Swiss Murder Mysteries

At five o’clock on the afternoon of 8 December 1980, the moment of truth had finally arrived. After days of intense courtroom drama, the jury was about to deliver its verdict. When it was finally delivered, there was a moment of stunned silence. For several seconds, those present seemed unable to fully comprehend what they had just heard. Cyril Belshaw himself sat motionless, his face betraying little emotion. Just a seemingly passive figure as the enormity of the jury’s decision began to sink in. Outside the courtroom, a mass of international reporters waited for a statement from the man at the centre of one of Switzerland’s most controversial murder trials. But Belshaw had nothing to say.

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What is Swiss Murder Mysteries?

Uncover Switzerland’s most enigmatic murder cases with this riveting investigative true crime podcast.

Narrator:

This is The Verdict, the sixth and final episode of the Belshaw case, researched, written, and presented to you by me, Rudolph Isler. Before we begin today's episode, I want to share a quick note on how you can support the show. If you enjoy what I do, please consider hitting the follow button on your listening application. It is the only way to help Swiss Murder Mysteries climb the charts and reach new listeners without having to clutter your listening experience with annoying commercials in the future. Your ratings, reviews, and support keep this project and me going, and I am incredibly grateful for it.

Narrator:

So thank you very much. But now let's get into it. According to the law of the Canton Of Vaud, the tribunal must meet immediately after the adjournment of the trial and deliberate without interruption until a verdict is reached. The deliberations are governed by the Vaudois Court of Criminal Procedure, which dictates that everyone will speak in turn, concluding with the president. Finally, when everyone has had their say, they cast their votes.

Narrator:

The Swiss jury system at the time used simple majority voting. Unanimity was not required. Simple majorities on a jury could return either convictions or acquittals. It was with some surprise that the jurors, judges, and president Guignard were able to reach a verdict the very same day. Deliberating immediately and in secret, the tribunal rendered its judgment, then dispersed at 09:30 p. m. to allow the final text to be typed.

Narrator:

This made the following Monday, which had been reserved for deliberations, quite obsolete. Yet the formal reading of the verdict, scheduled for five p. M. On Monday, 12/08/1980, was maintained.

Narrator:

By that time the courtroom was packed. Additional chairs were brought in, and crowds lined up along the back of the walls in double files. When the murmur finally died down, Belshaw was led in. He nodded to the jurors, but they did not dare look back at him.

Narrator:

After a long dramatic silence, President Guignard began to read. But before delivering the verdict he once more summarized the case, explicitly highlighting how a few crucial issues heavily influenced their decision. Some of these points favored the prosecution, while others favored the defense. So let's take a quick look at them ourselves. Now put yourself in the shoes of a juror for a moment.

Narrator:

Imagine you are one of the six individuals who, based on the information you've heard over the previous episodes, must now decide on Cyril Belshaw's fate. You have just listened to two completely opposing accounts of what might have happened. At first glance, the case seems obvious. If there was ever an unlikely murderer, it is Cyril Belshaw, a short, moustached, pot bellied man of 59. The very idea that a world renowned professor and president of the International Association of Anthropology could have killed his wife appeared absurd.

Narrator:

This was a woman with whom he had shared a happy thirty six year marriage, travelled the world, raised two children, and who had always stood firmly by his side. The notion seemed so extravagant, so difficult to swallow, that prosecutor Willy Heim faced a monumental task. Despite all his logic, Haim had to convince the jury that this world renowned scientist strangled, poisoned, or otherwise killed his wife, then robbed her corpse in garbage bags to dispose of her as stealthily as a drunken farmer discarding a dead sheep in a rubbish dump. Prosecutor Heim's task was made all the more difficult by Belshaw's remarkable intelligence. Before and during the trial, his attitude, actions and words were consistently controlled and convincing.

Narrator:

He answered every question calmly and clearly, without ever contradicting himself. And yet there was the forgery. While Belshaw admitted to making a massive mistake by altering the dental records, how should that action be interpreted? Was it the foolish panic gesture of an innocent man on the brink of a mental breakdown, suddenly forced to confront his wife's death? Or was it the fatal mistake of a desperate suspect who, just for once, forgot to think things through?

Narrator:

Here, in a condensed and by no means exhaustive compilation, are the main elements that you, as a juror, would have to weigh in the balance. To acquit Belshaw, you would have to believe a series of extraordinary claims. You would have to believe Belshaw's assertion that his wife Betty was actually with him in Paris, and that she was the one in the shower on 01/15/1979, when room service delivered breakfast to their room at the Novotel Bagnoli. You would have to believe him when he says that after Betty left him at the Bourse Metro Station she vanished into thin air within minutes in the middle of Paris, for reasons unknown. And you would have to believe that an unknown killer murdered her somewhere, somehow, wrapped her body in garbage bags and dumped her down in an Alpine Pass Road, a location that, by pure coincidence, was less than 100 kilometers from their temporary home in Crans Montana.

Narrator:

Believing Belshaw also means forgetting about Miss Harris. She was a woman Cyril had known as a teenager and met again by pure destiny twenty five years later. Are we to believe that she played no significant role in his life? This is the same Miss Harris who joined Cyril in Cromontana in June 1978, when he arrived to rent a flat with his wife. And she is the same Miss Harris who, six months after Betty's mysterious death, was spotted by a Vancouver policeman acting intimately with cereal inside her sports car.

Narrator:

Believing Belshaw also means accepting that after returning to Cromontana, he never once touched his wife's suitcase and never felt it necessary to mention her disappearance to the Swiss authorities. It means believing that even though he subscribed to Lenovo List, he somehow missed the newspaper's bold headlines announcing that the body of a woman his wife's age had been discovered nearby. And lastly, perhaps most importantly, if we are to believe Belshaw, we must accept that this man of superior intellect and extraordinary self control suddenly lost his head. We must believe that out of sheer panic and mental instability he falsified Betty's dental records, actively trying to hide any connection between the discovered body and the missing wife. If you add up this by no means exhaustive list, you will likely agree that Cyril Belshaw makes a very unconvincing, innocent man.

Narrator:

In fact, these elements point heavily toward the opposite conclusion, that Belshaw is a highly convincing suspect. But there remains one major hurdle for the prosecution: Suspicion alone is not enough for conviction. What the prosecution, led by Attorney General Hyme, had to prove was that Belshaw was beyond any reasonable doubt, the culprit who murdered his wife. They had to do this without a murder weapon, without physical traces of a struggle, and without even knowing the exact cause of death. Despite these massive gaps, the prosecution remained confident.

Narrator:

To them the single most devastating piece of evidence, the accused and disputed forgery of the dental records, seemed nearly as damning as a full confession. Understandably, they built their entire case around this pivotal action. The prosecution contended that Belshaw must have learned about the discovery of the body from the newspaper. However, he likely assumed the police would never connect it to his wife's disappearance, an assumption that was initially correct. Remember, it was only through Interpol that the Swiss police finally learned about Betty's missing person case.

Narrator:

When investigators eventually requested her dental records, Belshaw was forced to improvise. Yet he managed to stay entirely in control. The proof lay in his calculation. He volunteered to procure the records himself so he could alter them before handing them over to the Swiss investigators. Naturally, Belshaw offered a different, rational explanation.

Narrator:

He claimed he took it upon himself to request the documents out of fear that an official police inquiry would only fuel the absurd malicious rumors already circulating about his wife's disappearance in Vancouver. He maintained that once the dental records were in his hands he simply couldn't bear the thought that they might contain definite proof of Betty's death. In a state of panic he retouched the chart, erasing traces of certain dental fillings and adding fictitious ones before passing the falsified copy to the investigators. At first his gamble worked. Upon an initial comparison the investigators concluded that the body was not Betty Belshaw.

Narrator:

Everything seemed to be going according to plan. But four months later the tide turned against him. A Swiss forensic expert deemed the submitted document insufficiently clear and bypassed Belshaw entirely, contacting the Canadian dentist directly to request a pristine original copy. Thanks to that official record, Betty was formally identified on September 20. When Cyril, who was a personal friend of the dentist, was tipped off about this direct request, he realized the game was up.

Narrator:

He sat down and penned a written confession admitting the forgery. But the damage was done. Belshaw had just cemented himself as the prime suspect. It raises a glaring question: Would Belshaw have ever admitted to the forgery if the police hadn't discovered the irregularities themselves? It is highly unlikely.

Narrator:

As far as Willyheim was concerned, the narrative was clear. Betty Belshaw was never in Paris. Her husband killed her at the Cholilac Chalet, transported her body to the Sepi lay by in the boot of his car and only then drove onward to France. Whether it was a sadistic or villainous crime remains impossible to say, because the advanced decomposition of the body made it impossible to ever establish how she died. Belshaw showed little cooperation with the two Vodwa detectives who were sent to Vancouver to question him.

Narrator:

In his defense, however, it must be admitted that these police officers arrived with a blunt rudeness that could have discouraged even the most cooperative citizen. Some of the very first questions they lobbed at him were: Why did you kill your wife? And we know it was you. Belshaw, who had not yet been formally notified that the corpse had been identified, developed a lasting distrust of the vaudois judicial system. Understandably, he was hardly forthcoming.

Narrator:

Instead, he chose to remain silent. Yet the prosecution argued that an innocent man, especially someone as highly observant as serial, would have done everything in his power to help the police find the truth. But Belshaw did not budge. And from the State's perspective he had a very good reason. He didn't want to draw any more attention to himself.

Narrator:

Instead he would use every procedural loo hole available to avoid a conviction. Cyril was also heavily criticized for fighting his extradition, a tactic that ultimately backfired, as it only hardened the assumption that he had something to do with the murder. After all, why fight it if you are truly innocent? A guiltless man would have collaborated. He would have voluntarily returned to Switzerland, not only to clear his own name, but to support investigators in solving the mystery of his wife's death.

Narrator:

As the President of the International Anthropological Association, Belshaw frequently travelled abroad for meetings. An upcoming Congress was scheduled to take place in Paris, and after a great deal of hesitation, Belshaw decided to attend. But the moment his plane touched down in Paris on November 11, he was arrested at the gate and immediately imprisoned at the notorious Fleury Meierogies Prison. Switzerland quickly requested his extradition, which Belshaw naturally opposed. His French attorney, the legendary Robert Badinter, argued before the Paris Court of Appeal that there was absolutely no material evidence against his client.

Narrator:

Nevertheless, the extradition was granted. Belshaw was handed over to Swiss authorities and incarcerated in Lausanne's Boisermeux Prison, where he would remain until his trial. Upon his arrival on February 2 he was officially charged with murder and forgery. Months of intense interrogations and investigations followed, but they yielded nothing new, except perhaps a realization that Belshaw possessed the physical capability to commit the crime. To understand the importance of this detail you have to look at the timeline of his vehicle.

Narrator:

Belshaw's car was broken down until January 11, meaning he could only have disposed of the body on the twelfth or the thirteenth. On these two days the car was parked 80 meters away from their Jolilac residence. The prosecution's challenge was to prove that the short aging professor was physically capable of carrying his wife's sixty six kilo body over that distance. So in June a forensic reconstruction took place in Cromontana. A policeman of roughly Belshaw size attempted to experiment.

Narrator:

He succeeded, but not without visible difficulty. This brings us to the core of the problem. And you can see exactly how the courtroom debates were about to unfold. The prosecution could not physically prove that Belshaw killed his wife. Nobody saw him commit the murder.

Narrator:

Nobody saw him carrying a body along the snowy road. Nobody saw his highly distinctive car parked at the remote Alpine lay by. And nobody saw him dump the corpse into the ravine. Prosecutor Willihaim was therefore forced to prove a negative, by arguing that because Betty could not have been killed by anyone else, she must have been killed by her husband. The first pillar of this argument was pure probability.

Narrator:

Chaim asserted it was mathematically absurd to believe a stranger could have kidnapped the woman in Paris only for her body to be discovered less than a 100 kilometers from the couple's Swiss residence. The second pillar was Belshaw's deeply suspicious conduct after the disappearance, which the State claimed pointed directly to his guilt. But then came the question of motive, and this is where the prosecution's case got complicated. Money was clearly not a factor, and the evidence ruled out the idea that Belshaw killed Betty simply to start a new life with Mrs. Harris.

Narrator:

Instead, the public prosecutor offered a different hypothesis. Back in June 1978, Belshaw had been seen all over Cromontana with a blonde woman. Word eventually reached Betty who was known to be intensely worried about social property and rather intolerant of such behavior. With their son Adrian out of the house, Betty allegedly confronted Cyril shortly after New Year's, just as their trip to Paris was being planned. According to Chaim, this confrontation spun completely out of control, ending in a flash of violence where Cyril killed his wife in a fit of rage.

Narrator:

For Willyheim this theory explained why Belshaw desperately tried to downplay the night he was caught in the sports car with Mrs. Harris. Why would he try to conceal being in the car? Why would he hide an affair in July 1979 that he had barely bothered to conceal in June 1978? The answer was simple.

Narrator:

In 1978 he only risked a domestic dispute with his wife. But after Betty's death, the same affair became a glaring motive for murder. Contradicting the police officers' report and falsifying the dental records served the exact same purpose, preventing investigators from connecting him to the crime at all costs. It is, of course, a plausible theory. However, the prosecution's logic was highly vulnerable to attack, and the defense was ready to dismantle it.

Narrator:

Belshaw's lawyers, Madre Paschoud and Madre Eric Stuttman, argued that the true question before the Court was not whether Betty could have been killed by a stranger, but whether she was killed by her husband. The mere fact that the State could not explain how a woman who vanished in Paris ended up dead in Lessepes did not automatically make Belshaw a murderer. Furthermore, they argued that a man cannot be branded a criminal based entirely on guesswork and the lazy assumption that everything he says is a lie. The moment you accept that Belshaw might actually be telling the truth, the prosecution's entire house of cards collapses. The defense highlighted at least two facts that strongly suggested Belshaw was telling the truth.

Narrator:

First, the violent altercation dreamed up by the prosecutor existed nowhere outside of Willyheim's imagination. Belshaw had engaged in extramarital affairs in the past. Betty had suffered through them, but she had always forgiven him. There was absolutely no evidence to suggest that Betty Belshaw had suddenly transformed into a jealous tigress, nor was there any reason to believe the notoriously stoic, impassive professor would turn to murder just to silence her. Such a version of Belshaw simply does not exist, Stuttman argued.

Narrator:

It was true that the young physically fit policeman had managed to carry sixty six kilos to the car, but he did so under ideal conditions. Belshaw, on the other hand, would have had to escape completely unnoticed. To do that he had two options. He could have walked along the road, but it is highly improbable that a heavily leaden man could trudge 80 metres through a snow covered resort without a single soul seeing him. Alternatively, he could have avoided the street by cutting behind the building, but that would have required him to hoist a dead body over a metre high wall of snow.

Narrator:

Physically the aging professor was completely incapable of doing such a thing. When Metr Stuttman finished his remarkable closing argument, one thing appeared absolutely certain: the jurist deliberations would be long, agonizing, and difficult. But they were not. What would you have decided if you were sitting in that jury box? Who would you have believed?

Narrator:

Would you have trusted the defendant who presented an incredible far fetched story? Or would you side with the prosecutor who presented a more logical narrative? Would you believe Cyril Belshaw, a distinguished professor who steadfastly denied killing his wife and grant him his freedom? Or would you answer Attorney General Willie Haim's call to sentence him to twelve years in prison for murder? Would you trust the accused, knowing you might be letting a killer walk free?

Narrator:

Or would you trust the State and risk sending an innocent man to a foreign prison? That was the paramount question and the ultimate dilemma that the judges and jurors of the Aeschimann criminal court had to face. It was by no means an easy task. Yet both versions of the story shared the same glaring fundamental flaw. Neither side possessed a single piece of definitive physical evidence.

Narrator:

The date is 12/08/1980. The time, 5PM. The courtroom falls into a suffocating silence. No one speaks. No one moves.

Narrator:

Jean Pierre Guignard, the presiding judge, steps up to the bench. He doesn't need to ask for order. The room is already paralyzed by anticipation. Every eye is fixed on the papers in his hands as he prepares to deliver what everybody has been waiting for. THE FINAL VERDICT Firstly, the judge reads his voice cutting through the vacuum of the room.

Narrator:

The charges against the accused created enormous presumption of guilt, fully justifying Cyril Belshaw's committal for trial. In a split second the air leaves the room. The prosecution smiles. The journalists lean forward. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is convinced they are about to witness a world famous professor being led to a Swiss prison.

Narrator:

But Judge Guignard is not finished. He turns the page. However, the judge continues, an absolute conviction of guilt is met by a very slight yet persistent doubt. Therefore, based on articles one hundred fifty seven and one hundred fifty eight of the penal code, the court refuses to find the accused guilty of murder, even though it is convinced of his disloyal and morally shocking behavior. The court hereby frees the accused serial Shirley Belshaw from further penal pursuit.

Narrator:

Belshaw is free, but there is a catch. The judge shifts his gaze directly on to Belshaw. Secondly, Guignard continues, the court orders Cyril Shirley Belshaw to pay the sum of 30,000 Swiss francs in court costs, due entirely to his admission that he intentionally and deceptively falsified his wife's dental records. And thirdly, the Court orders the immediate release of serial Shirley Belshaw. The Judge rises, the bench clears, and a profound suffocating silence hangs over the courtroom once more.

Narrator:

Nobody cheers, nobody moves. Belshaw stands there like a statue, stone still, his face locked in a mask of absolute puzzling blankness. And beside him the spell breaks. He starts a Diana gasps for air, her fingernails digging into her brother's arm. And then the dam breaks.

Narrator:

The realization crashes over the room like a tidal wave. Belshaw got away with it. Not because he was proven innocent, but because of a legal threat, the benefit of the doubt. Doors fly open, photographers, reporters, lawyers, guards, and onlookers collide in the hallway, swarming the reunited Belshaw family as they push out into the cold winter air, greeted by a chaotic wall of cheers, laughter and tears. Cyril Belshaw was acquitted.

Narrator:

But what other verdict could the jury, in all fairness, have returned in such a troubling case? Criminal enigmas are common, but they are usually unraveled during the investigation. By the time a verdict is reached, everything is usually explained because it can be explained. But this was not the case in the Belshaw affair. Belshaw's innocence is possible but implausible.

Narrator:

Belshaw being guilty is highly probable but not proven. To conclude that it is very unlikely anyone else than serial killed Petty, so it must be him, would have been a fatal misstep, a step this jury rightly refused to take. Some critics said the jurors did not dare take that step, but others argued they dared not to. In the end it was not a question of cowardice or courage, but of duty. It was their duty to place a defendant, who was neither certainly guilty nor certainly innocent, in a legal neutral position by granting him the benefit of the doubt.

Narrator:

All too often this fundamental doubt is misused as a compromise on punishment rather than a declaration of guilt. Far too frequently, when a jury is not entirely convinced of a defendant's guilt, they make a deal with their conscience by imposing a more lenient sentence. It was the absolute integrity of the Swiss jury that prevented such attempting, absurd, and unjust compromise. The Swiss court system may differ in its structure from the Anglo Saxon, but it upholds the same universal truth. Every accused person benefits from the presumption of innocence.

Narrator:

A defendant cannot be convicted simply because their version of events sounds suspicious. It is up to the prosecution, not the accused, to prove its case. A man cannot be convicted of murder simply for deceiving the police. Guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And if that means certain defendants walk free despite our most profound suspicions, then that is the price we pay for justice.

Narrator:

The prosecution declined to appeal the decision. After spending more than a year behind bars, Cyril Belshaw returned to Vancouver, resumed his position as a prominent professor of anthropology and continued teaching at the University of British Columbia until his retirement in 1987. For Eliza Harris, she eventually passed away in Vancouver, her obituary quietly appearing in The Vancouver Sun on 03/05/2016. Decades after his trial, Belshaw still steadfastly maintained his innocence, though he remained openly bitter toward the Swiss justice system. In a 2013 retrospective interview with the Swiss Broad caster RTS, Belshaw explicitly accused the Court of bias, recalling what he described as the severe, unrelenting aggressiveness of the presiding judge.

Narrator:

For Belshaw, the verdict wasn't a true exoneration, but a lifelong shadow.

Cyril Belshaw:

It it worked well in quotation marks for me, but it didn't work properly for me. I was not guilty. I was not told I was not guilty. I was told that I was free with

Narrator:

Five years later, in December 2018, a notice appeared in the obituary columns of the Canadian newspapers. Professor Cyril Belshaw had passed away on November 20, just short of his 90 birthday. The notice extensively detailed his many accomplishments as an international academic, sharp observer, and prolific writer. It described him as a kind, generous man and listed the family he left behind his daughter, his son, his grandchildren. It even made a brief passing reference to his late wife Betty.

Narrator:

What it completely failed to mention was that four decades earlier he had been arrested, jailed and put on trial in Switzerland for her murder. Regarding the shadow that followed him for the rest of his life, Belshaw remarked:

Cyril Belshaw:

In thirty years or more, there has not been a day when I haven't thought about the puzzle of Betty's death, and there has not been a day when I have been angry at the judicial system.

Narrator:

Life is lucky. It does not have to be plausible.

Narrator:

This concludes the final episode of the Belshaw murder case. Researched, written, and hosted by me, Rudolph Isler. Please check out the show notes for a link to our website where you can find extra materials including maps, photographs, and even ways to support the fully independent creator of this show and to keep it refreshingly commercial free.

Narrator:

Please do not forget to follow Swiss Murder Mysteries. Thank you so much for your attention and support. I look forward to sharing my next story with you very, very soon.