activities

and probably activities of other of the rich whites in the Bahamas. Axel Wenner-Gren, owner of the Electrolux Company, was one of the well-of-the-wellery. was one of the wealthiest men in the world. He had a number of business interests across the globe, owned an island in the Bahamas, and was also a suspected Nazi agent. So some suspicion that German money had fetched up in Venegrin's enterprise that he'd been involved in,

if not laundering German money, then at least taking money from the Nazis, was due to the fact that Venegrin had had pretty strong links with Germany before the war. Germany was a big cultural influence on Sweden, Goering's first wife had been an aristocratic swede, and Benegren had studied in Germany as a young man. So there were strong links between him and the Germans. Wenner Gren had sailed to the Bahamas on his yacht, the Southern Cross.

At the time, the most luxurious vessel of its kind ever built. He purchased Hog Island, later renamed Paradise Island, through Harold Christie. Wanner Gren plowed a great deal of money into the local economy, into the local economy and even established the Bank of the Bahamas. But many now believe that some of his business affairs deserved more scrutiny. Rumors have since circulated that while in Nassau, Wienn devised the financial scheme in which some wealthy Bahamians had become involved, including the Duke of Windsor. The ex-king had gone from having vast sums of money and privilege and power, and he now did not have any of those.

He was alleged to be involved in these illicit currency transactions. There was considerable suspicion that the Duke was laundering his money to get the best rate possible. Money was one thing that the Duke of Windsor needed in order to maintain the sort of lifestyle that he'd had before his abdication. The Duke had become such a concern that it led to the US government putting him and Wallace under surveillance. There was general suspicion surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and that went from the top, from Roosevelt downwards. Sue Hoover all the way through the FBI and into the State Department.

The FBI compiled a comprehensive report on the couple, the file for which was only released from their archives in the early 2000s. Well, what I have in front of me is the report and the files of the FBI's coverage of April of 1941 when the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, was invited to come to Palm Beach, Florida, for a personal visit. The British government, through the United States government, asked that coverage of the visit be handled

and that reports be relayed back to the British government of who he met, where he went, what activities he undertook. They were under surveillance by the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, ordered that Wallace's mail was intercepted, when it was learned that she had her dry cleaning sent to New York, and they looked over the clothes

because they thought that she could be sending material back to the Nazis. But up front, the British government wasn't sure what he was going to do while he was here. There was still the deep, dark suspicion that Wallace and the Duke were still maybe cozy with fascists. But they just wanted his behavior, and his movements while he was here in the United States observed and scrutinized

so that they could report back to their political leaders what exactly what went on here. But the Duke was not the only person in the Bahamas that the FBI were keeping a close eye on. The Americans saw Axel Wenner-Gren as a threat. They saw him as a threat to their economic stability, and they put him on a blacklist to the point where the FBI's file on him is the thickest and the longest file on any person who's ever lived. In 1942, the Duke was under enormous pressure from the British government to cease all dealings with Wenner Grenn and banish him from the Bahamas. He had to be instructed by the British ambassador to Washington

and also Churchill himself to keep away from the odious Swede. The Duke did as he was told, and Wenner Gren left for Mexico. But even after being banned from setting foot in the country, Wennergren was known to have returned to the Bahamas to meet with the Duke in secret. But the nature of those meetings has never been fully explained. Many now believe that it may have been in connection with Wenner Gren's new Mexican business venture, which also involved Harold Christie and Sir Harry Oakes. A scheme with Harry Oaks and the rest of the people to set up a new bank called Banco Continental in Mexico. And the plan was that Benegren and Oaks and others would put $325,000, it's about $3 million now, each, into the bank.

After being banished from the Bahamas, he established the Banco Continental in Mexico City with the help of Maximino Abila Camacho, the brother of the country's president. Camacho was known to have visited the Bahamas on several occasions, staying as a guest of Sir Harry's at his home in Nassau. But what alleged involvement did the Duke have with the deal? It said that one of the other investors in the bank was going to be the Duke of Windsor himself. People said that there was a danger of what Duke and Venegray were up to would have involved in effect trading with the enemy because there was the prospect of German money coming over perfectly legally into Mexico and then the up in the bank.

Trading with the enemy was a treasonable offence, and not something the British government would have turned a blind eye to. Could this have been the reason for the Duke not wanting a thorough and independent investigation carried out into Sir Harry's murder? He was also aware that the authorities in Britain were snooping on him because of the Nazi connection and so the last people he wanted in Nassau doing the investigation were the FBI and Scotland Yard. But would he have gone so far as to frame de Marigny for a murder he did not commit? The odds were stacked against de Maran Yi and his life was hanging in the balance.

He was going to need a good lawyer and the best in the Bahamas was Alfred Adderley. But his services had already been hired by the... the prosecution. So Damarini had to turn to Godfrey Higgs, very capable, but somebody who didn't crucially have much experience of criminal law. Adley had done a lot of murder trials. Higgs, I think, had only conducted one, and he'd lost that one, and he'd lost to Adley. With the help of Nancy, he retained the services of Godfrey Higgs and even hired a private

investigator in preparation for the upcoming trial. So she brought in a number of experts, including a famous private investigator from the States. And the idea was that they would be chasing down Leeds and looking at all the evidence that the prosecution had assembled to see where the weak points were, to try to show that there was another story here, that the police had jumped to conclusions and they'd got the wrong man. DiMareen-Y was called to the stand, and during the prosecution's examination, they laid out their evidence against him.

The three motives really were revenge, satisfaction, and gain. They admitted that the Pope perhaps wasn't one sort of killer piece of evidence as such, but there are lots of circumstantial evidence against Damarini. And Adler uses image of twisting all these strands of evidence together to make a noose which was going to hang Damarini. He was known to be on bad terms with his father-in-law with Harry Oaks. He'd be placed near Westbourne at the time of the murder. he had these burns on him and he couldn't produce his clothes either.

And above all, there was this motive and that was thought to be that he wanted to get hold of Oakes' money through the inheritance that Nancy would get if her father died. Adelaidey did his job well and painted a less than favorable picture of de Marigny to the jury. Harold Christie was also called to the stand to give evidence, but under cross-examination by the defense, he failed to give a convincing performance. gave a very peculiar performance on the stand. People noticed that he was spending a long time thinking about what he wanted to say and an awful long time to answer questions and he seemed to be under a great deal of strain and pressure. He had two major difficulties. He had said that

when he'd found the body, he picked up the body and then put its head on the pillow and tried to give it something to drink and wiped its face even. And that seemed to people very unconvincing given the scene of the crime where it must have been pretty obvious that the docks had been murdered. And the second problem he had was that a police officer had come forward to say that on the night in question, when Christie had said that he'd been sleeping at Westbourne, that he, the police officer, had seen a car driving through the centre of Nassau with Christie in the passenger seat. Christy's testimony had shaken the prosecution's case. They needed to get back on track to keep the jury on their side.

And they hoped to do that with a surprising piece of last-minute evidence. Exhibit J. This key piece of evidence, this fingerprint, which seemed to show that Damarini had been in the murder room. The fingerprint, known to the court as Exhibit J, had apparently been discovered by Barker at the crime scene, but was only presented to the court late into the proceedings. It was damning evidence, placing DeMarinjohn. at the scene of the crime. For the jury, the prince told them everything they needed to know.

DeMarin Ye was undoubtedly the murderer. But something about this Exhibit J didn't seem quite right to the defense, and they quickly set about their cross-examination. The print was not actually recorded in situ. It wasn't actually photographed on the screen. Barker, who had left his camera back in Miami, failed to photograph exactly where on the silk screen he had taken the print.

But in a capital case, it's a little surprising that the piece of evidence that would have placed de Marini at the scene of the crime was brought into the case so late. And despite the fact that Exhibit J was taken from an embroidered silver in the book screen, Barker had managed to obtain an almost completely intact print. It was the sort of fingerprint that you would produce in a fingerprint class.

The print was completely clean, it was an almost perfect print. Since they said that it had been lifted from the fabric of a Chinese screen, That's almost impossible because the fingerprint they produced would have come from a smooth, very smooth surface. De Marini's defense was now on the attack. Barker was visibly uncomfortable during the cross-examination and failed to give plausible answers to the questions put to him. During Barker's evidence, he was systematically dismantled by the defense team. And the whole edifice of deceit began to crumble before the eyes of the jury. But if not from the crime scene, where else would Barker have been able to get hold of de Marigny's fingerprint?

The easiest way, the classic way, is to provide somebody with a drink of water. Barker, in order to link him with the crime scene, actually concocted as a moment. situation where de Marini was offered a glass of water. He handled the glass and they lifted the print off the glass claiming that it'd been found at the scene. The fact that the defense were able to seem to show that the Barker couldn't have found this key piece of evidence where he said he'd found it must have undermined the strength of the prosecution's case in the minds of the jury. I mean it must have you know to see that Barker seemed not to be

to tell the truth, must have given them port a thought, and made them wonder really whether the rest of what he and Melchon have been saying about de Marini and his guilt was true or not. The prosecution's case had fallen apart. The jury had lost confidence in the evidence, and were unable to find a good enough reason to send de Marini to be hanged. Nassau Bahamas, the sensational 22-day trial ends as Judge Daly receives the verdict of the jury,

acquitting Count Alfred D. Morini of murder. Not guilty was their decision, but they voted unanimously for the Count's immediate deportation. DeMarini leaves the courthouse a free man, though authorities may send him to his native island of Mauritius. De Marigny was found not guilty, but ordered to leave the Bahamas for good. The verdict left many unanswered questions, including why had the Duke brought in his own investigators? and had he instructed them to frame de Marigny. It was negligent on the part of the Duke to call in two Miami-Florida police officers

to conduct the investigation rather than call in the premier law enforcement service of his own country to conduct the investigation. But I think when they came out, They came out with good intent, but I do believe that they came under tremendous pressure to muddy the waters. And whatever reasons that they had, that appears to be pretty much what they eventually did. It's been said that the Duke tried to influence the outcome of the investigation by putting pressure on Melchon and Barker to have demurion arrested. Now, I think it's, I think it's critical.

that as governor, the Duke wanted the investigation committee as soon as possible. Duke of Windsor was involved in all kinds of business activities that it shouldn't have been money laundering for a start off, having the spirits and whiskeys and everything else tax-free brought in through the embassy in Washington. I think he wanted to get it out of the way quickly, get it behind him quickly. He wanted to keep Damarini out of the way. Damarini out of the way because he knew that he was potentially trouble, big trouble, in the Bahamas in particular. And it's interesting that in the years following the murder, the Duke went out of his way to persecute Damarney in all sorts of ways.

Damarini himself didn't feel comfortable about writing his own account of the murder until the Duke was safely dead. Even today, many people suspect that the Duke was fearful that a thorough investigation into Sir Harry's murder may have brought to life embarrassing or even treasonous revelations. Edward VIII, Duke of Winter, was unrepentant about his support for the Nazis. At a dinner party he was saying to a woman, remember all Hitler did was take away the Jewish tentacles from around the throat of Germany.

And it shows you in a way that this was a man who was a died-in-the-wall, conservative, and a supporter of the Nazi regime. Whatever the reason for the Duke's actions, one question may never be answered. Just who was responsible for the murder of Sir Harry Oaks? Sir Harry was very well known in the Bahamas. He was a very rich man. He had a number of fingers in any number of pies.

There was a genuine concern that Sir Harry was going to move his fortune from the Bahamas, which would have effectively destroyed the Bahamas economy of that time, if not destroyed, certainly severely undermined it. And I think there were a lot of very powerful vested interests in the Bahamas that could not allow that to happen. And would not have wanted their own dealings with Sir Harry brought out in court as a motive for them having anything to do with his murder. So there's no doubt in my mind at all that there was an ongoing conspiracy in the Bahamas after the murder of Sahari Oaks to keep the whole thing quiet.

And in fact, it became very much a taboo subject in the Bahamas. But I have no doubt at all that it was strictly a local affair. I believe that very strongly. Unexplored catacombs buried beneath the city, a crumbling castle perched on a mountain peak, a top-secret government bunker, a cursed mansion cloaked in the low. I'm Sasha Auerbach. Join me in Tom Ward every Wednesday and Sunday as we reveal the mysteries and histories behind these abandoned places and ask, where did everyone go? We'll hear from Sasha, who knows the history the best. In fact, there's a very famous book by a chap named Marcus Rediker called The Many-Headed Hydra,

and he talks about pirate ships as an experiment in radical democracy. And me, who knows nothing, erinautical scientists can't quite explain it. They say, We don't actually know how it gets up there. How it stays up? You're just not good at a science. No, there are explanations? There are explanations. It's just plain physics.

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