Somebody call Jessica Fletcher: we’ve got one hell of a whodunnit on our hands.
Earlier this month, the British government issued a pardon to Alan Turing, a brilliant scientist whose research helped win World War II and later led to the invention of the modern computer. But because he was gay, this hero was prosecuted and chemically castrated, and eventually committed suicide at the age of 41.
…or did he?
British LGBT civil rights organizer Peter Tatchell has a different theory. He thinks Turing was secretly murdered.
How about we take this to the next level?
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It’s not a crazy suggestion. Turing had made no indication that he was suicidal, and even left a note for himself with reminders of things to do after the weekend.
He’s alleged to have killed himself with a poisoned apple, which is very poetic. But the half-eaten apple found next to his body was never tested for poison.
And let’s not forget that he was a brilliant codebreaker who figured out a method to decrypt messages that were once assumed to be unbreakable.
Might the British government have been concerned that Turing would turn on them, in revenge for his cruel punishment? What secrets did he take to the grave?
Those are the questions that Tatchell wants answered. Also, it would be nice to get a pardon for the other 50,000 men who were convicted under England’s antigay laws.
DShucking
New allegations? There was always something shady about his suicide.
fagburn
No, it is ‘a crazy suggestion.
Please…
Mr. E. Jones
That allegation isn’t new, I first read about it in the early 1990’s. His death was suspicious, and the reason why the government wanted him dead is the mystery.
Kieran
Alan Turing apparently thought he was fighting for “freedom” when he helped break the Nazi codes that helped win World War II. But instead of being held up as a hero in Churchill’s Britain he was chemically castrated (and perhaps murdered) for the unpardonable crime of being gay. Stuff they don’t talk about in the history books.
DShucking
@Kieran: We also don’t hear much about how after the Americans liberated the concentration camps, while the others were set free the gays were sent to prison because it was illegal then. Great doc on it, I think called Paragraph 175 but I might have gotten the title wrong.