Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Harry and Megan Tooze Pt. One

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Harry and Megan Tooze Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
0:32
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right
0:38
Speaker 2: into this week's case.
0:41
Speaker 3: July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety three, Loanhari, Wales, sixty five
0:47
Speaker 3: year old Harry Tews and his sixty seven year old wife,
0:50
Speaker 3: Meganchoos are both shot to death at their remote farm
0:54
Speaker 3: before their bodies are hidden inside a cowshed. The investigation
0:58
Speaker 3: eventually focuses on Jonathan Jones, the boyfriend of Twos's daughter,
1:03
Speaker 3: and after his thumb print is found on a saucer
1:06
Speaker 3: inside the residence, he's charged with the murders. Even though
1:10
Speaker 3: Jonathan is found guilty of the crime and sentenced to
1:13
Speaker 3: life imprisonment, his conviction is overturned one year later, so
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Speaker 3: there are no conclusive answers about who actually killed Harry
1:21
Speaker 3: and Meghan.
1:22
Speaker 1: After that, the path went Chili. So today, for the
1:26
Speaker 1: first time, the Pathway Chili is going to be exploring
1:29
Speaker 1: an unsolved cold case which took place in Wales, the
1:32
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three murders of Harry and Meghan twos. And
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Speaker 1: before he make the obvious jokes, yes, we will be
1:38
Speaker 1: discussing a couple from the United Kingdom named Harry and Meghan,
1:41
Speaker 1: but they're considerably older than that other Harry and Meghan,
1:45
Speaker 1: who are always in the news because of their affiliation
1:47
Speaker 1: with the royal family. Harry and Meghan Toos were an
1:50
Speaker 1: elderly married couple who lived on a remote farm Indians
1:53
Speaker 1: seem to have any known enemies until they were both
1:56
Speaker 1: shot to death on their property execution style.
2:00
Speaker 2: Ues.
2:00
Speaker 1: Has had a daughter named Cheryl, and investigators began to
2:02
Speaker 1: suspect that her boyfriend, Jonathan Jones, committed the crime so
2:06
Speaker 1: he could collect on a one hundred and fifty thousand
2:08
Speaker 1: pounds estate Cheryl inherited from her parents. While Jonathan was
2:12
Speaker 1: eventually charged and convicted of the murders, the evidence against
2:16
Speaker 1: him was so weak that his conviction was overturned just
2:19
Speaker 1: one year after his trial. But of course this begs
2:22
Speaker 1: the question if Jonathan did not kill the Twoses, then
2:25
Speaker 1: who did and what could their motive have possibly been
2:30
Speaker 1: well I originally covered this case on The Trail Went
2:32
Speaker 1: Cold in August of twenty twenty one, but only a
2:35
Speaker 1: few weeks before we recorded this episode. There would be
2:38
Speaker 1: a major development, as it appears that law enforcement has
2:42
Speaker 1: now set their sights on an all new suspect. But
2:45
Speaker 1: since they have released very few details to the public,
2:48
Speaker 1: we still don't know who this suspect is or what
2:51
Speaker 1: evidence investigators might have against them. So I thought it
2:54
Speaker 1: would be a good opportunity for us to revisit this
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Speaker 1: story and discuss it on the Pathway Chile.
3:00
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, you got my blood boiling, because when
3:02
Speaker 2: we talk about a potential wrongful conviction, you guys know
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Speaker 2: that I'm game for a very heated discussion. So when
3:10
Speaker 2: we look at this case and you think that the
3:12
Speaker 2: first person who's a suspect and then later is actually
3:15
Speaker 2: charged and convicted of the murders, is the boyfriend? Correct
3:19
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, But wouldn't her boyfriend's prints belong
3:23
Speaker 2: in her parents' home. I'm assuming at some point he
3:25
Speaker 2: had actually gone to the home with her.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that would be his biggest argument that just because
3:31
Speaker 1: my thumb print is on a saucer does not really
3:33
Speaker 1: mean all that much, because he had visited the home
3:36
Speaker 1: on a couple previous occasions, and of course he even
3:39
Speaker 1: thought that he might have accidentally touched the saucer after
3:42
Speaker 1: he arrived at the murder scenes. So if that is
3:45
Speaker 1: pretty much the strongest evidence that the use against him.
3:48
Speaker 1: If that pretty much indicates like how weak the case
3:51
Speaker 1: was against him overall.
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Speaker 2: That's crazy. I would have thought we were in Florida,
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Speaker 2: not Wales if we're discussing that week of evidence convicting
3:59
Speaker 2: you of a murder. But when we look at this,
4:02
Speaker 2: I mean, that's so true when anytime you have an investigation,
4:05
Speaker 2: the only time a fingerprint or some kind of forensic
4:09
Speaker 2: evidence like hair would be a usable piece of evidence
4:13
Speaker 2: to point towards you being the murderer is if you're
4:16
Speaker 2: one of those suspects who, in an interrogation is asked,
4:20
Speaker 2: have you ever been inside the home of Harry and Megan,
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Speaker 2: and you say never, I have never. I don't know them,
4:28
Speaker 2: I've never associated with them.
4:29
Speaker 1: And then I can.
4:31
Speaker 2: Show you a listing of hairs and fingerprints and those
4:33
Speaker 2: types of pieces of evidence. At that point, now I
4:37
Speaker 2: have a motive to focus on you and say you
4:39
Speaker 2: are a primary suspect. But for someone who belongs in
4:43
Speaker 2: that dwelling, it doesn't hold any water to me.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know we've loved to talk about wrongful convictions,
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Speaker 1: but this will be an interesting one just because it
4:52
Speaker 1: took place in Wales, and there are some differences with
4:55
Speaker 1: the legal system in Wales than they are in the
4:58
Speaker 1: United States, so it's interesting to see how this wrongful
5:01
Speaker 1: conviction played out compared to some of the other ones
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Speaker 1: we've talked about on previous episodes.
5:07
Speaker 3: Our story begins in nineteen ninety three in Lanhri, a
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Speaker 3: small village with a population of around three thousand, located
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Speaker 3: in the county borough of Rohnda Kinantaff in South Wales.
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Speaker 3: Our central figures are sixty five year old Henry James Twos,
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Speaker 3: who goes by the name Harry, and his sixty seven
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Speaker 3: year old wife, Megan Twos. The couple lives on an
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Speaker 3: isolated six acre sixteenth century farm just a mile outside
5:34
Speaker 3: of loan Hari. The farm is named Tiarwan, which is
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Speaker 3: Welsh for house in the meadow, and the Twoses have
5:41
Speaker 3: lived on the property for over thirty years. After having
5:45
Speaker 3: worked as a farmer and fruit wholesaler, Harry is now
5:48
Speaker 3: retired and he and Meghan have one child, a thirty
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Speaker 3: three year old daughter named Cheryl, who works as a
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Speaker 3: market researcher and lives nearly two hundred miles away in Orpington,
5:59
Speaker 3: a town low located in the County of Kent in
6:02
Speaker 3: southeastern Greater London. Cheryl shares a flat with her thirty
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Speaker 3: three year old boyfriend, Jonathan Jones, and the couple have
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Speaker 3: been together for over a decade after originally meeting while
6:12
Speaker 3: they were graduate students at the Polytechnic of Wales. On
6:17
Speaker 3: the morning of Monday, July twenty sixth Harry and Meghan
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Speaker 3: drove to the post office in Loanhari to collect their
6:24
Speaker 3: pensions before they stopped at the supermarket to do some shopping,
6:28
Speaker 3: and a neighbor would see them returning home at around
6:30
Speaker 3: eleven am. At one thirty pm, another neighbor heard the
6:34
Speaker 3: sound of two gunshots from the Teseses farm, which occurred
6:38
Speaker 3: within thirty seconds of each other, but they did not
6:40
Speaker 3: find this unusual because Harry liked to grow cabbage and
6:44
Speaker 3: was known for shooting rabbits who showed up in his patch.
6:47
Speaker 3: But over the course of the next several hours, Cheryl
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Speaker 3: and another relative both made multiple attempts to call the
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Speaker 3: Tuess residents, but were unable to reach Harry or Meghan
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Speaker 3: on the phone. Cheryl called her parents virtually every day
7:01
Speaker 3: and became concerned when she received no answer during the
7:04
Speaker 3: time period when she knew they would usually be at
7:07
Speaker 3: home watching their favorite soap opera, Coronation Street. Cheryl finally
7:12
Speaker 3: decided to phone a neighbor named Owen Hopkins and asked
7:15
Speaker 3: him to check on her parents. When Hopkins arrived at
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Speaker 3: the farmhouse, he discovered that the front door was unlocked,
7:22
Speaker 3: but the chooses were not inside. The groceries they purchased
7:25
Speaker 3: on their shopping trip had been unpacked in the kitchen,
7:28
Speaker 3: and there was a pan on the cooker containing chopped potatoes,
7:32
Speaker 3: which suggested that they were in the midst of preparing
7:34
Speaker 3: a meal before something happened to them. Hopkins decided to
7:37
Speaker 3: call the South Wales Police to report the couple missing,
7:40
Speaker 3: and they soon arrived at the farm and launched a
7:43
Speaker 3: Sir Shepherd.
7:45
Speaker 2: This is so sad to think about. You have this
7:47
Speaker 2: idyllic setting and you have this elderly couple who is
7:51
Speaker 2: at their home doing everyday things. They've gone to the
7:54
Speaker 2: grocery store, They've put up their groceries, they're in the
7:56
Speaker 2: middle of making a meal. To me, it seems like
8:00
Speaker 2: this is just an everyday type of moment for them,
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Speaker 2: and then somehow they are ambushed and murdered. Do we
8:09
Speaker 2: know if there's any kind of forced entry, or could
8:11
Speaker 2: it have been someone who was expected because they're they're
8:14
Speaker 2: living in a very average, normal day as if you know,
8:18
Speaker 2: they're very comfortable in what they're doing. Do we know
8:20
Speaker 2: if if any kind of confrontation happened, or do you
8:23
Speaker 2: think we knew they knew who the person was they
8:26
Speaker 2: came into their residence.
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Speaker 1: It's always been speculated that they probably invited their killer
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Speaker 1: inside because there were no signs of forced entry, and
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Speaker 1: as we're going to talk about momentarily the saucer containing
8:36
Speaker 1: the thumbprint which implicated Jonathan Jones, it was part of
8:40
Speaker 1: a tea set that they ordinarily did not bring out
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Speaker 1: unless they had guests in the house. So it seems
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Speaker 1: very likely to me that they knew their killer and
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Speaker 1: was someone that they were on good terms with and
8:49
Speaker 1: probably did not find to be a threat. But of
8:51
Speaker 1: course that opened up a whole bunch of questions because
8:54
Speaker 1: as far as anyone can tell, they did not have
8:56
Speaker 1: any known enemies. So that's why, to this day, no
8:59
Speaker 1: one can really figure out what the motive might have
9:01
Speaker 1: been to kill them. So the search for the Tooses
9:04
Speaker 1: lasted several hours, but during the early morning hours of
9:07
Speaker 1: July to twenty seventh, Harry's body was discovered inside a
9:10
Speaker 1: cowshd on the property, and shortly thereafter Megan's body was
9:14
Speaker 1: found in there as well. Both victims had been shot
9:17
Speaker 1: in the back of the head execution style with a
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Speaker 1: twelve bore shotgun, and their bodies were each covered with
9:22
Speaker 1: a carpet and concealed underneath some hay bales. The evidence
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Speaker 1: seemed to suggest that Harry had been shot at close
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Speaker 1: range just inside the cowshed's front door, while Megan was
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Speaker 1: shot outside from three feet away before her body was
9:35
Speaker 1: dragged in there. There were no signs of forced entry
9:38
Speaker 1: at the farmhouse and nothing appeared to have been stolen,
9:41
Speaker 1: leading investigators completely baffled by the motive. A fancy china
9:45
Speaker 1: teacup and saucer were resting on the dining room table,
9:48
Speaker 1: next to a milk jug teapot and a sugar bowl
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Speaker 1: and a magazine. According to everyone who knew them, the
9:54
Speaker 1: Tooses only brought out this particular teacup whenever they had visitors,
9:59
Speaker 1: so this seemed to end that the couple invited their
10:01
Speaker 1: killer inside the house and attempted to serve them tea
10:05
Speaker 1: before they were ambushed and shot to death. Unidentified pomp
10:09
Speaker 1: prints were found on the farmyard gate and farmhouse door,
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Speaker 1: but they did not belong to Harry, Megan, or any
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Speaker 1: other members of their family and could not be matched
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Speaker 1: to anyone. Unfortunately, the crime scene was not properly sealed
10:22
Speaker 1: until several hours after the police's arrival, and evidence was
10:25
Speaker 1: not preserved, as he initially operated under the assumption that
10:29
Speaker 1: the crime was a murder suicide until they realized that
10:32
Speaker 1: no gun could be found. Before the bodies were discovered,
10:36
Speaker 1: some police officers had noticed a small pool of blood
10:39
Speaker 1: by the farmyard gate, but it was trampled over so
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Speaker 1: often that it became contaminated and deemed to be useless
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Speaker 1: as evidence. Interestingly enough, about ten months before the murders,
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Speaker 1: Harry had reported a burglary at the farmhouse and claimed
10:53
Speaker 1: that his shotgun was stolen. It was never recovered, and
10:56
Speaker 1: Harry later wound up purchasing a new shotgun, but it
10:59
Speaker 1: was unclear if this theft had any connection to the crime.
11:03
Speaker 2: Two things this is really frustrating when you look at
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Speaker 2: the way that the crime scene was treated and there
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Speaker 2: was an assumption that it was a murder suicide. Imagine
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Speaker 2: being an officer and the detectives who are sitting there saying, Okay,
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Speaker 2: we're going to tell this family right that dad killed
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Speaker 2: mom or mom killed dad, and it is what it is.
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Speaker 2: We're just gonna go ahead and not preserve this scene,
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Speaker 2: not try to make sure we know the whole story
11:27
Speaker 2: to tell the family. Like one of the most devastating
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Speaker 2: things you can think of the two people you love most,
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Speaker 2: one is killed and one took their own life right
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Speaker 2: after killing the person that you love. So what a
11:37
Speaker 2: tragic finale, And like, you know, a conclusion you would
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Speaker 2: make as a detective to not say, even if that's
11:44
Speaker 2: the case, let's preserve this crime scene and make sure
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Speaker 2: that we protect all evidence so that we can have
11:50
Speaker 2: a clear, accurate story of what happened, right that we
11:54
Speaker 2: can get to the truth of what happened. That's not
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Speaker 2: how they approach this scene. They made an assumption, and
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Speaker 2: it's own as if they kind of disregarded a need
12:01
Speaker 2: to protect the scene at that point, very very frustrating,
12:04
Speaker 2: even if it had ended up being a murder suicide.
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Speaker 2: Then look at the details in this case, because they
12:11
Speaker 2: are inviting somebody, let's say to tea or over for
12:14
Speaker 2: dinner or coming by to have a chat or something.
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Speaker 2: They get their nice china out, they've made the tea,
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Speaker 2: everything sitting out, including the milk, but they're killed out
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Speaker 2: by the cowshed. So what is it that took them
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Speaker 2: from the home to the cowshed? Was there something they
12:31
Speaker 2: were going to show this person? Was it a I
12:33
Speaker 2: forced you out of the home because one day I'm
12:35
Speaker 2: going to inherit this home. Remember that's their assumption, so
12:38
Speaker 2: I don't want the murder to have it inside the house.
12:41
Speaker 2: Was it that they wanted them to be hidden and
12:44
Speaker 2: their bodies not be in plain view where people would
12:46
Speaker 2: normally look. What created the scene where that couple invited
12:50
Speaker 2: someone over and somehow they ended out in that cowshed.
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Speaker 3: This is so wild to me, the fact that they
12:57
Speaker 3: operated under that assumption without doing the base sick cursory
13:00
Speaker 3: search around the bodies to determine whether or not there
13:04
Speaker 3: was a firearm. There would have had to have been
13:06
Speaker 3: a gun there, because you don't shoot yourself and then
13:09
Speaker 3: the gun magically runs away. They could have figured that out.
13:12
Speaker 3: And it also seems odd if it was a murder
13:15
Speaker 3: suicide that you would be in the midst of doing
13:18
Speaker 3: your dinner, there's a tea set out, so you're in
13:21
Speaker 3: the home. If it was an impulsive act that one
13:25
Speaker 3: of them decided to end the other one's life, why
13:27
Speaker 3: would they go out to the cowshd It just none
13:30
Speaker 3: of it adds up to murder suicide.
13:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like we always have said many times that a
13:35
Speaker 1: good police officer should always treat every death scene as
13:38
Speaker 1: a potential homicide at first unless the evidence points otherwise.
13:42
Speaker 1: And they did not do that here, even though basically
13:45
Speaker 1: checking the scene to see if there's a gun around
13:47
Speaker 1: should have been the most basic thing they did. And
13:50
Speaker 1: it'd be one thing if this was a couple that
13:51
Speaker 1: was known for having a history of domestic violence and arguments.
13:55
Speaker 1: But they had been married for so many years. As
13:57
Speaker 1: far as anyone can tell, there renaul issues in their marriage,
14:00
Speaker 1: So why would they assume this was some murder suicide?
14:03
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, this lack of preserving the crime scene is
14:06
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it's taken so long to
14:08
Speaker 1: solve this thing.
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Speaker 3: And what do you guys think are the chances that
14:13
Speaker 3: somebody was supposed to stop by or do you think
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Speaker 3: that it's more likely I personally think it's more likely
14:20
Speaker 3: that somebody just stopped by in an impromptu manner, because
14:25
Speaker 3: if you plan to stop by and you know that
14:28
Speaker 3: they have a daughter, there's and that they talk to
14:30
Speaker 3: her every day. If you're somebody that's known to them,
14:33
Speaker 3: then there's a very high probability that they would tell
14:36
Speaker 3: their daughter that so and so is coming by for tea.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I totally agree that this was probably an unexpected
14:42
Speaker 1: guest and they just kind of showed up out of nowhere.
14:45
Speaker 1: But Harry and Meghan, being as polite as they were,
14:47
Speaker 1: still invited this person inside and offered to serve them tea,
14:51
Speaker 1: probably because it was someone that they didn't feel threatened by.
14:54
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do agree that if they had arranged
14:57
Speaker 1: this ahead of time, I think that Harry or Megan
14:59
Speaker 1: would have told their daughter in one of their phone conversations.
15:03
Speaker 3: So after her parents were reported missing, Cheryl wanted to
15:07
Speaker 3: make the nearly two hundred mile drive to their farmhouse
15:10
Speaker 3: in order to check what was going on. However, because
15:13
Speaker 3: she had to work the following morning, she asked her
15:16
Speaker 3: boyfriend Jonathan Jones to drive there instead. Jonathan left at
15:20
Speaker 3: approximately ten pm on the evening of the twenty sixth
15:24
Speaker 3: and arrived at around three am on the morning of
15:26
Speaker 3: the twenty seventh, by which point he was informed by
15:29
Speaker 3: police that a male body had been found in the cowshed.
15:33
Speaker 3: Investigators believed that Jonathan aroused suspicion by barely reacting to
15:37
Speaker 3: the news, as he did not even ask if the
15:40
Speaker 3: body belonged to Harry, though Jonathan would later attribute this
15:43
Speaker 3: to being exhausted following the long drive. They also found
15:47
Speaker 3: it odd that it took Jonathan five hours to make
15:50
Speaker 3: a drive, which ordinarily would have taken three and a
15:52
Speaker 3: half hours, but he had made two separate stops at
15:56
Speaker 3: service stations in order to fuel up his car and
15:58
Speaker 3: phone Cheryl, and since the weather was rainy, Jonathan said
16:02
Speaker 3: he was forced to drive slower than usual in order
16:05
Speaker 3: to navigate the dark rural roads. Regardless, the South Wales
16:09
Speaker 3: police started to focus on Jonathan as a potential suspect.
16:14
Speaker 2: You know, three and a half hours to five hours
16:16
Speaker 2: in rain and stopping is not that significant. Cheryl's nervous,
16:22
Speaker 2: but I guarantee you Cheryl did not think her parents
16:23
Speaker 2: were dead. She probably was like, oh no, I wonder
16:26
Speaker 2: if like mom got sick and dad took her to
16:28
Speaker 2: the hospital, or you know what, if something happened to
16:31
Speaker 2: him and they just didn't have time to reach out
16:33
Speaker 2: to me, can you can you go check on them?
16:35
Speaker 2: It is nineteen ninety three, right, so like everybody doesn't
16:37
Speaker 2: have cell phones in the world and everyone's not that accessible.
16:40
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, that's correct. Like, isn't to unbelievable that Jonathan
16:45
Speaker 1: would stop at a service station in order to use
16:47
Speaker 1: a payphone to call Cheryl?
16:49
Speaker 2: Right, And or my gosh, when I make a five hour,
16:52
Speaker 2: three and a half hour trip whatever, I'm stopping because
16:54
Speaker 2: I need some combos, then I need a diet coke,
16:57
Speaker 2: then I need to go to the bathroom. Right, So
17:00
Speaker 2: we're definitely stopping. And so if you're stopping it's raining
17:03
Speaker 2: and you are having to get out and use a
17:05
Speaker 2: payphone to check in with Cheryl, then I don't really
17:09
Speaker 2: see that much suspicion on a three and a half
17:12
Speaker 2: hour drive going to five hours. Now, if you're saying
17:15
Speaker 2: there was like a nine hour gap, if Cheryl said
17:18
Speaker 2: I got news that my parents are dead, we got
17:20
Speaker 2: to see if that's true, and there was no urgency, Okay,
17:23
Speaker 2: but that fact alone makes zero sense to me why
17:27
Speaker 2: that would heighten him as a main suspect, and then
17:30
Speaker 2: Jonathan's original reaction. I guarantee you part of that was
17:34
Speaker 2: shock as well. His girlfriend sends him to her parents'
17:38
Speaker 2: house because something's wrong. Again, you're the one who's going
17:42
Speaker 2: surely nothing significance wrong. They just aren't answering the phone,
17:46
Speaker 2: and you find out there's a body, so in your head,
17:49
Speaker 2: you're starting to process that has to be your parents.
17:52
Speaker 2: How am I going to tell her? There would definitely
17:55
Speaker 2: be a pause, quiet kind of maybe you don't at
18:00
Speaker 2: the immediate reaction. It's not his parents, it's his girlfriend's parents.
18:04
Speaker 2: And I guarantee you part of him was tired, but
18:07
Speaker 2: more so he was in shock trying to process. How
18:09
Speaker 2: am I going to communicate this to Cheryl.
18:11
Speaker 3: I think it's weird that they highlighted that he didn't
18:14
Speaker 3: react just because people react differently. It was the nineties, right,
18:19
Speaker 3: so people aren't going to be aware that different people
18:22
Speaker 3: are going to react in different ways when something traumatic happens,
18:26
Speaker 3: that there's a wide range of reactions and there is
18:30
Speaker 3: no like quote unquote typical reaction. And the fact that
18:34
Speaker 3: he drove a really long time and it's exhausting driving
18:38
Speaker 3: at night and especially when you factor in the rain
18:41
Speaker 3: and he's having to make multiple stops to check in.
18:44
Speaker 3: He's worried about her parents. Cheryl's worried, so he's having
18:47
Speaker 3: to support her. I think there's a lot of things
18:50
Speaker 3: going on, and quite frankly, if I were to be
18:54
Speaker 3: told something like that, I might make the assumption that
18:58
Speaker 3: if Harry and Megan are missing and you found a body,
19:01
Speaker 3: that it's going to be Harry's body if you're saying
19:03
Speaker 3: that it's male.
19:05
Speaker 1: And also there's the wording, like they didn't specifically said
19:09
Speaker 1: that someone has been murdered. They just said we found
19:11
Speaker 1: a body. So maybe Jonathan's thinking to himself, well, he's
19:14
Speaker 1: an old man. Maybe he walked into the cowshd and
19:16
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack or something like that. He's
19:19
Speaker 1: not instantly going to think that, oh, someone blasted him
19:21
Speaker 1: with a shotgun in there. And I think that if
19:23
Speaker 1: they had told him that right away, he might have
19:26
Speaker 1: given off a more shocked reaction. But no, I don't
19:29
Speaker 1: find that to be like compelling evidence that he was
19:31
Speaker 1: hiding information.
19:33
Speaker 3: Maybe they found it odd that he didn't then ask
19:36
Speaker 3: about if they found Meghan or if they'd been able
19:39
Speaker 3: to locate Meghan that he was just told that a
19:42
Speaker 3: male body had been found, but he didn't inquire further.
19:46
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, that might have been why. But like
19:49
Speaker 1: he said, though, he was exhausted from his three and
19:51
Speaker 1: a half hour drive, so maybe he just wasn't thinking
19:53
Speaker 1: clearly well. Months after the murders took place, it was
19:57
Speaker 1: discovered that Jonathan's thumb print was on the s beneath
20:00
Speaker 1: the teacup found on the twos' dining room table. Investigators
20:04
Speaker 1: started formulating a theory that on the day of the crime,
20:07
Speaker 1: Jonathan made the trip from Orpington to lo on Hari
20:10
Speaker 1: to visit the farm and was invited inside the house
20:12
Speaker 1: by Harry and Meghan. They may have been expecting Jonathan
20:16
Speaker 1: to ask for permission to marry their daughter, so to
20:18
Speaker 1: celebrate the occasion, the twses brought out their special china
20:22
Speaker 1: to serve Jonathan some tea, but shortly after he touched
20:25
Speaker 1: the saucer, Jonathan shot them both to death and concealed
20:28
Speaker 1: their bodies inside the cow shed. At the time, Cheryl
20:32
Speaker 1: was hoping to open her own market research firm, but
20:35
Speaker 1: she and Jonathan were often in arrears with the rent
20:37
Speaker 1: and he had less than one hundred pounds in his
20:40
Speaker 1: bank account, but since Cheryl stood to be the beneficiary
20:43
Speaker 1: of her parents one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, estate
20:47
Speaker 1: investigators suspected that Jonathan killed them so that she could
20:50
Speaker 1: inherit the money. Even though there was no other physical
20:53
Speaker 1: evidence linking Jonathan to the crime and the murder weapon
20:56
Speaker 1: cannot be found, The South Wales Police arrested Jonathan and
21:00
Speaker 1: charged with the murders in December of nineteen ninety three.
21:04
Speaker 2: On what grounds? On what grounds? When you look at this,
21:08
Speaker 2: you have Okay, there's this tea tea set and you
21:10
Speaker 2: told me that there is a fingerprint on the tea set.
21:13
Speaker 2: But again, Jonathan's been there before. It is a special
21:17
Speaker 2: occasion when your boyfriend comes over, and if this is
21:20
Speaker 2: someone they're expecting to be their future son in law,
21:22
Speaker 2: I would see mom making him tea from time to time,
21:25
Speaker 2: and yes she would have cleaned the tea cups. But
21:27
Speaker 2: what if that saucer wasn't cleaned. Because saucers are fancy.
21:33
Speaker 2: You don't get anything on your saucer usually unless you
21:35
Speaker 2: set a spoon on them. A lot of times, if
21:37
Speaker 2: you put something underneath a cup or a bowl, you
21:40
Speaker 2: don't have to go wash it because nothing got on it.
21:43
Speaker 2: It's for aesthetics looks, it's for the fancy of it.
21:47
Speaker 2: And so who's to say that Jonathan hadn't been there
21:49
Speaker 2: three months earlier and had tea on that saucer and
21:54
Speaker 2: the tea cup had been washed, but the saucer didn't
21:56
Speaker 2: just go back in the china cabinet.
21:58
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well, because apparently they only
22:00
Speaker 1: brought this out on special occasions, so the saucer is
22:03
Speaker 1: not going to kneed frequent washes. So yes, it is
22:06
Speaker 1: plausible that a fingerprint still could be on there, even
22:09
Speaker 1: if Jonathan touched it weeks or months earlier.
22:12
Speaker 3: And even if, like Ash said, somebody did put a
22:14
Speaker 3: spoon on it, maybe they were stirring some cream into
22:17
Speaker 3: their tea or milk into their tea. You would probably
22:20
Speaker 3: just rinse that off because it's not like a cup
22:23
Speaker 3: where someone's mouth has met that cup. So you want
22:26
Speaker 3: to clean it properly so that you get off all
22:28
Speaker 3: the bacteria and nothing adheres to that cup and gets
22:32
Speaker 3: you sick later. But with a saucer, you're not licking
22:35
Speaker 3: the saucer and you're not going to be put in
22:38
Speaker 3: your mouth anywhere near it, so it doesn't need to
22:41
Speaker 3: be like really scrubbed. And even if you did scrub it,
22:44
Speaker 3: are you really going to scrub the underside well. By
22:48
Speaker 3: the time Jonathan's arrest took place, Cheryl had become pregnant
22:52
Speaker 3: with his child. She immediately disputed the idea that Jonathan
22:56
Speaker 3: killed Harry and Megan for the inheritance, where she had
22:59
Speaker 3: around seven thousand pounds in her savings account at the time,
23:02
Speaker 3: and they still could have borrowed money from her parents
23:05
Speaker 3: or Jonathan's parents if she needed to. In spite of this,
23:08
Speaker 3: Jonathan's trial would begin in Newport Crown Court in April
23:12
Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety five and last for twelve weeks. The
23:16
Speaker 3: only physical evidence which placed Jonathan at the murder scene
23:19
Speaker 3: was a thumb print on the saucer, but since Jonathan
23:23
Speaker 3: was a frequent visitor to the farmhouse, the defense argued
23:26
Speaker 3: that he could have left the thumb print there on
23:28
Speaker 3: a previous occasion prior to the crime. After Jonathan arrived
23:32
Speaker 3: at the farm and was informed that Harry's body had
23:34
Speaker 3: been found, the police allowed him to sit in the
23:37
Speaker 3: dining room alone for an extended period of time, while
23:40
Speaker 3: the teacup and saucer were still on the table. It
23:43
Speaker 3: was possible that Jonathan could have touched the saucer during
23:46
Speaker 3: this time period and left his thumb print, but he
23:49
Speaker 3: said that he was unable to recall touching anything with
23:52
Speaker 3: one hundred percent certainty. The prosecution believed that Jonathan was
23:56
Speaker 3: responsible for the burglary in which Harry's shotgun was totole,
24:00
Speaker 3: and he proceeded to hold on to it for nearly
24:02
Speaker 3: a year before he used the shotgun as the murder
24:06
Speaker 3: weapon and disposed of it. However, the calculated nature of
24:09
Speaker 3: the murders suggested that whoever shot the twoses was an
24:13
Speaker 3: experienced gunman who was very skilled with handling firearms. According
24:18
Speaker 3: to Jonathan's family, the only time he'd ever handled a
24:21
Speaker 3: gun in his life was when he attended a naval
24:23
Speaker 3: base during his teen years.
24:26
Speaker 2: Okay, there's tons of problems with this. Think about this
24:29
Speaker 2: as a young couple. Okay, you are newly pregnant. Surely
24:35
Speaker 2: her hubby or her boyfriend knows that, right, So Cheryl's
24:38
Speaker 2: newly pregnant. Your parents are incredibly loving, you're very close
24:43
Speaker 2: to them, and you step back and you think, let's
24:46
Speaker 2: see we're about to have a new baby, which is
24:49
Speaker 2: no joke, and we're really close to my parents. The
24:53
Speaker 2: best thing we could do right now is kill them
24:55
Speaker 2: for about what is equivalent to two hundred thousand dollars. Okay,
25:00
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and murder them, take away resources that
25:04
Speaker 2: they could provide for us, support they could give to
25:07
Speaker 2: our future child and to us as new parents. Let's
25:11
Speaker 2: not get their blessing for our marriage, right. Let's completely
25:14
Speaker 2: annihilate these people who are incredibly important to us and
25:17
Speaker 2: get rid of them at the most critical difficult time
25:19
Speaker 2: of our life, which is when we're about to welcome
25:21
Speaker 2: a new child into the world, so that I can
25:23
Speaker 2: start my own business. It just doesn't make sense. It
25:26
Speaker 2: benefits them more to have the mom and dad alive
25:31
Speaker 2: so that they can have continual access to resources when
25:34
Speaker 2: they need it. I guarantee you she could have talked
25:36
Speaker 2: to her parents and said, like, is there any way
25:38
Speaker 2: you could help us a little bit me start this business.
25:41
Speaker 2: I'll pay you back. You can be an investor in
25:43
Speaker 2: my new business. Surely you want to help me with
25:45
Speaker 2: your grand baby, right So, I just don't see where
25:49
Speaker 2: in either of their minds it would benefit that young
25:52
Speaker 2: couple to say, let's take out the two most stable
25:55
Speaker 2: people in our relationship when we're expecting a new baby.
25:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, recurring team we will find in a lot of
26:01
Speaker 1: cases in which people murder their parents is that often
26:03
Speaker 1: the children are very irresponsible, like they have financial problems
26:07
Speaker 1: or drug problems, and they're constantly trying to get money
26:10
Speaker 1: from their parents, and things reach the point where it
26:12
Speaker 1: feels like the parents are going to cut them off completely.
26:15
Speaker 1: So that's when things escalated into murder. But by all accounts,
26:18
Speaker 1: it sounds like Harry and Megan had a wonderful relationship
26:21
Speaker 1: with Cheryl a wonderful relationship with Jonathan, and Jonathan practically
26:25
Speaker 1: considered them to be his second family, so there was
26:28
Speaker 1: nothing in their profile to suggest that they would want
26:30
Speaker 1: to commit a murder just for some money. So the
26:33
Speaker 1: prosecution alleged that Jonathan either drove to the Tusay's farm
26:36
Speaker 1: to commit the murders or traveled to the area by
26:38
Speaker 1: train and got off at nearby Ponty Clin Railway station,
26:42
Speaker 1: but no paper trail could be found to confirm this,
26:45
Speaker 1: and even though Jonathan was a very distinct looking individual
26:48
Speaker 1: at six feet five inches tall, no eyewitnesses recalled seeing
26:52
Speaker 1: him in or near lan Harry that day well. Jonathan
26:56
Speaker 1: maintained that he was in Orpington the entire day. The
26:59
Speaker 1: prosecut fusion attempted to poke holes in his alibi and
27:02
Speaker 1: believed that he would have had enough time to make
27:04
Speaker 1: the nearly four hundred mile round trip to Lonhari and back.
27:09
Speaker 1: Jonathan claimed that he spent the morning looking for rental
27:11
Speaker 1: offices which could potentially be used to set up the
27:14
Speaker 1: market research firm which Cheryl was hoping to start. Investigators
27:18
Speaker 1: were unable to find any real estate agents who could
27:21
Speaker 1: confirm this, but Jonathan maintained that he never spoke to
27:24
Speaker 1: any agents that day because he had already consulted with
27:27
Speaker 1: some of them in the past. Jonathan claimed that he
27:30
Speaker 1: returned to his flat at around noon and cleaned up
27:33
Speaker 1: a little bit before he went out for a walk alone.
27:36
Speaker 1: He then returned to the flat a second time at
27:38
Speaker 1: approximately one thirty PM and encountered three lift engineers who
27:43
Speaker 1: were performing some repairs in the building's basement. Jonathan claimed
27:47
Speaker 1: that he briefly spoke to these lift engineers, but when
27:50
Speaker 1: they were called upon to testify his witnesses, none of
27:53
Speaker 1: them could recall this conversation. Afterward, Jonathan said that he
27:58
Speaker 1: watched the game of cricket on television until around three
28:00
Speaker 1: pm before he left the flat again to run some
28:03
Speaker 1: more errands. Cheryl had spent the day at work and
28:06
Speaker 1: cannot confirm Jonathan's whereabouts, but she said that when she
28:10
Speaker 1: returned to the flat during the early evening hours, it
28:12
Speaker 1: looked like it had been recently tied up. Just like
28:15
Speaker 1: Jonathan said, this is.
28:17
Speaker 2: The worst when you're forced to prove your innocence instead
28:21
Speaker 2: of someone having to, you know, prove you guilty. How
28:25
Speaker 2: do you do that? How many of us have had
28:27
Speaker 2: a Monday, you know, kind of a mundane kind of
28:29
Speaker 2: afternoon and said, I'll tell you what happened. Not much.
28:33
Speaker 2: I got up, I you know, did a couple of
28:35
Speaker 2: things around the house. I went on a walk, I
28:38
Speaker 2: cleaned up. That's about it. Spoke to a couple guys outside.
28:42
Speaker 2: You know, there's nothing significant going on. It's how do
28:46
Speaker 2: you prove anything other than that? Like Cheryl said, I
28:48
Speaker 2: wasn't here, but it did look like the flat had
28:51
Speaker 2: been cleaned up. But poor Jonathan, there's no one there
28:55
Speaker 2: to validate and confirm his alibi. But there's also nobody
29:01
Speaker 2: who can say, wait, we saw this kind of guy
29:03
Speaker 2: that takes a lot of time, money investment to get
29:07
Speaker 2: in a car or a train and go on a
29:10
Speaker 2: four hundred mile round trip and kill someone and get
29:13
Speaker 2: home and pretend like nothing happened and make the trip
29:16
Speaker 2: right back to go and find their you know, find
29:19
Speaker 2: out that they've been killed. So to me, it makes
29:22
Speaker 2: more sense to have to trust in Jonathan's story than
29:26
Speaker 2: to just assume that he made this really extravagant trip.
29:31
Speaker 2: But underneath Cheryl's nose without her knowing, do.
29:34
Speaker 3: We know how long after this happened that the lift
29:38
Speaker 3: operators were questioned, Because we know Jonathan is six foot
29:41
Speaker 3: five and very distinct looking, so you'd think that they
29:44
Speaker 3: would remember having a conversation with him if they were
29:48
Speaker 3: questioned immediately after. But if it was months later, it's
29:52
Speaker 3: pretty difficult to remember something like that.
29:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know the exact time that the lift
29:56
Speaker 1: engineers were questioned because the murder took place in July
30:00
Speaker 1: ninety three, Jonathan was arrested in December, and this trial
30:03
Speaker 1: took place in April of nineteen ninety five, which is
30:06
Speaker 1: nearly two years after the fact. So under those circumstances.
30:09
Speaker 1: I can't blame the lift engineers for not being able
30:11
Speaker 1: to remember it, because in their minds, it just would
30:14
Speaker 1: have been nothing more than a routine, ordinary day, and
30:17
Speaker 1: their conversation with Jonathan wouldn't have been particularly memorable. And like,
30:21
Speaker 1: I can't verify if they were questioned shortly after the
30:24
Speaker 1: murders took place, but if they were not questioned until
30:27
Speaker 1: after Jonathan was arrested, which would have been like four
30:30
Speaker 1: or five months after the fact, then I can totally
30:32
Speaker 1: understand why they wouldn't have any recollection of this.
30:35
Speaker 3: Can you imagine is somebody questioning you even four or
30:38
Speaker 3: five weeks after the fact. Imagine like you work in
30:41
Speaker 3: a mall or something and you're having random conversations with people.
30:45
Speaker 3: You're not going to remember those unless there's something about
30:47
Speaker 3: that individual that really stood out in your head, Like
30:50
Speaker 3: if Jonathan was like a really attractive woman or something
30:53
Speaker 3: like that and they were all like, ooh, maybe then
30:56
Speaker 3: they would remember. But just having a casual conversation with
30:59
Speaker 3: a guy while you're doing your job, I just don't
31:02
Speaker 3: see there being a very strong likelihood of them being
31:04
Speaker 3: able to recall that. And, like Ashley said, just because
31:08
Speaker 3: you can't prove. It doesn't mean that you don't have
31:10
Speaker 3: an alibi. It's just it really would be so unfortunate
31:15
Speaker 3: to be accused of a crime and to have spent
31:17
Speaker 3: the whole day by yourself and to not really have
31:20
Speaker 3: a paper trail. I mean, nowadays, if you're out and
31:23
Speaker 3: about doing things, you're going to have a bunch of
31:26
Speaker 3: different charges. You'll be able to show, oh, look I
31:28
Speaker 3: was here, and you can look at phone tracking. But
31:31
Speaker 3: back in nineteen ninety three, they just didn't have those advantages.
31:36
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like if this took place today in London,
31:38
Speaker 1: there would be CCTV cameras everywhere, so I'm sure if
31:41
Speaker 1: Jonathan was out walking and running errands, he probably would
31:44
Speaker 1: have popped up on one of those cameras and it
31:47
Speaker 1: would have proved his alibi. But I think the problematic
31:50
Speaker 1: thing here is that, yes, Jonathan had a hard time
31:52
Speaker 1: proving his alibi, but the police didn't exactly prove that
31:55
Speaker 1: he was in Lanhari either, because they could not find
31:58
Speaker 1: any like gas station records or train records or anything
32:02
Speaker 1: to prove that he had taken this long trip. And
32:05
Speaker 1: I think that's more problematic is that they could prove
32:08
Speaker 1: that he was in law and Harry that day. The
32:09
Speaker 1: only evidence they had was the thumb print on the saucer.
32:13
Speaker 3: Well, the case would go to the jury, but unlike
32:16
Speaker 3: North America, a verdict in the trial in the United
32:19
Speaker 3: Kingdom does not necessarily have to be unanimous. Their legal
32:24
Speaker 3: system stipulates that if a unanimous verdict is not possible,
32:28
Speaker 3: a majority of ten to two is considered to be
32:31
Speaker 3: acceptable for a conviction, and that's exactly what happened here.
32:35
Speaker 3: After two days of deliberation, the jury found Jonathan guilty
32:38
Speaker 3: of the murders by a ten to two majority, and
32:41
Speaker 3: he would receive two life sentences. In spite of this,
32:45
Speaker 3: Cheryl never believed that her spouse was responsible for killing
32:48
Speaker 3: her parents. Even though Jonathan had phoned Cheryl from prison
32:52
Speaker 3: and advised her to get on with her life, she
32:54
Speaker 3: refused to do so and continued to stand by him.
32:58
Speaker 3: She insisted that Jonathan was a kind man who had
33:01
Speaker 3: a great relationship with her parents, and he pretty much
33:04
Speaker 3: considered Harry to be like a second father to him.
33:07
Speaker 3: Cheryl would spend the next year campaigning for Jonathan's release,
33:11
Speaker 3: even going so far as to offer a twenty five
33:13
Speaker 3: thousand pounds reward for information leading to the apprehension of
33:17
Speaker 3: the real killer. Cheryl's actions alienated many members of her
33:22
Speaker 3: extended family, particularly her paternal uncle and aunt, David and
33:26
Speaker 3: Cynthia twos, who believed Jonathan was guilty and started accusing
33:31
Speaker 3: Cheryl of being complicit in the killings.
33:34
Speaker 2: That is so sad and so hurtful for all members
33:38
Speaker 2: of the family. Right when you're being told one thing
33:41
Speaker 2: by police and investigators, and you have someone who's on trial,
33:44
Speaker 2: someone who's found guilty by ten individuals. I can totally
33:48
Speaker 2: understand why the family says they have the killer right.
33:51
Speaker 2: They're trusting that justice comes from the legal system, and
33:55
Speaker 2: I can understand their frustration with his girlfriend saying I'm
33:59
Speaker 2: going to stand by you and kind of turn my
34:02
Speaker 2: back against my parents and support the killer of these
34:06
Speaker 2: two individuals. The reality is Cheryl saying, you don't know
34:11
Speaker 2: him like I know him. You don't understand the relationship
34:14
Speaker 2: and dynamic he had with my parents, You don't understand
34:16
Speaker 2: what our plans were as a family. There is no
34:19
Speaker 2: way that he hurt my parents, And for her to