On this day in 1853, Vere Thomas St Leger Goold was baptised in St. Mary’s Church in Irishtown, Clonmel. Goold won the very first Irish Open tennis championship in 1879 and reached the final of Wimbledon the same year.
However, Goold suffered an ignominious downfall. In 1908, he was convicted of the grotesque murder of Danish woman Emma Levin in the south of France. He was sent to the notorious Devil’s Island prison in French Guiana where he died by suicide a little over a year later.
Vere Goold was the son of George Goold, a magistrate in Clonmel, and Clara Smith, organist in St. Mary’s Church in Irishtown. The Goold family lived in the impressive Adelaide House, former residence of well-known architect William Tinsley. The Goolds moved to Waterford some years later and many online sources, including the Dictionary of Irish Biography, erroneously cite Waterford as the place of his birth.
In 1879, the young Goold, a natural athlete, won the very first Irish Open. There were 15 entrants and the competition was run off on the day. Goold won his three matches and received a prize of £20. A month later, he made is only appearance at Wimbledon, then in its third year. He breezed through to the final where he played Yorkshire vicar John Hartley in front of 1,100 spectators. Goold was easily defeated by the Yorkshireman in three sets.
Goold later moved to London, where he met a Frenchwoman, Marie Violette (née Girodin). They married in August 1891 in Paddington. By this time, Goold was a gambler, heavy drinker and opium user while Marie Violet also had addiction issues. The couple, who introduced themselves as Sir and Lady, eventually moved to the south of France, spending plenty of time in Monte Carlo's casinos.
While the Goolds lost all their money at the roulette tables, they thought they had found a meal ticket in Danish widow Emma Levin in 1907. She lent the couple 1,000 francs - a huge amount at that time - which they lost. Ms Levin came to their hotel in Monte Carlo in August 1907 to collect the debt but she was never seen alive again.
Some days later, Vere Goold and Marie Violet were in Marseille St Charles railway station. A porter there named Louis Pons noticed an offensive odour emanating from their luggage and what appeared to be blood drops oozing through the cracks. When the police arrived, they forced open the trunk and were confronted with the horrifying sight of a blood-stained torso. The legs had been hacked off and the head had been severed.
The couple gave a scarcely believable story of how they came to have Ms. Levin’s remains in their suitcase. Vere Thomas St Ledger Goold would soon exchange the tennis courts for the courts of law and he and his wife would soon stand trial for the murder of Emma Levin. Both were found guilty. The court found that Mrs. Goold was the chief instigator and she was sentenced to death by guillotine but this was later commuted to life imprisonment. She was transferred to Montpellier prison where she died of typhoid in 1914.
Vere Thomas St Leger Goold was sentenced to life in prison in the notorious penal settlement on Devil's Island, French Guiana. He struggled there with frequent nightmares suffering from withdrawal symptoms of both alcohol and opium. He died by suicide in 1909 at the age of 55.
Sources:
https://www.rte.ie/.../1336515-the-irish-wimbledon.../
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62072294
Michael Ahern, Threads in a Clonmel Tapestry (2012), pp203-215.
