Gale Benson Biography

Gale Ann Benson (4 November 1944 - 2 January 1972) was a British model, socialite and daughter of Conservative MP Leonard Plugge. She was buried alive and murdered in Trinidad by activist Michael X and members of his Black Power group.

Life

Benson was born in London to Leonard and Ann Plugge. Gale had two brothers, Leonard Frank (born 1937), and Greville, her twin. She attended school at the Lyce Franais in London. Later she started modelling, and worked as a DJ for a French radio show.

She married film director Jonathan Benson at the age of 20, but the marriage had difficulties and she moved away to Argentina when she was 22, in 1967. Returning to the United Kingdom she started a relationship with Black Power activist Hakim Jamal, an associate of Michael X. Jamal was an American from Boston whose previous name was Alan Donaldson. She changed her name to "Hale Kimga", an anagram of her first name and Hakim.

Benson and Jamal moved to Guyana in 1971, before moving later that year to the commune of Michael X in Trinidad, who had fled the UK while bailed on charges of extortion and robbery.

Murder

On the morning of 2 January 1972, a group of men including Michael X took Benson out for a walk outside the commune. Arriving at a hole in the ground they started digging until it was about four feet deep. One of the men turned to Benson and asked, "What do you think this is for?" She shrugged, and the man replied, "This is a fresh hole for decomposed bodies". They pushed her in, two of the men attacking her with a cutlass, badly wounding Benson in the chest and throat. She was buried alive, some of the men jumping on the soil to keep her down until she succumbed. The autopsy later found inhaled dirt in her lungs. It was alleged that Michael X had ordered her death because she was causing "mental strain" to Jamal.

Her badly decomposed body was found seven weeks later, and eventually two of the men were convicted of her murder, after one of the group turned witness for the prosecution. Stanley Abbott and Edward Chadee were sentenced to death, but one was commuted to life imprisonment. Another of the group drowned at sea, and barber Joseph Skerritt was murdered. Michael X was charged with Benson's murder but never tried; he was sentenced to death for the murder of Skerritt on 21 August 1972, and hanged in Port of Spain's Royal Gaol in May 1975. Her lover Hakim Jamal was murdered in the United States in 1973, just over a year after Benson.

Cultural references

The movie The Bank Job (2008) claims Michael X was in possession of indecent photographs of Princess Margaret stored in a bank vault, and was using them to blackmail the British establishment. Hattie Morahan plays Benson, who the movie portrays as a spy whose role is to find any additional photos or negatives Michael X may have. Her brother Frank, however, said the idea Benson was a spy in real life was "ludicrous".

Benson is a central character in Diana Athill's memoir of her friendship with Gale's lover, Hakim Jamal, Make Believe: A True Story.