For years, people whispered about whether Diana Caldwell had helped her husband get away with murder. She died in 1986, and the world assumed her secrets had died with her. Then, more than twenty years later, a voice recording surfaced that finally exposed what really happened. Diana Caldwell was born on December 22, 1913, in Hove, England.
Her mother, Marjorie, was a striking beauty and a respected figure in London society. Her father, Major Josiah Seymour Caldwell, had a military title that was impressive on paper, but it hid a much less respectable reality. He had no real career to speak of, just a talent for gambling away the family money. Unfortunately, Diana inherited her father’s lack of self-control.
At eighteen, she finished her schooling and headed straight for London. She loved fashion, so she found work as a model in a fashion house during the day. At night, she worked as a manager at a jazz cocktail bar called the Blue Goose. There was something about Diana that made people enjoy themselves.
It helped her behind the bar, and it helped her climb the social ladder. At the bar, she met wealthy clients from the upper classes. She entertained them so well that invitations started pouring in, weekend trips to their grand country estates. She earned a reputation as a brilliant dancer and a skilled horsewoman.
Soon, even the society magazine Tatler began tracking her every move. Readers saw her at parties, weddings, horse races, and charity events. They even photographed her hunting game. Of course, she was also hunting men.
Diana intended to enjoy the best years of her life, and she had no desire to spend them with just one man. The magazine showed her on the arm of different men, all of them wealthy. But England grew boring, so she turned her sights elsewhere. At some point, Diana picked up a very expensive hobby: flying planes.
When England became too dull, she flew to places in Europe where she could have more fun. She socialized with men from all over the continent. One of them was the Austrian Vice-Chancellor, whom she met on a trip to Budapest. There was even a rumor that Diana may have been spying, collecting military intelligence while entertaining powerful men.
Back home, her father decided his daughter had become too rebellious and needed reining in. His plan was simple: he arranged a marriage. The chosen man was John Sidney Tabor. Diana went along with the engagement, at least for a few months.
Then she broke it off and fled back to Budapest, where she could return to her carefree lifestyle. She was also on the lookout for a new man. In Budapest and at Tingewick Hall in Buckinghamshire, where jazz was always playing, she crossed paths with pianist Vernon Motion. There was mutual attraction, but there was also a problem.
Diana was pregnant, and she was certain Motion was not the father. That may explain why she proposed marriage just days after they met. She was looking for a father for her child. What’s harder to explain is why Motion agreed to the hasty wedding.
He was also looking for money, and so was she. Neither had much of it, but the wedding happened anyway. Two weeks later, they ended the marriage, citing adultery. Apparently, they both had enough evidence to convince a judge.
With no husband anymore, Diana decided to end the pregnancy. The question of who the real father was would never be answered. In 1935, Diana met Sir Jock Delves Broughton. He was older than her usual conquests, thirty-one years her senior, and some people nicknamed him “The Homunculus.
” To make matters worse, he was already married. But he had one advantage: he was a baron. That didn’t make him husband material, though. Broughton was a gambler who had sold off his family’s land to pay his mounting debts.
He had even taken his wife’s pearls and paintings and reported them as stolen. Despite his reputation and his marriage, he and Diana became a couple. Whether he divorced his wife for Diana or his wife left him for someone else is unclear. Either way, they were suddenly free to marry.
Diana may have seen him as her ticket to a life of luxury, but she was about to get a shock. As she got to know him better, she realized his wealth was extremely limited. His debts were growing again. Broughton had a proposal.
They could move to Kenya, where he had bought an estate with a farm. They could escape his creditors and live in peace. Diana hardly hesitated. She was on her way to Africa.
During the trip, Diana used her charm to get Broughton to agree to a prenuptial agreement. If the marriage failed, she would receive £5,000 a year. She had secured herself before the ship even reached land. Some reports claim she didn’t even make it to Kenya before cheating on her future husband, starting an affair with another passenger.
Once they arrived, Diana and Broughton married immediately. Diana had no intention of sharing a bedroom with her new husband, telling a friend she refused to share a room with that dirty old man. They spent their marriage in separate bedrooms. When they reached the area known as Happy Valley, a region in Kenya where British aristocrats lived, Diana quickly started an affair with Earl Erroll.
Erroll was at the center of the scandalous, pleasure-driven lifestyle for which Happy Valley was famous. The residents were known for their debauched ways, heavy drug use, and infidelity. Diana and the Earl didn’t even have to hide their relationship. No one in Happy Valley cared about that.
But Diana had one thing to worry about. The Earl had an ex-lover who could easily lose her temper. Her name was Alice de Janzé, and she was called the “Wicked Madonna” by the locals. She had once tried to shoot her own lover at a Paris train station and ended up marrying him anyway.
Outwardly, her husband Broughton seemed indifferent to Diana’s affair. His problem wasn’t their bedroom betrayals. It was how much time she and Erroll spent together. He must have felt like he didn’t have a wife at all.
Three months into the affair, Diana felt comfortable enough to have dinner with both her husband and her lover. The plan was that after dinner, the Earl would take Diana dancing while the older Broughton went to bed. That part went according to plan. After dancing, the Earl drove Diana home in his Buick.
They said goodnight, and Diana went inside to be with her husband. The Earl drove off into the night alone. That was the last time anyone saw him alive. On January 24, 1941, his car was found at a crossroads just outside Nairobi.
The Earl’s lifeless body was inside. Someone had shot him in the head at close range. Diana seemed to be one of the last people to see him alive. Still, she wasn’t the first suspect.
Most of the Happy Valley group blamed Erroll’s unstable ex-lover, Alice de Janzé. Another possible suspect was Diana’s husband, Broughton, who may have finally had enough of the affair. Eventually, Broughton faced a jury on May 26, 1941. There were no eyewitnesses and no solid evidence, but they had a possible weapon.
Broughton owned a pistol, but the defense pointed out discrepancies between his weapon and the one used in January. When the prosecution claimed he owned other guns, Broughton said someone had stolen them from the house he shared with Diana. The disappearance of the weapon seemed highly suspicious. In court, Diana supported her husband’s story completely, whatever he said.
With her testimony and no hard evidence, Broughton walked free. It probably didn’t hurt that the jury foreman happened to be Broughton’s personal barber. But when he returned to Happy Valley, he wasn’t welcomed back. His old friends turned their backs on him.
Diana had already started an affair with yet another man. Humiliated, Broughton returned to England. As soon as he got off the boat, he took a fatal overdose of morphine. Diana’s happy days in Happy Valley were coming to an end.
The media had turned the murder into a sensation. Back in England, there was food rationing and German air raids, yet these aristocrats were living in luxury and ignoring decency. The authorities never solved the murder of Earl Erroll. They couldn’t convict Broughton, and the other main suspect, Alice de Janzé, had an alibi.
Of course, some pointed the finger at Diana herself. One theory claimed the Earl had tried to end the relationship, so she killed him. But the Earl had so many lovers and angry husbands that the case against her fell apart. Diana didn’t waste any time getting over the loss of her husband.
After Broughton left Kenya, she asked her business partner, John Hopcraft, who the richest man in Kenya was. He answered: Gilbert Colvile. Diana got the information she wanted and went to work. It didn’t take long for the manipulative Diana to become Colvile’s wife.
She was now married to the wealthiest landowner in Kenya. They actually lived a happy marriage together. But tragedy struck. During her marriage to Colvile, Diana became pregnant.
Ten days after the baby was born, it died. There was another tragedy when a second child was stillborn. To make up for their losses, Diana and Colvile adopted a baby girl. They named her Sarah and called her “Snow.
” Yet this small family was not destined to be happy. While living happily with Colvile and raising their adopted daughter, Diana met another Happy Valley resident, Tom Delamere. He was actually a friend of Colvile’s and was with his second wife at the time. Somehow, he fell in love with Diana.
She returned his feelings, and Colvile seemed happy to step aside and grant his wife a divorce. There was the problem of Delamere’s wife. She wanted out of the marriage when she discovered the affair and blamed Diana. Both divorces went through, and Diana married Delamere in 1955.
But this marriage wasn’t traditional. Lady Patricia Fairweather, daughter of the Earl of Inchcape, joined the marriage as a third party. This three-way relationship managed to last a reasonable amount of time. Diana’s fortune improved significantly later.
Even though she had left Colvile for another man, they remained on good terms. When he died in 1966, he left her vast tracks of land in Kenya. Diana used that land to boost her status in the country. People began calling her the “White Queen of Africa.
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But the future held only tragedy. In 1979, her husband Delamere died. Diana had built a small cemetery on the land she inherited from Colvile. She buried Delamere next to Colvile, who was buried beside their baby boy she had lost.
Delamere was her fourth and last husband. It seemed like the right time to go home. The White Queen of Africa left Kenya and returned to England. She lived out her final days in her home in Berkshire.
At the age of 73, she died in London. Many believe the cause of death was heart failure. The following year, serious accusations emerged. The film “White Mischief” told the story of the Happy Valley residents and specifically the murder of Earl Erroll.
Sir Jock Delves Broughton’s son felt the film portrayed his father too clearly as the murderer. He claimed his father was too drunk that night to have killed anyone. His theory pointed to a different guilty party, and he said it was Diana Caldwell. It seemed we would never get a definitive answer.
Then, in 2007, new information emerged. A voice recording was released. The son of a witness who had provided evidence for Broughton said he knew Broughton had hidden in the back of Erroll’s car and shot him. Broughton was never convicted, and the reason is clear: Diana Caldwell lied to keep him out of prison.
There remains one unsolved mystery. What was it about Diana that inspired such passion? As one observer described her, she had cold eyes and a hard mouth. But once you got close, those features changed and became irresistible.
She also had what some called a “joy of life. ” While living in Kenya, she had a maid who often saw her in the bathtub. The maid said Diana’s skin looked like it had never seen the sun. She also noticed something else: Diana wore pearl necklaces worth £90,000 around her neck in the bath.
When the maid offered to remove the pearls for safekeeping, Diana just looked at her and laughed. Safety was rarely on Diana’s mind.
