WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Carol Morgan [From the Archives] 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:51.960 School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.360 case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.760 witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.960 be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.160 from family and community members, their statements should not be 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.960 considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.000 inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.160 presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 0:01:17.960 --> 0:01:20.840 Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.600 that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.120 is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening. 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.040 It was around seven pm on August thirteenth, nineteen eighty one, 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.360 and thirty six year old Carol Morgan was working the 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.400 till at her corner shop at sixteen Finch Crescent in 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:45.120 a town called Leyton Buzzard in the County of Bedfordshire, England. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:46.840 This was a close knit community. 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.280 Carol owned and ran the shop with her husband, thirty 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:55.040 one year old Alan Morgan, and everybody knew them. Everyone 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.960 in town knew and loved Carol, who was described by 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.720 friends and family as warm, caring, genuine and friendly. Carol 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:04.960 loved the shop and the other lights of her life 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.200 were her two children from a previous marriage, fourteen year 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.320 old Dean and twelve year old Jane. On that night, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.080 Carol was working at the shop alone. She was getting 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.040 ready for closing, which was at six pm. Her husband, Allan, 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.000 was at the movie theater in Lwton with his two 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.360 step children, Dean and Jane, but at some point someone 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.800 surprised Carol. Alan and the children got home at around 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:33.680 ten ten pm. Shortly after arriving at the house, Carroll's husband, 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.240 Alan raced to a neighbor's house and asked him to 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.080 come to the shop. The neighbor followed Alan into the 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.360 storeroom and saw Carol in a pool of blood. Her 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.520 body was found in the storeroom of the store. Forensic 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.080 testing revealed that Carol had been brutally beaten and stabbed 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.080 with a weapon, something like an axe or a machete, 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.560 something heavy but very sharp. She had been hit so 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.000 hard that pieces of her skull and brain matter were 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.560 on the floor. The police had no way of knowing 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.840 it back in nineteen eighty one, but this police investigation 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.360 would last forty three years and take a lot of 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:17.440 strange twists and turns, and in the end there was justice, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.280 but it's questionable whether full justice will ever be served. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.240 Who came into the store that night and hacked Carol 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:31.080 Morgan to death. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.440 years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone, I've 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.720 learned that there is no such thing as a small 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.880 town where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.560 from people all around the country asking for help with 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.560 an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:49.840 If you have a case you'd like me and my 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.200 team to look into, you can reach out to us 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.840 at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.640 seven four four six one four five. That's six seven 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.320 eight seven four four six one four five, or you 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.800 can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod. 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:53.400 This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After police got to 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.720 the scene, they found evidence that some money four hundred 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.240 and thirty five pounds to be exact, had been stolen, 0:04:59.840 --> 0:05:04.160 along with fourteen hundred cigarettes, but police did not have 0:05:04.280 --> 0:05:07.080 a ton of information to go on. The attack had 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:11.280 been extremely brutal and horrific and there were some signs 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.600 of defensive wounds on Carol's hands, so it seemed like 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.800 whatever happened had taken her completely by surprise and that 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:23.320 she had fought for her life. The UK channel ITV 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.840 made a documentary about the case called The Real Unforgotten. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.480 This documentary followed the decades long investigation into Carroll's murder. 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.840 I highly recommend checking it out because it really is 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.680 an excellent analysis of what the police did and the 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.520 excellent detective work that was done years later. In the documentary, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.400 they explained that the police back in nineteen eighty one 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.920 believed that the motive for the killing had been robbery, 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.080 and they focused on that theory pretty much exclusively. On 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.360 the ITV program, they showed images of diagrams of Carol's injuries. 0:05:59.960 --> 0:06:02.520 She had been beaten to death and she had huge 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.840 cuts on her head. Whoever beat her beat her so 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.600 badly that her skull was cracked. So police theorized the 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.200 weapon had been something like an axe or a machete, 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.840 but they never found the murder weapon. They did have 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.880 one early lead. There was a man driving a green 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.960 car who had been spotted at a payphone box near 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.320 the shop shortly after seven pm. On the ITV documentary, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.080 they stated when police started canvassing the area, they found 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.680 witnesses who saw this man at the phone box. One 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.560 of the witnesses worked with a police sketch artist. They 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.360 made a poster and they put them out everywhere. In 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.240 the documentary, they showed old footage of Brian Picket, the 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.920 senior investigating officer from nineteen eighty one. He was talking 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.880 about this stranger. He said the man was seen driving 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.680 away from the corner shop and was described as being 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.280 aged between seventeen and twenty one years old, around five 0:06:57.280 --> 0:06:59.360 foot seven to five foot eight inches tall, with a 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:04.960 slim belld brown mousey hair and piggish style nostrils. Brian 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.120 Pickett stated that the witness saw this man holding white 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.000 plastic bags to his chest, bags that police believed at 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.560 the time were used to carry the stolen money and 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:18.240 cigarettes from the corner shop. So police believed the killer 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.520 had come in to rob the store and that Carol 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.680 was basically just at the wrong place at the wrong time. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.480 Police focused their investigation almost solely on that stranger at 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.000 the phone box and the green car he was driving, 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:33.600 but they never found the man and they never found 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.600 the car. After that, the investigation seemed to hit a 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:38.040 dead end. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:40.640 This case terrified the. 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.880 Local community because the thought that someone could go in 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.840 and murder someone with an axe over such a small 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.840 amount of money and a few cigarettes was truly scary. 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.080 But there were also some local rumors spreading. 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.720 Witnesses spoke to police to voice their suspicions about someone 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:01.880 much closer to home, Carol's husband, Alan Morgan. So what 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.440 was going on in Carol and Allen's marriage and why 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.400 would he have any reason to hurt her? Carol Morgan 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.520 was born on December twenty sixth, nineteen forty four. She 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.680 grew up in Highbury, North London. Carol was married before Alan. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.960 She met her husband when he was sixteen, she was 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.200 a year older. Her husband later testified that they met 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.840 while he was on vacation with a friend. Carol and Richard, 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.720 her first husband, were both from London. He was from 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.120 Wimbledon in West London. She was from North London, so 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.440 the relationship continued after that holiday ended. They got married 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.240 in nineteen sixty five and they settled down together in Swindon. 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.960 They had two children, Jane and Ian, but like a 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.040 lot of couples, they drifted apart and started having problems 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.960 in their relationship. Richard later testified in court that he 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.280 met someone else and that that was kind of the 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.680 final straw for their marriage. He testified he left Carol 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.680 to be with this other person, but after the split, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:05.120 he said he and Carol remained close. He said, quote, 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.840 Carol was upset I was leaving, but there was no 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.640 animosity end quote. In nineteen seventy eight, Carol was trying 0:09:12.680 --> 0:09:15.000 to meet new people. She went to a singles group 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.800 called the Gingerbread Group, and that's where she met Allan. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.080 Allan was also divorced and had two children from a 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.440 previous marriage, but those children lived with his ex partner. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.680 Shortly after meeting and falling in love, Carol and Allan 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.440 made plans to buy and run this corner shop together. 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.200 Carol financed the shop. They were able to buy it 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.920 because Carol had sold her house in her divorce, so 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.440 they used the share of the house money to invest 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.040 in the shop. Carol and Allan got me married in 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.600 nineteen seventy nine. It's interesting because you never know what's 0:09:48.680 --> 0:09:53.040 going on behind closed doors in these relationships. But years later, 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.280 some members of Carroll's family, including her sister and her niece, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.160 talked to the ITV program about how these horrific events 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.800 had changed their family forever. They said that after Carol 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.840 met Allan, she went from being this outgoing and loving 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.240 person to being pretty much completely isolated. Her niece told 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.400 ITV she believed that Alan was trying to control Carol 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.080 and manipulate her, but at the time they had no 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.760 idea how bad things were getting at home behind closed doors. 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.240 Local gossips said there might have been another reason why 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.000 Alan wanted Carol out of the way, because Alan was 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.840 having an affair with a woman named Margaret Spooner, who 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.680 was also married, But when it came to Carroll's murder, 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.840 Alan had this apparently airtight albi. The night of the murder, 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.240 he was at the movies with his two step children. 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.280 Carol's sun Dean told police that on the day of 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.400 the murder that Alan came home shortly after lunch and 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.440 told them they were going to the movies that night, 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.680 so he, Jane, and Allan ended up driving to the 0:10:55.680 --> 0:10:59.200 town of Lowton to see a double feature. Jane told 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.880 police that they got to the theater got their tickets 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.800 at six twenty five pm and that they saw Sinbad, 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.400 the Eye of the Tiger and Super Snooper and came 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:12.160 out at ten ten pm. Police were trying to figure 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.080 out what happened while Carol was working alone that night. 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:17.480 They knew that the shop closed at six. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.680 Pm, but apparently some potential customers, according to the ITV show, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.640 tried the doors at five point fifty five pm and 0:11:24.680 --> 0:11:27.840 couldn't open them, so it seems as though Carol might 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.520 have shut the shop a little bit early. The detectives 0:11:31.560 --> 0:11:34.320 went back and re examined everything they thought they knew 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.200 about this case. First of all, they needed to look 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.080 into the man with the white bags, the one who 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:41.400 was seen near the phone box. 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:43.200 They went back through. 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.600 Old witness days and found that a witness saw the 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.080 man drop the bags, pick up some coins, get into 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.040 the car and drive away. Then there were two more 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.800 witnesses at around seven ten pm, two women who were 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.480 walking to Bingo saw that man in the green car. 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.440 Presumably that would mean that if that man was the killer, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.600 the man murdered Carol and what they saw was him 0:12:04.680 --> 0:12:05.520 driving away. 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:06.560 From the scene. 0:12:06.680 --> 0:12:09.840 But there were some other witnesses who had conflicting information. 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.200 There were witnesses who said they saw Carol. Later after closing, 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.720 two kids who knew Carol well were sitting on a 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.400 wall talking They saw Carol walking back toward the shop 0:12:21.560 --> 0:12:22.280 with her dog. 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.960 They said this happened between eight thirty and nine pm. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.560 So the officer interviewed in the ITV documentary pointed out 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.440 if Carol was alive between eight thirty and nine pm, 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.400 that appeared to point to the man in the green 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:44.520 car not being the killer. In twenty eighteen, Detective Superintendent 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.000 Carl Foster was put in charge of the cold case. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.040 Based on what he saw in that case file, he 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:51.800 decided to reopen the investigation. 0:12:52.680 --> 0:12:53.720 He was convinced that. 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.440 Even if Allen had an alibi and had been elsewhere, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.760 the evidence suggested that he may have been behind the killing. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.560 The Major Crime Unit reopened the investigation into Carol's murder 0:13:04.560 --> 0:13:07.880 in twenty nineteen, but they had a lot of problems. 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.560 For one thing, as we see in so many of 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.320 our cases, mistakes were made, a lot of evidence was 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.400 destroyed and there was no way to get it back. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.040 Police had very little to go on except for witness 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.680 statements and some very old photos of the crime scene. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:27.920 One of the reasons why I wanted to cover this 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.200 case in particular is because I was so inspired by 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.320 the work that these cold case detectives did. 0:13:33.680 --> 0:13:35.120 How they took a case like. 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.240 So many of the ones that we see every day, 0:13:37.560 --> 0:13:41.320 where evidence was destroyed, and yet they managed to turn 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.280 things around. I wanted to see what we could all 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.120 learn from this case. The detectives taking over in twenty 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.080 nineteen did not believe that robbery was the motive. One 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.000 of the reasons they said they believed that was because 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.840 of the brutal way that Carroll was killed. Police referred 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.360 to that beating as overkill. They believe this was personal, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.480 not random. There were some other oddities. Most of the 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:08.920 money that had been stolen was stolen from a desk 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.720 drawer in the shop. This drawer had what Alan described 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:14.880 to police as a secret mechanism. 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.640 It was like a trick drawer. 0:14:16.680 --> 0:14:19.320 You had to move another drawer into position to get 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:21.880 it to work. Alan told the police it was like 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.120 a Chinese puzzle. He said, only he and maybe Carol 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.800 knew how that drawer worked. So how would a robber 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.080 have known how to open that drawer or to force 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.520 Carol to open it? How would the robber have even 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.520 known where the drawer was at all. Much later in court, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.240 a prosecutor would state that the killer had inside information 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.040 before the killer came into the shop. And one of 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.400 the detectives in the ITV documentary noticed something else from 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.000 the photos, a flash of gold. Carol was wearing her 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.840 wedding ring, So the detective wondered, if robbery was really 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.000 the only motive, why was her wedding ring not pulled 0:14:59.040 --> 0:14:59.720 off and stolen. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:02.760 Police began to lean more. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.120 And more into the theory this had not been a robbery, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.680 this had been a staged robbery, and that the real 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:12.120 primary motive here was to kill Carol. The police had 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.400 a massive number of witness statements to go through, thousands 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.720 of pages, but as one of the investigators pointed out, 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.000 they had to go back to the beginning and reread everything. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.000 One of the first people they talked to was Allan's neighbor. 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.600 He was the first person who Allan told about finding 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.320 Carroll's body, the one who first saw Carroll's body along 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.440 with Alan. The neighbor told police that Alan ran across 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.880 the street to his place and asked him to use 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.240 the phone. He said Alan seemed to be in shock 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.560 that he heard Allan tell police his address and explained 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.920 that his wife was in a pool of blood. The 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.320 neighbor went with Alan back to the shop and down 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.080 to the stock room and found Carroll there. He said 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.320 blood was spattered everywhere and it was immediately obvious that 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.520 she was dead. The neighbor said he ran out of 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.600 there and that Alan followed him. He said Alan was crying, 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.880 but that as the neighbor tried to comfort him, the 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.680 neighbor told police he noticed Alan seemed very composed. 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.160 Now, the detectives in the ITV. 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.280 Series point out this could have been a natural reaction. 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.440 People process things in different ways, but the detective did 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.800 ask why did Alan walk across the street to use 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.680 someone else's phone instead of just calling from the store. 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.520 This officer stated it made him believe Alan had a 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.480 reason for doing that, something that indicated maybe he didn't 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.880 want to be the one to discover that body alone. 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.000 Another piece of evidence that detectives had was the post 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.960 mortem report that was made in nineteen eighty one. So 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.280 they took that report and went to outside experts, including 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.600 a forensic pathologist. The pathologist said Carol was killed by 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.560 multiple blunt forest blows by a very heavy object that 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.560 was also sharp, heavy enough to shatter the skull, but 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.760 also sharp enough to slice. The pathologist agreed with the 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.600 investigator's theory that the wounds were indicative of overkill, that 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.040 the intention was to kill Carol. This was a hit 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.880 and Carol was the target. The pathologist also said something else. 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.440 There were stab wounds on Carol's midsection that made them 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.920 believe one of two things happened. Either there was more 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.760 than one killer, or maybe the killer changed weapons midway 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:31.320 through the attack. The pathologist also stated that Carol had 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.800 wounds on her face, wounds that the pathologists said happened 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.840 after the initial attack, either around the time of death 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.000 or after the time of death. They described these as 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:46.840 disrespect to the individual and mutilation injuries. So police used 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.080 that information to move more and more away from the 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:53.120 original theory. This was personal, it was all about Carol, 0:17:53.360 --> 0:17:56.440 and the crime scene was staged. But who would have 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.360 wanted to hurt Carol because everyone in the community seemed 0:17:59.360 --> 0:18:03.360 to love Carol. When police went back through the witness statements, 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.560 they found that a lot of people were talking about Alan, 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.360 and specifically Alan's behavior before. 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:11.360 And after the murder. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.640 A few weeks after Carroll's death, Alan sold the shot. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.560 He took his step kids and moved away from the area, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.880 but he also made several comments to reporters. He told 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.920 them he was being accused of killing Carroll, that people 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.200 believed he had killed his wife, but he said it 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.520 couldn't have been him because he was in Luton at 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.960 the movies. When the reporter asked Alan why he thought 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.240 people believed that, Alan said, in his opinion, it could 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.680 be because he was, in his words, happy go lucky 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:49.000 and a womanizer. And when Alan left town, he didn't 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:59.720 just take his stepchildren. Margaret, his lover, also went with him. 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.960 Police knew about Margaret and the affair back in nineteen 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.640 eighty one, a few months after Carol's murder, Margaret's husband, 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.920 Neil Spooner, called police. He said that his wife had 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.280 confessed to him that she had been having an affair, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.440 and she said she had been having an affair with 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.800 Alan Morgan. Police confirmed this with other witnesses, including a 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.520 friend of Margaret's named Sheila Forest. Sheila told police she 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.160 was on a barge trip with Margaret. She said Margaret 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.080 kept sneaking away to meet Alan. Sheila said Margaret and 0:19:30.120 --> 0:19:32.880 Alan were seeing each other every day at the time 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:33.400 of the murder. 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:34.560 She said. 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.240 Right after the murder, she saw Alan and Margaret together. 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.080 She said they were holding hands and Alan made the 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.880 comment it won't be long now, Darling, which Sheila said 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.840 made her feel sick. Police said in the ITV documentary 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.880 that they had evidence that Margaret and Alan were in 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.560 bed together the morning after the murder, and then just 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.200 a few weeks later, Margaret had left her husband she 0:19:59.360 --> 0:20:02.880 moved in with Alan and his children. Now, obviously this 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.680 is all circumstantial, but it had police in nineteen eighty 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.560 one and in twenty nineteen wondering how much. 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.240 Did Margaret Spooner know and when did she know it. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.440 In twenty nineteen, police went back to interview people in 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.080 the community, and even though it had been over forty years, 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.120 a lot of people who lived in this area had 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.520 heard about this case. The murder had been so brutal 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.000 people still talked about it. Forty years later. Carl Foster, 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.560 the senior investigating officer, did something else that was interesting. 0:20:37.120 --> 0:20:39.120 He went back and looked at all of the media 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.800 reports from that time and kind of used Allan's own 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.200 words against him. Police looked back at these interviews that 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.000 Alan gave to media, and they saw how he contradicted himself. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.280 For example, when he went to Malta with Margaret and 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.560 was asked about going away with his lovers so soon 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:58.240 after his wife's death, he made comments saying my marriage 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.400 was as good as over and that he couldn't go 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.040 on mourning forever. A news channel asked Alan in nineteen 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.360 eighty two how the murder had affected him, and he 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.720 gave this very cold answer. He talked about how he 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:12.760 had to shut down the shop for weeks so the 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.000 police could do their investigation. He talked about how this 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.080 had ruined his business, how he had to sell the 0:21:18.120 --> 0:21:20.800 shop at a loss. But he said nothing in that 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.800 interview that I saw about any grief for Carol or 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:26.600 the two children who she left behind. 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.400 In fact, he said. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.880 The kids are all right, but he said it would 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.080 be better for the kids if he moved away. So 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.280 Alan seemed to be blaming the police investigation for ruining 0:21:39.360 --> 0:21:43.120 the shop's business, But investigators found evidence that Alan and 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:47.480 Carol's show was having problems before she was brutally murdered. 0:21:48.360 --> 0:21:51.840 Police in nineteen eighty one interviewed two accountants, who said 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.560 the shop had been losing a lot of money and 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.760 that actually, at the time of the murder, Allan and 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.000 Carol were trying to sell the shop. The accountant said 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.520 when he talked to Carol about the losses, Carrol started 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.400 crying and said that they were unhappy that they had 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:11.400 had big dreams for that shop. Police found another contradiction 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:14.320 because while Allan had given an interview to the Observer 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.320 newspaper stating that quote my wife wasn't insured, I had 0:22:18.360 --> 0:22:21.640 nothing to gain end quote, police said that wasn't true 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.240 because Alan had taken out a loan before the murder 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.560 to help pay the shop's debt, and after Carroll's death 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:34.600 that loan was paid off completely. Alan and Margaret disappeared. 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.960 They moved away from the area and from the corner shop, 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.960 and eventually Alan and Margaret got married. They actually ended 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.200 up buying their own corner shop together in nineteen eighty two. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.360 Looking at the case again in twenty nineteen, police had 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.280 a new theory. They had a lot of circumstantial evidence, 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.440 but they still had zero physical evidence. 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.200 But they didn't give up. They kept talking to outside experts. 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.160 They made a bunch of new posters and handed them 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:04.920 out all over town. And I found this part really 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:10.000 interesting because the posters said did you know Carrol? Which 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:16.880 I think is a great way of bringing people out. Eventually, 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:20.080 police said they were ready to bring Margaret and Allen 0:23:20.120 --> 0:23:24.480 in for questioning. They found them together, still married, now 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:27.800 in their seventies. They were living in Brighton, and police 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.640 took them in for interviews. Both of them completely denied 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:36.280 any knowledge of or involvement in Carroll's murder. Margaret said 0:23:36.360 --> 0:23:38.920 she had been horrified when she heard about Carroll's death. 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.000 She said after the murder, she didn't see Allen for 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:44.760 several days. She said she out of town that week, 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.520 but police knew that wasn't true because they had witnesses 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:53.160 saying otherwise. Police went back and they kept knocking on doors. 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:57.800 Eventually they figured out what they believed was the murder weapon. 0:23:58.360 --> 0:24:00.880 They had talked to several witnesses who said there was 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.440 a machete in Alan's shop, and a machete in a 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.440 corner shop is the kind of thing that you tend 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.000 to notice. But Alan told police there wasn't a machete 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:13.040 in there. He said he couldn't remember the type of weapon. 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:13.320 That was in there. 0:24:13.360 --> 0:24:16.720 So again police don't have anything concrete, but they do 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.760