For more than four decades, the murder of Carol Morgan haunted Bedfordshire police, a case that remained unsolved despite repeated reviews and an exhaustive investigation.
It wasn’t until a cold-case team reopened the files in 2018 that the web of conspiracy behind her killing began to unravel.
Detective Superintendent Brian Prickett, who led the original investigation in the early 1980s, recalled the shock of arriving at the scene. On 13 August 1981, he walked into a convenience store on a council estate in Linslade, near Leighton Buzzard, to find 36-year-old Carol Morgan’s body after she had been hacked to death.
“It was the worst attack I’ve seen on a human being, definitely,” he said. “I went into the storeroom and saw the body of Carol Morgan, and that was a horrendous scene. It’s as clear in my mind as it was 40-odd years ago.”
From the beginning, attention fell on Carol’s husband, Allen Morgan. While he had called police to report discovering his wife’s body after taking her two children to the cinema, investigators quickly became suspicious.
Prosecutors later argued the cinema trip was part of a “cast-iron” alibi, allowing him to pay a hitman to kill his wife and make it look like a robbery. Fittingly, the store had been targeted in a theft, with £435 in cash and some cigarettes stolen – but the scene suggested a deliberate attack rather than a robbery gone wrong.
Morgan’s behaviour after the murder also drew attention. “Allen Morgan showed none of the concern expected from a man who had just lost his wife in a horrific murder,” Prickett said. The retired detective recalled Morgan was “a womaniser, and arrogant and bossy,” qualities that only strengthened suspicions, reported the BBC.
Circumstantial evidence, including the couple’s financial difficulties and Morgan’s apparent unwillingness to make the marriage work, added to the case against him.
Witnesses reported seeing a man carrying a bag leave the store and get into a dark green estate car and police pursued this lead for months. “We got a lot of circumstantial evidence early on about Allen Morgan,” said Prickett.
“He’d indicated he wasn’t going to make a go of his marriage. I don’t think Allen Morgan knew how much we suspected him at the time.”
Even so, the investigation faced a frustrating lack of direct evidence. Officers tried to encourage Morgan to slip up during media interviews, and he did speak openly to journalists, appearing strangely unconcerned by his wife’s murder.
BBC Look East reporter John Kiddey remembered interviewing him at the time. “His whole demeanour… was weird. He didn’t react in any way as you’d expect a man whose wife had just been brutally murdered to react,” Kiddey said.
“When I asked him, ‘How do you feel your wife has been murdered?’ I imagined him to burst into tears. He didn’t… he amazingly said ‘I’ve lost business, I’ve lost money’ rather than I’m devastated my wife is dead. I just couldn’t believe what he was saying to me.”
The original investigation involved more than 80 officers, who followed multiple lines of inquiry from a cramped incident room in Leighton Buzzard. They even employed a forensic hypnotist and appealed to local football fans via Luton Town FC’s scoreboard, while a local businessman offered a £5,000 reward for information. Yet the killer remained at large, and the case languished despite reviews every two years.
It was not until Det Supt Carl Foster took over the cold-case review team in 2018 that new leads emerged. One witness in particular, Jane Bunting, now in her 50s, revealed information she had withheld for decades. “Her first response was, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come see me for 40 years,'” Foster said.
At the time of the murder, she had been 17 and loyal to Margaret Spooner, Morgan’s then-lover. Bunting testified that Morgan had asked her whether an ex-boyfriend would know anyone who could kill Carol. She had not told police at the time because she “owed” Margaret and was hesitant to come forward.
With around 6,000 documents to review, detectives traced the couple’s later lives in Brighton, arrested them three times, and secretly recorded conversations. In 2019, Margaret Morgan was heard saying “Shush,” apparently aware of the recordings, while Allen reassured her in a letter: “Trust works on both sides. If I didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be here and I would not.”
Det Supt Foster noted the significance of these recordings: “I don’t think you need to be a police officer to listen to those recordings and think if you’re innocent and haven’t done anything why are you shushing each other and making comments like ‘they might be recording us’?… if you’ve got nothing to hide speak freely and openly.”
The arrests led to a trial at Luton Crown Court, where Allen Morgan, now 75, was convicted of conspiring to murder his wife and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 21 years and 325 days.
The judge described the brutality of the killing as shocking and characterised Morgan as “wicked.” Margaret Morgan was found not guilty of the same charge and made no comment as she left court.
Despite Morgan’s conviction, the identity of the person who actually carried out the killing remains unknown, although investigators believe the attack was carried out with an axe or machete. Det Supt Foster said: “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.”
Reflecting on the original investigation, Prickett said: “When you’re dealing with a case that goes on and you can’t detect it – it’s a thorn in the side because it hasn’t been successful. It’s always a thorn in the side – you’re trying to get some justice for the victim’s relatives.”
