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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Carol Morgan · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
0:55
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
0:58
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:03
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:29
Speaker 2: It was around seven pm on August thirteenth, nineteen eighty one,
1:33
Speaker 2: and thirty six year old Carol Morgan was working the
1:36
Speaker 2: till at her corner shop at sixteen Finch Crescent in
1:40
Speaker 2: a town called Leyton Buzzard in the County of Bedfordshire, England.
1:45
Speaker 3: This was a close knit community.
1:47
Speaker 2: Carol owned and ran the shop with her husband, thirty
1:50
Speaker 2: one year old Alan Morgan, and everybody knew them. Everyone
1:55
Speaker 2: in town knew and loved Carol, who was described by
1:57
Speaker 2: friends and family as warm, caring, genuine and friendly. Carol
2:02
Speaker 2: loved the shop and the other lights of her life
2:05
Speaker 2: were her two children from a previous marriage, fourteen year
2:08
Speaker 2: old Dean and twelve year old Jane. On that night,
2:11
Speaker 2: Carol was working at the shop alone. She was getting
2:14
Speaker 2: ready for closing, which was at six pm. Her husband, Allan,
2:18
Speaker 2: was at the movie theater in Lwton with his two
2:20
Speaker 2: step children, Dean and Jane, but at some point someone
2:24
Speaker 2: surprised Carol. Alan and the children got home at around
2:28
Speaker 2: ten ten pm. Shortly after arriving at the house, Carroll's husband,
2:33
Speaker 2: Alan raced to a neighbor's house and asked him to
2:36
Speaker 2: come to the shop. The neighbor followed Alan into the
2:39
Speaker 2: storeroom and saw Carol in a pool of blood. Her
2:43
Speaker 2: body was found in the storeroom of the store. Forensic
2:47
Speaker 2: testing revealed that Carol had been brutally beaten and stabbed
2:51
Speaker 2: with a weapon, something like an axe or a machete,
2:54
Speaker 2: something heavy but very sharp. She had been hit so
2:58
Speaker 2: hard that pieces of her skull and brain matter were
3:02
Speaker 2: on the floor. The police had no way of knowing
3:05
Speaker 2: it back in nineteen eighty one, but this police investigation
3:08
Speaker 2: would last forty three years and take a lot of
3:12
Speaker 2: strange twists and turns, and in the end there was justice,
3:17
Speaker 2: but it's questionable whether full justice will ever be served.
3:22
Speaker 2: Who came into the store that night and hacked Carol
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Speaker 2: Morgan to death. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven
3:31
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone, I've
3:34
Speaker 2: learned that there is no such thing as a small
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Speaker 2: town where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages
3:40
Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
3:43
Speaker 2: a unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
3:48
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
3:49
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
3:52
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
3:55
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
3:58
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five, or you
4:02
Speaker 2: can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
4:06
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After police got to
4:53
Speaker 2: the scene, they found evidence that some money four hundred
4:56
Speaker 2: and thirty five pounds to be exact, had been stolen,
4:59
Speaker 2: along with fourteen hundred cigarettes, but police did not have
5:04
Speaker 2: a ton of information to go on. The attack had
5:07
Speaker 2: been extremely brutal and horrific and there were some signs
5:11
Speaker 2: of defensive wounds on Carol's hands, so it seemed like
5:14
Speaker 2: whatever happened had taken her completely by surprise and that
5:18
Speaker 2: she had fought for her life. The UK channel ITV
5:23
Speaker 2: made a documentary about the case called The Real Unforgotten.
5:27
Speaker 2: This documentary followed the decades long investigation into Carroll's murder.
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Speaker 2: I highly recommend checking it out because it really is
5:35
Speaker 2: an excellent analysis of what the police did and the
5:39
Speaker 2: excellent detective work that was done years later. In the documentary,
5:44
Speaker 2: they explained that the police back in nineteen eighty one
5:47
Speaker 2: believed that the motive for the killing had been robbery,
5:50
Speaker 2: and they focused on that theory pretty much exclusively. On
5:55
Speaker 2: the ITV program, they showed images of diagrams of Carol's injuries.
5:59
Speaker 2: She had been beaten to death and she had huge
6:02
Speaker 2: cuts on her head. Whoever beat her beat her so
6:06
Speaker 2: badly that her skull was cracked. So police theorized the
6:09
Speaker 2: weapon had been something like an axe or a machete,
6:12
Speaker 2: but they never found the murder weapon. They did have
6:15
Speaker 2: one early lead. There was a man driving a green
6:19
Speaker 2: car who had been spotted at a payphone box near
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Speaker 2: the shop shortly after seven pm. On the ITV documentary,
6:26
Speaker 2: they stated when police started canvassing the area, they found
6:30
Speaker 2: witnesses who saw this man at the phone box. One
6:33
Speaker 2: of the witnesses worked with a police sketch artist. They
6:36
Speaker 2: made a poster and they put them out everywhere. In
6:40
Speaker 2: the documentary, they showed old footage of Brian Picket, the
6:44
Speaker 2: senior investigating officer from nineteen eighty one. He was talking
6:47
Speaker 2: about this stranger. He said the man was seen driving
6:50
Speaker 2: away from the corner shop and was described as being
6:53
Speaker 2: aged between seventeen and twenty one years old, around five
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Speaker 2: foot seven to five foot eight inches tall, with a
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Speaker 2: slim belld brown mousey hair and piggish style nostrils. Brian
7:05
Speaker 2: Pickett stated that the witness saw this man holding white
7:08
Speaker 2: plastic bags to his chest, bags that police believed at
7:12
Speaker 2: the time were used to carry the stolen money and
7:14
Speaker 2: cigarettes from the corner shop. So police believed the killer
7:18
Speaker 2: had come in to rob the store and that Carol
7:20
Speaker 2: was basically just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
7:24
Speaker 2: Police focused their investigation almost solely on that stranger at
7:28
Speaker 2: the phone box and the green car he was driving,
7:31
Speaker 2: but they never found the man and they never found
7:33
Speaker 2: the car. After that, the investigation seemed to hit a
7:37
Speaker 2: dead end. This case terrified the local community because the
7:42
Speaker 2: thought that someone could go in and murder someone with
7:45
Speaker 2: an axe over such a small amount of money and
7:47
Speaker 2: a few cigarettes was truly scary.
7:50
Speaker 3: But there were also some local rumors spreading.
7:53
Speaker 2: Witnesses spoke to police to voice their suspicions about someone
7:56
Speaker 2: much closer to home, Carol's husband, Alan Morgan. So what
8:02
Speaker 2: was going on in Carol and Allen's marriage and why
8:05
Speaker 2: would he have any.
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Speaker 3: Reason to hurt her?
8:08
Speaker 2: Carol Morgan was born on December twenty sixth, nineteen forty four.
8:12
Speaker 2: She grew up in Highbury, North London. Carol was married
8:16
Speaker 2: before Alan.
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Speaker 3: She met her.
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Speaker 2: Husband when he was sixteen, she was a year older.
8:21
Speaker 2: Her husband later testified that they met while he was
8:23
Speaker 2: on vacation with a friend. Carol and Richard, her first husband,
8:27
Speaker 2: were both from London. He was from Wimbledon in West London.
8:31
Speaker 2: She was from North London, so the relationship continued after
8:35
Speaker 2: that holiday ended. They got married in nineteen sixty five
8:38
Speaker 2: and they settled down together in Swindon. They had two children,
8:41
Speaker 2: Jane and Ian, but like a lot of couples, they
8:44
Speaker 2: drifted apart and started having problems in their relationship. Richard
8:49
Speaker 2: later testified in court that he met someone else and
8:52
Speaker 2: that that was kind of the final straw for their marriage.
8:55
Speaker 2: He testified he left Carol to be with this other person,
8:59
Speaker 2: but after the split, he said he and Carol remained close.
9:04
Speaker 2: He said, quote, Carol was upset I was leaving, but
9:07
Speaker 2: there was no animosity end quote. In nineteen seventy eight,
9:11
Speaker 2: Carol was trying to meet new people. She went to
9:14
Speaker 2: a singles group called the Gingerbread Group, and that's where
9:17
Speaker 2: she met Allan. Allan was also divorced and had two
9:20
Speaker 2: children from a previous marriage, but those children lived with
9:23
Speaker 2: his ex partner. Shortly after meeting and falling in love,
9:27
Speaker 2: Carol and Allan made plans to buy and run this
9:30
Speaker 2: corner shop together. Carol financed the shop. They were able
9:34
Speaker 2: to buy it because Carol had sold her house in
9:36
Speaker 2: her divorce, so they used the share of the house
9:39
Speaker 2: money to invest in the shop. Carol and Allan got
9:43
Speaker 2: me married in nineteen seventy nine. It's interesting because you
9:47
Speaker 2: never know what's going on behind closed doors in these relationships.
9:52
Speaker 2: But years later, some members of Carroll's family, including her
9:55
Speaker 2: sister and her niece, talked to the ITV program about
9:58
Speaker 2: how these horrific events had changed their family forever. They
10:03
Speaker 2: said that after Carol met Allan, she went from being
10:06
Speaker 2: this outgoing and loving person to being pretty much completely isolated.
10:11
Speaker 2: Her niece told ITV she believed that Alan was trying
10:14
Speaker 2: to control Carol and manipulate her, but at the time
10:18
Speaker 2: they had no idea how bad things were getting at
10:21
Speaker 2: home behind closed doors. Local gossips said there might have
10:24
Speaker 2: been another reason why Alan wanted Carol out of the way,
10:28
Speaker 2: because Alan was having an affair with a woman named
10:31
Speaker 2: Margaret Spooner, who was also married, But when it came
10:35
Speaker 2: to Carroll's murder, Alan had this apparently airtight albi. The
10:40
Speaker 2: night of the murder, he was at the movies with
10:42
Speaker 2: his two step children. Carol's sun Dean told police that
10:46
Speaker 2: on the day of the murder that Alan came home
10:49
Speaker 2: shortly after lunch and told them they were going to
10:51
Speaker 2: the movies that night, so he, Jane, and Allan ended
10:55
Speaker 2: up driving to the town of Lowton to see a
10:56
Speaker 2: double feature. Jane told police that they got to the
11:00
Speaker 2: theater got their tickets at six twenty five pm and
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Speaker 2: that they saw Sinbad, the Eye of the Tiger and
11:05
Speaker 2: Super Snooper and came out at ten ten pm. Police
11:11
Speaker 2: were trying to figure out what happened while Carol was
11:14
Speaker 2: working alone that night.
11:15
Speaker 3: They knew that the shop closed at six.
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Speaker 2: Pm, but apparently some potential customers, according to the ITV show,
11:22
Speaker 2: tried the doors at five pin fifty five pm and
11:24
Speaker 2: couldn't open them, so it seems as though Carol might
11:27
Speaker 2: have shut the shop a little bit early. The detectives
11:31
Speaker 2: went back and re examined everything they thought they knew
11:34
Speaker 2: about this case. First of all, they needed to look
11:37
Speaker 2: into the man with the white bags, the one who
11:40
Speaker 2: was seen near the phone box. They went back through
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Speaker 2: old witness days and found that a witness saw the
11:45
Speaker 2: man drop the bags, pick up some coins, get into
11:48
Speaker 2: the car and drive away. Then there were two more
11:51
Speaker 2: witnesses at around seven ten pm, two women who were
11:54
Speaker 2: walking to Bingo saw that man in the green car.
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Speaker 2: Presumably that would mean that if that man was the killer,
12:02
Speaker 2: the man murdered Carol and what they saw was him
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Speaker 2: driving away.
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Speaker 3: From the scene.
12:06
Speaker 2: But there were some other witnesses who had conflicting information.
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Speaker 2: There were witnesses who said they saw Carol. Later after closing,
12:14
Speaker 2: two kids who knew Carol well were sitting on a
12:17
Speaker 2: wall talking They saw Carol walking back toward the shop
12:21
Speaker 2: with her dog. They said this happened between eight thirty
12:24
Speaker 2: and nine pm. So the officer interviewed in the ITV
12:28
Speaker 2: documentary pointed out if Carol was alive between eight thirty
12:32
Speaker 2: and nine pm, that appeared to point to the man
12:35
Speaker 2: in the green car not being the killer. In twenty eighteen,
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Speaker 2: Detective Superintendent Carl Foster was put in charge of the
12:46
Speaker 2: cold case. Based on what he saw in that case file,
12:49
Speaker 2: he decided to reopen the investigation.
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Speaker 3: He was convinced that.
12:53
Speaker 2: Even if Allen had an alibi and had been elsewhere,
12:56
Speaker 2: the evidence suggested that he may have been behind the killing.
13:01
Speaker 2: The Major Crime Unit reopened the investigation into Carol's murder
13:04
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, but they had a lot of problems.
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Speaker 2: For one thing, as we see in so many of
13:10
Speaker 2: our cases, mistakes were made, a lot of evidence was
13:14
Speaker 2: destroyed and there was no way to get it back.
13:19
Speaker 2: Police had very little to go on except for witness
13:22
Speaker 2: statements and some very old photos of the crime scene.
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Speaker 2: One of the reasons why I wanted to cover this
13:28
Speaker 2: case in particular is because I was so inspired by the.
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Speaker 3: Work that these cold case detectives did. How they took
13:34
Speaker 3: a case like.
13:35
Speaker 2: So many of the ones that we see every day,
13:37
Speaker 2: where evidence was destroyed, and yet they managed to turn
13:41
Speaker 2: things around. I wanted to see what we could all
13:44
Speaker 2: learn from this case. The detectives taking over in twenty
13:48
Speaker 2: nineteen did not believe that robbery was the motive. One
13:52
Speaker 2: of the reasons they said they believed that was because
13:55
Speaker 2: of the brutal way that Carroll was killed. Police referred
13:58
Speaker 2: to that beating as overkill. They believe this was personal,
14:02
Speaker 2: not random. There were some other oddities. Most of the
14:06
Speaker 2: money that had been stolen was stolen from a desk
14:09
Speaker 2: drawer in the shop. This drawer had what Alan described
14:12
Speaker 2: to police as a secret mechanism.
14:15
Speaker 3: It was like a trick drawer.
14:16
Speaker 2: You had to move another drawer into position to get
14:19
Speaker 2: it to work. Alan told the police it was like
14:21
Speaker 2: a Chinese puzzle. He said, only he and maybe Carol
14:25
Speaker 2: knew how that drawer worked. So how would a robber
14:28
Speaker 2: have known how to open that drawer or to force
14:31
Speaker 2: Carol to open it? How would the robber have even
14:33
Speaker 2: known where the drawer was at all. Much later in court,
14:38
Speaker 2: a prosecutor would state that the killer had inside information
14:41
Speaker 2: before the killer came into the shop. And one of
14:45
Speaker 2: the detectives in the ITV documentary noticed something else from
14:48
Speaker 2: the photos, a flash of gold. Carol was wearing her
14:52
Speaker 2: wedding ring, So the detective wondered, if robbery was really
14:55
Speaker 2: the only motive, why was her wedding ring not pulled
14:59
Speaker 2: off and stolen.
15:00
Speaker 3: Police began to lean more.
15:02
Speaker 2: And more into the theory this had not been a robbery,
15:05
Speaker 2: this had been a staged robbery, and that the real
15:07
Speaker 2: primary motive here was to kill Carol. The police had
15:12
Speaker 2: a massive number of witness statements to go through, thousands
15:15
Speaker 2: of pages, but as one of the investigators pointed out,
15:19
Speaker 2: they had to go back to the beginning and reread everything.
15:23
Speaker 2: One of the first people they talked to was Allan's neighbor.
15:26
Speaker 2: He was the first person who Allan told about finding
15:29
Speaker 2: Carroll's body, the one who first saw Carroll's body along
15:33
Speaker 2: with Alan. The neighbor told police that Alan ran across
15:37
Speaker 2: the street to his place and asked him to use
15:39
Speaker 2: the phone. He said Alan seemed to be in shock
15:42
Speaker 2: that he heard Allan tell police his address and explained
15:45
Speaker 2: that his wife was in a pool of blood. The
15:48
Speaker 2: neighbor went with Alan back to the shop and down
15:50
Speaker 2: to the stock room and found Carroll there. He said
15:54
Speaker 2: blood was spattered everywhere and it was immediately obvious that
15:57
Speaker 2: she was dead. The neighbor said he ran out of
16:00
Speaker 2: there and that Alan followed him. He said Alan was crying,
16:04
Speaker 2: but that as the neighbor tried to comfort him, the
16:06
Speaker 2: neighbor told police.
16:08
Speaker 3: He noticed Alan seemed very composed.
16:12
Speaker 2: Now, the detectives in the ITV series point out this
16:14
Speaker 2: could have been a natural reaction.
16:16
Speaker 3: People process things in different.
16:18
Speaker 2: Ways, but the detective did ask why did Alan walk
16:22
Speaker 2: across the street to use someone else's phone instead of
16:25
Speaker 2: just calling from the store. This officer stated it made
16:29
Speaker 2: him believe Alan had a reason for doing that, something
16:32
Speaker 2: that indicated maybe he didn't want to be the one
16:35
Speaker 2: to discover that body alone. Another piece of evidence that
16:39
Speaker 2: detectives had was the post mortem report that was made
16:42
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one. So they took that report and
16:45
Speaker 2: went to outside experts, including a forensic pathologist. The pathologist
16:50
Speaker 2: said Carol was killed by multiple blunt forest blows by
16:53
Speaker 2: a very heavy object that was also sharp, heavy enough
16:57
Speaker 2: to shatter the skull, but also sharp enough to slice.
17:01
Speaker 2: The pathologist agreed with the investigator's theory that the wounds
17:04
Speaker 2: were indicative of overkill, that the intention was to kill Carol.
17:09
Speaker 2: This was a hit and Carol was the target. The
17:12
Speaker 2: pathologist also said something else. There were stab wounds on
17:16
Speaker 2: Carol's midsection that made them believe one of two things happened.
17:20
Speaker 2: Either there was more than one killer, or maybe the
17:24
Speaker 2: killer changed weapons midway through the attack. The pathologist also
17:30
Speaker 2: stated that Carol had wounds on her face, wounds that
17:33
Speaker 2: the pathologists said happened after the initial attack, either around
17:37
Speaker 2: the time of death or after the time of death.
17:39
Speaker 2: They described these as disrespect to the individual and mutilation injuries.
17:45
Speaker 2: So police used that information to move more and more
17:48
Speaker 2: away from the original theory. This was personal, it was
17:52
Speaker 2: all about Carol, and the crime scene was staged. But
17:55
Speaker 2: who would have wanted to hurt Carol because everyone in
17:58
Speaker 2: the community seemed to love Carol. When police went back
18:02
Speaker 2: through the witness statements, they found that a lot of
18:05
Speaker 2: people were talking about Alan, and specifically Alan's behavior before.
18:10
Speaker 3: And after the murder.
18:15
Speaker 2: A few weeks after Carroll's death, Alan sold the shot.
18:18
Speaker 2: He took his step kids and moved away from the area,
18:22
Speaker 2: but he also made several comments to reporters. He told
18:26
Speaker 2: them he was being accused of killing Carroll, that people
18:29
Speaker 2: believed he had killed his wife, but he said it
18:32
Speaker 2: couldn't have been him because he was in Luton at
18:34
Speaker 2: the movies. When the reporter asked Alan why he thought
18:38
Speaker 2: people believed that, Alan said, in his opinion, it could
18:41
Speaker 2: be because he was, in his words, happy go lucky
18:44
Speaker 2: and a womanizer. And when Alan left town, he didn't
18:49
Speaker 2: just take his stepchildren. Margaret, his lover, also went with him.
19:01
Speaker 2: Police knew about Margaret and the affair back in nineteen
19:04
Speaker 2: eighty one, a few months after Carol's murder, Margaret's husband,
19:07
Speaker 2: Neil Spooner, called police.
19:09
Speaker 3: He said that his wife.
19:10
Speaker 2: Had confessed to him that she had been having an affair,
19:13
Speaker 2: and she said she had been having an affair with
19:15
Speaker 2: Alan Morgan. Police confirmed this with other witnesses, including a
19:19
Speaker 2: friend of Margaret's named Sheila Forest. Sheila told police she
19:23
Speaker 2: was on a barge trip with Margaret. She said Margaret
19:26
Speaker 2: kept sneaking away to meet Alan. Sheila said Margaret and
19:30
Speaker 2: Alan were seeing each other every day at the time
19:32
Speaker 2: of the murder.
19:34
Speaker 3: She said.
19:34
Speaker 2: Right after the murder, she saw Alan and Margaret together.
19:38
Speaker 2: She said they were holding hands and Alan made the
19:41
Speaker 2: comment it won't be long now, Darling, which Sheila said
19:44
Speaker 2: made her feel sick. Police said in the ITV documentary
19:50
Speaker 2: that they had evidence that Margaret and Alan were in
19:52
Speaker 2: bed together the morning after the murder, and then just
19:56
Speaker 2: a few weeks later, Margaret had left her husband she
19:59
Speaker 2: moved in with Alan and his children. Now, obviously this
20:03
Speaker 2: is all circumstantial, but it had police in nineteen eighty
20:06
Speaker 2: one and in twenty nineteen wondering how much.
20:10
Speaker 3: Did Margaret Spooner know and when did she know it.
20:16
Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen, police went back to interview people in
20:19
Speaker 2: the community, and even though it had been over forty years,
20:22
Speaker 2: a lot of people who lived in this area had
20:25
Speaker 2: heard about this case. The murder had been so brutal
20:28
Speaker 2: people still talked about it. Forty years later. Carl Foster,
20:33
Speaker 2: the senior investigating officer, did something else that was interesting.
20:37
Speaker 2: He went back and looked at all of the media
20:39
Speaker 2: reports from that time and kind of used Allan's own
20:42
Speaker 2: words against him. Police looked back at these interviews that
20:46
Speaker 2: Alan gave to media, and they saw how he contradicted himself.
20:49
Speaker 2: For example, when he went to Malta with Margaret and
20:52
Speaker 2: was asked about going away with his lovers so soon
20:54
Speaker 2: after his wife's death, he made comments saying my marriage
20:58
Speaker 2: was as good as over and that he couldn't go
21:00
Speaker 2: on mourning forever. A news channel asked Alan in nineteen
21:04
Speaker 2: eighty two how the murder had affected him, and he
21:07
Speaker 2: gave this very cold answer. He talked about how he
21:10
Speaker 2: had to shut down the shop for weeks so the
21:12
Speaker 2: police could do their investigation. He talked about how this
21:16
Speaker 2: had ruined his business, how he had to sell the
21:18
Speaker 2: shop at a loss. But he said nothing in that
21:20
Speaker 2: interview that I saw about any grief for Carol or
21:24
Speaker 2: the two children who she left behind. In fact, he
21:28
Speaker 2: said the kids are all right, but he said it
21:31
Speaker 2: would be better for the kids if he moved away.
21:34
Speaker 2: So Alan seemed to be blaming the police investigation for
21:38
Speaker 2: ruining the shop's business, But investigators found evidence that Alan
21:43
Speaker 2: and Carol's show was having problems before she was brutally murdered.
21:48
Speaker 2: Police in nineteen eighty one interviewed two accountants, who said
21:51
Speaker 2: the shop had been losing a lot of money and
21:54
Speaker 2: that actually, at the time of the murder, Allan and
21:56
Speaker 2: Carol were trying to sell the shop. The accountant said
22:00
Speaker 2: when he talked to Carol about the losses, Carrol started
22:03
Speaker 2: crying and said that they were unhappy that they had
22:06
Speaker 2: had big dreams for that shop. Police found another contradiction
22:11
Speaker 2: because while Allan had given an interview to the Observer
22:14
Speaker 2: newspaper stating that quote my wife wasn't insured, I had
22:18
Speaker 2: nothing to gain end quote, police said that wasn't true
22:21
Speaker 2: because Alan had taken out a loan before the murder
22:25
Speaker 2: to help pay the shop's debt, and after Carroll's death
22:28
Speaker 2: that loan was paid off completely. Alan and Margaret disappeared.
22:35
Speaker 2: They moved away from the area and from the corner shop,
22:38
Speaker 2: and eventually Alan and Margaret got married. They actually ended
22:42
Speaker 2: up buying their own corner shop together in nineteen eighty two.
22:45
Speaker 2: Looking at the case again in twenty nineteen, police had
22:49
Speaker 2: a new theory. They had a lot of circumstantial evidence,
22:52
Speaker 2: but they still had zero physical evidence.
22:56
Speaker 3: But they didn't give up. They kept talking to outside experts.
22:59
Speaker 2: They made a bunch of new posters and handed them
23:02
Speaker 2: out all over town. And I found this part really
23:04
Speaker 2: interesting because the posters said did you know Carol? Which
23:10
Speaker 2: I think is a great way of bringing people out. Eventually,
23:17
Speaker 2: police said they were ready to bring Margaret and Allen
23:20
Speaker 2: in for questioning. They found them together, still married, now
23:24
Speaker 2: in their seventies. They were living in Brighton, and police
23:27
Speaker 2: took them in for interviews. Both of them completely denied
23:31
Speaker 2: any knowledge of or involvement in Carroll's murder. Margaret said
23:36
Speaker 2: she had been horrified when she.
23:37
Speaker 3: Heard about Carroll's death.
23:39
Speaker 2: She said after the murder, she didn't see Allen for
23:42
Speaker 2: several days. She said she out of town that week,
23:45
Speaker 2: but police knew that wasn't true because they had witnesses
23:48
Speaker 2: saying otherwise. Police went back and they kept knocking on doors.
23:53
Speaker 2: Eventually they figured out what they believed was the murder weapon.
23:58
Speaker 2: They had talked to several witnesses who said there was
24:00
Speaker 2: a machete in Alan's shop, and a machete in a
24:04
Speaker 2: corner shop is the kind of thing that you tend
24:06
Speaker 2: to notice. But Alan told police there wasn't a machete
24:10
Speaker 2: in there. He said he couldn't remember the type of
24:12
Speaker 2: weapon that.
24:12
Speaker 3: Was in there.
24:13
Speaker 2: So again police don't have anything concrete, but they do
24:16
Speaker 2: have this contradictory information between what Alan's telling them and
24:20
Speaker 2: what witnesses at the time were telling them. They also
24:24
Speaker 2: questioned Alan about some dodgy financial stuff in his background,
24:27
Speaker 2: including convictions for insurance fraud, but when police asked Alan
24:31
Speaker 2: about that, he denied any knowledge of those convictions. Police
24:36
Speaker 2: also spoke to witnesses who said that Alan had a
24:39
Speaker 2: violent temper. A friend of Carol's named Sheila, told police
24:43
Speaker 2: that at one point Carol told her she was pregnant
24:46
Speaker 2: with twins and that Alan punched her in the stomach
24:49
Speaker 2: and that later she lost her babies.
24:52
Speaker 3: The friends said Alan would.
24:53
Speaker 2: Regularly physically abuse Carroll, which again Alan completely denied. Police
25:00
Speaker 2: talked to Alan's daughter from his first marriage. She said
25:03
Speaker 2: her dad would sometimes tie her to a chair when
25:05
Speaker 2: she did something wrong. She said sometimes he would hit
25:09
Speaker 2: her with a belt. She said she was terrified of
25:11
Speaker 2: her father. Still, police did not have enough to charge
25:17
Speaker 2: Alan and Margaret, so Alan and Margaret were released from
25:21
Speaker 2: police custody. This investigation dragged on for a long time,
25:30
Speaker 2: six years total, and finally the public appeals the police
25:35
Speaker 2: were making seemed to pay off because in twenty twenty,
25:38
Speaker 2: new witnesses came forward, people who had never talked to
25:42
Speaker 2: law enforcement in the past. One was a guy named
25:45
Speaker 2: Michael Marrin. Michael was eighteen years old at the time
25:48
Speaker 2: of Carroll's murder. He said he knew Alan from the shop.
25:51
Speaker 2: He also knew Alan's car. On August thirteenth, the night
25:55
Speaker 2: of Carroll's murder, he said he was driving home from
25:58
Speaker 2: the train station with his mom when he saw Alan
26:01
Speaker 2: in his car driving in the opposite direction. He said
26:04
Speaker 2: Alan passed him on the road and that this was
26:06
Speaker 2: at around six forty five pm. Police said they couldn't
26:10
Speaker 2: find Michael Marin's witness statements, but ITV interviewed him, and
26:14
Speaker 2: over forty years later, he said he was still absolutely
26:18
Speaker 2: certain that he saw Alan Morgan on the night of
26:21
Speaker 2: Carroll's murder.
26:23
Speaker 3: This would have been after Alan claimed he was at
26:26
Speaker 3: the movies.
26:26
Speaker 2: Because remember Alan's daughter said they bought the tickets at
26:29
Speaker 2: six twenty five pm.
26:31
Speaker 3: But police's biggest.
26:33
Speaker 2: Break was in March of twenty twenty one. That's when
26:36
Speaker 2: Jane Foster, a woman who was a teenager at the
26:39
Speaker 2: time of Carroll's murder, contacted police. The investigating officer told
26:44
Speaker 2: ITV News Anglia. Quote. When we went to visit her,
26:47
Speaker 2: we knocked on the door and she said, I've been
26:50
Speaker 2: waiting for you to visit me for forty years end quote.
26:54
Speaker 2: Jane said she was very friendly with Margaret Spooner back
26:57
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one because she was a troubled teen
26:59
Speaker 2: Back then, at age fourteen, Jane said she got expelled
27:03
Speaker 2: from school.
27:04
Speaker 3: Margaret was one of her tutors.
27:06
Speaker 2: She said that Margaret took an interest in her and
27:08
Speaker 2: that Margaret had saved her life. They confided in each
27:12
Speaker 2: other and got very close. Three years later, when she
27:15
Speaker 2: was seventeen, One night, Margaret invited her to a local
27:19
Speaker 2: pub called the Dolphin. Jane said Margaret picked her up
27:22
Speaker 2: and drove her to the pub. Jane said that when
27:24
Speaker 2: they got there, Alan was there, and Jane said Alan
27:27
Speaker 2: made statements about hating Carroll and that Alan said, well,
27:30
Speaker 2: I'd quite like Carol dead. Jane said she sat there
27:34
Speaker 2: in shock while Alan and Margaret openly discussed how to
27:37
Speaker 2: get rid of Carrol. How they talked about doing it
27:40
Speaker 2: with insulin, but ruled it out because they didn't really
27:43
Speaker 2: have medical training. Then, Jane said they talked about rigging
27:47
Speaker 2: Carol's car, but then they said no, they couldn't do
27:50
Speaker 2: that because neither of them knew anything about car mechanics.
27:53
Speaker 2: And they talked about how something could go wrong, What
27:56
Speaker 2: if someone else.
27:56
Speaker 3: Took the car, what if one of the kids was
27:58
Speaker 3: in the car.
28:00
Speaker 2: Jane said she freaked out with all this talk and
28:02
Speaker 2: ran out of the pub. She said Margaret ran after
28:05
Speaker 2: her and told her Alan was just kidding, but Jane
28:08
Speaker 2: said while she was there, Alan also made some comments
28:11
Speaker 2: about hiring someone else to kill Carrol. Much later, Jane
28:15
Speaker 2: would tell police she wondered if they were trying to
28:19
Speaker 2: introduce the idea that perhaps Jane would be involved with
28:22
Speaker 2: the killing. Police asked Jane why it took so long
28:28
Speaker 2: for her to come forward. She said she was seventeen
28:31
Speaker 2: years old at the time. She adored and idolized Margaret,
28:36
Speaker 2: and she said that later Margaret told her not to
28:39
Speaker 2: talk to anyone about that pub conversation, and she said
28:42
Speaker 2: Margaret tried to reassure her Alan didn't do it. Jane
28:46
Speaker 2: said she always believed Alan was capable of murder, but
28:49
Speaker 2: she said now years later, she was considering another horrific possibility.
28:54
Speaker 2: What if Margaret not only knew about it, but was
28:57
Speaker 2: somehow involved.
29:00
Speaker 3: Could Margaret have been the person who killed Carol?
29:12
Speaker 2: When police interviewed Alan and Margaret, Allan denied, ever, saying
29:16
Speaker 2: that he wished Carol was dead. Margaret years later said
29:20
Speaker 2: she had no memory of ever having a conversation like
29:22
Speaker 2: the one Jane was talking about now. Of course, Margaret
29:26
Speaker 2: has never been charged with Carroll's murder and has always
29:29
Speaker 2: completely denied any knowledge of it or participation in it.
29:34
Speaker 2: So again, police had no concrete evidence Alan had been
29:37
Speaker 2: at the crime scene, but they believed he had orchestrated
29:40
Speaker 2: Carroll's murder. They believed there might be a hit man involved,
29:44
Speaker 2: that Alan may have paid someone to have Carol killed.
29:47
Speaker 2: But once again they didn't have enough evidence to go
29:50
Speaker 2: forward with a case. So again Alan and Margaret were released.
29:55
Speaker 2: Police went back through the investigation material again, They went
29:59
Speaker 2: through thousands of documents.
30:00
Speaker 3: Again.
30:02
Speaker 2: This time, they changed their strategies slightly. They realized they
30:06
Speaker 2: might not have enough to charge Alan with murder. That
30:08
Speaker 2: they felt they did have enough to charge him and
30:11
Speaker 2: Margaret with conspiracy to murder. For that, the ITV documentary explained,
30:16
Speaker 2: they only needed to prove that Alan and Margaret paid
30:19
Speaker 2: someone to kill Carroll. They didn't need to figure out
30:22
Speaker 2: who the actual hip man or hit woman was. During
30:26
Speaker 2: this time, police were recording conversations between Alan and Margaret.
30:31
Speaker 2: In the documentary, police pointed out Alan and Margaret didn't
30:34
Speaker 2: confess to anything, it was more what they didn't say
30:37
Speaker 2: that made them believe they were.
30:38
Speaker 3: Still hiding things.
30:40
Speaker 2: For example, when they were talking about being arrested, Alan said, quote,
30:44
Speaker 2: I don't want to say anything because they might have
30:47
Speaker 2: end quote, and then he trailed off and got quiet.
30:50
Speaker 2: And it was also picked up on tape that Margaret
30:53
Speaker 2: told him multiple.
30:54
Speaker 3: Times to keep his mouth shut.
30:57
Speaker 2: Finally, Alan and Margaret were arrested and charged with conspiracy
31:00
Speaker 2: to murder Carol. Alan and Margaret both pleaded not guilty,
31:04
Speaker 2: and they both went to trial. Allan and Margaret's trials
31:08
Speaker 2: started in summer of twenty twenty four in Luton Crown Court.
31:13
Speaker 2: The prosecution focused on Alan and Margaret's love affair and
31:16
Speaker 2: the motives financial and otherwise for why they said Alan
31:20
Speaker 2: and Margaret needed Carol out of the way. The prosecution
31:23
Speaker 2: said the killing was a result of Alan and Margaret's
31:26
Speaker 2: quote passionate but forbidden An adulterous affair end quote. Carol's son,
31:31
Speaker 2: Dean Morgan, testified about what happened on the day of
31:34
Speaker 2: his mother's murder. He said when they got back to
31:37
Speaker 2: the shop at ten thirty pm after the movies, Alan
31:40
Speaker 2: had told him to go upstairs and make a cup
31:43
Speaker 2: of coffee. He said that as he went through the
31:45
Speaker 2: kitchen to get the coffee, he heard the family dog, Simon,
31:49
Speaker 2: in Jane's bedroom whining to get out. He said, quote
31:53
Speaker 2: the door was closed and he.
31:54
Speaker 3: Couldn't get out.
31:55
Speaker 2: Simon usually had the run of the flat and the shop.
31:59
Speaker 2: I let Simon out. I made Dad a cup of
32:01
Speaker 2: coffee end quote, which brings up another question. If the
32:05
Speaker 2: two witnesses who said they saw Carol at around eight
32:08
Speaker 2: thirty pm were right and Carol was walking the dog,
32:11
Speaker 2: then presumably the dog.
32:13
Speaker 3: Was with Carol.
32:14
Speaker 2: So how did the dog end up locked in the bedroom.
32:19
Speaker 2: Dean talked about his shock after the arrests. He said
32:22
Speaker 2: Alan had assured him that it was all just a
32:24
Speaker 2: mix up, but Dean said they got into an argument
32:27
Speaker 2: after that, and that he and Alan had not spoken since.
32:31
Speaker 2: Side note here, I cannot imagine what those children must
32:34
Speaker 2: have gone through first to lose their mother in such
32:37
Speaker 2: a brutal way, then to live with Margaret and Allen
32:41
Speaker 2: for all those years. I find myself wondering what the
32:43
Speaker 2: relationship was like, and if they ever talked about that night,
32:46
Speaker 2: and how they are feeling now wherever they are.
32:50
Speaker 3: I hope that they have found some peace.
32:53
Speaker 2: On June nineteenth, twenty twenty four, Alan Morgan was convicted
32:58
Speaker 2: of conspiracy to murder Carol, but Margaret was acquitted. She
33:03
Speaker 2: walked out of court a free woman. Meanwhile, Allan was
33:07
Speaker 2: sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of
33:09
Speaker 2: twenty two years, which means at his age he will
33:12
Speaker 2: almost certainly die behind bars. Finally, Carroll's family had some justice.
33:20
Speaker 2: Carl Foster said he was happy that Allan had been
33:23
Speaker 2: brought to justice, but he said police would continue looking
33:27
Speaker 2: for the higher assassin and anyone else who was involved
33:31
Speaker 2: in the conspiracy to kill Carroll. The prosecuting attorney stated
33:35
Speaker 2: they believe the Chinese puzzle box drawer was evidence that
33:39
Speaker 2: Alan had told the killer how that drawer.
33:41
Speaker 3: Could be opened.
33:42
Speaker 2: The prosecution said they believe Allan had promised the hit
33:45
Speaker 2: man money from that drawer and from the register as
33:48
Speaker 2: partial payment for the murder. The prosecution said the motive
33:52
Speaker 2: for the murder was money, but not the money from
33:55
Speaker 2: the shop, Allan's bigger financial problems. The prosecution said Allan
34:00
Speaker 2: was facing financial ruin and that he wanted the life
34:03
Speaker 2: insurance payout if Carol died.
34:06
Speaker 3: They said that insurance.
34:07
Speaker 2: Payout allowed him to pay off the loan from the
34:09
Speaker 2: shop and start fresh with his lover, Margaret. The Justice
34:17
Speaker 2: Martin Spencer said, quote, it is apparent that divorce was
34:20
Speaker 2: not a viable option. On the jury's verdict, you decided
34:24
Speaker 2: on the alternative option, which was to get rid of
34:26
Speaker 2: Carol by having her murdered. Her life insurance would clear
34:30
Speaker 2: the debt of the business. It further meant you were
34:33
Speaker 2: free to continue your affair with and eventually marry Margaret
34:36
Speaker 2: Spinner end quote. The judge also talked about Carroll and
34:41
Speaker 2: what a good person she was, saying that Carol was
34:44
Speaker 2: a thoroughly admirable person and adding quote she did not
34:48
Speaker 2: deserve to die, and I have no doubt that if
34:51
Speaker 2: she met her death, her final thoughts would have been
34:54
Speaker 2: with her two children, then aged fourteen and twelve end quote.
35:01
Speaker 2: Police say they've accepted the fact they may never find
35:05
Speaker 2: out who the actual killer was, but they've also said
35:10
Speaker 2: they won't stop looking. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen
35:15
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
35:19
Speaker 2: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
35:22
Speaker 2: narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
35:26
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and
35:29
Speaker 2: to James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Kamer mixed and
35:33
Speaker 2: scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale.
35:37
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C.
35:40
Speaker 3: Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone.
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Speaker 2: channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested in seeing
35:49
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Speaker 2: show on Instagram at Helen gonpod.
35:55
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