Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: How old was Ann Ogilby at the time she died in the "Romper Room murder"?
Ogilby, aged 31 or 32 at the time of her death,[4][5] was buried in Umgall Cemetery, Templepatrick, County Antrim. Her children Sharlene and Derek were put into care. The Ogilby family received only £149 compensation from the State to cover her funeral expenses.[6] It was later revealed that Ogilby had planned to relocate to Edinburgh, Scotland as soon as her infant son, Derek, was released from hospital (on account of his premature birth).[6]
On 23 July 1974, eight weeks after Ogilby gave birth to a premature son, Derek, fathered by Young,[6] five UDA women, including her lover's wife Elizabeth Young (32), Kathleen Whitla (49, the second-in-command), Josephine Brown (18), Elizabeth Douglas (19), led by the latter's mother, commander Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas, abducted Ogilby from a friend's house in the Suffolk housing estate. They took her back to Sandy Row and put her before a kangaroo court held inside the disused Warwick's Bakery in 114 Hunter Street between Felt Street and Oswald Street, which had been converted into a UDA club.[6][35] Ogilby had often frequented the club with Young on previous occasions prior to his internment; according to Kiely she had enjoyed the company of the other patrons and being part of the camaraderie of loyalists "against the Fenians".[36] A total of eight women and two men presided over this "trial"; Elizabeth Young, however, had by then absented herself as she was not part of Douglas' "Heavy Squad". The "Heavy Squad" were the members of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit who meted out punishment beatings by Douglas' orders. Ogilby was grilled for an hour over her affair with Young and regarding her calumnies over the food parcels. At some stage, Douglas told her, "We have rules here. We all stick to them and I expect anybody new to do the same".[37] Ogilby, by now frightened at the predicament in which she found herself, was additionally informed that if found guilty, she would be subjected to a "rompering". The notorious UDA "romper rooms" had been invented in the early 1970s by UDA North Belfast Brigadier Davy Payne.[38] Named after the children's television programme, these "romper rooms" were located inside vacant buildings, warehouses, lock-up garages, and rooms above pubs and drinking clubs. Once inside, a victim would be "rompered" (beaten and tortured) before being killed. Although most of the victims were Catholics, many Protestants were also consigned to the "romper rooms".[39]
We have completely disowned them [Sandy Row women's UDA]. We think the whole affair was foul and sickening. Ogilby was cleared by the UDA of an allegation about her private life long before she was killed. The killing was an act of jealousy by a group of women.[12]
Another group, the Sandy Row women's unit gained notoriety in July 1974 when its commander Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas ordered her "Heavy Squad" (a gang within the unit who meted out punishment beatings) to bring Protestant single mother Ann Ogilby to a "Romper Room" where she was subsequently beaten to death. "Romper Rooms" were locations where UDA victims were brought to be "rompered" which was a UDA slang term for a torture and beating session prior to "execution". The name derived from the children's television programme. The brutality of the attack greatly shocked the Protestant community and the UDA leadership which had not sanctioned the killing. Douglas and ten others were imprisoned for Ann Ogilby's murder and the unit was subsequently stood down. Jean Moore and later Hester Dunn headed the UDA women's department from the UDA headquarters on Gawn Street, in east Belfast. The women's units were typically involved in local community work and responsible for the assembly and delivery of food parcels to UDA prisoners. The latter activity was a source of pride for the UDA.
"Miss Virginia" (Virginia Lee Hassenflu) hosted the Kansas City area Romper Room from 1954 to 1964 on KMBC. She died on November 7, 2016.
Douglas arranged for the body's disposal and unnamed UDA men later loaded it onto a van and dumped it in a ditch in Stockman's Lane near the M1 motorway.[47][n 4] It was discovered five days later on 29 July by motorway maintenance men. The RUC were immediately called to the scene which was then photographed and mapped. Ogilby, clad in a red jumper, grey trousers and wearing just one shoe, was lying on her back partly submerged in 18inches of stagnant water with her blackened and battered face visible and her arms outstretched. Her missing shoe and a large brown sack were discovered not far away from her body at the top of the ditch.[49] There were no identifying documents found on her. The press, along with local television and radio news bulletins, released details regarding her physical appearance and the distinctive rings on her fingers. Hours later, a social worker from the Shaftesbury Square Social Services office, who had been scheduled to meet with Ann Ogilby on 24 July, contacted the RUC telling them that Ogilby and her daughter Sharlene had arrived at the office late for the appointment but left without explanation before the social worker could speak with Ann. She informed the RUC that Ogilby had not been seen since that afternoon.[8] The social worker was then taken to the mortuary where she confirmed that the dead woman inside was Ann Ogilby. One of Ogilby's brothers later positively identified her.[9] The police were told Sharlene was in the care of Social Services.[8]
In Los Angeles, "Romper Room" aired on KCOP-TV. There were only two hosts of the Los Angeles version of the series: "Miss Mary Ann" and "Miss Soco". The first host was Mary Ann King who hosted from 1966 to 1976. The second host of the program was Socorro Serrano, aka "Miss Soco", who hosted from 1977 until it ended in 1989 and was the first Latina of Mexican American heritage to host "Romper Room". Hostess Mary Ann King (Miss Mary Ann), a resident of Hacienda Heights died on June 16, 2016, aged 82.
The Hawaiian version of "Romper Room" debuted in 1964 on KTRG (now KHNL) with "Miss Robin" (Robin Mann). After the station canceled the program in 1966, the show and its host moved over to KHON where it ran until 1972, when KHON replaced it with "Today". Mann later admitted that despite the success of "Romper Room" in Honolulu she felt that there wasn't any Hawaiian influence or culture being emphasized in the series during its run. In 1974, KHON bought Mann back for a series called "Robin's Room", which incorporated the Hawaiian culture but kept the "Romper Room" elements and ran until 1976.
An early "Romper Room" hostess was Claire Coleman, who was the original "Miss Claire" on WFIL (now WPVI-TV) from 1954 until 1956. During this time, she shared an office with Dick Clark from "American Bandstand". Claire Coleman was married to former U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker.
Another Philadelphia-based "Romper Room" hostess was Connie Roussin Spann.
Due to the location of the body, the murder investigation was allocated to the RUC B Division (West Belfast), based at the Springfield Road station where CID Detective Alan Simpson served. He formed part of the CID team set up to investigate the Ogilby killing.[50] After Sharlene was located in a children's home, she was interviewed by a female detective; she clearly remembered the events of 24 July. It was arranged for Sharlene to accompany three CID detectives in a car to Sandy Row and she was able to direct them to the disused bakery in Hunter Street. A Scenes of Crime Officer was sent to the scene to examine the building's interior and collect the evidence. Forensics later showed that the bloodstains police detectives found on the floor and on the items retrieved from inside the UDA club matched Ogilby's blood group.[51] Documents were also found on the premises bearing William Young's name. By that time the suspects had already been rounded up and taken in for interrogation. These were the eight women who had been inside the car with Ogilby on the evening of 23 July following the fracas outside the Glengall Street bus station.[35]
Ann Ogilby (born c.1942/1943 and sometimes referred to as Anne Ogilby),[5][6][7] a young Protestant woman, moved to Belfast from Sion Mills, County Tyrone on a date that has not been firmly established.[n 1] She was one of 13 children from a poor family.[3] Described as a "very attractive girl with dark-brown silky hair and blue eyes",[3] and a slender figure,[8] she embarked on a transient lifestyle, regularly changing her address and employment. The jobs she held were mostly low-paid positions in offices and shops,[9][10] and she was often evicted for failing to pay the rent.[11] Her striking good looks made her popular with men.[3] In about 1968 she became a single mother, having been made pregnant by a married British soldier stationed in Northern Ireland who had abandoned her and their child after he was transferred to another duty station.[12] She started socialising with a rough crowd,[3] and in August 1972, she met William Young, a married high-ranking member of the then-legal Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and began living with him in south Belfast.[n 2] Young came from the loyalist Donegall Pass area and was a local UDA commander.[13][14] He told Ogilby his marriage had already broken up and that his divorce hadn't been finalised.[11] Ogilby by that time had three children each by a different partner: Sharlene, Stephen and Gary. The boys had been put up for adoption after their birth, leaving only the eldest child, her daughter Sharlene, in her care.[3][6]
Following the Ogilby attack, the Sandy Row women's UDA unit was permanently disbanded by the UDA leadership.[52] None of the other UDA women's units had consented to or been aware of the fatal punishment beating until it was reported in the news. Additionally, the Sandy Row women's unit notwithstanding, UDA "romper rooms" were more commonly used by male members of the organisation than by their female counterparts.[29] Journalists Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack described Ogilby's death as typical of the "brutish ... culture" that dominated the UDA and other paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. In reference to this attack and other cases of "rompering", the authors argue that "rape and the beating and humiliation of women in working-class Belfast was as routine as gunfire but was subsumed in the maelstrom of violence engulfing the North".[25]
The murder of Ann Ogilby, also known as the "Romper Room murder",[1] took place in Sandy Row, south Belfast, Northern Ireland on 24 July 1974. It was a punishment killing, carried out by members of the Sandy Row women's Ulster Defence Association (UDA) unit. At the time the UDA was a legal Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation. The victim, Ann Ogilby,[2][3][4] a Protestant single mother of four, was beaten to death by two teenaged girls after being sentenced to a "rompering" (UDA slang term for a torture session followed by a fatal beating) at a kangaroo court. Ogilby had been having an affair with a married UDA commander, William Young, who prior to his internment, had made her pregnant. His wife, Elizabeth Young, was a member of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit. Ogilby had made defamatory remarks against Elizabeth Young in public regarding food parcels. Eight weeks after Ogilby had given birth to Young's son, the women's unit decided that Ogilby would pay for both the affair and remarks with her life. The day following the kangaroo court "trial", they arranged for the kidnapping of Ogilby and her six-year-old daughter, Sharlene, outside a Social Services office by UDA man Albert "Bumper" Graham.
"Miss Sharon" Jeffery was the last "Romper Room" Teacher in Northern California. A fourth grade teacher at the time, she was hired and trained by Sally Claster Bell in Pacific Palisades, California. Miss Sharon was the only African-American hostess and was featured on "Romper Room" from 1987 to 1992, which was filmed at KTVU in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was the final teacher on the last "Romper Room" in the US.
Within weeks of the killing, ten women and one man were arrested in connection with the murder. They were convicted in February 1975. All but one, a minor whose sentence was suspended, went to prison. The murder caused widespread revulsion, shock and horror throughout Northern Ireland and remained long in the public psyche even at a time when bombings and killings were daily occurrences. The Ann Ogilby murder was investigated by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) which was established by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to investigate the most controversial killings carried out during the Troubles.
Sharlene Ogilby later married and has three children of her own. After her mother's murder, she was taken to live in Sion Mills by an uncle and aunt. For a while she kept in touch with her brother Gary but has since lost contact; she has no knowledge of what happened to her other brothers Stephen and Derek.[58] Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas died shortly after being released from Armagh Prison on compassionate grounds in 1979; Kathleen Whitla is also deceased. Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith were both released from Armagh in December 1983 after serving nine years. They returned to the Sandy Row area. Loyalist sources claimed Smith "deeply regretted" the part she played in Ogilby's murder. Graham, following his release from prison, also returned to south Belfast. To the present day he has steadfastly refused to discuss the murder.[6] The rest of the women involved in Ogilby's murder are to date living in Sandy Row or the Village. William Young died in 2007.
Romper Room is an American children's television series that was franchised and syndicated from 1953 to 1994. The program targeted preschoolers (children five years of age or younger), and was created and produced by Bert Claster and his presenter wife, Nancy, of Claster Television. The national version was presented by Nancy Terrell. "Romper Room" was also franchised internationally at various times in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Finland, New Zealand and Australia.
Miss Jean (real name Jean Harrington) hosted the Boston area "Romper Room" (which aired on WHDH and its successor WCVB) for fourteen years. She was an English major and Education minor and a graduate of Salem State College, in Salem, Massachusetts. A Swampscott native, she was a former high school teacher. Her husband at that time was WHDH news reporter Bill Harrington. The show aired with Miss Jean from 1958 to 1972. She was replaced in March 1972 by "Miss Louise" (Louise Lark, a 23-year-old school-teacher and a graduate of Boston University). Jean and Bill Harrington divorced; ultimately, Jean moved to Florida.
Belfast poet Linda Anderson wrote a poem, Gang-Bang Ulster Style, based on the Ogilby killing. It was published in the August 1989, no. 204 edition of Spare Rib.[1] Ann Ogilby's murder also featured in a Gavin Ewart poem entitled, The Gentle Sex (1974).[59] The murder was investigated by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which was established by the PSNI to inquire into the most controversial killings perpetrated during the Troubles.[6]
That same Wednesday 24 July 1974 at 3:30 pm, outside the Social Services office in Shaftesbury Square, Ogilby and her daughter were kidnapped by 25-year-old UDA man Albert "Bumper" Graham, while members of Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas' "Heavy Squad" waited at the nearby Regency Hotel lounge bar overlooking the office. They knew beforehand that Ogilby had an appointment that afternoon at the Shaftesbury Square office. Using the pretext that a UDA commander wished to speak with her, Graham was able to abduct Ogilby and her daughter Sharlene as they left the office; Ogilby, taken in by Graham's words, willingly got into his blue minibus.[41] Having made a pre-arranged signal to the watching women, Graham drove the two females away to the UDA club in Hunter Street, Sandy Row, which had been turned into a "romper room". When the UDA women, led by Douglas, arrived on the scene, Ogilby tried to escape, but was grabbed and forcibly detained. After Graham sent Sharlene to a corner shop to buy sweets, Ogilby was ordered by Douglas to be dragged inside the former bakery and forced upstairs to the first floor where she was made to sit on a wooden bench, blindfolded and a hood placed over her head.[41][42] By this stage, Ogilby was so intimidated and terrorised by the "Heavy Squad", she no longer put up any resistance.[43][44] Sunday Life newspaper suggested that she was bound to a chair instead of a bench. Ciarán Barnes, a journalist writing for the paper, had conducted an interview with Sharlene Ogilby in 2010.[6] Retired RUC detective, Alan Simpson, who devoted a chapter to the Ann Ogilby murder in his 1999 book Murder Madness: True Crimes of The Troubles, instead affirmed that Ogilby was forced by her captors to sit on a wooden bench. Although hooded and blindfolded, her hands remained untied.[41]
The Sandy Row women's UDA unit was disbanded after it carried out a vicious "romper room" punishment beating on 24 July 1974 which left 32-year-old Ann Ogilby dead. The body of Ogilby, a Protestant single mother who had an affair with the husband of one of the unit's members, was found in a ditch five days later. The day of the fatal beating Ogilby was abducted and forced upstairs to the first floor of a disused bakery in Sandy Row that had been converted into a UDA club. Two teenage girls, Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith, acting under Elizabeth Douglas' orders to give Ogilby a "good rompering", punched, kicked, then battered her to death with bricks and sticks; the autopsy later revealed that Ogilby had suffered 24 blows to the head and body. The killing, which was carried out within earshot of Ogilby's six-year-old daughter, caused widespread revulsion throughout Northern Ireland and was condemned by the UDA prisoners serving inside the Maze Prison. None of the other UDA women's units had consented to or been aware of the fatal punishment beating until it was reported in the news. Douglas, Cowan, and Smith were convicted of the murder and sentenced to imprisonment at Armagh Women's Jail. Seven other members of the women's unit and a UDA man were also convicted for their part in the murder. The UDA "romper rooms", named after the children's television programme, were places where victims were beaten and tortured prior to being killed. This was known as a "rompering". The "romper rooms" were normally located in disused buildings, lock-up garages, warehouses, and rooms above pubs and drinking clubs. The use of the "romper rooms" was a more common practice among male members of the UDA than their female counterparts.
The UDA in Sandy Row were also involved in "rompering", a nickname given by the UDA to the slow, torture-driven killings of kidnapped victims. On 30 August 1972 members of the group, as well as leading Woodvale Defence Association figure Ernie Elliott, kidnapped Catholic former British soldier Patrick Devaney before taking him to Sandy Row where he was hung upside down from a beam and beaten with hammers before being shot in the back of the head. The same group was responsible for one of the early UDA-on-UDA killings in December 1972 when members of the group shot and killed Ernie Elliott after a drunken argument about weapons that Elliott's men had loaned to the southern contingent. According to later eyewitness reports Elliott had entered a UDA club in the area and began waving a gun about, with the weapon discharging during a struggle when others attempted to disarm him. Another "rompering" death was also carried out in the area in July 1974 when a 32-year-old Protestant single mother Ann Ogilby was killed by a UDA women's unit based in the area. Ogilby's interned boyfriend William Young was the local commander of the Donegall Pass UDA which came under the South Belfast UDA's auspices. Ogilby had spread rumours about Young's wife, who was a member of the Sandy Row women's UDA, that resulted in her fatal punishment beating. The commander of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit was Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas of City Street. She was among the ten women convicted of Ogilby's murder. The unit was disbanded by the UDA following the killing.
Cleveland hostess "Miss Barbara" (full name: Barbara R. (Bowen) Plummer), born in Norwalk on February 13, 1930 hosted the local version of "Romper Room" on WEWS Channel 5 from 1958 until 1971. She was also a weather presenter on Channel 5 and appeared on Captain Penny. She was a survivor of breast cancer in 1978, and lung cancer in 1996. She resided in South Euclid and died on March 20, 2010, at the age of 80 from cancer and pneumonia-related complications. She was survived by husband Gordon and two children.
Meanwhile, Ogilby's daughter, Sharlene, had returned from the shops; she entered the club, climbed the stairs to the first floor and began banging on the door and crying for her mother. Although by this stage Ogilby had sustained severe head injuries from the brutal assault, Sharlene heard her screaming and pleading with her assailants for mercy while they danced to blaring disco music.[6][13] Ignoring the injured woman's pleas for her life and Sharlene's cries, Henrietta Cowan, once again wielding a brick, resumed beating Ogilby on the head with renewed vigour until she lay dead on the floor.[3][6][45][47] The beating session had lasted for over an hour.[45] Ogilby received (according to the later autopsy report) a total of 24 blows to the head and body with a blunt object, 14 of which had caused "a severe fracture to the bulk of the skull".[6][13]
Despite the UDA women having found Ogilby guilty, the two UDA men present at the "trial" couldn't reach a verdict and gave orders that she be released. The women drove her to the Glengall Street bus station where she got on a bus headed for the YWCA hostel she had moved to on the Malone Road. The women then "rearrested" her. It was alleged that this decision came about after she sarcastically remarked in reference to Douglas, "Who does she think she is? The Queen?" which had freshly infuriated Douglas and the others.[3][15] Blocking the bus as it pulled out of the station into the street, Douglas and her "Heavy Squad" then boarded the bus and dragged her off into the waiting car for a further grilling. Minutes later, after being alerted by the bus station staff, the car was stopped by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Although Douglas claimed they were on their way to a party, the querying policeman told the women about the report of one of them having been forced off the bus. In an attempt to mollify Douglas,[3] Ogilby then spoke up admitting that she was the person who had been removed from the bus but that "It was nothing. Just a couple of us fooling around".[3] The police however remained unconvinced of their claims and the eight women and Ogilby were taken into the RUC Queen Street station for questioning. All of the women were asked for their names and addresses; the majority lived in the Sandy Row area.[n 3] Fearing the grisly fate that typically befell informers, Ogilby did not say anything to the RUC about the UDA kangaroo court or threats against her. Therefore, she and the eight other women were released without being charged the following morning at 2.00 a.m.[3] Ogilby returned to the police station a few hours later, visibly frightened, but was sent home in a taxi after refusing to give the reason for her distress. That same day inside a Sandy Row pub, Douglas told the other women that Ogilby was a troublemaker who had to die, and she speedily made arrangements to facilitate the murder.[6][15][40]