The Pensioner Who Murdered His Wife Faces Death In Prison

A pensioner is facing the prospect of dying behind bars after he was convicted of arranging his wife’s murder more than 40 years ago.

Allen Morgan, 73, was locked in a ‘passionate but forbidden’ affair with his current wife Margaret, 75, when he decided to have Carol killed.

He hired a hitman—who remains unidentified to this day—and organised a ‘cast-iron’ alibi for his whereabouts while she was brutally hacked to death with an axe or machete in the storeroom of her corner shop.

Allen and Margaret then embarked on a series of high-profile interviews in which they complained about public suspicions over their involvement in the murder, leading to the corner shop, which Allen co-ran, losing customers.

In 1982, a year after the death of 36-year-old Carol, they got married and have been together ever since.

Allen’s two-month trial resulted in a conviction for conspiracy to kill. The jury’s unanimous verdict was reached in precisely one week. Margaret was found not guilty of the same crime for which she was on trial.

Mr Justice Martin Spencer congratulated the police on the conviction, saying: ‘This has been an astonishing investigation after so many years and the way the police have approached this has been in the very best traditions and I’d like to mark that with a commendation in due course.’

After Carol’s death at the Food Fayre in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, on August 13, 1981, the police investigation came under heavy public attention.

Potential witnesses were even controversially hypnotised in an attempt to unlock hidden memories that could crack the case.

As Allen and Margaret protested their innocence, detectives looked for a distinctive suspect with a ‘piggy nose’ who was seen in the area carrying two shopping bags stuffed with cash before driving away in a green Ford Cortina car.

Around £400 and a large quantity of cigarettes were stolen from the shop, which the prosecution said was intended to make the mother-of-two’s death look like a robbery gone wrong but probably acted as a part-payment for the hitman.

Carol had more than a dozen wounds on her head and was found lying in a pool of blood.

But prosecutor Pavlos Panayi KC told the jury: ‘The murder of Carol Morgan was no random attack.

‘It was planned and paid for by the two defendants in the dock.’

After relocating to Brighton in 1987, Allen’s grocery rounds for the store brought the defendants together.

They had intercourse three times a week when Margaret’s husband, Michael, was at work throughout the turbulent 14 months of their relationship before Carol’s death.

In a case that relied heavily on financial evidence, Luton Crown Court was told they wanted to move in together but couldn’t afford to ditch their respective partners.

‘That problem was solved by the death of Carol Morgan,’ said Mr Panayi, who explained Allen would walk away with a significant sum of money if his wife died because an insurance policy covered the remaining £5,000 loan on the shop—worth considerably more in today’s money.

He also inherited her share of the shop that she paid for with the financial settlement from her first marriage and maintenance payments for her children.

Allen had made sizable withdrawals from their bank account, despite the shop being a cash business, meaning if they needed money, they could take it straight from the till. The prosecution said these were to pay the killer.

A key witness was Jane Bunting, a teenager at the time of the murder, who told how Allen, who had been in a pub with her and Margaret, had asked her then-boyfriend, a ‘known criminal’ if he knew anyone who could carry out a contract killing.

On the night of the murder, Allen made the ‘highly unusual’ decision to take his wife’s children to the cinema, despite ‘not having a strong relationship with them’ and never having taken them out on his own before.

When they got home at around eleven o’clock at night, Carol was dead.

Margaret’s husband had also found out about the affair and confronted Allen at the shop, as well as giving his wife an ‘ultimatum’ to decide who she wanted to be with.

This meant the defendants had ‘reached something of a crossroads’, the prosecution said.

Speaking after the conviction, retired Detective Chief Superintendent Brian Prickett, who led the original investigation for Bedfordshire Police between 1981 and 1983, said: ‘Carol Morgan’s murder was vicious and the image of the scene will remain etched in my memory forever.

‘I hope that the result will bring some closure to those who knew and loved Carol.’

Detective Superintendent Carl Foster, who took over the investigation and continued to lead it despite retiring before it reached trial, added: ‘Carol was effectively erased from all memory, including those of her own two children, who have grown up without their mother, being raised by the man responsible for her death.

‘This trial has had a significant impact upon them, as well as numerous witnesses who have given evidence and I am grateful for their bravery and support following what was a truly traumatic period of their lives.

‘Bringing this case to justice has been the right thing to do. Anyone capable of committing such a brutal crime should not be allowed to live freely in our society.

‘Allen Morgan has had more than 40 years of freedom that Carol will never have. He has today finally faced justice for the role he played in her murder.

‘In the absence of a confession, we may never know who carried out the physical act of murdering Carol. However, we will do all in our power to secure new evidence and bring them to justice.’

Sentencing will take place on July 31.

The wheel may revolve slowly at times, but it always turns eventually.

Are we supposed to feel sorry for this man because he’s a pensioner? No, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you did the crime, you do the time, end of story! But basically, he got away with it. He lived his life and had fun while the poor woman was rotting; any sentence now is meaningless.

Poor Carol can finally be put to rest. Now justice has been served—better late than never.