Murder of Carol Morgan

Carol Morgan was born on 26 December 1944. She had two children, Dean and Jane, from her first marriage, and after that marriage ended she met Allen Morgan through Gingerbread, an organisation for single parents; they married on 26 March 1977. In December 1979 the couple bought the Cornershop on Finch Crescent in Linslade, Bedfordshire, and lived with the children in a flat in the same building. People who gave statements to police described her as hard-working and devoted to her children.

On the evening of Thursday 13 August 1981, Allen Morgan took Carol's two children to the cinema in Luton, leaving her alone at the shop. Shortly after 7 p.m. a man was seen walking away from the premises carrying two plastic bags. Carol Morgan, 36, was killed in the shop's storeroom in a sustained attack with a bladed weapon. Allen Morgan found her body when he returned with the children at about 10:45 p.m. Cash and cigarettes appeared to have been taken.

The original investigation, led by Detective Superintendent Brian Prickett, was one of the largest of its time: 1,204 people were interviewed as suspects, more than 600 witness statements were taken and 28,500 vehicles were checked in an effort to trace a green Ford estate car seen that evening. There was not enough evidence to charge anyone, and Allen Morgan was not considered a suspect at the time.

In 2018 a police cold-case team reopened the case. A witness who had been 17 in 1981 came forward in 2021 and told police that Allen Morgan had asked her whether she knew anyone who could help him kill his wife. On 25 July 2023 Allen Morgan and a second person were arrested, and the next day both were charged with conspiracy to murder.

After a nine-week trial at Luton Crown Court, a jury in June 2024 unanimously convicted Allen Morgan, then 74, of conspiracy to murder. The co-defendant was unanimously acquitted of the same charge. With no CCTV or forensic evidence available, the prosecution relied largely on the testimony of dozens of witnesses; its case was that Allen Morgan had arranged and paid for his wife to be killed.

On 29 July 2024 Mr Justice Martin Spencer sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years, less 40 days already spent on remand. The judge found that Allen Morgan, who was in financial difficulty and having an affair, had arranged the killing so that life insurance would clear the debt on the business and leave him free to start a new life; that the cinema trip had been organised to give him an alibi; and that building society withdrawals totalling £900 were likely part of the payment. Morgan continued to deny any involvement.

The person who carried out the attack has never been identified. In victim impact statements, Carol's cousin described how her parents, Charles and Nellie Palmer, lost contact with their only grandchildren after her death, and her daughter said the conviction had made her question what she had believed about her mother's death.